Jason Pinter - The Mark

“Is that…” she said.

“Be some coincidence,” I said. “Now let’s see what all the fuss is about.”

After freeing the plastic sheaf from the wall, I carried it into the living room. The small edgewood dining room table had been wiped clean during the break-in, candlesticks bent and twisted and dinnerware shattered. I blocked Gustofson’s body from my mind, ignoring the dried blood, the acrid smell. I would have preferred to examine our finding anywhere but a dead man’s apartment, but we had nowhere to go. Time was running out, each second bringing an increased sense of dread. When was the last shoe going to drop, our last free seconds melting away? This envelope held the answers to so many questions. A lot of people were willing to kill for this, and I had no doubt that what happened to Hans Gustofson could happen to me as well.

I placed the package on the table, my breathing long and slow. I gently slipped my fingers inside, finally touched what people had died for, had killed for. I ran my hand along the envelope’s grainy surface, still sharp, untouched by the elements. It was fastened with a red drawstring. Unwinding the twine, I took a deep breath and opened the envelope.

A binder slid out onto the table. The cover was shiny and black. I ran my hand over its smooth surface. Silence drummed in my ears as I slowly lifted the cover to see what lay inside.

There was a photo of two men mounted on the first page, and an index card pasted below it with two names written in thick ink. The photo looked at least twenty years old. Both men were wearing overcoats. And they looked like they didn’t want anyone else to know they were meeting.

Detective Lieutenant Harvey N. Pennick

Jimmy “Eight Ball” Rizzoli

I turned the page. Another photo, another index card. Another detective. Another guy with a cliched nickname. I flipped the pages. More photos, more cards, more cops, more crooks. The book was full of them. Immediately it dawned on me. I knew what the connection was. The revelation made my head swim.

I knew how Hans Gustofson was connected to Michael DiForio. What John Fredrickson had been looking for at the Guzmans’ house. That many more lives were at stake than just mine and Amanda’s. That I’d stumbled onto something big, something huge, and oh, God, there was a whole lot more at stake than my insignificant life.

Within these pages were images that could ruin a city.

Or control it.

Fear rushed through my veins like a bad drug, seizing hold of my body. I stood up to compose myself. I felt dizzy, unbalanced. Whispering, under my breath. Oh God, oh Jesus, oh shit, oh fuck.

Amanda was staring at me. She was looking at the last page, the page I’d stopped on. The page that tied it all together.

“Is that…” she said, her voice trembling like she was walking a tightrope thousands of feet above ground. “Are those…”

“Yes,” I said weakly. “That’s Officer John Fredrickson and Angelo Pineiro.”

Inside this album were pasted hundreds of photos. Policemen. Politicians. Government officials. All captured by the steady eye of Hans Gustofson. The negatives were neatly tucked away in the back for safekeeping.

In some photos they were taking money, in others they were buying or selling drugs. Some were having sex with women. Some were having sex with men. All their faces were clear as day. The subjects were all unaware. Taking bribes. Some men seemed to be playing to the camera-they knew about Hans taking their picture from the shadows. Some photos looked twenty years old, some as fresh as the moonlight streaming through the window.

Some cops were in uniform and some were in plainclothes, easily distinguishable from their posture and countenance that they knew what they were doing was so, so wrong.

The patsy’s name was written on the index card. First and last, middle initial. Rank. Their office. Also listed were their associates, the men or women they were photographed with. I recognized many of them. I recognized the name Angelo Pineiro. Blanket.

The Right Hand of Lucifer.

Oh, God…

Some of the faces looked sad, remorseful. Faces that once held dreams of nobility but had since been reduced to this. Some were happy, jovial, looking like they’d known their associates for years. Unrepentant for their crimes, or disillusioned to the point of apathy.

“Jesus,” Amanda said.

“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?”