The voice on the cell phone was trying to come across as bored with the whole thing, but I could pick up little worms crawling around its edges. Impatience? Nervousness? No way to know for sure.“No,” I told him. “And if I can’t find one in a few minutes, we’ll have to do it next time.”“Hey, pal, fuck you, all right? There don’t have to be a next time.”“Up to you.”“Hard guy, huh? I guess that’s right—it’s not your kid.”“Not yours, either,” I said, my voice level and unthreatening, sending my calmness out to him. “We’re both professionals—how about we just keep it like that? This is a trade. You know how trades work. Soon as I find a safe spot, I’ll pull in, just like we agreed, okay? We’ll hook up, do our business, and everybody gets paid.”“You don’t find a spot soon, nobody gets paid.”“I’ll get back to you,” I said, and killed the connection.It had taken weeks to get this close. A missing kid. Too young to be a runaway, but there’d been no ransom note.
