Evening, Thursday December 31, 1981 Schlomo’s Office - Mesarole Street, Brooklyn
After leaving 98 Front Street, Schlomo took a separate squad car back to Brooklyn’s 92nd Precinct.
The Officer driving the car was diverted to an all hands call in Manhattan. A large-scale narcotics raid of the Gotham Discotheque on East 54th Street.
Schlomo (somewhat impatiently) waited in the car. Mobs of people, approximately 380 in all, arrested. Processing the arrests continued well into the morning at Manhattan and Brooklyn Central Booking.
Quite the detour. And, perhaps, for the best. By the time Schlomo finally arrived back at Brooklyn’s 92nd . . . it was already over. A fire had broken out at the precinct earlier that night . . . burned right to the ground. The tall brick walls that surrounded the former precinct were the only parts of the structure left standing. Around a dozen officers were believed to have died in the fire (although rescue crews were struggling to recover any identifiable remains).
He looked more into it in the coming days . . . his contact, Detective Frank Malloy, had passed in the blaze.
Meanwhile, Dr. Madison had apparently survived. Something he discovered when attempting to follow-up with his client Ms. Lilly back on the Arcadia’s 6th floor the following week. A follow-up that did nothing to improve his financial situation. Lily Bodak, it seemed, had skipped town quite suddenly, her apartment quickly renovated leaving no trace of where she left to and leaving no part of his commission for the Bodak investigation paid.
Months had passed. His options were drying up. He couldn’t just take a loss for everything he’d been through with the Bodak investigation. He had expenses . . . and creditors.
Finally, he came across something while back in his dark room on Mesarole Street. The photographs from the subway tunnel where he lost consciousness trying to track the creature that assaulted Orrin Hull and stole the strange Cube. Although most of the photos developed blurred or distorted, some clearly depicted . . . something. Something strange; networks of alien looking kaleidoscopic cables of varying gauges lining and braiding the tunnels beneath the streets of New York.
Surely the photographs would be worth something . . . but who would believe his strange and impossible story?
Schlomo already knew.
The Office of Schlomo Rosenbaum, Licensed Private Investigator, Mesarole Street, Brooklyn, NY
