You call Alyson from a pay phone a block west of the squat. You wrote her cell number down on your arm before you ditched the BlackBerry. You phone her on a ten-dollar phone card. It’s eight o’clock. She answers with this annoyed voice, but you aren’t upset. It’s just that her caller ID doesn’t know you.

“Alyson,” you say, “this is Blink.”

There is a pause — long enough to wonder if you just made a very big mistake.

“Who?”

“I phoned you about —”

“You!” she says. “But why aren’t you —?”

“I ditched the BlackBerry. But the cops should find it soon. I didn’t like chuck it or anything.”

There is another pause. And you look around you as if maybe the GPS on that thing can stick to a person even when he’s unloaded it.

“Why are you calling me?” she asks.

It’s a good question — a complicated question. It has something to do with a picture of a girl on a lawn overlooking a lake.

“Hello?”

“I’m here,” you say. “I’m calling because I want to explain what I saw.”

“You said my father left the hotel with some people.”

“Yeah. With. Not abducted or nothing.”

“So you didn’t see the footage?”

“Footage?”

“The CCTV footage from the hotel. Closed-circuit television? It was on the news.”

“No way,” you say. “What about it?”

She pauses. It’s quiet right now down at Trinity and Front, which is where you are standing, shivering a little. You can hear her swallow.

“There was duct tape on his mouth,” she says. “And around his wrists. And the men were all in balaclavas.”

“In what?”

“Those ski masks that go right down over your whole face.”

“Not when I saw them,” you say. “Honest to God.”

“They were holding him tightly by the arms. Real rough and kind of pushing him down the stairs . . .” She says it like she’s trying to convince you.

“All I’m saying is that it didn’t look like that kind of shit was going down.”

You don’t say more, because maybe you are crazy and this is all a crazy dream. Then she is crying.

“Alyson.”

“What?” she says, angry, sniffing hard. “And how do you know my name?”

She’s not thinking clearly — who can blame the girl. But get to the point, Blink. “There was three guys in the video, right?”

“Were,” she says angrily. “There were three guys.”

“Okay, ‘were.’” Jesus. “Could you tell from the video that, like, one of them was a big dude, real tall and, you know, big like a bear. And one was real wiry, and one was short but built like a brick shithouse? Could you tell that from the pictures?”

She sniffs again. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess. Yes.”

“The little one, the brick . . . Well, his name is Tank.”

There is dead quiet at the other end of the line.

“You got their names?”

“Just his.”

She laughs, like you said something funny, but it’s just this nervous thing, because there is nothing funny about her voice. “What’d you say your name was?”

“It doesn’t matter. I just wanted you to know that what I saw didn’t look like . . . didn’t look bad. Unless they tricked him or . . .” You shut up because you’re ruining it.

“Blink,” she says. “Was that what you said? Is that your name?”

Now it’s your turn to keep quiet.

“Blink, we need to talk.”

There. Was that what you wanted, you reckless, greedy boy?

“About what?”

“If you know stuff —”

“I don’t know squat. All I know is what I saw. These guys were with him. They were talking together. And they busted up the room — sure — but there was no yelling or anything. I was right outside the door practically.”

The pause again, but this one is stiff and listening.

Then you figure out how to describe what it was you saw, the thing you want to say to her. “Your father was not their prisoner. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

There’s no sound at her end.

“You’re lying,” she says. “You are one of them.”

“No way.”

“Yes, you are. You’re telling me my father abducted himself ?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Hey.”

“This is so wrong, what you are doing. This is none of your business. What are you? Some freak who gets off on other people’s misfortunes?”

“No! No way.”

“Liar. Why are you phoning me? What do you want?”

Ah, there’s the thing. What do you want, Blink? What’s in this for you?

“You want something,” she says, as if she’s read your mind. And then while your head is reeling, she hangs up. The line goes dead. And the coldness of a late autumn night rushes into the phone booth.