“That’s out of the question here,” he said.
“That’s the usual wheel-man fee.”
“Yes, but…”
“A good wheel man always gets a piece of the action. You know that.”
“Sometimes.”
“Any job I ever worked. The beach house cost me half a million. That was my end on a bank job we did in Boston. What I’m saying is I don’t know how much this job is expected to gross, but let’s say the wheel man is worth at least ten percent of that. So if this is a two-million-dollar job, I’d expect, say, two hundred grand. Which will keep my house from floating off to Europe. If it’s bigger than that, I’d expect more. That’s my fee. That’s what any good wheel man would expect.”
“Too bad you’re not a wheel man ,” he said, and smiled again.
“Right, I’m a wheel woman . What do you want me to do? Suck your cock?”
“I don’t pay women for sex,” he said.
“Good. Cause I don’t suck cocks for money.”
But she was the one who’d first raised it. He would remind her of that later. When she was tied to the bed and begging for it.
“Cut your hair and put on at least twenty pounds,” he said.
“Okay,” she said.
“A flat hundred grand for all the run-throughs and the actual job.”
“Make it a hundred and fifty. In case they find cockroaches or dry rot when they open up my house.”
“A hundred is all I can pay.”
“Why? Because I’m a woman?”
“No. Because a hundred is what I’m paying everyone else.”
“When do we start?” she said.
“How do you do that trick?” he asked.
AFTER FIVE HOURS of working the door, Eileen now knew that the girl inside there—she couldn’t bring herself to call a seventeen-year-old girl a woman, even if she was married, and even if it meant agreeing with Brady’s terminology—the girl was named Lisa. She also knew that Jimmy had handcuffed her to the bed in his room, the one adjacent to the one where Lisa slept with his brother, Tom. Jimmy, Lisa, and Tom, nice little family triangle here that had erupted in the middle of the night and that could, if she wasn’t careful, end with somebody getting hurt. She didn’t want the girl to get hurt, and she didn’t want Jimmy to get hurt, either, but most of all she didn’t want herself to get hurt. She’d been hurt once on the job, hurt very badly, and she didn’t want that to happen ever again.
“Where’d you get the handcuffs?” she asked casually.
“Bought them,” Jimmy said.
The door was open some three inches, held by a safety chain. She was standing to the left of the door, unwilling to afford him a clear shot until she knew which way he might go. She couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see her. So far, they were still two disembodied voices, but dialogue was what negotiation was all about. Nobody gets hurt. We talk.
“You’re not a cop or anything, are you?” she asked.
“Shit, no,” he said.
“I didn’t know anybody but cops could buy handcuffs,” she said.
Just talking. Just keeping him engaged. They’d worked up a profile from what the brother had told them, and she knew damn well Jimmy wasn’t a cop. She also knew you could buy handcuffs in any one of a hundred sex shops in the city, and in any number of antiques shops selling junk from your grandmother’s attic. She was just talking. Just trying to get him to talk back. Trying to get his mind off hurting anybody. Raping the girl. Or shooting her. He had threatened to shoot the girl if they didn’t leave him alone here.
“Where can you buy handcuffs?” she asked.
“I don’t remember where I bought them,” he said. “Where are your handcuffs?”
“I don’t have any with me,” she said.
The truth.
“I told you I’m not armed…”
Also true.
“…and I’m not carrying handcuffs, either. You’re the only one has handcuffs and a gun.”
Not quite true.
All the E.S. cops in the hallway were wearing ceramic vests and they were armed with riot guns. One shot from that apartment and they’d storm the door. You played the game only so far. Then you sent in the bombers. Basic contradiction there, but she figured she could live with it if it worked more often than not—which it did.
“Still snowing outside,” she said. “Do you like snow?”
“Listen,” he said. Edge to his voice. “What are you tryin’a do here, huh? I told you I’ll kill Lisa if you fuckin guys don’t leave me alone! So leave me alone ! Get the fuck outta here!”
But he didn’t close the door.
“Well, you don’t really want to kill her, do you?” Eileen said.
“Never mind what i want to do. You’re the ones are forcing me to do it.”
“All we’re interested in is making sure nobody gets hurt.”
“Sure, you give a shit I get hurt or not.”
“We do.”
“Then whyn’t you come in here take Lisa’s place? I han’cuff you to the bed, I let her come out, how’s that?”
“No, I can’t make that kind of deal.”
“Why not? You’re so inner’ested in nobody gettin hurt, you come on in here, take her place.”
“I’d have to be crazy to do that,” Eileen said.
“How come? Big brave cop, you come on in.”
“I promised you nobody gets hurt,” she said. “That includes me. All we want to do is help you, Jimmy. Why don’t you take that chain off the door so we can talk a little more easily?”
“We can talk fine just the way we are,” he said. “Anyway, there’s nothin to talk about. You get the fuck outta here, Lisa’s got nothin to worry about. You hang around, she gets hurt. You think you can unner’stan that?”
“How do I know you haven’t hurt her already? I told my boss she’s okay, but he’s…”
“She is okay, I told you that.
“That’s just what I reported to him. But he’s going to lose patience with me if he thinks I’m lying to him.”
“Who’s your boss, anyway? The bald-headed guy was talking to me before?”
“Yes. Deputy Inspector Brady. He’s in charge of the unit.”
“So go tell him to get everybody the fuck outta here.”
“Well, I can’t give him orders, he’s my boss. You know how bosses are. Don’t you have a boss?”
“Tommy’s my boss.”
Something there. Something in his voice. She let it sit for a minute.
“Your brother, do you mean?”
“Yeah. He owns a plumbing-supply store. I work for him.”
Older brother working for the younger brother. Younger brother married to a seventeen-year-old girl. Older brother living in the same apartment with them.
“Do you like your job?” she asked.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“What would you like to talk about, Jimmy?”
“Nothing. I want you to leave me the fuck alone, is what I…”
“Have you had anything to eat this morning?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“How about Lisa? She might be hungry.”
There was silence beyond the crack in the door.
“Jimmy? How about Lisa? Do you think she might like something to eat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you go ask her?”