“I think I liked you better when you were just saying ‘Oh my,’ ” I groaned.
“What the hell’s she calling the kid evil for, Tommy?” Sherm asked. “You and me I can see. We’re the bad guys, the bank robbers. But why the kid? What’s up with that?”
“I don’t know. She’s fucking snapped, man.”
I held my breath, waiting to see if the others would give away Benjy’s secret, but they didn’t. I could tell that Sheila was relieved too.
“Mister?” Benjy looked up at Sherm. “Mister, you’re sick. You know that, right? It’s in your head, like bees. The darkness. The monster people are inside it and they’re eating at you.”
“The Devil,” Martha squawked. “The Devil is in his head. All of them. They’re name is Legion for they are many, and they gnash and bite with their sharp little teeth and claws . . .”
Dugan, Sharon, Sheila, Kim, and I all told her to shut up at the same time. Sherm began to fidget again.
“How’s Carpet Dick? And why is fat boy half-naked? And why does the kid think I have a beehive in my head?”
“John’s— not good. He’s alive, that’s about it. Oscar’s shirt is what’s keeping him from bleeding to death, and I’m about to need another one.”
“Well then, Kim can donate hers.”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“You keep offering, baby, and I’m gonna take you up on that. Besides, what are you worried about? You got a bra on, right? Or maybe, on second thought, you better donate that too.”
“It will take your friend a while to die,” Dugan said. “A gut shot is painful as hell, which is why he’s passed out, but unless he goes into circulatory shock or if there’s a lot of internal bleeding, then there’s still time to get him to a hospital. His own shit will eventually poison him to death, but it takes a while. If circulatory shock sets in, or if he loses much more blood, he’s probably going to slip into a coma. You need to get him some help before that happens. At least let some paramedics come in here and work on him. If he goes into a coma, chances are that he won’t come back out.”
I shifted my grip on the bloody shirt. My hands were beginning to cramp up.
“Did you ask the cops to get an ambulance for him?”
“Nope. You think they’ll really do it?”
“Jesus Christ, dude— it’s worth a shot. He’s fucking dying, Sherm. Tell them we’ve got a wounded hostage or something. Then they can take John to the hospital, and maybe they won’t even find out he was with us.”
“Oh get real, Tommy. What the fuck have you been smoking? They’ll tag him as one of the robbers as soon as he wakes up. You really think that idiot could hold up under questioning?
They’d sniff him out in a second; and then he’ll drop dime on us.”
“What does it matter if he gives us up, Sherm? Huh? They’ve already got us surrounded. Everybody in here already knows our names. Let’s do like Dugan said. Have some paramedics come in here.”
“Yeah right. And what do we do when they turn out not to be paramedics but fucking SWAT
commandos, huh? You want that on your head? That’s just asking to be captured.”
“They wouldn’t be that stupid, Sherm. They know there would be a bloodbath if they tried something like that. We’ve got to do something, man. This is my fucking gig, goddamn it. I’m in charge.”
“Okay, man, chill the fuck out, for Christ’s sake. I’ll ask them to get an ambulance for us when they call back.”
He slid down the wall and took a seat on the floor next to John and me. Then he snubbed his cigarette out and lit up another. At that moment, I don’t think I’d ever needed a cigarette so bad. Not even when the doctor diagnosed me with cancer. The secondhand smoke drifted over to me, and I breathed it in, relishing it.
“Yo, can I get one of those?”
“Sure.” He handed me the pack and the lighter. I noticed that it was the silver lighter that he’d stolen from Mac Davis. He glanced around the room again, and sighed.
“Damn, I’m hungry. I could eat Kim up right now.”
Sherm stared at Kim. Kim stared at Oscar. Oscar stared at the floor. Dugan and Sharon stared at each other. Sheila stared at me and I stared at her. Roy stared at all of us and Martha kept her eyes shut tight, whispering prayers to Jesus to save her from the Devil’s minions. Benjy stared at John, Sherm, and me, and I wondered what he saw.
THIRTEEN
We sat in silence for a long time. Sherm finished cleaning out the vault, emptying the cash into his bag. Eventually, through Sheila’s timid pleading and my logical prodding, Sherm agreed to let me escort Benjy to the bathroom. Sheila begged to come along with us, but Sherm refused, making her stay behind.
I led Benjy out into the hallway. I actually felt nervous about leaving John and the hostages behind. Keith’s office, with his name emblazoned on the door, was directly across the hall from the vault. There were four more closed doors to the right, plus a fire door and a skinnier door at the end of the hall that had to be the janitor’s closet. The fourth door had a sign marked RESTROOM.
“How you holding up, little man?”
“I’m okay, Mr. Tommy”— he looked up at me and gave his crotch a squeeze—“but I’ve got to pee really, really bad.”
I suppressed a smile. “Well then, we better get you taken care of.”
I walked him to the door and pushed it open, making sure there were no windows inside. There weren’t, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Can you— do this by yourself?”
“Yes. Like I tell Mommy, I’m not a little kid anymore, Mr. Tommy. I’m in kindergarten now, not day care. I’m a big kid.”
“Kindergarten! I guess you are.” Despite the situation, I stifled a laugh. “Okay, I’ll wait for you out here then.”
He went inside and closed the door behind him. A few moments later, I heard the seat go up and then the sound of him peeing into the bowl. I leaned back against the door to the janitor’s closet and closed my eyes, letting out a heavy sigh and craving a cigarette. Cracking my neck, I bumped the door with my head.
Inside the closet, something bumped back.
I was instantly alert, my headache forgotten. Raising the pistol, I put my ear to the door. There was a stifled electronic beep, like a cell phone or a video game with the volume turned down low.
In the bathroom, Benjy flushed the toilet. I cursed. The noise drowned out everything else. Cautiously, I reached for the closet doorknob with one trembling hand. I heard a rush of water as Benjy began washing his hands. He was singing another song from a kid’s show, but I didn’t recognize this one.
I counted to three and twisted the knob and flung the door open, shoving the handgun forward.
“Freeze motherfucker! Don’t you fucking move!”
It was dark inside, but I could make out a shape. It was human and it was alone.
“Don’t shoot! Oh Jesus, please don’t shoot me.”
“Get the fuck out of there, right now. Come here!”
A middle-aged black man in a blue delivery uniform stumbled out into the hall. Trembling, he waved his hands above his head, clutching a cell phone in one of them.
“Mr. Tommy,” Benjy called from behind the closed door, “what’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Benjy, you stay in there, buddy. It’s okay. Just don’t come out yet.”
Down the hall, I heard Sheila yelp inside the vault and Sherm telling her to shut up. The black man’s lip quivered. A patch over his left pocket said LUCAS and over the right was another that said DROVERS WATER.
“Who the fuck are you, man? How’d you get in there? What were you doing in the closet?
Answer me!”
“I-I’m Lucas. I’m the d-deliveryman.”
Sherm stuck his pistol out of the vault, followed by his head.
“What the hell is going on, Tommy? Who the fuck is that?”
“He says his name is Lucas. Apparently, he delivers the water bottles for the cooler. I just found him hiding in the janitor’s closet.”
