"He's Magneto," Kielle signed matter-of-factly, glancing in Brutus's direction and addressing her comment to Shannon. It was her own nickname for Handy. The other girl disagreed. "No. He's Mr. Sinister. Not part of Brotherhood. Worst of the worst."
Kielle considered this. "But I think -"
"Oh, you two, stop!" Beverly burst into their conversation, her hands rising and falling like her struggling chest. "This isn't stupid game."
Melanie nodded. "Don't say anything more." Oh, Mrs. Harstrawn, Melanie raged silently, please… How you cry! Red face, blue face, quivering. Please don't do this! Her hands rose. "I can't do it alone."
But Mrs. Harstrawn was helpless. She lay on the tile floor of the killing room, her head against a trough where the hot blood of dying calves and lambs flowed and vanished and she said not a word.
Melanie looked up. The girls were staring at her.
I have to do something.
But all she remembered was her father's words – phantom words – as he sat on the front porch swing of their farmhouse last spring. A brilliant morning. He said to her, "This is your home and you'll be welcome here. See, it's a question of belonging and what God does to make sure those that oughta stay someplace do. Well, your place is here, working at what you can do, where your, you know, problem doesn't get you into trouble. God's will."
(How perfectly she'd made out the words then, even the impossible sibilants and elusive glottal stops. As clearly as she understood Handy – Brutus – now.)
Her father had finished. "So you'll be home then." And rose to hitch up the ammonia tank without letting her write a single word of response on the pad she carried around the house.
Suddenly Melanie was aware of Beverly 's head bobbing up and down. A full-fledged asthma attack. The girl's face darkened and she closed her eyes miserably, struggling ferociously to breathe. Melanie stroked her damp hair.
"Do something," Jocylyn signed with her stubby, inept fingers.
The shadows reaching into the room, shadows of machinery and wires, grew very sharp, then began to sway. Melanie stood and walked into the slaughterhouse. She saw Brutus and Stoat rearranging the lights.
Maybe he'll give us one for our room. Please…
"I hope he dies, I hate him," the blond fireball Kielle signed furiously, her round face contorted with hatred as she gazed at Brutus.
"Quiet."
"I want him to die!"
"Stop!"
Beverly lay down on the floor. She signed, "Please. Help."
In the outer room Brutus and Stoat sat close together under a swaying lamp, the light reflecting off Stoat's pale crew cut. They were watching the small TV, clicking through the channels. Bear stood at the window, counting. Police cars, she guessed.
Melanie walked toward the men. Stopped about ten feet from them. Brutus looked over the dark skirt, the ruddy blouse, the gold necklace – a present from her brother, Danny. He was studying her, that damn curious smile on his face. Not like Bear, not staring at her boobs and legs. Just her face and, especially, her ears. She realized it was the way he'd stared at devastated Mrs. Harstrawn – as if he was adding another specimen to a collection of tragedies.
She mimicked writing something.
"Tell me," he said slowly, and so loudly she felt the useless vibrations pelt her. "Say it."
She pointed to her throat.
"You can't talk neither?"
She wouldn't talk. No. Though there was nothing wrong with her vocal cords. And because she'd become deaf relatively late in life, Melanie knew the fundamentals of word formation. Still, following Susan's model, Melanie avoided oralism because it wasn't chic. The Deaf community resented people who straddled both worlds – the Deaf world and the world of the Others. Melanie hadn't tried to utter a single word; in five or six years.
She pointed toward Beverly and breathed in hard. Touched her chest.
"Yeah, the sick one – What about her?"
Melanie mimicked taking medicine.
Brutus shook his head. "I don't give a shit. Go back and sit down."
Melanie pushed her hands together, a prayer, a plea. Brutus and Stoat laughed. Brutus called something to Bear, and Melanie suddenly felt the firm vibrations of his footsteps approach. Then an arm was around her chest and Bear was dragging her across the floor. His fingers squeezed her nipple hard. She yanked his hand away and the tears came again.
In the killing room she pushed away from him and collapsed on the floor. Melanie grabbed one of the lights, which rested on the ground, and clutched it, hot and oily, to her chest. It burned her fingers but she clung to it like a life preserver. Bear looked down, seemed to ask a question.
But just as she'd done that spring day with her father on the farmhouse porch, Melanie gave no response; she simply went away.
That day last May, she'd climbed the creaking stairs and sat in an old rocking chair in her bedroom. Now, she lay on the killing room floor. A child again, younger than the twins. Mercifully she closed her eyes and went away. To anyone watching it seemed that she'd slipped into a faint. But in fact she wasn't here at all; she'd gone someplace else, someplace safe, someplace not another living soul knew about.
When he recruited hostage negotiators Arthur Potter found himself in the peculiar position of interviewing clones of himself. Middle-aged, frumpy, easygoing cops.
For a time it was thought that psychologists ought to be used for negotiating; but even though a barricade resembles a therapy session in many ways, shrinks just didn't work out. They were too analytical, focused too much on diagnostics. The point of talking to a taker isn't to figure out where he fits in the DSM IV but to persuade him to come out with his hands up. This requires common sense, concentration, a sharp mind, patience (well, Arthur Potter worked hard at that), a healthy sense of self, the rare gift of speaking well, and the rarer talent of listening.
And most important, a negotiator is a man with controlled emotions.
The very quality that Arthur Potter was wrestling with at the moment. He struggled to forget the image of Susan Phillips's chest exploding before him, feeling the hot tap of blood droplets striking his face. There'd been many deaths in the barricades he'd worked over the years. But he'd never been so close to such a cold-blooded death as this one.
Henderson called. The reporters had heard a gunshot and were champing to get some information. "Tell them I'll make a statement within a half-hour. Don't leak it, Pete, but he just killed one."
"Oh, God, no." But the SAC didn't sound upset at all; he seemed almost pleased – perhaps because Potter had assumed point position on this megatragedy in progress.
"Executed her. Shot her in the back. Listen, this could all go bad in a big way. Get on the horn to Washington and push the HRT assembly, okay?"
"Why'd he do it?"
"No apparent reason," Potter said, and they hung up.
"Henry?" Potter said to LeBow. "I need some help here. What should we stay away from?"
Negotiators try to increase the rapport with their takers by dipping into personal matters. But a question about a sensitive subject can send an agitated taker into a frenzy, even prompting him to kill.
"There's so little data," the intelligence officer said. "I guess I'd avoid his military service. His brother Rudy."
"Parents?"
"Relation unknown. I'd steer clear on general principles until we learn more."
"His girlfriend? What's her name?"
"Priscilla Gunder. No problems there, it looks like. Fancied themselves a regular Bonnie and Clyde."
"Unless," Budd pointed out, "she dumped him when he went to prison."
"Good point," Potter said, deciding to let Handy bring up the girlfriend and just echo or reflect whatever he said.
"Definitely avoid the ex-wife. It seems there was some bad blood there."
"Personal relations in general, then," Potter summarized. It was typical in criminal takings. Usually mentally disturbed takers wanted to talk about the ex-spouse they were still in love with. Potter gazed at the slaughterhouse and announced, "I want to try to get one out. Who should we go for? What do we know about the hostages so far?"