Every Fifteen Minutes (36 page)

“Max!” Eric called out, and Max turned around, standing behind the counter in Oakley sunglasses and a black hoodie.

“Dr. Parrish.” Max raised a hunting rifle.

Eric tried not to look at the muzzle of the rifle. He couldn't see Max's eyes behind the sunglasses. “You don't want to shoot me. You don't want to shoot anybody.”

“You sure about that?” Max's voice sounded chilled, a tone Eric had never heard coming from the boy.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you, and I know you don't want to shoot me or anybody else.” Eric's mouth went dry. “That's not who you are.”

“You don't know me that well, Dr. Parrish.”

“Can I put my hands down? Will you lower that rifle?”

“No. Keep your hands up.”

“Max, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I'm doing? I have five hostages. They're locked in the storeroom.” Max checked his watch, then looked up, his expression obscured by the sunglasses. “In five minutes, I'm going to take one out and shoot him. I'm trying to decide which one.”

Eric absorbed, rather than merely heard the sentence. He felt it penetrate his skin, sending shockwaves through his body, to his very marrow. He didn't know this Max, this faceless terror behind sunglasses and a weapon. This wasn't the Max he had in his office, talking about feeling invisible. Eric could almost believe that this Max would kill kids and blow up a mall. But part of him still had faith.

“You don't believe me, do you?”

“I believe
in
you, Max. I believe in you.” Eric spoke from the heart, not as a therapist, not even as a father, but just as a man with his hands in the air, praying he could get everybody out alive.

“What does that mean? That you believe in me.”

“It doesn't mean anything. It's just a feeling. It's an emotion. You can't parse it or analyze it. It's pure.” Eric felt as if he was channeling something that had been in him for a long time. “I'm here for you. I want to get you out of here, alive. I can't stand the idea that you could die, you're too good for that, you're too young.” Eric nodded over his shoulder, toward the balcony. “They have snipers, Max. They're going to shoot you before you kill anybody, and I think that's why you're here. I think that's what you want. And I'm here for you, to tell you it doesn't have to be that way. That it can't be that way. I want you to let the kids go and walk out with me.”

“It
does
have to be this way. The kids have to die, and I have to die. The bomb has to go off and everybody has to die.”

“No,” Eric said softly. “Can I put my hands down, please?”

“Okay,” Max answered, after a moment.

“Thank you.” Eric lowered his arms slowly, but he stayed in the same position, aware that he was blocking Max from the snipers' rifles. They wouldn't shoot if Eric was in the way. At least he hoped they wouldn't.

“You should just go, Dr. Parrish. You don't need to be here. You don't want to see what happens.”

“I'm not leaving without you.”

“Ren
é
e's dead, Gummy's dead.” Max checked his watch. “Everybody's dead.”

“I don't think you killed Ren
é
e.”

“Really?” Max snorted. “Four minutes.”

“If you killed her, tell me you did. Because like I said, I don't believe you. I believe in you.”

“That's catchy, Dr. Parrish but”—Max paused, swallowing visibly—“if you want to know the truth, I don't know whether I killed her or not. I probably did. It probably was me. That's what we're both worried about, isn't it? You were worried, you asked me all those questions.”

“Why do you say that you don't know if you killed her?”

“I was drunk.” Max lowered the weapon slightly.

“What do you mean, you were drunk?”

“I started drinking. Vodka. My mom always has plenty of it around and I took some. After Gummy died, I was upset, I called you, remember?”

“Yes, of course.” Eric heard Max's voice soften, and he sounded a little more like the boy who'd been in session.

“I just wanted to drink, I didn't want to think about it. I parked near the school and nobody saw me, I just sat there drinking. I fell asleep in the car and when I woke, I just started drinking again. I wanted to see if you could really drink yourself to death.”

Eric became aware that there was movement behind him. He saw in his peripheral vision the black shadow of a sniper on the balcony, in front of Tiffany's. He stood his ground, between the sniper and Max. “Where were you yesterday morning, when she was killed?”

