A Danger to Himself and Others: Bomb Squad NYC Incident 1 by J.E. Fishman Page A

but would nurse his beer, only taking enough sips to keep up appearances. Littel watched the Knicks game on the television over the bar and chatted occasionally with the bartender. The stalker ate a cheeseburger and fries while he watched Littel’s back.
    After a while, Littel shed his suit jacket. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, but without the jacket the stalker got a better look at Littel’s prosthetic right hand. He watched carefully now as Littel employed it almost like a real hand, holding a fork with it, even using it to lift his beer. The fingers moved individually and with great precision, all things considered. This confirmed that Littel still used a myoelectric externally powered prosthesis. It would have a six-volt battery inside and electronics that read muscle signals like a miniature nodule of artificial nerves. When Littel lifted his arm to wave for a third beer, his sleeve rode down, exposing more of the prosthetic arm, and the stalker let out a sigh of relief.
    Given the expense and rarity, myoelectric prostheses were no picnic to steal. It had taken the stalker several months to find enough parts to replicate one just like Littel’s, and it was a relief that his target hadn’t changed equipment in the meantime. The stalker studied the artificial arm from across the room. It was a showy variety, styled more to stand out than to blend in—more cyborg than imitation flesh. Indeed the outer casing consisted of discernible parts rather than unified artificial skin.
    The stalker smiled to himself. This construction played in his favor when replicating the prosthesis, as a casing with seams would reveal less tampering. In a short while, just to be sure, the stalker planned to get an even better look at it.
     
     
    AROUND 11:15, THE KNICKS CONCLUDED their defeat at the hands of the Jazz and Littel finally got up to go. He’d drunk quite heavily and now appeared unsteady on his feet. He struggled to crawl back inside his jacket and raincoat, declining help from the bartender.
    The stalker, whose name was Warren Manis, appeared to look on impassively, but inside he felt delighted. A drunk target made his job much easier. He paid the waitress in cash and followed Littel from the pub.
    Littel stumbled along the sidewalk for one block and turned left onto St. Mark’s Avenue. His row house had two stories and a basement. Behind a low wrought-iron fence, the empty poured concrete front yard measured six by eight. A red aluminum canopy covered part of the stoop closest to the door, and someone—Littel himself?—had painted the roof cornice red to match. Most important, a row of trash bins hid but did not block the door to the basement, accessible under the stoop. Littel himself used the main front door, and Manis watched him disappear inside.
    Manis knew that Littel lived alone, his ex-wife having moved out several years ago. He knew that he slept on the top floor and that he never used the burglar alarm and that a series of night-lights cast a faint blue-green hue over every room in the house. He had been there before when the house was empty, but he needed to visit now when Manis was at home, in order to see the arm in person, touch it, measure it, download the software, get the replica just right. And to do so with the greatest margin of safety he had to make sure that Littel had come home alone. Any visitors—and most especially a light-sleeping date—would create complications that Manis didn’t need.
    Now he walked around the block, waiting for Littel to settle in. Though puddles remained in the street, the dampness of the evening had lifted, and a crescent moon hung over Brooklyn to the east.
    At half past midnight, Manis returned to the row house. With no one about, he stepped over the low wrought-iron fence and went immediately to the basement door. Mechanically inclined, he faced no challenge with the simple lock, using a tool he’d specially crafted to jimmy it. He removed his shoes inside the