My kidnapper cocked his head and listened as he pushed the gun barrel into my side.
“J.P., it’s me. Open the door.” The bogeyman had arrived.
“Don’t do it,” I whispered. “He’s dangerous, J.P.”
Another knock, this one more like a slammed fist. “Let me in, pal. We only have a few minutes before the cops get here. We gotta get you out of there.”
J.P., proving once and for all that he was less intelligent than the average fifth grader, left me standing in the center of the living room and undid the chain lock and the bolt. He actually believed Macho Cop was here to rescue him? If I’d had anywhere to run that wouldn’t have cornered me, I would have bolted. The door banged open as McManus, in uniform, pushed his way in. He had left his mirrored shades somewhere. His eyes swiveled immediately over to me. He drew his gun from his holster and held it at his side. “You. Of course. I heard an APB on the radio there was a hostage.”
“She’s not a hostage, J.P. said in a rising pitch. “Not exactly.”
“Here’s what we have to do,” McManus said, riding over J.P.’s protest. “First, put her in the bathroom.”
McManus was a lot more decisive than the junior Margoletti. Plus, if J.P. was telling the truth, he had shot two people, which was a bad omen for me right now. The younger Margoletti grabbed my arm and yanked me hard back toward the hallway.
I started babbling. “You can’t trust him, J.P. He framed Dermott. He’ll frame you too.” He had pushed me into the bedroom before McManus appeared in the short hall and said, “I said the bathroom.”
“No lock,” J.P. said in a voice aimed at appeasing the stronger man.
“Okay, the bedroom then. Doesn’t matter. You’re going to shoot her, but I guess you’ll have to be in the room when you do it. Can’t be sure to hit her through the door in a larger room.”
“Me? Why me?” J.P. said, in a high-pitched whine.
I pulled my arm free of his weakened grasp and slid down the wall so I wouldn’t faint. J.P. didn’t try to pick me up. He didn’t seem any more willing to go into the bedroom than I was. “You left her there to die,” I whispered, looking up at the pale-eyed cop. “An innocent woman, and you shot her for no reason at all. She thought you were one of the good guys.”
“Me? Is that what he told you?” McManus grinned. “Why, daddy’s little boy is quite the shooter. They already have the gun and, guess what, it has your prints all over it, J.P., so you’ll be the one the police arrest.”
J.P. started to sputter, but I raised my voice. “Wait. That can’t be true. The gun from Dermott’s apartment has his prints on it. J.P., he’s trying to trick you.”
“I didn’t do it.” J.P. was beginning to babble. “I was there for the papers. He was only supposed to scare her so she wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“My job was to get you out, buddy. Like it is now,” McManus said. “C’mon, J.P. Do her. We don’t have any time left.”
“I don’t think we have to kill her, she won’t say anything.” J.P. was sweating and waving the gun around like a handkerchief.
The sirens had stopped and I had given up on that rescue, but now, all of a sudden, bright lights stabbed into the hallway, and an amplified voice filled the space. “Mr. Margoletti, we know you have someone in there. Let her come out of the building by herself. You won’t be harmed if she comes out safe.”
McManus whipped his own gun out and made a grab for me, but I rolled out of reach. “Let me go, J.P.” I said. “You didn’t kill Gabby—”
There was confused shouting going on outside the apartment door, and the cell phone J.P. had knocked out of my hands moments before began to ring. I scrabbled to it on my hands and knees. Before either man could grab it, I hit the button and started yelling, “In here, we’re all in here.” I would have said more but Vince Margoletti’s voice was roaring in stereo, which took me a minute to figure out. He was outside the apartment, yelling into his phone. I hit the speaker button, and held it toward J.P.
McManus reached down and yanked me to my feet, but he would have had to let go of me or holster his gun to get the phone, and he apparently decided having the gun trumped everything else.
Vince was yelling. “I know about the art, son. I can make this go away. Please, J.P., trust me.”
I jammed the phone in my pocket and began kicking and twisting to get out of McManus’s grip. With the cop distracted, J.P. rushed into the living room. McManus strode there with me still more or less in his grip, his gun pointed at the ceiling.
A new, mechanically amplified voice chimed in. “Mr. Margoletti, this is Captain Benders of the Bridgetown police department. We need to talk with you. Can you come to the door?”
“Don’t open the door,” McManus said, still gripping my arm. “They’ll kill you.”
J.P. stopped in his tracks, but so far he hadn’t put the gun down for a moment, and McManus had one too. Two people were dead and another injured, and I wasn’t even counting the guy back in San Francisco who went under a train. All I had was a smart mouth.
“Talk to your father,” I said. “He’s right outside. If you release me, the cops will back down.” Or, maybe not, but once I was outside, J.P. wasn’t my problem any more.
“Don’t, J.P.,” McManus said in a low voice. “We have one chance to get you out of here. I say I’ve captured you and get them to stand down while you go out the back window. I’ll pretend to shoot at you but only after you have time to get away.”
I had a bad feeling about how this was going to end. The cops probably had a SWAT team surrounding the building by now, and then there was me, who knew too much and would be alone in the room with a crooked cop.
The red lights from the police cars rolled rhythmically across the ceiling and the wall. We’d been stuck in this airless place for hours and J.P. had gone into panic paralysis as far as I could tell. McManus was twitching badly, and I couldn’t think of another argument they’d buy to let me out of here. I had the phone, but what use was it if taking it out of my pocket would only make McManus come for it?
Now he said, “Time to roll, pal. They’ll be storming this place in about a minute. You,” jabbing at me with his gun, “back in the bedroom. And you,” looking hard at J.P., “no more second thoughts. Shoot her or give me the gun and I’ll do it.”
J.P. looked confused and panicky. His eyes jumped to McManus’s gun.
“Can’t use this one, friend, it would be traced to me.”
“See, J.P.? He’s going to frame you for this,” I said, jerking back as the cop’s arm grabbed for me.