Crescent City Connection

around her neck. Dorise was wearing the T-shirt and shorts she’d gone to bed in, her mother a fleecy, rose-colored robe. They were sitting like that, her mother stroking her hair, when the phone rang.
    “Should I answer it?” asked her mother. It was probably bad news. The po-lice calling to tell her the worst.
    “No!” She put her hands over her ears.
    “You crazy, girl?” Her mother picked up the receiver.
    She said, “Yes?” like some lady on television, somebody who lived in a mansion. In a minute, she hollered, “Praise the Lord!” and the phone tumbled out of her hands.
    “What is it, Mama?”
    “Shavonne. Shavonne calling.” She was rooting around on the floor, trying to find the phone. There was only a dial tone when she finally did.
    The two FBI agents pounded into the bedroom. “Was that her voice?”
    Dorise was crying.
    “Hang up. Hang up the phone.” One of the men did it for her. Dorise stared as if it were a dead thing that might come alive. It rang again.
    She answered slowly, so as not to break the spell, if that’s what it was. “Honey?”
    “Mama?”
    “Shavonne, honey, is that you?” The two agents were scrambling back to their equipment.
    “Mama. Mama, I’m all right. They treatin’ me good and they need love …” Her voice sounded the way it did when she read aloud, unsure of each word, figuring each one out as she went along.
    “Where are you, honey?”
    “Love less. They will trade me for love.” Each word separate, slow. “Love less.”
    “What you say, honey? Tell me again.”
    A man spoke into the phone. “Tell the police we want Lovelace. We’ll call again.”
    Dorise felt as if her whole body were being torn by exploding sobs she couldn’t control, that seemed not even a part of her but something far away and destructive.

Twenty-six
    “THEY CALLED DORISE,” Shellmire said. “An agent’s on his way with the tape.”
    Everyone shouted questions, Skip fairly shrieking hers: “Did she talk to Shavonne?”
    He ignored them all, shouting over them. “I’ll run it down, if everyone’ll just be patient.” He looked wilted. Skip thought he must have already sweated a gallon, and the day had hardly started.
    The man’s going to be dehydrated by noon.
    But so much could happen between then and noon; there was so very much to lose.
    “They put Shavonne on and apparently had her read a prepared statement. She said she’s okay and they’ll exchange her for Lovelace. At least that’s what it sounds like. Then a man came on and said they’d call again later.”
    “Lovelace for Shavonne. Why on earth do they want her?” Skip was thinking aloud. She didn’t like it. There had to be more.
    King said, “Are the hostage negotiators on the scene?”
    Shellmire shook his head. “Penny Ferguson’s going to be handling the negotiation.” He looked at his watch. “She should be here in about ten minutes.”
    They drank coffee and waited for her, Taylor drumming his pencil nervously the whole time. Skip thought,
Wouldn’t you know he’d be a psychologist.
    Ferguson arrived with another agent, carrying a briefcase that might have held a change of clothing. She was a petite woman with a neat pageboy. Her hair was sun-streaked brown, the kind of hair that looks natural and costs plenty. Her well-tailored pantsuit was a deep olive, almost black but not as severe. Her silk blouse was a lighter olive that brought out the green in dark hazel eyes. The whole effect was pleasing to the point of soothing. It occurred to Skip that this was no accident.
    Ferguson introduced herself in a voice that washed over the group like mother’s milk—warm and nourishing, just sweet enough to make you want more. Skip felt instantly comfortable; she noticed even King was smiling. “Agent Ferguson,” he said, and his own voice seemed to have lost some of its edge.
    “Sorry I’m late. I just got in from Washington.”
    Shellmire said, “Agent Ferguson’s the best we got—I call her our secret weapon. We flew her in ’cause she’s got a voice could make you kill your grandma if she wanted you to. Fortunately, she usually just wants you to give up your life of crime.”
    Ferguson smiled, and she had the teeth of a movie star, an all-American, girl-next-door kind of grin that made you glad she’d gone into law enforcement instead of white-collar crime. “I’m what they call a VNL—till they know me, of course.”
    Cindy Lou said, “Abasolo, you can close your mouth.