[Henry Parker 01.0] The Mark

by Jason Pinter

What had I gotten myself into?

  Michael DiForio.

  I knew that name, heard it bandied about the newsroom like an acid-coated breath mint. People stopped and stared when you said it, raised their eyebrows and listened closely for what they expected to be a gruesome tale. Only people like Jack O’Donnell stayed quiet. They were the ones who knew the most. Who knew the reality of the man’s savagery.

  We’d all heard stories that could keep you up at night, make you tuck your children in a little more snugly, double-check the windows and bolt the doors. The breathless rumors of an army silently brewing beneath the city’s surface.

  Now I knew why Luis Guzman was dressed up that night, why he looked like a man waiting for the executioner’s song. Luis Guzman was supposed to deliver something—drugs, arms, who knows—to John Fredrickson. This was the mysterious package everyone assumed I’d stolen. And somehow it was linked to the most dangerous man in the city.

  Ten ex-convicts, all paying meager rent to live at 2937 Broadway, payments decreasing through the years. I tried to piece it together. It seemed like car insurance: if drivers stay accident-free, their rates decrease. These ex-convicts had done something to justify the decreases. And one option made perfect sense.

  These men all worked as couriers for Michael DiForio. They’d all done time, and within weeks of their release were living at 2937 Broadway, paying well below market value in a building owned by a ruthless criminal. My guess was that after leaving prison, Michael DiForio contacted each of these men, offering them a sweet deal. In exchange for running errands, they would receive a large subsidy to live in his building. And to a man just paroled and making minimum wages, saying no wasn’t an option.

  The offer was this: Live in our building. You’ll pay very little rent. You’ll have a chance to save money. You’ll have a chance to restart your life. But you must work for us. Don’t ask questions. If you’re caught, you don’t know us. You’ve seen Mission: Impossible, right? Disavow all knowledge. Otherwise we disavow you.

  And in exchange for loyal service, their rent steadily dropped. Until, that is, they were caught or killed. Like the Guzmans would have been if I hadn’t knocked on their door.

  I still didn’t know what John Fredrickson had come to collect that night, or what the man in black had followed me across the country for. That mysterious package held the key. And now I had to find it.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, cutting through the humid air. The noise seemed to permeate my whole body, every molecule racked with pain and weariness. The last three days had taken their toll. My body ached, my eyelids drooped. Sleep would come in an instant if I let it. But if I welcomed sleep, I’d wake up in irons. Or a box.

  I had one more phone call to make. This time, though, we couldn’t take the chance of being seen. The sirens were too close, and I had no more energy to run.

  We entered the subway at 81st and Central Park West, right outside the Museum of Natural History, its oversized flags whipping in the wind.

  I purchased a four-dollar MetroCard, led Amanda through the turnstiles and headed down to the grimy platform. Rats scuttled between the tracks, squirming in and out of the metal rails, sniffing crushed soda cans and bone-colored cigarette butts. Discarded on the platform was the latest issue of New York, sporting a headline which read Organized Crime: New York’s Comeback Kid.

  I found a pay phone, dialed the main line at Columbia Presbyterian and asked for Luis Guzman’s room. A cop answered. I identified myself as a reporter for the Daily Bugle.

  After a moment, Luis Guzman came on the line. His voice sounded stronger than the last time we’d spoken.

  “Yeah, hello?”

  “Luis?” I said, this time making no effort to disguise my voice.

  “Yeah, hello? Who’s this?”

  “Luis. It’s Henry Parker.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t know no…holy shit.” He remembered. “What…how could you…”

  “Listen, I don’t have much time. I know about Michael DiForio. I know about the deal he cut you. I know John Fredrickson was supposed to pick up a package from you the night he died and I know you didn’t have it. What I need to know, Luis, is what was in that package and where I can find it.”

  “I…I never got it, I swear to God.”

  “I believe you,” I said. “But I still need to know what was in it and where it is.”

  “I swear I don’t know,” Luis said. “It was supposed to be delivered that day, at one o’clock. But it never showed. I don’t know what was in it. I just know it was important.”

  “How important?”

