He saw a figure detached from the stands, but the get-out door was already nearby.
Apparently out of his mind, Serret called out to him.
“If you put your gun down and surrender, we will say you were polite and kind.”
Suicide! Wilhelmina sometimes imagined throwing herself under a speeding car, jumping off a bridge – but exposing herself to the bullets of a random amateur bandit was something she would hardly think of!
The criminal pulled the door handle, but it was locked – after the emergency alarm was triggered, the doors were blocked.
“Everybody down! Lie down on the floor, bitch! Open the door for me!”
“Alas,” Agent Serret said calmly, still approaching him, slightly spreading his arms to the sides, “the door will not open until the police arrive.”
“I’ll shoot!” the man in the mask yelled. “At her!” He pointed at the cashier and her neighbor, hiding at the counter. “At him!” The guard sitting on the floor, who had already recovered from the blows to the ears, found himself at gunpoint. “Is this what you want?”
The robber was larger than Serret, but not by much, he was holding a combat weapon, and most importantly, he was not very mentally stable, with tones of anguish in his voice.
“No, you won’t shoot, you’ll put the gun on the floor and wait for the police.”
The next few moments were straight out of a movie, with the gun being knocked out of the opponent’s hand, a couple of attacks of the two fighting men, and the angry scream of the criminal as he was thrown to the floor with his hands behind his back. Agent Serret sitting on him ridden piggyback, his wrists cunningly pinned by the knees, preventing him from moving, the white mask lying to the side, next to the gun and the bags of money.
“FBI!” the young man said loudly and clearly, taking documents from his bosom and raising them above his head. “It’s all over, everything’s under control, you can get up from the floor, the police are on their way, the beast is no longer dangerous.”
To prove his point, he slammed the criminal’s raised face back into the floor, slapping him on the back of the head.
The shoppers came to life, a hubbub was heard from all sides, and lamentations and belated hysterics immediately began. As if from afar, from a parallel universe, the approaching wail of police sirens could be heard.
As Wilhelmina, pale and with bulging eyes, approached Agent Serret sitting on the floor on top of a body shaking in violent convulsions, in the pocket of the forest predatory marten’s green jacket the telephone came to life.
“Serret!” he answered, turning to Wilhelmina Gustavsson, at first smiling triumphantly at having caught his prey, but then his face changing abruptly, from the message spoken by the chief’s voice in the receiver. “Jack, I’ll be there soon. A quarter of an hour, roughly. Yes, yes, at Dr. Gasztold’s. No, I’m almost free.”
His gaze involuntarily slid over the figure of the young golden-haired woman, from her fall shoes, the perfectly ironed creases of her pants, up the brim of her unbuttoned coat.
“What a son of a bitch!”
Allex put the phone in his pocket, and jumped up on the robber in frustration.
“You’re yourself the son of a bitch!” the robber responded in a strangled voice.
“No, not you!”
Wilhelmina looked at Agent Serret, he finally realized that he couldn’t just stare.
“Good afternoon, Miss Gustavsson,” he smiled.
He smiled sadly. Wilhelmina was ready to bet, something bad had happened, and he had just been told about it.
“Good afternoon, Agent Serret,” Wilhelmina responded. “Thank you.”
She put into the tone of her voice everything she could not describe in words. There was a lump of horror in her chest, disbelief, anger – from incomprehensible stupidity and senseless bravado – and admiration, at the same time.
“It’s nothing,” he chuckled. “He’s harmless. He can’t even shoot.”
No one paid any attention to the curses of the robber lying face down; in the bustle, the sellers helped the customers come to their senses; two policemen entered through the open doors.
Agent Serret explained what had happened, handed them the body, which was no longer resisting. It turned out, the gun the criminal had was not real – and the pine marten somehow figured it out … The driver, worried about what had happened, was already looming on the entrance, it was time to go back, but Wilhelmina could not move from the spot, she could not leave, it was impossible to just give up curiosity and excitement, and thrill and trepidation that was unusual for her.
The store assistant, the same one with whom Wilhelmina had exchanged glances between the stands, stared at Serret in the same way, but it was difficult to read the thoughts from his stone face – with a scar from a late plastic surgery to correct a cleft lip.
Allex went out into the street with the last customers and Miss Gustavsson, whom the driver immediately led away, almost by the arm, and put into the car. The golden-haired artiste said goodbye reservedly and coldly, but the look of her shining eyes – when Allex was sitting on the floor, on the caught robber, and she was looking down at him – the young man felt on himself distinctly, as if it had burned with a touch.
Allex was a hero for this attention, he didn’t even try to deny it. Taking the heat was a habit that was impossible to eradicate … And he never tried. He had nothing to lose – such was his job …
Broad-shouldered Dylan nodded to him as Allex left the store – he certainly understood, anything could happen at work.
Now a new crime scene awaited him – in the house next door to Dr. Gasztold’s office: the son of a bitch Heartthrob had gobbled someone again!
7. The Blond Beast
Will carefully stepped over the bloodstains on the parquet, tried to look at the corpse spread out on the table with an impartial gaze, not getting involved in the abyss of vision, not coming into contact with the pictures emerging in his mind. The feeling of the approaching empathic experience felt as if he was beginning to feel drowsy, he resisted in vain, but fell into a bottomless well, hung in free fall, dissolved, lost himself, and then came up, back into the real world. Upon returning, he gasped for air, tried to shake off other people’s feelings, like his dogs shook off stuck dirt and burrs, but the colors entered his skin, clung to his fur, soaked into his clothes, intoxicated him from the inside, like an uninvited, slow-acting poison.
Waking up from the vision was as painful as the dive, as breathtaking and shattering – as if he was being shaken like a piggy bank of coins, his skin peeled off, a new suit put on, his guts spilling out of his pants. He hated that swing … Returning was the worst of all sensations.
Howard and the forensics – Cruz, Bailey, and Ross – were still on their way, nothing must be touched, and he couldn’t control himself when he was working … Will asked Dr. Gasztold to keep an eye on him, to prevent him from making a mess of the crime scene in a trance – in case he was suddenly sucked into the whirlpool of complicity.
Lukas Gasztold stood by the door, watching the movements of Special Agent Gatti: how he thoughtfully moved the fingers of his slightly spread hands, how he walked along the floor with his tousled head down, how the