Tripwire

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    “Sit down, Mr. Curry,” he said. “Next to your legal colleague.”
    Curry dropped heavily into the space next to Jodie. He slid his hands across the glass and leaned forward, like the others. Hobie used the hook in a circular gesture.
    “Take a good look around, Chester,” he said. “Mr. Curry, Mrs. Jacob, and your dear wife, Marilyn. Good people all, I’m sure. Three lives, full of their own petty concerns and triumphs. Three lives, Chester, and now they’re entirely in your hands.”
    Stone’s head was up, moving in a circle as he looked at the other three at the table. He ended up looking straight across the desk at Hobie.
    “Go get the rest of the stock,” Hobie said to him. “Tony will accompany you. Straight there, straight back, no tricks, and these three people will live. Anything else, they’ll die. You understand that?”
    Stone nodded, silently.
    “Pick a number, Chester,” Hobie said to him.
    “One,” Stone said back.
    “Pick two more numbers, Chester.”
    “Two and three,” Stone said.
    “OK, Marilyn gets the three,” Hobie said, “if you decide to be a hero.”
    “I’ll get the stock,” Stone said.
    Hobie nodded.
    “I think you will,” he said. “But you need to sign the transfer first.”
    He rolled open a drawer and swept the small shiny revolver into it. Then he pulled out a single sheet of paper. Beckoned to Stone who slid himself upright and stood, shakily. He threaded around the desk and signed his name with the Mont Blanc pen from his pocket.
    “Mrs. Jacob can be the witness,” Hobie said. “She’s a member of the New York State Bar, after all.”
    Jodie sat still for a long moment. She stared left at the guy with the shotgun, and straight ahead at Tony, and then right at Hobie behind the desk. She pulled herself upright. Stepped to the desk and reversed the form and took Stone’s pen from him. Signed her name and wrote the date on the line next to it.
    “Thank you,” Hobie said. “Now sit down again and keep completely still.”
    She went back to the sofa and leaned forward over the table. Her shoulders were starting to hurt. Tony took Stone’s elbow and moved him toward the door.
    “Five minutes there, five back,” Hobie called. “Don’t be a hero, Chester.”
    Tony led Stone out of the office and the door closed gently behind them. There was the thump of the lobby door and the faraway whine of the elevator, and then there was silence. Jodie was in pain. The grip of the glass on her clammy palms was pulling the skin away from under her fingernails. Her shoulders were burning. Her neck was aching. She could see on their faces the others were suffering, too. There were sudden breaths and gasps. The beginnings of low moans.
    Hobie gestured to the guy with the shotgun and they changed places. Hobie strolled nervously around the office and the shotgun guy sat at the desk with the weapon resting on its grips, swiveling randomly left and right like a prison searchlight. Hobie was checking his wristwatch, counting the minutes. Jodie saw the sun slipping southwest, lining up with the gaps in the window blinds and shooting steep angled beams into the room. She could hear the ragged breathing of the two others near her and she could feel the faint shudder of the building coming through the table under her hands.
    Five minutes there and five back add up to ten, but at least twenty minutes passed. Hobie paced and checked his watch a dozen times. Then he walked through into reception and the guy with the shotgun followed him to the office door. He kept the weapon pointed into the room, but his head was turned, watching his boss.
    “Is he planning to let us go?” Curry whispered.
    Jodie shrugged and lifted up onto her fingertips, hunching her shoulders and ducking her head to ease the pain.
    “I don’t know,” she whispered back.
    Marilyn had her forearms pinched tight together, with her head resting on them. She looked up and shook her head.
    “He killed two cops,” she whispered. “We were witnesses.”
    “Stop talking,” the guy called from the door.
    They heard the whine of the elevator again and the faint bump through the floor as it stopped. There was a moment’s quiet and then the lobby door opened and suddenly there was noise in reception, Tony’s voice, and then Hobie’s, loud and fueled with relief. Hobie came back into the office carrying a white package and smiling with the mobile half of his face. He clamped the package under his