A Maidens Grave

—
    How? she wonders.
    Handy’s eyes looked Melanie up and down as if he clearly knew the answer to her question and was simply waiting for her to catch on. Then he looked at his watch, bent down, grabbed Emily by the arm. He dragged the little girl, hands pressed together in desperate prayer, into the main room.
     
    Handy was singing.
    Potter had called and said, “Lou, how’re things going in there? Thought we heard a few gunshots.”
    To the tune of “Streets of Laredo” Handy sang in a half-decent voice, “I see by my Timex you got fifteen minutes . . . .”
    “You sound like you’re in a bright mood, Lou. You doing okay foodwise?”
    His voice didn’t reveal his concern. Were they gunshots?
    “I’m feeling pretty chipper, sure am. But I don’t want to talk about my moods. That’s fucking boring, isn’t it?Tell me about my golden helicopter that’s flying through the air right now. You get me one with diamond rotors, Art? Some babe with huge tits in the cockpit?”
    What were those shots?
    Looking at the monitor, the telescopic camera fixed on the window, he could see ten-year-old Emily Stoddard’s waved blond hair, her big eyes, heart-shaped face. The silver glint of Handy’s blade rested on her cheek.
    “He’s going to cut her,” Angie whispered. For the first time that day her voice cracked with emotion. Because she, like Potter, knew he’d do it.
    “Lou, we have your chopper. It’s on its way.”
    Why won’t he wear down? Potter wondered. After this much time most criminal takers’re climbing the walls. They’ll do anything to cut a deal.
    “Hold on, Lou. I think that’s the pilot now. I’m going to put you on hold. I’ll be right back.”
    “No need. Just get me that chopper in fourteen minutes.”
    “Just hold on.”
    Potter hit the mute button and asked, “What do you think, Angie?”
    She gazed out the window. Suddenly she announced, “He’s serious. He’s going to do it. He’s tired of the bargaining. And he’s still mad about the assault.”
    “Tobe?”
    “It’s ringing, there’s no answer.”
    “Damn it. Doesn’t he keep the phone in his pocket?”
    “You still there, Lou?”
    “Time’s awasting, Art.”
    Potter tried to sound distracted as he asked, “Oh, hey, tell me, Lou. What about those shots?”
    A low chuckle. “You sure are curious about that.”
    “ Were they shots?”
    “I dunno. Maybe it was all in your head. Maybe you were feeling guilty ’bout that trooper of yours getting accidentally shot after you accidentally tried to attack me. And you heard it, you know, like a delusion.”
    “Sounded real to us.”
    “Maybe Sonny accidentally shot himself cleaning his gun.”
    “That what happened?”
    “Be a shame if anybody was counting on him to be a witness and all and what happens but he goes and cleans a Glock without looking to see if there was a round inside.”
    “There is no deal between him and us, Lou.”
    “Not now there ain’t. I’ll guaran-fucking-tee that.”
    LeBow and Angie looked up at Potter.
    “Bonner’s dead?” the negotiator asked Handy.
    Have you ever done anything bad, Art?
    “You got twelve minutes,” Handy’s cheerful voice said.
    Click.
    Tobe said, “Got him. Budd.”
    Potter grabbed the offered phone. “Charlie, you there?”
    “I’m at the airport and they’ve got a helicopter here. But I can’t find anybody to fly it.”
    “There’s got to be somebody.”
    “There’s a school here—an aviation school—and some guy lives in the back but he won’t answer the door.”
    “I need a chopper here in ten minutes, Charlie. Just buzz the river and set it down in that big field to the west. The one about a half-mile from here. That’s all you’ve got to do.”
    “That’s all ? Oh, brother.”
    Potter said, “Good luck, Charlie.” But Charlie was no longer on the line.
     
    Charlie Budd ran underneath the tall Sikorsky helicopter. It was an old model, a big one, the sort that had plucked dripping astronauts from the ocean during the Gemini and Apollo days at NASA. It was orange and red and white, Coast Guard colors, though the insignias had long ago been painted over.
    The airport was small. There was no tower, just an air sock beside a grass strip. A half-dozen single-engine Pipers and Cessnas sat idle, tied down securely against Land of Oz twisters.
    Budd slammed his fist onto the door of a small shack behind the airport’s one hangar. The sign beside the door said, D. D. Pembroke