Robert Crais - Hostage

Rooney said, “Fuck you and fuck them! If you try to come in here, these kids are gonna die!”

“Let me speak to him, Dennis. Please. They think he’s dead, and they are going to come in.”

Rooney screamed, “SHIT!”

Talley could hear the frustration in Rooney’s voice. He waited. Rooney was silent and that meant he was thinking; he couldn’t put Smith on the phone, but he was scared to admit that Smith was injured. Talley felt a surge of excitement, but hid it. He softened his voice, made it understanding and sympathetic. We’re both in this together, pal .

“Is something wrong in there, Dennis? Is there a reason you can’t put Smith on the phone?”

Rooney didn’t answer.

“Talk to me, Dennis.”

Rooney took almost a full minute before he finally answered.

“He got knocked out. He won’t wake up.”

Talley knew better than to ask how; it would put Rooney on the defensive, and Talley didn’t want to do that. He had Smith’s situation out in the open, so now he could try to get Smith. Maddox, still watching, raised his eyebrows in a question. Talley nodded, getting there; he repeated the admission for Maddox.

“So you’re saying that Mr. Smith is unconscious. Okay, okay, I’m glad you’re telling me this, Dennis. That explains things. Now we can deal with it.”

“They better not try to come in here.”

They , not you .

“I think we can work with this, Dennis. Are we talking about a head injury here? I’m not asking how this happened, but is that what’s wrong with him?”

“It was an accident.”

“Is he breathing?”

“Yeah, but he’s out cold. He can’t talk.”

Now Talley had to move it to the next level. Now he had to get in the house, or get Smith out.

“Dennis, now I understand why you couldn’t put him on, but you’ve got a guy in there who needs to be in the hospital. Let me come get him.”

“Fuck that! I know what you bastards will do, you’ll rush the house.”

Rooney was scared. He was flat-out terrified.

“No. No, we wouldn’t do that.”

“Fuck yourself, Talley. You ain’t comin’ in!”

Talley pressed harder. He knew that he could have suggested sending in a paramedic or a doctor, but he didn’t want anyone going in; he wanted Walter Smith coming out.

“If you won’t let us come in, then all you have to do is put him outside, right outside the front door.”

“I’m not stupid! I’m not gonna walk out the door with all the snipers you have out there!”

Talley saw movement to his side, Maddox and Ellison. He heard Maddox key his radio, telling someone to have the ambulance brought up.

“No one is going to shoot you. Just put him outside and we’ll come get him. If you save his life, Dennis, it will help you when you get to court.”

“No!”

“That’s all it takes, Dennis. Put him outside.” Rooney’s voice rose.

“No!”

“Save him.”

Rooney shouted again.

“No!”

“Help me help you.”

Rooney slammed down the phone.

“Dennis?”

Nothing. Rooney was gone.

“DENNIS?!”

Maddox and Ellison stared at him, motionless, waiting.

“What?”

Talley had been so close, but he had wanted it too much. He had pressed too hard. He had lost.

DENNIS

Dennis slammed down the phone, then picked it up and smashed it on Smith’s desk.

“That fuck! That fuck wants me dead!”

He was so angry that his head felt swollen and thick. Kevin paced in front of the television with his arms crossed, a nervous wreck. Kevin went to the couch and stared down at Walter Smith.

“We should let them have him. He’s a lot worse.”

“Fuck them! They didn’t give us a helicopter, did they?”

“What does that matter? Look at him, Dennis! I think he’s having seizures.”

Smith would be still as a corpse, then he would suddenly jerk, his whole body twitching. Dennis couldn’t look at him.

“You wouldn’t know a seizure if it bit you on the ass.”

“Look at him. Maybe it’s brain damage.”

Dennis went to the shutters. Nothing had changed since he’d looked the time before, or from the time before that: The cul-de-sac was filled with cops and cop cars, and more seemed to be coming. Dennis wouldn’t admit it to Kevin, but he was scared. He was hungry and tired, and the smell of the gasoline in the entry was making him sick. His pockets bulged with the money he had stuffed in them.

Kevin came over to him.

“Dennis, he’s dying. It’s bad enough we got the Chinaman and that cop, this guy dies they’ll add another murder charge.”

“Shut up, Kevin. Jesus.”

“We should talk to a lawyer like that cop said. We need a lawyer to cut us a deal. We can blame Mars.”

“Don’t let him hear you!”

“I don’t care if he hears!”

“Just calm down, Kevin. I’m working on it. I just need some food, is all. Some food and some time. We’ll think of something. The girl is in there cooking.”

“How can you even think about eating? I’m about to puke.”

“I saw some Gaviscom in the bathroom. Eat that.”

“I want to sleep.”

“Would you shut the fuck up?! The cops will put you in jail, where you can sleep every night for the rest of your life!”

Dennis knew Kevin was right, but he tried not to think about it. Every plan he hatched had holes big enough to hide a house, and now the cops were threatening to break down the doors. Walter Smith twitched and trembled again. It looked like he was freezing to death, the way you’d shiver if you were sleeping on a block of ice. Dennis felt tears well in his eyes because he was so scared. Here he was, sitting on a million bucks, and he didn’t know what to do.

Mars and the girl came in with the pizzas, Dennis thinking that maybe the food would help, but when the girl saw her father, she dropped the pizza and ran straight to her father.

“What’s wrong with him? Daddy?!”

Dennis thought his head would burst.

She dropped down to her knees, leaning over her father but not touching him.

“Look at the way he’s shaking. Why is he shaking like this? Aren’t you going to do something?”

Kevin put on the pussy face.

“Dennis, he needs a doctor.”

Dennis wanted to smash him.

“No.”

The girl glared at him, screaming.

“He’s ice-cold! Can’t you see this? Don’t you know he’s dying?!”

Kevin stepped closer, in Dennis’s face now, pleading

“Please , Dennis. If he dies, we got another murder charge. We’re fucked up bad enough.”

Dennis was scared. He didn’t want the sonofabitch to die. He didn’t want another murder charge.

Kevin picked up the phone.

“Call them. Let them have him.”

“No.”

“They’ll like it that you’re trying to help. They might even cut us some slack. Think about it, Dennis. Think.”

Kevin stepped closer, his whisper more than a plea.

“If those SWAT guys come in here, you’ll never keep the money.”

Dennis glanced at Mars, who sat on the floor with a plate of eggs and pizza, eating. Mars met Dennis’s eyes, then made a little smile like he knew it all along, like Dennis didn’t have the balls to play it hard.

Fuck Mars.

Dennis wanted the money.

He took the phone and punched in Talley’s number.

TALLEY

Talley was charging his phone off the cigarette lighter in Maddox’s car when the phone rang. He tensed, a jag of fear jolting him because he thought it was the Watchman’s Nokia.

Maddox said, “That’s your phone.”

Talley opened his phone.

“Talley.”