IT should have been over for us, but it wasn't. We had done our jobs, and the rest of it should have been left to the proper agencies. If Hassan Rashid, aka Safeer, was really going to risk his neck by coming into the country to attend the farewell performance of an overage opera singer at Carnegie Hall, then the job now belonged to Immigration, the FBI, and the NYPD in that order. I say "if'” he was coming because I wasn't anywhere near as confident as Sammy was that he would show. I agreed with Sammy that Ogden 's operation had been brilliantly conceived. (That it also had been unblushingly evil was something else again.) But to me the brilliance had resided in the timing of the events, the sequential pushing of all the buttons, and not in any single one of them. Taken all together, they would have created what Sammy had called a psychological blitzkrieg, but I had my doubts that any one of them alone, save perhaps the attack on Lila, would have been enough to do the trick. So I wasn't at all comfortable about this night at the opera, and I would have been more than happy to bow out of the job at that point, but we were stuck with it for one simple reason. Nobody knew what Safeer looked like. Plastic surgery had changed his face and his fingerprints entirely, and careful schooling had done the same for his voice, his speech patterns, and his accent. We had to assume that with the manufactured papers available to him, he would have no trouble clearing Immigration into the country, and that he would be virtually unidentifiable once he was here. If his purpose had been simply to enter the country, there was no way in which we could have stopped him, but he had a theoretical goal, and that made it possible. I say theoretical because I still did not fully believe that he was coming, but the assumption was that he was headed for Carnegie Hall, and that's where we came in. Only a sensitive had the ability to spot him in a crowd and set him up for the suits, and so we still were on the job.
In addition to these doubts, I was unhappy about the situation for a number of reasons, the most important of which was that I had just killed a man. Madrigal had been right in what he had said just before I pulled the trigger. We may not be quite the ladies and gents of the intelligence world that he thought we were, but we do like to think of ourselves as being something different. No one knows better than a sensitive how filthy and corrupting the life in that world can be, and we try to insulate ourselves from the worst parts of it. The title defines the attitude. We are sensitives, with an inbred sensibility to the cares and the woes of humankind. What else could we be, being privy to the hopes and despairs of everyone around us? We work with our brains, not our backs, and we leave the mechanics of the game, the sweat, the grime, and the inevitable violence to others. But there comes a time, as it had come to me, and it had not come easily. I had taken a life, and that was no small thing to me. I had taken it to save myself, and to save Calvin, but that did not help my sleep at night.
Another intruder in the night was June. No, not romance. I carried a gleaming memory of her alabaster body wrapped in a cheap motel towel, but it was a memory to be filed under lost chances. When I thought of her in the night it was with sadness, not passion. Sadness for both of them, actually. Calvin and June, who should never have married, and who now were bound together only by two small sacks of marital cement. A not uncommon situation these days, but a personal one to me for I had intervened in it. I had pointed a finger, playing God, and had said that this one shall live and this one shall die. By killing Madrigal I had kept her pitiful marriage alive, and now I was being asked to point that finger again and help to destroy the man she thought she should have married. Mutt and Jeff, and the Pom-Pom Queen, and what would have happened to Hassan Rashid if he, not Calvin, had won the woman? Do we still speak of winning women? We certainly speak of losing them, and Hassan had lost. What would he have been with June at his side? Not Safeer, I was sure of that, but what? And what did it matter to me? Another intruder that clashed with my sleep.
The final source of my discontent was the way in which we were to be employed on the job. We were to be the eyes and the ears, spotted around both inside and outside of Carnegie Hall on the night of the concert performance. We would search, we would find, and we would point the finger. After that it would be up to the FBI and the NYPD, working together, which was fine with me. Lou Ritter was heading up the FBI team, and Captain Dennis Costello was the man in charge for the police. I had worked with Ritter before, and I could trust him as much as I could trust any normal. He and Costello would work from an unmarked command truck parked on Fifty-seventh Street opposite the hall, and Sammy would be there with them. So I had no complaints about procedure, and no complaints about command, but I had plenty to complain about when Sammy told me that I would be working with Chicken.
It was Sammy's decision that we would work the Hall in pairs, fifteen teams for a total of thirty sensitives. With Martha out of the game and Sammy needed in the truck, this meant pulling people off other assignments all over the country, and using some of the kids. I had no objection to working with the juniors, they were as good as any other sensitive for this kind of work, but I did object to working with a screwball like Chicken. I knew that he had gotten his touch back, and I knew that he had come up smelling like roses on the Sextant job, but that didn't mean much to me. The touch could go as quickly as it had returned, and the only reason he had wound up looking so good was because he had been so bad to start with. To me he was still a loudmouthed juvenille braggart without a shred of responsibility in his nature, and I wanted no part of him. I told that to Sammy, and I got the answer I should have expected.
