Game (Jasper Dent #2)(104)

Ain’t all that much difference between them and us, Billy used to say. ’Cept we’re more honest about what it is we do. We admit it drives us, turns us on. They pretend they do it for the good of “the people,” whatever that means, but they really do it ’cause they like it. They like the authority. The power. The guns. Just like we do, Jasper.

Outside, the press had settled into a sort of languor. With no news and none forthcoming until Montgomery’s usual 9:30 press briefing (timed to let the local ten o’clock news run with it), they had nothing to do, but couldn’t just leave the scene of the biggest story in NYC.

I’ve got a scoop for you guys. The name and location of one half of the killing duo that has paralyzed Brooklyn.

Could he do that? Could he use the press to his advantage? Jazz had already pushed through them to the street but now paused and looked back. It could be done. There were ways to manipulate the media to the advantage of the good guys. Whoever Hat was, he would obsessively watch the news, read the papers, scan the websites for mention of the Hat-Dog Killer. Billy had done the same, at one point amassing a set of four huge scrapbooks filled with tales of his exploits. He’d burned them late one night when his inborn paranoia finally conquered his all-consuming pride.

The press was a powerful tool, but a dangerous one, too, as apt to blow up in your face as function properly. Jazz had been taught a healthy respect for the cops—along with hatred of them, of course—but he’d been raised to fear and shun the media. He had learned many things at the feet of William Cornelius Dent, and most of them fell into the category of “Bad Things,” but avoiding the media was something Jazz was pretty sure made sense.

It was too risky. Using the media to find Hat would be like playing with nitroglycerine.

On his way back to the hotel, he bought a slice of pizza from a shabby, run-down shack of a restaurant, certain that it would have roaches embedded alongside the mushrooms he’d requested. Instead, it was the best pizza he’d ever had in his life. Okay, New York, he thought. I’ll give you this one. I’ll never be able to eat that delivery stuff again.

Howie would have loved the pizza, he knew, wiping his greasy hands on his jeans as he entered his hotel room. Connie, too. Thinking of them made him suddenly, surprisingly homesick. He’d been too busy and too distracted to miss Lobo’s Nod or his best friend and girlfriend, but now a slice of pizza brought it all home to him. New York wasn’t the place for him. He needed the wide-open skies and narrow boulevards of his hometown. He could be anonymous in New York, he realized, unknown and unsuspected. Ever since Billy’s arrest, that’s what he’d fantasized—being somewhere (being someone) that no one knew or recognized. New York should have been his Shangri-la.

But now he realized that being anonymous was the worst possible future for him. Dog’s anonymity had allowed him to kill with impunity for months. That little studio apartment reeked of insanity, but how many people had ever set foot within?

Jazz needed to be surrounded by people. Yes. And they needed to be people who knew him, people who could see the signs. People who could tell if—when?—he was tipping into Billy territory.

Connie. Howie. G. William. Maybe even Aunt Samantha, if she could be persuaded to stay in the Nod.

Could this be his family? His support system? Jazz had always thought that his past was his own burden to bear, but could it be possible that he was meant to have people around him? Was this the true meaning of “People are real. People matter”? Not that they mattered in order to be safe from him… but to be safe for him?

The phone rang, so sudden and shrill into his thoughts that he jerked like a marionette, fumbling for his cell. He swiped at the screen, but nothing happened.

Another ring.

Oh. Not his phone.

The Billy phone.

“Hello?”

“Jasper!” Billy cried, sounding like a man who’s not seen his child in years. “M’boy! How are you? Still doin’ well, I hope? Not too disappointed that the bastard cops aren’t givin’ you much help, I hope?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do. You were right in ol’ Doggy’s doghouse. Saw it all up close. Nosed around his food dish. Saw his chain, Jasper, m’boy. I know you—thinkin’ you’re some kinda… some kinda white knight, ridin’ to the rescue. White knight, Jasper. And then the cops do nothing. How do I know that? Well, I guess ’cause I just spoke to Doggy and he’s still breathing that sweet, cold, free air.” Here Billy inhaled deeply—a pot smoker’s hearty toke, a gourmet drinking in the contents of a roiling, aromatic kettle. “Ah! Yeah, he’s still out there. He’s prospecting, Jasper, and ain’t no one trying to stop him. Unless you have designs on that for yourself. Is that it? You thinkin’ you can take down ol’ Dog all on your own?”

“The police know all about him,” Jazz said with conviction. It wasn’t even really a lie—Hughes knew everything Jazz knew at this point. By now, the detective may have come clean to Montgomery. By now, the police could… “They’re probably loading up SWAT and ready to roll on him any minute now.”

Billy blubbered laughter. “I would like to see that! I truly, truly would. You know, I would like to be there when they knock down his door with their battering ram—”