In fact, the Wells Fargo truck had arrived a good two hours ago and was parked out of sight nearby. I was fighting with everything I had to keep it there. If it drove these last few blocks, that meant I’d failed.

“You playin’ me?” D-Ray barked. “Nobody plays me, cop. You think I don’t know I’m already lookin’ at life in prison? What I got to lose if I kill somebody else?”

“I know you’re not playing, D-Ray,” I said. “I’m not, either – that’s the last thing I want to do. The money’s on its way. Meantime, you need anything else? More pizza, soda pop, anything like that? Hey, it must be hot in there – how about some ice cream for your niece and nephew?”

“Ice cream?” he yelled with a fury that made me wince. “You better get your shit together, Bennett! I don’t see no armored truck in five minutes, you gonna see a body come rolling down that stoop.”

The line went dead. Wiping sweat from my face, I pulled off the headset and stepped to the window of the NYPD bus. It was parked with a clear view of D-Ray’s brownstone, on 131st Street near Frederick Douglass Boulevard. I raised my binoculars and panned the kitchen window. I swallowed as I spotted an Eracism magnet holding up children’s drawings and a picture of Maya Angelou on the fridge. His niece and nephew were six and eight years old. I had kids those same ages.

At first, I’d hoped that the situation would be easier because his hostages were his own flesh and blood. A lot of criminals might make this kind of desperate bluff, but they’d back down before they’d harm someone close to them, especially little kids. D-Ray’s eighty-three-year-old grandmother, Miss Carol, was also in there with them, and she was a neighborhood institution, a powerful and respected woman who ran the rec center and the community garden. If anybody could make him listen, it was Miss Carol.