The Night Broom

A deleted story from the world of FADE

by Ev Newman

They used to call him “The Night Broom.”

A janitor. A custodian. A nobody. But to the few of us who paid attention, Penman wasn’t sweeping floors; he was sweeping scars.

Back then, Midtown South had the cleanest precinct in the NYPD. Lights always worked. Toilets flushed like church hymns. You could eat off those marble floors, and some rookies damn near did. I was new to the detective squad then, still working turnaround tours. I’d come in after midnight, tired, bitter, smelling like gun oil and coffee grinds.

That’s when he’d appear, quiet, mop bucket rolling in rhythm, fish food tucked in his pocket. We had a tank in the squad room. He’d feed them, hum to them. And he’d listen to us. Always listening.

One night, after we’d all torn each other apart over a case… a series of rapes, maybe murders, all tied to a stretch of the Port Authority. Penman stops me in the hall. Says, “Detective Pfeiffer, I think I know who your guy is.”

I laughed. He’s a janitor, for Christ’s sake. But he starts talking, fast and detailed, like he’s reading the case file upside-down in my skull.

“Security guard,” he said. “Port Authority. Never late. Takes extra shifts for colleagues who probably don’t appreciate it. Drives a dark Ford, maybe a K-Car. Lives with his mother, neat as a pin. Speech impediment. Probably stutters. Keeps souvenirs from his victims. The pattern’s closing in. He’s unraveling.”

I told him to knock it off. But weeks later, after two more assaults, Queens Homicide called. Murder-suicide in Glenmore. The son shot his mother, then himself. We found panties meticulously folded in a desk; my name and the squad’s number scrawled on a pad beside a phone. The guy was a Port Authority security guard. Drove a dark Ford K-Car. Lisped like Sylvester the Cat.

Penman was right. He usually was.

After that, I brought him into more cases. Couldn’t help myself. He had a memory like film. Everything he read, heard, or saw burned itself into him. He could recall an unsolved case from six years back as if he were still standing in the rain with you. Profiling, they call it now. John Douglas and Robert Ressler made it famous. Penman just did it.

Other guys started using him too. We closed cases, the kind that haunt your sleep. But every miracle has a witness and a jealous one at that.

We just called him Macho Rookie. Foot-post down the block. First week on the job and he was already asking how to get a gold shield. Somebody jokes, “Get lucky, like Pfeiffer.” From that day on, Macho’s been measuring his worth against mine and, by extension, Penman’s.

One night, Macho catches Penman reading reports while mopping. Nobody else around. Instead of asking, he decides to make his career off it. Calls IAD. Claims I leaked case files to a civilian. Penman gets canned. I get desk duty in the Bronx. That rookie gets a commendation.

That’s how heroes die in this city. Quietly.

Years passed. I moved up, moved on. But I’d still got Christmas cards from the bakery Penman started working at. Handwritten, perfect cursive. Always had the same closing line: “We all leave something behind, Detective.”

One day I needed him again, tough case, a murdered child.

People started whispering about a man who worked the streets, helping the lost, punishing the cruel. They called him something… The Fade, I think.

I tracked him down. Found him in an alley in Brooklyn. He looked different; thin, haunted, like his mind was somewhere between a reel of memory and a nightmare. He tried to help, but he wasn’t well. The brilliance was flickering. I could see it in his eyes. The light was still there, but dimmed by something darker than time.

He left that night. I never saw him again.

But I don’t believe in ghosts.

I believe in memory.

And Penman remembered everything.