Terminal (19 page)

“Oh look”— Sherm grinned—“the police finally figured out how to make their bullhorn work. The batteries must have been dead before.”

“Is this Ramirez the same guy that you talked to before?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s a real weasel. Let me tell you, I’d like to take a shot at him too before this is all over. Fucking police negotiators . . .”

The voice on the bullhorn continued to bellow.

“Who the hell is Shady?” Roy asked, confused.

“I am,” Sherm said proudly, “I’m the real Slim Shady. So won’t you please shut up. Please shut up. Please shut up. Please shut up.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“Forget it,” I said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Can one of you tell me who Shady is?” Roy insisted.

I stayed silent.

“Is that Sherm’s nickname or something?”

“No,” Oscar told him, “it’s the nickname of a rapper.”

“Oh. I must admit that I’m not familiar with most rap music.”

“You’re not missing anything,” Sharon said. “A lot of juvenile, thuggish, masochistic dick-swinging, if you ask me.”

“Which we didn’t,” Sherm growled.

“All they rap about,” Sharon countered, “is their drugs, their cars, their guns, their bitches, their bling-bling, and who has done the most jail time.”

“What’s bling-bling?” Roy whispered to Sheila.

“Money. Gold jewelry. Stuff like that. Flashy things.”

“Oh.”

“That’s not all they rap about,” I protested. “They tell stories about the streets. It’s just street life from their perspective. And not all of that is negative either.”

Roy bent his legs, frowning in pain.

“What’s wrong?” Sheila asked him.

“Arthritis is acting up a bit. But my ticker still feels fine.”

He gave Benjy a warm smile and turned to Sharon.

“So you’re saying Tommy, John, and Sherm robbed this bank in part because of the type of music they listen to?”

“I’m saying it’s got to factor in, sure.”

“Sorry, Sharon, but I’ve got to call bullshit on that,” I interrupted. “That’s like blaming the fucking Columbine shootings on The Matrix. I mean, no offense, but I know who the real me is, versus any image I might pick up from a song.”

Sherm slowly turned.

“Let me tell you something, all of you. I don’t know you and you don’t know anything about the real me, other than I’m the son of a bitch who’s holding a gun. That’s all you need to know too. None of you know the real me. And you ain’t gonna either. So stop fucking caring and asking questions.”

“Well,” Roy countered, “maybe we will know you before this is over.”

At first, I didn’t think Sherm was going to respond, but then he did.

“You better hope not.”

* * *

What do you guys think happens to us when we die?” Kim asked.

We’d sat in silence for a long time, and I think the question surprised us all. For the last half hour, our only conversation had taken place when Sherm finally took over for me and kept the pressure on John’s wound. I’d planned on using the opportunity to finish emptying the cash drawers in the lobby, but as I inched my way down the hall, I realized the cops would be able to see me behind the counter from outside in the parking lot. It pissed me off. Somehow, Sherm had ended up running things, and when I finally did decide on a course of action, I couldn’t follow through on it.

“Seriously,” Kim insisted. “We could all die in here today. What do you guys think happens to us after we’re gone?”

Oscar flinched. “That’s a pretty morbid question, don’t you think?”

Kim shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess, maybe. All I know is that I can’t stop thinking about it. I miss my mom and dad, and my little brother. I wish I could talk to them one more time, you know? I don’t want to die. I’m too young. I want to get married and have kids and—”

“Nobody is going to die, sweetheart,” Sherm said, “as long as you all follow orders, and as long as those fucking cops out there don’t piss me off.”

Kim pointedly ignored him.

“My family and I used to go to church when I was a little girl, but it’s been a long time since I’ve talked to God. I still believe in Him, I guess. But I wonder if I’d go to heaven if we don’t make it out of here?”

“I don’t think God cares how often you go to church,” Roy commented. “He’s probably more concerned with how you lived your life. That’s what guarantees you a place in Heaven.”

“Ha!” Martha spat on the floor.

“What the hell is your problem, bitch?” Sherm was twitching again, slapping the barrel of the handgun against his leg.

“Hell is not my problem,” she answered. “It is your problem.”

“How many times did you see The Passion, Martha? I bet it was the only movie you’ve seen in the last twenty years.”

