I prepared for the trip to the Legion as carefully as I would have done for a night patrol in Nam. Not with armaments. I knew I would be better off with my handgun than the shotgun. You can't use buckshot when there are civilians around, it spreads into a cloud that cuts through the air like grapeshot from Napoleon's cannons. I needed a clean, single shot, if I had to fire at all. But I was hoping it wouldn't come down to violence. It usually doesn't, even when you're up against men. Unless these two women were dedicated terrorists, they wouldn't fight.
The first thing I did was to check the address book I maintain in the office. It gave me Margaret Sumner's permanent address-or it should have. All the other property owners in the area have their names and addresses and phone numbers listed with me in case someone breaks into their place and I have to contact them in an emergency. But Margaret Sumner had no telephone number. I could now remember making the entry last summer when she bought the place. She gave me a post office box number in Toronto, no phone. In an explanatory P.S. I had added the note, "Travels extensively, cannot be reached quickly."
So that was one blank. I had nowhere to send the Toronto police to cover. I did the next thing I could. I separated the two prisoners and brought Freddie into the front office to talk to me. She came gladly. After talking to Nancy Carmichael and learning that I had shot the man at the Tavern, she realized that there are other sides to my character than guardian angel. And she had probably spent a lot of her time in the cell thinking about how close she had been to death.
As I brought her out the other girl snapped at her, "Don't help him. He's the enemy." I figured that humiliating herself at the Legion had stoked up her own personal hatred of men. She was useless to my investigation. But Freddie took no notice of her.
"What is it you want to know?" Her voice was neutral but there was tension to it. She was wondering if I was going to be harsh. I wasn't, anyway, but I had no need to be. I had the advantage that interrogators like to build up. It had happened for me accidentally but I knew it would work. She was still wearing the clumsy clothes I had brought her out on the ice. Their shapelessness made her feel incomplete and foolish, but their presence reminded her of what I had done. She had unzipped the parka in the warmth of the station, but she sat now clenching it together with both hands.
"To start with, why did you unload my gun? It could have gotten me killed."
She didn't answer. She looked at me, then lowered her eyes and shrugged one shoulder nervously. She spoke softly after a while, not raising her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't think you needed it. I thought it was just a symbol of-you know-masculinity. Emptying it was a kind of a joke."
Good guys versus clowns one more time, I thought. I was the blustering sexual cliché, she was the wise woman of the world. I wondered whether I should bring her up to date on everything that had happened since our encounter on the ice, but I didn't bother. I sat and looked at her without speaking. I could see her eyes were brimming with tears. She was like a child found playing some dangerous prank, not knowing how close to death she had been. It seemed to me that she had silently changed sides over the last couple of hours. The reality of the cold out there on the ice had convinced her that C.L.A.W. didn't make any sense. My help when her life depended on it had washed away her ability to believe the jargon of any ideology. I figured she was ready to help me, to make amends. So I asked her my questions.
"I'm going to the Legion Hall. I have reason to believe that Margaret and the woman you call Rachael have gone there, planning some kind of disturbance. Before I go, I want to know anything you can tell me that will help me to deal with Margaret."
"But I thought you'd met her." Her head came up again and she looked at me shyly.
"I need to know her attitudes, her point of view, anything that will help another policeman arrest her if she gets away."
She thought for a moment, changing her grip on the front of her parka.
"I need help now," I reminded her softly. "If you can't help, I have to get up there. They have a grenade with them and that hall is full of people."
She started. "You don't think they'd use it?"
"One man's been killed with one already. Think quickly."
"There isn't much to tell. But it did seem to me that she was educated and proud of it."
"Why do you say that?"
"She quoted a lot." Freddie paused and waved one hand, pushing her hair back with the other, but it was an unconscious gesture-she was working for me. "I mean, she would give us examples of what she meant and then she would always tell us who had said it. That was part of the thrill of being involved with her. She made us feel special, particularly intelligent and educated."
