“You know,” said Jorge. “Now I kind of have to go to the bathroom.”

“Me, too,” said Steve. He looked at Jerry in the rearview. “But don’t you dare tell Tommy.”

Coop was putting his tools into the duffel, for once feeling pretty good about the world. When his phone rang, the screen said GISELLE. He thumbed it on.

“Hey you. I was just about to head over. How are you doing?”

“Is this Coop?” said a man’s voice.

“Who’s this?” Coop said, the good feelings evaporating, as they usually did for him.

“We picked up something of yours tonight. Your lady friend. Giselle Petersen, according to her driver’s license.”

Coop spoke very coolly and precisely, trying to keep all emotion out of his voice. “I’d like to speak to her.”

“You can talk all you like. After you give us back what’s rightfully ours.”

Not this again.

“You’re the glee club, aren’t you?”

“The who?”

“The screw-ups who broke into the Blackmoore Building the other night.”

“Yeah. We’re also the screw-ups that have your girl. You know what we want.”

“The box.”

“The box.”

“I don’t have it.”

Coop didn’t hear anything for a minute. “Hello? You still there?”

“Well, where is it?” The voice sounded almost as frustrated as he felt.

“Someone else has it. I can get it back, but it’ll take some time.”

“How long?”

Coop thought for a second, calculating how much bullshit he could shovel in the voice’s direction. “Seventy-two hours.”

“Are you kidding? Why not take the rest of the month off? Go to Mexico. Get a tan.”

“Listen. The box is locked up tight. But I can do it in maybe forty-eight hours.”

The line seemed to go dead again. Coop waited, hoping asking for seventy-two hours would get him the forty-eight he wanted.

“I don’t know,” said the voice reluctantly. “Forty-eight is a long time.”

“It’s not like they’re selling these things at Ikea. If you want the box, it’s going to take forty-eight hours.”

The voice took another second. Coop wished he was at the DOPS building. They probably had all kinds of ways to trace the call.

“Okay,” said the man’s voice. “You have forty-eight hours. And don’t even dream about trying anything cute. Or you know what.”

“Yeah. You’re going to do something even dumber than the other night.”

“No, we won’t.”

“Right. How could you be dumber than that?”

“I mean we’re going to kill her, tough guy.”

“No, you won’t, because if you hurt her you’re never going to see the box.”

The man’s voice suddenly sounded far away, like he had his hand over the phone. “What? The keys to the bathroom are in my desk drawer,” he said. Then his voice went back to normal. “Did you say something?”

“I’ll call you when I get it.”