“None of you know anything about how to get into Heaven. As it says in the New Testament, ye must be born again! You must know Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. You must ask him to forgive your sins and let him into your heart. Then, and only then, can you enter into Heaven.”

“Well shit,” Sherm snorted, “that sounds simple enough. I had no idea it was that easy. I’ll get right on that. Nothing like a little insurance, right?”

Laying the gun on the floor, he got down on his knees, raised his head up to the ceiling, and clasped his hands together in prayer.

“Please God, please don’t let me go to hell; especially if they don’t have any cigarettes there. That would really suck. All that fire and nothing to smoke. Or worse yet, if the only thing they have is Ultra Lights. But if you do decide to send me there, could I get a room next to Tupac and Biggie? That would work. Or maybe between Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks? That would be great because at least I’d have something to laugh about. Oh, and before I forget it, God, I’d be honored if you could be my personal savior and assistant or whatever this crazy bitch just said I needed to ask you to be. Amen.”

He started to stand up, then paused.

“P.S., good food, good meat, good God let’s eat!”

He picked up the gun again and grinned at Martha.

“How was that? You think I can get in through the gates now?”

“Mock the Lord all you want,” Martha replied, “but when the hour comes your prayers will be real. You will beg. You will wail and gnash your teeth and pull out your hair in your sincerity. But He will not hear you because you have the Devil inside you already. And He will not hear your friend either because your friend has committed the ultimate sin. He has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. All of you have! Scripture tells us that there is no pardon or forgiveness for that. The Imp has been loosed upon the earth, and it makes a mockery of the healing gifts of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Only he can heal!”

“What the hell is she talking about now?” Sherm asked me.

Martha was about to spill Benjy’s secret. I threw up my hands in annoyance.

“I have no fucking idea. Does it really matter, Sherm? It’s all bullshit anyway. Bullshit for the masses. There is no God, plain and simple. God is nothing more than Dog spelled backward. You really want to know what happens when we die, Kim? Nothing. That’s what happens. Nothing at all. We get burned to a crisp or thrown in a box and put in the ground, while the dirt slowly presses in on us a little bit more each year.”

“That’s pretty fatalistic,” Sheila said.

“Is it? I don’t know about you, Sheila, but the way my life has turned out, it doesn’t sound like a bad choice at all. Sleep is okay. Death might be better. You don’t have to think anymore or feel anymore— or even be anymore. You’re just blank, empty. An afterlife where you had to experience all of those things again would just suck.”

Even though I said it, and even though I believed it, I still didn’t want to find out if it was true. I’d proven to myself that God didn’t exist (or maybe He’d proven it to me), but I was still afraid of dying, afraid of taking that final breath and not being able to take another. Afraid of closing my eyes and not opening them again. I thought of John, shot in the stomach and stumbling into the bank, pleading with me to save him because he was afraid of dying.

I’m scared of hell, Tommy!

“Well, though I’m not quite as vocal or strident as Martha, I am a believer,” Roy said. “I believe in God and I also believe that Jesus died for our sins. I try to be a good Christian, but nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. I guess the point is just that you atone for your sins and try to live right, the way God would want you to.”

“I used to believe,” Sharon said, “but these days, I just don’t know. I really don’t. With all that’s going on in the world, it’s hard to believe in a supreme being that would just let it all happen.”

“Word,” I agreed. “The Arabs think that only they are right, and so they hate the Christians and the Jews. The Jews think the same way, and so they hate the Arabs and the Christians. The Christians? Same thing. Their way is the right way so they hate the Arabs and the Jews. And you know why they hate each other? Because God told them to. They kill each other because He said so. They worship the same guy— they just call Him by different names! Religion has fucked this planet up from day one.”

“I don’t know about that,” Roy countered. “Some of the so-called religious leaders, perhaps, but not religion itself.”

“Osama bin Laden ordered his followers to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, right?”

“Correct. And he was a religious leader—”

“Who was acting on what God told him to do,” I finished.

“Allah is just another name for Satan,” Martha shrilled. “Thou shall have no other gods before Me!”

“Actually,” Oscar tried correcting her, “Tommy and Mr. Kirby are both right. The Arabs, Jews, and Christians all believe in the same God. He just has different names. It’s his prophets that they disagree with.”

