Game (Jasper Dent #2)(113)

So Jazz did the one thing the guard would not have prepared himself for:

Nothing.

He simply stood there, still and quiet, staring straight ahead at the grille that shielded his face from the guard. The guard began to back away from the glass, then realized that Jazz wasn’t going anywhere. He paused midway to his chair. The TV chattered. Someone said, “I was like, she is, like, so bitchy and, like, without any reason, you know?”

From behind the grille, the guard said, “I said I can’t help you.”

Jazz still didn’t move.

The guard inched back toward the chair, then stopped again. “Hey. Kid. I said—”

Not yet.

“—that I can’t help you. Scram.”

Jazz waited.

The guard finally came back to the glass. He couldn’t see Jazz, though, because the grille was blocking his face, so he craned his neck to peer around the grille, finally meeting Jazz’s gaze with eyes sunken into the dough of his face.

“Kid! Seriously. Move it or I’ll call the cops.”

Jazz noted that the end of the man’s tie had, due to his positioning, flopped into the slot in the glass. Easiest thing in the world to reach out, grab that end of the tie, and pull. Strangle the guy into unconsciousness, then scale the fence. Billy roared at him to do it from the depths of his subconscious.

No. That’s the backup plan. I don’t want to hurt him if I don’t have to.

But Jazz did want to hurt him, if he was being honest with himself. The man was rude. Dismissive. Fat, lazy, and disinterested. Being strangled on the job by his own tie would probably be the best thing to ever happen to him.

“It’s my uncle,” Jazz said in a hoarse whisper, and then leaned his forehead against the glass, as if he needed the support.

Uncle. Not mother or father or brother or sister. Immediate family was expected. Con men knew that people had an emotional response to immediate family, so they cornerstoned their lies on the nuclear family. A good security guard would be wary of such a ploy. Jazz didn’t know if this guard was any good—he suspected not—but as Billy said, Assume every damn cop in the world is Sherlock Holmes and you’ll never do anything stupid.

“Look, I know you can’t help me,” Jazz said with quiet fierceness. “I know that. But will you at least listen to me? And then maybe you can tell me what to do next?” Now making his voice tremulous, bordering on querulous.

“I can’t do anything for you,” the guard said. “You need a passcode or a receipt to get in.” But his voice had changed, just slightly. There was the smallest bit of curiosity in it now. A tiny rip in the fabric.

“My uncle,” Jazz said. “Look, he’s dead, which doesn’t matter because he was sort of a jerk, okay?” Another switch-up. The guard was expecting a sob story. Oh, my beloved uncle is dead and he always wanted me to have his collection of rare Portuguese pencil erasers! Please, sir, let me in! “No one liked him. He was a tool. But the problem is that he had this rare comic book collection, see? And my mom is on her way here right now to get it.” Now he’d brought the mom in—the guard would be tracking back to caution, so Jazz had to move quickly, establish the lie, the narrative.

“She’s a drunk,” Jazz said. He was thinking “junkie” originally, but for some reason drunk seemed to work better. It was less dramatic and so more believable. “And if she gets here and gets those comics, she’s just gonna sell ’em for a bunch of money and buy more booze.”

“So I let you in and you’re gonna save your mother from herself, is that it?” Sarcastic. Incredulous.

“I just want to change the lock,” Jazz said. He held up a key and a small padlock, bought not long ago at the hardware store. “There’s like two thousand comic books in there. There’s no way I could haul them out. And hell, the rain would ruin ’em. I just want to change the lock so that she can’t get in. And then maybe my sister and I can get her back to the treatment place next week and we can deal with all of this later. I’m just trying to buy some time, you know?”

The guard snorted. “And maybe cherry-pick the most valuable comics while you’re in there?”

“I wouldn’t know which ones to take,” Jazz said, with complete earnestness. “You can come with me if you want. Come watch. I’m just gonna swap one lock”—he held up the key—“for another.” He held up the padlock. “It’ll take five minutes.”

The guard hesitated. “I can’t leave my desk.” Relief. He doesn’t have to make a personal choice—he can just fall back on the rules.

They follow their rules. They worship their rules, Billy said. And that’s their downfall, Jasper. Because we don’t give two tugs of a dead dog’s tail about the rules.

“Then screw you!” Jazz yelled, suddenly boiling over with anger and exasperation. He leaned down to let the guard see his face for the first time, a face screwed up with pain and rage, a few hot tears wicking from the corners of his eyes. “Screw you like everyone else!”

Set them up. Let them think they know the rules of the conversation. They’re in power. You’re the supplicant. Let them think all they have to do is brush you off.

Then change it up. Suddenly. Starkly. Get them off their asses and out of their comfort zones.