The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [145]
Reggie allowed himself another look at Gold. The composer’s teeth were clenched and he was jerking his head at something just behind Reggie and to his left. The movement attracted Michael Liu and he turned the attention of the gun’s barrel to Gold, who feigned an innocent look. Reggie took advantage, reaching back with his good arm and finding a small cabinet door above the molding, and then a knob and then, upon opening the door and feeling inside, a cold gun—thin at the end, round in the middle.
Reggie pulled his left hand back and looped his fingers inside the briefcase handle and with a roar of pain flung the bag in Michael Liu’s direction.
Paper, dozens of pages, spilled free and floated in the air as the briefcase tumbled from his hand. Startled, Michael Liu didn’t fire, but he watched the pieces of the requiem, Solomon Gold’s masterpiece, flutter like giant snowflakes to the floor.
Under the cover of paper, Reggie was able to reach with his good arm and grab the gun inside Gold’s cabinet, which he quickly pointed at Michael Liu.
“God, yes,” Gold said, eyes recharged with adrenaline and hope. “Yes!”
Reggie didn’t feel hate or anger, only certainty. Self-preservation. Purpose.
Mr. Liu wiggled the barrel of his gun roughly at Reggie’s chest. Reggie pushed himself to his feet and then the tears were released in long streaks from Michael Liu’s eyes, sobs convulsing his torso.
Cool and detached, Solomon said, “Vallentine could kill you right now, Liu, and never be prosecuted for it. You’ve invaded my home. You’ve already shot both of us. You clearly came to my house to assassinate me. Your death would be in our self-defense.” Liu’s gun was still pointed at Reggie’s chest, but Michael Liu and Solomon Gold were staring into each other’s eyes and the place where fear and hate met between them was almost visible, like heat on asphalt.
“Tell him, Reggie,” Solomon said. “Tell him how we could kill him right now. Tell him how ironic it is that just a few weeks ago you were groveling for my life in front of a judge and jury and this sad little man was cheering on the executioner. And now it is Mr. Liu who has to beg you for his life. Even if you choose to put this gun down and grant him a reprieve, he will spend most of the rest of his pitiful life in the same prison cell where he once wrongfully willed me.”
Still hobbled in a sitting position on the floor, Gold reached up to the corner of the desk and snatched a cordless phone with two fingers.
“MynameisSolomonGoldandthereisanintruderinmyhomepleasehurryhehasagun.” Gold gave the emergency dispatcher his address and hung up quickly. “I’ll enjoy sitting in the victim’s pew, cackling through your trial for attempted murder,” he said to Liu. “I’ll enjoy seeing you in leg irons. You’ll have it much worse than I did, too. They treated me pretty well in there, but you are not an extraordinary man. You’ll find no friends among inmates or guards. Perhaps if you had the courage to kill me, they would have some respect for you, but instead they will look at you and they will see a pathetic and cowardly old man. And every time I sit down to a meal of Kobe beef and foie gras and Cabernet, I will think of the white bread and bologna they are feeding you. Oh, I should write an opera about this, the irony is so fucking perfect.”
Reggie studied Michael Liu’s face for a sudden shift in desperation, some sign he had decided to go down shooting. Liu had not yet surrendered the gun, and Reggie wondered and worried if he could even hit the man from this distance—twenty feet or so—if he were forced to. Mr. Liu’s sobs had turned convulsive. Their standoff was just an argument with guns, and once again Reggie felt like he should be winning. He could feel what Derek Liu was thinking—that he had slowly been driven to a rash act and would now pay for that rashness for the rest of his life.
He should have put the gun down by now, Reggie thought. Why hasn’t he put the gun down?
And then Reggie knew.
He’s going to shoot at least one of