“In the back. He said he was going to kill everybody, himself too.”
“Where are the other hostages?”
“With him. Sitting on the floor except for one woman he hangs on to. I think it’s his wife.”
“Where on the floor?”
“I don’t know, just on the floor.”
“No. You do know. If I’m facing him, where are the hostages? To my right or my left?”
The woman thought for a moment.
“Right,” she said.
“How far?”
“They’re all sitting against the wall under the service counter, except the wife.”
Stevens was crouched behind the squad car beside them.
“Service counter is in the right rear corner of the store,” Stevens said.
Jesse nodded.
“Tell me about the hostages,” Jesse said to the woman in the yellow dress. “How many men? How many women?”
“Two men,” she said and paused, her breath still rasping, counting in her head. “Four women, five if you count the wife.”
Jesse stood.
“Okay,” he said to no one in particular.
He walked to his car, and standing behind it, out of sight of the store, he rearranged his revolver on his belt. Then he got a long-barreled .22 target pistol out of the car, made sure there were bullets in the cylinder, and stuck it in his belt at the small of his back, under his jacket. Then he walked back to DeAngelo.
“I’m going in. Call Suit and tell him I’m going in. I want you all to hold still. If you hear a shot then I want all of you to come, front and back… double time.”
DeAngelo nodded and undipped the microphone from his epaulet. Jesse turned and walked toward the market.
Chapter Fifty-eight
It was a small market, the kind that delivers phone orders. There were four aisles. Jesse could see the edge of the back door at the left corner. A sign that said CUSTOMER SERVICE hung from the ceiling in the right back corner. An arrow pointed straight down. The two-counter checkout was to the right of the door. The store was dead quiet.
“Snyder,” Jesse said.
“Stop right there.”
“I’m stopped,” Jesse said.
Snyder appeared at the end of the cereal aisle. His wife was in front of him. In his right hand he held what looked like a nine-millimeter handgun. Semiautomatic, maybe a Colt. At least seven rounds, maybe twice that. Not cocked. The gun was pressed to his wife’s neck. In his other hand he had an open bottle of Chivas Regal.
“Take off your coat,” Snyder said. “I wanna see you gotta gun.”
Mrs. Snyder’s face was chalk white with deep lines. Her body was rigid. Her eyes were bulging.
“Sure I’ve got a gun,” Jesse said. “I’m a cop.”
He slid the blue linen jacket off and let it fall to the floor. His short-barreled .38 was on his left side, butt forward.
“Take it out and throw it on the floor,” Snyder said. “Way over.”
Jesse tossed the .38 on the floor near the bread rack. Then he waited.
Snyder took a pull on the Chivas Regal.
“My life ain’t worth shit to me,” Snyder said.
Jesse nodded.
“I got nothing to lose,” he said.
Jesse waited. Snyder was being dramatic, but self-dramatization was what this kind of situation was often about.
“So don’t fuck with me,” Snyder said.
“That what you wanted to tell me?” Jesse said.
“I wanted to tell you that you fucked my life. I wanted to tell you I was married and we was happy until you.”
“Un-huh.”
“I wanted to fucking tell you that I’m going to kill her and then you and then maybe everybody else in this
