‘Well, that’s where I’m going,’ Marcantoni said, but when he and Williams hoisted themselves over the counter he left the cellphone behind with the rest of the volunteer’s stuff.
Parker told them, ‘There’s cartons back here. Some kind of legal boxes.’
‘Good,’ Marcantoni said, looking at them. Stacked in a corner were four empty white cardboard cartons with separate cardboard tops, like the boxes used to carry evidence into court. They’d most likely been used here to bring books in.
Williams said, ‘What have we got for persuasion?’
‘This desk lamp,’ Marcantoni said, and picked up from in front of the volunteer a heavy metal lamp with a pen trough in its broad base and a long green glass globe around the bulb. Marcantoni yanked the end of the cord from the outlet, then took the base of the lamp in one hand and its neck in the other and jerked them back and forth against each other until something snapped. Then he started to separate them and said, ‘Damn the cord. Jim, you got scissors?’
‘In the top drawer,’ the volunteer said. He looked mournfully at his lamp.
Opening the drawer, taking out the scissors, Williams told the volunteer, ‘They still make those lamps, the state’ll buy you another one.’ Turning, he snipped the cord, so Marcantoni could drop the glass globe in the wastebasket and heft the base. With a conspiratorial grin at the volunteer, Williams put the scissors back in the drawer and shut it.
Meantime, Parker had found the supplies closet; a metal stand-alone armoire with two doors on the front. Inside were mostly forms, papers, various kinds of tape. But on one shelf was a green metal file box, sixteen inches long, meant for 3x5 cards. It was full of the cards, half in use for various records, the rest still in their clear packaging. The file box was unwieldy, but heavy; Parker ran duct tape over the front of it, to keep it closed, so he could carry it by the front handle.
Williams said, ‘Is it time?’
‘Might as well,’ Marcantoni said.
Williams sat on the corner of the volunteer’s desk. ‘Jim,’ he said, ‘this is where you’ve got to do it right, or you’re in big trouble.’
The volunteer looked at him, tense, waiting.
‘You’re gonna call out to the guards at the end of the corridor,’ Williams told him. ‘The way you do every day, phone to them to unlock your door here so you can go home. But today you’re gonna tell them you’ve got two heavy cartons of law books to be carried out of here, and you’d appreciate it if a couple guards could come down and give you a hand. You’ve done that kind of thing before, the guards carrying the heavy stuff for the civilians like you, am I right?’
‘Sometimes,’ the volunteer said.
‘And today is one of those times. Do you want me to repeat the story,’ Williams asked him, ‘or do you have it?’
‘Oh, I have it,’ the volunteer said. He sounded very depressed. He said, ‘Please don’t kill them, they’re just working guys.’
‘Come on, Jim,’ Williams said, ‘nobody’s gonna kill nobody, I already told you that. Because we’re all gonna do our part. So if we all do our part, why should there be any extra mess?’
‘More trouble for you,’ the volunteer suggested.
‘Exactly! Do it now, Jim, while the story’s fresh in your mind. Pick up the phone.’
The volunteer picked up the phone. Williams gently touched a finger to the back of the hand holding the phone, and the volunteer flinched. His voice softer than ever, Williams said, ‘But just remember, Jim. If you do anything at all except what I told you, anything at all, then I’m sorry. You’re an organ donor.’
Jim did very well.
17
The guards were one white and one black, which was useful but not necessary. Their replacements wouldn’t be standing around for inspection.
Williams crouched under the little desk, where he could come out fast into the volunteer’s back if it looked as though he were coming unstuck. Parker and Marcantoni waited around on the far side of the supplies closet, its one door opened out in front of them, the stacked cartons just a few feet away across the room.
‘It’s the top two there,’ the volunteer said, pointing at the boxes, hanging back to hold the door ajar the way Williams had whispered just before the guards got here. He sounded nervous and shaky, but not too much so.
‘No problem,’ the white guard said, and they moved forward, the white first, reaching for the top box, jerking upward with it in surprise when it didn’t carry the expected weight, saying, ‘This is’ He would have said ‘light,’ but Parker and Marcantoni came boiling out from behind them, Parker swinging the file box at the white head, Marcantoni aiming at the black.
The guards were big guys, and strong. Both went down to their knees when they were hit, but neither of them was out. Standing in the middle of the room, with more space to swing and aim, Parker and Marcantoni slammed those two heads again, and the guards dropped.
Parker spun away as the volunteer recoiled, letting the hall door go, Williams coming fast out from under the desk to jam a book into the opening to keep the door from closing itself completely, which would automatically lock them in again. Pointing at the volunteer, voice low and fast, Parker said, ‘Give me your clothes.’
The volunteer stared at Parker in owlish surprise. ‘But you’re a lot bigger than I am.’
‘Tom’s bigger,’ Parker told him, ‘so it’s me.’ He was already peeling off his jeans. ‘Come on, Jim.’
Marcantoni and Williams ripped off their own jeans and stripped the guards, then put on their uniforms. Keeping his own T-shirt, Parker forced himself into the volunteer’s slacks, shirt, yellow tie and sports jacket. He looked like something from a silent comedy when he was done, but nobody would have a lot of time to study him.
