DIVA (42 page)

“No, no, no.” Kelly rubbed her back in a circular motion. “Don’t second guess yourself. You outsmarted the son-of-a bitch and got away. Not many women would have been brave enough to do what you did.”

“Thank you.” Strangely, she did feel better after talking about it.

Kelly smiled. “You’re welcome. Tell me how you got away.”

_____

Standing behind the nurses’ station in the main hall, he gripped his SIG in one hand, his cell phone in the other. The nurses had left in a hurry, papers and medical charts strewn over the desk. A small TV was still on, tuned to a local channel, volume muted. A grim-faced reporter was talking at the camera. A graphic at the bottom of the screen said:
City Hospital Under Siege
.

He raised the cell to his mouth, forced himself to be calm. That’s what hostage negotiations were all about. Don’t let the fucker rattle you. Stoltz no longer had Belinda, but dozens of patients, doctors and nurses inside City Hospital were, for all intents and purposes, hostages. “What do you want?”

“What took you so long, Loverboy? You been making out with Belinda?”

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want. Belinda. Put her on. Let me talk to her.”

“I can’t. She’s not here.”

“You’re a motherfucking liar! I know she’s here.”

On the TV screen, footage of the parking lot at the other end of the hospital appeared: civilian and police vehicles parked haphazardly, hospital workers and visitors milling around. Out of range of the nutcase with the rifle on the garage roof. The glassed-in walkway to the garage was ten feet away. He wanted to go up there and kill the bastard. But Stoltz was a sniper with a high-powered rifle. “She can’t talk to you. The doctor sedated her.”

“Bullshit! You got five minutes or I’ll kill more cops. Call you in five.”

A click sounded in his ear. Pain stabbed his gut.

Five minutes to make a plan. Or more people would die.

______

He trotted up the ramp toward the roof. Renzi didn’t want him to talk to Belinda. Didn’t want him killing people, either. He rounded the last turn and heard an ominous sound.
Whup-whup-whup
. Fuck-all! The cops had sent up a chopper. He ducked beside a support column as the sound drew closer. Eased his head around the column and scanned the sky. And laughed aloud.

A red-and-white news chopper with a Channel-Five logo hovered over the roof, filming the most exciting thing that ever happened in this town. But he couldn’t have helicopters over-flying the roof. The cops might get ideas and send one of theirs. The chopper receded into the distance, circled and came back. He let loose with the carbine, ten, twenty, thirty rounds. The chopper dipped and swooped and flew away. He hadn’t hit it, but he’d scared them off. Rambo couldn’t have done better.

He descended the ramp, hunkered down in a corner of the Level 5 garage and dug a power bar out of his knapsack. The driving rain had stopped, but the drizzle continued and the temperature had fallen. His commando outfit was drenched, and the sharp wind gusting through the garage was giving him chills. He was tired and hungry. But he’d survived worse. Beatings from Pa. Humiliations from Rachael. Betrayal from Belinda.

Renzi was probably pacing her room right now, waiting for his call. Fuck Renzi. The Diva was on Level Three. It shouldn’t be hard to find her. Kill Renzi and hoo-eee, let the vengeance begin!

He swallowed the last of the power bar, ran up the ramp to the northwest corner of the roof and peeped over the cement wall. Two NOPD squad cars sat kitty-cornered across an intersection, light racks flashing. Two more blocked the garage entrance. Two cops in each car.

Not smart if a sniper with a Bushmaster M-4 was on the roof.

He sited through the Nikon scope. The cops were crystal clear inside their cars. Hell, one was smoking a cigarette, taking a drag right now . . .

CHAPTER 44

He ran down the main corridor, turned left at the end and saw Kelly in the hall outside Belinda’s suite holding her Glock with both hands. “Where the hell have you been? Jesus! I was worried about you.”

An angry woman, half-Irish, half-Italian. He knew what that meant. Full-blown fury was a heartbeat away. But he had no time to placate her.

“Let me use your cell. I need to call Vobitch. That call I got was from Stoltz. He wants to talk to Belinda. He’s going to call me back on mine in five minutes. If we don’t let him talk to Belinda, he said he’d kill more cops.”

Wordlessly, Kelly handed him her cell. He called Vobitch, told him what Stoltz had said and checked his watch. Two minutes gone already.

