“If you want to,” she said. “Entirely up to you. I should be there no later than five-thirty.” She slid out of the car, then leaned back inside to wink at me again before she hurried away, a big, broad wink this time.
Sneaky woman. She’d planned it this way all along.
I drove over to O’Farrell, found parking on the street for a change, went into my building. The office door was locked; Tamara must’ve gone out somewhere. I was smiling, thinking about Emily and her pageant performance, Kerry and her devious little ways, anticipating the Simpsons’ eggnog if not the Simpsons’ party, as I keyed the door open and walked in.
My high spirits made the shock even greater. It was like passing through a doorway from heaven into hell.
26
Nobody moved, nobody said anything.
It took me a few seconds to absorb the scene, assess it, come to terms with it. The blood on Tamara, the display of weaponry, the look on the stranger’s face built a virulent mixture of sickness and profound outrage. I made an effort to keep it from showing, to maintain a neutral expression to match the one Jake Runyon wore over in my desk chair.
The telephone rang.
In the frozen silence the noise was explosive. We all jumped, stared; the tension in the room seemed palpable, pastelike. Sweat had already begun to run on me, warm and slimy, like the feel of a snail track.
“Don’t touch it,” the guy with the gun said, “let it ring.”
Two, three, four...
“No, wait a minute, maybe it’s those bastards at Human Services. You, Tamara, pick up over there. That s who it is, you tell them get over here right now, make up some excuse, just get them here.”
She hesitated. Most of the blood on her face and blouse appeared to be darkening, coagulating. From a not-too-recent wound on her left temple, under the hairline. In some pain, from her expression, but alert, clear-eyed. And in control.
“I’m all right,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.
“Answer the fucking phone!”
She lifted her extension. The only item other than weapons and ammunition left on my desktop was the other phone; the gunman picked up at the same time with his free hand.
Don’t let it be Kerry, I thought. Please, God, don’t let it be Kerry.
Tamara gave the agency’s name, listened, said, “No, Mr. Bauer, he’s not here. Not expected back today.”
Sam Bauer, head of Coast States Insurance’s claims department.
“Soon as he comes in tomorrow, right, I’ll tell him.” Pause. Then, with a bitter edge just before she disconnected, “Merry Christmas to you too.”
The receiver on my phone clattered down, hard enough to bring a single ring from the bell. He said to me, “You, you’re Bill?”
“And you’re Thomas Valjean.”
“Smart guy. Everybody’s so goddamn smart in this place. Close that door, lock it again, hurry up.”
I closed it, locked it. As I turned, my eye caught Runyon’s; our gazes locked. He’d been in deadly force situations before, just as I had, but this had to be something new for him too — unstable, heavily armed man bent on a destructive siege. Valjean radiated hate; you could almost smell it in the office along with the stink of sweat and gun oil. On full alert, all his senses heightened. Everything in his favor, nothing in ours. Death was a heartbeat away. And the three of us had no means of communication except by eye contact and maybe careful gesture, nothing to rely on except instinct and luck and the hunger for survival.
I said to Valjean, “What’s this all about?”
“You’re such a smart guy, you figure it out.”
“My fault,” Tamara said. “He called before he showed up, started ragging on me, and I slammed his ear.”
“Not your fault,” Runyon said. “He was coming anyway.”
“That’s right. I was coming anyway.”
“Why?” I said. “Why us?”
“Why do you think? You sicced the cops on me. You and those Human Services bastards.”
Runyon said, “I told him that’s who hired us. Department of Human Services.”
Valjean jabbed the gun in my direction. “Straight talk or more bullshit?”
“Straight. They’re our clients.”
“Who do you deal with over there? I want a name.”
“It won’t do you any good.”
“Goddamn it, I’m not going to screw around with you people anymore, I want a name!” Growing agitated, fingertip beginning to slide back and forth along the weapon’s trigger, veins bulging in his forehead, cords bulging in his neck, eyes like holes in the wall of a furnace. “Give me a name, now!”
“Ray Chandler,” I said.
“Chandler, all right, Chandler, call him up, get him over here.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I won’t tell you again, call him up!”
“He won’t be there. Nobody’s at Human Services now.”
“What kind of crap is that?”
“It’s after three. Their offices are closed.”
“I warned you, no more bullshit!”
“It’s Christmas week. All city offices close early this week.”
Fiery stare, his teeth clenched so tight I could see white ridges of muscle on both sides of his jaw. If he called the bluff, demanded one of us make the call, I’d be the one to do it; he didn’t know the number over there, and there were a couple of other offices I could call that would likely be empty this time of day. But if he checked first to make sure it was the right number...
He didn’t call the bluff. He said, “Lousy government bastards, take everything away from other people, average joes, people just trying to get along, keep all the perks for themselves. Christ, I wish I could fix them all, line ’em up and shoot ’em down one by one.”
Thought processes muddied by his hate; reacting with some clarity of focus but not anticipating, not thinking things through logically. And not quite ready yet to begin his killing spree. Thin thread of something — humanity, conscience, sanity — holding him back for the moment. But only for the moment. That thread would snap before long. A word, an action, something would break it, or it would just disintegrate from the strain.
Keep him talking. Talk had bought time already or Tamara and Runyon wouldn’t still be alive. There was still a chance he’d make a mistake, as keyed up as he was, or that one of us could figure a way to neutralize the threat. So far I couldn’t see any gamble worth taking. If Runyon had, it didn’t show on his face.
I said, “What did they do to you, Thomas, that you hate them so much?”
“Don’t call me Thomas, I don’t like it.”
“Tom, then. That okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. You want to call me something, you call me Mr. Valjean.”
“What did the government do to you, Mr. Valjean?”
“Ruined my life, that’s what they did.”
“How did they do that?”
“Took everything away from me for back taxes. Lousy economy, bitch wife of mine always throwing money away, bastards wouldn’t let me have another extension, kept tacking on penalties, then they slapped a lien on the house, on my business, forced me into bankruptcy. What they didn’t get Marjorie got when she walked out on me. But I took care of her, all right, I fixed her wagon.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Figure it out, smart guy. What you think I did when I went over to her apartment this morning, before I came here? Huh? You tell me.”
Runyon said, “So now you’ve killed three people. Same as Anthony Colton.”
“So what? You think I’m no better than he was?”