Seraphim (49 page)

Duncan frisked the doorman, then instructed him to join the others at the kitchen table.

With puckered expressions, all three stared at the two masked gunman, the reality of their situation now having fully struck them like a bad case of the runs.

“Everybody remain perfectly fucking still,” Duncan ordered. “I want all hands flat on the table.”

“Who else is here?” Tyler demanded.

Nobody at the table blinked.

Duncan walked into the kitchen and began patting down the Hispanic man and his female friend for weapons. “My friend asked you a question,” Duncan reminded them.

“No one else is here,” the Hispanic man finally said, his eyes hesitating a millisecond too long on the drugs.

He pushed the gun to the man’s head, then reached over and began lifting out the bags of heroin. Beneath, he found two firearms, a Beretta 92-M9 and a Walther .P380. Each had a full clip and, upon further inspection, a chambered round.

“There’s hope for you yet,” Duncan congratulated. He confiscated the weapons, each one small enough to fit easily into the front pockets of his camouflaged fatigues. He then tapped the Hispanic man on the shoulder and said, “I need a pen.”

The man pointed to a drawer by the stove.

Duncan found the item, then said, “Close the briefcase of money, then rearrange the sequence of numbers on the lock.”

The man complied.

“Now,” Duncan said, “reinstate the combination.”

Removing his left glove, Duncan wrote down the sequence of numbers on his hand as the man turned each dial. “Marvelous,” he said. “Now, show me it opens.”

It did.

“Good. Okay, repeat step one,” he instructed. “Excellent. Now, pucker up and kiss it all goodbye.”

Staring down into his lap, the doorman said, almost a whisper, “Man, you are so fucking dead.”

Duncan nodded. “Because I don’t know who I’m dealing with, right?”

Still avoiding eye contact, the doorman said, “That’s right.”

Duncan put a finger under the doorman’s chin, then raised the man’s face to his own. “I’ve seen bigger shit stains on flypaper. I’m only taking the money, so just accept the fact that you and El Porko here are going to have to recoup your losses the old-fashioned way—put more cut in the product.”

Tyler remained at the entrance to the kitchen, allowing himself full view of the interior. “Get it and go!”

“You guys are cops, huh?” said the Hispanic male. He spat at the floor. “Dirty fucking cops.”

“You haven’t been paying attention,” Duncan said. “We’re the robbers.”

“Damn it! Hurry the fuck up!” Tyler insisted.

Duncan paused to slip on his glove, noticing as he did the young woman, shaking badly. Her long, acrylic nails might have been tapping out Morse code on the tabletop. But it was her nose that intrigued him, as it wanted to point in a particular direction, the rest of her face resisting the pull.

Body language. How wonderfully betraying
.

“Just do it!” Tyler yelled, rocking on his tip-toes now, as if the walls and ceiling were spiked
a la
Indiana Jones and closing in at an extremely uncomfortable pace.

Duncan inventoried the table again: three green beer bottles, each one at least half full, a cup of coffee, an ashtray...

He grabbed the cup. It read, TO ALL YOU VIRGINS: THANKS FOR NOTHING! He held it against his cheek. Still warm; the bouquet of red lipstick still fresh.

He grabbed the girl’s chin and gently pulled her face around. No lipstick there.

“Alright,” Duncan said, “either you’re all lying, or one of you cross-dressing faggots is chasing his Heineken down with Maxwell House.” He pressed the muzzle against the doorman’s ear. “Are you a Clairol man?” he growled. “Or is there something you forgot to tell me and my friend?”

Before the man could answer, somewhere in the house a baby coughed.

Tyler raised his firearm and targeted on something that was out of Duncan’s line of sight. “Get your ass in here now, lady!” he commanded. “Move it!”

Duncan ordered everyone to make like statues. He grabbed the briefcase of money with his left hand, the 9mm in his other, raised and searching.

The child was squalling now, having been frightened by Tyler’s outburst.

Just before he breached the kitchen’s wide threshold, Duncan pointed the gun at the Hispanic male and said, “Two seconds to tell me who else is in this house or I’m gonna put a hole in that empty piñata of yours.”

