City lot #12, across the street from Rosemont Apartments. It's early afternoon; the minivan has been parked here for four days. And during much of that time, it's been occupied, not that anyone could see that through the darkened windows. Occupied, as now--a lanky man sits cross-legged in the back, watching a video on his laptop.
In the video: just a hallway, seen from the ceiling at one end. The man speeds along, stopping suddenly at any flicker of motion. Whenever a human figure appears, he zooms in, and stares for a long moment--or not so long, if the figure belongs to a man. Or to someone obviously elderly, or obviously fat.
Then, each time, he moves on.
The computer is set up on some kind of a strongbox. Piles of loose clothes and other stuff clutter the surrounding space. There's barely room for a person to sit.
Even at high speed (aside from the pauses), it takes an hour for the video to end. As soon as it's over, the man closes it and unceremoniously deletes the file (called "rosemont fl4"). He sighs and stretches a little and scratches among some of the clothes until he's dragged out a uniform: a brown jumpsuit with the logo "A.J.'s Electrics" stitched on the front and back.
He clambers outside and crosses the street absentmindedly--then through the familiar lobby and into the familiar elevator, up to the fifth floor. It looks like all the others, and the light fixture comes off pretty easily like in all the others, and of course there's just enough room in it for the camera, like usual. Nobody even comes by.
Next comes a cheap, early dinner, a walk downtown and back--and then downtown again, just to pass the time. Then bedtime in the minivan... all while the camera does its job. He wonders whether it will catch anything worth pursuing, this time. It's exciting to think--at any moment, somebody really nice might be coming home....
In the video: just a hallway, seen from the ceiling at one end. The man speeds along, stopping suddenly at any flicker of motion. Whenever a human figure appears, he zooms in, and stares for a long moment--or not so long, if the figure belongs to a man. Or to someone obviously elderly, or obviously fat.
Then, each time, he moves on.
The computer is set up on some kind of a strongbox. Piles of loose clothes and other stuff clutter the surrounding space. There's barely room for a person to sit.
Even at high speed (aside from the pauses), it takes an hour for the video to end. As soon as it's over, the man closes it and unceremoniously deletes the file (called "rosemont fl4"). He sighs and stretches a little and scratches among some of the clothes until he's dragged out a uniform: a brown jumpsuit with the logo "A.J.'s Electrics" stitched on the front and back.
He clambers outside and crosses the street absentmindedly--then through the familiar lobby and into the familiar elevator, up to the fifth floor. It looks like all the others, and the light fixture comes off pretty easily like in all the others, and of course there's just enough room in it for the camera, like usual. Nobody even comes by.
Next comes a cheap, early dinner, a walk downtown and back--and then downtown again, just to pass the time. Then bedtime in the minivan... all while the camera does its job. He wonders whether it will catch anything worth pursuing, this time. It's exciting to think--at any moment, somebody really nice might be coming home....