A Maiden's Grave (8 page)

Click.

"Downlink terminated," Tobe announced.

Stillwell brought the trooper in, a short, swarthy young man. He leaned the offending weapon by the door, its black bolt locked back, and walked up to Potter.

"I'm sorry, sir, I was on this branch and there was this gust of wind. I -"

"You were told to unchamber your weapon," Potter snapped.

The trooper stirred and his eyes darted around the room.

"Here now," Stillwell said, looking faintly ridiculous with a bulky flak jacket on under his Penney's suit. 'Tell the agent what you told me."

The trooper looked icily at Stillwell, resenting the new chain of command. He said to Potter, "I never received that order. I was locked and loaded from the git-go. That's SOP for us, sir."

Stillwell grimaced but he said, "I'll take responsibility, Mr. Potter."

"Oh, brother…" Charlie Budd stepped forward. "Sir," he said formally to Potter, "I have to say – it's my fault. Mine alone."

Potter lifted an inquiring hand toward him.

"I didn't tell the snipers to unchamber. I should've, like you ordered me to. The fact is, I concluded that I wasn't going to have troopers in the field unprotected. It's my fault. Not this man's. Not Dean's."

Potter considered this and said to the sniper, "You'll stand down and assist at the rear staging area. Go report to Agent-in-Charge Henderson."

"But I slipped, sir. It wasn't my fault. It was an accident."

"There're no accidents in my barricades," Potter said coldly.

"But -"

"That's all, Trooper," Dean Stillwell said. "You heard your order. Dismissed." The man snagged his weapon then stormed out of the van.

Budd said, "I'll do the same, sir. I'm sorry. I really am. You should have Dean here assist you. I -"

Potter pulled the captain aside. He said in a whisper, "I need your help, Charlie. But what you did, it was a personal judgment call. That, I
don't
need from you. Understand?"

"Yessir."

"You still want to be on the team?"

Budd nodded slowly.

"Okay, now go on out there and give them the order to unchamber."

"Sir -"

"Arthur."

"I've got to go home and look my wife in the eye and tell her that I disobeyed an FBI agent's direct order."

"How long you been married?"

"Thirteen years."

"Get hitched in junior high?"

Budd smiled grimly.

"What's her name?"

"Meg. Margaret."

"You have children?"

"Two girls." Budd's face remained miserable.

"Go on now. Do what I asked." Potter held his eyes.

The captain sighed. "I will, yessir. It won't happen again."

"Keep your head down." Potter smiled. "And don't delegate this one, Charlie."

"No sir. I'll check everybody."

Stillwell looked on sympathetically as Budd, hangtail, walked out the door.

Tobe was stacking up audiocassettes. All conversations with the takers would be recorded. The tape recorder was a special unit with a two-second delay built in, so that an electronic voice added a minute-by-minute time stamp onto the recording yet didn't block out the conversation. He looked up at Potter. "Who was it who said, 'I've met the enemy and he is us'? Was that Napoleon? Or Eisenhower, or somebody?"

"I think it was Pogo," Potter said.

"Who?"

"Comic strip," Henry LeBow said. "Before your time."

The room was growing dark.

It was only early afternoon but the sky had filled with purple clouds and the windows in the slaughterhouse were small. Need that juice and need it now, Lou Handy thought, peering through the dimness.

Water dripped and chains hung from the gloomy shadows of the ceiling. Hooks everywhere and overhead conveyors. There were rusted machines that looked like parts of cars a giant had been playing with and said fuck it and tossed down on the floor.

Giant, Handy laughed to himself. What the hell'm I talking about?

He wandered through the ground floor. Wild place. What's it like to make money knocking off animals? he wondered. Handy had worked dozens of jobs. Usually sweat labor. Nobody ever let him operate fancy equipment, which would have doubled or tripled his salary. The jobs always ended after a month or two. Arguments with the foreman, complaints, fights, drinking in the locker room. He had no patience to wait it out with people who couldn't understood that he wasn't your average person. He was
special
. Nofuckingbody in the world had ever caught on to this.