“It’s just my wife, Sandra, and our baby,” he implored. “Please, don’t hurt them. Just take what you want and go.”

“Gun!” Tyler cried. “She’s got a gun!”

(The
angel
had
been
right.
It
may
have
been
as
early
as
yesterday
when
he’d
decided
that
he
wouldn’t
change
a
thing
should
a
gust
of
time
blow
him
back
into
this
house
.
Earlier,
he’d
wanted
to
tell
Gamble
that
kismet
had
nothing
to
worry
about,
as
he
had
no
intentions
of
changing
so
much
as
a
light
bulb
this
evening
.

Just remain a bystander.

Damn.
It
was
so
fiercely
tempting
not
to
,
knowing
the
shitstorm
that
was
coming
.

How
many
times
had
he
been
back?

As many lessons as deemed necessary…

He
didn’t
exactly
know
what
she’d
meant
by
that,
but
he
figured
it
was
safe
to
assume
that,
throwing
physics
and
the
Dewey
decimal
system
to
the
wind
,
the
purpose
of
his
existence
might
be
hinged
upon
nothing
less
than
the
perpetual
re-enactment
of
this
night;
to
experience
every
conceivable
outcome
until
the
desired
sequence
of
events
had
been
achieved.
And
when
that was
finally
done
,
then
what?
Would
the
continuity
machine
start
back
up
with
a
hiss
-
bang?
Would
destiny’s
father
pass
out
cigars?

But
he
was
getting
ahead
of
himself,
was
speculating
about
matters
upon
which
he
had
neither rank
nor
aptitude
.
Nevertheless,
the
possibility
that
his
existence
might
be
nothing
more
than a
phonograph
needle
caught
in
an
interminable
groove
was
as
disturbing
as
it
was
antiquated.

No
,
he
would
just
remain
a
bystander.
Just...

Go with the flow
.)

Duncan came out of the kitchen. “Freeze!” he ordered the lady.

She didn’t freeze. Hell, she didn’t even congeal, but kept right on coming with her squalling brat. Barefoot, and wearing only a white terrycloth robe that could have been pulled twice around her sallow figure, she staggered like a skid row lush as she entered the living room from the hallway. She was monstrously stoned on heroin.

Duncan saw the weapon. It was in the lady’s right hand (the one supporting the infant), most of it concealed by the child’s blue swaddling blanket. But enough prevailed that he could determine it was a single action .357.

Time was slowing, and the room’s acoustics had become those of an empty auditorium.

“Christ, lady, drop the gun, or I swear I’ll put you down!” Tyler promised, puberty revisiting his vocal chords. He was in a rigid stance, knees slightly bent, feet spread apart, both hands clutching his gun.

If his partner were to fire a shot now, Duncan thought, he would shatter from the repercussion like a cheap vase.

As if someone had flipped a switch, the baby stopped bawling, and as a bead of sweat left its salty signature on his lips, Duncan realized why. The lady had pulled back the lapel of her robe, allowing the infant to suckle her right breast.

The three people at the table remained seated; however, with each wobbly step the lady took, desperation broadened her husband’s eyes.

Duncan, without looking back, said to the Hispanic man, “Easy, asshole. If you so much as blink, I’ll drop her and the brat both.”

Duncan was sure he could hear the man’s ears begin to whistle, the rage starting to vent like steam through a kettle. But then, within the eerie silence, even a mute spider spinning a web under ten feet of water could make an obnoxious racket.

As the woman swiveled the gun beneath her baby’s back, aiming for Tyler, a depraved grin formed along her mouth. The blued barrel had a sheen as liquid as her eyes, the light from the ceiling fixture gliding along its surface like the bubble of a carpenter’s tool, squaring her intent.

Duncan saw something in his partner’s eyes then; something imperiling. “No, Tyler!” he commanded. “Don’t shoot!”

Ever so slightly, Tyler lowered his gun.

Slowing still, time began to seize. He had experienced decelerating time once before, in another life-or-death situation, and he knew that it was during these terrifying seconds when people claimed to have seen their life flash before their eyes. Duncan had been spared the replay then, and—what he hoped was a good omen—that biographical footage had yet to make the projection booth this time around.

