Three weeks into the research, he is certain.
The man's name is Carl Devoe. Thirty-three years old. He lives in a building on Pine Street in Center City — fifth floor, unit 5C. Gideon has mapped his schedule for twenty-one days. He has assembled the file. Two formal reports to police — both dropped — and one civil protective order that was filed and then withdrawn by the petitioner under circumstances that are not recorded but that Gideon can read between the lines of well enough.
He has spent twenty-one days being certain.
Tuesday night. He parks two blocks east. He enters the building through the side entrance — the door sensor has been broken for two months, something he confirmed on the second day of reconnaissance. He takes the stairs. Fifth floor. He counts the doors.
He opens unit 5C.
He crosses to the bedroom. The man in the bed is asleep, the room dark, the ambient noise of the city coming through the window. Gideon stands three feet from the bed with the syringe in his gloved hand and he looks at the sleeping face and—
His phone buzzes. In his inside jacket pocket. One buzz, which is the signal. He does not move immediately. He waits one second, two, and then he takes the phone out carefully and reads the message from Marcus Tate.
A photograph. Two photographs.
The first: a man, thirties, photographed from some distance, probably from Marcus's contact's file. The second: the same man, closer. A face.
Below the photos, Marcus's text: Wrong man. Same building. Same floor.
Gideon looks at the message. He looks at the photos. He looks at the face. He looks at the man sleeping in the bed.
Not the same face.
He stands absolutely still. He does not move for forty-five seconds. He is aware of his own breathing. He is aware of the syringe in his hand. He is aware of the sleeping man, who is making the particular small sounds of deep sleep — the sound of someone who is not afraid, who went to bed in the ordinary way and expects to wake up in the ordinary way, who is someone's person and does not know there is a stranger standing three feet away in the dark.
A middle school PE teacher, Marcus will tell him later. Wife and three children, elementary school age.
He did not know this yet.
He just stands there for forty-five seconds, and then he puts the syringe in his jacket pocket and he backs out of the room and he walks to the door and he closes it behind him and he takes the stairs down five floors and he goes through the broken side door and he walks to his car.
He sits behind the wheel.
His hands are on the steering wheel. They are not shaking. They are, in fact, perfectly steady.
That is the part that gets him. Not the forty-five seconds in the dark room. Not the syringe in his pocket. Not even the face on his phone — the wrong face, the face of a man who will never know what almost happened tonight.
The part that gets him is the hands. Still steady.
He sits in the car until sunrise.
He does not start the engine.