"In the first place you're wrong, he's changed," Sammy said. "In the second place I don't care a fig about your personal preferences, I'm not changing the assignment sheet. And in the third place, if he really is so bad then he can only profit from working with a seasoned pro like the great Ben Slade."
So there I was, stuck with the kid who had broken Martha's leg, and who had come within a deuce of blowing the Sextant assignment. And to make matters worse, he was totally unrepentant, and all puffed up about what he had accomplished on that job. To hear him tell it, no one else had rescued a damsel in distress since the days of St. George and the dragon, and what he was proud of most was that he had done it all with his mouth. He had used no violence, fired no weapon, wrestled with no bad guys in the mud. He had talked his way out of a losing situation, and he wore the accomplishment like a rakish halo. This did not endear him to me. I, the seasoned pro, the great Ben Slade, had been forced to take a life.
I complained about the pairing to Martha, and she advised me to live with it. It was Saturday morning, the day of the Bonfiglia performance. "Ride it out," she said. "He's only a kid, what harm can he do?"
"I can't believe you said that. Look what he did to you."
"That was partly my fault, I should have kept an eye on him." She can be disgustingly fair-minded. "Besides, he's changed."
"So everybody tells me, but I don't see it. I'd rather be working with you."
"That's sweet, but I'll be in the truck with Sammy. What's really bothering you?" I shrugged. "Let Mama take a peek." I let her into my head, and she frowned. "The woman? June?"
"Do you ever get the feeling that you've played God once too often?"
She snorted. "About twice a week. Come on, sweetie, you feel guilty because you took out Madrigal? Keeping her husband alive was your job. What else were you going to do?"
"Nothing. That's half the problem."
"And the other half is Safeer. You want to nail him, don't you?"
"If he shows up."
"If? Can I come back in for another peek?"
"No."
"You don't want him to show, do you?"
"Please, spare me the profundities."
"Just trying to help."
"If you really want to help, do me a favor tonight and keep a tap on Chicken from the truck. Let me know if you think he's going to pull one of his crazy stunts."
She looked doubtful. "The range may be too much."
"Give it a try, please."
"He really bothers you."
"He makes me nervous," I admitted.
It rained that night, a light, steady shower that did nothing to cleanse the air or the streets. I welcomed the rain. I thought that it might cut down the crowd and make our job easier, but it didn't. The Hall was sold out, all two thousand two hundred forty-seven seats and sixty-three boxes, and no one was burning tickets that night. We were set up by late afternoon, and between the FBI and the plainclothes cops we had about seventy bodies in the area. Sammy gave our gang the final instructions in the truck. He had us broken down into three squads. The first would work the sidewalk outside the Hall, and the lobby area. The second would work the Parquet section, which is what Carnegie calls its orchestra. The third was assigned to the various balconies. Sammy had it set up like a radio net, one group reporting to the next, and the next, and then out to the truck.
"You tap individuals, not groups, as they approach the building," said Sammy, "and you tap everyone, including women. You report anything suspicious, but you do not, repeat not, approach the subject. You pass him along to the next squad until his seat is noted, and that's it. Once the performance has started, assuming that we haven't landed anything, you withdraw from the main hall. During the intermission you repeat the procedure on people passing in and out of the main hall and, again, if we don't have anything, you withdraw. We do the final screening when the audience leaves the hall after the concert. Now remember who you're dealing with here. This guy kills the way you blow your nose. Very casually. So let's not have any heroes here tonight. Your job is not to apprehend, only to report. No heroes, you understand?"
"You understand?" I asked Chicken as we crossed Fifty-seventh Street to the Hall. "Don't screw up tonight. You pull one of your stunts and I'll have you shoveling horse shit all summer."
"You don't have to worry about me," he said jauntily. "I'm on the team now. I'm a happy camper."
"You're a pain in the ass and an arrogant little prick, so don't blow me any smoke. Just do your job."
"I told you, Ben, I'll do it. I learned a lot on the Sextant job."
"You learned that you were lucky, that's what you learned. And who said that you could call me Ben?"
That got to him. First names were always used at the Center, regardless of age. His jauntiness crumbled at the edges. "What should I call you?"