Martha glared at him with eyes like razors, and Oscar got quiet again.

Sherm jumped to his feet, head cocked and listening.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Thought I heard something,” he mouthed. “Voices. Quiet, soft. Check the hall and the lobby.”

I opened my mouth to protest and Sherm cut me off.

“You wanted to be in charge, Tommy.”

Gripping the pistol in my sweaty hand, I crept out into the hall. It was silent and empty. I tilted my head and listened. Nothing. Outside, there was the distant squawk of police radios and the buzz of voices, but inside, there was nothing. I tiptoed toward the lobby and peeked around the corner. It was empty, except for Mac Davis and Kelvin. The dead cop’s eyes stared back at me. A fly crawled across his face.

I ducked back into the vault.

“Anything?” Sherm asked.

“Nothing”— I shook my head—“except for Kelvin and that cop. Their bodies are still lying on the floor.”

Sherm frowned.

“I could have sworn I fucking heard something.”

We grew quiet again, and I replaced Sherm at John’s side.

“So you don’t believe in an afterlife of any kind, I take it?” Roy asked me.

“No, I don’t. There’s no heaven or hell. When we die, we turn into worm food. That’s all. Even worms got to eat.”

“I heard that,” Sherm agreed.

“But what about the soul, Tommy?” Roy continued. “That has to go somewhere, doesn’t it?”

“There’s no such thing as a soul, Mr. Kirby.”

I was surprised to see Dugan nodding in agreement with me.

“I’ve seen men die,” he said slowly, “but I never saw what happened to their souls after. I never saw any leave their bodies, that much I know.”

“Where have you seen men die?” Sherm sneered.

“You must be born again,” Martha broke in before Dugan could answer. “You must be washed in the blood of the lamb! Only blood can do it— blood and sacrifice! The blood of the innocent! The blood of the lamb!”

She stared at Benjy, and Sheila stared back in alarm. None of us responded and she fell silent again.

Blood of the innocent lamb. I didn’t like the sound of that, or the way she’d looked at Benjy when she said it.

“What about ghosts?” Sharon asked.

Sherm snickered. “What about them?”

“Aren’t they proof of some kind of an afterlife?”

“Have you ever seen a ghost?”

“No, but just because I haven’t seen one doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in them. I’ve never seen a polar bear either, but I know that they exist. Why can’t the same thing be true for ghosts? There are enough eyewitness accounts, photographs, even video footage.”

I thought about it for a moment.

“John thought he saw a ghost once, back when we were kids. Or at least he thought he did. Down at the old quarry between Spring Grove and Hanover. We used to go swimming there. Supposedly there’s a town at the bottom of it. The dam burst back in the twenties and the town was just left standing when the waters flooded the mine. A few kids have drowned there over the years too. It’s supposed to be haunted. People say they see white, human-looking shapes down under the water. But I never saw anything.”

“So you don’t believe in them?”

I shook my head.

“No, I guess I don’t. Ghosts or God. It’s all the same thing, isn’t it? Don’t they call him the holy ghost?”

Nobody responded, and I figured they’d finally shut up and quit asking questions. I found myself wondering again if they’d be this nice to me if I wasn’t one of the guys with a gun.

After a few minutes, Oscar stirred. His bare chest had goose bumps.

“Personally, I’ve always believed in reincarnation.”

“What’s that?” Sheila asked.

“Reincarnation? It’s the belief that we’ve all had previous lives before this current one we’re living. It’s commonly accepted in many religions— not Christianity of course, or Judaism, but many others.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that,” Sherm said. “It means like I could have been Billy the Kid or D. B. Cooper in a past life. Wouldn’t that be the bomb?”

“No doubt,” Oscar said with a straight face. If Sherm noticed the underlying sarcasm in his voice, he didn’t let on.

“Edgar Cayce believed in it,” Oscar continued. “He was a great healer, died in 1945. Back then, they called him a ‘psychic healer,’ but today I guess he’d just be considered a homeopathic practitioner. Whatever you want to call him, he definitely left his mark on the world. He used to do readings and stuff and tell people who they were in their past lives. The transcripts of the readings are all on file at the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia. There must be thousands of them.”