Jason Pinter - The Mark

These men all worked as couriers for Michael DiForio. They’d all done time, and within weeks of their release were living at 2937 Broadway, paying well below market value in a building owned by a ruthless criminal. My guess was that after leaving prison, Michael DiForio contacted each of these men, offering them a sweet deal. In exchange for running errands, they would receive a large subsidy to live in his building. And to a man just paroled and making minimum wages, saying no wasn’t an option.

The offer was this: Live in our building. You’ll pay very little rent. You’ll have a chance to save money. You’ll have a chance to restart your life. But you must work for us. Don’t ask questions. If you’re caught, you don’t know us. You’ve seen Mission: Impossible, right? Disavow all knowledge. Otherwise we disavow you.

And in exchange for loyal service, their rent steadily dropped. Until, that is, they were caught or killed. Like the Guzmans would have been if I hadn’t knocked on their door.

I still didn’t know what John Fredrickson had come to collect that night, or what the man in black had followed me across the country for. That mysterious package held the key. And now I had to find it.

Sirens wailed in the distance, cutting through the humid air. The noise seemed to permeate my whole body, every molecule racked with pain and weariness. The last three days had taken their toll. My body ached, my eyelids drooped. Sleep would come in an instant if I let it. But if I welcomed sleep, I’d wake up in irons. Or a box.

I had one more phone call to make. This time, though, we couldn’t take the chance of being seen. The sirens were too close, and I had no more energy to run.

We entered the subway at 81st and Central Park West, right outside the Museum of Natural History, its oversized flags whipping in the wind.

I purchased a four-dollar MetroCard, led Amanda through the turnstiles and headed down to the grimy platform. Rats scuttled between the tracks, squirming in and out of the metal rails, sniffing crushed soda cans and bone-colored cigarette butts. Discarded on the platform was the latest issue of New York, sporting a headline which read Organized Crime: New York’s Comeback Kid.

I found a pay phone, dialed the main line at Columbia Presbyterian and asked for Luis Guzman’s room. A cop answered. I identified myself as a reporter for the Daily Bugle.

After a moment, Luis Guzman came on the line. His voice sounded stronger than the last time we’d spoken.

“Yeah, hello?”

“Luis?” I said, this time making no effort to disguise my voice.

“Yeah, hello? Who’s this?”

“Luis. It’s Henry Parker.”

“I’m sorry I don’t know no…holy shit.” He remembered. “What…how could you…”

“Listen, I don’t have much time. I know about Michael DiForio. I know about the deal he cut you. I know John Fredrickson was supposed to pick up a package from you the night he died and I know you didn’t have it. What I need to know, Luis, is what was in that package and where I can find it.”

“I…I never got it, I swear to God.”

“I believe you,” I said. “But I still need to know what was in it and where it is.”

“I swear I don’t know,” Luis said. “It was supposed to be delivered that day, at one o’clock. But it never showed. I don’t know what was in it. I just know it was important.”

“How important?”

“Michael, he had this man. A guy named Angelo Pineiro. Angelo called me every now and then. He said he trusted me, that he’d only call when Michael really needed it. He said unlike the other guys I wasn’t no junkie. I wasn’t going to wig out, go nuts. He said there was an important package coming and I had to protect it or I’d die. That’s what he said. Said it was the kind of package that if you fucked up the delivery you’d just disappear. He said I had to hold on to it and Officer Fredrickson would pick it up later.”

“Why didn’t you tell Fredrickson the package never arrived? He would have understood, right?”

“I did tell him,” Luis pleaded. “I swore to him I never got the package, but he didn’t believe me. And now they think you got it, Henry. They think you stole it. And Michael will do anything to get it back.”

Then it hit me. That’s where the man in black came in. He was sent by Michael DiForio to retrieve the package. The package Michael DiForio thought I’d stolen. And he’d kill me, if necessary. Everything was getting so deep, so dark. Michael DiForio was deadly enough, but bringing in a mercenary meant he needed someone even more vicious.

“Who was it, Luis? Who was supposed to deliver the package to you?”

“This photographer guy named Hans Gustofson. I only met him once. Kind of a jittery fuck, like he thought someone was always watching him. He lived in Europe, but this guy Angelo say he kept a Pied-a-something in New York. Big-ass motherfucker, too. Used to be a bodybuilder.”

“Hans Gustofson,” I said. There was a glimmer of recognition.

“Told me he was working on something big. That he’d either finish it or die trying.”

“Do you know where Gustofson lives?”

“I don’t know, somewhere around…” Luis stopped talking. I heard the sound of scuffling on the other end, footsteps on linoleum. My heart thumped louder as someone yelled no, then stop. Then I heard a thud, like something hitting the floor. Then there was silence.

“Who is this?” A new voice on the phone. Not Luis. “Who the fuck is this?”

I hung up.

“We need to go,” I said to Amanda. “We need to go now.”

Stepping out of the subway into the night, the sirens seemed to have grown louder. I told Amanda what Luis said. How we needed to find this package. And how we were being hunted.

“So how’s this guy Gustofson connected to Michael DiForio?” she asked.

Sighing, I told her what I’d known as soon as Luis dropped the name.

“Hans Gustofson was a photographer,” I said. “When Luis told me that, something clicked. I knew I recognized the name. Gustofson was one of Helmut Newton’s proteges. He made his name as a wartime photojournalist-Vietnam, Kuwait-then decided to get artsy. He said the human body was more beautiful in the nude than in the grave. You can figure out what happened next.”

“Let me guess…he went to the dark side.”

“Like Darth fucking Vader,” I said. “When I was a kid, I read every newspaper I could get my hands on, every one that the public library carried. Searching old microfiche to see what the greatest journalists ever wrote about the most important events of the last half century. I saw a lot of Gustofson’s work, especially during the Gulf, and then in Sarajevo. When you want to be a journalist, you get to know all the names associated with the industry, and he was a big one.”

“So what happened?”

“He got hooked on heroin and started believing he was one of the models instead of the person photographing them. Thousands of dollars in debt later, he started taking sleazy pictures, naked celebrities on vacation, things like that. Soon the mainstream papers wouldn’t touch him, but the tabloids were more than happy to pay his salary.”

I continued. “Every photo tells a story. It’s a snapshot of a moment in time, a context in and of itself. But the pictures Hans ended up taking were a sham. That crap isn’t a portrait of time, it’s a bastardization of it. A quick fix with no relevance. Anyway the press dragged him through the mud until there was no digging himself out. Word was he’d become a recluse, burying himself in heroin and alcohol and women, mostly at the same time.”

“So the question is,” Amanda said, her sentiments echoing mine, “how is Gustafson involved with Michael DiForio?”