“Whoa, whoa,” I said. “Listen to the crowd outside, will you? They’re rooting for you. You’re their hero.”

“What kind of bullshit you pullin’ now, Bennett?”

“This isn’t bullshit, D-Ray. Open up a window and listen. You think you’ve got nothing left to live for, but you’re wrong.”

All the cops and techs on the bus stopped what they were doing and watched the brownstone. After a very long thirty seconds, one of the window sashes rose a few inches. We couldn’t see D-Ray – he was beside or below it – but he was there, listening.

“Hear that?” I said into the headset. “Fight the power. They’re talking to you, D-Ray. They think you’re a badass for holding us off. Not only that, you know what one of your grandmother’s church-lady friends just told me? You’ve done this neighborhood a great service by getting rid of the Drew Boyz and all their dope-dealing and violence. People hated them, were terrified of them, and you took them out.”

“Ohhh, man! You serious?” For the first time, D-Ray sounded like what he was, a scared, confused nineteen-year-old kid.

“I’m damn serious, and I feel the same way they do,” I said. It was another bald-faced lie, but I’d sell him both the George Washington and the Brooklyn bridges if it meant saving lives.

The crew on the bus were staring at me now. I swabbed my sleeve across my sweaty face and took the next risk.

“Now, there’s two ways left you can play this, D-Ray,” I said. “You can keep your hostages and try to get away with the money. But you won’t get far, and you know it. Probably you’ll get yourself killed, and maybe your grandma and the little kids, too. Or you can stand up like the hero these people believe you are, and let everybody go.”

It felt like my heart stopped, and maybe time itself, as D-Ray suddenly cut the connection.

“D-Ray!” I yelled. “D-Ray, come back, goddammit!”

The line stayed dead. I tore off the headset and burst out of the hot, bright bus into the cool darkness of the street.