"Examples like what? Marx, that kind of stuff?"
"Oh yes, him of course, but not just jargon. Like she gave us, when one of the girls was wavering, a long speech about everybody who is with us, the magistrate who hesitates to give the maximum sentence because of being afraid of looking reactionary, and so on and so on. And then she told us it was from some Russian, not Tolstoy…"
"Dostoyevsky, The Possessed," I said. That made her look up again in sudden respect. "Do you think she was a professor somewhere?"
"She might be." Freddie pushed her hair back, and the gesture seemed to clear not only her face but her memory. "That's right. She said once, 'I tell my students,' whatever it was."
"And did you meet at odd times or always on weekends?"
She gave a little bemused laugh. "You ask the strangest questions."
"Think." I needed answers, I had to leave my life insurance package with Valerie before I went, the information that would convince Margaret not to pull the pin on that grenade.
"It was through the week, weekends, any time, no pattern."
"Thank you." I stood up. "What about Rachael?"
"She's a total mystery. She never said anything except in answer to questions or to applaud Margaret sometimes."
"Okay. I have to lock you up again. I'm sorry, but I appreciate your help."
She stood up now, gracefully, both knees together, every inch the model. "It's mutual, you know. I know what could have happened to me on the ice."
"Let's not get into that. When you emptied my gun you could have gotten me killed. I'd prefer to forget that end of our acquaintance." I ushered her to the back again and locked her back in her cell. The other woman hissed at her, "Lackey."
I gave Valerie a nod and she followed me out front. "This Margaret could be a political science professor, perhaps only a schoolteacher, but she must live or work within driving distance of Toronto."
Valerie looked at me dumbly. I reached out and patted her shoulder. "I want you to make a note of that. If anything goes wrong at the Legion and she gets away, that's the information you give to the OPP investigators."
"If anything goes wrong?" She looked as if she could weep. "Reid, what could go wrong?"
"If she isn't there, or gets away before I get there and the OPP call. That's what you tell them. That's all. Her name is Margaret Sumner, she is an Indian, and her maiden name was Burfoot. That should give them enough to go on."
"But you'll tell them." Her eyes were wide. "I don't want you getting hurt, you'll tell them, won't you?"
"I'll have no need to. I'm going down there to arrest her right now. Meantime, you're in charge. I'm taking Sam, but I'll leave you the shotgun and there's a can of Mace. If anyone tries to get in, spray that in their face."
She was pale to start with but in that moment she whitened even more. I tried to reassure her. "Nobody will. The women are at the Legion and the only male members of the outfit are handcuffed together a mile away from here."
"You didn't see if they had a skidoo?" The thought must have been preying on her-she blurted it out, then looked away.
"No need to worry, they can't get apart and the kid can't get dressed so they won't be going anywhere even if Tom ever gets his wind back." I winked at her and turned away. Dammit. I should have immobilized that skidoo. It was just simple common sense, but I hadn't done it. I'd been too busy soothing Val.
I didn't wait any longer. Sam came when I whistled and I took him out and connected up my little sled behind the skidoo. He jumped in on command and I left for my last chore of the night, a security check. That was all it would be, if I was to have any luck at all this night.
There was a time when I would have rushed up there and burst in. But tonight I was a policeman, not a Marine, and I wasn't going there to kill anybody, even Margaret. I was there to carry out my sworn oath, to protect life and property and maintain the Queen's peace. I wondered how to do it best.
There were a couple of choices, neither one practical. One was to try and sneak in through a window so I would have the drop on anyone causing mischief. That would have worked in a house, but the Legion was the standard northern Ontario social hall, built to keep out the cold. The windows were small and high and double-glazed. The door behind the stage was another option, but it was locked. Somebody would have to press the crush bar on the inside or I'd have to use an axe. No. Subtlety was out. I would walk in the front door with my gun in my right hand, half drawn, and my stick up my left sleeve. Sam would come with me. If anything was going down, he would help defuse it for me.
