Desperate Measures

by David Morrell

  bench. Now they want money, too. Pittman sat up. The figures came

  closer.

  If there's trouble, I'll attract the police.

  Pittman stood to walk away, but the shambling figures reached him. He

  braced himself for an attack.

  "Goddamn it," a slurred voice said. "Git away from him. He's mine. I

  foun' him. He's rentin' my bench."

  The figures glared at the man in Pittman's overcoat, who was coming back

  with a bottle in a paper bag.

  "Din't you hear me? Git. " The man fumbled in his grimy pants and

  pulled out a church key-style bottle opener. He jabbed its point at

  them. "Move yur asses away from my bench. 'S mine. Mine and his."

  The sullen figures hesitated, then shifted back toward the shadows from

  which they had risen.

  "Bastards." The man slumped onto the bench. "They'da taken my bench in

  a minute. Gotta keep watchin'."

  "That's the truth." The man drank from his bottle. "Lie down."

  "What?" Pittman asked suspiciously. "Git some sleep. You look beat."

  Pittman didn't move.

  "I won't let those bastards git to you. I always stay up, guardin' my

  bench."

  Pittman woke with a start. The shadows were gone. The air was pale,

  the sun not yet risen over the city's buildings. Traffic was sporadic.

  As he became fully alert, his memories from the previous night made him

  flinch. He sat upright. The man to whom he'd given his trench coat was

  no longer on the bench.

  But someone else was-a well-dressed, slender, grayhaired man who wore

  spectacles. Pittman had the sense that the man, who seemed to be in his

  fifties, had nudged his knee.

  "Did you sleep well?"

  Skin prickling, Pittman had no idea if this was a policeman or a

  pervert. He debated what to answer. "No, not really."

  "That's understandable. When I slept on a bench like this, I always

  woke up with back trouble."

  "When you did?"

  "Before I reformed. You look like you're recently down on your luck.

  Fairly good clothes. But that overcoat. Where on earth did you get

  that overcoat?"

  Pittman realized that the grungy blue coat was draped across his lap.

  The man to whom he'd given his own coat must have covered Pittman when,

  despite all his effort not to, he drifted off to sleep. That would have

  been about 3:00 A.M.

  "I got it from a friend."

  "Certainly. Well, no doubt you wonder what I'm doing here.

  Pittman didn't respond.

  "My name is Reverend Thomas Watley. I come here every morning to see if

  the park has any new occupants. The other residents are quite familiar

  With me. In fact, at the moment, they've gone to my church. Every

  morning at six, a free, although modest, breakfast is available. There's

  also a place to shower, shave, and relieve oneself. Would you care to

  join us?"

  Pittman still didn't respond.

  "I do conduct a religious service, but your attendance is not required,

  if that's what worries you."

  Pittman kept staring.

  "Well, then." The man shrugged. "I must get back to my guests. " He

  held out his hand.

  At first Pittman thought that the man wanted to shake hands, but then he

  realized that the man was trying to give him something.

  "In case you decide not to join us, here's five dollars. I know it

  isn't much, but sometimes it takes only a little boost to raise a person

  back to where he was. Remember, whatever caused your downfall, it's not

  irremediable. The problem can be solved."

  "Reverend, I very much doubt that, " Pittman said bitterly.

  "Oh?"

  "Unless you can raise the dead."

  "You lost your ...

  "Son.

  "Ah." The reverend shook his head. "You have my condolences. There is

  no greater burden."

  "Then what makes you think my problem can be solved?" This time, it was

  the reverend who didn't respond. "Thank you for the money, Reverend. I

  can use it."

  Wearing the grungy blue coat, Pittman stooped his shoulders and tried to

  look as defeated as he felt, making himself walk unsteadily up Lexington

  Avenue. The sun rose above buildings. Traffic increased. Horns

  blared.

  Pittman wanted it to seem that he was oblivious to anything but objects

  along the sidewalk. Trying to appear off balance, he turned from

  Lexington onto Twenty-sixth Street. He stooped and pretended to pick up

  a coin, looked at his palm with satisfaction, then put the pretend coin

  into his dingy coat.

  He risked a glance ahead of him and saw some slight commotion in the

  next block between Park Avenue and Madison, near Madison Square Park.

  The dome lights on a stationary police car were flashing. The bodies

  would have been removed by now. The investigation of the crime scene

  would be concluding.

  Burt. Sickened by what had happened last night, Pittman continued to

  waver along Twenty-sixth Street. When he came to some garbage cans, he

  lifted their lids and snooped inside. He moved on. He came to other

  garbage cans and inspected them as well, ignoring the smell. Then he

  came to a Dumpster. Trying to look awkward, he struggled up the side of

  the bin, poked around in it, clutched his gym bag, lurched down, and

  reversed his direction, heading back toward Lexington. He was far

  enough away that the police would not have noticed him, especially as

  disheveled as he looked. After all, he thought caustically, the

  homeless are invisible.