“He’s dicking you around,” Vobitch said. “He just shot at the squads blocking the garage entrance, hit both drivers. SWAT’s on the way. Captain Martin wants to talk to you, channel-three on the radio.”

Martin was the NOPD Deputy Chief in charge of the operation. Operation Sniper. Frank got on his radio and called him.

Martin:
I’m sending four detectives up the stairs outside your room, two to guard the stairwell and two to guard the main corridor where it intersects your hall. The SWAT team is on their way. Stay alert and keep me informed.

“Roger, Captain. Thanks.” He hooked the radio on his belt and said to Kelly, “We better check Belinda. How are you two getting along?”

She gave him an odd look. “Not great, but better than before.”

He tapped on the inner door. “Belinda? It’s Frank and Kelly.”

When they went inside, Belinda’s face was ashen. Suspended from the ceiling above the bed was a television set, picture on, sound muted.

“I don’t want you watching news updates on TV,” he said.

“Stop treating me like a child. He’s shooting at firemen and policemen!” Her voice rose in a crescendo of anger. “Jake would still be alive if it wasn’t for me. He
told
me Silverman was weird, but I was too stupid to see it. Now he’s killing people. And it’s my fault.”

“Stop.” Kelly went over and put her arm around Belinda. “None of this is your fault. He’s crazy. You are not responsible for this.”

“Kelly’s right,” he said. “He kidnapped you and held you in that house.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Talking to him won’t do any good.”

Belinda glared at him, her eyes blazing fury. “Frank, he’s killing innocent people. I know how to make him stop. Let me talk to him.”

He saw the fierce intensity in her eyes, knew that if she set her mind on something, she wouldn’t quit. She wanted to talk to Stoltz. No way in hell was he going to let her.

“We can’t let him kill people,” she snapped. “We have to do something.”

“We are doing something,” he said. “He’s surrounded. He’s not getting out of this hospital.” Not alive, anyway. But she was right. They had to do something or more cops might die.

“Maybe Belinda can help us get him,” Kelly said. “If we lured him down here to talk to her—”

“Lure him down here? This is exactly where he wants to be. He’s up on the roof right now trying to figure out how to get to Belinda. And if he does, he’ll kill her. Or die trying.”

Belinda flinched, but he wasn’t going to sugarcoat the pill. Stoltz had nothing to lose. He wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, but his main objective was Belinda. He’d have fun with her first, his idea of fun anyway, rape, torture and humiliate her. Then he would kill her.

“You could hide in the bathroom,” Belinda said. “When he comes in the room you could arrest him.”

“
Arrest
him? The only way to stop this guy is to kill him.”

“Frank,” Kelly said, “I still think we could use her to get to him.”

“What? You want me to run up there and invite him down?”

Kelly’s eyes flashed in anger, but he didn’t care. He had no time for this. The bastard was roaming the roof, shooting cops. SWAT was on the way, but Stoltz was perfectly positioned to deal out more death and destruction.

“Stay here with Belinda,” he said. “I need to talk to the reinforcements.”

_____

He peeked over the wall at the cop cars blocking the garage entrance. Both windshields were blown out, the drivers slumped in their seats. Their partners were hunkered outside the squads, using the doors for protection. He fired a burst to keep them in position. Then, stooping low so they couldn’t see him, he ran to the northeast corner. Parked catty-cornered at an intersection were two more squad cars. He jammed in a fresh clip, drew a bead on one car and fired in short bursts.
Tat-tat-tat, tat-tat-tat
.

Keep the cops busy so they wouldn’t get any ideas about coming up the ramp to ambush him. He fired again. When he paused to look, the cops outside the squads fired at him. He raked them with a merciless hail of bullets. The recoil punched his shoulder and the sound hurt his ears.

His headache returned with a vengeance.

_____

Frank stepped into the hall just as the stairwell door opposite Belinda’s suite opened. Warren Wood stepped into the hall, chest thrust out, cheeks pale against his dark Fu Manchu. Larry Nixon, Chuck Duncan’s replacement, was behind him. Nixon was stocky and several inches shorter than Warren. His smooth pink-cheeked face looked like he’d just shaved, and his eyes, unlike Warren’s, were full of apprehension.

