“We found plenty of weapons, but we didn’t recognize them. The cars are the weapons; they just weren’t armed yet.”
“Come on, Doug, what have you got? You drove around New York, parking your car? That’s it? You think you took the picture of Gharsi in a garage? Well, let me tell you something. Our experts think that picture could have been taken anywhere; there is nothing other than your hunch that says it was in a garage. And what if it was? Gharsi, who is currently at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, parked in a garage? That’s the key to breaking the case? And you’re the only one who even thinks there is a case.”
I’m trying to keep my composure, but the stress of trying to remember, plus the greater stress of dealing with people who don’t believe me, is starting to get to me. “You need to make this a priority,” I say, trying to unclench my teeth as I talk.
“We’ll run it down like we run down everything, Doug. In the meantime, I think you’d be well advised to take a rest. You’ve been through a lot.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You come in here accusing Jerry Bettis, one of the best cops I know. Then you get the idea that a used car shop is a goddamn arsenal, and that the world is coming to an end. You’re losing it, Doug.”
“Was I losing it at the movie theater?” I ask.
“No, you did great with that. But it’s been downhill ever since. Maybe the hero worship is messing with your mind.”
“That is bullshit.”
He sighs, like he tried and failed. “Okay, do what you want. Now, is there anything else?”
“Yeah,” I say, looking at my watch for effect. “You’ve got thirty-six hours, until first thing Thursday morning. And I really shouldn’t give you that much time.”
“To do what?”
“To check this out, fully and completely, and tell me what you learned.”
Congers shakes his head, as if saddened by what he is hearing. “Get out of here, Doug. You’re starting to bore me.”
“Thirty-six hours,” I repeat.
“Or you’ll do what?”
“I’ll go on the goddamn Today Show, Good Morning America, and CNN, and lay out the whole thing. I’m a hero, remember? People will listen to whatever I have to say. And what I’ll say is that we’re about to be under attack, and you and your buddies aren’t doing shit about it.”
With that I turn and leave.
That felt good.
I feel a little better now.
“Do you think you scared him into doing something?” Jessie asks.
We’re in Nate’s hospital room, with Jessie on one side of his bed and me on the other. I shrug. “I don’t know; I should have waited around to find out. But I made a hell of a dramatic exit.”
She laughs. “I’ll bet you did. But will you follow through on the threat?”
Before I can answer, Nate nods. “Unless his personality has done a one eighty, he will follow through on the threat.”
“Damn right. Can you imagine what would happen if I went on national TV and said there was about to be an attack on a bunch of buildings in New York, and that it was going to be launched from a used car dealership in Garfield? Within an hour five million people would leave Manhattan, and another million would head to Garfield to check the place out. They’d be selling ‘Garfield Versus the World’ T-Shirts.”
“Then what if we’re wrong?” Jessie asks.
“The public’s view of me would change pretty quickly. I’d go from being O. J. Simpson to being O. J. Simpson.”
She smiles. “I was thinking Lance Armstrong to Lance Armstrong.”
“Why? What happened to him?”
“At some point you’ll remember. So what do we do now?”
“There aren’t a lot of great options. If Bettis knows what we’re doing, it might be worthwhile to follow him. And I guess I could keep an eye on the car dealership. Although Bettis finding out what we know could have caused them to move the location they’re going to use.”
“Jerry is not involved,” Nate says. “No chance.”
Jessie agrees. “That’s what I told him.”
“Maybe you’ll both turn out to be right. But I’m operating under the assumption that he is. We get nowhere by thinking otherwise.”
The hospital food services person comes in with Nate’s meal. Nate lifts the lid off and looks under it. He makes a face and puts the lid back. “Here’s something you can do while you’re waiting for Congers. Get me a pastrami sandwich. On rye with mustard. With a pickle.”
We both ignore that request, and Jessie says, “Here’s what I think we should do. You follow Bettis, and I’ll stake out the car dealership. In a perfect world, he’ll lead you right to me.”
I’d rather leave Jessie out of this kind of thing, but that’s because I keep forgetting that she’s a cop, and Nate says she’s a damn good one. I don’t remember her in that context, but I need to start accepting it.
“Okay. But you’ll call me if there’s any activity before you do anything about it, right?”
“Yes, O powerful male.”
I turn to Nate. “We’re a little shorthanded as far as the investigation goes. When are you finally going to get your fat ass out of here?”
“Why? You got something for me?”
“Nothing crucial, but I’d like to get a look at the murder book for the Filion case. All I have is Bettis’s testimony from the trial transcript; more background might tell us more about him.”
“I’m on it,” Nate says.
“They’re letting you out?”
“They’re never letting me out; I think some secret hospital court has convicted me and sentenced me to life in here. But I’m making a break for it.”
“Just take care of yourself,” I say. “I’m going to follow Bettis anyway; the murder book is not that important.”
Jessie leaves to start her stakeout at the auto dealership. I’ve told her that once Bettis is tucked away for the night, I’ll come there and spell her.