  About the only thing in his favor, Pittman decided, was that it was

  Saturday. The man he needed to contact would more likely be at home

  than at work. The trouble was that when Pittman looked in a Manhattan

  telephone directory, he didn't find any listing for the name of the man

  he was looking for Brian Botulfson. He called information and asked an

  operator to see if Brian Botulfson was listed in any of the other

  boroughs.

  In Brooklyn. The operator wouldn't give Pittman the address, though,

  forcing him to walk to the New York Public Library, where he looked in

  the directory for Brooklyn and found the address he wanted. He could

  have phoned Brian, but one of the things he'd learned early as a

  reporter was that while phone contact had the merit of efficiency, it

  couldn't compare to an in-person interview. The subject could get rid

  of you on the phone merely by hanging up, but a face-to-face meeting was

  often so intimidating that a subject would agree to talk.

  Pittman had met Brian only a couple of times, mostly in connection with

  Brian's arrest for using his computer to access top secret Defense

  Department files. The last occasion had been seven years ago when Brian

  had done Pittman a job by obtaining Jonathan Millgate's unlisted

  telephone number. Pittman needed another favor, but there was a that

  Brian either wouldn't remember their previous conversations or wouldn't

  care-at least on the phone. The contact had to be one-on-one.

  Pittman dumped his grungy coat in a waste can. After using some of

  Reverend Watley's five dollars to buy orange juice and a Danish from a

 
sidewalk vendor, he boarded a subway train for Brooklyn, took his

  electric razor from his gym bag, made himself look as presentable as he

  could, stared out the window, and brooded.

  The last time Pittman had seen him, Brian Botulfson lived in a run-down

  apartment building on the Lower East Side. Surrounded by expensive

  computer components that hid the cockroaches on the dingy walls,

  Botulfson had obviously enjoyed the glamorized image of an impoverished

  student. But now his apartment building was quite respectable-clean,

  made of brick, with large, glinting windows, in an attractive

  neighborhood, the Park Slope section of Brooklyn.

  Pittman nodded to a man coming out of the well-maintained building. Then

  he climbed steps, paused in the vestibule, studied the names on the

  buzzer directory, and pressed the button for 4 B. When he didn't get an

  answer, he pressed again.

  One-on-one contact? Great. But what if nobody's home? Damn it, I came

  all this way for nothing.

  He was about to press the button a third time when a nasally male voice

  spoke from the tinny microphone. "Yes? Who is it?"

  "Brian?" Pittman asked. "Is that you?"

  "Who am I talking to?"

  "Matt Pittman. Do you remember me, Brian? When you were in that

  trouble about hacking some years ago, I did a couple stories about you

  in the Chronicle."

  The intercom became silent.

  "Brian?"

  "What do you want?"

  "To talk, Brian." Pittman liked to use a person's first name as often

  as seemed natural. It established a bond. "Quite a while since we saw

  each other. I thought I'd catch up, find out what you've been doing.

  The intercom became silent again.

  "I need to talk to you about something, Brian."

  "What is it?"

  "I feel a little awkward down here, with my face against this intercom.

  Unlock the door, will you, Brian? I'd like to come up."

  A further silence.

  "Brian?"

  To Pittman's relief, he heard a buzzer at the side of the door

  electronically checking its lock.

  He quickly turned the knob, pushed the glass-paneled door open, and

  entered the building's recently painted, fresh-smelling, white lobby.

  The comparison between this and Pittman's own dingy apartment building

  was striking. Brian must have a job that paid well, Pittman decided.

  An elevator took him to the fourth floor, where he went to 4 B, heard a

  child crying beyond it, and knocked. Even though Brian was now

  expecting him, ten seconds elapsed before the door was opened.

  Pittman was surprised by Brian's appearance. Seven years ago, Brian had

  preferred sneakers, torn sweatshirts ' and jeans with the knees ripped

  out. He'd had two shark'stooth earrings. His scraggly hair had hung

  down over his shoulders. All in all, he'd looked more like a candidate

  for a heavy-metal rock group than the computer fanatic he actually was.

  Now he wore black Bass loafers, gray slacks, and a blue button-down

  oxford-cloth shirt. The earrings were gone, as were the holes through

  which the jewelry had been attached. His brown hair was cut so short

  that it didn't touch his ears. He had wide-rimmed bifocal glasses. His

  very conventional appearance drew attention to his short, slight stature

  and his weak chin, which a thin mustache did nothing to hide.

