Jonathan Santlofer - Anatomy of Fear

He watches the man leave, art supplies tucked under his arm, follows him on foot to Penn Station, where he stands on a ticket line, cap tugged low over his features, only three people between them, once again thrilled to be so close yet anonymous. When he hears the man ask for a ticket to Boston, he cuts out of the line, walks back to his building, slips inside behind a couple of workers who are not paying attention, takes the elevator and waits until the hallway is empty, then sets to work on the apartment’s shitty hardware-store lock, which is easy to pop.

The place reminds him of a big cage, no America the Beautiful accoutrements that make life worth living: no Ethan Allen sofa, matching chair, and ottoman; no acrylic nonstain rug. Nothing about the place makes any sense to him-no actual rooms, a beat-up sofa in the center of the space, lamp on a wooden crate that’s been painted blue, bed behind a half-wall, unmade, blankets tossed about, enough to set him itching. He can’t imagine that anyone would want to live like this. Clearly the man doesn’t know any better, more proof that some human beings have evolved and others have not.

He moves away from the bed, afraid it will contaminate him, and crosses the space to a long table covered with dozens and dozens of sketches, pencils, erasers, drawing stumps, sharpeners, graphite and wood shavings, a mess, even worse than the bed.

He switches on the high-intensity lamp and begins to sort through the sketches, studies the man’s style, the way he must hold his pencil to make such marks. It’s not difficult, the line and tone uncomplicated. He hates to admit it, but the man has some talent.

He taps the iPod resting in the docking station, and salsa music blasts into the room, shrill and ugly. He tries to stop it and knocks it to the floor. When he goes to retrieve it, he sees the drawing pad propped under the table, opens it, and freezes.

It’s true, what that reporter wrote! He can hardly believe it. How is it possible? A mud man with such a gift. Of course this is why he has been following him; he just didn’t expect to find it.

He grips the pad, gloved hands shaking as he stares at the incomplete portrait. He is about to rip it from the pad, tear it to pieces, but no, he can’t. The man must never know he was here. He has to think this through, figure out what to do. He closes his eyes and waits. He knows God will tell him.

The train was delayed in New Haven and again in Hartford and I arrived in Boston almost two hours late. I caught a cab, which dropped me in front of the impressive granite-and-glass building that housed the PD and their state-of-the-art DNA and Ballistics labs, as well as a couple of in-house forensic artists I’d met the last time I was here, computer variety, who had obviously failed to deliver, which gave me a slight jolt of schadenfreude.

A uniform led me to Detective Nevins’s office, which was bigger and better than the cubicle she’d had three years ago. The lettering on the door indicated she was now heading up Robbery.

She glanced up and pushed the blond hair out of her eyes. She looked good.

“Congrats on the promotion,” I said.

“You’re late,” she said. “The witness has already left.”

“Hey, not my fault. The train was delayed. Can you get him back?”

“Not till morning. Any chance you can stay overnight?”

I didn’t see any reason why not. “Sure,” I said, giving Detective Nevins a smile.

She didn’t return it. She raised her left hand and wiggled her ring finger to show off the gold band.

“Wow,” I said. “Congrats again. When did that happen?”

“Year ago. You didn’t think I was going to wait around for you, did you?”

The last time I’d come to Boston she’d been so happy with my sketch she’d taken me out for a drink and one thing led to another.

“When you didn’t call, I wrote you off as just another jerk.”

“That’s me,” I said.

“There’s a hotel in Crosstown Center, walking distance. We’ll reimburse you,” she said.

It has not taken long for God to provide an answer. Though He is busy, He is always there for him. God reminded him that nothing is more important than the mission, the role he is playing pivotal, that he will be remembered, written about, his name passed down by generations of men and women as a martyr to the cause.

He closes the pad that contains his half-finished portrait and slides it back under the table. The cracked iPod he arranges to look like an accident: book plucked from a shelf above the table and placed onto the docking station as if it had fallen, iPod on the floor just below it. He feels pleased to have broken the sketch artist’s toy.

He peruses the man’s drawings, page after page of sketches, and stops at one in particular to study the partially drawn faces, details of features-eyes, noses, lips, a slightly open mouth-and carefully notes again the man’s technique, the way he uses his pencil to create line, tone, and shadow.

He does not think this one will be missed.

He folds the page into his pocket along with a pencil.

At the door he takes his time refitting the lock, getting all the screws back in place.

Outside on the street, he feels calm. Though the man is creating his portrait, it no longer worries him. He will go home, do the work, come back, and finish up.

He peers up at the sky and whispers, “Thank you.”

The hotel was better than expected, a modern ten-story businessman’s hotel, sleek and superclean. I checked into my room: double bed, ER-sterile bathroom, TV the size of a mini drive-in theater. I asked the bellhop where I could buy a toothbrush and get a bite to eat and he directed me to a CVS and a local café, where I had a glass of Shiraz and a decent dinner spoiled by a young couple at the next table who were practically making out. I was going to tell them to get a room, but thought it would make me sound bitter, and maybe I was.

Back in the hotel, I watched the end of CSI, which did a good job of combining glamour and gore, but couldn’t concentrate. I was feeling antsy and frustrated, wondering why I’d come here when I should have been home chasing a phantom, which, according to the feds, I was no longer supposed to be doing.

I stared out the window, snow coming down, flickering like glitter in a snow globe.

The snowflakes turn to icicles, steam hissing as they hit the pavement. Somewhere salsa music is playing-the next room?-men and women laughing and dancing as the snow changes to water spurting from an open fire hydrant, spraying the night air with a million tiny diamonds. One of the dancers holds the sketch of my grandmother’s vision. It bursts into flames and burns. My eyes burn too, hot and tired. A woman dressed in white, candles all around her, whispers: Cuidado, cuidado.

The killer’s sketches are suddenly around me, flapping like injured birds. I grab one and it springs to life. But it isn’t one of the victims. It’s a different body, though one I know.

I turn and see a man with a gun aimed at the body. I try to stop him, but it’s too late.

The gunshots startled me awake.

I blinked, trying to gauge my whereabouts.

I was in the Boston hotel, steam hissing; voices and music coming from the television. I pulled myself up, shut off the TV, stood in the dark watching flakes of white snow flutter past a black window and looking at my reflection, ghostly and unformed. It gave me a chill, it was so much like the man I’d been trying to draw, there and not there, features blurred or missing.