The Burning Edge

“No, I’ve never seen that one before, but there are a lot of guys here with tattoos, you should have them show you.”

“We’re checking,” Morrow said. “Donna, you indicated you had insights on ex-employees. Tell us what you can, starting with Felix Johnson.”

“Felix? Oh, he was a piece of work, sexist and offensive. The guards are screened and trained, but that doesn’t mean they have what it takes.”

“Right, did Felix have a grudge?”

“I doubt it. He was just lazy. He missed a lot of work and when he showed up he didn’t want to work. Moe let him go.”

“And Bonita Irwin?”

“Bonita was sloppy. She got written up for not keeping her log up-to-date, forgetting her weapon, forgetting to lock the truck after her route. Moe had to let her go. But I wouldn’t say Felix or Bonita had a grudge.”

Dimarco and Morrow asked a few more questions before wrapping up. As Donna rose from the chair to leave, a thought occurred to her.

“You should show the tattoo to Gina when she gets back.”

“Gina?” Morrow asked.

“Gina Saldino.”

Dimarco flipped through his notes and found a question mark by her name. No one had interviewed Gina Saldino, an office worker.

“She’s on vacation,” Donna said. “She left about a week ago.”

“What can you tell us about her?”

“Very quiet, shy. I think she broke up with her boyfriend. He could’ve been in Pakistan or someplace like that. She only mentioned it once when I saw her crying at her desk. She never talked about it again. She was sad and private, almost mousy, but good at her job. She never made any mistakes.”

“What was her job?”

“She helped Moe and Butch Tucker finalize the routes, the schedules, the size of deliveries. I mean, Moe and Butch controlled the info, Gina put it on a spreadsheet and gave it to the crews, and input the data later.”

Morrow threw a silent question to Dimarco.

How did we miss this?

31

Yonkers, New York

Thirty miles north of JFK, Gannon stared at Falco’s “surveillance” photo of the man using the pay phone.

This is my caller.

Gannon’s pulse quickened as once more he checked the time and date of the picture with the time and date of the last call from his tipster.

Oh, yeah, it’s him. No doubt about it.

But Gannon’s elation began evaporating soon after he’d thrust the three hundred bucks into Jerry Falco’s hand and asked him if he’d recognized the man in the photo.

“I’ve never seen that guy before, nope.”

Gannon left Falco’s building and went across the street to the Big Smile Deli Mart where he showed the eight-by-eleven color shot to the manager and his family. Still wary of Gannon, they gave it a cursory glance.

“No, we don’t know him,” the old man said.

“He never comes here, this one,” the woman added.

Gannon had to believe them; he had no choice. But before leaving the store, he bought an issue of Sports Illustrated magazine and tucked the photo inside to protect it. He then showed the picture to people at neighboring businesses: the florist, the check-cashing office, the electronics store, then to the bartender at the Dented Tin Can.

Nothing.

He soon realized that he was facing a needle-in-a-haystack search and all he had was a picture of the needle. But it did not diminish what he felt in his gut. There’s something to this. Don’t give up. He was determined to take his search beyond the immediate area, when his phone rang.

It was Lisker.

“Did you arrive at American Centurion yet?”

“No.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in Yonkers.”

“Yonkers? You’re still poking around there? What’s going on?”

A long moment passed.

“Gannon?”

You’re going to have to play a card here. You’ve invested a lot of time chasing this hunch. You’re getting somewhere, but there’s no guarantee it will pay off. You can’t give up on it and you can’t give it up to Lisker. Not yet. Lisker’s not a journalist. He doesn’t understand a gut feeling when a frightened source calls. Don’t blow this.

“I’m pursuing a difficult angle, one I think is tied to the heist.”

“What? You know I like all leads outlined to me first?”

“Well, I don’t work that way. I’m a reporter, not a bureaucrat. I follow my instincts, not a template. Do you want memos, or exclusives?”

Lisker said nothing and Gannon filled the silence.

“Let me follow this my way and see where it goes.”

A long stretch of tension crackled between them before Lisker said, “You’ve got until four this afternoon. Then I want your ass in my office.”

Gannon headed down Warburton Avenue, walking a tightrope between Lisker’s wrath and a story that may not exist.

What if I’m dead wrong and wasting time?

He had to stop thinking about it, tend to his business and keep digging. It’s what he did best. So he kept pushing it, block after block, visiting pizza shops, pawnshops, barbershops, a porn shop, a jeweler’s, a liquor store, a pet store. He asked bus drivers stopped at red lights, a cabdriver waiting on fares, two NYPD cops who’d pulled over for coffee from a pastry shop.

As time ticked by, Gannon slipped further and further down the rope of futility. He must’ve walked twenty blocks by the time he entered Big Picture Used Movies and Rentals. Next to it was a tanning salon and a Greek take-out place. Leaning on the counter, waiting for the clerk to finish a phone call, Gannon was thinking of packing it in soon, getting a cab back to his car and bracing for a showdown with Lisker.

“Can I help you find something?” The clerk was tall with oily hair, a bad case of acne. He could stand to eat a sandwich or two.

“I need your help.” Gannon opened the magazine to the photo, which was getting creased from so many showings. “I need to locate this man. Does he live around here?”

The clerk held the sheet three inches from his nose. Gannon anticipated the usual head shake, but this guy —Oren, according to his name tag—blinked a few times.

“Yes, I think so.”

Gannon’s heart skipped a beat.

“You’re sure?”

“This looks like a police surveillance photo,” Oren said. “Are you a cop? Do you have identification? What does this concern?”