Collect, I thought. Calvin's line. Call me collect.
"Collect?" he asked, puzzled.
Sloppy of me, he had picked up the thought. He had his touch back, all right. "Yeah, sure, call me Ben. Call me anything you damn well please."
There is nothing grand about the entrance to Carnegie Hall, just two steps up from the street and you're in the small lobby with the box office windows on the far left. It isn't until you walk into the main-stage auditorium that you begin to feel the grandeur of the place and, standing at the back of the Parquet, your eyes rise up to the four glittering horseshoe tiers that converge on the stage. Eighty feet above your head a double halo of chandeliers spreads a buttery light that suffuses the atmosphere and picks out the intricate wreaths and scrolls on the walls. Serried rows of seats slope down at a steep but pleasing angle. The Hall is just over one hundred years old, saved from the wrecker's ball and still going strong, singing songs of better days.
My squad covered the lobby and the Parquet, and I took up my position at the top of the center aisle as the first of the ticket holders began to trickle in. Chicken stood beside me. The setup made for easy tapping. As each person walked by I did a quick tap, in and out, and Chicken did the same, backing me up. It soon turned into a dull routine.
You getting anything? asked Chicken. Anything at all?
No, but keep alert. Don't let up.
Look, I've been thinking…
Don't. Whenever you think you have an accident.
When I was on the Sextant job…
If I hear anything more about that job, I'll puke. Get back to work, and stay on it.
All right, all right, I'm on it.
He was on it, I was on it, we all were on it, but by the time that the house lights dimmed we had turned up nothing. The message came from Sammy in the truck. Everybody out of the Hall. We gathered in the lobby, and Sammy came through again. Don't bunch up in there. Some of you get out on the street and move around. Be back in time for the intermission.
I went across the street and climbed into the truck. Ritter and Costello were there, hooked up to their people, and Sammy and Martha. I didn't see any smiling faces.
"Anything?" I asked.
"Zilch," said Sammy. "A couple of false alarms."
"Then we might as well pack it in and go home. He isn't coming. '
"It's still early."
"The house is full. He'd be here by now."
"We could have missed him going in. We have two more cracks at him."
"Damn it, you're kidding yourself. He isn't here."
Ben. It was Martha. Costello and Ritter were looking at us curiously. Let's keep the discussion inside the family.
Sorry. It's just that I don't think this is going to work. I never did.
You don't want it to work. That's why you're so sure he won't show.
What's all this? asked Sammy. You don't want it to work?
He's afraid of what's going to happen if we nail this creep tonight.
Leave it alone, I told her. She had taken a really good look in my head.
It's nothing to be ashamed of. If Safeer goes down tonight, right here, everything about him comes out in the open. Lila finds out that her father is a cold-blooded killer, June gets robbed of her one decent memory, and Teague finds out what happened to the boy he treated like a son. So Ben would feel better if he didn't show up.
Fuck you, Madam Freud, I said. Were you able to keep a tap on Chicken?
As much as I could. You're hurting him, Ben.
He'll live. That kid is made of solid brass.
She flipped me a mental sigh. When you get like this I can't talk to you.
I went back to the Hall for the intermission screening, and once again we turned up nothing. Some of the audience went out onto Fifty-seventh Street to smoke, some gathered in the lobby, some stayed in their seats. We screened everyone who moved past our positions, and to cover the ones who had stayed in their seats we sent a few aces sauntering up and down the aisles, tapping as they went along. Nothing. Upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside. Nothing. When the second half of the program began, we withdrew again from the Hall. We gathered in the lobby and on the sidewalk, and Sammy made a speech to the troops from the truck speaking head-to-head, all hands tapped in.
Quiet down and listen up, he said. The fact that we haven't spotted this bastard yet doesn't mean that he isn't here. In a crowd like this we could easily have missed him, but we still have one more crack at him, so don't let down. I want you on your toes when the concert ends and the people start coming out. Tap them once, tap them twice, tap them three times if you get the chance, and report anything you find. Send it straight in to me in the truck, and then get out of the way. The Feds and the cops will take it from there. Stay with it, gang.
Tucked away somewhere I have a program of that concert at Carnegie Hall, and if I looked at it I could tell you what Bonfiglia sang that night, but I don't remember any of it. All I remember about the second half of that concert is pacing up and down Fifty-seventh Street in the rain with Chicken at my heels, waiting for it to be over. My mood was foul and angry, made worse by what Martha had said. Yes, I wanted Safeer caught, I even wanted him killed, but I wanted something better than that for the memory of Hassan Rashid.