“I woke up in the Giant parking lot, I was hungover. It's, like, I don't remember anything.”

“Where's the Giant parking lot? Is it near Pickering Park?”

“Fifteen minutes away. I passed out, and when I woke up, I didn't even know where I was. I musta driven there drunk.”

Eric listened, pushing his awareness of the sniper from his mind. Sweat formed under the heavy jacket.

“When I woke up, it was, like, three o'clock in the afternoon, and I threw up, and I turned on the radio and they said … Ren
é
e was … dead.” Max faltered, as if the words lodged in his throat. “I don't know if I did it or not, but I probably did. So now I have to pay, and now everybody has to pay.”

“Max, what if you didn't do it? What if somebody else did it?”

“Who? Who would've done it?” Max's voice turned almost pleading. “Answer me that. Tell me. I'm the crazy one, I'm the one with the tapping, I'm the one who fantasized about killing her and now she's dead. I think I did it, and it doesn't matter anyway because there's nothing anymore. There's nothing for me. Everybody's dead.” Max checked his watch. “Three minutes.”

“Your grandmother wouldn't want you to do this. Your grandmother would want you to let those kids go and walk out with me.”

“My grandmother's dead. I don't have anybody.”

“That's not true. You have a yellow rabbit.”

“What?”

“A yellow rabbit, I saw it in your room. Next to your bed, by the photograph.” Eric was improvising, but let himself talk, hoping to strike a chord. “It was interesting to me, to see that. In a room covered with all kinds of video game posters, a little yellow rabbit slumped over. I'm curious why you saved it.”

“Oh please.”

“Tell me, tough guy with the sunglasses, not to mention the rifle.” Eric let a note of humor filter into his tone. “Why the rabbit?”

“It's just a toy, is all.”

“A toy from a better time of your life.”

“Right.”

“You were happy then?”

“Yes.”

“What if you could be happy again?”

Max didn't answer.

“You can be happy again. Even after all you've gone through, you can be happy again, and I can help you. Give me a chance.”

“So?” Max said, after a moment.

“So we figure this out together, just like therapy. It's the same thing, just you and me, walking into the cave together. You have the flashlight, and I have your hand.”

“No, sorry. Too late.”

“What about the bomb?”

“What about it?”

“Where is it?”

Max nodded toward a Whole Foods bag sitting on the counter, and Eric swallowed hard.

“Is it going to blow up?”

“No, that's not how it works.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I made it. It's not hard, you can just look on the Internet.”

“Really.” Eric had read that, but it was hard to imagine Max making a bomb. And the boy hadn't been home. Where did he make a bomb? How did Max get the ingredients? The time? “I want to see it. I want to see what a bomb looks like.”

“You can't see it, really. It's wrapped up.”

“I still want to see it. Show it to me.”

Max stayed still, then shrugged. “Why don't you go see it for yourself then?”

“I can't move.”

“Why not?” Max checked his watch. “Two minutes.”

“Because of the sniper. I'm covering you. I'm blocking his shot.”

“What?” Max tilted his head up, but Eric couldn't tell if he saw the sniper behind his dark glasses.

“The sniper behind me, he's moving into position, and these guys are experts. He's going to shoot you right over my shoulder—or he's going to shoot through me.”

“So you should move, Dr. Parrish.”

“No, I'm standing here. If they want to shoot you, they're going to have to shoot me.”

“Are you
serious
?”

“Yes.”

Max said nothing, biting his lip. “Please. Move.”

“No.”

“Then
I'll
move.” Max moved a step to the side, and so did Eric, mirroring him. Max moved a step to the right, and so did Eric, mirroring him again.

“I'm here for you, Max. I'm not going anywhere.”

“So you're standing here, like, you're gonna save me?”

