The Inheritance of Dust

The Red Backpack

Who sends two guys who know exactly where the box is, who don't take a wallet on the floor, but take a laptop and a rusty box?

Brown arrived at 4:30 AM. He just opened the door, because my joke lock is still a joke lock, the shiv mark still fresh on the frame.

He came in, saw the empty table, saw me sitting at the dust ring, and sat across from me like we were about to do a board meeting at 4:30 AM in Ridgewood above a laundromat that smells like dryer sheets.

He put his phone on the table and played the video I sent him in the taxi.

"Red backpack," he said. First words. "JanSport. You can buy that at Target. White Range Rover, no plate, YETI sticker. That's not a professional crew, Jack. A professional crew would take the whole apartment. A professional crew would not wear a YETI sticker to a burglary. A professional crew would not take 47 seconds, they would take 4 minutes and make it look like a drug deal."

"So who?" I asked. My voice was gone from not sleeping.

Brown: "Someone who knows the box is on the kitchen table. Someone who knows your laptop has CAD files. Someone who has seen your apartment. How many people have been in this apartment, Jack? Real list."

I counted.

"Mike. Luis. Jamal. Tommy Jr. Mrs. Patel before she moved. Mrs. Kowalski from 4A when her sink leaked. Brown, you. Mrs. Albright once, she brought butterscotch. Sloane.'"

Brown wrote that down on a napkin from the laundromat.

"Sloane has been here 20 times, she knows it's on the kitchen table. Mike knows. Luis knows. Mrs. Kowalski knows because she waters my plant when I'm in Brooklyn."

"So it's anyone," I said.

"No. It's not anyone. Random thief from Queens who saw your receipts post that got 12M views would search. They would open your fridge, take your TV, take your wallet. These guys walked past your wallet. They walked past your phone. They took box and laptop only. That's a shopping list. Box and laptop. That's a work order. Someone gave them a work order."

At 5:11 AM, Brown called a guy he knows at NYPD, not 911, a detective in Queens who owes him from a Greenwich case. Detective Rivera. Brown put him on speaker.

Rivera watched the video on his phone at home, half-asleep.

Rivera: "Red JanSport, white Range Rover no plate, YETI hoodie? That's Chase Hawthorne's childhood friend Tyler and his cousin Marcus. They do small jobs for $500. They got caught last year stealing copper from a site in Yonkers. They wear YETI because Chase gave them YETI hoodies for Christmas, he buys them in bulk for his crew."

Brown and I looked at each other.

Rivera: "But I can't prove it without faces, without plates. And even if it's them, who hired them? Tyler doesn't know what a lithium deed is. Someone told him 'go to 4B, box on kitchen table, red backpack, take laptop too.'"

"Vivian and Chase," I said.

"Maybe," Rivera said. "But maybe not. Your post had 12M views, Jack. You showed the deed. You said $2.1 trillion Every idiot in New York now knows there's a trillionaire in Ridgewood with a box on his kitchen table and a lock you can open with a butter knife. Could be anyone who wants $2.1T."

He hung up.

At 6:00 AM, the bakery downstairs opened, smell of bread coming up through the floor. Mrs. Kowalski knocked, in her robe, because she heard voices.

"Jack, you okay? I heard door at 2 AM."

"Mrs. Kowalski, did you see a white Range Rover last night? No plate?"

"White car? At 2 AM? I was watching Judge Judy. No."

She looked at my empty table.

"Where's your box? Your rust box?"

"Stolen," I said.

"Oh, the one with your father's things? Those boys?"

"What boys?"

"The two boys who asked me yesterday where you live. They said they were your cousins from Connecticut. One tall with YETI, one short with red backpack. I told them 4B, above laundromat."

My blood went cold.

"When did they ask?" Brown asked, lawyer voice, calm but fast.

"Yesterday, 4 PM. At the laundromat. They said they were your cousins, Jack, from Connecticut. They had Connecticut accent."

Connecticut accent. That's Chase. Chase has a Connecticut accent, that flat Greenwich accent where "water" is "waw-ter."

Brown wrote on the napkin: 4 PM yesterday - laundromat - asked Mrs. K - said cousins from CT - YETI + red backpack.

So they cased the apartment. Day before. Asked my neighbor. Said they were cousins. Mrs. Kowalski, 78, who waters my plant, gave them my schedule.

At 7 AM, Sloane texted: Jack, where are you? We start at 7.

I didn't answer. Brown said don't tell crew yet.

At 7:30 AM, Mike texted: Boss, you good? Mrs. Patel's cousin says NYPD was in your building at 3 AM.

At 8 AM, I finally left the empty table. Brown and I walked downstairs, past the laundromat, where the girl at the counter said, "Yeah, two guys, red backpack, asked about Jack, said they were family."

Family. Only family knows to say family.

We went to Brooklyn Navy Yard, Unit 14B. The workbench where the box usually sits when I'm in Brooklyn was empty too, because I took it home last night.

Luis saw my face and knew.

"Boss, where's the box?"

"Stolen. Last night. Two guys, wore masks, with a red backpack, and white Range Rover with no plate."

Mike stood up from framing Hawthorne House 3.

"Red backpack? White Range Rover YETI? That's Tyler, Chase's guy. I saw that Range Rover at the pool house when it was still up. Chase gave him that YETI hoodie."

"Maybe," Brown said again. "But we don't know who sent them."

Sloane came in late, 8:15 AM, backpack, hard hat.

"Jack, what's wrong?"

I showed her the video.

She watched it three times, then said, "That's Tyler. And Marcus. They were at my mom's house last week. Mom gave them $200 each, said 'for gas.' I thought it was weird because Mom never gives anyone $200."

Silence in Unit 14B. Battery humming, but no one working.

Sloane: "Mom sent them? My mom hired people to steal from you?"

Brown: "We don't know who sent them. We have YETI, red backpack, Mrs. Kowalski says cousins from Connecticut, Sloane says her mom gave Tyler $200 last week. That's circumstantial. In court, that's nothing. Judge McAllister would throw it out. We need the box. We need the deed filing. If they try to file it, we catch them."

I looked at the empty workbench. 162 days I protected that box with a joke lock.

Day 162 ends with no box, no deed, no laptop, two guys in masks no one can identify for sure, a red backpack that anyone can buy at Target, a white Range Rover with no plate that anyone can rent, and a neighbor who thought they were cousins from Connecticut.

No one knows who they are. No one knows who sent them.

Tomorrow, we wait to see who files.

Because whoever stole it has to file it somewhere, or it's just a rusty box.

And that's when we'll know who sent them.