Chapter 12
People loved the public Allen—the smiling, sparkling, polished Allen, who hugged everyone, pulling them into her circle of money sunshine, as if they were long-lost friends, family. The store had positioned a simple podium next to a table draped in black cloth and stacked high with copies of her book, her glamorous face beaming on the cover. Lined up in front were folding chairs, filled with awestruck fans grinning back at her, reassuring her that she was, in fact, a star.
Chandler stood across the way from us, hovering, this after already making sure that Allen’s pitcher of water had been filled and that she had enough pens to sign her name. She’d left nothing to chance. At one point, as Allen read aloud, I would have sworn I saw Chandler mouthing the words right along with her.
The audience was made up mostly of women, but there were a few men, husbands or boyfriends, presumably, who were along for the ride and didn’t seem too displeased with the prospect. Local news crews were spread out along the periphery, taping Allen as she worked the crowd. She’d make the ten o’clock news easily.
As she read aloud, she detailed her early life of poverty and extolled the grit and perseverance that helped her become the woman she was today. I had to admit it was a compelling rags-to-riches story. How much of it was true, well, who knew?
“It almost makes you want to bawl your eyes out, doesn’t it?” Ben whispered.
“You’re an easy touch.”
My eyes kept sweeping the room; so did Ben’s. Nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, the room exploded in a thunderclap of applause. I’d missed Allen’s big finish. Chandler looked like she was proud enough to burst buttons. Allen took a seat behind the table, uncapped a pen, ready to sign her books, as the people lined up. Ben and I moved in, then split up. He took the right side of the table, and I took the left, both of us keeping an eye peeled for anything hinky.
One of the local TV reporters, a woman I recognized from Channel 5, rushed up with a chubby guy dressed in baggy jeans and a station T-shirt, a bulky camera balancing on his shoulder. The reporter, blond, thin—Annie something or other—thrust a microphone into Allen’s face, and the camera flicked on, flooding Allen’s face with blinding light.
“What a beginning, Ms. Allen,” a plump brunette of about fifty gushed when her time came at the front of the line. She seemed thrilled to see that the camera was rolling and that she’d likely make the evening newscast. “What an inspiring life you’ve lived.”
Allen’s face lit up. “Why, thank you. And it’s not over yet.” She winked playfully at the camera, then glanced at the slip of paper passed along to her by Chandler with the gusher’s name written on it. “What a pretty blouse you’re wearing . . . Elizabeth.” This sent the woman swooning. Annie now had a few usable sound bites, Elizabeth had her autograph, and Allen had experienced the mother of all ego strokes.
Meghan Fahey eased in next to me. “You’re so lucky to work with her. She’s just the best, isn’t she?”
I managed a half-committed smile. “She’s one in a million.”
The parade of the woefully misguided went on for nearly an hour, as store assistants wove in and out of the line, closing up gaps, keeping everybody moving. Allen signed everything put in front of her—books, photographs, even a few body parts. Everyone seemed happy. No signs of trouble.
The line thinned after a while, but healthy pockets of faithful still moved around the floor, sneaking glimpses of Allen, snapping her photo, and comparing the autographs they’d gotten. Most of the news crews had gotten their footage and had packed up and gone; only Annie and her camera remained behind.
As my eyes came back to center, I spotted a black man who hadn’t been there before inching forward at the end of the line. I scanned the room, looking for where he might have come from, then turned back. He was holding a bouquet of yellow flowers and a copy of Allen’s book. In a sea of mostly white faces, you couldn’t miss him, but it was the flowers that made me hold my breath.
Medium complexion, youngish, midtwenties maybe, average height, average build; wearing a denim jacket, black cargo pants, black runners, and a green T-shirt; a healed scar over his right eyebrow. I committed it all to memory, the scar being the most important. He could ditch the clothes; he couldn’t ditch that.
I looked for Ben, but he already had eyes on him. The line moved forward. Another Allen autograph, a little more face time. The man’s eyes never left Allen’s face, but she hadn’t noticed him yet. He was so focused on Allen that he didn’t appear to have noticed me or Ben, either, or see that we were tracking his every move.
Four people behind in line, the man readjusted his hold on the flowers, wet his lips. Getting ready. I moved in closer to Allen; Ben moved in beside me.
“No crime in bringing flowers,” Ben whispered. “Strange choice, though. Carnations.”
My eyes were on the guy, only on the guy. “He’s staring at her pretty hard.”
“He’s just a man with flowers. Until he’s not.”
The more I looked at him, the more I felt there was something about him. “Why does he look familiar?”
“No kidding? You know him?”
I shook my head, still watching. “No, don’t think so, but there’s something.”
“I’ll stick with him,” Ben said. “She’s yours.”