Once she’s gone, I ask Nate, “Are you okay?”
He shrugs. “They’re worried that they can’t get rid of the infection. They can’t seem to figure out why.”
“So just do what they say.”
He changes the subject. “What’s going on with you and Jess?”
“I’m crazy about her. But she’s afraid that when I remember why I left her, I’ll do it again.”
“I believe I mentioned what would happen to you if you did that.”
“You did, but it’s something you and she don’t need to worry about.”
Before I leave, Nate calls the barracks to speak to Bettis. He does it on a pretext, basically so he can discover whether Bettis is there, so I’ll be able to follow him. He also does it grudgingly, since he continues not to believe that Bettis could be guilty of the kind of things that I’m talking about.
I catch a break; Bettis is there but will be leaving to go out on patrol in forty-five minutes.
I head down to the barracks, waiting at a distance outside the parking lot until I see Bettis pull out. It’ll probably be a waste of time for me, but I’ve got nothing better to do for the next thirty-four hours, which is when the deadline I gave Congers expires.
Gharsi wasn’t yet done, but he was exhausted.
The tension involved in working with powerful, volatile explosives is extraordinarily intense, and requires great concentration.
Gharsi was not simply filling each trunk with explosives. They had to be placed carefully and strategically, so that every inch of available space could be utilized. And then it had to be wired together, the most delicate part of the job. Then the timers had to be set, and it all had to be cushioned, so as to withstand the jostling of normal driving.
Although Gharsi was expert at it, and incredibly disciplined as far as the work was concerned, the sheer volume of it was draining. It moved slower than he had expected and hoped, but he had just finished the ninth of the twelve cars, so he would make his self-imposed deadl
ine.
Luther Castle had been there with him most of the time, and had even offered to help in the process. But Gharsi was rigid about it; he would do the work, that way there would be no chance of error.
Each car, when finished, was three times more powerful than any single ordnance dropped in World War II, with the exception of the atomic bombs. And each car, Gharsi knew, was fated to end up under an entire building’s worth of rubble.
Castle kept Bennett informed periodically. His boss was anxious to know the progress, not because he had any particular interest in Gharsi’s goals or actions, since the man would be dead soon anyway. But the sooner Gharsi was done, the sooner the money would be transferred. Bennett had a great deal of interest in the money.
Neither Gharsi nor Castle had any idea that Jessie was outside, observing the building from a secure vantage point, the same one that she and Doug used the last time they were there.
More importantly, Jessie had no way to know that Gharsi was inside, or that the explosives had made their way back to the building. She arrived long after he was in place, and he was in a closed garage-like room with the twelve cars.
As far as she could tell, it was a typical, if slow, day at the dealership. Occasionally customers would show up, but only a couple stayed long enough to possibly have bought a car. She saw no evidence that anything unusual or sinister was going on, because there was nothing to see.
Jessie had been on quite a few stakeouts in her career, and many of them had not borne fruit. But that was okay; she was used to it, and she was patient.
So she would watch, and wait.
Doug was also watching, but instead of being focused on a stationary building, he was observing Jerry Bettis, who was anything but stationary. It seemed as if Bettis was experiencing a typical tour for a detective. There was a stop to investigate an apparent domestic violence incident, and then a few visits to crime scenes, most likely burglaries.
Doug couldn’t tell from a distance exactly what Bettis was doing at these places, but in each of them other cops were present. If Bettis was involved with anything related to Bennett or Gharsi, he was hiding it well.
Gnawing at Doug was the fact that he had no way of knowing if Congers had decided to act on the information he provided, but he had little confidence that it was happening. His threat to go public was not an empty one, nor was it an attempt to gain some kind of childish revenge for being ignored and disrespected.
If he was to actually go on television, there would undoubtedly be an intense reaction. The dealership in Garfield really would attract an amazing amount of attention, and Manhattan parking lots would probably institute substantially increased security measures, at least in the short term.
If nothing else, it would likely delay or cancel the planned operation. Of course, if nothing happened then Doug would look like a crackpot, but it would be more than worth the trade-off.
The decision was an easy one; Doug would follow through on his publicity threat if Congers did not do his part. Unfortunately, he didn’t quite know how to do that; he certainly couldn’t call on Grant Friedman, the department publicist.
Doug remembered that he had the card from the Today Show booker, Lillian Singer, who had approached him on the street in Manhattan, offering him the opportunity to be interviewed at a time of his choosing. He had not given any interviews after the Trenton press conference, so he was still considered a sought-after interview, a big-time “get.”
So he called her number, and told her assistant it was Doug Brock calling. He thought he might have to explain who he was, but within ten seconds Singer was on the phone, bubbling over with enthusiasm.
“I’m so glad you called,” she enthused. “I hope you want to come on the show? We would LOVE to have you.”
“I’d like to come on the day after tomorrow.”
She was a little surprised by the specificity. “Is there anything particular you want to talk about, or just a general interview going over the recent events, and your memory loss … that kind of thing?”
