Just before noon on September 1, 1989, I was driving through a seedy sec­tion of downtown Elizabeth, New Jersey, when I spotted a branch of my bank. I parked in the deserted lot behind the building, walked around to the front entrance, and then remembered that I had left my check in my car. I trotted back, unlocked the car door, and leaned inside while fumbling through an assortment of papers and bills that filled my coat pocket. Finally, I found the envelope with my precious monthly stipend – most of which I had already spent, having mailed out a slew of checks the day before to pay some long overdue bills – and laid my coat back over the seat. As I straightened up and turned to close the car door, I let out a gasp.

Reeking of alcohol, three men wearing tattered jeans and filthy T-shirts had formed a tight semicircle around me. The man on my left was clutching the skinny neck of an empty whiskey bottle. Aiming it upward, he looked as if he were about to hammer something – or someone. His dark, glassy eyes revealed a mean, desperate gaze. The scrawny guy on my right looked almost friendly, but a little scared and hungry. The one in the mid­dle, however, was Lerch, straight out of The Addams Family. His large, rectangular head loomed above me.