The Bluff

The Bluff

By Ralph Rice
copyright 1997


"While you're up." She hated the way he'd do that in front of
other people every chance he got. She grabbed two beers from the fridge
and shook his. She gave him a sweet smile as she set it down
in front of him. He had the extra time to think while she was in the
kitchen. Two pair. "Check." Bill reminded him there were no checks
and raises. Tom said, "Yes there are." The two women just put their
cards down and looked at each other. "It's a friendly game man."
"Dealers choice is dealers choice." "You should have said that before you
dealt." Tom muttered, "Baby." Then pulled the tab on his beer.

In the apartment upstairs, Alan inserted the tape and adjusted the
volume. Ready. He hit record on one machine and play on the other.
He walked over to the peep hole in the door.

Carla tried to seem surprised. She opened her eyes wide and put her
hand over her mouth to cover the smile. Tom wiped his
face, then glared at her. There was a very long pause while neither of
them made a move to go for something to clean the mess forming on the table.
When she realized neither of them were going to get up, Pam went to the
kitchen for a towel. Tom dried his cards on his shirt.

The scream startled the hell out of them. They all looked toward the
ceiling at once. It froze them. There were some loud thumps and then the
scream changed from just a shriek to, "Help!" "Help me!" This continued for
twenty seconds and then there was silence.

"Jesus." mumbled Tom.

He jumped up and headed out the door with Bill right behind him. Carla went
to the phone and dialed 921, then 811, then 911. Pam just stood still, and
then she began to cry.

When Tom made the hallway on the floor above, there was no sign of any-
thing. He stopped suddenly, then Bill bumped right into him from behind.
He did not even feel it. He focused on the door of the apartment just above
his at the end of the hallway. He started right for the door. Bill stopped
and watched. Tom began pounding on the door. Bill thought of the worst.
A madman is going to burst out of that door and kill us. He thought of
the gun in his apartment four miles away. He took a step forward, toward
Tom, then reconsidered. He took a step back toward the stairway. He
paused, then took a couple baby steps to either side while he watched his
friend pound on the door. Tom listened at the door. Silence. He knocked
again while calling out, "Hey! Everything alright in there?" He felt
stupid as soon as he'd said it. He looked back toward Bill. Fucking guy
was doing a little dance in the hallway. To Tom he looked like a little boy
who had to pee.

"Go get a cop." he called to Bill. Bill nodded and disappeared down the
stairs.

Alan marked the time. He hit rewind, then stop, on the one machine. He
made sure the mike on the other recorder was pointed at the door. He sank
into his favorite chair. He poured some wine.

Tom thought of the Glock he kept under the mattress. His heart was
still pounding. Seconds became eternity. There was not a peep from inside.

"Anyone there?"

It was all he could think of to say. He backed slowly away
from the door. Get the gun, come right back. He turned and ran. The
hallway, the entire building was silent. No other doors were open.

Carla's was one of seven calls describing a blood curdling scream. There
were twenty telephones within earshot. Over forty people could hear it.
This was an affluent neighborhood. Restored brownstones that brought high
rents or went condo. The call went out as unknown trouble. Two patrol
cars took it right away. The first called dispatch to say on the scene
in six and a half minutes. The second was thirty seconds behind.

Carla had this feeling she had just ordered a pizza. The dispatcher
had spoken to her as if she were a child. She gave the specifics, then
hung up feeling miffed. Pam was still crying. Bill burst into the apart-
ment. He asked if she had called police. Carla just gave him a blank look
then asked, "Where's Tom?" Bill went over to his wife and hugged her. Pam
cried louder.

Carla went to the bedroom, snatched up the edge of the mattress,
grabbed the gun, chambered a round, then started for the door.

Tom went for the doorknob as she opened it. Their heads collided and
Carla accidently squeezed the trigger when she fell back from the head butt.
The gun fired into the floor. Carla dropped the weapon as if it were a
spider. Tom did a great dance move the instant the gun fired. He ducked
a full second later. Carla cowered as if the damn thing might fire again.

Tom took a deep breath, then snatched the weapon off the floor, then
raced back out the door and up the stairs. Pam would have screamed, but
Bill had her in a bear hug that tightened in-voluntarily with the gunshot.

She could only utter, "Mmmmph."

Police dispatch received five calls of shots fired at the same address
within the next two minutes. The responding officers were updated.

Murphy was twenty four. He beat his partner by a mile in the race up the
stairs. They had both sides of the doorway. Carla had given good, concise
directions. When shots fired went out, two more patrol cars went en route.
Murphy banged on the door while his partner panted.

No response, nothing.

He banged some more while yelling, "Police department." In that instant,
Tom crested the stairs with Glock in hand. Murphy leveled his service
weapon at him yelling, "Drop it!" Tom froze. He raised his hands, gun
still in the right hand. Murphy and his partner both crouched, now
directing their weapons down the hallway, away from the suspect door.
Tom had to think harder than he ever had before.

His mind clicked, couldn't fire.

Murphy realized this could be a vice cop who heard the call.

"Are you on the job?" He called.

Tom was trying to decide whether to drop the weapon or set it down. He
did not take his eyes off the guns aimed at him. He was so scared, Murphy's
question did not even register.

Alan set the wine glass down. He walked casually to the door, then paused.

