The Extremes

'I'll fucking kin you, you stupid bitch!' Grove shouted.

'You couldn't plug the side of a barn!' she yelled at him, thinking of a moment, centuries before, on a shooting trip

with her dad, him yelling at her when for once she missed the target. Hi, she had said to her dad as he passed her on his way out of the living quarters. The last word she ever spoke to him? Hi Dad, you got me into all this, you gunhappy old bastard. She wished she'd said more while she'd had the chance. She was getting hysterical.

'Shut the fuck up!' Grove screamed at her, and let off a wild shot with his left hand.

'Don't ever say that to me, you creep,' she said, then recalled the LIVER mnemonic.

She was in a utility yard, in stifling heat, surrounded by cops. The tall side of the mall building loomed over them, casting little shade. One of the cops noticed her.

'Stand back, ma'am!' he said at once, raising his arms. 'You're in danger there! Please leave this area at once!'

'FBI,' Teresa said simply, and flicked her ID at him.

'Sorry, ma'am,' said the cop, evidently startled. 'But we have an armed suspect in there, and'

'That's OK. Get back under cover. Is Agent Simons here with you?'

' You best speak with the Captain, ma'am.'

Teresa backed off quickly. She was trying to remember which way Andy had gone, after leaving the mall administrator. She hurried away, following the side of the building. Ahead of her, Andy let himself out of a small service door. He was carrying his gun. Before continuing he quickly cased all directions. He saw her at once, and raised his gun.

'Andy!' she shouted.

'Tess! What in hell are you doing here?'

'For God's sake, Andy!' She rushed towards him, wanting to hold him more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.

' I'm on a case, Tess,' he said, touching her arm with

quick affection, but brushing her aside. 'You want to hang around here for a while, and we'll talk later?'

'Andy, you're in danger! Don't go on with this!'

He looked sharply at her. He said, 'Shit, how the devil you get down here to Texas?'

He strode on in sudden rage at her, heading back towards the utility yard.

Teresa said, 'Andy, this isn't your case. You're just liaising with the police. Let them finish it.

That's their job.'

'I'm on assignment. Wait here!'

He thrust her back and away from him, and stepped round the corner into the yard. At that moment, someone shouted through a bullhorn:

'Freeze, Aronwitz! Throw down your weapon!'

Teresa darted round behind Andy, and collided with his back. He lurched slightly, and Aronwitz/Grove noticed the movement. He was standing on a slightly raised shelf of concrete, one of the outlet ducts where service trucks collected their loads. His gun hung loosely in his right hand. He saw the huge encirclement of armed police, crouching down, ready with their guns. Looking at Andy, he made a circling motion with his gun, a deliberate, wide swinging of the arm. He cocked the weapon, the click audible in every part of the yard.

Andy stood frozen. Teresa watched in terror as Grove levelled the gun at Andy, holding it onehanded at full extent.

He fired, and the gun bucked back in his hand. The bullet went past, missing Andy by several feet.

Grove died instantly in the explosion of police bullets that followed.

'Tess, don't you ever follow me on an assignment agai n. Why in hell did you do that? You know what we agreed. We never work together.'

'Andy, you were going to die.'

'No way! You saw how that hairball handled a gun. He was just a kid.'

'Just a kid who'd killed a lot of people.'

'He was no threat to me.'

Andy Andy Andy. How do 1 tell you? How will you ever know? What's the point?

She wanted to hold him, have him, roll him on the ground, but instead he was justifiably furious, this big angry man, humiliated by her presence, not knowing what he had missed, never ever going to know.

They got to his car and were about to drive off when Andy's partner, Danny Schneider, turned up in the parking lot.

'Scuse me, 1 gotta work,' Andy said grimly and left the car to go over to talk with Danny.

Danny, seeing her there, nodded politely to her. Andy stood with Danny a long time, over by the car, talking in the sun, pointing this way and that, a lot of nodding. Danny wrote something in his notebook.

Andy, 1 had to do this. Andy, how do 1 tell you? Fuck it, Andy! 1 saved your goddamn life!