  “Michael, he had this man. A guy named Angelo Pineiro. Angelo called me every now and then. He said he trusted me, that he’d only call when Michael really needed it. He said unlike the other guys I wasn’t no junkie. I wasn’t going to wig out, go nuts. He said there was an important package coming and I had to protect it or I’d die. That’s what he said. Said it was the kind of package that if you fucked up the delivery you’d just disappear. He said I had to hold on to it and Officer Fredrickson would pick it up later.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Fredrickson the package never arrived? He would have understood, right?”

  “I did tell him,” Luis pleaded. “I swore to him I never got the package, but he didn’t believe me. And now they think you got it, Henry. They think you stole it. And Michael will do anything to get it back.”

  Then it hit me. That’s where the man in black came in. He was sent by Michael DiForio to retrieve the package. The package Michael DiForio thought I’d stolen. And he’d kill me, if necessary. Everything was getting so deep, so dark. Michael DiForio was deadly enough, but bringing in a mercenary meant he needed someone even more vicious.

  “Who was it, Luis? Who was supposed to deliver the package to you?”

  “This photographer guy named Hans Gustofson. I only met him once. Kind of a jittery fuck, like he thought someone was always watching him. He lived in Europe, but this guy Angelo say he kept a Pied-a-something in New York. Big-ass motherfucker, too. Used to be a bodybuilder.”

  “Hans Gustofson,” I said. There was a glimmer of recognition.

  “Told me he was working on something big. That he’d either finish it or die trying.”

  “Do you know where Gustofson lives?”

  “I don’t know, somewhere around…” Luis stopped talking. I heard the sound of scuffling on the other end, footsteps on linoleum. My heart thumped louder as someone yelled no, then stop. Then I heard a thud, like something hitting the floor. Then there was silence.

  “Who is this?” A new voice on the phone. Not Luis. “Who the fuck is this?”

  I hung up.

  “We need to go,” I said to Amanda. “We need to go now.”

  Stepping out of the subway into the night, the sirens seemed to have grown louder. I told Amanda what Luis said. How we needed to find this package. And how we were being hunted.

  “So how’s this guy Gustofson connected to Michael DiForio?” she asked.

  Sighing, I told her what I’d known as soon as Luis dropped the name.

  “Hans Gustofson was a photographer,” I said. “When Luis told me that, something clicked. I knew I recognized the name. Gustofson was one of Helmut Newton’s protégés. He made his name as a wartime photojournalist—Vietnam, Kuwait—then decided to get artsy. He said the human body was more beautiful in the nude than in the grave. You can figure out what happened next.”

  “Let me guess…he went to the dark side.”

  “Like Darth fucking Vader,” I said. “When I was a kid, I read every newspaper I could get my hands on, every one that the public library carried. Searching old microfiche to see what the greatest journalists ever wrote about the most important events of the last half century. I saw a lot of Gustofson’s work, especially during the Gulf, and then in Sarajevo. When you want to be a journalist, you get to know all the names associated with the industry, and he was a big one.”

  “So what ha
ppened?”

  “He got hooked on heroin and started believing he was one of the models instead of the person photographing them. Thousands of dollars in debt later, he started taking sleazy pictures, naked celebrities on vacation, things like that. Soon the mainstream papers wouldn’t touch him, but the tabloids were more than happy to pay his salary.”

  I continued. “Every photo tells a story. It’s a snapshot of a moment in time, a context in and of itself. But the pictures Hans ended up taking were a sham. That crap isn’t a portrait of time, it’s a bastardization of it. A quick fix with no relevance. Anyway the press dragged him through the mud until there was no digging himself out. Word was he’d become a recluse, burying himself in heroin and alcohol and women, mostly at the same time.”

  “So the question is,” Amanda said, her sentiments echoing mine, “how is Gustafson involved with Michael DiForio?”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said. “We need to find Hans.” Amanda nodded in resigned agreement.

  “If he’s living in New York, he must have an address.”

  I nodded again. “Time to find our old buddy Mr. White Pages.”

