They Disappeared

47

Manhattan, New York City

Getting a feature film, TV show, commercial or anything like that shot in New York City required permits.

And depending on what was involved, those permits required forms to be completed, fees to be paid and supporting documents to be provided to the mayor’s office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting.

That’s plenty of red tape, Brewer thought as Klaver parked their Crown Victoria on Fifty-third Street. The mayor’s redbrick office of film was not far from Broadway and where they did Late Show with David Letterman.

“This could be like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Klaver said.

“Humor me, right now it’s our best long shot,” Brewer said as they took the elevator to the sixth floor, then walked down the hall to the office of Betty Bonner, permit coordinator.

“Larry, you old flatfoot! Give me a hug,” Bonner, a woman in her late fifties wearing a loud print dress, orange-framed cat eyeglasses and hoop earrings, greeted them. Her bangle bracelets jingled when she hugged Brewer. “Is this your partner, the one who never talks?”

“Detective Klaver.” Klaver extended his hand. “Larry tells me that you two go way back.”

“We worked traffic together in another life, before I retired to the movie business and the job turned Larry into the crackerjack crime fighter and the bastard he is today.”

“Are we good to talk here, Betty?” Brewer asked.

“Follow me. I’ve got things set up.”

Bonner led them into a small meeting room and a table with file folders arranged in neat stacks.

“So you’re looking for someone involved as crew named ‘Rama’ or ‘Zeta’ who may be Russian, or Albanian?”

“Let’s say Eastern European.”

“But you’re not sure if it’s a feature, TV movie, TV episode, commercial, music video?”

“No.”

“Domestic, or international production?”

“Not sure.”

“That’s a tall order, so let’s get going. Okay, these-” Bonner set her hand on all white files “-are all permits of everything still in production. And these-” she touched yellow folders “-are option permits, while these-” she touched blue folders “-are all ongoing international productions.”

Bonner picked one up.

“Now, each of the permit folders and each of the international production folders contain any required visas, for temporary worker visas for non-U.S. citizens.”

“That’s a lot of folders,” Klaver said.

“Domestic and international productions commonly employ non-U.S. citizens, depending on their profession or skill.”

“Isn’t this computerized?” Klaver asked. “Can’t we just run a few keyword searches?”

“No, because most of our records are original,” Bonner said, “this is the best way to do this without a warrant. These are essentially public records. Now, you will find contact numbers of crew chiefs. And I have contacts in immigration and the State Department that can help us further once you nail something down.”

The detectives spent the next hours reading quickly through every folder, sorting through every permit, scouring crew lists. They sifted through forms, applications, copying down names and phone numbers.

By the time they’d completed the last file they were frustrated.

Nothing resembling Zeta or Rama with a connection to Albania, Russia or any Eastern European country had surfaced.

“Looks like we lost here,” Klaver said.

Brewer massaged his tired eyes.

“No. No. We haven’t exhausted this lead yet. We’ll keep going,” he said, consulting the names and numbers he’d copied. “Let’s start calling a few of these location managers. Somebody knows something about this guy on a set or location somewhere in this city.”