The second unit to arrive on the scene was Pete and Laurie. They dashed
into the front entrance of the building and up the stairs. Pete had called
in to report that they were on the scene. Laurie was a couple stairs ahead
as they went right to the correct floor just after Tom had.

They crested the stairs. There was a civilian, gun in hand, two officers
had a bead on him. Both Pete and Laurie yelled in unison,

"Behind you!" "Drop the weapon!"

Carla was embarrassed and angry. Bill could not get his wife to stop
crying. He did lighten his grip on her. When he let go to start for the
door, she grabbed him in a reverse bear hug. She sobbed and breathed,

"Noooooo!"

Carla went to the kitchen for a large knife. She left the apartment
and headed up the stairs after her husband.

Laurie heard the footsteps behind her. She knew it was back-up.
Pete had aim on this gunman's head. He could see the cops behind him.
Laurie turned and saw a woman with a kitchen knife advancing behind her
and Pete.

Murphy and his partner could see the two cops behind their gunman.
This guy did not respond. He did not badge them, he did not put the gun
down.

When shots fired goes on the radio, everyone who can, runs for it. The
third unit to show at this scene went up the stairs right after Carla.
The two of them came upon a woman with a kitchen knife advancing on two
officers. One cop, Laurie had her gun on the knife holder, the other,
Pete, was looking in the opposite direction!

"Freeze!" they yelled.

Pete, an experienced officer, knew he had to get out of the line of
fire from the two cops on the other side of this gunman in front of him.
He heard the yell behind him. His glance darted to his partner, Laurie.
She was looking in the opposite direction of the gunman!

Tom was frozen.

Murphy and his partner did that number where you crouch real low
against the wall. It'd probably be something you would do if you thought
you could completely disappear. Murphy couldn't believe what he was seeing.
There was this gunman and the two uniforms behind him. First one, then the
other fellow officers just turned their backs!


Alan opened the door without checking the peep hole.

"Yes?" he said.

Murphy and his partner did a quick turnaround to see him. Their eyes
flashed back to the gunman. Murphy saw the wine glass in his hand,
then re-focused on the gunman in the opposite direction. His partner
reacted identically. Tom lowered his right hand to set the gun on the
floor as he turned his back to Murphy and his partner.

Laurie's partner screamed, "Drop it!" He had his weapon indexed.
Tunnel vision. Three hundred sixty degrees worth. Pete just saw weapons.
His head now flip-flopped back and forth between the knife holding woman
below on the stairs behind him, and the gunman ahead.


Laurie, right by his side, was about to pull the trigger
while she faced the opposite direction. Problem was, when she
looked to Pete, and he to her, they could not decide right away.
Weapon holding suspects on either side of them. Gun pointing
police behind each suspect. Get out of the line of fire, decide
whether or not to fire. Pick a direction. Pete and Laurie, just for a few
seconds, did the weirdest little dance you can imagine. Something kinda
like a bird mating dance. Big, scared birds with guns.

Tom, lowered the gun to the floor as his head toggled back and
forth between the two cops in front and the two behind. When he raised
his hands in surrender just as the apartment door in question opened,
all four cops turned away from him. He got dizzy. He collapsed against
the wall and slid down to his butt on the floor.

Carla made a perfect O with her mouth as she dropped the knife.
She was completely shocked when she was tackled from behind.

Alan, as he opened the door, felt smug and a little drunk. He'd heard
the gunshot, the yelling. Some time ago, he'd just been sitting on a
subway; reading. Two punks walked up to him and asked for spare change.
He had been rude. Coulda said no politely, did not have to throw in the,
"Get a job." Alan got smacked around right in front of ten people who did
not lift a finger to help. Goodbye wallet, pride, temper. Cops had made
him feel like a petulant child. He fumed, loathed, plotted.

Eighteen cops arrived on this scene. No-one got arrested. No-one got
hurt except Bill. He was badly scratched by his hysterical wife as he tried
to leave the apartment to help Tom and Carla.

In the apartment below Tom and Carla's, where the accidental shot had
come through the ceiling and lodged in a table, lived Greta. When the
police checked on her, she had no idea what had happened. She liked the
television real loud. Television was pretty much seventy nine year old
Greta's whole life. Gunshots were actually pretty normal to her. A knock
on her door from a human being was very unusual and scary.

Pete and Laurie were pals in addition to working together. Every
now and then, when they greeted each other, they'd do this brief little
unusual looking dance. No-one ever questioned the strange dance. It
coulda been country line dancing, maybe just burn-out.

So happens Alan did get an idea for a thesis in his college course-work
after the subway incident. A sort of lab experiment if you will.
A sociology major. One with tape recorders and a bitter attitude. Those
sheep on that train had not lifted a finger to help him. The cops did
not care. The thesis was a good one which included actual dialog.(Taped
and reported word for word.) His college professor actually applauded
him in front of the rest of the class. The subject of this thesis was
originally to have been apathy towards crime in a large city.

Alan had to do some quick thinking after this incident. The one cop
named Murphy nearly punched him out for no reason! What these cops were
doing to the man and the woman in the hallway was kind of a mystery to Alan.
Why the hell he had heard a gunshot? He overheard one cop talking to another
about a knife. Some sort of incident right during his experiment! What
a co-incidence! The cops sure were crabby, not at all helpful.

Alan just smiled and waved when his professor congratulated him on
his thesis. The subject? Random violence.



The end.