  We walked another five blocks and found an all-night diner. Fire burned through my leg with each step. Stepping inside to the welcome smell of grease and grilled meat, I asked the chef for the pay phone. He nodded and used his spatula to point us toward the restrooms.

  Tattered copies of the yellow and white pages sat on a small desk beneath a soiled phone. I flipped through the white pages until I found a listing for an H. Gustofson, then glanced over my shoulder. I made a violent coughing noise, and simultaneously tore the page from the book.

  Hans Gustofson lived just ten blocks away. My wobbly legs could handle it, barely.

  “You think we should call ahead?” Amanda asked, grinning.

  “Now what would be the fun in that?”

  We made the walk in fifteen minutes, our bodies hunched over as though straining against tremendous resistance. We were no longer concerned about being inconspicuous. The last few days had sapped our energy to the point where we actually were relying on the wind to propel us.

  Gustofson lived in a brick town house on 90th and Columbus. Upper West Side. Pretty decent neighborhood. Like all good brownstones there was no doorman, only a buzzer-based security system. These things were tough to crack, only done so by the most daring and intuitive thieves and espionage artists.

  Or a college graduate who’d spent his entire freshman year breaking into said buildings to surprise his girlfriend for some late-night sex.

  I slid out my American Express corporate card, doubting that the Gazette had this in mind when they gave it to me.

  “Watch the master,” I said to Amanda, deftly slipping the plastic between the door and frame. I leaned in close and listened, sliding the card gently in a north-south direction. I heard the telltale click and the door swung open.

  “Better than MacGyver,” Amanda said.

  We stepped into the musty lobby. Chinese food menus were scattered about the floor. A plant stood in the corner, looking like it was last watered during the Cold War. Crispy brown leaves surrounded the pot like dandruff. A black-painted staircase wound upward. The building was five stories. No elevator. Perfect.

  I checked the tenant directory and found Hans. He lived in apartment 5A. Of course he had to live on the fifth floor. One step at a time, I told myself. Not five whole flights, but one step at a time. Positive thinking. Amanda sighed beside me.

  “Do we have to walk all the way up there?” So much for positive thinking.

  “Unless there’s a donkey attached to some sort of pulley system, I’m afraid so.”

  By the time we reached the third floor my calf muscles felt like they were sloughing off my body. My wounded leg had gone numb again, which scared the shit out of me. Amanda panted as she followed a few steps behind. I offered to go alone, to rejoin her downstairs when I was through. She offered a four-letter response. My kind of girl.

  As we reached the third-floor landing and headed for the fourth, a foul smell caught my nostrils. Bad Chinese food, maybe. Or someone who’d worn the same pair of socks for three or four hundred years. But as we reached the fourth floor, I noticed an ominous scent lurking beneath that smell. Something sour. More sinister. I turned to Amanda. We both had the same thought. There was something rotten one flight above us.

  There was only one apartment on the fifth floor. Like a penthouse suite in a town house of clogged toilet bowls. Amanda pinched her nose, covered her mouth. Several envelopes were stuffed underneath the door to apartment 5A. It had been a while since Hans opened his mail.

  I put my ear to the door, listened for any sign of movement. Hearing nothing, I inspected the doorframe. It didn’t look like my credit card would do the job this time. Maybe I could pose as some long lost cousin of Hans Gustofson’s. Claim Amanda was the daughter he’d never met, persuade the super to let us inside.

  “What’s that?” Amanda asked suddenly, pointing to a deep indentation below the dead bolt. I looked closer. Someone had broken into Hans Gustofson’s apartment, and judging by the depth and relatively small number of scrapes, they’d done it quickly. Perhaps while he was at home. The lock looked too damaged to close.

  “Henry,” Amanda said, “we should call the cops.”

  “We will,” I said. “But I need to see what’s in there.”

  My heart pounded as I backed up against the wall opposite the door, crouching in a three-point stance. The muscles in my legs tensed. I blocked out the pain, focused.

  “Henry…”

  I took three quick breaths, then launched myself at the door.

  My shoulder slammed into the metal, and instead of the thick crunch and pain I expected, the door buckled inward and I fell to the ground in a heap. I was inside Hans Gustofson’s apartment.

