Crescent City Connection

She’s wearing a wedding ring.” Because she was a consultant, and not a police officer, Lou-Lou could say anything she pleased and always did, which made her Skip’s hands-down hero.
Yes,
she decided,
those two have definitely been flirting.
    The sergeant gave the psychologist one of his devastating grins. “Don’t be jealous, Lou-Lou. I like my women mean.”
    King asked the question everyone else was holding back: “What the hell’s a VNL?”
    “A Very Nice Lady, Captain. But that’s only what I look and sound like.”
    Shellmire said, “She’s got that right. We got guys in prisons all over the country still don’t know what hit ’em.”
    Ferguson sat down, apparently feeling she’d established her credentials. “Morris briefed me,” she told Shellmire. “And I’m quite familiar with the Jacomine case, as well as The Jury.”
    “Okay. The only new development we got is they want to exchange the victim for Jacomine’s granddaughter.”
    “What kind of weapons do they have?”
    “We don’t know.”
    “How many people are in there?”
    “Don’t know that either.”
    “Are we set up at the scene?” She was firing questions like darts, the VNL momentarily banished.
    “We have a command post next door and the block’s surrounded.”
    “Do they know we’re there?”
    “So far we haven’t heard a peep out of ’em. Not so much as a curtain flutter. The street’s blocked off, but we’ve got people walking up and down now and then, to make it look normal. So far as we know, they don’t have the least idea we know where they are—or who they are.”
    The two psychologists, along with Tarantino and Cappello, were released. That left Shellmire, Skip, Abasolo, King, and Ferguson, who entered the command post in two groups, like people arriving for a business meeting. Goerner was already there.
    The furniture had been stripped from the living room and piled in the dining room, replaced by folding tables and chairs, and a baffling maze of phones and electronic equipment.
    “How’d you get this stuff in here?” asked Skip.
    A man she didn’t know pointed to a side window. “Brought it in from the other side of the house.” He pointed next to a front window. “See those roofs? TAC unit’s already in place.”
    Ferguson took off her coat. “Shall I make the call?”
    “You better listen to this first. The Rev’s been on the phone.” The speaker couldn’t have been more than twenty-two; he wore khaki shorts and a polo shirt. His head was almost as smooth as The Monk’s, and he had on glasses. “I’m Will Kohler, by the way.”
    Shellmire made the introductions. Kohler said, “Shall I play the tape?”
    The instant Goerner nodded, Jacomine’s voice filled the room. “Rosie, honey, how the hell are you?”
    “Darling, I just stepped out of the shower. Could you give me twenty minutes?”
    “Are you wearing a towel? With maybe a pair of high-heeled what-do-you-call-’ ems?”
    “Mules, sweetcakes. ’Bye now.”
    The woman hung up and Jacomine swore. Then he hung up himself and dialed again. Rosemarie Owens’s machine answered.
    Kohler clicked the tape off. “We timed him. He called again in exactly twenty minutes. Listen to this.”
    “Rosie, honey.”
    “Darling, I’m so glad to hear from you. I could just hug your evil little neck. But I’ve got to be somewhere in ten minutes. Call me there, will you?”
    She gave him a number and hung up. Kohler fast-forwarded. “She’s a fast thinker, but of course she didn’t know about this little setup.”
    Jacomine’s voice again: “Rosie, what’s going on?”
    “My home number isn’t safe, baby. How’ve you been? I’ve been so worried about you.”
    “That wasn’t nice what you did to me, baby. Disappearing off the face of the Earth. ’Specially after I did that little favor for you.”
    “I had to be out of touch for a while. The FBI came calling.”
    “I was getting the dumb idea you just didn’t want to talk to ol’ Uncle Earl.”
    “Earl, this is serious. We really can’t talk for a while.”
    “Well, we have to, sweetness. I’ve got me a situation here. I need you to send a plane for me and a few of my friends. You know that island you own off the coast of Florida—the one with the airstrip? We need you to take us over there.”
    “You think I’ve got planes at my disposal?”
    “Charter one, Rosie—and make sure it can’t be traced to you. Or your heirs are gonna die before you do.”
    “What