Urge to Kill

80

As soon as he turned the Lincoln onto Pearl’s block, Quinn knew he was too late. Police cars were angled in at the curb in front of her building. Several uniformed cops were standing outside the building but up close to it. Quinn could guess why. They didn’t want to be visible from an upstairs window and become targets. They were talking with a man in a brown suit. Quinn recognized the blocky form and head of tousled black hair. Sal Vitali.

Quinn parked the Lincoln fifty feet away from the nearest police car, then climbed out, stayed inside the protective angle of vision, and jogged toward the knot of cops and Vitali.

“What’ve we got?” Quinn asked when he’d joined the group. He glanced over. Fedderman had arrived out of nowhere, shirt cuff flapping like a signal flag.

Vitali pointed to a uniformed cop, a skinny guy in his forties with a long, pointed nose. “Everson here was first on the scene,” he said. “Officer Cullen, who’s inside helping clear the building’s tenants out the back fire stairs, showed up a few minutes later. Cullen used the elevator, and Everson took the stairs. Everson won the race and got to Pearl’s floor just in time to see the suspect back up with her into her apartment and close the door. He had an arm around her neck and a gun held to her head.”

Quinn looked at Everson. “What kinda gun?”

“Small handgun of some kind,” Everson said. He had dead-looking brown eyes.

“Revolver?”

“Coulda been. Blue steel, I think. He was jamming the thing in her ear, and her hair kinda blocked my view.”

“He display any other weapon?”

“None that I could see.”

“Got a ’scrip of the suspect?”

“Medium height, black hair, muscular build, maybe fifty.”

Quinn nodded. “Nice work.”

“’Nother thing, Captain. He didn’t look scared at all. A real calm one.”

“Drugged up?”

“No, not that kinda drowsy calm. He’s plenty alert.”

“Hostage team’s on the way here,” Vitali said.

Quinn knew what that meant. SWAT sharpshooters, a hostage negotiator. Somebody else in charge.

Fedderman was thinking the same thing. “Let’s go in and get her,” he said.

“Get her shot, maybe,” Vitali said in his gravel-pit voice.

Fedderman looked from Vitali to Quinn. “If what you say’s true,” he said to Quinn, “he’s got nothing to lose. He won’t negotiate. He’s just playing out the string.”

Quinn knew Fedderman was right.

Mishkin came out of the building, staying in tight to the brick and stone front. When he knew he was safe, he straightened up out of his protective hunch and walked over to them. He was wearing a tie and a white shirt with the sleeves neatly folded up to reveal thin wrists. He was sweating and looking like a harried accountant.

“We got everybody but Pearl and the suspect outta the building,” he said.

“I think we oughta go in fast,” Quinn said.

“Not ‘we,’” Mishkin said. “You.”

Quinn looked at him.

“You alone, or he swears he’ll shoot her and then himself.”

“Why me alone?” Quinn asked. But he knew why.

“He says you killed his son,” Mishkin said.

The other men stared at Quinn, saying nothing. Sirens sounded, blocks away but getting closer.

Quinn said, “Make sure nobody interferes, Feds.” He set off toward the building’s entrance.

“Like Pearl did,” Fedderman said when Quinn was out of earshot.

Lavern Neeson made herself crawl.

She made it into the bedroom with great difficulty and a lot of pain, dragging the shotgun by its long barrel. At some point the sleeping Hobbs must have awakened enough to use the remote to switch on the TV. It was flickering without sound beyond the foot of the bed. Closed-caption yellow letters crawled along the bottom of the screen, the words of a man and woman arguing in dead silence about where the stock market was going.

She waited a few minutes until she’d caught her breath, then reached out and gripped a chair leg and dragged the chair closer to her and to the bed.

Using the shotgun and chair for support, Lavern made it to her knees. When she thought she was steady enough, she leaned the shotgun against the mattress. It wouldn’t do to pull herself up onto the chair and then not be able to reach the shotgun where it lay on the floor.

It took her about five minutes, but she did manage to reach an awkward sitting position on the chair. She stretched out her right arm and pulled the shotgun to her. She sat very still because even the slightest movement of her body brought pain.

Lavern was proud of herself. She’d made it here, to her chair by the bed, with the shotgun. She was well on the way to what she’d decided to do. Hobbs continued snoring lightly, unaware of the monumental struggle so near him. One that would change his and Lavern’s world forever.

Lavern moved the shotgun’s safety to the off position. It was ready to fire. This close to her target, she wouldn’t even have to aim it.

But she would aim the gun. She wanted to be responsible for her decision and what would happen in the future. In the meantime, she’d endure the present with at least a modicum of comfort and a certain nostalgia. A sad glance over her shoulder before turning a corner. She knew she was second by second living out what remained of her old life.

The room seemed to block all sound from outside and become very small. Automatically, her breathing found the tempo of her husband’s as she sat and watched him sleep. They were both on the edge of an abyss. One difference between them was that she knew it. Another was that he had put them there.

It would be easy for Hobbs, Lavern thought. She’d squeeze the trigger and he’d simply slip from one dream to another. She’d be the one left with the blood and the mess and every kind of horror.

The reality.

It wasn’t fair, but it never had been.