The floor was wood, solid as concrete. Beautifully joined oak. Handy was no craftsman, like Rudy'd been, but he could appreciate good work. His brother had laid flooring for a living. Handy was suddenly angry at that asshole Potter. For some reason the agent had brought Rudy to mind. It infuriated Handy, made him want to get even.

He walked to the room where they'd put the hostages. It was semicircular, sided in porcelain tile, windowless. The blood drain. He guessed that if somebody fired a gun in the middle of the room it'd be loud enough to shatter eardrums.

Didn't much matter with this buncha birds, he thought. He looked them over. What was weird was that these girls – most of 'em – were
pretty
. That oldest one especially, the one with the black hair. The one looking back at him with a go-to-fucking-hell expression on her face. She's what, seventeen, eighteen? He smiled at her. She stared back. Handy gazed at the rest of them. Yep, pretty. It blew him away. They're freaks and all and you'd think they'd look a little gross, like retards do – like no matter how pretty, there's still something wrong, the corners don't meet even. But no, they looked normal. But damn, they cry a lot.
That
was irritating… that sound their throats make. They're fucking deaf – they shouldn't be making those fucking sounds!

Suddenly, in his mind, Lou Handy saw his brother.

The red dot appearing where Rudy's skull joined his spine. Then more dots, the tiny gun bucking in his fingers. The shudder in his brother's shoulders as the man stiffened, did a spooky little dance, and fell dead.

Handy decided he hated Art Potter even more than he'd thought.

He ambled back to Wilcox and Bonner, pulled the remote control out of the canvas bag, and channel-surfed on the tiny battery-powered TV that rested on an oil drum. All the local stations and one network were reporting about them. One newscaster said this would be Lou Handy's fifteen minutes of fame, whatever the hell that meant. The cops had ordered the reporters so far back from the action that he couldn't see anything helpful on the screen. He remembered the O. J. Simpson case, watching the white Bronco cruise down the highway, park at the man's house. The choppers were close enough to see the faces of the guy who was driving and the cop in his driveway. Everybody white in the prison rec room thinking, Blow your fucking brains out, nigger. Everybody black thinking, Go, O.J.! We're with you, homes!

Handy turned down the sound on the TV. Fucking place, he thought, looking around the slaughterhouse. He smelled rotting carcasses.

A voice startled him, "Let them go. Keep me." He wandered over to the tiled room. He crouched down and looked at the woman. "Who're you?"

"I'm their teacher."

"You can do that sign language stuff, right?"

"Yes." She gazed at Handy with defiant eyes.

"Uck," Handy said. "Freaky."

"Please, let them go. Keep me."

"Shut up," Handy said, and walked away.

He looked out the window. A tall police van sat on the crest of a hill. He bet that was where Art Potter was sitting. He took his pistol from his pocket and aimed at a yellow square on its side. He compensated for the distance and the wind. He lowered the gun. "Coulda nailed you, they wanted to," he called to Wilcox. "That's what he told me."

Wilcox too was gazing out a window. "There's a lot of 'em," he mused. Then: "Who was he? Th'asshole you were talking to."

"FBI."

Bonner said, "Oh, man. You mean we got a Feebie out there?"

"Was a federal prison we broke outta. Who the fuck you think they'd have after us?"

"Tommy Lee Jones," Bonner said. The big man kept his eyes on the teacher for a moment. Then on the little girl in the flowered dress and white stockings.

Handy saw his eyes. That cocksucker. "Nup, Sonny. Keep it inside them stinky jeans of yours, you hear me? Or you'll lose it."

Bonner grunted. When accused of doing just what he was guilty of Bonner always got pissed. Fast as a hedgehog rolls up. "Fuck you."

"Hope I gave one of 'em a new asshole," Wilcox said, but in his lazy-as-could-be voice, one of the reasons why Handy liked him. "So what've we got?" Handy asked.

