Чак Хоган - The Standoff

And he had. And it was. The next day they left him for her mother’s and never returned. In the restraining order, Nicole had repeated to a judge the various warnings that her father, in his fits of despair, had issued to her. That she could be strangled in her sleep. That she could become anybody’s hostage. That she could be raped and killed. That her mother could be murdered. That people die suddenly and for no reason at all. That life had absolutely no meaning or purpose. That the bad received no punishment, and the good no reward.

The warnings were meant to snap her out of her everyday slumber, to make her vigilant. In reality, they were the ramblings of a diseased drunk, and of course came to be interpreted as threats. He had laid their home to waste. He had defiled something there that was sacred. There was no forgiving that. He did not even ask for forgiveness. For wrecking the house, for months of torment — he could not paper over that. Yet still he wanted them back. He was a changed man. He had served two years of penance in Skull Valley and he was better now yet it was all still not enough. At the bottom of his heart, he knew that it was simply too late.

He went to his desk and sat, wanting what he could not have. That which was once his to keep safe. He looked again at the telephone. It mocked him. He thought about calling out to the switchboard and having them open up an outside line so that he could further punish himself with pathetic dreams of reconciliation. Then Coyle pushed open the door flap and came inside. She had the itemized expenditures list from the previous day. He had to review it, checking and initialing each individual sum, then sign off on the total day’s cost. She stood watching over him as he did.

The man in the headphones signaled and Banish sat up in the chair facing the panel of controls. Blood stayed where he was, again watching from the corner. It was now suppertime and neither he nor Banish had eaten lunch, but there was an urgency in the van, fully realized whenever Ables’s voice came through, that precluded the satisfying of everyday human appetites.

“Watson.”

When it came, they went into motion. Small lights came on in the electrical works and tape recorder wheels started to turn. Ables’s voice was like a fuse switch thrown on, jerking the van to life. The speakers made it sound as though he were right inside there with them.

Banish worked his microphone. “Right here, Mr. Ables,” he said into it. He kept his eyes trained ahead and down as he talked.

Ables said, “Is he there now?”

“Who, Mr. Ables?”

“Banish.”

Banish sat up a bit, resettling himself. This sort of talk clearly made him uncomfortable. “No,” he said, “he is not.”

“Even after I called for him?”

“I explained to you, Mr. Ables, that is not even an issue. I am here for you. It is just you and me talking.”

“What did he say about me?”

Banish rubbed his face. “He didn’t say anything, Mr. Ables. I have not spoken with him. What do you mean?”

“I want to know how it’s going to come.”

“Mr. Ables — I am assuring you, unless you want to try something foolish again—”

“What about your family, Watson?”

“We are not talking about my family, Mr. Ables.”

“I want to know.”

Banish said, “Have you reached any decision regarding your coming out?”

“I can guess,” said Ables. “Three boys is what I see. Close in age. Real popular boys, strong boys, all-American all-stars. Real friendly at school with their Jew professors.”

Banish said, “Mr. Ables—”

“I see a wife everybody in the neighborhood likes, who fake-kisses on the cheek all her Jewess friends. I see her in a red apron waving from a white picket fence.”

Banish said, “Mr. Ables, are you trying to insult me?”

“I didn’t think that was an insult, Watson. I used to live in America for a while, don’t forget. I saw what was out there in the suburbs. I’m saying that I bet you have the perfect all-American family. That is what I am guessing. You and a wife and three strong blond boys, all driving cars with slanty headlights, working to put money in the bearded man’s pocket.”

“Mr. Ables, we are so far afield—”

“I think you are hiding something, Watson.”

Banish relented a bit. “I have nothing to hide, Mr. Ables.”

“You do, Watson. I can tell you do.”

Banish stared ahead. After a while, he spoke. “I have no sons, Mr. Ables,” he said. “I have one daughter, who is engaged to be married.”

“How old, Watson?”

“My daughter is twenty-one.”

“Young for marriage nowadays.”

“It comes as a relief,” Banish said. “She seems to be on the right track now.”

Blood’s eyebrows were up. He couldn’t see the strategy in any of this.

Ables pressed him. “You’re saying she had some trouble.”

Banish nodded as though recalling it. “As a teenager,” he said. “Falling in with the wrong crowd. We had some rough years. She ran away from home when she was fourteen, for one day, and when she was fifteen, for three. Her mother had her hands full, and I was away a lot. I regret not being there.”

Blood even considered tapping him on the shoulder. Banish seemed to have lost himself in his candor. Blood saw the sound man turn to look at Banish as well.

Ables’s voice said, “All them schools are ghettos now. That’s what I got my kids away from.”

“Guns and violence,” Banish said.

“That’s right.”

Banish nodded. “Trouble is where you find it, Mr. Ables,” he said, the irony of the thing not lost on him. He appeared then to come up for air. “Does that satisfy you now?”

“I am not looking for satisfaction, Watson. You get to go home to your family when you are through. I won’t.”

“Mr. Ables, I am personally overseeing each and every aspect of your arrest. I am guaranteeing you that there will be no shooting, that you will not be harmed in any way.”

Ables said, “I trust you, Watson. I do. Truly. You can’t guarantee me nothing. Guarantee me the sun’ll come up tomorrow.”

“Who do you trust, then, Mr. Ables? I can arrange for eyewitnesses to be there to watch your arrest. Who do you trust?”

Ables, apparently thinking it over, said finally, “No one.”

“Your wife’s parents,” said Banish.

“No.”

“Television cameras, then. The media. I can have them film the arrest for your protection. How would you like that?”

“What about my home, Watson?”

Banish was nodding. It looked like progress here. “The only thing I can suggest,” he said, “is that you arrange to sign ownership of your property over into your wife’s name. That is my best suggestion to you. Possession is nine tenths of the law.”

“Whose law, Watson? Your law or mine? Mine says free and innocent men are left alone by their government.”

“We are making some progress here, Mr. Ables. Let’s stick to resolving the terms of your coming outside—”

“Do you think I’m a bad man, Watson? I want your view on this. You think I’m a guilty man?”

Banish let out a short breath. “Mr. Ables,” he said, “I have no opinion on the matter.”

“I’m as guilty as you are, Watson. I just tried to live my life alone up here. I minded my own business as other folks mind theirs, and if no one came up here meddling in my life, then I wouldn’t have gone and bothered anyone in theirs. But it ain’t up to me. You came up here, Watson, and you scratched me, but I don’t bleed.”

“Mr. Ables—”

“You found that out. I scratch back. If this was a fair fight, I’d win it. You might even know that I would. But nothing is fair, Watson. Resist and they will crush you. Deny them and try to stay with your own and they will rise up and make an example of you. That’s what this is right here, Watson. Maybe you can see that now. I am the example.”