"So what do you say, Burke?" Brady asked.
"Sir?"
"You want to go in there or not?"
Decoy work all over again, Eileen thought. Either they put you on the street in hooker's threads or you go sit on an old man's lap in blue jeans and a T-shirt, and you try to talk him out of a shotgun. Or maybe you shoot him. She was not in this program because she wanted to shoot people.
"If the shotgun comes out, I go in," she said.
"That's not the deal we made with him," Brady said.
"What was the deal?"
"He sends out his granddaughter, we send in a girl."
"Then what?"
"Then the kid is safe," Brady said.
"How about me? Am I safe?"
Brady looked at her.
"We can't send in a real hooker," he said.
"I realize that, I'm asking if you're swapping my life for the kid's, sir. That's what I'm asking."
"It's up to you to calm him down, get that shotgun away from him."
"How do I calm him down?" Eileen asked.
"We've had run-throughs on situations like this one," Brady said.
"Not exactly, sir, no, sir. We didn't do any run-throughs on a man expecting a hooker and getting a talker instead."
"This is only a. variation on a classic hostage situation," Brady said.
"I don't think so, sir. I think he may get very upset when he finds out I'm really a cop. I think he may decide to use that gun when he ..."
"There's no reason for him to know you're a cop," Brady said.
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"Oh? Do I lie to him, sir? I thought once we established communication, we told the truth all the way down the line."
"In this instance, we can bend the truth a little."
Goodman looked at him.
"Inspector," he said, "I think we may be confusing Detective Bur ..."
"I'm certainly not trying to confuse her," Brady said. "But I've got an eight-year-old girl in there with a crazy old man who wants a hooker or he's going to blow her away. Now do I give him a hooker or don't I? That's the only pertinent question at this moment in time."
"I'm not a hooker, sir," Eileen said.
"I realize that. But you're a police officer who's impersonated hookers in the past."
"Yes, sir, I have. The point is . . ."
"Are you willing to do so now?" Brady asked reasonably. "That's the point, Detective Burke. Are you willing to impersonate a prostitute in order to save that little girl's life?"
How about my life? Eileen thought.
"Sir," she said, "how do you suggest I get that shotgun away from him? Once I'm inside that apartment, and he realizes I'm a police negotiator and not a hooker, how do I get him to give up that shotgun?"
"Detective Halsted was willing to go into that apartment within the parameters we've set up," Brady said, hurling down the gauntlet: Are you as good a man as Halsted? Do you have cojones, Detective Burke? "She was willing to accept the challenge of negotiating with him from a position of extreme vulnerability. Now I understand the risks involved here, don't you think I understand the risks? I've been in this game a long time now ..."
Game, Eileen thought.
". . . and when I say I don't want anyone hurt, I mean anyone, not the taker, not his hostage, and certainly not any member of my team. I'm not asking you to do anything I wouldn't do myself..."
Then go do it yourself, Eileen thought.
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"... believe me, I'm as concerned for your safety as I would be for my own ..."
Go in there in drag ...
"But the situation has reached this point in time where we've got to make a decision. We've either got to satisfy the old man's desire or risk his killing that little girl. He's given us ten minutes, and eight of those minutes are already gone. So what would you like us to do, Detective?"
"Sir, you're asking me to go in there unarmed ..."
"That's what we promised, that's what we always promise. No guns, no one gets hurt."
"But he does have a gun, sir."
He happens to have a goddamn gun, sir.
"They always have guns," Brady said. "Or knives. They always have weapons of some sort, yes."
"A double-barreled shotgun, sir."
"Yes, that's the situation here," Brady said.
"I'd have to be crazy, right?" Eileen said.
"Well, that's for you to decide, that's the nature of the work." Brady looked at his watch. "What do you say, Burke, we're almost out of time here. Yes or no? Believe me, there are plenty of female police officers in this city who'd be happy to work with this team."
Female police officers, she thought.
Can you cut it or not, Detective Burke?
Are you a man or a mouse?
Bullshit, she thought.
"We negotiate before I go in," she said.
Brady looked at her.
"I work the door. The old man can believe what he wants, but nobody's going inside that apartment until he hands over the little girl and the shotgun. Take it or leave it."
He kept looking at her.
She figured whichever way this went, she'd be off the team tomorrow morning. Same as Mary Beth Mulhaney.
"Take it or leave it?" Brady said.
Or maybe off the team right this minute.
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"Yes, sir," she said. "Take it or leave it." Both you and the old man, she thought. "If anything happens to that little girl ..." Brady said, and let the sentence trail.
The old man thought the redhead was a vast improvement over the skinny one with the look of a mongrel. It was a pity she couldn't speak Spanish, but at his age he couldn't expect perfection. Enough that she had eyes as green as the sea and breasts as softly rolling as the hills of his native land. Freckles sprinkled like gold dust on her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose. A beauty. He was a very lucky man.
"We have to talk," she said. "My name is Eileen."
The door to apartment 5L was open just a crack, the night chain holding it. He could see her face and her body in the narrow opening. He knew she could see the shotgun against his granddaughter's ear. His finger was inside the trigger guard. There were two shells in the shotgun. His son always kept the shotgun loaded in the closet. This was a bad neighborhood now that all the strangers had begun moving in.
"What is there to talk about?" he asked.
"About my coming in there," she said.
She had been taught not to lie to them. She would try not to lie to him now. She would not say she was a hooker. But neither would she say she wasn't. It was an omission she could live with. Unless someone got hurt. Then she would never be able to live with it again.
"I can't come in there as long as you have that gun in your hands," she said.
In the crack between door and doorjamb, she could see him smiling wisely. A wrinkled old man with gray-white beard stubble, a terrified little dark-haired, dark-eyed girl on his lap, the double barrel of a shotgun against her head. If anything happened to that little girl . . .
"I'm afraid to come in there while you have that gun in your hands," Eileen said.
"Yes," the old man said.
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What the hell does that mean? she wondered.
"But that is precisely why they've sent you to me, verdadV he asked. "Because I have this gun in my hands."
Heavily accented English, but clearly understandable. And perfectly logical, too. The only reason they were submitting to the old man's wishes was that he had a gun. Give up the gun, he gave up his power to negotiate.
"Your granddaughter must be frightened, too," she said.
"I love my granddaughter," he said.
"Yes, but I'm sure she's terrified of that gun."
"No, she's all right. You're all right, aren't you, querida?" he said to the girl, and chucked her under the chin with his free hand. "Besides, I will let her go when you come in here," he said. "That is our understanding, eh? You come in, I let her go. Everybody's happy."