A puff of smoke erupted beneath the infant, followed not quite instantaneously by a sluggish peal of thunder.

Within this drowsy sequence of time, Duncan thought to start running toward his partner, as if he could beat the shot and push him out of harm’s way. They were both wearing Kevlar vests, but those didn’t protect the head or groin, and there was no guarantee that they would save your life when struck by a bullet, the body absorbing the shock of the impact, which could kill you just as dead depending on the caliber of slug. Unlike in the movies, people wearing Kevlar weren’t likely to get right back on their feet and brush themselves off after colliding with a .357 magnum round. When they did, they were the exception, not the rule.

(Desperate now, the older Duncan thought to do something, anything, to disrupt the old course of events; to throw a log in the stream and maybe misdirect the flow. But, incongruous to their quasi-lethargic succession, the events were unfolding too fast for his mind to outmaneuver them.)

The bullet spun Tyler around, his gun sailing away from his hand.

(It
had nicked
his aorta, the older Duncan remembered. Bullet-proof vests weren’t very effective against Teflon-coated rounds either, otherwise known as armor-piercing, able to go through Kevlar and engine blocks the way wind goes through chicken wire.)

The baby screamed.

Grimacing, Tyler dropped to his knees and yelled, “Shoot the bitch! What the fuck are you waiting for? Shoot!
Shoot!
”

The lady just kept coming, staggering like some relentless, lactating mummy avenging a Pharaoh’s curse.

Duncan shuffled over to where his partner now lay, and just as he raised his gun and put the lady’s head between the sights, Tyler grabbed his ankle with a bloody hand. “Fuck you very much,” he gurgled. “I hope she’s worth it.”

“Just hang on, buddy,” Duncan ordered. “Just hang on.”

The woman stopped. He didn’t feel there was a clear, confident shot, not at their distance, not with an infant in the way. And he wasn’t about to turn this mess into outright calamity by murdering a child.

He lowered his gun, backing toward the door.

Another thunderclap.

The bullet entered his chest and exited just below his left scapula.

(According to the forensics report, the older Duncan recalled, it passed through the wall, punched through the metal stanchion of a street light fifty-five yards away, and finally through the bay window of one elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Adam Bainbridge. It came to rest within the cranium of Sir Alec Guinness Bainbridge, “Whiskers” for short, who had been grooming himself atop the backrest of the living room sofa, 1.7 football fields distant from the point of origin.

If Tyler Everton had not suffered any fatal wounds, and had subsequently learned that a cat had perished during the ordeal, he would have died nonetheless, as his heart would have surely exploded upon such rapturous news. Duncan had never in his life met anyone who detested cats as much—

Something occurred to him just then; something Dead Man had said after running over the tabby .

One down, ten billion more to go…

No way
, he thought.
Couldn’t be.
)

Breathing was becoming arduous, and his vision was ebbing and flowing like a siren, which he was expecting to hear any minute. Lots of them. He had to get out of the house fast.

Two more shots sailed wide right, through the door.

Assuming the gun had its full complement of six rounds, that meant that she had two shots left.

He grabbed for the doorknob.

*****

Suddenly, the room was full of people.

His legs were folded under him now as he sat slumped against the wall, just beside the door. His breaths were coming quick and shallow, and his chest throbbed with an ache that seemed to go miles deep.

A voice whispered in his ear: “You’re going to be okay, Duncan.”

The voice belonged to a heavyset woman. Late forties, he guessed. Through his blurred vision, he gazed at her pretty face.

Even though there were people all around him now—fifteen, maybe twenty—the commotion was knitted with…

Stillness.

His legs were ice cold.

Then he saw Tyler’s lifeless body on the floor, and the lady who had shot them both, still standing there in the living room, grinning, arms curled inward, gun in one hand. But the baby and its swaddling blanket were gone. And the more he stared, the more he realized that it was just a still frame, the scene frozen in time; a centerpiece in the midst of a bustling banquet.