"Ben," said Chicken.
"No," I said, and that was the end of that conversation.
We went back to the Hall, and took up our positions. Through the closed doors we heard the applause and the calls for encores. She sang one, and then another. They forced her to sing a third, and then it was over. The applause died down, the doors swung open, and the crowd came pouring out.
I tapped and I tapped, and I got what I expected. Nothing. The crowd thinned down to a trickle. Still nothing. I went into the Hall to take a final look around. Anyone who has worked as an usher either in Broadway theatres or in halls such as Carnegie, Avery Fisher, or the Met will tell you that people exit from an auditorium in three different ways. There are the taxi hunters who rush for the door as soon as the curtain begins to fall, there are those who exit in an orderly fashion, and there are the very few who sit stock still while the others leave, reluctant to remove themselves from the scene. Still captured by what they have seen and heard, they can sit that way, unmoving, until they are politely told that it is time to go.
Ushers call them the rocks, and from where I stood at the back of the parquet I could see five of them still seated. An usher moved from one to the other, saying a few soft words to break the spell of the evening and send them on their way. Each one, when spoken to, responded with a blank stare, and then a reluctant nod. They began to leave slowly. One of the women had tears on her cheeks, and one of the men did, too. The man with the tears came up the center aisle. He was tall, with sloping shoulders, and he moved with an ambling gait. I nodded, but he did not return the nod. I doubt that he even saw me. He was still in another world. I tapped him lightly.
Ben, said Chicken.
Yeah, I know. It's Safeer. And I missed him.
We both did.
Yeah. You missed him because you're sixteen years old. I missed him because I wanted to miss him. I raised the volume. Sammy, I've got him. He's coming up the main aisle heading for the lobby.
You sure?
No question. He's about six three, one eighty, dark and clean shaven. Dark blue suit, light blue shirt and tie. He's alone.
Got it. I heard him speaking vocally to Ritter and Costello, passing it on. Okay, Ben, we take it from here. Stay out of it.
Gladly.
Safeer was at the top of the aisle, going through the door. I sprinted up the aisle, Chicken close behind me. I swung the door open just enough to give me a crack for vision. I was out of it, but I was going to see it happen. It happened quickly.
The lobby was clear of civilians. There were five FBI agents in the area, one of them a woman, and they all were trying to look as if they belonged there. Two were near the front doors, staring out at the rain, two were looking at the list of coming concerts, and one was leaning against the wall near the box office window. Safeer started across the lobby to the front doors, and the five began to move.
The two at the door turned to face him. The two at the poster moved slowly to come up behind him. The one at the box office window started for the center of the lobby. Pistols appeared in their hands.
Safeer stopped. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the two behind him. He stood still. A woman carrying a canvas sack came out the box office door. She did not see the pistols, and she started across the lobby.
The agent nearest the door shouted, "Get back. No, damn it, no."
Safeer moved with the instincts of a man who had been hunted for years. He took two quick gliding steps and swept the woman in front of him, his arm around her neck. She shrieked. He put a small flat pistol against her cheek. His eyes swept the room. No one moved. Safeer sprang back, dragging the woman with him like a panther with its prey. He kicked open the box office door, and backed inside. He kicked the door shut. The agents stared at each other. Not a shot had been fired.
Just short of an hour later I sat in the truck with Sammy and Martha. Lou Ritter was at his bank of phones, and Captain Costello was at his. The truck was crowded with police brass, but they were letting Costello carry the ball. He had been there before. So had I. He was talking on the phone with the mayor.
"Yes sir, we're in telephone communication with him," he was saying. "He's holed up in the box office, and what we have here is your basic hostage situation. He has three women in there, and he says he's going to shoot one of them in ten minutes unless we meet his demands." He listened. "He wants what they all want, safe conduct to JFK and an aircraft out of here to Tripoli. No, no money. Yes sir, exactly. We have the streets around the Hall secured, we have a SWAT team standing by, and we're about to send in a negotiator. No, a specialist, a federal man. I've worked with him before." Costello, listening, looked at me and shrugged helplessly. He was lying to the mayor. We had never worked together, but he had worked with Martha and Vince on a hostage job, and he knew what we could do. "Yes sir, the chief is here, I'll put him on." He handed the phone to one of the brass, and turned to me.
"Mayor wanted to know why we aren't using one of our own people," he said. "It was a little difficult to explain."
