Then she hangs up.
I stare at her in total astonishment.
“That,” I say, “was a big mistake.”
Pam shrugs. “This is New York City,” she says. “Do you know how long it’s going to take them to get here? By the time they do, I’ll be long gone. And you’ll have bled to death.”
Pam obviously doesn’t realize what’s happening in the park approximately a hundred yards from the entrance to her ex-husband’s apartment building.
And how many cops are out there as a consequence.
On the other hand, it won’t matter if two dozen cops storm apartment 6–J in the next twenty seconds if she manages to put a bullet in my brain the way she did Owen’s.
Which is exactly what I realize she’s about to do when she raises the pistol she’s holding and points it at my head.
“Good-bye, Heather,” she says. “Owen was right about you, you know. You really aren’t that good of an administrator.”
Owen said that? Geez! Talk about ungrateful! And I was really helpful when he first started, showing him the ropes and the best place to get a bagel (outside of the café, of course), and everything. And he said I wasn’t a good administrator? What was he even talking about? Has he seen the binders I created at the reception desk, making the kids responsible for keeping their own time sheets, so I don’t have to bother with it? And what about my innovative way of getting the student workers to pay attention to what’s going on in and around the building, the Fischer Hall Newsletter? Was Owen completely unaware of the fact that Simon Hague, over in Wasser Hall, stole my idea, and invented his own student worker newsletter, and even had the nerve to call it the Wasser Hall Newsletter?
Well?Was he?
But I don’t have a chance to process how I feel about this betrayal, because I’m busy ducking the bullet Owen’s ex-wife has just fired at me. Ducking and, I’d like to add, diving over the side of the couch and grabbing the one thing in the apartment I think might actually give me half a chance to survive the next two minutes until the boys (and girls) in blue can get up here and save my cellulite-ridden butt.
And that’s Garfield.
Who isn’t too happy about being snatched from his resting place on the sofa cushion, by the way.
But then, the sound of a handgun going off at close proximity hadn’t made him particularly happy, either.
Snarling and snapping, the great big orange tabby is doing his best to get away from me. But I have him by the scruff of his neck with one hand, his sizable belly with the other. His unsheathed and flailing claws are, fortunately, facing away from me. So there’s virtually no way he can escape.
But no one’s told him that. He’s twenty-five pounds or so of pure enraged muscle. And he’s taking it out on me. All I can taste and smell for a few seconds is fur and gunpowder, especially when I practically land on him.
But I’m alive.
I’m alive.
I’m alive.
Pam is staring confusedly at the spot in which I’d been standing. Blinking, she turns, and stares at the place to which I’ve leaped over the couch.
When she sees what I’m holding, her eyes widen.
“That’s right,” I say. My voice sounds oddly muted. That’s because the crack of the pistol had been so loud, everything in relation now sounds completely muffled, including the protests from the creature I’m holding, like the city after a record snowfall. “I’ve got Garfield. Come any closer, Pam, and I swear, the cat gets it.”
The smile that had been playing across Pam’s face freezes. Her upper lip begins to twitch.
“You’re… you’re bl-bluffing,” she stammers.
“Try me,” I say. The stupid cat still won’t quit struggling. But over my dead body am I letting go of him. Literally. “Pull that trigger again, and yeah, you might hit me. But I’ll still have time to snap his neck before I go. I swear I’ll do it. I love animals—but not this one.”
And I do mean that. Especially as Owen’s cat’s fangs sink into my wrist. Ow! Stupid cat! Wasn’t I the one who brought Pam over here to make sure he got his stupid pills? Talk about ungrateful! Like pet, like owner.
Pam’s face twists in pain—even though I’m the one who’s bleeding.
“Garfield!” she cries, in anguish. “No! Let him go, you witch!”
Witch. Not bitch.
Priceless.
I’m not sure, given my state of semi-deafness. But I think I hear voices in the hallway. Suddenly there’s pounding on the door to the apartment.
“Put the gun down, Pam,” I say, stalling for time. “Put the gun down, and no one—including Garfield—will get hurt. It’s not too late to give yourself up.”
“You—you meanie!” Pam’s eyes are bright with tears. “All I wanted was what I deserved! All I wanted was to make a clean start! Why can’t you just let the cat go, and we’ll call it even? I’ll go—I’ll take Garfield, and go. Just give me a head start.”
“I can’t do that, Pam,” I say. “You already called the cops, remember? In fact—I think they’re here.”
Pam spins around just as something that sounds like a small explosion goes off in the hallway. A second later, four or five of New York’s Finest, their guns drawn, burst into the living room.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see anyone before in my life. I’d have rushed over and kissed them if I hadn’t been so busy concentrating on not getting my hands gnawed off.
“Ma’am!” the first cop cries, the mouth of his piece pointed at Pam’s chest. “Drop the gun, lay down on the floor, and place your hands upon your head, or I will be forced to fire.”
I’m busy thinking it’s all over. I’m busy thinking,Swell, okay, she’s going to put the gun down, and I can put this stupid cat down, and then I can go home, and this will be all over, and I can go back to my boring little life, for which I will never again be ungrateful. I love my boring little life. I love it. Thank God this is finally over.
Except it isn’t. Not by a long shot. No pun intended.
“You don’t understand,” Pam wails, waving her gun at me. “She has Garfield! She won’t let go of Garfield!”
Oh God. No. Please, no.
“Ma’am,” the officer says again. “I’m asking you again to drop the gun, or I will be forced to fire.”
Drop the gun, Pam. Pam, please. Just drop the gun.
“But I called you,” Pam insists, still waving the gun around. “She’s the one who threatened me!”
The next thing I know, another shot’s been fired. I have no idea whose gun it’s come from, or whether or not it strikes home, because I’ve hit the floor, clutching Garfield to me and curling into as small a ball as I possibly can, with the thought of trying to make myself into the tiniest target possible. The cat, for his part, has stopped trying to bite me, and is now clinging to me as tightly as I’m clinging to him. If his ears are ringing anywhere near as loud as mine are, I figure he has as little idea what’s going on as I do.
All I know is, it’s just me and Garfield, all alone in this world. Just me and him. All we have is each other. I’m never letting go of him. And I’m pretty sure he’s never letting go of me.
It isn’t until someone lays a hand on my shoulder and shouts, “Miss! It’s all right to get up now!” (apparently, he had to shout in order for me to hear him, since my hearing was so blown on account of the gunfire) that I uncurl myself and look around to see that Pam’s gun has been wrestled away from her—primarily because some excellent marksman has shot it out from her fingers. She’s cradling her now useless and bloody fingers in her uninjured hand, and blubbering out a confession to my old friend, Detective Canavan, who looks at me tiredly above the semi-hysterical woman’s head.
Wedding china?he mouths.
I am in so much shock, I can’t even shrug. The truth is, I don’t get it, either. But then again, there’s a lot I don’t seem to get. Like why, even though the police officers and EMTs keep offering to take Garfield from me, I still can’t let him go. In my defense,he won’t let go of me, either. It’s like we’re the only two stable beings in a world turned suddenly topsy-turvy.