84

NYPD-SIS RECORDING #146-83C.

HASKINS: It was a lifetime, an eternity. All that noise and gunfire and confusion. But I did what Duke told me and stood there on the second-floor landing.

QUESTION: You trusted him?

HASKINS: Of course, you silly! If you can’t trust a man like Duke, who can you trust? So of course he came back down from the fourth floor, as I knew he would, and he said to me, “Better take your mask off, put your hands up, and go down slowly out the front door.”

QUESTION: Why didn’t you do that? It was good advice.

HASKINS: I know it was, I know it was. I knew it was then. But I can’t explain to you how this man Anderson made me feel. He made me forget caution and made me willing to take a chance. Do you understand?

QUESTION: I’m afraid not.

HASKINS: Oh, Tommy, Tommy—he gave me balls! Well, anyway, when I didn’t move, I could see him grin, and he said, “Out the back.” So we took off our masks and gloves, dashed down the stairs, out the service entrance, started climbing the back wall … and suddenly there were eighteen million screws with flashlights in our faces and guns firing, and then I had my hands in the air as far as I could reach and I was screaming, “I surrender! I surrender!” Oh, God, Tommy, it was so dramatic!

QUESTION: And what happened to Anderson?

HASKINS: I really don’t know. One moment he was there beside me, and the next moment he was gone. He just simply disappeared.

QUESTION: But you trusted him?

HASKINS: Of course.