“I hope he hears you,” I said. “Because nobody else seems to.”
We flipped through the entire book, an encyclopedia of corruption spanning a generation. And on the very last page, staring back at us, was John Fredrickson.
He looked weary, haggard. He held a wad of cash in his palm. Officer John Fredrickson. The man who’d died at my hands. The man I was being hunted for, I’d given up my life for. I closed my eyes and replayed that fateful night in my mind. The deafening gunshot that ended one life and changed the course of another.
This binder was supposed to find its way to Luis Guzman. It was what John Fredrickson had nearly beaten three people to death for. Luis Guzman was the courier for John Fredrickson. Fredrickson was working for Michael DiForio. The hired muscle. Cop muscle. The strongest kind. DiForio had the goods on Fredrickson, and was using him to deliver the very photos that possessed his soul.
But after all that, there was still an unanswered question.
Who killed Hans Gustofson?
It couldn’t have been DiForio. According to the newspapers, I’d stolen the package and the maniac in black seemed to think this as well. Assuming the assassin had been hired by DiForio, there would be no sense in him killing Hans before receiving the photos.
No, Gustofson was killed by someone working outside of Michael DiForio’s jurisdiction. Someone who knew about the photos and wanted them for him or herself. Someone who’d clearly left empty-handed and was still looking.
But as I stood there looking at the photos, another realization came to me.
Within this binder was the opportunity to reclaim my life. John Fredrickson had set me on an unalterable course to hell, but this album held my salvation. These photos were the story of a lifetime. A generation of corruption captured on film. This could bring down the entire criminal justice system. It could restart my career, put it back on the path I thought had been destroyed.
Here it was, perhaps the greatest story I could ever hope to uncover, the story I’d longed to write for years, sitting in front of me in literal black and white. Here was a network of corruption whose capillaries reached far and wide, whose tainted blood carried venom to all parts of the city, and spanned decades. This was my Watergate, my Abu Ghraib.
“What do we do with this?” Amanda asked. “Bring it to the cops? Burn it?”
“No,” I said, my voice monotone. “I need to use it.”
“Use it how?”
“This is my story.” I turned to Amanda, my eyes desperately wide, hoping she’d understand the incredible opportunity in front of me.
“What do you mean, ‘your story,’ Henry? I don’t understand.”
“Amanda,” I said, gently taking her hands in mine, feeling the strong pulse in her wrists. “This album, everything inside it, this could make my career right again. If I went to the Gazette with this story, I’d be a page- one writer in no time. This is the kind of moment careers are built on. Reporters can go an entire lifetime and not find anything close to this. I can’t pass it up.”
Amanda pulled her hands away, crossed them on her chest.
“I don’t know, Henry. It doesn’t seem right. This could single-handedly destroy the NYPD. If you write about this, it could bring down the city. Think about it. There are thousands and thousands of cops and lawmen in New York who risk their lives every day. We have pictures of probably twenty guys who are still on active duty. You’d risk everything they work and die for, just for a story?”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “Sometimes you only get one chance, one moment to make a difference. If I don’t take this…I don’t know if it will ever happen again.
“Don’t you see?” I pleaded. “Don’t you see what this could mean for my life? I have nothing right now. I have no name, no hope, and my future is fucked. This could bring it all back. I can expose the truth and make up for everything that’s happened.”
“And then what?” Amanda said, her back ramrod straight, her eyes slicing through me. “You make your name. Congratulations, Henry Parker. Then what happens to the millions of people who lose faith because you want to make your name? The thousands of cops who have to answer for the few who went bad? You’re thinking how it will affect you, and that’s selfish. You want to be a great reporter? You need to remember that the story isn’t about you.”
“Please. This is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. To make a difference. To change lives.” I thumped my hand on the binder, felt the shockwave rattle through my body. “This book could do that.”
“Whose life will it change besides yours?” Amanda yelled. “Whose? These cops? It’ll ruin them. The people? Do you really think losing faith in their protectors-most of it completely unwarranted-will make their lives better?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “But I can’t just pass this up.”
“Yes, you can,” she said. “Why did you want to become a reporter in the first place? Really, why?”
“To help people,” I said. “To tell the truth about what needed to be told. To give people what they deserve to know.”
Amanda’s voice grew soft as a tear landed softly on the table. Surprisingly, it had come from me.
“You can help people,” she said. “You can help them by making things right. Not just for yourself. That door opens for everyone, Henry, but this isn’t your time. I know you’re innocent. I know you have a good heart. So use it. Make things right for these people. Help them. Then help yourself.”
Her eyes found mine. I cursed the cold book beneath my hand, cursed that my life had been altered. That this small folder had the power to change-and end-many other lives as well. And now I was questioning something I never thought I would. Every moment I hesitated, that door would be closing. All I had to do was prop it open. But I couldn’t.
“You’re right,” I said. “There has to be another way.” I slid the album back into the envelope and sealed it. “But right now we need to leave.”
She threw her arms around me. I had no energy to hug her back. “Now the front door, I’ll happily walk through.”
I gathered up the package. But as we left the apartment, a deep male voice called out from the stairwell. We froze.
“Hello?”
Amanda grabbed my arm, whispered, “Henry?”
Again, “Hello?”
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Neither of us reacted. We couldn’t let anyone see us. We had to hide. Putting my finger to my lips, I ushered Amanda back inside Gustofson’s apartment. I went to push the front door closed, but something stopped it. A hand. Someone was standing right outside the door.
“I heard a noise, is something broken?” The man pushed harder. There was nothing I could do. The door swung open. A Hispanic man wearing paint-splattered overalls stood in the doorway. One word flashed through my head.
Superintendent.
He glanced down at the floor, covered in dark brown pools. He saw my hands, the residue of blood from when I’d fallen. He looked up at me, his mouth agape, horror in his eyes. He backed away, arms outstretched, pleading.
“It’s not what you think,” I said, realizing every criminal in history probably said that. Suddenly the man turned and bolted down the stairs.
“Help! Policia! Somebody’s been killed!”
“Oh, fuck.” I turned to Amanda. “Come on, there must be a fire escape.”
We sprinted through the apartment, time again being sliced maliciously thin. There was no fire escape in the living room, and no windows in the bathroom. We hurried into Gustofson’s bedroom, where we found a metal stairwell outside the window, a mesh screen covering it.
I braced my leg against the wall, pain shooting through it, and yanked open the screen. We clambered onto the fire escape, towering forty or fifty feet above the alley below us. Carefully we wound our way down, gripping the rusty metal guardrails for dear life.
Down a flight of stairs, across the metal floor, repeat. A siren wailed in the distance. Within minutes I’d have