So that's what I did. The snow had drifted across the front door of the hall, but it was trampled where somebody had entered within the last hour. I prepared both weapons, called Sam after me, and went in. I was quiet, but anybody inside would have heard my snow machine. There would be no surprise.
The lobby was empty and there was no sound, no music, no talking or laughing. I pushed the door open and went in, Sam like a shadow at my heel.
The hall was full of people all sitting on the floor, legs crossed, facing the stage. Women were weeping silently and men were trying to soothe them. And on the stage sat Margaret Sumner with Rachael next to her holding a shotgun on Walter Puckrin, who was standing in front of the stage.
Rachael looked at me when I came in, flashed a quick look at Margaret, then back at me. But she didn't level the gun at me. If she had, I would have shot her, taking the chance on beating her to the reflexive action on the trigger, but I couldn't do that when it was a civilian who would be at risk. Fifty feet is chancy range for a revolver. I would need two seconds to aim and fire. In that time Puckrin would be dead. So instead I ambled forward, moving around the edge of the crowd, keeping myself isolated in case she did swing the gun toward me. I moved clumsily, the big dopey copper ready to trip over his own feet, a joke. If she would only relax long enough to laugh at me I could take her. She didn't laugh, didn't speak. It was Margaret Sumner who told me, "Put your hands on your head, Bennett."
I shrugged, let the gun slide back into the holster, and did as she said, but Margaret was onto me. "I know your gun is in your right-hand pocket. Take it out very carefully with your fingertips and drop it."
"Jeeze, Margaret, have a heart. I'm supposed to be a symbol to these people, how does this make me look?" Lesson one in hostage negotiations, don't let the person with the hostages build themselves a line of action. Whenever you can, change the subject, keep them wondering what you're talking about. Obey, if you must, but don't go along with everything unquestioningly.
"No more talk. The fat man dies if you screw around." She was cool, unimpressed. I took the gun out and lowered it to the floor, then pushed it with my toe away under the stage where nobody could reach it without crawling for twenty feet on hands and knees.
"Can't just drop it, it might go off," I said. Then before she could repeat her warning I said, "Oh, sorry. No more talking."
I had my hands up and I kept coming. The stick was still up my sleeve. The right swing of my arm would send it cartwheeling at Rachael. She would raise her arms to protect her head and I would have my two seconds to close in. If Margaret didn't have that grenade.
Margaret said, "Make your dog lie down, then sit and put your hands on your head."
I stroked Sam's head. "Down. Good boy." He obeyed, but he whined in his throat. He could smell the fear around him. He knew he was needed. He was baffled.
I turned back to Margaret. "I prefer to stand up. I've been on and off that damn snow machine all night."
She almost lost her cool. "I said sit!" she snapped, but I shrugged. "Gimme a break. I'm saddle sore." I was ten yards from the gun. If I could close to five I could win. Once I sat, the chance was gone. At last she shrugged. "So stand."
I was at one side of the hall. There were about eight couples sitting on the floor in the line between me and the woman with the gun. That had to change. Whoever got killed tonight, I would be the one blamed. After the arrests were made and the inquests held and Margaret and Rachael put in the Women's Penitentiary at Kingston, people would still go over what had happened here tonight and they would come back to blaming me. I was responsible for enough deaths. I didn't want any more at my door.
Margaret was watching me, still making up her mind whether to force me to sit. I spoke to her, my voice totally serious now. "Can we have a word in private?"
"I don't want to hear you talk any more," she said. Her face was as rigid as a Roman emperor's. In another minute she would turn her thumb down and Rachael would swing the gun around on me and it would be all over.
"I have a personal message for you."
"From whom?" Maybe an English professor, not political science, I thought.
"You wouldn't want me to say, not in front of all these people." Her eyes narrowed and I inched forward another pace.