“Well, I’d like to leave that open.”
“What do you mean?”
“I might have some news to break, and if I do, it will be huge. If not, we can talk about whatever you want.”
“Come on, you can’t leave me hanging like that,” she said.
“I’m afraid I have to. I won’t know myself until probably tomorrow night.”
“Okay, but please call me as soon as you can give me some more information.”
“I will.”
They went on to make the arrangements. He would arrive at six fifteen in the morning, and depending on the contents of the interview, it would air in either the first or second half hour. Singer made one more attempt to find out what was going on, but Doug again refused to answer.
It was the first and last thing of consequence that Doug accomplished that day. He followed Bettis home, and then met up with Jessie, who had nothing to report regarding activity at the used car place.
Maybe the next day would be different … maybe Congers and his people would do something. If not, Doug was prepared to go public and shake up the world.
Sometime during the night, I met David Tyree.
I don’t literally mean that I met him; what I actually did was remember him. Also Plaxico Burress. And Michael Strahan. And Eli Manning. And Steve Smith.
It’s something that I can’t explain. I went to sleep with no recollection of the Giants beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl, though I’ve read about it since. But during the night I relived it; the feelings I had watching it flooded back. It was like seeing it for the first time.
The catch David Tyree made in that game was and is the best I’ve ever seen, and that I could have forgotten it, whatever my injuries, is incomprehensible to me.
But the memory is back, and so are some others. Nothing else terribly significant, just some people I knew, movies I’ve seen, restaurants I’ve gone to. Nothing relating to Jessie, or Johnnie Arroyo, or Nicholas Bennett, or my shooting, or the current case. The recollection god is obviously out to torture me.
I stayed here at Jessie’s last night. We didn’t talk about it; it was just understood. It felt good that way, and comfortable. This morning I haven’t mentioned David Tyree or any of the other things I’ve remembered, because I think my returning memory makes her worry about us, about the possibility of me connecting to why I left her the first time.
We can’t think of anything better to do today than we did yesterday. That’s not to say that what we did yesterday was particularly good; it was an absolute waste of time. But maybe today will be better, or maybe Congers will come up with something. If not, Today Show here I come.
“You want to switch off?” I ask. “Would you rather follow Bettis, while I watch the used car place?”
“No, thanks,” she says. “Let’s keep it this way.”
“Because you think Bettis is clean, and that there’s more chance of something happening at the car place.”
She nods. “You got it.”
Nate finds out for me that Bettis is not going on duty until two o’clock, and that seems a good enough time for Jessie to start her stakeout as well. So we’re able to hang out at home and relax, before going on our way.
“Don’t forget, anything unusual, please call me.”
“You do the same,” she says.
For the first couple of hours, Bettis spends his time again doing what seems like normal duty, nothing unusual or suspicious. I don’t hear from Jessie, which doesn’t worry me. She can handle herself, and would definitely call me and bring in backup if she were worried about anything taking place.
I’m not pleased that Bettis is heading south on the Garden State Parkway, and seems to be going some distance. We’re already at exit 141, which is almost fifteen miles from Garfield. I don’t know how far he is going, or why, but the farther we go the longer it will take me to get back to Jessie if I need to.
Bettis takes me another fi
ve miles, gets off the parkway, and leads me on a winding road to a park set on a small lake. There are about thirty cars in the parking lot, but I don’t see any people. I assume they are all near the lake picnicking and swimming. There are a lot of trees between the parking lot and the lake, so I’m not able to see from my vantage point.
Bettis gets out of the car and walks down the path through the trees, toward the lake. Perhaps there is some disturbance down there that has called for a police presence, but I certainly don’t see any signs of it. We obviously have officers that work much closer to here, so Bettis should only have been sent here if a large force was required. But there are no other police cars, so it doesn’t seem likely.
I park at the other side of the lot, also adjacent to the trees. I could stay here, where I’d be able to see Bettis when he returns to his car, without him noticing me. But his arrival here seems a little suspicious; I can’t see why normal police work would have drawn him here. So I decide to follow him, maintaining a decent distance.
I take a different path through the trees, so that I won’t run into him should he be returning to his car. I put my phone on vibrate, so that Bettis can’t hear it ringing. The original path is in my sight line, so if I see him leaving, I can get back to my car and follow him.
The picnic and swimming areas are a couple of hundred yards away from the parking lot. I get to where I can see them, but so far there is no sign of Bettis. All of a sudden, I can feel the phone vibrating in my pocket, and the caller ID says it is Jessie. “Jess,” I say, talking softly. “What’s up?”
“Some people … men … have been showing up here. There’s also customers arriving and leaving, but the men that have been coming in alone … I don’t think they’ve been leaving, at least not in the cars that they came in.”
“How many are we talking about?” I ask.
“It’s hard to tell, because some could be customers, and some might be employees. But a good guess would be eight. They’re arriving separately, maybe five or ten minutes apart. A few cars have also pulled out that I don’t recognize. It could all be normal business, Doug, but I don’t think so.”
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