I frowned, then nodded. Allen and I were beginning to be a thing. There were now just two people between the table and the flower guy. Ben stepped out in front of the table. The woman in front of Allen moved away. One person to go. Allen smiled at the woman. She’d bought three books, one for herself, the others for her daughters. She wanted them signed and personally dedicated.
His turn imminent, the young man glanced around and saw me watching him. I didn’t smile, didn’t blink. I gave no indication that my looking at him was coincidental. He blinked once, looked away, and found Ben watching him, too. He suddenly looked nervous, worried, but he held his spot. He was almost there, much too close to give up now. The woman ahead of him moved away from the table. He stepped forward, laid his book down. Allen palmed it, opened the jacket, then looked up to greet him and gasped.
“Hello,” he said. “You can make it out to Eric.”
Allen’s pen hovered over the title page. She drew in a sharp, startled breath, which she seemed physically unable to expel. Conversations went on around her, but I doubted Allen could hear the talk or see anything except for the face of the man holding the yellow flowers.
“These are for you.” He laid the bouquet on the table and took back the book offered him.
Allen never looked at the flowers. Her eyes never left the man’s face. He appeared upset. “You don’t like flowers? Go ahead and take them.”
I moved forward, scooped up the bouquet he’d laid down, checked it. Just flowers, nothing hidden inside. “Sir, I’ll have to ask you to please move back. Ms. Allen appreciates the flowers and thanks you for coming.” Ben moved in closer, too, flanked him.
The man glanced hopefully at Allen. Surely, she would intervene. “She appreciates the flowers?”
“Yes, sir,” Ben said, suddenly right there. “And she thanks you for coming. Would you mind stepping this way, please?”
“No. I want to talk to her.”
I gently took the book from him.
“Hey, that’s mine!”
“I’m just putting it here,” I said, laying it on the table, “while we talk, calmly. You can have it back.” I gestured to an empty corner on the far side of the room, away from the crowd, away from Allen. “She can’t talk now, but if you’d step quietly this way.”
He shook his head, angry now. He didn’t want to speak to us. He made no effort to move. His eyes darted around the room. “Look . . . wait . . . That’s my book.”
We blocked his way, standing like a fence between him and the woman he’d come to see. He tried peering around us for a better look. “She’s—”
Ben reached out and took a firm grip of his upper arm. “Sir, you’re going to have to move back.”
The man yanked his arm free. “Get your hands off me.”
The murmurs and bits of conversation that had given the room a party atmosphere died out as suddenly as someone flicking off a light switch. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see cell phones emerging from pockets and tote bags, iPads being raised. The reporter and her cameraman inched forward, the camera filming. This was becoming a circus.
“Look, guy,” Ben began as he reached in again. I did, too, gently. We needed to move him back, calm him down. But he peddled away from us fast, got beyond our reach, fixing us with wild eyes.
“Back off.” His hand slipped into his jacket pocket, and my hand and Ben’s cocked back to our holsters at the same time, the confrontation suddenly taking a sickening turn.
“Do not do that!” I yelled.
Ben barked, “Get your hand out of the jacket!”
Our stern commands tumbled over each other as we kept our eyes glued on the pocket.
A pocketknife emerged, the blade at least six inches long. Not a gun. I moved my hand away from my gun, relieved, but not relaxed, my heart pounding. Gun versus knife wasn’t a fair fight. All we needed to do was calm him down and move him out, not shoot him.
Ben’s hands went up, palms out “Whoa. Steady there. What say we bring this whole thing way down, huh? What’s your name, kid?”
“It’s Eric, right?” I said. “That’s what you said?”
The man’s eyes swept from Ben to me, then over the frightened spectators, frozen to their spots. “You started this.” He jabbed the knife in our direction, swung it in an arc right to left, holding us off. A gasp went up in the room. “I said get back. Let me talk to her.”
I kept my eyes on the knife, mindful of the distance between it and us. “Can’t do that.”
He didn’t like that. He began to thrust and parry, bobbing on the balls of his feet, the knife jabbing forward.
“You have guns,” someone from the crowd shouted, “shoot him.”
“Shut up!” Ben yelled back.
The man’s hand tightened on the hilt of the knife. “You gonna shoot me? Go on then. Shoot me. Go on.”
“Dammit.” Ben muttered it under his breath, resigned. We exchanged a look. “You good?” he asked.
I checked the crowd, the knife, then nodded to Ben. “Yeah, okay.”
“My right.”
“Yep.”
We rushed forward together, fast off the mark. Ben grabbed the guy’s right wrist, locked it, tried to loosen his grip on the pocketknife. On my side, I grabbed his left wrist and forearm, twisted both, while at the same time Ben and I rammed the guy back, away from the table, as if pushing a tackling dummy down a football field. We slammed into a shelf of books, toppling most onto the floor. Shrieks went up in the room.
I pinned the guy’s arm back, my forearm pressing in against his neck. “Drop it! Now!”
