Harry stood and dropped the paper. "But it was well chosen, Jazz. Well chosen by
me."
"And what about the third?" Stevie Sharpe asked. Jazz could have hugged him. One day soon, she
promised herself there and then, she would.
All eyes turned to her.
"Yes, Jazz girl," Harry said. "What about the third?"
"Tomorrow morning," she said. "Easy. But we need to plan."
Harry grinned, bowing to Jazz like a performer at the end of a play. "Then plan we shall."
Chapter Eleven
thieving the thief
Jazz chose her moment well. Between traffic passing along the street, front doors closing, curtains
being drawn open, the postman passing by, and pedestrians clicking their expen-sive shoes and high heels as
they hurried to work, she walked across the street from the park, through the front gate, and down the
several steps to the house's basement entrance.
She looked back across the street at Switch. He was read-ing on a bench in the park, and though he
had his back to her and the house, she knew he'd been watching her. If there was any sign that she'd been
seen, he'd let her know.
He turned a page, rubbed a hand through his hair, and carried on reading.
Jazz checked her watch. Five minutes. She was hidden from the road by the bulk of the steps leading
up to the main door, and the basement door was set into the steps' side wall. The only way she would be
seen was if Mort decided to visit his basement in the few minutes before leaving.
They'd decided that Jazz would be the only one to go in-side. Too many cooks, Harry had said, and
he was right. The more who went in, the greater the chance of being caught. But the others were here,
providing what Harry had called protection and distraction. Switch sat reading in the park, Gob and Hattie
walked up and down a neighboring street, Marco did as his namesake and explored alleys, back streets, and
service roads in the area. Stevie had taken one of the most dangerous jobs —scruffing himself up and
sitting at the corner of Mort's street, begging. They all knew that he'd be moved on by the police soon, but
that was one more distrac-tion for the local beat bobbies while Jazz did her thing.
Switch looked at his watch and closed his book. That was the signal that the time had come. Jazz had
already inserted the skeleton key into the door's lock, and now she started turning and probing, feeling the
tumblers click back as the key found its way in. Still listening for the sound of the front door opening above
her, she concentrated hard.
If Mort opened the door, set the alarm, and came out be-fore she had this one open, it was all over.
Even if he didn't see her —and the chance of him missing her was close to zero, by her estimation—they
would have missed their best opportunity to get inside. There were other ways, of course, but with an alarm
system like this, it was best to fool it right at the start.
There! The lock snicked open and she grabbed the han-dle, ready to go inside.
The front door opened above her. She turned the han-dle, pushed the basement door open, and
started counting.
One, two...
She slipped through, turned, and pushed the door shut behind her. She eased the handle closed with
her hand, not wanting to risk its springs snapping it back into place. She had no idea of the layout of the
house, no inkling of how sound could carry.
Three, four...
Jazz paused for a heartbeat to get her bearings. The basement had once been a well-appointed room,
perhaps a separate dwelling in its own right, but now it was crammed full of old furniture, boxes sealed with
packing tape, and a huge bookcase packed solid with old hardback books. Her route across this space
would be slow, and the far door was closed, perhaps locked.
Five, six...
There was a motion detector in one corner of the room, flashing red where it was fixed just below
the ceiling. Once the alarm was set and the flashing stopped, it would be active.
Jazz moved. Over an old sofa, clouds of dust puffing up around her and tickling her nose. Through a
forest of dining chairs, upright and upside down, and her rucksack caught on one of the legs. She paused
and spun around, catching the chair just before it hit the ground.
Seven, eight...
She stepped around a pile of small sealed boxes, wonder-ing what they contained.
Footsteps came from above as Mort hurried along his hallway, needing to set the alarm and close the
front door by the count of thirty. After that, he'd set it off himself
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