your closet. Don’t know what the rope is for.” But Ruth knew that rope was headed for the fire escape.
Between prayers, Sherlock decided she’d punch him out at the gym when this was over.
50
Gary Duvall’s brain was humming, sparking, working at top speed. Morphine was new to him, and he loved it. No more pain, amazing. He felt good, maybe too good. He’d seen the wound in his side up close and personal when he’d tried to take care of it himself, seen all the blood, felt pain he’d never imagined. He slowly turned from his post at the front window to face his three hostages, all sitting on the floor lined up next to one another, their backs against the wall. He said, his voice mean, “Shut up, old man. I’ve already said I won’t kill any of you if your hick police do what I tell them to do exactly when I tell them to do it. And there won’t be any CT scans or surgery. You’re going to load me up with some more of your morphine, and I’m getting out of here. So stop your begging.”
Dr. Hodges said, “I’m not begging, you ungrateful whelp. I’m telling you what you’re doing is stupid. Without tests, I can’t know if the bullet nicked your bowels. Antibiotics and a few stitches won’t help you if it did. And you listen to me, I’m not an old man. I’m late middle age. Stop waving that scalpel around. Officer Janko can’t hurt you; you tied him up.”
Duvall eyed Hodges. Late middle age? The old dude probably couldn’t see himself clearly when he looked in the mirror. He had wispy gray hairs sticking up in all directions, and his jowls sagged. Only his eyes were sharp, still some fire in that ancient brain. He looked at the blood smears on Hodges’s white coat, his blood. The doctor had stitched up his side quick enough and told him the bullet had gone through and out his back, got some muscles and some fat on its way through, and he was damned lucky. But the bowel deal? He’d take his chances.
Duvall said, “You want to know what I really want, old man? Your bottles of morphine and some needles in a bag so I can shoot up myself later when you won’t be around.”
Dr. Hodges said, “Look, we all heard you’re going to get your helicopter. Will you keep your word to the negotiator? You’ll leave us all here, unharmed?”
“Well, sure,” Duvall said, and gave him a big grin, showing nice white teeth. “I’m the model of rectitude. That’s the right word, isn’t it? Don’t think I ever said it before.” He laughed, said “Rectitude” three more times as if savoring the feel of the word in his mouth. “The prison chaplain said it a lot.”
He heard a growl and waved the Colt toward Janko, who looked both scared and angry. Duvall eyed him. Talk about young. Janko didn’t look old enough to be in the Boy Scouts, much less a puppy cop. He’d set Janko’s Beretta on the exam table within easy reach. Compared to his compact Colt .25, it was clumsy and big. Still, he’d take the extra magazine the puppy cop carried. Let Janko growl. Duvall had already shown him how easily he could take him down, even wounded. He looked at the nurse, young, pretty Jenny, and wondered if he shouldn’t take her with him instead of the puppy cop. Yeah, she could take care of him in lots of ways. She was sitting perfectly still next to Janko, her hands resting on her knees. He hadn’t tied her up, no reason to. She was a girl, no threat to him, but she had a big mouth on her. He could correct that fast enough. As for Hodges, the old man would probably fall over with a heart attack if he tried to jump him, and he was tied up anyway.
Duvall said, “What you better hope is the cops show me some rectitude, otherwise there’ll be an eye for an eye, right?” When no one answered him, he started whistling “Whole Lotta Love,” his favorite Zeppelin tune, marveling again at the absence of pain. It was like that weird psychic bitch hadn’t shot him. Suddenly, he was there again and he saw her stagger, blood blooming on her arm. He wanted to shoot her again, a death shot. But she shot him, and he saw himself stumble to the floor,