Erin looked pale and frightened. 'Sal's explained the situation to me.'
So they're on a first-name basis, Pearl thought.
Quinn quickly and precisely told them the plan. Pearl realized he must have given it a lot of thought while waiting for Erin to arrive.
As he was talking, a uniformed cop was fitting a Kevlar vest on Erin, making sure it was adjusted for a tight fit. The Velcro straps made harsh ripping sounds in the warm afternoon.
'Pearl, Feds, and I will take Erin upstairs on the elevator,' Quinn said. 'We'll take our time. Sal and Harold will climb the fire escape in back and let themselves into the apartment while we're diverting Chrissie's attention. We'll be in the living room, and both of you try to move to that end of the apartment, where you might be able to get a bead on Chrissie. Nobody fires a shot unless it's absolutely necessary.'
Erin adjusted the bulky vest so it fit more comfortably. A breeze ruffled her red hair, and she didn't look so scared now. Her square jaw was still set like a rock, but her eyes were different. She looked determined. Quinn was staring at her. She gave him the slightest of nods, as if assuring him that she was up to this. Quinn figured she probably was up to it.
'Everybody be careful,' Quinn said. 'We screw this up and the SWAT team'll take their turn.'
And somebody will die.
'Bullet city,' Vitali said.
'Seldom are you so poetic, Sal,' Mishkin said.
'It's the moment, Harold.'
Vitali and Mishkin moved away, toward the passageway that led to the rear of the building and the fire escape. Staying close to the front of the building so anyone firing from a window would have an impossible angle, Quinn led the way as he, then Erin, Pearl, and Fedderman made their way toward the entrance. Pearl saw that Erin was gripping Quinn's belt at the small of his back, as if he were leading the blind.
They entered, crossed the small tiled lobby, and rode the tiny, stifling elevator to the fifth floor. It seemed warmer and more confining as they rose.
Pearl absently touched the bulk of her handgun beneath her blazer, as if checking to see if her heart was still beating.
Thinking of Yancy.
78
When they exited the elevator, Quinn led them only a few feet down the hall to 5-D. The apartment had windows facing the street. Windows that he thought offered the SWAT snipers maybe too much opportunity. If everything went right, there would soon be a lot of people in the apartment.
If everything went right, no shots would be fired.
But if anything went wrong…
He stood off to the side of the door and knocked.
'Coming in, Chrissie!'
There was no sound from inside, but he was sure she'd heard him. At least heard the knock.
He reached over, rotated the knob, and pushed on the door.
It was unlocked and swung open wide.
He breathed in deeply, knowing it might be his last breath, then stepped into the doorway.
Edward Keller was standing awkwardly with his arms at his sides, leaning slightly to his right with his knee braced against the arm of a pale green easy chair for balance. He was a medium-sized man, wearing gray pants and a white shirt, red tie. The tie was loosened. The shirt was plastered to his body with perspiration so the pink of his flesh showed through. What was left of Keller's thinning dark hair was mussed, as if he'd been raking his fingers through it. His eyes were red-rimmed from the sting of the rivulets of sweat that were tracking down his face. It was an ordinary face, made stiff as a mask by terror.
He didn't look at all mean or dangerous now.
That was because his daughter, Chrissie, stood calmly ten feet away from him, holding a twelve-gauge shotgun trained on his midsection.
Keller stared with slack-jawed fear at Quinn and the others who filed in behind him. Something was going to happen here, and soon. He didn't know what, but it scared the hell out of him.
Scared Quinn, too.
A shotgun. Just what we need. She must have brought it with her from Ohio.
Quinn sensed the others spreading out behind him. They knew the shotgun, which looked like a semiautomatic, would, if fired wildly over and over, turn the apartment into a bloody death trap.
He turned his attention to Chrissie. She seemed calm, almost in a trance. Speeding along tracks leading to a train wreck and unable and unwilling to stop. The shotgun rested light and easy in her hands. She'd grown up in a small town in bird-hunting country. Quinn hoped she was familiar with guns and wouldn't go crazy with the thing.
Keller broke the silence by stammering, 'Please get her to stop pointing that shotgun at me.'
'It wouldn't hurt you to drop the barrel a few inches, dear,' Quinn said to Chrissie.
There was no change in her posture or expression. The gun remained steady. Quinn noticed she was standing in one of the few areas of the room where there was no chance of a sniper's shot from outside hitting her. She'd thought this out. Her eyes darted to Quinn, back to her father.
'It would be better for all concerned,' Quinn said calmly, 'if you lowered the gun and we talked.'
He was suddenly aware that Pearl had unobtrusively removed her handgun from its holster and was holding it down and slightly behind her right thigh, where Chrissie wouldn't see it.
Jesus! Yancy!
Shouldn't have let Pearl come up here…
Quinn pushed Pearl from his thoughts and smiled at Chrissie, moving a few feet to his right so she could see him in her peripheral vision while looking at her father. Keller was trembling now. There was a spreading urine stain on the front of his gray pants.
'What is it you want?' Quinn asked Chrissie.
Her answer was spat from behind clenched teeth. 'Justice.'
'Then we're on the same page,' Quinn said. 'So let's talk about this and see if we can arrive at justice.'
'I don't want to talk.'
Quinn saw Keller stiffen as she spoke, asking himself the same question Quinn was asking: Then why did she let these people come up here?
And suddenly he knew why.
The shotgun roared, and Keller's body leaped backward and spun, spewing blood as it fell.
Chrissie brought around the long barrel of the shotgun, drawing a bead on Quinn, then Erin, Quinn, then Erin. Erin began to scream.
'He's dead, Chrissie!' Quinn said, almost screaming himself so he could be heard with Erin making all that noise.
Erin had figured it out, too. Chrissie had known she would come into the apartment, and Chrissie knew why Erin would come. Even though hers had been a sin of omission, Erin wanted Chrissie's silence as much as Ed Keller had. She wanted to make sure of that silence.
Or maybe Erin would have settled for simple forgiveness.
But forgiveness was out of the question now.
Quinn tried again to make himself heard. 'You can stop it now, Chrissie! Stop!'
'Kill her!' Erin shrieked. 'Shoot her, goddamn it! Shoot her!'
The shotgun barrel stopped moving where it was aimed at a point precisely between Quinn, who was the hunter and authority figure who'd come for Chrissie perhaps in the way her father had, and Erin, her mother. It didn't waver. But Quinn knew that it would soon move a foot or so one way or the other. Chrissie was making her choice.
