Terminal

“Not me,” I shook my head. My heart was pounding. “It was probably Martha. She’s been rambling the whole time about God and shit. She’s a real religious nut.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

I followed him into the office and left the door halfway open behind us, just in case any of them really did try to run. The room was small and windowless. There was a coatrack, a potted and anorexic palm tree, and a few pictures of flowers on the wall. A big desk dominated one end of the office, and the leather chair behind it lay on the floor. I could see the silver wheels sticking out from behind the corner of the desk. Another chair sat in front of the desk. There was no sign of Keith, but there was a picture of him on the top of the desk, standing in front of the Washington Monument. His arm was around a smiling woman, and two smiling kids stood in front of them. The .38 Sherm took from Mac Davis rested on the desk beside the picture.

“So what’s up? What’d you need to talk about?”

“You tell me, Sherm. John’s not good at all, man. Any word on the ambulance yet?”

“Yeah, but it ain’t what you want to hear. They won’t send one. I asked them, but they wouldn’t do it. Fucking cops.”

“Did you tell them that John was one of us, or that he was a wounded hostage?”

“A hostage, dog. But they still wouldn’t budge.”

“Why?” I sputtered. I knew it didn’t matter, knew that John was getting better at that very moment. But I still had to distract Sherm and it was still aggravating. He shrugged, not answering.

“Come on, Sherm. What reason did they give you?”

He shrugged a second time, his eyes flickered, and I knew then that he was lying again. He hadn’t even mentioned it to the cops.

“Sherm—”

“What the fuck you doing, Tommy?”

I pushed past him, rounding the corner of the desk and reached for the phone. He grabbed my arm and tried to yank me back. The phone slipped from my hands and I shoved him, grappling for it.

And I found Keith.

Strips of duct tape covered his nose and mouth. His face was purple and his eyes bulged in their sockets, frozen in death. The tiny veins inside of them had ruptured, and the whites turned blood red. His feet had left black scuff marks on the wall and desk, where he’d kicked at them in what must have been his death throes. I remembered that muffled thumping sound, and I gaped at Sherm in horror.

“Little fucker tried to holler out to the cops while I had him on the phone,” he explained. “I put him on to verify what I was telling them and instead, he started talking smack. Almost told them there was only the three of us and that John was wounded. So I slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth, just to keep him quiet. But he still wouldn’t shut up. So I put one over his nose too. Figured I’d just teach him a lesson— let him suffocate for a minute or two, then take it off. Fucking asshole went and died on me before I could do that, though. Heh. You should have seen him, yo. Kicking and straining and shit. His head looked like it was gonna explode.”

“So you killed him?”

“It was the only way, Tommy. I couldn’t shoot the fucker. Like you said earlier, if the cops heard another gunshot, they’d have been on us like white on rice.”

“Motherfucker . . . this is some bad shit, Sherm.”

“Yo, it’s not my fault, Tommy. Neither of them were my fault.”

“Neither of them? What are you talking about? Who? Do you mean Lucas?”

“Yeah, Lucas, the delivery driver. Dude wanted to try and make a dash out the back door when we were checking on his truck. Tried to slip out of my grasp, even though I had the gun pointed at the back of his head. Couldn’t let that happen, but I couldn’t shoot him either.”

“You said he was locked in the bathroom, Sherm. You said he wouldn’t be a problem anymore. Are you telling me you lied about that too? You killed him and didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything. I didn’t want the rest of the hostages freaking out on us.”

“So what really happened to him then?”

“I drowned him in the toilet.”

I ran a hand across my face and sighed.

“You killed him too.” It wasn’t a question.

“Just like Keith. Had to do it, man. But hey, I didn’t lie, right? I said he wouldn’t be a problem anymore and he isn’t. I’m telling you, dog, it was the only way.”

“That’s not what I mean, Sherm.”

His brow furrowed in puzzlement. He shrugged and lit up another cigarette.

“I don’t get you, man. What the hell is your problem? I warned you we might have to be hard-core on this from the beginning. So why you breaking my balls about this now?”

“Why kill him at all, Sherm? For fuck’s sake, man. I mean, have you lost your fucking mind? Do you have to keep wasting people? Isn’t this shit bad enough already? Can it get any fucking worse?”

He shrugged again. “It’s bad, sure. But it could get a lot fucking worse, Tommy. A lot worse. I’m starting to think we ain’t gonna make it out of here alive, bro.”

Unable to keep the edge out of my voice any longer, I snapped.