Never break and enter when you can just plain ol’ enter, Jasper, Billy had said once.

“Do you have some paper? Anything will do.”

“Glove compartment.”

Jazz found a little notebook in there. He tore out a sheet of paper, wrote on it, then folded it and put it in his pocket.

“I think you scare the hell out of me,” Morales said. He shrugged and she called out “Good luck” as he slipped out of the car.

Jazz hmphed. Luck. Who needed it?

It was still raining, though it had tapered off a bit as he approached the gate and stood there, hesitant, for just a beat too long, just long enough to appear awkward, confused, out of place. Without checking, he knew that the security guard had noticed him. Peering from the gate to the keypad, he feigned exasperation with little bits of body language—a shrug, a tossed-out hand.

Then he turned as though to go… and pretended to catch sight of the guard for the first time. Even though he was sure the guard couldn’t see the finer details of his expression from this far away, he went ahead and widened his eyes, anyway.

Always keep the performance honest, even when no one’s watching, Billy used to say.

Jazz headed to the guard. By now he could see the man leaning forward already, in anticipation. Good. That movement told him something in advance.

The bulletproof shell in which the guard lived had a speaker grille set into it, as well as a small slot through which one could probably slip keys or a receipt or a credit card, but angled such that a gun would fire its payload down into the desk. Jazz stood as though he thought he had to speak directly into the grille.

“Hello? Sir? I need—”

“I can’t let you in unless you have a passcode or an account number,” the guard said gruffly.

Interrupting. Good. The man’s posture was vaguely aggressive. He was fat and resented getting up from his chair to speak. He wanted Jazz gone, and quickly.

People like that were actually easier to manipulate. They were focused on the end result of the conversation, not on the conversation itself. This guy was already imagining himself settled back in his chair, watching what appeared to be a reality-TV show in which scantily clad women lay out next to a pool for some reason.

He was also probably already anticipating Jazz’s next statement, figuring on something like “But please!” or “I lost my passcode” and readying his rote “I can’t let you in.”

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.

He thumped the heel of his palm against the glass and then spun away from the booth, stalking off, then whirling around to scream, “It’s on you! When she’s passed out in some alley in Brighton Beach, it’s all your fault!” before walking farther into the darkness. Jazz didn’t know where or what Brighton Beach was, but he’d heard someone on the task force mention it.