When Fat Tony Potenza and Vinnie “The Kneecap” Costanzo disappeared within days of each other I didn’t give it much thought. After all, guys with names like Fat Tony and Vinnie “The Kneecap” had been disappearing in New Jersey for the better part of a century.

I wasn’t even concerned when I heard that the Deputy Director of Public Works had skipped town. It was an open secret that he was up to his armpits in all sorts of schemes, including bid rigging and kickbacks from various contractors. Everyone, myself included, figured he’d gotten out of town one step ahead of the Feds and was now basking on some beach in the Dutch Antilles sipping Mojitos.

Not long after that, a sanitation union steward disappeared. From what I heard, he’d been skimming pension funds and creating no-show jobs for friends and relatives. He’d been under investigation for years, but prosecutors were never able to pin anything solid on him. I assumed he’d joined the Public Works official on the beach. Or perhaps he’d pissed off the wrong person and joined Fat Tony and Vinnie “The Kneecap” in a Secaucus landfill.

In the meantime, BERT and the sweeps kept busy. And even though there was precious little dirt and litter left they continued to roam the streets at all hours. Hudson City was now a clean city, and a clean city was a happy city. And everyone was indeed happy.

Six months after the sweeps had begun their work Hudson City appeared in Time Magazine’s Top Ten List of Best Places to Live in America, and a number of national publications praised the town in articles with titles like “Back From the Ashes,” “A City Reborn,” and “A Clean Sweep in Hudson County.”

It wasn’t until the Director of Sanitation flew the coop that I started to take an interest in the disappearances. I had dealt extensively with him in the run up to securing the Hudson City contract. As far as I knew he wasn’t under investigation, but who knew what kind of dealings he had in private. I did know that he was a solid family man, though, and I doubted he’d simply abandoned his family.

When the new mayor disappeared a mere three weeks into his first term, I started to get nervous. It turned out he’d been caught in a bribery sting during the election, though the Feds didn’t reveal this until after he’d gone missing. The general feeling was that he’d caught wind of the investigation and had fled to avoid the coming arrest and humiliation. A few people speculated that he had actually been kidnapped; one of the glass panes of a sliding door at the rear of his house was missing. Then again, would a kidnapper, having broken through a window, bother to clean up every last trace of broken glass?

No one seemed to know, but I had an idea and it wasn't a pleasant one at all. After all, dirt has a way of catching up to you.

That's right. I never did say exactly how I was able to secure the contract. A sanitation contract in Hudson City, New Jersey no less. And how I kept the union off my back.

It caught up to me one dark night a few weeks later.

At first it was the tip-tapping of metal feet on the sidewalk outside. Then a great silent shadow gliding across the far wall as a mammoth bulk swept past my window. BERT.

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