  "What do you want?" Brian blocked the doorway.

  Pittman glanced past him and saw an infant in a high chair at a kitchen

  table.

  "Is that your child, Brian? Things certainly have been happening.

  You've got to fill me in." Pittman made a move to enter, but Brian

  didn't budge.

  "What do you want?" Brian repeated. "Brian, this isn't very sociable

  of you. I come all this way to see you, and you don't even want to

  catch up on old times. " In addition to the cries from the infant,

  Pittman heard an announcer. "Watching TV while you feed your baby?"

  "The news." Brian's expression was sober. "C."

  Brian's expression became even more solemn.

  So he knows, Pittman thought. "Anything interesting? Seems to me I

  heard something about Jonathan Millgate. That reminds me of seven years

  ago when you helped me get his unlisted telephone numbers."

  Brian's eyes narrowed. Inwardly he seemed to flinch. "What do you

  want?" he asked a third time.

  "A favor." .,Why?'

  "Isn't it obvious? Why does anybody ask a favor? I need help,"

  "That's not what I meant. Why should I do you a favor?"

  "That's a tough one, Brian. I guess because you're a human being.

  Incidentally, your child's starting to climb out of that high chair.

  Brian swung, saw that the baby was in danger of falling, and hurried to

  grab it. The baby cried harder. Pittman stepped in and shut the door.

  "Boy or girl?"

  "Hey, I didn't say you could-"

  "What have you got there? A jar of apricot baby food? Let me help feed

  ... Boy or girl?"

  "Boy. But I didn't say you-"

  "How old?"

  "Almost a year. But-"

  "Wonderful-looking boy. What's his name?"

  "Daniel. Now, look, I-"

  "Brian, I'm in trouble, okay? From the expression in your eyes, I think

  you know I'm in trouble. I think you just heard something about it on

  CNN. I bet you said to yourself, 'No, that can't be the same guy who

  interviewed me. It can't be the same guy I did a favor for and got him

  Jonathan Millgate's unlisted telephone numbers. Matthew Pittman. Yeah,

  that was his name.' And then all of a sudden, here I am knocking on your

  door. A lot to adjust to, isn't it?" Brian held the baby and looked

  nervous. "Are you married, Brian? Where's your-?"

  "She's gone for groceries."

  "Well, I look forward to meeting her. " Pittman set down his gym bag.

  "I wasn't kidding. Let me help feed your son. " Holding the baby,

  Brian stepped slightly backward.

  "Brian, I think you misunderstand. I'm not here to make trouble. All I

  need is a small favor, and then I'm out of here - "

  Suspicion fought with hope. "Do what?"

  "Nice apartment. Love the plants. Clean. Roomy." Pittman opened a

  door and found what was obviously Brian's workroom. "Ali. I see you

  still keep up your interest in computers

  "I'm a programmer for Nintendo."

  "And how about hacking, Brian? Do you still do any of that?"

  "That was years ago. Since I met Gladys, I ... Wait a minute. You're

  asking me to .

  "And then I'm gone."

  Brian's cheeks quivered with tension. "Nintendo would fire me if they

  found out I was hacking. Gladys would have MY nuts."

  "They wouldn't know. All I need is one piece of information, Brian.

  Then I promise I'm out of here. With luck, before Gladys gets back."

  The baby squirmed. Brian eased him into the high chair. When he tried

  to spoon some of the pureed apricots into his mouth, the baby knocked

  the spoon and sprayed apricots onto Brian's clean shirt.

  "Here, I was always good at this." Pittman made a face at the baby and

  immediately got its attention. He crouched so that his eyes were even

  with the baby's. He leaned forward so that his
nose touched the baby's,

  but he kept his eyes open, noticing that the baby did the same. He

  pulled back and opened his mouth. The baby opened his mouth. He

  spooned the apricots into his mouth.

  "How the hell did you do that?" Brian asked. "Strangers always make

  him cry, but you ... "

  "I had lots of practice." The baby reminded Pittman of how Jeremy had

  looked as a child. He suddenly felt melancholy.

  "They say you killed him," Brian said.

  "Millgate? No. That isn't true."

  "And a man in your apartment, and your boss at the paper "The man in my

  apartment pulled a gun on me. We scuffled. He fell and broke his neck.

  As for my boss... " Pittman hesitated, his throat tight with grief.

  "No, I didn't do anything to Burt. It was someone else."

  "And they say you're hysterical, out of control. That you're planning

  to kill yourself and you don't care who you take with you."

  "No. That isn't true either, Brian." Depression overwhelmed him. "I

  don't want anybody to get hurt."