TONY DIDN’T LOOK scared at all, too much of a new guy to be scared. His trumped-up bravado let him falsely believe he could take on the world and win. He stared Deforest down and finally tore his eyes away to look at me to call the play. I’d caught his look out of the corner of my eye.
There was nothing for it. We’d run out of options when we crossed the threshold. I pulled both guns at once, my hands moving at lightning speed, and yet still not fast enough. I moved right up on Deforest, the Bogart Bandit, as I pointed my gun at his nose yelling, “Everyone down! Everyone down on the floor. Now. Get down. Get down. On the floor. Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff’s Department. Get down. Get down.”
Tony drew his gun and grabbed a hold of the gang member behind us, the sharpest move he could’ve made. I reached out and swung my arm around Deforest’s throat, yanked him toward me. Now they’d have to shoot through him if they wanted me.
The other four didn’t react as fast as we did. They’d just started going for their guns, reaching while I’d grappled up Deforest.
“Don’t,” I yelled. “Don’t do it. I’ll shoot him.”
Everyone froze for one interminable moment.
“I said, everyone get on the floor. Do it now.”
The moment broke, and the four moved to the floor and went prone.
Behind me, Tony whispered, “What now?”
“Get on your radio and call for backup.”
“I don’t have a radio.”
I broke eye contact with the ones on the floor, the ones I held my gun on, and looked at Tony. “What do you mean you don’t have a radio?”
“We didn’t bring handhelds; they needed all of them for the operation. We only have the one in our car.”
Deforest, his chin in the crook of my arm, said, “What are you going to do now, Mr. Pooleeseman?”
“Shut up.” Then I said to Tony, “Cuff that guy you got and then you’re going to step out the door and yell to my partner.” Outside with all the noise from the sandblasting, Ned didn’t know what we’d stepped into.
Deforest said to his friends on the floor, “They cain’t shoot you—you don’t have any guns in your hands. Dey can’t shoot an unarmed nigga. You kin take ’em. Ten thousand for the homeboy who—”
I tightened my grip on his neck with my arm choking off his words, and whispered, “Try me. You’ll be the first one, fat boy. I’ll pump one right in your melon.”
This time, with his face bloating, his lungs struggling for air, he rasped out, “Twenty thousand.”
Three of the gang members on the floor started to get up.
The apartment door kicked open. Ned rushed in following his drawn gun, his voice calm and controlled. “Peekaboo, assholes.”
Mike, with his aviator sunglasses, swung the shotgun into the room and leveled it on the three getting up from the floor. They saw the gauge and eased back down.
We cuffed three more and ran out of cuffs. Tony went to Deforest’s phone and called in an additional sheriff patrol unit for transportation.
I said to Ned, “Let’s toss this place.” We started a methodical search and immediately turned up six handguns, a sawed-off shotgun, and a cheap TEC-9—a poor man’s machine pistol.
Deforest asked, “How’d you all find me? The FBI’s been all over my ass for three years now, goin’ on four, and they couldn’t do it. No, sir, dey didn’t even come close.”
Ned stopped pulling up the carpet and looked at him. “Don’t try and flatter yourself, little man. It was only two years and the way we found you, we got a tip that some Oompa Loompa with a gold tooth had moved in here and we knew it had to be you.”
Mike with the shotgun and sunglasses smiled. Ned laughed too hard at his own joke.
The crooks on the floor laughed, too, and one said, “Man, dat’s harsh, but I kin see it. I can. Bogart, man, you could be in dat movie with Charlie and his Chocolate Factory.”
They’d heard the name “Bogart” the FBI gave Deforest, probably from the television when they put out the reward.
“Shut up, all of you all, or when I get out, I’ll come for ya all. I will. I don’t look like no got-damn Oompa Loompa. Shee-it.”
Ned moved closer. “Really? I bet if you put on ten more pounds I could even get you a job in the wax museum as one of them Oompa Loompas.”
Now everyone laughed. I suppressed a smile. “All right, knock it off.”
I went to the phone, took out the business card Jim Turner gave me, and dialed the direct number to his desk. He answered on the first ring. “FBI, Special Agent Jim Turner, bank robbery.”
Ned hurried over and put his ear right up next to mine.
“Special Agent Jim Turner, this is Deputy Johnson and—”
“Yes, Deputy Johnson, how is all that reading coming along? I forgot to tell you that I’d prefer you read the file at a desk in this office. Would you return to this office, now please?”
Ned let out a little giggle.
I said, “Aah, I don’t think it’s necessary to read that file anymore.”
He paused, his next words cautious. “Why is that, Deputy Johnson?”
“We got the Bogart Bandit.”
Another long pause. I tried to imagine him sitting at his desk among all his peers, and next to his boss Chelsea Miller, as his face started to bloat and turn red, his hand turning white holding the phone. “Fuck you.” The words came out in a harsh whisper.
He’d broken character. I never imagined some uptight admin pogue like him saying something like that, not an up-and-coming Special Agent with eyes on a plum assignment in D.C., and especially not in his office in front of all his peers.
Ned howled with laughter. I stepped away from him. He followed along. Turner had to be able to hear him.
I said into the phone, “Where do you want me to take Deforest? He’s a federal fugitive, and I think I’m supposed to take him forthwith to appear before a federal magistrate, right?”
Silence.
Jim Turner must’ve been trying to get himself under control. He came back on, his words spoken through clenched teeth. “If you have him? If you really have him, bring him to me. I want to see him.”
“Sure thing, Jim. To your office?”
“No. Where are you?”
“San Bernardino.” He didn’t want to make matters worse by me parading the Bogart Bandit in front of all his peers in the FBI bank robbery bullpen.
“Bring him to the front parking lot at San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. I’ll see you there in twenty minutes.” He slammed the phone down when he hung up.
I said, “Okay, good-bye,” to nobody and hung up. It was small-minded of me but I couldn’t believe how good that felt.