Wilcox answered, "The two shotguns. And close to forty shells. One Smitty only six rounds. No, make that five. But we've got the Glocks and beaucoup de ammo there. Three hundred rounds."

Handy paced around the slaughterhouse floor, dancing over the pools of standing water.

"Damn cryin's getting on my nerves," Handy snapped. "It's fucking with my mind. That fat one, shit. Lookit her. And I don't know what's going on out there. That agent sounded too slick. I don't trust his ass. Sonny, you stay with our girls. Shep 'n' me're gonna poke around."

"What about tear gas?" Bonner looked out the window uncertainly. "We shoulda got some masks."

"They shoot tear gas in," Handy explained, "just piss on the canisters."

"That works? To stop it?"

"Yep."

"How 'bout that."

Handy glanced into the tiled room. The older teacher gazed at him with her muddy eyes. Sort of defiant, sort of something else.

"What's your name?"

"Donna Harstrawn. I -"

"Tell me, Donna, what's her name?" he asked slowly, pointing to the oldest student, the pretty one with the long black hair.

Before the teacher could answer, the girl lifted her middle finger toward him. Handy roared with laughter.

Bonner stepped forward, lifting his arm. "You little shit."

Donna scrambled in front of the girl, who drew back her fists, grinning. The little girls made their fucking spooky bird noises and the scared blond teacher held up a pitiful, pleading hand.

Handy grabbed Bonner's hand and pushed him away. "Don't hit 'em 'less I tell you to." He pointed at the teenager and asked the teacher, "What's her fucking name?"

"Susan. Please, will you -"

"And what's hers?" Pointing at the blond, the younger teacher.

"Melanie."

Mel-a-nee. She was the one that really pissed him off. When he'd found her looking out the window just after the shooting he'd grabbed her arm and she'd gone apeshit, totally freaked. He'd let her wander around 'cause he knew she wouldn't cause any trouble. At first he'd thought it was funny, her being such a little mouse. Then it made him mad – that skittish light in her eyes that made him want to stamp his foot just to see her jump. It
always
pissed him off, seeing no spirit in a woman.

This little bitch was the opposite of Pris. Oh, he'd like to see the two of them tangle. Pris'd pull out that Buck knife she kept down her bra sometimes, hot against her left tit, open it up, and come after her. Little blondie here'd take a dump in her pants. She seemed a hell of a lot younger than that Susan.

Now,
she
interested him, Suze did. Good old Donna had her muddy eyes that told him nothing, and the younger teacher had her scared eyes that hid everything. But Miss Teenager here… well, her eyes said a lot and she didn't care if he read it. He figured that she was smarter than the other two put together.

And ballsier.

Like Pris, he thought, with approval. "Susan," Handy said slowly. "I like you. You've got spunk. You don't know what the fuck I'm saying. But I like you." To the older teacher he said, "Tell her that."

After a pause Donna gestured with her hands.

Susan gave him a drop-dead look and responded.

"What'd she say?" Handy barked.

"She said to please let the little girls go."

Handy grabbed the woman's hair and pulled hard. More little bird screeches. Melanie shook her head, tears streaming. "What the fuck did she say?"

"She said, 'Go to hell.' "

He pulled her hair harder; tufts of the dyed strands popped from her skull. She whined in pain. "She said," Donna gasped, "she said, 'You're an asshole.' "

Handy laughed hard and shoved the teacher to the ground.

"Please," she called. "Let them go, the girls. Keep me. What does it matter if you have one hostage or six?"

"Because, you stupid cunt, I can shoot a couple of 'em and still have some left over."

She gasped and turned away quickly, as if she'd just walked into a room and found a naked man leering at her.

Handy walked to Melanie. "You think I'm an asshole too?"

The other teacher started to move her hands but Melanie responded before she'd gotten the question out.

"What'd she say?"

"She said, 'Why do you want to hurt us, Brutus? We didn't hurt you.' "

"Brutus?"

"That's what she calls you."

