The Collector

by Scott Wittenburg

"You be a good girl, Pan," Alan said, handing the leash over to Marie Schiff.

  Pan jumped up onto his leg and started whining. Alan winked at Marie and said "she's afraid I won't come back to get her."

  Marie said, "Separation anxiety is very stressful for a pet—especially under these unique circumstances."

  "I know—I feel horrible leaving her in a lurch just after giving her a new home. But I'm afraid I don't have much choice."

  Marie's compassion for his situation showed in her eyes. "Don't worry about her, Alan, she'll be just fine. Not only do dogs have short memory spans but they also have very little concept of time. When you come back to pick Pan up, she will immediately forget that you ever left her and will be ready to resume her unconditional love for her master."

  "Really? That's good to know."

  "It's a fact. Now when do you plan on picking her up?"

  "Well, I'm not exactly sure. No later than a couple of days. I'll phone you in advance if I can't be back on Thursday to get her if that's okay with you."

  "No problem. As long as you give me some notice we'll be more than happy to keep her as long as necessary."

  "Great. Well, Pan, I'll see you in a few days, girl," he said, kneeling down to give her a last pat on the head. Pan stopped whining long enough to lick his face before Marie pulled back gently on the leash.

  "Thanks, Marie."

  "You're welcome. Have a good trip."

  Alan turned and headed out the door. Checking his watch, he realized that he would have to step on it to get out to the airport in time to go through security and board before his flight departed. His clock radio hadn't gone off for some reason, forcing him to rush getting showered, dressed, and Pan to the day care place on time. And Alan hated rushing.

  On the way to the airport, he wondered if New York had changed much since he'd last been there. He and Julie had spent a long weekend in Manhattan five years ago and Alan had noticed even then a lot of changes since the tragedy of 9-11. The Big Apple had always been one of his favorite places to visit ever since he'd taken a high school social studies trip there decades ago and it was amazing how much he'd seen it evolve in a relatively short time. And not all of those changes had been good.

  Alan tried to put the painful memories of Julie out of his mind as he pulled onto I-670 east to Port Columbus. As excited as he was at leaving town to work on a case, he was also feeling an equal amount of anxiety. Here he was, flitting off to New York City on a whim, basically, to pursue a missing persons case that could only be classified as shaky at best. It was one thing to have a client meet with him at his office and ask for his help to spy on an unfaithful spouse or track down a car thief. But this case was nothing like that—it was just plain crazy. What he was doing was on a lark for the most part and although Beth Lindsey could be considered a surrogate client of sorts, he was yet to meet the person he actually working for—Ellen Whomever— in order to find the person she was looking for—Sister Whomever!

  All of this stemming from a strange e-mail from a mysterious woman linking to a strange website. An experienced investigator wouldn't touch this case with a ten-foot pole, he now realized. So why was he?

  Because of a gut feeling he had?

  Not to mention the thrill of the hunt?

  Because it was just what he needed right now in his humdrum, empty life?

  Hmm.

  He reached the airport and headed for the long term parking garage. After checking in and a thankfully brief wait in the security line, Alan bought a cup of coffee and boarded his plane. Once seated, he plugged his headphones into his iPhone, found his favorite play list and settled back in the seat for the hour and a half flight to New York City.

  After landing at LaGuardia Airport, Alan hailed a cab and was taken to the Radisson Hotel on 32nd and Broadway. He checked into his room and decided to do a little sightseeing and have lunch before returning to his room to plan out the rest of the day.

  Since it would be getting dark fairly early, he didn't plan on accomplishing much more than locating and casing out the Queens neighborhood where Jonathon Bannon worked. He wanted to visit the Starbucks where Ellen had "borrowed" Bannon's laptop and take a look at Stokley's Pub, the bar that Bannon had seen her standing outside of, allegedly hooking. Basically, he just wanted to get a feel for the place in order to map out his next course of action.

  He got out his iPhone, went to the Google Maps app and clicked on the bookmark he had made for Steinway Street. Bannon's business was located on Steinway near a subway station so he switched over to the NYC subway map app he'd downloaded and located the stop near the vicinity of his destination. He backtracked the path of the R train and saw that he could get on the train at the Herald Square station, just a couple of blocks from the Radisson.

  He threw on his leather jacket and picked up his camera bag before leaving the room. A cold wave was coming into the city from the north and a nor'easter wind was picking up. It felt as though the temp had fallen ten degrees since he'd first touched down at the airport. Alan zipped up his jacket and braced himself against the wind as he strode across Broadway toward the subway station.

  He had almost forgotten how loud the subways were as he descended the stairs to the platform and cringed at the deafening clamor of an express train tearing through the station. His train appeared in a couple of minutes and Alan was impressed with the cleanliness of the car when he stepped inside. As the recorded voice cheerfully announced the next stop, Alan recalled the old days when the trains were riddled with graffiti and a bored conductor did the talking, usually unintelligibly.

  Twenty minutes later, he reached the Steinway Street stop and go out. When he reached the street he was surprised at the throngs of pedestrians and seemingly endless storefronts and businesses lining either side of the street. Once he got his bearings he headed north and began looking for the Starbucks that would be coming up on his left within a few blocks.

