Gone Tomorrow

So some take-charge executive dropped down next to us and stuck his fingers in the guy’s front pants pockets. Nothing there. He used the pocket flaps to roll the guy first one way and then the other, to check the back pockets. Nothing there, either.

Nothing anywhere. No wallet, no ID, no nothing at all.

‘OK, we better call the ambulance,’ I said. ‘Do you see my phone?’

The woman looked around and then burrowed under the guy’s arm and came back with the clamshell cell. The lid got moved on the way and the screen lit up. My picture was right there on it, big and obvious. Better quality than I thought it would be. Better than the Radio Shack guy’s attempt. The woman glanced at it. I knew people kept pictures on their phones. I’ve seen them. Their partners, their dogs, their cats, their kids. Like a home page, or wallpaper. Maybe the woman thought I was a big-time egotist who used a picture of himself. But she handed me the phone anyway. By that time the take-charge executive was already dialling the emergency call. So I backed away and said, ‘I’ll go find a cop.’

I forced my way into the tide of people again and let it carry me onward, out the door, to the sidewalk, into the dark, and away.

TWENTY-EIGHT

NOW I WASN’T THAT GUY ANY MORE. NO LONGER THE ONLY man in the world without a cell phone. I stopped in the hot darkness three blocks away on Seventh Avenue and looked over my prize. It was made by Motorola. Grey plastic, somehow treated and polished to make it look like metal. I fiddled my way through the menus and found no pictures other than my own. It had come out quite well. The cross street west of Eighth, the bright morning sun, me frozen in the act of turning around in response to my shouted name. There was plenty of detail, from head to toe. Clearly huge numbers of megapixels had been involved. I could make out my features fairly well. And I thought I looked pretty good, considering I had hardly slept. There were cars and a dozen bystanders nearby, to give a sense of scale, like the ruler painted on the wall behind a police mug shot. My posture looked exactly like what I see in the mirror. Very characteristic.

I had been nailed but good, photographically.

That was for damn sure.

I went back to the call register menu and checked for calls dialled. There were none recorded. I checked calls received, and found only three, all within the last three hours, all from the same number. I guessed the watcher was supposed to delete information on a regular basis, maybe even after every call, but had gotten lazy about three hours ago, which was certainly consistent with his demeanour and his reaction time. I guessed the number the calls had come in from represented some kind of an organizer or dispatcher. Maybe even the big boss himself. If it had been a cell phone number, it would have been no good to me. No good at all. Cell phones can be anywhere. That’s the point of cell phones.

But it wasn’t a cell phone number. It was a 212 number.

A Manhattan land line.

Which would have a fixed location. That’s the nature of land lines.

The best method of working backward from a phone number depends on how high up the food chain you are. Cops and private eyes have reverse telephone directories. Look up the number, get a name, get an address. The FBI has all kinds of sophisticated databases. The same kind of thing, but more expensive. The CIA probably owns the phone companies.

I don’t have any of that stuff. So I take the low-tech approach.

I dial the number and see who answers.

I hit the green button and the phone brought up the number for me. I hit the green button again and the phone started dialling. There was ring tone. It cut off fairly fast and a woman’s voice said, ‘This is the Four Seasons, and how may I help you?’

I said, ‘The hotel?’

‘Yes, and how may I direct your call?’

I said, ‘I’m sorry, I have the wrong number.’

I clicked off.

The Four Seasons Hotel. I had seen it. I had never been in it. It was a little above my current pay grade. It was on 57th Street between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue. Right there in my sixty-eight square-block box, a little west and a lot north of its geographic centre. But a short walk for someone getting off the 6 train at 59th Street. I Hundreds of rooms, hundreds of telephone

extensions, all routed out through the main switchboard, all carrying the main switchboard’s caller ID.

Helpful, but not very.

I thought for a moment and looked around very carefully and then reversed direction and headed for the 14th Precinct.

I had no idea what time an NYPD detective would show up for a night watch, but I expected Theresa Lee to be there within about an hour. I expected to have to wait for her in the downstairs lobby. What I didn’t expect was to find Jacob Mark already in there ahead of me. He was sitting on an upright chair against a wall and drumming his fingers on his knees. He looked up at me with no surprise at all and said, ‘Peter didn’t show up for practice.’

TWENTY-NINE