“I’m sorry,” the Asian woman said, and Gannon turned. “But my boss says you have to make your request to corporate security downtown.” She jotted down the number on a corner torn from the back page of the New York Post she was reading and passed it to him.
The business next door was an electronics shop.
Gannon saw the shop’s security camera trained at the proper angle. He looked to the counter and the balding manager with an assortment of pens jutting from his pocket protector. An older woman was trying to understand his directions on how to program her cell phone.
“Be right with you, sir,” the manager said.
Gannon nodded, went to the side of the store and stood before the array of big-screen TVs, watching a replay of last night’s Yankees game.
At that moment, a second man entered the store. Gannon recognized him as the guy reading magazines in the deli mart, the Yankees cap.
“They sucked last night,” the ball cap guy said, joining him at the TVs.
He was about fifty, six feet with a potbelly straining a mustard-stained Mets T-shirt. The cuffs of his jeans were frayed and the guy needed a shave, a haircut and, judging from his greasy strands, maybe a shower.
“Yeah, that’s too bad.” Gannon moved to the display of laptops.
“I might be able to help you,” the ball cap guy said.
“Sorry?” Gannon turned back.
“I overheard you in the deli asking about security tape and I might be able to help you.”
Gannon doubted it.
“How can you help me?”
“I’m with a Community Watch program.” He nodded upward. “I live on the second floor above this store and I keep electronic surveillance of the street. I work closely with the NYPD.”
“Is that right?”
“Yup, and if we can reach an agreeable consulting fee, I could check my recordings for the dates you’re interested in.”
“And what fee would be agreeable?”
“Seeing how you work for a big news agency, let’s say one thousand.”
“Too high.” Gannon smiled. “I don’t even know if you have what I’m looking for, and if the quality is acceptable. I’ll give you fifty to check and another fifty if you have what I need.”
“Make it two hundred in total.”
“One-fifty, and only if you have what I need, in good quality. Agreed?”
The ball cap had to scratch his whiskers to decide.
“One-fifty, fine.”
“Let me get your name and ID first. Got a driver’s license?”
“Driver’s license? What do you need that for?”
“My personal security against getting ripped off.”
“Well, I’m not too sure about that.”
“That’s what I figured. Have a nice day.” Gannon started to turn.
“Hold on.” The ball cap guy reached for his wallet and handed Gannon his license. His name was Jerry Falco. He was fifty-three. Gannon took down all his information before Falco snatched his license back.
“Satisfied?” Falco asked.
Gannon presented him with a business card and his WPA ID.
Falco eyeballed him for several seconds then invited Gannon to follow him. They went outside to the door between the electronics shop and check-cashing office. Falco pressed buttons on the security keypad, opened the door for Gannon. The building reeked of cats. Gannon tried not to breathe deeply as Falco led him up a narrow wooden staircase.
There were two apartments with scuffed doors across from each other. The walls were webbed with cracked plaster. Neither door had a number or nameplate. Falco’s keys jingled as he inserted them into the lock and turned. Before opening the door, he hesitated.
“I need you to wait out here a bit while I go in and tidy up, all right?”
“Sure,” Gannon said, thinking, I’ll just hold my breath and try not to inhale a fur ball.
Falco opened the door, entered then shut it. In that instant, Gannon thought he saw a camera on a tripod aimed at the street below.
Weird.
But Gannon also glimpsed a display of photographs taped to a wall; a collection of shots of the flower shop and the shapely woman he’d just seen tending to her flowers.
Was this guy some kind of voyeur or peeping perv?
As Gannon contemplated the question, his BlackBerry vibrated.
The number was blocked. Gannon answered, keeping his voice low.
“Jack, this is Brad. I got your message.”
“What’s up with Ramapo?”
“Buddy, I wish I could help you, but they’ve tightened things up.”
“Can you give me a hypothetical?”
“Afraid not. I had to make this call from a safe phone. I wish I could help, believe me. I have to go.”
“Wait, wait. If you were me, where would you go right now and what would you do?”
A long silent moment passed.
“Hypothetically?”
“Yes.”
“I’d haul myself back to the service center as fast as I could right now.”
“What’s going on, hypothetically?”
“I would just do it. Get there and watch and learn. I have to go.”
Gannon stood outside Falco’s door. Should he go to Ramapo now or wait? He wrestled with the decision amid the sounds of furniture being rearranged in Falco’s apartment. If he didn’t go to the center and missed something, Lisker would nail his balls to the newsroom wall.
“Mr. Falco!” Gannon knocked hard on the door. “Mr. Falco, I have to go!”
Falco’s door opened about six inches.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Falco, I have to go, but I’ll be back.”
“I don’t understand. I only need a few more minutes, then you can come in and I’ll help you find what you’re looking for.”
Gannon held up a crisp twenty, folded around his business card.
“This is for you. I will be back. I really need to do this, but I have to go. Believe me, I want to see your stuff and we have a deal, but I have to go.”
Falco inspected the twenty as Gannon rushed down the stairs, to the street and trotted to his car.
23
Ramapo, Metropolitan New York City
Morrow stopped the car at the main entrance of the Freedom Freeway Service Center.
Dr. Sullivan, in the front passenger seat, turned to Lisa in the back.
“How are you holding up? Are you sure you can you do this?”
Lisa was looking directly ahead, her hands clasped together in her lap as she struggled with the panic rattling through her.
A part of me died here, Lisa thought.
She’d agreed to return to the center this morning after two more difficult and fruitless interviews the previous night. Sullivan had said that research showed that on-the-scene sessions increased the accuracy of memories and the chances of unlocking suppressed details.
But there were risks.
As the engine ticked down and Morrow consulted his phone, Sullivan searched Lisa’s face and touched her hand.
“Remember, we discussed the downside, Lisa.”
Lisa nodded. Reliving the event also increased the potential to intensify the emotional fallout and further traumatize the witness.
“After I do this, my kids and I are going home, okay? That was the deal. I will do everything I can to help you catch these monsters, but my kids and I need our lives back. We’ve got a lot to sort out, you know?”
“I understand,” Sullivan said.
Morrow finished on his phone.
“Let’s go, we’re ready.”