"Why Jamaica?" she asked.
"Nice down there," he said vaguely.
"Well, let me talk to him, okay? You're asking for two things in a row now, and that's gonna make it a little harder for me. Let me see what I can do, okay?"
"Yeah, go ahead. An' tell him we ain't foolin' aroun' here."
"I will. Now Mr Whittaker, I'm gonna turn my back on you and walk over to the truck there. Do I still have your promise?"
"You have my promise."
"You won't hurt me."
"I won't hurt you."
"I have your promise then," she said, and nodded. "I'll be back as soon as I talk to him."
"Go ahead."
She turned away, giving him no reason to believe she was frightened or even apprehensive, turned and began walking swiftly and deliberately toward the Emergency Service truck, the word police in white across the back of her blue poplin jacket, trying not to pull her head into her shoulders, thinking nonetheless that any minute now a spray of bullets would come crashing into her spine.
But Whittaker kept his promise.
282
It was Carella who'd reahzed the perps had blindsided themselves. Boarded up the windows on three sides of the house. And if all those windows were boarded, they couldn't see out. Which meant that three sides of the house were accessible to the police. This was what he'd told Brady.
They had finally got a floor plan from the realty company that had sold the house to a Mr and Mrs Borden some twelve years ago, long before a housing development had been planned for the area. It looked like this:
Outside entry down to cellar
Back stairs from cellar
According to Dolly, when the owners of the house converted from a private residence to a rooming house, the living room and dining room were both refurnished as bedrooms, and what had once been the sitting room was now a sort of public room with a sofa, two easy chairs, and a television set on a stand. The kitchen and its adjoining pantry and laundry room - what had originally been called the sink room - were the only rooms on this floor of the house that remained as they'd been since its construction back before the turn of the century. There was only one large bathroom in the house, on the second floor.
At the rear of the house, there was an outside entry that led down to the cellar.
Carella pointed this out, too.
One of those sloping things that kids just loved to slide down, two doors on it that opened upward and outward like wings. Observer number four, working the inner perimeter at the rear of the house, reported that whereas the window to the left - his left - of the cellar doors had been boarded over, the doors themselves seemed not to have been touched. They were fastened by a simple padlock in a hasp.
It was Carella's thought that if they could get into that cellar, they could then come up the stairs to the kitchen entry and move through the house to where Sonny and Whittaker were holding the girl in the front room. From either of the doorways that opened into that room, they would have a clean shot at anyone inside, including whoever might be backed against the rear wall, as they suspected Sonny was.
Brady wanted the girl out of the house first.
No assault until the girl was out.
He told Eileen to go back to Whittaker and tell him they couldn't get him a chopper, but they could bring a limo around to the back door if he let the girl go at the same time. His thinking was to split up the pair. Get Whittaker to send Sonny back to the kitchen entry while the girl was coming out the front door. Time it so that Carella and Wade would be at the top of the cellar stairs when Sonny came back to check on the limo. No assault until they knew for certain Dolly was out of the house. Position themselves in the cellar, get themselves in place, but no assault till the girl was clear.
It could work.
Maybe.
"I'm sorry," Eileen said, "but he can't get a chopper for you."
"You tole me …"
"I know, but…"
"Tell him I'll kill the fuckin' girl! He wants to play games here, I'll kill the fuckin' girl!"
"Can I come up there on the porch?" Eileen asked.
You always asked for permission to approach. You always asked for assurances that there'd be no accidents, no slipups. You didn't want anyone to get hurt here. Not you, not him, not anyone.
"Okay?" she said. "Can I come up?"
"No," Whittaker said. "What'd you do, Red? Pick up a gun while you were back there with your pals?"
"No, I didn't. I'm not armed, I'll show you if you like. Is it okay to stand up?"
"You got to be crazy, you know that? You come back with shit from him, and you 'spect me to . . ."
"You promised you wouldn't hurt me. Have I still got your promise?"
"Why should I promise you anything?"
"'Cause I think I've got a way out of this. If we can just talk it over…"
"I'm not givin' him anythin' till he gives me somethin'!"
"That's just what I want to talk about. Can I stand up? Will you promise not to hurt me if I stand up?"
"Go on, stan' up," he said.
"I didn't hear your promise."
"You got my fuckin' promise, okay?"