I nodded. The mayor was new on the job. He had a limited amount of experience, and a limited federal clearance. He didn't know about folks like me. Costello knew. People like me made him nervous, but he knew that there was no one better than a sensitive in a hostage situation. All of us had done it at least once.
"You don't have to make this your pigeon," Sammy said for perhaps the fifth time. "I can send in Vince or Snake. You've gotten yourself involved."
"You've got it backwards," I told him. "I'm the best for the job because I'm involved."
Martha put her hand on my arm. "You're carrying a load of guilt about this. Don't let it get in the way."
"I let him get by me. I was trying to play God again."
"Just get those people out. Don't think about anything else."
"I let him get by."
"Ben, you're on," said Ritter. He was handling the phone to the box office. "We're feeding him the usual bullshit about the aircraft, getting it ready, mechanical delays, blah, blah, blah, but he's getting real antsy. Says to get over there now or he starts shooting."
"On my way. What's the drill?"
"We've cleared the lobby. You go in with your hands out in front of you, and you go straight to the box office window. It's like a teller's window, with bulletproof glass. You belly up as close as you can to the window, and put your hands in sight on the ledge. He'll talk to you through the window."
"How does he sound?"
"Cold. Almost casual."
I asked Sammy, "Any instructions?"
"You've been there before. Promise him anything, but give him bupkis."
I left the truck and started across the street. Fifty-seventh was empty of traffic, cordoned off, and bright with lights. Chicken caught up with me and matched my stride. I said, "What do you want now?"
"Thirty seconds."
"I don't have thirty seconds." I kept on walking.
He grabbed my arm and pulled. I was so surprised that I let him pull me around. "Damn it, you listen. Just for once, you listen to me."
"Thirty seconds."
"It may not mean much, but it worked for me on the Sextant job."
"Christ, that again?"
"Just one thing. Don't speak to him in English, use Arabic. You speak to him in his mother tongue, get it? It worked for me. I spoke to Sextant in Slovenian, and it rocked him, it really did. It took him right out of the role he was playing. And don't call him Safeer, call him Hassan. That worked for me, too."
He stopped, and looked at me expectantly. I tried not to grin. He wasn't being a wiseass, he was really trying to help, and I could not get myself to tell him that what he was suggesting was basic to the job. It was something we all had learned years before. He had learned it too, but at his age when you learn something like that you think that you've invented it.
"I'll try it that way," I told him. "Thanks. Anything else?"
"No, just that. Uh… take care, you know?"
"I will."
I went into the lobby of the Hall. It was brightly lit, and empty. I kept my hands in sight as I walked to the box office window. I got as close to the window as I could and put my hands on the ledge. His face appeared in the window. It was a cold face, with eyes that showed nothing.
"Peace be with you."
"And with you peace."
"I am the negotiator," I said in the Cairene dialect. "I am here to make sure that all goes smoothly."
"There is nothing to negotiate. You know my demands. Is the aircraft ready?"
"It will be ready shortly. There have been some delays."
"Ground transportation?"
"It is being prepared."
"Standard answers," he said disdainfully. "The standard tactic, delay and delay. That will not work with me. I want the transport now, or the killing begins."
"I cannot give you what I do not have. Be patient. It is a matter of minutes."
"While you surround the place with troops."
"The place is already surrounded. I must know if the hostages are safe."
"They are safe. They have not been harmed."
"I cannot see them."
"They are lying on the floor. Shall I shoot one in the leg so you can hear her scream?"
"There is no need for that. Just be patient. As soon as I get the signal, you will leave for the airport."
By this time I was into his head, combing through it quickly, searching for whatever I might be able to use. Considering the circumstances, his mind was under remarkable control. At the top of his thoughts was how we had found him, and he put it into words.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked.
"We know you."
"How did you know I was here? Was I betrayed?"
"Do you really expect me to answer that?"
"No, of course not. What is your name?"
"Benjamin."
"As you know, I am called Safeer. Have you done this work before?"
"Yes."
"Then we may speak as professionals. As you know, my position depends on your belief that I will kill, and since you know who I am, you know that I will." He spoke as if quoting from a textbook. "If my demands are not met, I will kill, and I will kill again. I am willing to kill even if it means losing my last hostage, which means that I too will die. I am not afraid of death, Benjamin. Death is my brother, and when the time comes for me to join him I will do so willingly. You know this about me, you know that I mean it, and so we must stop all this talk about delays." He looked at his watch. "Either my ground transportation is outside within ten minutes, or I will kill one of the women. Is that understood?"