He fought to get his arm free, but I had it twisted. If he moved it too wildly, it would surely break. Close up now, my face inches from his, I noted the scar parting his right eyebrow, the color of his eyes, the shape of his nose, his hairline. I shot a look at the wrist I was clamped down on and saw a small birthmark right at the joint, on the underside—dark, with jagged edges like an inkblot—another identifier.
I looked right into his face. “I said drop it!” I hissed it, my teeth clenched, fighting to keep him pinned, pressing in while at the same time kicking his legs apart to get him off-balance. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ben struggling on the other side. Ben was a big guy, a cop. What was taking so long?
“Got it?” I asked.
“Not yet.” Ben glared at the guy, still struggling. “Is this really the hill you want to die on? Drop it!”
I pressed in harder, kicked out at his legs again, but I couldn’t get enough leverage to send him over, not without removing my arm from his neck or letting his wrist go, and that wasn’t happening. Suddenly, Ben cried out, stumbled back, and I turned to see blood blossoming on the front of his white shirt.
“He stuck me!”
The guy’s right hand was free, and the knife was coming my way. I released his arm, ducked, and peddled back fast out of striking range. The spectators gasped, screamed, and took off running for the stairs like a herd of frightened buffalo, their retreat so frenzied that I could feel the rumble of the panicked exodus through the soles of my shoes.
I checked Ben, watched the knife, the man holding it. He was hopped up on adrenaline and fear in equal measure. I could see it in his eyes. He was cornered and knew it. I shifted slowly over so that I stood between Ben and him. The guy’s frantic eyes dropped to my waist and the gun there; then they met mine. “Don’t make me,” I said.
He dropped the knife and ran for the stairs. I exhaled, then ran to Ben.
Ben lay on the carpet, his hands clutching his stomach. “What the hell? What’re you doing? Leave me. Go after the son of a bitch.”
There was blood everywhere—his shirt, his hands, on the carpet beneath him. Pain was etched all over his pallid face. I kneeled down beside him to get a better look. The wound was deep. I turned to the bookstore rep. What the hell was her name?
“Call an ambulance!”
She didn’t move. She stood there like a zombie, mouth open, a stricken look on her freckled face.
I stood. “Hey! You. Bookstore girl. Call nine-one-one.” She fumbled for her phone, dialed the digits. I looked over at Allen and Chandler. “Both of you sit.”
Allen began to gather up her things, her purse, her glasses. “I’m not going to stand here in the open. Kaye, call for the car.”
“You’ll stay where I can see you. Sit!”
Chandler looked as though I’d stuck her with a cattle prod, Allen, too, but they both sat. I went back to Ben. There was too much blood, far too much, and he didn’t look good.
He winced. “You let him waltz right out the door? What’s wrong with you?”
“Shut up. Let me see.”
“Looks worse than it is.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Get me a Band-Aid, Nurse Nancy.”
He was joking. Good sign. I spotted a sweater someone had dropped on their mad dash for the exit, and scrambled over and grabbed it. After balling it up tight, I pressed it to Ben’s middle, listening out for the ambulance, trying not to think about the blood. I swallowed hard, waiting helplessly for someone to come.
“You’re right. It looks worse than it is.” I hoped I sounded convincing. “You do worse giving yourself a shave in the morning.” He’d gone gray. I looked into his eyes. Dullness stared back at me. Shit.
“You always . . . were . . . a lousy liar.”
I applied slightly more pressure to the wound. “I could stitch you up myself. I took basic first aid at the academy. I can birth a baby, apply a tourniquet, perform CPR.” Maybe if I razzed him, he’d stay alert enough to razz me back.
“I didn’t learn . . . half that crap.”
I shot Allen and Chandler an evil look as they sat there seething, as though they were the victims here, not Ben. “Well, I’m smarter than you, or didn’t you know that?”
“Yeah . . . I know it. Hands down.” His lips were beginning to turn blue, and the sweater was covered in blood.
I turned to the rep. “Call again. Tell them to hurry the hell up.” But before she could dial, I heard the sirens. Then, a couple of minutes later, there came a ruckus from the floor below, followed by the sound of heavy feet racing up the steps. Finally.
“They’re here.” I felt Ben’s hands, found them cold. His eyes were closed now. “Ben?”
“Relax. Just resting my eyes.”
Now who was the lousy liar? The paramedics rushed in, loaded down with gear, followed close behind by a couple of uniformed cops. I got up, stepped back, and let them work, my bloody hands shaking. I looked over at Allen, sitting there, her arms crossed petulantly at her chest, looking just as unconcerned and as disapproving as always, as though Ben, bleeding on the floor, was inconveniencing her. This was on her, every bit of it. She turned her back to me; Chandler, too. I stormed over to the table, grabbed up the book the guy had left behind.
Eric.