A Maidens Grave

sometimes, you just don’t know what you want? Pizza or a Big Mac? Just can’t fucking decide.”
    Potter’s heart stuttered for a moment, for it seemed to him that Handy was being honest: that he really couldn’t decide what to do, and that if he spared the girl it wouldn’t be Potter’s reasoned talk that saved her but whim, pure and simple, on Handy’s part.
    “I’ll tell you what, Lou. I’m apologizing to you for the gunshot. I’ll give you my word it won’t happen again. In exchange for that, will you agree not to shoot that girl?”
    He’s smart, calculating, always thinking, the agent concluded. There wasn’t a thing psychotic about Handy that Potter could identify. He wrote on a sheet of paper IQ ? and pushed it toward LeBow.
    Don’t have it.
    Handy’s humming came through the phone. It was a song that Potter had heard a long time ago. He couldn’t place it. Then through the speaker the man’s amplified voice said, “Maybe I’ll wait.”
    Potter sighed. LeBow gave him a thumbs-up and Budd smiled.
    “I appreciate that, Lou. I really do. How’s your food situation?”
    Are you for real? Potter speculated.
    “What’re you, first you play cop, then you play nurse, now you’re a fucking caterer?”
    “I just want to keep everybody real calm and comfortable. Get you some sandwiches and sodas if you want. What do you say?”
    “We’re not hungry.”
    “Could be a long night.”
    Either: silence or Won’t be that long at all.
    “Don’t think it’s gonna be that long. Listen here, Art, you can chat me up ’bout food and medicine and any other crap you can think of. But the fact is we’ve got some things we’re gonna want and we better have ’em without no hassles or I start killing. One by one.”
    “Okay, Lou. Tell me what they are.”
    “We’ll do some talking here between us. And get back to you.”
    “Who’s ‘us,’ Lou?”
    “Aw, shit, you know, Art. There’s me and Shep and my two brothers.”
    LeBow tapped Potter’s arm. He was pointing to the screen. It read:
    Handy is one of three brothers. Bench warrant out on Robert, 27. LKA, Seattle; failed to appear for grand larceny trial, fled jurisdiction. Eldest brother, Rudy, 40, was killed five years ago. Shot six times in the back of head by unknown assailant. Handy was suspected; never charged.
    Potter thought of the delicate lines on his genealogy charts. What would Handy’s look like; from whom did his blood descend? “Your brothers, Lou?” he said. “Is that right? They’re inside with you?”
    A pause.
    “And Shep’s four cousins.”
    “That’s a lot of folk you got there. Anybody else?”
    “Doc Holliday and Bonnie ’n’ Clyde and Ted Bundy and a shitload of the gang from Mortal Kombat, and Luke Skywalker. And Jeffrey Dahmer’s hungry ghost.”
    “Maybe we better surrender to you, Lou.”
    Handy laughed again. Potter was pleased at the sliver of rapport. Pleased too that he managed to say the magic word “surrender,” plant it in Handy’s thoughts.
    “My nephew collects superhero comics,” the agent said. “He’d love an autograph. Spider-Man wouldn’t be in there too, would he?”
    “Might just be.”
    The fax machine whirred and a number of sheets scrolled out. LeBow snatched them up and flipped through them rapidly, paused at one and then scribbled on the top, HOSTAGES. He pointed to a girl’s name, followed by a block of handwritten text. It was preliminary data from Angie Scapello.
    Hostage negotiation is the process of testing limits. Potter read the fax and noticed something. He said casually, “Say, Lou, like to ask you a question. One of those girls in there’s got some serious health problems. Would you let her go?”
    It was surprising how often direct requests of this sort worked. Ask a question and go silent.
    “Really?” Handy sounded concerned. “Sick, huh? What’s the trouble?”
    “Asthma.” Maybe the joking and the cartoon-character chat was having an effect on Handy.
    “Which one is she?”
    “Fourteen, short blond hair.”
    Potter listened to the background noise—just hollowness—as Handy, he assumed, looked over the hostages.
    “If she doesn’t get her medicine she could die,” Potter said. “You release her, you do that for me, and when we get down to the serious negotiating I’ll remember it. Tell you what, release her and we’ll get you some electricity in there. Some lights.”
    “You’ll turn the power on?” Handy asked so suddenly it