So far the conversation had been going along the classic lines for a terrorist and a negotiator. It was time to change the script. I said, "No."
His eyes narrowed. "No? What does that mean?"
"It means that Safeer would certainly kill that way, but not Hassan Rashid."
He handled it well. His mind whirled, but his face did not change. He raised the pistol and pointed it at me.
"The glass is bulletproof," I reminded him.
He lowered the pistol. "What do you know about Hassan Rashid?"
I told him what I knew. I told him about the lonely exchange student who came to Van Buren and learned to play basketball. I told him about fatherly Mike Teague, and Mutt and Jeff, and the Pom-Pom Queen. I told him about the Poodle, about the baby, about the monthly payments to Violet Simms. I told him all about myself, and he listened carefully.
"Who else knows all this?" he asked.
"I am the only one," I lied.
"And who are you besides being Benjamin?"
"A man who knows many things. A man who knows how to keep secrets."
"There is no aircraft, is there?"
"No. There never was. There never will be."
"Then you have condemned these women to death."
"I don't think so."
He looked to his left, and down at the floor. He pointed the pistol in that direction, and fired. I heard no screams. He had taped their mouths.
Ben, what the hell is going on? It was Sammy. Was that a shot?
Keep the troops back. I'm inside his head. He fired a shot into the floor, no damage. He's trying to mess with me.
"What do you think now?" Safeer asked.
"I think that Hassan fired that shot. You killed no one."
He looked at me with wonder in his eyes. "How well you seem to know me."
"I know you as a brutal murderer."
"I have killed."
"And I know you as the man who dreams of the little girl on flight 307. The girl with the broken face."
The wonder remained. "You know that, too? What else do you know about me?"
"I know that you are going to die tonight."
He gestured with the pistol. "Then these on the floor will die with me."
I shrugged. "Inshallah."
He shook his head. "No, I do not believe that. Not you people."
"Listen to me, Hassan." I put my face as close to the glass as I could. "You are going to die because you would never surrender. I know that without question. But there is more than one way to die. If you make us take you by force, if you make us kill you, then I can promise you that the whole world will learn about Hassan Rashid. June will learn about the man she once loved. Lila will learn about her father. Even old Mike Teague will…"
"Stop that."
"Is that what you want?"
"You know I don't."
"Then you are left with the obvious alternative. And if that happens, only Safeer dies. Hassan Rashid lives on."
"What makes you think I would do something like that?"
"Because you are weary of living. Because you are weary of killing. Because you are weary of dreaming."
"The little girl with the broken face." He was close to it. I went into his head and saw how close he was.
"Yes, that one."
"Amir did that. Or Murad. Sometimes I cannot remember."
"No, you remember. That is why you dream."
"Did I really do it?" He asked it as a true question.
"You did."
"Yes, I suppose I did. But who killed the children of Gaza, the children of the camps, the children in the Bekaa? Those I did not kill." He shook his head. "Still, it would be good to rest that way."
"A form of peace." He was right on the edge. "What difference does it make, today or tomorrow?"
"I should never have come here, but to hear her one more time…" He looked at me directly, and I knew that he was going to do it. I didn't have to go into his head again. I knew. "You took a big chance with the hostages."
"Perhaps."
"When have I ever been merciful?"
"Never, but perhaps the time had come."
"Perhaps. I have your promise about what the world will know?"
"You have it."
He looked at the pistol as if it were the first pistol he had ever seen. "It is not an easy thing to do."
"Easier than some of the other things you have done."
"Oh yes, Benjamin, I can assure you of that. Much easier. In the words of Muhammad Taqi Partovi Sabzevari…"He paused.
"What words?"
" 'It is Allah who puts the gun in our hand, but we cannot expect him to pull the trigger as well, just because we are faint-hearted.' '
He put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
I turned on my heel, and walked out of the Hall. As I walked out, agents ran in. I leaned against the side of the building, then slid down to sit on the sidewalk with my head on my knees. I felt the rain on the back of my neck. Chicken stood over me. His cheeks were wet, but that could have been the rain. Then Snake and Vince were there, Sammy and Martha with her crutch.
Sammy knelt beside me, and said. "You were terrific. You did it."
I shook my head.
"You did. You've been trying for years, and you finally did it. You finally talked somebody to death."
Is that funny? I wondered. I must ask Calvin. Calvin knows funny. "The potential was always there," I said. "I just never tried hard enough."
Sammy gave me a hand to stand up. "Let's go home."