Chapter 51 – Jammed Gun and an Aria Nobody Asked For: A Robber's Miserable Thursday Afternoon
The kid Sean had slapped couldn't stop the tears streaming down his face.
He just stood there on the sidewalk, one hand pressed to his cheek, dreadlocks still settling from the impact, eyes wet with the specific humiliation of a man whose entire plan had collapsed in real time in front of an audience of two.
Sean regarded him with the detached patience of a man waiting for a vending machine to finish its cycle.
At this point the robber had moved well past whatever rational cost-benefit analysis had gotten him out here in the first place. He no longer cared about the score, or the clean getaway, or any of the other components of the plan he'd assembled over his third cup of gas station coffee that morning. He only wanted to press the muzzle to Sean's forehead and squeeze the trigger.
Prison afterward? Fine. Whatever. Worth it.
He pulled the trigger.
His palm met neither the roar he was expecting nor a spray of anything.
Just a deflated, phlegmy pfft — the sound of a mechanical system failing to perform its one function. The spring buzzed uselessly inside the slide. The round might as well have been welded into the chamber. It was the saddest sound the afternoon had produced, and the afternoon had included a lot of competition.
Sean had been right. The gun was completely out of commission.
Hearing that particular pfft, Sean dropped the performance entirely.
He reached to the small of his back, drew his department-issue Glock, and racked it in one clean motion. The sound it made was nothing like the Beretta's. It was the sound of a firearm that worked.
The dynamic, which had already been running in one direction, snapped fully into place.
"Take my phone," Sean said to Jolene, without looking away from the kid. "Open the contacts. Call Officer Will Harrison — Central Division."
Jolene stared for half a second, then, operating on the specific autopilot of a man who has decided to simply do whatever Sean says for the remainder of the afternoon, took the phone and found the number.
This wasn't Western Division territory. If Jolene called 911 they'd spend lunch in an interview room at Central answering the same questions four times. Will Harrison was the cleaner option.
While Jolene worked the phone, Sean kept himself occupied.
He pressed the muzzle of the Glock lightly against the robber's temple and said, in the conversational tone of a man genuinely curious about the answer:
"You want to find out if mine's jammed too? Go ahead. Pick that piece of junk back up off the ground. Point it at me again. Give me something to work with."
The robber shook his head. The motion was emphatic enough that his dreadlocks moved independently of the rest of him.
"Smart," Sean said. "Now do something useful. Sing me something."
The robber blinked.
Then, operating on the same survival calculus that had just talked him out of picking the gun back up, he made a decision.
He opened his mouth.
"I am conquered by you just like this—"
"Drinking the poison you've hidden so well—"
Sean listened. He tilted his head slightly, the way a man does when he's genuinely evaluating something on its merits.
"Not bad," he said. "You've got some range on you. I'll give you that." He holstered the Glock. Ten of this particular type of problem weren't worth the paperwork. "Since you're cooperating, I won't hit you again."
He paused.
"Now give me Nessun Dorma. Italian."
The robber froze.
Then, in the tone of a man who has reached the outer boundary of what he is willing to endure:
"If I were cultured enough for Italian opera, would I be out here robbing people on a Thursday?"
Sean's expression shifted. The brief window of goodwill closed.
"That," Sean said, "sounds like you're looking down on me."
What followed was brief, thorough, and conducted with the efficient methodology of a man who has thought about exactly this kind of situation.
Across town in Malibu, Charlie Harper was on his fifth drink and had arrived at a place of genuine philosophical peace regarding Evelyn's visit. Alan had emerged from the guest room, attempted to explain something, and then retreated again. Jake had not moved from the couch in three hours and showed no signs of planning to.
Will Harrison had taken Sean's personal call at his desk at Central and was already moving before he finished processing what he'd heard. Luckily, Central Division sat squarely in downtown Los Angeles — five minutes with the sirens on, maybe three if he pushed it.
As Jolene relayed the address, the sounds coming through the phone shifted. Shouting. The specific acoustics of a confined outdoor space receiving a series of impacts.
"What's going on over there?" Will asked. "Why is someone yelling?"
Jolene watched the robber absorbing his situation with the resigned expression of a man who has run entirely out of options, and felt a complicated internal response — the guy had nearly given him a cardiac event forty feet from his own office, after all.
"Get here fast," Jolene said into the phone. "Sean is currently — he's engaged with the suspect."
He did not elaborate. Will was a professional. Will could fill in the gaps.
What Jolene did not say out loud, but thought clearly:
If you take much longer, there won't be a suspect left to arrest.
Sean's approach to the situation could be assessed as systematic and deliberate. Every movement had purpose. Every angle had been considered.
"Three minutes," Will said, and floored it.
By the time the sirens announced Will's arrival, Sean and Jolene had already moved on to the more important question of where to have lunch. They were debating the merits of two different restaurants a block apart when the cruiser pulled into the parking structure beside the building.
The robber was in the corner he'd arrived in, knees drawn up, regarding Sean with the specific combination of awe and residual terror of a man who has learned something important about how his afternoon was going to go.
Will stepped out of the cruiser, took in the scene, and looked at the figure in the corner with the expression of a man doing rapid mental arithmetic.
"Where's the suspect?"
Sean pointed.
"After a vigorous exchange," Sean said, "he's decided to cooperate."
Will looked at the robber — shaking, face swollen, shirt in a condition that suggested the afternoon had been physically eventful, one sneaker present and one absent, location of second sneaker unknown.
"Of all the people on this block," Will said quietly, more to himself than anyone, "you picked Sean."
He shook his head.
Injured or not, the suspect was processed by the book — hands cinched behind his back, full search, standard restraint, read his rights with the flat professional efficiency of a man who has said these words enough times that they've become their own rhythm:
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—"
Once the robber was in the back of the cruiser, Will bagged the Beretta as evidence and turned to Sean and Jolene.
"You two need to come in for statements?"
As a department-contracted forensic psychology practice, Jolene's clinic was already in Will's contacts under a category he thought of as useful people who make the paperwork easier. He knew the drill.
"We're going to lunch," Sean said. "Jolene will email you a full report."
Will had no objection to this. Sean was three weeks from a promotion to Deputy Inspector. Jolene was a credentialed department contractor with an office on the fifth floor. Neither of them was a flight risk.
"Join us," Sean added. "Flora rarely lets him near anything good. This is a special occasion."
Will glanced at the cruiser, then at the Château Margaux still tucked under Jolene's arm — which had, remarkably, survived the entire incident unscathed.
"I can't," Will said. "Brass would have me for lunch instead."
"Fair enough." Sean nodded. "Jolene — send him the narrative. Email, department inbox, subject line under his name." He looked at Will. "Keep it accurate."
The word accurate carried a specific inflection. Will received it without comment.
They watched the cruiser pull out of the structure and back onto Fifth Street, sirens off now, the afternoon returning to its normal register.
Sean and Jolene stood on the sidewalk.
The Château Margaux caught the afternoon light.
System reward: $5,320.
Total pending withdrawal: $2,748,200.
Lunch was, technically, on the robber.
Sean had gotten his workout and his meal covered in the same forty-five-minute window.
In Malibu, Charlie Harper had moved to the deck and was watching the Pacific with the specific contentment of a man who has solved nothing but has stopped worrying about it. Alan was making dinner. Jake had found the remote.
Some Thursday afternoons in Los Angeles are simply better than others.
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