T-shirt from this afternoon. They had been replaced with a green dress that had yellow curving lines running diagonally from shoulder to hip. She saw me looking through the glass panel and looked straight into my eyes. The fun I had seen in them earlier was gone.
I waited, holding the storm door open. The deadbolt slid back and Shelley opened the inner door just a few inches. She was pale and unsmiling. In fact, it looked like she was clenching her teeth.
“You have to come back tomorrow,” she said flatly.
She began to close the door, but I leaned into it.
I put a finger to my lips and placed my mouth to her ear. “Where are they?” I whispered.
She turned to my ear. “In the kitchen.”
Josh called, “Shelley, is everything okay?” His voice sounded a little higher than I remembered.
I nodded to her.
“Yes.”
I moved back to her ear. “Let me in. Everything will be fine.”
She soundlessly opened the door just enough to let me slip in.
“Dear?” Josh again, from the kitchen. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. Coming.”
I whispered again: “Is there another way into the kitchen?”
She pointed to the room on the left.
“Stay right here. Don’t move…and look straight ahead.”
She nodded.
I moved to the open doorway to my left. The room beyond, I could now see, was a dining room with a table beautifully set for a Friday night meal. There were five place settings. I guessed they were for Shelley and Josh, me, and two kids. I could see some silver wine cups on a plate near the head of the table, a breadbasket, and some flowers. Off to the side was a sideboard with four lit Shabbat candles.
I moved into the dining room and hugged the common wall with the hallway, just to the side of the doorway.
“Dear,” Josh called again, “are you coming?”
Shelley turned to me. I put my finger to my mouth and shook my head. I then pointed for her to look toward the kitchen.
A few seconds went by.
“Shelley,” came Josh’s voice, “are you okay?”
Shelley didn’t answer.
The two men from the Buick were in the kitchen with Josh and his kids. That was my guess. I had no idea why and I didn’t care right now. I was also guessing that one of them would come through the door to check on Shelley. If he came through the other door, the one through the dining room side, he would see me. Then things would start getting interesting. Maybe I should grab a table knife. It wasn’t weighted for reliable throwing, but I could always throw it as a distraction. And then what? I had no idea.
He didn’t come through the dining room. He came through the hallway. I could hear his footsteps. The man, I hoped, would have emerged from the kitchen to see Shelley standing, immobile at the front door. He would be walking toward her, curious. From where I stood behind the dining room entrance, I could see Shelley indeed still standing near the front door. She looked petrified, but she did as I had asked and kept her focus straight ahead. In a moment, one of the men appeared, a semi-automatic in his right hand. He was the one wearing a windbreaker and jeans. I noticed several things at once. He was my height, younger than me, and his handgun was a Czech CZ 75. I knew it to be double action weapon – if there were a round in the chamber, the hammer did not have to be cocked for it to fire. I also knew that it came in both 9mm and .40 caliber – not that such a difference would matter to my chest or head at this range.
I silently stepped forward before the man was beyond my reach. The thought of being shot didn’t occur to me. My hands and hips moved rapidly and in concert. With my left hand I used a chin-na variation, pulling him slightly off balance and locking his wrist. Simultaneously, with my right I grabbed the Czech pistol over the slide and twisted the weapon against his trigger finger, both pulling his finger away from the trigger and breaking his hold on it. I tore the gun out of his grasp before he knew I was on him. I continued the chin-na hold, pulling his shoulder and torso forward. He was now bent over. I raised my right arm high and brought my descending elbow straight down onto the spot where the back of his neck ran into the back of his skull. There was a nice hollow there, and I hit it – hard enough, but not with everything I had. The man crashed face down to the floor.
A moment went by, and a voice came from the kitchen, but it wasn’t Josh’s.
“Mazhar!”
Once again, I put my finger to my lips to indicate that Shelley should remain quiet.
“Mazhar?”
Another few seconds passed.
“Mrs. Mandel,” the voice from the kitchen said, “If you do not come here I will shoot your husband, and then I will shoot your children.”
The man had an accent, but I couldn’t place it. Mediterranean? Slav? Romanian? And what was that name, “Mazhar?”
“Do you hear me, Mrs. Mandel? I will save your children for last.”
Shelley looked at me, her eyes wide. I nodded.
“I’m coming,” she said quickly.
I whispered in her ear, hopefully, one last time: “If you can, walk slowly.” I didn’t wait for her response.
With Mazhar’s pistol in hand, I headed into the dining room for the other kitchen entrance. I stopped at the corner, just before the opening to the kitchen. Hopefully, when Shelley would walk in from the hallway, all eyes would be on her. In that moment I’d turn the corner, take in the situation, and shoot. In theory. It really all depended on where everyone was, and if the man’s gun was pointing at someone.
I looked down at the CZ 75. I moved the slide back just enough to verify that there was a round in the chamber – there was – and waited.
“Here I am,” I heard Shelley say. I wondered if that was for me.
I turned the corner, and leveled the gun. In that moment, I saw the second man was indeed looking at Shelley. His back was almost completely to me and had a .45 to Josh’s head.
“Tell me what happened, Mrs. Mandel, or I’ll shoot him. Is someone else here?”
I was essentially behind him, but the angles were horrible: Josh and the gunman; Shelley on the other side. I could shoot the intruder, but Shelley could get hit as the bullet passed through him.
“Yes, there’s another guest,” I said from the far doorway.
The man with the .45 on Josh turned and pulled him closer.
Positions had gotten worse. He now had the rabbi almost completely in front of him.
With a quick sweep, I took in the room: exterior wall to the left with a large window midway across.
