Pop Goes the Weasel

right now! I’m serious .
    I sprinted across Fifth Street, then down a side alley and over to Fourth. I dashed another four blocks south toward the Anacostia River. People on the streets watched me running. I was like a tornado suddenly roaring through Southeast.
    I could see the metal frame of a pay phone from more than a block away as I approached Budget Drugs. A young girl was leaning against the graffiti-covered wall of the drugstore, talking on the phone.
    I pulled out my detective’s shield as I raced the final block toward her.
    This particular phone gets a lot of use. Some people in the neighborhood don’t have phones in their homes.
    “Police. I’m a homicide detective. Get off the phone! ” I told the girl, who looked nineteen or so. She stared at me as if she couldn’t care less that a D.C. policeman was trying to commandeer the phone.
    “I’m using this phone, mister. Don’t care who you are. You can wait your turn like everybody else.” She turned away from me. “Probably just calling your honey.”
    I yanked the receiver away from her, disconnected her call.
    “The fuck you think you are!” the girl shouted at me, her face screwed up in anger. “I was talking. The fuck you thinking.”
    “I’m thinking you better get out of my face. This is a lifeand-death situation. Get away from this phone. Now! Get out of here! ” I could see she had no intention of leaving. “There’s been a kidnapping!” I was yelling like a madman.
    She finally backed away. She was afraid that I was really crazy, and maybe I was.
    I stood there with my hand on the phone receiver, trembling, waiting for the call to come in. I was winded. Sweat covered my body.
    I stared up and down Fourth Street.
    Nothing obvious or suspicious. I didn’t see a purple and blue cab parked anywhere. No one watching me. Somebody definitely knew who I was. He had called me at the Belmont Hotel; he had called me at home.
    I could still hear the caller’s voice echoing loudly inside my head. I’d been haunted by the same words for weeks.
    “ She’s safe for now .
    “ We have her .”
    Those were the words written to me six weeks before, in Bermuda. I hadn’t heard another word from the caller until now.
    My heart was pounding, sounding as if it were amplified in my ears. Adrenaline was rushing like powerful rivers through my bloodstream. I couldn’t stand this. The caller had stressed that I hurry .
    A young man approached the pay phone. He stared at my hand on the receiver. “Wuzup, man? I need to use the phone. The phone? You hear me?”
    “Police business.” I gave him a hard stare. “Take a walk, please. Go!”
    “Don’t look like no police business to me,” he mumbled.
    The man moved away, looking over his shoulder as he retreated down Fourth, frowning, but not stopping to argue with me.
    The caller liked to be completely in control, I was thinking as I stood there helpless in front of the busy drugstore. He’d made me wait this long since the Bermuda call, possibly to demonstrate his power. Now he was doing it again. What did he really want, though? Why had he taken Christine? We have her, he’d said, and he’d repeated the very same words when he called my house. Was there really a we? What kind of group did he represent? What did they want?
    I stood at the pay phone for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. I felt as if I were going mad, but I would stay there all night if I had to. I began to wonder if this was the right phone, but I knew it was. He had been crystal-clear, calm, in control.
    For the first time in weeks I allowed myself to truly hope that Christine might be alive. I imagined her face, her deep-brown eyes that showed so much love and warmth. Maybe, just maybe, I would be allowed to talk to her.
    I let my anger build toward the unknown caller. But then I cut it off, shut down my emotions, and waited with a cool head.
    People came and went, in and out of the drugstore. A few wanted to use the phone. They took one look at me and then moved on in search of another phone.
    At five minutes to nine, the phone rang. I lifted the receiver instantly.
    “This is Alex Cross,” I said.
    “Yes, I know who you are. That’s already been established. Here’s what you should do. Back all the way off. Just back away. Before you lose everything you care about . It can happen so easily. In a snap. You’re smart enough to understand that, aren’t you?”
    Then the caller hung up. The line was dead.
    I banged the