“Walt, dispatch called the TAC Team.”
“We’ll sit on him until they get here.”
“And if he runs, Walt?”
Sydowski didn’t answer. He went to the door for a lookat Shook.
He sat alone, back close to the wall, stabbing at hisfood with his right hand, his left forearm draped defensively around his plate,displaying his tattoos, letting the world know he was a motherfucker. Hescanned the hall continuously, trusting nothing. It was the way you ate inside.Old habits died hard. But he never faced trouble here. It was one of the thingshe liked about Our Lady. That, and the fact that it was clean. The hall wasclean and the church was clean, smelling of candle wax and lemon furniturepolish. Pure and clean.
That was it.
Shook stopped chewing.
She cleaned upstairs. Polished the pews. And she wasalways there when he visited the priest! He had a clear line to the kitchendoor as a thin young man carrying a tub of dirty dishes entered. In the halfsecond the door opened, Shook saw a professional-looking woman in a blazertalking on a phone. And he saw that little slut talking to a man in a suit,with gray hair, tanned face-he recognized him from TV news.
He was a fucking cop!
Shook’s pulse rate exploded. The little bitch wastelling them about him.
They had come for him!
Shook heard the squeak of brakes, an engine idling.Through a cracked basement window, he saw the car’s rocket panels, it’sblack-and-white paint scheme. The window was too small to get through.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Uniformed officer Gary Crockett joined Sydowski andTurgeon in the kitchen, a radio in his hand.
“Use your earpiece,” Sydowski demanded. “Tell theothers.”
Crockett relayed their order through his radio.
“You got bodies at all the exits?” Turgeon asked him.
Crockett nodded. “Who’ve we got?”
“Suspect in the child abductions-shit!”
Sydowski saw the Channel 5 Live News van pull up tothe rear.
“Crockett, have somebody keep the press back!”
“TAC is rolling, Walt,” Turgeon said from her phone.“Yes. Patch him through-Walt, it’s Lieutenant Gonzales.”
He took the phone. “Leo. It’s our boy.” His eyes wereon Shook.
“We need him, Walt. Sit on him ‘til TAC gets there.”
“I know my job, Leo.”
“I’m ten minutes from you. Rust and Ditmire are ontheir way.”
“Jesus!” Sydowski tossed the phone to Crockett. “He’smade us. Linda, come on! Crockett have your people move in when I shout.”
Shook rose, walking calmly to the door. He heard theirfootsteps on the hardwood floor behind him.
“One moment please!” It was the male pig.
Shook’s stomach tightened. He kept walking. He was notgoing back inside. Never going back. He reached down into his boot. “Police!Stop right there!”
The economy had cost Dolores Lopez her job cleaningtoilets in the office towers of the financial district. Her boss, Mr. Weems,was a born-again Christian who cried when he let Dolores go. She was a singlemother with four children. She didn’t know what she was going to do. In onemonth, she would lose her apartment on Potrero Hill. Every day she prayed tothe Virgin who smiled upon her. They had found Our Lady’s shelter last week andMr. Weems had arranged a job interview tomorrow with a cleaning firm inOakland. Dolores was telling her children to never abandon hope, to always payhomage to the Mother of Jesus, when she felt her hair being torn from her head,as she was lifted by an arm crushing her neck.
The steel point of a knife was pressed solidly belowher eye.
She heard shouting, but did not scream.
“Mama! Mama!” Carla, her three-year-old daughter, ranto her. Someone pushed her back. Dolores pulled weakly at the arm around herthroat. And she prayed because she knew she was going to die.
Please, Holy Mother, watch over my children.
Sydowski pulled his Glock from his hip holster.Turgeon had her Smith amp; Wesson trained on Shook’s head.
“Drop the knife, now!” Sydowski was ten feet away.Turgeon moved to Shook’s side. Shook glanced at her and said nothing.
“Everybody on the floor!” Sydowski locked eyes withShook. “Don’t be stupid! Release the woman! We want to talk!”
Two uniformed officers entered the doorway, gunsdrawn. Sydowski noticed the eye of a TV news camera peeking through one of thebasement windows. His fingers were sweating on the trigger of his gun. He hatedthis. Christ, did he hate this. Shook was encircled, four guns aimed at him.Sydowski ordered the officers into a pattern to avert crossfire.
“You can leave here dead, or you can leave here alive.But you are not leaving with the woman. Drop the knife now and release her.”
“Let me out of here or she dies and it’s on you!”
Shook cut Dolores with the knife, blood spurted downher cheek. Her children screamed.
“Officer!” Sydowski was talking to the uniform fifteenfeet from Shook’s right shoulder. “Do you have a clear head shot?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Don’t try it, pig! You’ll hit her! Let me outta here.I ain’t going back in the fuckin’ hole.”
“We just want to talk, Virgil.”
“I ain’t going back!”
Dolores’s face was a half mask of blood. Shook twistedthe knife.
Sydowski holstered his gun, raised his open hands, andeased forward. “We want to talk, Virgil. Please, let her go.”
When Shook relaxed his arm to reposition it acrossDolores throat, she bit into his bicep and stomped on his foot. Shook winced,and she broke away grabbing Sydowski’s outstretched hand, flinching when sheheard two shots.
They were deafening. The first bullet hit Shook in thelower neck shredding his internal and external jugulars, exiting into theceiling. The next destroyed his trachea and spleen before lodging in hisstomach. The knife went flying. He dropped to the floor.
The uniform officer was frozen, his gun stillextended. There were screams, sirens, and the smell of gun powder. Policeradios crackled. Turgeon called for an ambulance. Dolores Lopez embraced herchildren.
Shook was on his back, making gurgling noises, bloodand vomit oozing from his mouth. His white T-shirt was glistening crimson.Sydowski was on his knees, trying to obtain a dying declaration. Turgeon wasthere with him, listening.
“What’s your name?” Sydowski said.
Shook made unintelligible noises.
“Where are the children, Virgil?”
Shook’s mouth moved. Sydowski placed an ear over it.Nothing.
Sydowski touched his fingers to Shook’s neck. Wasthere a pulse?
Gonzales rushed in. “How bad is it?”
Turgeon shook her head. Sydowski bent over Shook’smouth again.
Special FBI Agents Rust and Ditmire arrived.
“Oh, this is beautiful,” Ditmire said. “Fuckingbeautiful.”
Shook was still making noises when paramedics beganworking on him. “It’s bad. We’re losing him,” one of them said.
Sydowski stood, and ran his hand over his face.Walking away, he grabbed a chair, smashing it against the wall under thequotation:
IT IS IN DYING THAT WE ARE BORN TO ETERNAL LIFE.
FIFTY-FIVE
The new note taped to Reed’s door was scrawled in unforgiving block letters:‘WHERE IS RENT? NO RENT, NO ROOM. L. Onescu.”
Reed had broken too many promises to Lila. His keydidn’t work. She had changed the lock. He set down the paper bag containing hissupper. Two bottles of Jack Daniels and potato chips. He searched his wallet.Thirty-five bucks. His checkbook was in the room. Damn.
He walked the two blocks uphill to Lila’s building,entered the lobby, and leaned on the buzzer to her condo. No answer.
“She’s not home, Reed,” a man’s voice echoed throughthe intercom. “Hey, I’m surprised you’re not at work tonight.”
Reed looked into the security camera.
“Long story. I’d rather not talk about it now,Mickey.”