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unwashed, dish it out clean and fast, we're trying to talk to him, we're trying to make sure nobody gets hurt here.
"Not him, not anybody," Goodman said, just in case the woman didn't yet understand that nobody was going in there with guns blazing like Rambo.
Martha Halsted, the tight-assed little brunette with the Go-to-Hell look, seemed eager for a chance to work the door. She kept glancing down the hall to where Garcia kept pleading in Spanish with the old man, her brown eyes alive with anticipation, if you relieve Garcia, then choose me, pick me, I can do the job. Eileen guessed maybe she could.
She had asked Annie Rawles what she knew about her. Annie remembered her from when she was still working Robbery. She described her as a "specialist." This did not mean what Eileen at first thought it meant. A specialist in robbery or related crimes, right? Wasn't that what Annie meant? Annie explained that, well, no, the term as it was commonly used - hadn't Eileen ever heard the expression? Eileen said No, she hadn't, all eyes, all ears. Annie explained that a specialist was a woman who . . . well ... a woman adept at oral sex, come on you're putting me on, you know what a specialist is. My, my, Eileen thought. Martha Halsted, a specialist. For all her hard, mean bearing and her distant manner, Martha Halsted was all heart, all mouth. Live and learn, Eileen thought, and never judge a book by its cover.
She figured Martha had as much chance of working the door on this one as she had of playing the flute with the Philharmonic. Unless she'd been blowing sweet music in the inspector's ear, so to speak, or perhaps even the good doctor's, who knew what evil lurked? Even so, neither of them would risk putting a trainee on the door a week after those Narcotics jerks had blown away a teenager. However much they taught that everything was theory until it was put into practice, and nothing was as valuable as actual experience in the field, nobody in his right mind was going to trust anyone but a skilled professional in a situation like this one. So eat your
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heart out, Martha. Tonight is a night for specialists of quite another sort.
From down the hall, Garcia was signaling.
Hand kept low at his side so that the old man in the apartment wouldn't see it, wouldn't spook and pull the shotgun trigger. But signaling distinctly and urgently, somebody get over here, will you please? Martha was the first one to spot the hand signal, busy as she was with watching the door and waiting for her golden opportunity. She told Goodman the guy at the door wanted something. Goodman went in to talk to Brady, and the inspector himself went down the hall to see what it was Garcia wanted. He had already decided to pull Garcia off the door. Now he had to decide who would replace him. A knowledge of Spanish was no longer a priority; the old man obviously spoke English and would speak nothing but English. In a situation as volatile as this one, Brady was thinking that he himself might be the right man for the job. Anyway, he went down the hall to see what the hell was happening.
Gerry Valdez was telling Goodman and the assembled trainees that her father-in-law was a sex maniac. She'd caught him several times fondling her daughters, or at least trying to fondle them. That was what had started it all today. She had caught him at it again, and she had threatened to ship him back to the goddamn island if he didn't quit bothering her daughters, and the old man had got the shotgun out of where Joey kept it in the closet, and had grabbed Pamela, the youngest one, the eight-year-old, and had yelled he was going to kill her unless everybody left them alone in the apartment.
Goodman was thinking they had a serious problem here.
Brady was coming back up the hall with Garcia. There was no one at the door now. Just a lot of uniformed cops milling around down the hall,' aiting for God only knew what.
"Mike?" Brady said. "Talk to you a minute?"
The three of them went inside the command-post apartment. Brady closed the door behind them.
Gerry Valdez began telling the trainees that she didn't really
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think the old man was a sex maniac, it was just that he was getting senile, you know? He was eighty-four years old, he sometimes forgot himself, forgot he wasn't still a little boy chasing little girls along the beach, you know? It was really a pity and a shame, but at the same time she didn't want him fooling around with her kids, that was child abuse, wasn't it?
Eileen guessed it was.
She wondered what they were talking about inside that apartment.
Were it not for the shotgun, it would have been comical.
The old man wanted a girl.
"What do you mean, a girl?" Goodman said.
"He told me he'd trade his granddaughter for a girl," Garcia said.
"A girl?"
"He said if we send in a girl, he'd give us his granddaughter."
"A girl?" Goodman said again.
This was unheard of. In all his years of hostage negotiation, Goodman had never had anyone request a girl. He'd had takers who'd asked for cigarettes or beer or a jet plane to Miami or in one instance spaghetti with red clam sauce, but he had never had anyone ask for a girl. This was something new in the annals of hostage negotiation. An eighty-four-year-old man asking them for a girl.
"You mean he wants a girlV he asked, shaking his head, still unwilling to believe it.
"A girl," Garcia said.
"Did he tell you this in Spanish or in English?" Brady asked.
"In Spanish."
"Then there was no mistake."
"No mistake. He wants a girl. Una chiquita, he said. I'm sure he meant a hooker."
"He wants a hooker."
"Yes."
"The old goat wants a hooker," Brady said.
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"Yes."
"Mike?" Brady said. "What do you think?"
Goodman looked amused. But it wasn't funny.
"Can we send out for a hooker?" Brady said.
"And a dozen red roses," Goodman said, still looking amused.
"Mike," Brady said warningly.
"It's just I never heard of such a request," Goodman said.
"Can we get him a goddamn hooker or not?" Brady said. "Swap him a hooker for the little girl?"
"Absolutely not," Goodman said. "We never give them another hostage, that's a hard-and-fast rule. If we sent a hooker in there and she got blown away, you know what the media would do with that, don't you? Last week a fifteen-year-old kid, this week a hooker?"
"Yeah," Brady said glumly.
Garcia had been the talker on the door so far, and he didn't want anything to go wrong here, didn't want the old man to blow away either his granddaughter or anybody they might send in there. Garcia was only a Detective/Second, he didn't want any shit coming down on him. Do the job and do it right, but protect your ass at all times; he'd been a cop too long not to know this simple adage. So he waited for whatever Brady might come up with. Brady was the boss. Goodman was a civilian shrink who didn't matter, but Brady was rank. So Garcia waited for whatever he might decree.
"We've got two girls right outside," Brady said.
He was referring to the two women police officers in his training program.
Apparently, the old man did not know that Martha Halsted was a specialist. He took one look at her and told Garcia, in Spanish, that if they didn't get him a better-looking girl, he would kill his granddaughter on the spot. He gave them ten minutes to get him a better-looking girl. Martha, supremely egotistical, felt his rejection of her had to do with the fact that she was wearing white sneakers, jeans, and a T-shirt; the old
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man had been expecting someone who looked more like a hooker. She suggested that Eileen - who was dressed almost identically, except for the sneakers - looked more like a hooker.