"Are you still there?"
"Yeah. Put the other guy back on."
"No, I'm giving the orders here. We don't need any more of your kind of cooperation. I want you to lay down your weapons and retreat to a safe location. That explosion did a tremendous amount of property damage and threatened the lives of scores of people. Now these are the lawful orders of a policeman, and you are liable to arrest and penalties if you refuse to obey them."
"Put the other guy on," Leland said. "I don't want to talk to you any more."
"Now, listen, fuckhead..."
"No!" Leland screamed. "You listen to me! You've got six psychos holding seventy-five people at gunpoint. They have enough high explosive to flatten this end of the city. What they don't have is the means to detonate it, because of me. They're down to half their strength, because of me. As long as I'm in business, they can't get themselves set up the way they would like. Do you think you can stop them down there? Come on, tell me you're the fuckhead! If you think I'm going to put up with your shit now and not have your chief kick your ass all the way down to Terminal Island when it's done, you don't know me!Put the other guy on! Now!"Silence.
"Here you go," the black man said. "How're you feeling?"
"Like I should have saved my strength. Who is that turdlet?"
"Don't draw me into that kind of talk. I can understand that you're tired and under strain, but down here it seemed like you were overreacting just a little, if you know what I mean."
There was something comforting about common sense coming from someone decades his junior, Leland decided. "I'm sorry. At this point, this kind of fighting looks easier than that kind of fighting."
"I hear you, partner. Just kick back and relax a while, hear?"
"It's been a long time since I've been called partner. Are you on the street?"
"No, I'm inside."
"All the years I was a cop, I was always on the street."
"How old are you?"
"Old enough to be your father."
He laughed. "Not mine!"
"I said, you oughta get a look at me now. What detail do you have at Hollenbeck?"
"Juvenile. We have a whole big show there."
"You like kids?"
"I love kids. Say, man, is there someone we can reach out for via the land line who can identify you? Once we establish your credibility, we can get going on who these people are."
"It's the long way around, but I see what you mean. You call William Gibbs, in Eureka, California. Tell him what's happening and where, and the first two words out of his mouth will be my name."
"Gotcha. Anybody else?"
"A Ms... got that? Mz?.. Kathi Logan." Leland gave him the area code and her number. "Tell her I was wishing her a Merry Christmas when I was cut off. She'll understand."
"I'll do that exactly right. Don't you worry about it. Why don't you get some rest?"
"No, I'm going to tune in on the opposition a while."
"You do that?"
"Channel twenty-six. Don't let them kid you. They all speak English."
"We heard the German, but none of us can handle it. We're getting it on tape. What have they been telling you?"
"Little Tony likes to think he's a seductive, persuasive guy. You've already heard everything I've been able to figure out. Nothing so complicated: he juices my fruit, and I juice his."
More laughter. "I'm going to tune in."
"What the hell people are dying left and right, but it's all in fun, right?"
"If you say so."
Leland dialed to channel twenty-six. "Are you there, Tony?"
"Yes, Mr. Leland. It took me a moment to adjust my receiver. Mr. Leland, are you listening?"
Yes."Yes." He almost didn't say it aloud.
"We have here your colleague, Mr. Ellis."
Leland closed his eyes. "How are you, Ellis?"
"All right, Joe." It was a voice on the edge of terror. Leland couldn't remember Ellis's first name. "Listen to me," he said, echoing Leland's words to Dwayne T. Robinson, Lieutenant, LAPD listen to me:some kind of Mayday into the void: "Listen: they want you to tell them where the detonators are. They know people are listening. They want the detonators, or they're going to kill me, Joe. Joe, I've done you a lot of favors in the recent past. I want you to think of that. I thought you would understand that, Joe. Joe, are you listening?"
Favors?He was telling Leland that he was shielding Steffie, but was favors the word he thought expressed what he was doing? If Leland didn't turn over the detonators, would he tell them who Stephanie was, to keep himself alive? "Yeah, I hear you."
"Tell them where the detonators are. The police are here. It's their problem now."
"I can't tell them. I'd have to show them. Then what? What happens to me?"
"Mr. Leland." It was Little Tony. "What Mr. Ellis has hesitated to tell you is that we are going to kill him straightaway if you do not yield our equipment at once."
"There are people here, Joe," Ellis said. He meant Steffie. He'd already said that he hadn't identified her. What was he threatening?
Leland closed his eyes. Goodbye, Ellis."I don't believe them," Leland said into the radio. God forgive me,he thought.
Through the little radio speaker, the shot sounded like a rush of air, and the screams that followed seemed very far away.
Leland pressed the "Talk" button. "All right. I'll give you what you want."
"We want the detonators," said Little Tony.
"Let me get them and put them where you can find them."
"Excellent. And where will that be?"
"Uh-uh. I'll drop them off first and get clear, then I'll call you."
"You have five minutes."
"I need more time," Leland said. "I've got a long way to go and I'm no longer in the best of shape."
"Ten."
"I can't do it. Not that fast."
A pause; then: "How long will it take you?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe half an hour."
"Twenty minutes, then we will shoot someone else, perhaps this time a woman." There was silence. Leland pressed the "Talk" button.
"You guys get all that?"
"Meet us on channel nine," the black officer said flatly.
"Now I know they can hear me, but I want to find out what the fuck you think you're doing up there." It was Dwayne Robinson. "First you tell us that you don't want to give your name, then that punk calls you Leland is that your name?"
"Yeah. Billy Gibbs will give you the rest of the information."
"We've got somebody talking to him. Why all the bullshit? I want an explanation now."
Leland stayed silent. Anything he could say would let Little Tony figure it out.
"Now listen to me, you son of a bitch," Robinson snarled. "Everything that went down between you and that punk is on tape down here. You let that man die. I don't give a fuck who your friends are, if there's a way to jam your ass in jail, I'm going to do it."
"Go fuck yourself," Leland said. He turned the radio off.
This was going to kill him, he knew. He did not know what to do but go out and meet them head-on. He was trying to remember that there was no sense in being stupid about it. He hobbled to the southwest staircase, trying to decide if he should go upstairs and fight it out with whoever was there. If he won, he could hold the position.
What time was it? Almost three o'clock, deep into the black hours before dawn, when people died anyway. He didn't want to die. He wasn't ready to die. He wanted a bath first. They hosed you down at the morgue, but an undertaker would clean his head and hands and bury the rest of him dirty.
He did not want to die while Steffie and the children were in this danger. That was why he was on this rampage. He didn't start the killing. Rivers died first. And how bad a job was he doing? He'd bagged five of them before the cops had even arrived. If he had it to do over, he would do it exactly the same way. Goddamn, he couldn't imagine how he could have done it any otherway.