Brutus. Sounded familiar but he couldn't remember where he'd heard it. He frowned slightly. "Tell her she knows the fucking answer to that question." As he walked out the doorway Handy called, "Hey, Sonny, I'm learning sign language. Lemme show you." Bonner looked up.

Handy extended his middle finger. The three men laughed and Handy and Wilcox started down the corridor into the back of the slaughterhouse. When they were exploring the maze of hallways and butcher and processing rooms Handy asked Wilcox, "Think he'll behave?"

"Sonny? Fuck, I guess. Any other time he'd be on 'em like a rooster. But there ain't nothing like having a hundred armed cops outside your door to keep a pecker limp. What the fuck d'they do here?" Wilcox was gazing at the machinery, the long tables, gears and governors and belts. "Whatta you think?"

"I don't know."

"It's a fucking slaughterhouse."

" 'Processing,' that's what it means?"

"Shoot 'em and gut 'em. Yeah. Processing."

Wilcox pointed to an old machine. "What's that?"

Handy walked over and looked at it. He grinned. "Shit. It's a old steam engine. Hell, lookit."

"What'd they use that for here?"

"See," Handy explained, "this is why the world's got itself into deep shit. Back then, see, that was a turbine." He pointed to an old rusted spine covered with rotting fan blades. "That was how things worked. It went around and did things. That was the steam age and it was like the gas age too. Then we got into the electric age and you couldn't see what things did too well. Like you can see steam and fire but you can't see electricity doing anything. That's what got us into World War Two. Now we're in the
electronic
age. It's computers and everything and it's fucking impossible to see how things work. You can look at a computer chip and not see a thing even though it's totally doing what it oughta do. We've lost control."

"It's all pretty fucked up."

"What? Life or what I'm saying?"

"I don't know. It just sounds all fucked up. Life, I guess." They'd emerged into a large dim cavern. Must have been the warehouse. They tied or chocked shut the back doors.

"They can blow 'em open," Wilcox said. "A couple cutting charges'd do it.

"They could drop an A-bomb on us too. Either way them girls die. If that's what they want that's what they'll get."

"Elevator?"

"Nothing much we can do 'bout that," Handy said, looking at the big service elevator. "They wanta come rappelling in, we can get the first half-dozen of 'em. You know, their necks. Always aim for their necks."

Wilcox glanced at him then drawled, "So, whatcha thinking?"

I do get that look in my eyes, Handy thought. Pris says so all the time. Damn, he missed her. He wanted to smell her hair, listen to the sound of her bracelet as she shifted gears in her car, wanted to feel her underneath him as they fucked on the shag carpet of her apartment.

"Let's send one back to 'em," Handy said.

"One of the girls?"

"Yeah."

"Which one?"

"I don't know. That Susan maybe. She's all right. I like her."

Wilcox said, "I'd vote her most likely to hump. Not a bad idea to get her out of Bonner's sight. He'd be sniffing her lickety-split 'fore sunset. Or that other one, Melanie."

Handy said, "Naw, let's keep her. We oughta hang on to the weak ones."

"Second that."

"Okay, it'll be Susan." He laughed. "Not many girls around can look me in the eye and tell me I'm an asshole, I'll tell you that."

Melanie kept her arm tight around Kielle's shoulders, which were oddly muscular for an eight-year-old, and reached out a little further to rub the arm of one of the twins.

The girls were sandwiched in between her and Susan, and Melanie admitted reluctantly to herself that her gesture was only partially to reassure the younger ones; she also wanted the comfort for herself, the comfort of being close to her favorite student.

Melanie's hands were still shaking. She'd been unnerved when Brutus had grabbed her earlier as she was looking out the window, sending her message to the policeman in the field. And downright terrified when he'd pointed at her a few minutes ago and demanded to know her name.

She glanced at Susan and saw her looking angrily at Mrs. Harstrawn.

"What's the matter?" Melanie signed.

"My name. Giving it to him. Shouldn't have done that. Don't cooperate."

"We have to," the older teacher signed.