Grant asked about backup. Frankel indicated the skid marks. “If this was him, he’s long gone. It’s probably a wild-goose chase and would be a waste of manpower; plus, it’d take them forever to get here.”

They moved through the gate and onto the white sand.

A set of footprints led toward the building. The sand’s surface had been uniformly scraped directly behind the prints, resembling a narrow path.

“Looks like somebody has been dragging something,” Grant observed.

“Something or someone,” agreed Frankel.

They followed the tracks until the sand met up with a huge concrete pad.

Suddenly, the two cops were standing in the former courtyard of the old hospital. Two redbrick wings rose on either side of the concrete, half the windows boarded shut. A maroon-colored cylinder resembling a lighthouse rose above the west wing. Its fenced-in circular observation platform reminded Grant of a prison watch tower.

Dead ahead was the entrance to the hospital. It was partially boarded up—one wood panel had been pulled off its hinges and cast aside. It looked like the gaping maw of some behemoth that had risen from the murky depths of the Atlantic waiting to be fed.

“You sure you don’t want to go back for that spare?” asked Frankel.

I probably couldn’t hit something five feet in front of me, thought Grant. But I’m not going to tell him that.

Grant shook his head. “You said wild-goose chase, right?”

Grant was fairly certain the last time a cleanup crew had been inside the hospital had been around the time it shuttered for good. It was a sharp contrast to the building’s exterior which had been clear of debris and graffiti. Frankel surmised that the fact it was a “former mental hospital” was bad enough; the Far Rockaway tourism board needed the outside to appear as palatable as possible if it was trying to attract New Yorkers to its white sandy shores.

The main entryway could have passed for the county dump. Papers and old beer cans were strewn everywhere. Sky-blue wallpaper meant to give a feeling of peace and tranquility to the troubled residents had peeled away in mottled patches from cut floor to ceiling. The space was devoid of furniture except for one mattress shoved in a corner that had probably been used by vagrants until they crawled back out into the cruel, hard world.

The two cops moved through massive clutter until they reached a perpendicular corridor running off the back of the entryway. It went both directions with doors upon doors on either side of the hallway. It was nearly impossible to see as the only light came from the room they’d just left and windows at opposite ends of the corridor that seemed to be miles away.

“Where the fuck do we even start?” grumbled Frankel.