“Me and Larry will set up at the corner of the main hall,” Wood said. “We’ll protect your flank.” He turned and swaggered down the hall.

“Be careful,” Frank said. Wood acted confident, but to him it seemed like false bravado. Nixon looked worried, and rightfully so. The nutcase on the roof had already shot two firemen and several cops.

Otis Jones and Sam Wallace entered the hallway. Unlike Warren, the two black detectives displayed no bravado, just grim determination. They had faced armed killers before. “A helluva mess,” Otis said, his dark eyes somber.

“Damn straight,” Sam said, gripping a radio handset in one hand, his service weapon in the other. “The bastard’s up there shooting cops.”

Otis ran a hand over his gray-speckled hair. “Reminds me of the sniper on the roof of the Howard Johnson’s Hotel back in seventy-three. He killed nine people, five of ‘em cops. That was before I joined the force, but some of the older guys still talk about it.”

He was glad to see Otis. Otis had worked District-One for years, where shots were fired every day. He’d be steady in a crisis. Sam was younger, but he had a steely resolve about him. Sam would be okay.

He wished he felt as confident about Wood and Nixon. He turned and watched them disappear around the corner into the main hall.

If Stoltz figured out where Belinda was, that’s the way he would come.

_____

His head throbbed, a relentless crescendo of pain. He took his meds out of the knapsack and dry-swallowed them. Big showdown with the Diva-bitch and Renzi coming up. Too bad he couldn’t kill Rachel, too.

Had she really said that to Pa?
Ben wants to fuck me.

Giving Pa another reason to hate him. He took out his cell phone.

He’d given up any idea of getting out of here alive. Why not settle the score with Rachel too? Tell her about his final conversation with Pa.

His sweet moment of truth, crystal clear in his mind even now.

A week after Rachel called to tell him about her born-again experience, lamenting that Pa wouldn’t tell her about her birth parents, he’d called the asshole. Pa was shocked to hear from him, got over it quick when he invited him out for dinner. He picked him up and took him to a swanky restaurant in Providence. The place was jammed so they had to park on the top level of the adjacent parking garage. Pa’s hair had more gray streaks than he remembered, but he hadn’t seen the man for a long time.

Figuring his plan would go easier if Pa was soused, he got him drunk. It wasn’t hard. Pa sucked down four Jack Daniels, hardly touched his dinner. Didn’t want to hear about his exploits with Special Ops, either.

Pa always had to be the center of attention.

After dinner, he asked about his birth parents.

“You don’t wanna know,” Pa said.

“Yes, I do,” he said, “and so does Rachel.”

But Pa just sucked up more Jack Daniels and turned maudlin, feeling sorry for himself, Ma was gone, Rachel was gone, blah, blah, blah.

“What about me?” he said. “I just bought you a nice dinner. But you never gave a shit about me, did you Pa? It was always about Rachel.”

He paid the bill and they left. He had to help Pa to the elevator in the garage, grabbing his arm to steady him when he swayed. They were about the same height, but Pa was heavier, arms thick and muscular. Pa’s obsessions in life were pumping iron and maintaining his marksmanship at a gun range.

And fucking Rachel.

When they got to his car, he didn’t unlock the door.

“Come on, boy. Let’s get in the car so you can take me home.”

Not so fast
. He had a plan, and taking Pa home wasn’t part of it.

His heart pounded a frenzy of hammer-strokes. Time to deliver The Speech, the one he’d fantasized about for twenty years. His Ruger was in a holster inside his jacket. How easy it would be. One shot to the head and bye-bye Daddy-O. But that wasn’t the ending he’d planned for this drama.

“Time we had a talk, Pops.” His heart was beating so hard he thought his chest would explode.

“Talk?” Pa looked at him, bleary-eyed. “We got nothing to talk about. Take me home.” So drunk he could barely stand and still giving orders, still thinking he was in charge.

He took out the Ruger and aimed it at his father.

“The hell you doin', boy? Put that thing down.”

“No. That’s what you did to me my whole life. Put me down. Nothing I ever did was good enough to suit you. Rachel was perfect. I was dog shit.”

Pa worked his lips, not saying anything but thinking, all shifty-eyed now.

“You and Rachel were pretty tight back then, right, Pops? Real tight.”