Step On A Crack

Chapter 37

MASON HANDED ME the ringing cell phone just as I made it to the doorway.

“Mike here,” I said.

“Mike. Hey, buddy,” Jack said. “What’s up with letting the phone keep ringing like that? You falling asleep on me? If I didn’t know what a sweet guy you were, I might get the impression you were busy plotting against me or something.”

“Thanks for releasing the president,” I said sincerely.

“Ah, don’t mention it,” Jack said. “It was the least I could do. Say, listen, the reason I’m calling is, I’ve got those demands together, and I was thinking of maybe e-mailing them to you. That all right? I’m usually a snail-mail kind of guy, to tell you the truth, but you know how much of a zoo the post office is around the holidays.”

The pseudocasual way Jack was speaking to me was starting to grate on my nerves. My negotiation training was mostly based on calming dangerous people who were actually distraught, people who had snapped, had gone over the edge.

But Jack was nothing but a cocky wiseass… killer?

In the parlance of the NYPD, with apologies to mixed-breed dogs, criminals-human beings who have forgone their humanity-are referred to as “mutts.” As I stood there with the phone in my hand, I reminded myself that’s all Jack was. A smart mutt, a sophisticated mutt maybe, but a mutt all the same.

I checked my anger by visualizing cuffing him, dragging him by the scruff of his neck past the people he was terrorizing. It was going to happen, I knew. Just a matter of time, I thought as I was handed an e-mail address by a tech cop.

“All right, Jack,” I said. “Here’s our address.”

“Okay,” Jack said after I gave him the specifics on the NYPD Web site. “We’ll send the stuff over in a minute or two. I’ll give you a little while to absorb things and then call you back. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Oh, and Mike?” Jack said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“I’m really appreciating all the cooperation. We all do. Things keep running this smooth, it’s going to turn out to be a real holly, jolly Christmas,” Jack said, and hung up.