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When I step inside the store, there’s only one employee there. He’s standing behind a cash register with his eyes closed, headphones on, singing “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers.
He’s so enraptured with the music that he doesn’t notice me. I walk up to him, waving my hand until he finally does. He drops his headphones down to his neck.
“My cell phone broke, and I need to do a Google search. May I use one of your computers?” I ask him.
“We’re having Wi-Fi issues. A guy’s supposed to come in the morning to fix it. I can search on my phone for you if you want,” he offers.
I nod in thanks. “I’m trying to find the contact information for Dr. Isaac Siegel of Bell Hospital.”
“How do you spell his last name?” he asks.
I try to remember how the impostor spelled it in the car.
“S-I-E-G-E-L,” I say.
“That was easy,” he says. “Only one Isaac Siegel from Bell and only one address for him.”
“What’s that?” I say, grabbing a pen and a piece of paper lying on the counter.
“657 East 63rd Street.”
The dilapidated brownstone wedged between two high-rise buildings on the Upper East Side looks condemned. Some of the windows have holes covered in duct tape. The doorbell has a handwritten sign that reads BROKEN in all caps.
I loudly knock on the door despite the late hour, not worried about neighbors being woken up because nobody in the high-rise buildings on either side can hear me.
After about a minute of knocking and no response, I make a fist and start banging on the door. When that doesn’t work, I lift my foot and start kicking it forcefully. Finally, a light turns on inside, and I hear footsteps shuffling toward me.
“Go away,” an old man says. “I have a Taser.”
“Dr. Siegel?” I say.
“I told you to go away,” he says.
“So, you are Dr. Siegel?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond.
“My name is Beatrice Bennett. My mother was Irene Mayer. You interviewed her back at Bell Hospital in the seventies.”
“Go away,” he says again.
How do I get him to open the door to speak with me? I take out my driver’s license and slide it under the crack of the front door.
“You have my license. If you don’t open the door and return it to me, I’ll call the police and tell them you stole it.”
He slips the license back underneath the door.
“Please,” I say, softening my voice now. “I’m begging you. I need to speak with you.”
“Go away,” he says for the fourth or fifth time.
I look around the dilapidated building, searching for any reason to force him to open the door and speak with me. That’s when I spot it—a messy electrical panel on the side of the brownstone. There’s no way it’s up to code. Living in Los Angeles, with constant fire dangers, I know the electric company comes out 24/7 if there are any potential fire hazards.
“I don’t think your electrical panel is up to code,” I say. “It looks hazardous. I better call ConEd to let them know. I’m sure they’ll send city inspectors to check out the rest of your house. Who knows what they might uncover—”
The door slowly opens, only a couple of inches, revealing a slouched man with a full head of gray hair, holding what looks like a cigarette lighter.
“What do you want?” he says, angry.