“No, I'm standing here as a placeholder. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“It means I'm holding your place, until you are ready to stand for yourself. You don't need me to save you. I can help you, and you can save yourself.” Eric sensed that Max was listening, so he continued. “I'm not going to let them kill you. I'm not going to let you kill yourself. I'm going to show you an alternative. That's my job, to get you over the times when you believe there aren't any alternatives, to help you through the time you don't have any hope. To make you know that you can be happy again, and that you will be.”

“That's not possible.”

“Yes it is. I'm sure of it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it happened to me.” Eric thought that if there was ever a time for self-disclosure, it was now. “I used to be anxious, I had an anxiety disorder. I kept it secret, and it keep me apart from everybody. I thought it would never end, and I thought about ending it all, more than one time. But then I got into therapy and I got better. It was hard work, but I had the help of a great therapist. He's still in my life, and he always will be. He's a father I never had.”

“This sounds like bull.”

“It's not, it's absolutely true.”

“And you think you can do that for me?”

“Not for you, but with you. You and me, we can do it together.”

“You want to be the father I never had.”

“No, I want to be the psychiatrist you never had. I want to be the help you've never had. I want to give you the attention and the time you never had. I want to give you a chance you never had. Will you let me do that? Give us both a chance, Max. This isn't you, not the real you. The gun, the bomb, the hostages.” Eric nodded at the Whole Foods bag. “Do you know what? I don't think it's a real bomb, at all. I think you dressed like a bad guy in a video game and you got some old rifle, and you told the clerk it was a bomb and they believed you. But I don't think it's real. I don't think any of this is real. Am I right?”

Max didn't reply, impassive behind the sunglasses. He checked his watch but said nothing.

“Do you even have any bullets?”

“No,” Max answered softly.

“Thank God. So now we have to get out of here, and we have to get these kids out of here safely, because this is a very dangerous situation. Anybody could get shot, everybody's on edge, and you're not gonna believe what it looks like out in the parking lot.” Eric nodded at the landline. “Just pick up the phone and call your mother. Tell her to tell Lieutenant Jana that you're letting the kids go. That the bomb was a hoax. That you and I are coming out with no guns. Unarmed. Tell her that it's over.”

“I said no.” Max stayed very still. “No.”

“Yes.” Eric couldn't stop now. It was time. “I'm going to walk toward you. I don't want the snipers behind me to get trigger-happy.”

“No, don't.” Max edged away. “I don't know—”

“I'm coming toward you now, Max.” Eric began to walk toward the end of the counter.

“Stop, no.”

“Don't do anything quickly, just walk to the end of the counter, meet me, and set the weapon down.”

“No.”

“Yes, please, do it!”

Max finally moved, met him at the end, setting the weapon down on the counter, then seeming to buckle at the knees, collapsing. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”

“I know.” Eric caught Max and held him close, keeping his own back to the sniper. “Good job, Max. Good boy. It's over now.”

“I didn't mean to, I didn't want to.”

“I know, I know. Call your mother.” Eric slid the phone to Max, still shielding him, and Max sniffled, beginning to cry, then pressed the number into the phone and held the receiver to his ear.

“Mom?” he said, dissolving into tears.

 

Chapter Forty-one

Eric and Max walked down the hallway, both of them holding their hands up, as directed. Eric had told Lieutenant Jana on the phone that Max was unarmed and the bomb a hoax, and the lieutenant had given them explicit actions on how to get out of the mall safely. Armed snipers lined the balcony, faceless under black helmets. He and Max had released the hostages, a terrified store clerk and four boys hiding embarrassed tears, all from a soccer day camp. The authorities weren't worried about danger anymore, but Eric sensed they were mad as hell, rightfully so.

“I'm scared,” Max said, walking toward the exit with his hands in the air.

“Stay calm, it's okay.” Eric walked him past the lighted billboards on the wall, with beautiful women showing Almay makeup and holding costly leather handbags conspicuously, Nordstrom evidently having a sale.