Game (Jasper Dent #2)(37)

“As you can imagine,” Montgomery told Jazz, “I was a bit surprised to find out that a newspaper was reporting you were helping my investigation.”

Jazz said nothing. He knew what would come next.

“I don’t know what Detective Hughes told you, but the fact of the matter is this: He doesn’t speak for this precinct, this department, or this task force. He was supposed to visit you in Lobo’s Nod and show you a limited subset of our investigatory data. He certainly wasn’t supposed to open his kimono. And especially not to bring you to New York.”

Jazz still said nothing.

“I’m sorry that it had to come to this. This neighborhood… these neighborhoods, really… the ones that are at the center of this. Nice, peaceful. For the most part. Biggest crime we usually get around here is purse snatching. Now we’ve had seven months of bodies. Gun permit applications are up—literally—four thousand percent. Every couple of nights, I get to go to a different school auditorium and try to calm people down, and they just yell and scream and demand answers I can’t give them. They’re scared. It’s my job to reassure them, and it’s not very reassuring when the media starts saying that now I’m relying on the teenage son of a serial killer for help. It reeks of desperation. You understand?”

Jazz shrugged.

“This isn’t about you. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Montgomery assured him. “But I can’t have you involved in this. I’m going to send you home.”

Now it was time to speak. Jazz picked his words with cautious precision and leaned forward in the most urgent yet restrained way he could. He’d perfected this pose/expression combination over years of practice. It almost always worked. “Captain? Sir?” he began. “I understand everything you’ve said, but can I suggest you keep me on anyway? I know you think it’s crazy, but I really am good at this. You can call Sheriff Tanner back in Lobo’s Nod—he’ll tell you. I’ve already helped get one of these guys. If you let me, I can lead you places you’d never go otherwise. And no one has to know it’s me. You can keep me in that little hotel where Hughes set me up. I’ll never set foot in this building again. The press will never see me. And God knows I will never talk to them. Not once. Let me help. Please.”

Montgomery leaned back in his chair. “Look, it’s not like I’m saying we don’t need help—”

“Exactly,” Jazz said, pouncing. “Not that you guys aren’t qualified or anything,” he added hurriedly, “but when you get something like this, in a neighborhood like this, it’s all hands on deck, right? So you’ve got your local guys and your Homicide guys and you pull in the FBI. Why not go all the way?”

The captain was on the edge, Jazz could tell; he could go either way.

“When you stand up in those schools, I bet you tell people you’re doing everything possible, don’t you?” Jazz said, and when Montgomery’s head inclined in the slightest nod, Jazz knew he had him. One more push. “How can you go back out there and tell them that if it’s not the truth? You’ve got one more resource sitting right in front of you. How can you not use it?”

On a good day, Jazz could talk his way into or out of just about anything. This was a good day.

But he hadn’t counted on one thing.

“I can’t do it,” Montgomery said, with a tone of real regret. “The mayor, the commissioner, the chief of Ds… they’ve made it clear: They want my head or they want yours. And I’ve grown attached to mine.”

“But—”

“Thanks, but no thanks. And please stop talking. Your freakin’ Jedi mind tricks are giving me a headache. I’m going to ask you not to talk to any of the media in New York or when you get back home. Not about this case, at least. And please turn over anything Detective Hughes may have given you.”

Jazz wasn’t sure what to do, how to react. He’d never been shot down like this. Bureaucracy. Who knew that bureaucracy would be my kryptonite?

“I told you,” he said, “I never talk to the press. And your guys took everything Hughes gave me. Unless you count the pizza and pop from yesterday.”

Montgomery cracked a grin at that. “No, no. You can keep the pizza and, uh, pop. I’ll have someone drive you back to the hotel. But first, if you don’t mind, one of the FBI agents would like to speak with you.”

Moments later, Jazz found himself in a tiny office jammed with four desks. A Hispanic-looking woman in a skirt and blazer, her hair tied back in a bun, closed the door behind her and perched on the edge of a desk, crossing two shapely and distracting legs.

“I’m Special Agent Jennifer Morales,” she said. “Thanks for talking to me.”

“Just because I’m a hormonal teenage male doesn’t mean you can use your legs to get me to talk,” Jazz said, offended. “What was your next move? Taking down your hair? Is that a special tactic they only teach to the special agents?”

His sarcasm hit home—she knew as well as he did that there was actually no difference at all between an agent and a special agent. The titles were mere flukes of FBI history and meant nothing. Morales’s lips pursed and she narrowed her eyes… then nodded once and slid into a chair. “Okay, good call. Sorry. No BS, then. I was one of the agents involved in hunting down your dad, back when he was going by the name Hand-in-Glove.”