“Hi, Jack!” said Bonnie, turning.
But the man who stood there wasn’t Jack. He was younger and fitter, wearing some kind of sports outfit and holding something in one hand, a personal stereo maybe. There was another guy behind him, standing in the shadows. Then they came into the room, and she recognized the two joggers who’d passed by while she was sitting outside waiting for Sherman.
“Don’t do anything stupid, you won’t get hurt,” the first man said.
It was an uneducated voice, sullen and constrained. He was about twenty, twenty-five, with a face that tapered to a protuberant jaw. He had meaty lips, slightly buck teeth and evasive, widely spaced blue eyes. He raised his hand, and Bonnie realized that the thing he was holding wasn’t a Walkman.
“Yeah,” said the other man, moving forward into the room. “That’s right.”
This was the shorter one. He had bleached blond hair and a little slit of a mouth, and he was also carrying a pistol. He reminded Bonnie of one of the other realtors called Randy who’d been pink-slipped a couple of months back, and for a moment she thought of those news stories you see where some guy who’s been fired comes back to work and starts shooting at random. But she knew it wasn’t Randy.
“Kneel down on the floor,” the tall one said.
Both men were wearing transparent plastic gloves, Bonnie noticed, the kind her gynecologist used for pelvics.
“I’ve got two hundred dollars in my wallet, and a gold Rolex,” Samuel Baines Sherman announced calmly. “You’re welcome to both.”
“Kneel the fuck down!” the squat guy shouted tensely.
Sherman gave out a long sigh, as though this were just one more of the tedious and unnecessary inconveniences he had to face every day of his life, due to the incompetence of others.
“Kneel?” he repeated with a peeved frown. “What on earth for?”
“Do what they say!” Bonnie Kowalski told him, all the fury and frustration she’d suppressed now gushing out. “I don’t want to get shot just because you’re an asshole!”
Sherman looked more shocked by this than by the gunmen’s appearance. Well, screw him. She didn’t care about losing the sale any more. She didn’t even care about Jack Capoccioni getting mad. Setting her purse down carefully, she knelt beside it, facing the two gunmen. After a moment’s hesitation, Sherman gave a little weary shrug and got to his knees. The tall guy unzipped the pocket of his backpack, watching them all the while.
“Hands behind your back,” he said.
“It’s not even our house,” Bonnie replied. “The owners have moved out. There’s nothing here to steal.”
“Shut up! Shut up!” screamed the squat one agitatedly.
“Hey, lighten up,” his partner murmured.
He crouched down behind Sherman. There was a sharp click. Sherman gave a grunt of surprise, or pain. The man straightened up and moved in front of Sherman, blocking Bonnie’s view.
“This is completely un-” Sherman began.
The gunman bent down, and Sherman’s voice ceased abruptly. The shorter man gave a jagged laugh which broke off as his partner swung around to face him.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” he snapped.
The other gunman started rooting around in the backpack. All his movements were jerky and urgent. He ran around behind Bonnie, who flinched.
“Please!” she pleaded. “I have a family!”
She could feel his breath on her hair and at the nape of her neck. Something hard and sharp gripped her left wrist, then the right, locking them together. The man seized her jaw from behind and pressed something over her mouth in a sticky kiss. Smelling the heady reek of raw plastic, she realized it was a patch of adhesive tape. There was one on Sherman’s mouth too.
The taller man surveyed the scene for a moment.
“OK,” he said.
His companion looked at Bonnie, then at Sherman. His expression was one of panic. The other man had set down his pistol and was taking something else out of the backpack. Bonnie noted dully that it was a video camera, a Sony, the new lightweight model she had been meaning to get Jerry for Christmas, but the store had had a JVC on sale for a hundred bucks less so she’d gone for that instead. The salesman had assured her it was just as good, maybe a tad heavier was all.
The squat man stood looking at the two trussed and gagged figures kneeling on the floor. He took a step toward Bonnie, then paused and stepped quickly over to stand behind Sherman. The other man raised the viewfinder of the video camera to his face, targeting his partner, whose pistol was pointing at the back of Sherman’s neck. Bonnie fought to control her bladder. If she peed now it would form a puddle on the floor, everyone would see. She would just die of shame.
“I can’t!” the short man said in a tone or desperation.
“C’mon, Dale!” said the tall man, switching on the camera. “Hit the mitt! Straight down the pipe, baby! You can do it.”
The gunman took an audible intake of breath and pressed the muzzle of his revolver to Sherman’s neck. At the contact Sherman’s head jerked back instinctively, knocking the barrel aside. There was a dull crack and the gunman jumped back with a horrified expression.
“Christ!” he gasped.
Sherman was thrashing around on the floor. His muffled roars reverberated in the empty room.
“Jesus Christ!” the gunman cried in obvious distress. “Jesus Christ!”
The victim’s overcoat had ridden up, revealing a patch of dense red blood spreading across the seat of his tweed pants.
“Fire it in there!” the tall man shouted.
“I can’t! I can’t do it!”
“Hustle up, Dale! Finish the job!”
Bonnie could feel the waffle and bacon she’d eaten for breakfast rising in her throat, and the thought of choking on the vomit, unable to get rid of it because of the gag, made her panic.
The gunman bent over Sherman, who was twisting around and around on the bare floorboards, his feet kicking convulsively. There was another shot. Splinters of the oak planking went flying. Then a sudden spasm of Sherman’s leg knocked the gunman off balance. The revolver went off again as he fell heavily on his side. The window broke, and for a moment Bonnie thought that someone outside had thrown a rock or a ball at the glass, like the time Nathan was pitching to a friend in the backyard and a fly ball went through the kitchen window.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” the gunman howled desperately.
He had scrambled to his knees, his clothes and hands streaked with blood.
“Help me, Andy! I can’t handle it! You’ve got to help me!”
A series of warbling sounds filled the room. Bonnie glanced down at the purse where she kept her cellular phone. It must be Jack, calling her to see how it was going. The phone rang eight times, breaking off with a truncated beep.
The gunman called Andy switched off the video camera and set it down on the floor. He looked at Sherman, then at the kneeling gunman.
“Lemme have it,” he said.
The other guy didn’t react until the command was repeated. Then he raised the plastic-sheathed hand which held the pistol. Andy took the weapon by the barrel, turned it around and shot his partner between the eyes. The man’s mouth popped open as though in a yawn. He toppled forward slowly, crashing to the floor without uttering a sound.
Sherman was moving more slowly now, feebly pedaling his legs and jerking his spine. Carefully avoiding the patch of bloodstained flooring, the gunman crouched down and aimed his pistol at the side of the wounded man’s head, just above the ear. He fired once. Sherman stiffened, then relaxed and was still.
The killer observed him for a moment. Then he straightened up and turned toward Bonnie Kowalski.
COVERAGE WAS BIG in Metropolitan Chicago, fair in Illinois and surrounding states, patchy to nonexistent elsewhere. NU PROF, REALTOR SLAIN IN SHOWHOME SHOOTING was the