  He reached the Starbucks and went inside. The place was busy with several patrons sitting at tables working on their laptops. He gazed around the place and spotted the restrooms located in the southwest corner of the shop. He tried to approximate where Bannon may have been sitting the day that Ellen had posted the email—most likely somewhere close to the entrance since she would have needed enough time to enter the place unnoticed by Bannon, case him out, take over his laptop while he was en route to the restroom, and then send the email via Beth's site. There was a table sitting no less than eight feet from the door and another one a few feet further in. Ellen would have had just enough time to accomplish her task at one of those tables, provided that she knew exactly what she had set out to do.

  Alan considered this scenario and now knew without a doubt that Ellen had to have planned out her actions in advance. And she had planned them out meticulously—in fact, she had damn near pulled it all off without Bannon even catching her. Thus leading to the next obvious question: why? Why had she planned out all of this just to send an anonymous email to Beth Lindsey? He recalled Beth's reasoning for this but he still had trouble buying it. If she was truly being held against her will by a pimp, why didn't she just call the police for chrissakes! Why would she waste precious time screwing around with a computer and not just get on a phone and make a call. Or at least contact the cops by email if she had to use a computer.

  Alan realized that there must have been some legitimate reason for Ellen's strange behavior and he was determined to find out what it was. After taking one last quick look around, he went over and ordered a tall medium roast coffee then headed back out to the street.

  He continued walking north and began looking for Stokley's Pub, which Google Maps indicated would be within another three blocks on the east side of the street. He noted the plethora of storefronts along the way: restaurants, a travel agency, several law offices, a pharmacy, a couple of laundromats, and about every other conceivable business you could think of. Almost a microcosm of Manhattan, he thought. The people consisted of ab
out every ethnicity imaginable, which was no real surprise considering this virtual melting pot of a place.

  He started thinking he may have passed by Stokley's after a few blocks but then he suddenly spotted it directly across the street from a diner. The bar was located in a nondescript three-story brownstone with dark tinted glass windows, a faded and tattered blue and white canopy jutting out over the sidewalk from the entrance and a neon Molson Beer sign hanging in a window. A meat market stood next to the pub on the north side and a travel agency on the south.

  Alan wanted to observe the pub unnoticed so he pitched his half empty coffee cup into a trash bin and entered the diner. He asked for a booth near the street and was taken to one right next to the window. He ordered another coffee and a bagel then settled back in his seat.

  He wondered if he would see Ellen come out from the bar or suddenly show up from somewhere out on the street. Considering the nippy weather and the time of day, he thought the former unlikely, although Bannon indicated seeing her in the daytime in front of the bar. He thought of what he had just seen of Steinway Street thus far and couldn't envision a hooker hanging out anywhere on the street in broad daylight. It just didn't seem plausible.

  Then he thought of Columbus and how he at one time or another seen what could have been prostitutes in just about any area you could think of. He thought back to what Beth had said about his not being very knowledgeable of the "oldest profession" and realized that she was right on the mark. He didn't know much about prostitution, other than the basic aspects of it. It was one of those things that existed but one didn't give much thought to unless one was a regular partaker of the trade, he surmised. It was sort of an "out of sight, out of mind" thing.

  A man suddenly came out of the bar. Alan watched him as he headed south on Steinway. Alan wanted to go inside the bar in the worst way but knew that he would have to wait for that. Right now, all he wanted to do was case the place out and see what he could find out.

  It was starting to get dark out and Alan gazed up at the two stories above the bar, wondering if the space above Stokley's was being used for apartments or perhaps something else, like a place for Ellen to take her tricks. He was banking on this being the case—otherwise his search for her would most likely be over before it ever began. As if on cue, a light suddenly came on in one of the windows on the second floor. The blind was drawn but he thought he could see some movement behind it. Could it be Ellen? Or was he letting his imagination get the best of him?

  The waiter brought his order and Alan took a sip of coffee and a bite of bagel. Two men entered the bar just as another pair of men came out. The men appeared to be drunk and were really hooting it up. They stopped for a moment long enough for the shorter man to light up a cigarette then proceeded walking north on Steinway.

  Alan spent another half hour watching Stokley's Pub before finally deciding to call it quits. Nothing looked particularly unusual about the place and it appeared to be nothing more than your garden-variety watering hole from what he could tell. He started wondering if he was on a wild goose chase after all. It dawned on him just how little he had to go on in this case. What exactly did he expect to come from all of this, now that he had dropped everything he'd been doing to come six hundred miles on a fucking lark? Did he really expect to find Ellen just by simply showing up at the only two places she had ever been seen by anybody?

  He was second-guessing himself already! This moment reminded Alan of the insecurity he'd felt the first few jobs he'd taken as a private investigator. He had felt so incredibly motivated to succeed yet had been so goddamn green at the same time. He needed to shake this feeling off, and do so quickly. He wasn't green—it had just been a while since he'd been in the game. He had to stick to his guns and follow through with this, period. There was no turning back until he was absolutely sure there was nothing here but a big fat goose egg.

  He left a two-dollar tip, paid his check in cash and left the diner. He glanced across the street at Stokley's Pub one more time before heading back toward the subway station. Tomorrow was another day, he thought. He'd cased the place out as planned, and his next move would be to do some serious investigation.