Patterson, James - Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

Be careful now, he cautioned himself. Don't make any mistakes.

Remember if you do perfect crimes.

THIS WAS GOING TO BE a mite tricky going, though, working in the crowded Toys “R” Us store. What if the boy's parents were close by? WHICH THEY DEFINITELY WERE! What if he were caught? WHICH HE WOULDN'T BE! COULDN'T BE!

That was incredibly important to him. Just watching the attractive, round-faced, sandy-haired boy, he could feel how badly this particular kid would be missed and, even better, mourned.

He needed to imagine the stories that would bombard the television screens and the thrill of watching them, knowing he was responsible for so much pain and suffering and emergency activity.

The little boy was getting itchy in his woolens and starting to panic a little. He had big crocodile tears brimming in his eyes.

There didn't seem to be anybody, any adult, anywhere around him. Poor Little Boy Lost. Poor Little Boy Blue.

The killer began to move in on his prey, slowly and carefully.

He couldn't stop now. His heart was beating like a big tin drum, and he loved the powerful sensation. His legs and arms were a little wobbly. Jell-O city. His vision tunneled; he was dizzy with anticipation, fear, dread, exhilaration.

Do it.

Now!

He bent, picked up the boy, and immediately started smiling and talking the happiest, friendliest barf-babble he could come up with.

“Hi there, I'm Roger the Artful Dodger. I work here at Toys 'R' Us. What kind of fantastical toys do you like best, huh? We've got every' kind of toy in the whole wide world, 'cause we're the world's biggest, coolest toy store. Yahoo! How 'bout that? Let's go find your superpathetic mom and dad!”

The boy actually smiled up at him. Kids could do weird mood changes like that. His beautiful blue eyes sparkled, glistened; something wet and wonderful happened. “I want Mighty Max,” he proclaimed as if he were Richie Rich instead of Little Boy Lost.

"Okay, then come with me. One Mighty Max coming up!

Why? 'Cause you're a Toys 'R' Us kid."

He cradled the boy in his arms and began to hurry up the wide shopping aisle toward the front of the store. Suddenly, he knew he could get away with it, even something this audacious and shocking, with almost a hundred eyewitnesses in the store. Hey, he was the new Pied Piper. Kids loved him.

“We'll get a Vac-Man. Then how about X-men? Or how about a Stretch Armstrong?”

“Mighty Max,” the little boy repeated, stuck on his one track.

“I only want Mighty Max.”

The killer peeked out of aisle three. He was less than thirty feet from the store's front exit. The mall parking lot bordered on Columbia Park, which had been part of his escape package from the start.

He took a couple of fast steps, then stopped dead in his tracks at the front of the store.

Shit! A couple in their late twenties were walking toward him!

The woman looked just like Little Boy Blue.

They had him... dead to rights. They had him nailed! They had him!

He knew what he had to do, so he never panicked for a nanosecond.

Except for the two or three major heart attacks he had on the inside. Well, here goes everything. Time to bet the ranchero.

“Hey, hi there.” He smiled broadly and went into his best stand-up routine ever. “This little guy belong to you? He was lost in the action-figure section. Nobody came for him. I figured I better bring him up to the store manager. Little guy was crying his eyes out. You his mom?”

The mother reached out for her precious bundle of joy, while at the same time throwing her husband a dirty look.

Aha, there was our villain! Pop was obviously the one who had lost the boy in the first place. Pops couldn't get anything right these days, could they! His own pop sure hadn't been able to.

“Thank you, so much,” the mom said. She tossed another incredibly nasty look to pop. “That was very sweet of you,” she told the killer.

He continued to hold his best smile. Man, he was acting his heart out. “Anybody would do the same thing. He's a nice little boy. Well, so long. Bye-bye. He wants a Mighty Max. That's probably what he was searching for.”

“Yes, he does want Mighty Max. Bye. Thanks again,” said the mom.

“Bye-bye,” the little boy mimicked, waving his hand.

“Bye-bye.”

“Hope see ya some other time,” said the Sojourner Truth School killer. “Bye-bye.” You morons! You incredible idiots.

You pathetic simps.

He walked away from the family. Never looked back once.

He was wetting his pants, but he was also beginning to laugh.

He couldn't stop himself from laughing. Here was another thing in his favor -- even if he was caught someday -- they wouldn't believe that he was the Truth School killer. No way in hell.

AH, THIS WAS MUCH BETTER. Life was good again. I opened my eyes and Jannie was there, staring at me from about three feet away. Jannie had Rosie the cat in her arms. Jannie likes to watch me sleep sometimes. I like to watch her sleep, too. Fair is fair.

“Hey there, sweetness and light,” I said to her. “You know the song, ”Someone To Watch Over Me'? You remember that one?"

I hummed a couple of bars for her.

Jannie nodded her head yes. She knew the song. She'd heard me play it on the piano downstairs, on our porch. “You have guests,” she announced.

I sat up in bed. “How long have they been here?”

“They just came. Nana sent me and Rosie up to get you. She's making them coffee. You, too. You have to get up.”

“Is it Sampson and Rakeem Powell?” I asked.

Jannie shook her head. She seemed unusually shy this morning, which isn't really like her. “They're white men.”

I was starting to wake up in a hurry “I see. You happen to catch the names?” Suddenly, I thought I knew the names. I solved the mystery myself-- at least, I thought I had.

Jannie said, “Mr. Pittman and Mr. Clouser.”

“Very good,” I complimented her.

Not good, not good at all, I was thinking about my “guests.” I didn't want to see the chief of detectives, or the police commissioner -- especially not in my house.

Especially not for the reason I imagined that they were here to see me.

Jannie bent and gave me my morning kiss. Then a second kiss.

“Oh, what lies there are in kisses,” I winked and said to her.

“Nope,” she said. “Not my kisses.”

It took me less than five minutes to get as ready as I was going to get for this. Nana was entertaining our visitors in the parlor.

Commissioner Clouser had come to my house twice before. This was a first for the chief of detectives. The Jefe. I assumed that Clouser had forced him to come.

ChiefPittman and Commissioner Clouser were sipping Nana's steaming coffee, smiling at a story she was spinning for them. I wondered what it was she had decided to get off her chest. This was a dangerous time -- for Pittman and Clouser.

“I was just rebuking these gentlemen for allowing Emmanuel Perez to roam our streets for so long,” she told me as I entered the parlor. “They promised not to let that sort of thing happen again. Should I believe them, Alex?”

Both Pittman and Clouser chuckled as they looked at me.

Neither of them realized this was no chuckling matter, and that my grandmother was no one to mess with or, even worse, condescend to in her house.

“No, you shouldn't believe one word they say Are you finished now?” I asked her, returning her sweet, phony smile with one of my own.

“I didn't think I could trust either of them. I wanted to get their promise in writing,” Nana said.

I nodded and smiled, as if she'd just made a joke, which I knew she hadn't. She was dead serious. The Jefe and Commissioner Clouser both laughed heartily They thought Nana Mama was a stitch. She isn't. She's the whole nine yards.