  The foul odor immediately clogged my nostrils and I had to put my shirt over my nose. Staggering to my feet, I felt a sticky substance on my palms. Then I noticed my palm print in a puddle of what I immediately knew was dried blood.

  Oh, Jesus…

  Nausea washed over me as I surveyed the foyer. The apartment was lit only by the haunting glare of moonlight shining through an unseen window. To the left of the foyer was a short hallway. I stepped into the apartment. The entire place was littered with debris. Not garbage, but debris. Broken glass. Shredded cotton. Electrical equipment shattered. Mail strewn about.

  “Henry…” I heard Amanda whisper behind me. “Oh, God, Henry, look.”

  On the wall by the front door was a large matte of blood about head height. Like an abstract painting, blood had dripped down the beige wallpaper and dried in ghastly thick lines. A crowbar lay on the floor, the hooked end chipped and caked with dried blood. The same weapon the intruder had used to break in had also been used to maim someone, perhaps fatally. Something terrible had happened here….

  Blood spatters dotted the hallway, marking a gruesome path through the foyer down the hall and into the main apartment. I said a silent prayer.

  “We should leave,” Amanda said softly. “We should call the police.”

  “No.” My voice was more forceful than I intended. “We can’t leave. Not yet.”

  Holding my breath, I followed the blood droplets like a trail of crimson crumbs. Entering the living room, I pieced the scene together, the gruesome events that had taken place.

  Someone had broken into Hans Gustofson’s apartment, while he was home. He’d confronted the intruder at the door, where he’d received a vicious, possibly fatal, blow to the head. Then the apartment was ransacked. Tables overturned, books strewn about, mattresses torn apart. Camera equipment broken and rendered useless. Photo albums torn through and discarded. It was impossible to tell if the thief had found what he was looking for. Everything looked like a standard break-in, except…

  One thing didn’t make sense. The blood drops…they led back into the apartment. The assault had taken place by the door, but
it looked as though the victim had crawled back inside. There was a telephone in the kitchen, but it was clean, untouched, less than ten feet away. The victim was alive, but hadn’t attempted to call for help. Why?

  I looked around. The living room was covered in prints and framed photographs, mostly of nude women in soft light, very artsy and subtly shaded. Beautiful. In these photographs I glimpsed a hint of the magic that had once carried Hans Gustofson to the forefront of the art world.

  I tiptoed through the carnage, feeling my way in the dim lighting, and came to a hallway with a T-intersection. Both paths led to closed doors. The blood trail curved to the left, stopping at a closed door.

  I stared hard at it. The blood droplets seemed to end there. I swallowed, my heart doing a drumroll.

  “Henry?” Amanda had entered the living room. “Oh, my God, Henry, what is all this?”

  “I’m over here,” I called out. “I don’t know yet.”

  I held my breath, reached out and gripped the doorknob. The metal was cold and I jerked my hand away. I could hear running water. I rapped my knuckles on the bathroom door. No answer.

  “Hello?” No response. Just the flowing water. Blood pounded in my temples as I took a deep breath.

  Again I grasped the doorknob, this time turning it. The door was locked from the inside. I cursed under my breath. I had to get in there.

  I went to the door on the right. The knob turned easily, and I entered what appeared to be Hans Gustofson’s bedroom. Photos were scattered everywhere. His desk was torn apart. A cork posterboard had been removed from the wall, pushpins scattered like multicolored sprinkles over the red carpet. The bed covers were thrown about, the mattress ripped apart like a drunken medical examiner had taken his frustration out on a cadaver. Files had been emptied out of a small bureau and dumped on the floor in a heap. Other than that, the room was empty.

  I slid open a closet to find clothes dumped all over the floor, pants with their pockets turned inside out. I grabbed a wire hanger and bent the metal against my shoe until I’d straightened it into a makeshift spear. Back to the locked door, I eased the metal spike into the small hole on the outside of the knob. I jimmied it around, felt it catch. Pushed lightly, then felt a pop as the lock disengaged. I looked back at Amanda.