Banish said, “Mr. Ables, are you trying to insult me?”
“I didn’t think that was an insult, Watson. I used to live in America for a while, don’t forget. I saw what was out there in the suburbs. I’m saying that I bet you have the perfect all-American family. That is what I am guessing. You and a wife and three strong blond boys, all driving cars with slanty headlights, working to put money in the bearded man’s pocket.”
“Mr. Ables, we are so far afield—”
“I think you are hiding something, Watson.”
Banish relented a bit. “I have nothing to hide, Mr. Ables.”
“You do, Watson. I can tell you do.”
Banish stared ahead. After a while, he spoke. “I have no sons, Mr. Ables,” he said. “I have one daughter, who is engaged to be married.”
“How old, Watson?”
“My daughter is twenty-one.”
“Young for marriage nowadays.”
“It comes as a relief,” Banish said. “She seems to be on the right track now.”
Blood’s eyebrows were up. He couldn’t see the strategy in any of this.
Ables pressed him. “You’re saying she had some trouble.”
Banish nodded as though recalling it. “As a teenager,” he said. “Falling in with the wrong crowd. We had some rough years. She ran away from home when she was fourteen, for one day, and when she was fifteen, for three. Her mother had her hands full, and I was away a lot. I regret not being there.”
Blood even considered tapping him on the shoulder. Banish seemed to have lost himself in his candor. Blood saw the sound man turn to look at Banish as well.
Ables’s voice said, “All them schools are ghettos now. That’s what I got my kids away from.”
“Guns and violence,” Banish said.
“That’s right.”
Banish nodded. “Trouble is where you find it, Mr. Ables,” he said, the irony of the thing not lost on him. He appeared then to come up for air. “Does that satisfy you now?”
“I am not looking for satisfaction, Watson. You get to go home to your family when you are through. I won’t.”
“Mr. Ables, I am personally overseeing each and every aspect of your arrest. I am guaranteeing you that there will be no shooting, that you will not be harmed in any way.”
Ables said, “I trust you, Watson. I do. Truly. You can’t guarantee me nothing. Guarantee me the sun’ll come up tomorrow.”
“Who do you trust, then, Mr. Ables? I can arrange for eyewitnesses to be there to watch your arrest. Who do you trust?”
Ables, apparently thinking it over, said finally, “No one.”
“Your wife’s parents,” said Banish.
“No.”
“Television cameras, then. The media. I can have them film the arrest for your protection. How would you like that?”
“What about my home, Watson?”
Banish was nodding. It looked like progress here. “The only thing I can suggest,” he said, “is that you arrange to sign ownership of your property over into your wife’s name. That is my best suggestion to you. Possession is nine tenths of the law.”
“Whose law, Watson? Your law or mine? Mine says free and innocent men are left alone by their government.”
“We are making some progress here, Mr. Ables. Let’s stick to resolving the terms of your coming outside—”
“Do you think I’m a bad man, Watson? I want your view on this. You think I’m a guilty man?”
Banish let out a short breath. “Mr. Ables,” he said, “I have no opinion on the matter.”
“I’m as guilty as you are, Watson. I just tried to live my life alone up here. I minded my own business as other folks mind theirs, and if no one came up here meddling in my life, then I wouldn’t have gone and bothered anyone in theirs. But it ain’t up to me. You came up here, Watson, and you scratched me, but I don’t bleed.”
“Mr. Ables—”
“You found that out. I scratch back. If this was a fair fight, I’d win it. You might even know that I would. But nothing is fair, Watson. Resist and they will crush you. Deny them and try to stay with your own and they will rise up and make an example of you. That’s what this is right here, Watson. Maybe you can see that now. I am the example.”
It was obvious by the clattering noises over the speaker that Ables was done with them again. Banish sat back. The sound man pulled down his headphones, saying, “He’s clear.”
Banish shut his eyes and was quiet for a moment. “He’s stringing this out,” he said.
Blood said, “He’s enjoying himself.”
Banish opened his eyes and sat forward. He spoke generally, reviewing things. “Still fairly coherent,” he said. “Wants a personal relationship with the negotiator. That’s common. They all want reassurance near the end. So you use that, you figure out what they want to hear in terms of similar problems, you empathize and exploit their weaknesses, show them they are not alone in this, even get them thinking you are on their side if you can.” He turned and looked at Blood. “What do you think?”
Blood was going to say that he didn’t believe Banish for a second, that it seemed as though he had gone too far and was trying to excuse himself here. “About what?”
“Ables.”
Blood nodded at that. “I’d say he’s sizing himself up to be a pretty good martyr.”
The sound man with the Southern accent contributed to Banish’s cause. “I think it’s good how you let him flex his ego now and again. I think that works.”
Blood said, “You going to ask him about Mellis?”
Banish shook his head lightly. “Not the sort of thing I’d want to introduce into the conversation,” he said. “I don’t think he will either.”
He stood then. His shoulders looked heavy. To the sound man he said, “Call over to the command tent, have them get a printout for me. I want to review the transcripts.”
The sound man nodded. “We’re silent up top,” he reminded him.
Banish stopped. “What do you have?”
“Depends. What are you looking for?”
Banish thought. “Something new. He needs more pushing.”
The sound man ticked off his selection. “I’ve got Tibetan monks chanting, military marching music, a clock ticking, baby rabbits being slaughtered, Andy Williams Christmas carols—”
“The clock,” Banish said, starting to leave. “Good and loud.”
Command Tent
Fagin was reading the transcript when Banish walked in. He had to catch up on the negotiations on his own because nobody fucking told him anything. He looked up at Banish as he entered. “Do you need a hug?” he said.
Banish took the printed sheets out of his hands. Then he recognized Ables’s voice on the CB. Banish turned and walked a few slow steps toward it.
“Bible lessons,” chided Fagin.
Coyle told him, “It just started.”
Banish looked around. “What part is he reading from?”
He was sure to get a quick answer. Half the FBI agents kept Bibles out on top of their desks. “Psalms,” one at the switchboard said. Then Fagin saw that it was Kearney, the local cop who had stood up for Banish.
“A scholar,” Fagin said to him, wondering what the hell he was doing at the FBI switchboard.
The young cop said, “Not actually. He said the name himself when he started to read it.” Then Kearney looked past Fagin. “Agent Banish?”
Banish raised a hand to hold off Kearney. He was standing there listening to Ables on the CB, or thinking. Either way, he was just standing there.
Fagin said, “Cut him off.”
Banish waited some more. “No,” he said. “Let him go. If we cut him off mid-verse, people listening down below and elsewhere will assume the worst.” He looked over at Coyle. “When he finishes reading, jam him. If he starts to ramble on about anything other than what he’s reading, jam him. But shut him down for good when he’s through.”