High Five

'Now what?'

'Now we wait.'

'For what?'

'For nothing.'

Two hours later, Tank was comfortably slouched in his chair, arms crossed, eyes slitted but vigilant, watching the door. His metabolism had dropped to reptilian. No rise and fall of his chest. No shifting of position—250 pounds of security in suspended animation.

I, on the other hand, had given up trying to keep from falling off my chair and was stretched out on the floor where I could doze without killing myself.

I heard Tank's chair creak. Heard him lean forward. I opened an eye. 'Time for another walk-through?'

Tank was on his feet. 'Someone's at the door.'

I sat up to see, and BANG! There was the loud discharge of a gun, and then the sound of glass shattering. Tank pitched back, hit the table, and crashed to the floor.

The gunman rushed into the lobby, gun still in hand. It was the man Tank had thrown through the window, the occupant of apartment 3C. His eyes were wild, his face pale. 'Drop the gun,' he yelled at me. 'Drop the fucking gun.'

I looked down, and sure enough, I was holding my gun. 'You aren't going to shoot me, are you?' I asked, my voice sounding hollow in my head.

He was wearing a long raincoat. He ripped the coat open and held it wide to show a bunch of packets duct- taped to his body. 'You see this? These are explosives. You don't do what I say, and I'll blow us up.'

I heard a clunk and realized the gun had slipped from my fingers and fallen onto the floor.

'I need to get into my apartment,' he said. 'I need to get in now.'

'It's locked.'

'So get a key.'

'I don't have a key.'

'Jesus,' he said, 'so kick the damn door down.'

'Me?'

'You see anyone else here?'

I looked down at Tank. He wasn't moving.

The raincoat guy waved his gun in the direction of the stairs. 'Move.'

I edged around him and took the stairs to the third floor. I stood in front of the door to 3C and tried the handle. Locked, all right.

'Kick it in,' the raincoat guy said.

I gave it a kick.

'Christ! That's not a kick. Don't you know anything? Don't you watch television?'

I took a couple of steps back and hurled myself at the door. I hit sideways and bounced off. Nothing happened to the door. 'That worked when Ranger did it,' I said.

The raincoat guy was sweating, and the gun was shaking in his hand. He turned to the door, aimed the gun with two hands, and squeezed the trigger twice. Wood splintered, and there was the sound of metal on metal. He kicked the door at lock height, and the door crashed open. He jumped in, hit the light switch, and looked everywhere at once. 'What happened to my stuff?'

'We cleaned the apartment.'

He ran into the bedroom and bathroom and back to the living room. He opened all the cabinet doors in the kitchen. 'You had no right,' he screamed at me. 'You had no right to take my stuff.'

'There wasn't much.'

'There was a lot! Do you know what I had here? I had good stuff. I had pure. Jesus, do you know how bad I need a hit?'

'Listen, how about if I drive you to the clinic. Get you some help.'

'I don't want the clinic. I want my stash.'

The occupant of apartment 3A opened her door. 'What's going on?'

'Get back in your apartment and lock your door,' I said. 'We have a little problem here.'

The door slammed shut and the lock clicked.

The raincoat guy was running around in his apartment again. 'Jesus,' he was saying. 'Jesus. Jesus.'

Another woman appeared in the hall. She was frail and stooped. Her age had to be upwards of a hundred. Her short white hair stuck up in tufts. She was dressed in a worn pink flannel nightgown and big fuzzy slippers. 'I can't sleep with all this racket,' she said. 'I've lived in this building for forty-three years, and I've never seen such goings-on. This used to be a nice neighborhood.'

The raincoated guy whipped around, pointed his gun at the woman, and fired. The bullet tore into the wall behind her.