The Broken Window

Jorgensen returned to his desk and set to work on the book again, muttering, “I’ll find you, you fucker.” He glanced up. “And do you want to know the worst part of all?”
    She nodded.
    “God never lived in the apartments he rented in my name. He never took delivery of the illegal drugs. Or got any of the merchandise he had shipped. The police recovered everything. And he never lived in thebeautiful house he bought. Get it? His only point was to torment me. He’s God, I’m Job.”
    Sachs noticed a picture on his desk. It was of Jorgensen and a blond woman about his age, their arms around a teenage girl and young boy. The house in the background was very nice. She wondered why 522 would go to all the trouble to destroy a man’s life, if in fact their perp was behind this. Was he testing out techniques to use to get close to victims and to implicate fall guys? Was Robert Jorgensen a guinea pig?
    Or was 522 a cruel sociopath? What he’d done to Jorgensen might be called a nonsexual rape.
    “I think you should find another place to live, Mr. Jorgensen.”
    A resigned smile. “I know. It’s safer that way. Always be harder to find.”
    Sachs thought to herself of an expression her father had used. She thought it described her own life view pretty well. “When you move they can’t getcha. . . .”
    He nodded at the book. “You know how he found me here? This, I’ve got a feeling. Everything started to go bad just after I bought it. I keep thinking it’s got the answer. I nuked it but that didn’t work—obviously. There’s got to be an answer inside. There’s got to be!”
    “What are you looking for exactly?”
    “Don’t you know?”
    “No.”
    “Well, tracking devices, of course. They put them in books. And clothes. Pretty soon they’ll be in almost everything.”
    So not germs.
    “Microwaves destroy tracking devices?” she asked, playing along.
    “Most of them. You can break the antennae too but they’re so small nowadays. Almost microscopic.” Jorgensen fell silent and she realized he was staring at her intently as he considered something. He announced. “You take it.”
    “What?”
    “The book.” His eyes were dancing madly around the room. “It’s got the answer in it, the answer to everything that’s happened to me. . . . Please! You’re the first one who hasn’t rolled their eyes when I told them my story, the only one who hasn’t looked at me like I’m mad.” He sat forward. “ You want to get him as much as I do. You have all sorts of equipment, I’ll bet. Scanning microscopes, sensors . . . You can find it! And it’ll lead you to him. Yes!” He thrust it toward her.
    “Well, I don’t know what we’re looking for.”
    He nodded sympathetically. “Oh, you don’t have to tell me. That’s the problem. They change things all the time. They’re always one step ahead of us. But please . . .”
    They . . .
    She took the book, debating about slipping it into a plastic evidence bag and attaching a chain-of-custody card. She wondered how loud the ridicule would be in Rhyme’s town house. Probably better just to carry it.
    He leaned forward and pressed her hand hard. “Thank you.” He was crying again.
    “So you’ll move?” she asked.
    He said he would and gave her the name of another transient hotel, one down on the Lower East Side.“Don’t write it down. Don’t tell anybody. Don’t mention me on the phone. They’re listening all the time, you know.”
    “Call me if anything else comes to mind about . . . God.” She gave him her card.
    He memorized the information on it, then tore the cardboard up. He stepped into the bathroom, flushed half down the toilet. He noticed her curiosity. “I’ll flush the other half later. Flushing something all at once is as stupid as leaving bills in your mailbox with the red flag up. People are such fools.”
    He walked her to the door, leaned close. The stink of unwashed clothing hit her. His red-rimmed eyes gazed fiercely at her. “Officer, listen to me. I know you have that big gun on your hip. But that won’t do any good against somebody like him. You have to get close before you can shoot him. But he doesn’t have to get close at all. He can sit in a dark room somewhere, sip a glass of wine and bring your life down in pieces.” Jorgensen nodded at the book in her hand. “And now that you’ve got that, you’re infected too.”

Chapter Thirteen
    I’ve been checking the news—there are so