"I know your background, Bennett. You're supposed to be resourceful and dangerous. I'm sure you've spent hours in classrooms preparing for scenes like this one. Just shut up and sit down or my friend here will pull the trigger on the fat man."
Walter Puckrin looked around at me. He said nothing, but he was afraid. It was forty years since he had won his medal, fighting against straightforward, businesslike enemies whose job it was to kill. He didn't understand this generation. He had learned their techniques from the TV news and he knew they had pulled triggers on people a lot more valuable or pitiable than he was. I looked back at him and then to Margaret.
"Please. My message is from Tom's father."
For a moment I thought I would have my chance at Rachael. The barrel of the gun wavered as she flicked her head around to look at me. I figured she was putting her own two and two together and wondering at the new architecture her group had developed since Margaret first approached her. I wondered if she would be disenchanted suddenly, if she might turn the gun on her leader instead of a bystander. But she turned back to stare at Puckrin with the old unflinching gaze. My country, right or wrong, my leader, single or married.
Margaret took her time before speaking. "You have no message. You have no knowledge. But I am beginning to believe you have seen a certain member of my group and I hope, for your sake, that he is well."
"Fine. Just fine." The right tone, apologetic, the response to someone who has trodden on your foot and is making polite inquiries. "The person I'm talking about is a former geologist, related to another person in your organization." All around me people were turning to one another, wondering what I was talking about. And wondering why I wasn't acting like a TV S.W.A.T. team, blowing people away from the muzzles of guns instead of talking to them in a rational tone of voice.
Margaret said, "You have a very active imagination. I'll grant you that. I guess you spend a lot of time watching TV."
I didn't mind the sneer. She was loosening, becoming personal when she should have been detached and distant. Insults were a crack in the wall. With work I could chip a hole big enough to climb through.
"TV, eh? Try this plot on for size. Young war hero comes out of college in the forties. Comes north to a place so remote you can get there only by float plane or canoe. Stays for a summer and starts romancing a local girl." She said nothing, but it seemed to me that some of the stiffness in her back and neck was softening out. She was listening.
"How am I doing so far? Anyway, hero is called back south and leaves a problem behind him."
She snapped, addressing Rachael, not me. "Keep that man covered. I have to talk."
She bent, put one hand flat on the stage, and slipped gracefully down to my level. She pointed at me. "You. Put your hands on your head and turn to face that wall."
This time I complied. It would make it next to impossible for me to swing and grab her, making her a shield and turning this scene into a Mexican stand-off. I didn't think Rachael would shoot while her leader was menaced. And I would menace her. I know holds that could snap her neck like a carrot. I turned, dutifully, standing two feet from the wall with room enough to swing around. But she was ready for that move. "Nose and toes to the wall."
I did it, moving in slowly. There was a crack in the plaster and it ran north and south through my consciousness, as raw as the Grand Canyon.
"Now." She said it very softly, from a couple of feet behind me. "I'll hear that message."
I ran through all the possibilities. It was like playing chess in a blindfold. I didn't know which pieces were important or what the reaction would be. I had to make this count. It was the last card in the hand.
"He was in tears." I let that dangle, but there was no reaction. I invented as quickly as I could, but kept my voice calm, just the messenger. "He was sent to Brazil. He got down to Montreal and they sent him off at once. He thought he was coming back up north again but instead they sent him overseas and when he got back it was too late to do anything. He wants to see you. He'd lost all track of you, and now he wants to see you."
This got a reaction. "And how does he propose to do that, with that blonde bombshell he's married to hanging around? What's she-number three, is it? Number four?"
I turned my head slightly and when she said nothing I turned my whole body to face her. I could see Rachael, over her head, still pointing that shotgun at Walter Puckrin, but watching us jealously. That was the emotion in her face. She loved this woman and I was certain in that moment that she would fire the shotgun as fast as she could pump new rounds into the chamber. I had to cool her out.
