Oh no…
Sherm looked up again. Glaring, he pointed to the chair and pushed it toward me with his foot.
“Let me get this straight, Ramirez. This crazy bitch calls 911, tells the operator that her husband and two of his friends are the ones robbing the bank, and that one of those friends is hurt, and she knows all of this because her husband called her from the inside. Is that what you’re telling me? Sounds like bullshit to me. ’Cause how could somebody have called from in here if you guys are controlling the phone lines? Who you playing?”
Michelle. Michelle had dialed the police after I hung up with her. She’d been worried, frantic, freaked the fuck out. And in that state, she’d told them everything, given them our names, begged them to tell her that it wasn’t true, that her husband who had never lied to her before was lying now because there was no way he could be involved in something like this, no way he could be involved in a bank robbery, could he?
Without even realizing it, my own wife had dropped the dime on us. And now I was fucked. Now we were all fucked. Because Sherm was fucked and as a result, he would fuck the rest of us.
“Portland?” Sherm barked into the phone, “What about it? Never been there in my life. I’m East Coast all the way, dog.”
A pause. Sherm began tapping the handgun against his leg.
“Tampa? No, I ain’t never been to Tampa either. I’m telling you, Ramirez, you’re barking up the wrong tree, dog. Bowwow, yippee-yo, you know what I’m saying?”
A longer pause.
“I don’t care what they’re faxing you! Fax this, motherfucker…”
A very long pause. Time seemed to slow.
“San Francisco? Shit. Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Ramirez. I’m impressed. How’d you guys find out about that? I didn’t think anybody knew about San Francisco.”
The longest pause yet, and I stopped breathing.
“Yeah. Uh-huh. Look, give me fifteen minutes. I need to talk this over with Tommy and John. No, I ain’t trying to bullshit you, man. I’ve been straight up with you so far, right? Well yeah, of course not about the names and shit, but I ain’t killed anybody. You still got all your hostages, right? Just give us another fifteen minutes. That’s all I’m asking for. Let us arrange how we want to surrender and shit. Then you can slap the cuffs on and be the hero. Get your picture in the paper and on the news.”
My eyes widened in surprise. Sherm turned the pistol toward himself and peered down the barrel.
“No, no, no! No good fucking faith gestures. I ain’t releasing anybody early. Fifteen minutes. I’m hanging up now. You get back on that bullhorn, or call me before the time is up, and it’s on your head. Is that understood? Until we surrender, I’m still in charge inside this bank, motherfucker. Clear?”
He slammed the phone down and stared into the gun.
I closed my eyes and sighed.
“Sherm. I—”
“Shut up, Tommy. Just shut the fuck up.”
His voice was tired, emotionless. Beaten. I’d never heard him sound like this, and I think that scared me more than anything.
He shook his head sadly.
“Goddamn it, Tommy. You just had to call Michelle.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. There was no point in denying it. “I had to.”
“How did you do it?”
“I stuck Lucas’s cell phone in my pocket because I didn’t know what else to do with it. While you were gone, I used it to call her.”
He placed the gun flat on the desktop, but kept his hand on it. I couldn’t help but notice that the barrel was pointing at me. The hole looked very big, bigger than I’d realized. The dead cop’s .38
lay next to it. Both were out of reach.
“Why? That’s all I want to know, dog. Why would you do some stupid shit like that?”
“Because she’s my wife, man. Because I love her. I owed it to her, you know?”
“No, I don’t know. All I know is that it was a dumber move than even Carpet Dick could have come up with.”
I could see on his face that he really didn’t know, and that he never would. Sherm would never understand. How could you explain love to a guy like Sherm? Remember when I said that all the women wanted to fix him because he was broken, but that he didn’t want to be fixed? Well, this was part of it.
“You—you want to tell me why it was so dumb?”
His voice remained flat and emotionless.
“Because now they know, Tommy. Now they fucking know. They know that there’s only the three of us. They know that Carpet Dick is wounded. They know our names, our backgrounds, our… They know everything. It gives them a leg up on us. Gives them leverage. We’re fucked.”
“I’m sorry, Sherm. I was just sick of lying to her, man. I’m fucking sorry.”
“I know”—he shrugged—“but that doesn’t exactly help matters now, does it?”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
We sat in silence for a moment, then I tried again.
“What was the deal with those cities the negotiator read off to you? Tampa and San Francisco and shit? What was that about?”
“Nothing. Everything. Like I said, now they know. But that ain’t important right now. You still got the cell phone?”
“Yeah. It’s in my pocket.”
“Good. Give it to me.”
He held his free hand out to me. The other one remained on the gun. I fumbled in my pocket and pulled it out. My hands were slick with sweat.
“Thanks.” He studied it carefully. “Nice phone. One of those expensive kinds.”
With a sudden burst of rage, he threw it across the room. It smashed into the wall and fell to the floor, the casing cracked. I flinched, but managed to keep from jumping in my seat.
“I just want to know one thing, Tommy.”
“W-what?”
“Was it worth it? Talking to Michelle? Hearing her voice? Was it fucking worth it?”
I didn’t hesitate, but my voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper.
“Yeah. Yeah, Sherm, it was.”
“Okay then.”
He lifted his head, looked me in the eye and grinned.
“W-what now?”
His grin got wider.
“They’ll probably try to do some surveillance, see if they can verify the situation. Might try to get a camera inside, maybe one of those little robotic units or a pole scope or something. We’ve got fifteen minutes left. After that, all bets are off.”
“So what do we do?”
His demeanor changed again. Once more, his tone was light and friendly—just my buddy Sherm, who’d never pointed a gun at me in his life and who didn’t have a secret past that I knew nothing about.
“We go with my plan, dog. We have some fun. You still thirsty?”
“Uh, sure. Yeah, I could use a drink.”
“I’ll go get you one of those sodas, do a quick check, and make sure everything’s secure; and then we’ll start.”
“Start what?”
“The party, man. Let’s get this party started.”
With a wink, he grabbed his pistol and hopped off the desk. Turning his back to me, he walked out of the office and turned left down the hall.
Fifteen minutes. But if Sherm found out about Benjy or John or any of the other stuff, the shit could hit the fan long before then.
The dead cop’s .38 stared up at me with that one good eye.
I picked it up, tucked it underneath my shirt, and hurried for the vault.
SIXTEEN
John was sitting up and staring at Benjy in wide-eyed amazement. Both of them smiled at me as I rushed in. The others looked tense, except for Martha, who had her eyes tightly shut and her head bowed in prayer. I wondered what I’d missed. Things had changed, however subtly. Something was going on, something more than John’s miraculous recovery. I figured they must have overheard Sherm’s and my conversation.