Free JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home by Peter Spiegelman Page A

said, and gave me their names. “Now get out of here, man.” I went.
    The parking garages Christopher told me about were each within four blocks of the building, but in opposite directions. I went north and got lucky.
    It was off Third Avenue, tucked between two worn apartment buildings, and its entrance was a narrow oil-stained ramp leading down. I found a small quiet man named Rafe in a glass booth at the bottom of the ramp. His hair was black and wavy and his dark eyes were set deeply in a weathered intelligent face. He recognized Danes’s picture and identified him as “black ’04 BMW Seven-fifty.” He told me the car wasn’t in and hadn’t been for a while, and for twenty bucks he looked through a stack of wrinkled papers and gave me its plate number and the date and time it had last gone out. It was five weeks ago, the day after Nina Sachs had last spoken with Danes, at nine-twenty in the morning. I asked Rafe where the nearest gas stations were. He told me, and I thanked him. I turned to leave and then turned back.
    “Has anyone else come asking about this?” I said.
    A look of calculation passed quickly across Rafe’s face and he nodded at me. “One guy, a week and a half back.”
    “What did he ask about?”
    “About the car and the customer— like you— and I told him the same things. I got twenty-five out of him, though.”
    I fished a ten from my pocket. “You remember what he looked like?”
    Rafe tucked the bill away. “White guy, in his thirties maybe, skinny, about five-ten, with dark hair and a mustache.”
    “He give you a name or show some ID?” He shook his head. “He give you a number to call, in case Danes showed up?”
    “He tried to. I told him no thanks. It’s one thing taking cash and answering questions, but being a spy is something else.”
    I nodded. “Has he been back since?”
    “Nope,” Rafe said, and then the phone rang in the glass booth and he picked it up and started talking. I made my way back up the ramp.
    The closest of the gas stations was north, near an on-ramp to the FDR Drive. I was still feeling loose from my run and the rain was still soft, and I walked uptown and wondered all the way about who else was searching for Gregory Danes.
    The station was on the corner, and a steady stream of cars pulled in and out, veering dangerously across many lanes of traffic as they did. It was not quiet. Besides the pumps there were two greasy repair bays with car lifts and a cramped store that sold cigarettes, lottery tickets, and soda. Jammed between the bays and the store was a filthy glassed-in office. It smelled of gasoline and cigars and dirty socks. I waited at a chest-high plywood counter for Frank to get off the phone.
    Frank was black, about sixty and mostly bald, and he looked like he’d spent much of his life moving heavy things around. He was just under six feet, with a massive chest and shoulders and no neck to speak of. He wore a gray uniform shirt with an open collar, his name on the pocket, and the sleeves rolled up over beefy forearms. He hung up the phone and ran a hand over his broad, tired face.
    “Let me see that again,” he said. I gave him the picture of Danes, and he fished a pair of half-glasses out of his pocket and peered at it. After a while he shrugged.
    “He drives a black BMW Seven-fifty, if that helps,” I said. “An ’04.”
    “I don’t know … maybe. He’s not one of my regulars— not one of my weekly guys— but I’ve seen him before.”
    “You remember when the last time was?” He shook his head. “Were you here five weeks ago, around nine-thirty in the morning?”
    Frank snorted. “Buddy, I own this place. If I’m not asleep, I’m here. But I don’t remember if he was in or not.”
    “Would any of your guys remember?”
    Frank laughed. “I’d be surprised but go ahead, knock yourself out.” Frank was right.

    It was after five when I got home. My apartment was full of gray light and my head was full of questions.