"He was in tears. And I don't think he's a man who does much crying. He wanted you to know that his life has been miserable."
There were many angry, vicious responses possible but she did not make them. She looked at me and said, "Miserable? How does he think his son has been? Foster homes, prison. Miserable! He doesn't know the meaning of the word. Misery to him is not making money fast enough, not laying the pretty girls fast enough, not drinking the good cognac and smoking the Havana cigars. He's miserable about things most people never even get to dream about."
My chances were improving. I could feel it. All I needed was time and quiet so I could be the sympathetic, understanding friend. People don't menace friends with shotguns. Soon the gun would be lowered and the menace would be over. Given time and a never-failing gift of gab.
"Your own life has been successful. You're an educated woman. You've got money. You're a credit to yourself."
"To my people," she corrected ironically. "That's the proper degree of patronage. As if an Indian were somehow incapable of being educated, especially when she starts off at the Salvation Army Grace hospital with a white man's baby in her belly and no money."
"I'm not patronizing you. I haven't lifted myself the way you did and I had all the breaks an Indian boy wouldn't have had. My father had a good job with INCO, I finished high school."
She looked at me unblinkingly. "You could have done it. You're tough enough to be Indian."
"I've had to be tough, but not that tough. I settled for three square meals a day and the uniform."
"Were there any Indians in the Marines?" It was an honest question and I was able to lower my arms as I answered. She was beginning to trust me. I was afraid she might wonder about her son. If she suspected I had put him down in a fight, had injured him and left him handcuffed, all this human interest, hearts and flowers mood would flash away like magnesium and turn into a white heat that would leave her capable of killing me. I had to tread a line to get some concessions now.
"One Pima, in my platoon. He lived through it. Last time I talked to any of the guys I heard he was running a gas station in New Mexico." All lies. He had come home in a body bag, what we found of him. I held out my hands pleadingly. "Margaret, these people here are frightened. Why don't you let them go?"
Her expression did not change but it seemed that the light in her eyes became less bright. "Have you been telling me the truth?"
"Every word. But I'm worried about these dumb people. The civilians. They don't know where anything's coming from. Turn them loose."
Rachael must have heard me, perhaps even read my lips, I swear my voice was no louder than a whisper. She shouted suddenly, "Don't listen to him. Action on behalf of women, that's why we're here."
I grabbed it, any reaction was better than nothing. "Fine, then. Let the women go. Keep the men, that emphasizes your point. Why don't you do that?"
Margaret looked at me a long time. I felt like the prisoner waiting for the judge to pronounce sentence. Would it be a year, life, or a dismissal? At last she spoke, calling out loud enough for all the people in the hall to hear. "The women may leave. No men. Just the women."
The hall broke out in a babble of talk. Rachael's voice rose over all of it, shrill, bitter. "It's a trick. Don't trust him." Margaret locked her eyes on mine, uncertain, wavering for a moment, and I took my cue. "No tricks. Women only, prove your point. I'll help you."
She nodded and I whistled, Sam at once sprang to his feet, and all the people turned to look at me. Not all of them stopped talking but I shouted, "Women only. This lady says the women can go and that's the way it has to be. The women take their coats from the cloakroom and go and sit in your cars. Take the car keys and start the engines so you won't freeze. But no men."
The women got up, unfolding like flowers in their party dresses. One young woman hung onto her husband's arm. She was sobbing and when I reached her I could see she was pregnant. I went over to her and told her, "It's all right, he'll be out in a few minutes." The husband looked at me, then licked his lips nervously and told her, "Go, Corinne. Take care of him." He touched her stomach gently. Their love hung in the air like honeysuckle. "Good girl," I told her. "Your husband won't be long."
