You cut, you do what you have to do, you get it out."

"On the other hand," Chris said, "it might not be a bomb at all. Just the dynamite in there. You know, to scare you, keep you in line. I mean, is there a reason anybody'd want to take you out?"

Booker said, "You mean like just the shit, but no way to blow it?"

"Yeah."

"Like they telling me look what could happen?"

"Maybe."

"Say I could just get up, was all bullshit what they made her say to me? On the phone?"

"That's possible," Chris said, "but I don't think I'd take the chance."

"You wouldn't, huh?"

"Let's see what my partner says, when he gets here."

Booker said, "Man, I got to go the toilet, bad."

Vhris watched Jerry Baker taking in the size of the house as he came up the walk, away from the uniforms and the blue Detroit Police radio cars blocking both sides of the boulevard. It was Jerry's day off. He wore a black poplin jacket and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap: a tall man, bigger and older than Chris, twenty-five years on the force, fifteen as a bomb tech. He remembered what day this was and said to Chris, "You shouldn't be here."

Standing inside the doorway, Chris told him about the green leather chair Booker was sitting in.

And Jerry said it again, looking at his watch.

"No, you shouldn't be here. Forty minutes, you'll be through."

He looked outside at the guy from Narcotics waiting on the porch, waved him over and told him to call for Fire and EMS and get everybody away from the house. The guy from Narcotics said, "Can't you guys handle this one?"

Jerry said, "You'll hear it if we can't." Walking down the hall to the Jacuzzi room he said to Chris, "If we save this asshole's life, you think he'll appreciate it?"

Chris said, "You mean will he say thank you? Wait'll you meet him."

They entered the room, Jerry gazing up at the green and-white tenting, and Booker said, "Finally, you motherfuckers decide you gonna do something?"