Gerry Valdez began telling the trainees that she didn't really think the old man was a sex maniac, it was just that he was getting senile, you know? He was eighty-four years old, he sometimes forgot himself, forgot he wasn't still a little boy chasing little girls along the beach, you know? It was really a pity and a shame, but at the same time she didn't want him fooling around with her kids, that was child abuse, wasn't it?
Eileen guessed it was.
She wondered what they were talking about inside that apartment.
Were it not for the shotgun, it would have been comical.
The old man wanted a girl.
"What do you mean, a girl?" Goodman said.
"He told me he'd trade his granddaughter for a girl," Garcia said.
"A girl?"
"He said if we send in a girl, he'd give us his granddaughter."
"A girl?" Goodman said again.
This was unheard of. In all his years of hostage negotiation, Goodman had never had anyone request a girl. He'd had takers who'd asked for cigarettes or beer or a jet plane to Miami or in one instance spaghetti with red clam sauce, but he had never had anyone ask for a girl. This was something new in the annals of hostage negotiation. An eighty-four-year-old man asking them for a girl.
"You mean he wants a girl?" he asked, shaking his head, still unwilling to believe it.
"A girl," Garcia said.
"Did he tell you this in Spanish or in English?" Brady asked.
"In Spanish."
"Then there was no mistake."
"No mistake. He wants a girl. Una chiquita, he said. I'm sure he meant a hooker."
"He wants a hooker."
"Yes."
"The old goat wants a hooker," Brady said.
"Yes."
"Mike?" Brady said. "What do you think?"
Goodman looked amused. But it wasn't funny.
"Can we send out for a hooker?" Brady said.
"And a dozen red roses," Goodman said, still looking amused.
"Mike," Brady said warningly.
"It's just I never heard of such a request," Goodman said.
"Can we get him a goddamn hooker or not?" Brady said. "Swap him a hooker for the little girl?"
"Absolutely not," Goodman said. "We never give them another hostage, that's a hard-and-fast rule. If we sent a hooker in there and she got blown away, you know what the media would do with that, don't you? Last week a fifteen-year-old kid, this week a hooker?"
"Yeah," Brady said glumly.
Garcia had been the talker on the door so far, and he didn't want anything to go wrong here, didn't want the old man to blow away either his granddaughter or anybody they might send in there. Garcia was only a Detective/Second, he didn't want any shit coming down on him. Do the job and do it right, but protect your ass at all times; he'd been a cop too long not to know this simple adage. So he waited for whatever Brady might come up with. Brady was the boss. Goodman was a civilian shrink who didn't matter, but Brady was rank. So Garcia waited for whatever he might decree.
"We've got two girls right outside," Brady said.
He was referring to the two women police officers in his training program.
Apparently, the old man did not know that Martha Halsted was a specialist. He took one look at her and told Garcia, in Spanish, that if they didn't get him a better-looking girl, he would kill his granddaughter on the spot. He gave them ten minutes to get him a better-looking girl. Martha, supremely egotistical, felt his rejection of her had to do with the fact that she was wearing white sneakers, jeans, and a T-shirt; the old man had been expecting someone who looked more like a hooker. She suggested that Eileen - who was dressed almost identically, except for the sneakers - looked more like a hooker.
"So what do you say, Burke?" Brady asked.
"Sir?"
"You want to go in there or not?"
Decoy work all over again, Eileen thought. Either they put you on the street in hooker's threads or you go sit on an old man's lap in blue jeans and a T-shirt, and you try to talk him out of a shotgun. Or maybe you shoot him. She was not in this program because she wanted to shoot people.
"If the shotgun comes out, I go in," she said.
"That's not the deal we made with him," Brady said.
"What was the deal?"
"He sends out his granddaughter, we send in a girl."
"Then what?"
"Then the kid is safe," Brady said.
"How about me? Am I safe?"
Brady looked at her.
"We can't send in a real hooker," he said.
"I realize that, I'm asking if you're swapping my life for the kid's, sir. That's what I'm asking."
"It's up to you to calm him down, get that shotgun away from him."
"How do I calm him down?" Eileen asked.
"We've had run-throughs on situations like this one," Brady said.
"Not exactly, sir, no, sir. We didn't do any run-throughs on a man expecting a hooker and getting a talker instead."
"This is only a. variation on a classic hostage situation," Brady said.
"I don't think so, sir. I think he may get very upset when he finds out I'm really a cop. I think he may decide to use that gun when he …"
"There's no reason for him to know you're a cop," Brady said.
"Oh? Do I lie to him, sir? I thought once we established communication, we told the truth all the way down the line."