Close to the back of the hall a man jumped to his feet and ran for the door. Rachael shouted and I kept my promise. "Track," I called, and Sam ran between his legs and tripped him, then stood over him snarling. I went over and told Sam "Easy." He relaxed and I patted his head. The man still lay there. He had wet himself but I made no comment. "Women only," I said. "The rest of us are going to wait a while." I held out my hand to him and he got up, ignoring my hand, and went to the center of the room, not looking at anybody. His wife shrieked at me, "You bastard!" but I ignored her and went back to stand close by Margaret, part of the new establishment.
A lot of the women were sobbing, but it didn't stop them from getting their boots and coats on. Many of them had drunk too much during the evening but they were all cold sober now. I stood and watched them. "Don't try to drive away, the road is blocked to anything but snow machines. Start your cars, stay warm, stay awake."
The men watched as their own women left, then turned to look at me, some with resignation, some with blazing hatred in their faces, but they said nothing. They would remember their own danger long after they had forgotten their wives' safety.
When the last woman had left I moved away from Margaret, drifting slowly closer to the stage. Rachael was still standing, still holding the gun on Walter Puckrin, but the strain was beginning to tell. She had probably never carried a gun for any length of time. Now she was finding that it was a machine, and like all machines it was heavy. I knew already. I'd carried my M16 over more klicks of jungle than she had ever seen. Her arms were trembling. I hoped she would keep her finger off the trigger. She turned and looked at me and her arms tightened convulsively. "No closer," she told me.
"Would you like a chair?" Just a thought. If she was green enough to accept I could sweep her feet away, throwing the gun barrel up at the ceiling. It would be all over without blood.
"Chauvinist swine." She hissed it. I shrugged.
"You sure do take all this personally, Rachael." I hoped it would widen the gap I'd pushed between her and Margaret, but Margaret's mood had changed already. She knew she had been outmaneuvered and was hiding her anger.
"Sit down, Bennett. I mean it," she said. And this time I sat. There was nothing to do for a few minutes anyway, until it was time to make the next exchange, when her mood had settled again. I had recognized the town's lawyer among the men. Soon I would suggest that he help draft her demands. If she had any demands. So far she had said nothing. But she must have a real purpose for doing this.
I let her go for three minutes before I asked her, "Mrs. Sumner, can you let us know what you want in return for the safe release of these people? I assume your League has some specific political aims."
She didn't like my tone. "You've talked enough. I'll give you my demands when we get the attention I need outside."
"That won't be for hours, maybe a full day."
"I have all the time in the world."
"Do you want to talk to the man I spoke to you about?" I hoped not. If he told her anything different from what I had invented, she would probably tell Rachael to pull the trigger on me. She did not answer and I didn't press it. I sat waiting for the boredom to begin to build. Most hostage situations devolve to that at some point. It is the eventual undoing of all the cases that end happily for the hostages.
She went back to the stage and sat on the edge of it. Then she called Rachael over, and Rachael came, keeping the gun on Puckrin the whole time. They changed over. Margaret took the gun, balancing it over her knees, pointing at Puckrin. She was smart, I knew that. If she were an amateur she would point at me, but Puckrin was a better hostage. His death would disturb more people than the death of a copper. And his life was vital to me. If he died, I would be blamed for killing him.
We all sat still. Outside I heard cars starting up, revving high as drivers rushed the heating system to protect themselves from the cold that would be intensified by their fears for their own safety and the safety of their menfolk.
And then, far off but coming closer, as pure as an ascending glissando on some electronic instrument, I could make out the whine of a snow machine. I checked my watch. It was four forty-three. Nobody would be moving at this hour unless they had some special reason for coming here. And to confirm my thoughts, the note bent like a harmonica sound as the machine pulled into the parking lot and right up against the front steps.
Everybody in the room craned around as the outer door closed with a hollow boom. Then the inner door opened and a man stood there, one hand clutched to his stomach. For an instant I didn't recognize him in his tight, green workman's parka, then I saw the handcuff dangling from his right wrist in the same second that Margaret's voice gave a half scream. "Tom! What's happened to you?"