Play dead

EIGHTY-ONE

3:20 AM

They had nearly one hundred addresses of people named Swan, more than thirty for Swann. Uniformed officers from virtually every district were pounding on doors, calling in on police radios.

They had gotten word on the publishing house that handled David Sinclair's books. It was a small outfit in Denver. According to the senior editor, no one there had ever met Mr. Sinclair. Sinclair had sent an unagented proposal to them six years earlier, by mail. The editor had spoken to the man many times over the course of the writing and editing of the book, but Sinclair had never come to Denver. They corresponded with the author via a Hotmail account and a street address in Philadelphia, an address that turned out to be a drop box on Sansom Street. Their records showed that the man had rented the box by the year, sending a money order for a year at a time. There was a high turnover rate in employees, and the few who were contacted at this hour could not recall the man who rented box 18909. The initial form that was filled out appeared to be typed on an old IBM Selectric, and the street address and phone number listed were both phony.

Payments from the publishing house were made by company check, made out to David Sinclair. They had never been cashed.

The bookstore in Chester County had no address for him, just the cell phone number the detectives already had. It was a dead end.

At 3:20 AM a department car roared to a stop. It was Detective Nicci Malone. "We've got prints," she said. "They're on that Chinese box."

"Please tell me they're in the system," Jessica said.

"They're in the system. His name is Dylan Pierson."

The team descended on a run-down row house near Nineteenth and Poplar. Byrne knocked on the door until lights came on inside. He held his weapon behind his back. Soon the door opened. A heavyset white woman in her forties stood before them, her face puffed with sleep, last night's mascara racoooning her eyes. She wore an oversized Flyers jersey, baggy pink sweats, stained white terrycloth flops.

"We're looking for Dylan Pierson," Byrne said, holding up his badge.

The woman looked from Byrne's eyes, to the badge, back. "That's my son."

"Is he here?"

"He's upstairs sleeping. Why do you-"

Byrne pushed her aside, bulled through the small dirty living room. Jessica and Josh Bontrager followed.

"Hey!" the woman yelled. "You can't just… I'll sue you!"

Byrne reached into his pocket. Without looking back he tossed a handful of his business cards in the air, and stormed up the stairs.

Dylan Pierson was nineteen. He had long greasy hair, a feeble soul patch below his lower lip, way too much attitude for the time of night and Byrne's mood. On the walls were a mosaic of skateboarding posters: Skate or Die; A Grind is a Terrible Thing to Waste; Rail Against the Machine.

Dylan Pierson had been arrested twice for drug possession; had twice gotten away with community service. His room was a sty, the floor covered in dirty clothes, potato chip bags, magazines, questionably stained Kleenex.

When Byrne entered, he had flipped on the overhead light and all but lifted Dylan Pierson from his bed. Pierson was cowering against the wall.

"Where were you tonight?" Byrne yelled.

Dylan Pierson tried to comprehend how his little kingdom had suddenly been invaded by big scary police in the middle of the night. He wiped sleep from his eyes. "I… I have no idea what you're talking about."

Byrne took out a picture, a blowup of a computer screen capture of the Collector. "Who is this?"

The kid tried to focus. "I have no idea."

Byrne grabbed his arm, yanked. "Let's go."

"Wait! Jesus. Let me look." He turned on a desk lamp, looked more carefully at the photograph. "Hang on. Hang on. Okay. Okay. I know who this is, man. He looks different with that beard and shit, but I think I know him."

"Who is he?"

"I have no idea."

Byrne reared back, fists clenched.

"Wait!" The kid cowered. "I met him on the street, man. He asked me if I wanted to make some money. It happens to me all the time."

Jessica looked at Nicci Malone, back at Dylan Pierson, thinking, You ain't all that, kid. Still, he was young, and that counted for a lot on the streets of a city like Philadelphia.

"What are you talking about?" Byrne asked.

"I was hanging by the bus station, okay? On Filbert. You know the bus station?"

"We know the bus station," Byrne said. "Talk. Fast."

"He started talking to me. He pointed at this girl, maybe sixteen or so. Maybe younger. She looked like a runaway. He said if I would go up to her, give her some shit, and he came in like a white knight, he would pay me fifty bucks."

"When was this?" Byrne asked.

"I don't know. Two days ago?" The kid touched his cheek. "He burned my damn face. You should arrest this guy."

Byrne held up a photograph of the Chinese box. "How did your fingerprints get on this?"

"I have no idea."

"Say 'I have no idea' one more fucking time," Byrne said. "Go ahead."

"Wait! Let me think, man. All right. And this is true. When I met the guy I sat in his van for a while."

"What color was the van?"

"White. When I first got in he asked if I would move some of his things around in the back. This box was in there, I swear to God."

Byrne paced, kicking clothes and debris out of his way. "Then what happened?"

"Then I got out of the car, walked up to the corner, started talking to the chick."

"Then what? He burned your face?"

"Yeah. Like out of nowhere. And for no reason. When it was all over I met him around the corner and he gave me something."

"What did he give you?"

"A book. He put the fifty inside it."

"He gave you a book."

"Yeah," Pierson said. "I don't really-"

Byrne lifted the kid off the chair like he was a rag doll. "Where the fuck is it?"

"I sold it."

"To who?"

"The Book Nook. It's a used-book store. They're right around the corner."