Game (Jasper Dent #2)(36)

It’s just new graffiti. That’s all.

But as best she could tell, it was the only change. What were the odds?

She crept closer to the wall. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it was easy to find.

Connie had never tagged a wall in her life, but she knew from TV and movies that guys who tagged used spray paint. Sometimes they did funky stuff with neons, but usually it was just a can of whatever flat matte crap was on sale. She didn’t feel one way or another about graffiti, but she imagined it was tough to make such stable, consistent lines with a spray. It took some skill.

The new graffito, though, was shaky. Thin. Small. And even her untrained eye could discern its major differences from the surrounding tags: This wasn’t spray paint. It was some kind of plain white semi-gloss, like the stuff her dad used to paint the kitchen. It had been layered on with a brush, not sprayed on. It overlapped the original graffiti, so it had been added after the police descended on the alley.

More important, it had no style to it. Most of the other graffiti consisted of loops, whorls, arrows, and daring serifs. This was just slapped up there.

Five letters, in boring, somewhat shaky block print.





CHAPTER 18


And everything—predictably—went to hell for Jazz. Straight to hell, full speed.

This hadn’t been the first time he’d been manhandled by the cops, but it was definitely the coldest. Hauled out of the hotel, he’d started shivering almost immediately, the cold January air nearly choking him. Long shoved him into the backseat of an unmarked car and drove them away.

Minutes later, they pulled up to a dingy brick building with an NYPD shield on the outside and a sign reading 76TH PRECINCT. Jazz wondered briefly if he was under arrest. But he hadn’t been cuffed or read his rights, just pushed around.

Inside, the precinct was a madhouse, alive with chaos and noise. Uniformed cops, detectives in shirtsleeves, and a couple of men in ties who could only be—based on their stick-up-the-butt bearing—FBI agents milled about. The entrance to the precinct was clearly a sort of gathering area/lobby that had been pressed into duty as a command center; whiteboards and corkboards on wheels were parked against the walls, pinned and markered and taped with photos, names, dates. Jazz recognized it all from the information Hughes had brought him yesterday. And it was there that Jazz sat for more than an hour, waiting to be seen by… someone. The cops and agents cast cursory and disinterested looks in his direction, until at some point someone must have realized who he was. At that point, a buzz of excited conversation stirred the stale, overheated air of the precinct, making Jazz want to curl up and vanish.

He texted Connie: I think this is gonna take a while….

Directly across from him, unavoidably in his line of sight, was a series of plaques mounted to the wall, along with various badges and a trifolded American flag in a frame. It was a 9/11 memorial, he realized, reading the plaques. In honor of those from this precinct who’d died that day.

Jazz was too young to remember 9/11 itself, but Billy had been periodically obsessed with it. Throughout Jazz’s youth, he would sometimes sit and watch video of the World Trade Center towers collapsing over and over, the explosion of glass and flame from the side of the North Tower like a gush of arterial blood. Over and over.

So efficient, Billy would mumble. But no style. No flair.

It was the difference between serial murder and mass murder, as far as Billy was concerned.

“All these jackasses have done,” Billy told Jazz once, “is make people afraid to fly and afraid of New York. Which they already were in the first place. Takes real talent to get up close and personal and make you afraid of something brand-new.”

Jazz didn’t think the cops here would appreciate Billy’s insights into the tragedy that had claimed their brothers. He kept his mouth shut and waited.

Eventually, a door flew open down a hallway and Hughes stormed out. At first he didn’t see Jazz there, but as he got closer he spied Jazz and his expression softened for an instant.

“Sorry, kid,” he said, passing by.

Jazz realized in an instant what had happened.

I wish I had more to tell you. But this is why I wanted you involved.

I?

I. Me. We. Whatever. I was the one who lobbied to bring you in, is all.

Long dragged Jazz into the office Hughes had vacated, much more harshly than was necessary for someone coming willingly. Nothing like a little embarrassment to ramp up the aggression, Jazz thought.

A cop sat behind a desk, his uniform festooned with more bric-a-brac than the other cops Jazz had seen. CPT. NILES MONTGOMERY read the sign on his desk.

“Here he is, Cap,” Long said, shaking Jazz a bit by his arm.

“Easy, Long. Don’t take it out on the kid. Have a seat, Jasper. Long? Give us a minute.”

Long left, closing the door. After a brief hesitation, Jazz decided to sit.

Sighing, the captain said, “I’m sorry to do this. You’re not supposed to be here. You were never supposed to be here….”

And then it all came out, just as Jazz had imagined it: Doug Weathers’s story—headlined NYPD SEEKS TO “DENT” HAT-DOG?—had hit the Lobo’s Nod newspaper’s website overnight. It was a matter of a couple of hours before a New York reporter came across it and, scanning it, realized its implications. The reporter called the New York mayor’s office and woke up a press person there, demanding a comment on the insertion of Billy Dent’s son into the Hat-Dog Killer investigation. The mayor’s office, caught completely off guard and totally flabbergasted by the very idea of involving Jasper Dent, had immediately contacted Captain Montgomery, the titular head of the task force, waking him up an hour before his alarm.