After a week of waiting, hoping and praying, Susan Mayer's emotions were frayed to the breaking point.
"Somebody has got to see something, say something know something," the Great Neck woman said. "My Steven is out there somewhere and I want him back."
Steven Mayer, 65, has not been seen since last Monday. He left for work as he always does, his wife said; but, he never arrived at his job as a scrap metal trader in Huntington.
Foul play is not suspected, said a Nassau county police spokesman. Susan Mayer fears her husband may have suffered a stroke; others believe Mayer may be lost or confused.
"Everybody is growing increasingly worried," said Rabbi Dale Polakoff, a friend. "He’s a man who we believe has some issues of disorientation and confusion."
Mayer was diagnosed with a brain tumor over a decade ago -- but, his health appeared good the day he disappeared, his wife insisted.
Family and friends have mounted a massive search for the man who once served as president of the Great Neck synagogue.
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They have scoured Great Neck, Huntington, Washington Heights, where Mayer grew up and Riverhead, where it appears Mayer placed a cell phone call last week.
Some 2000 people from Brooklyn, New Jersey and upstate New York even joined the search in the Riverhead area Sunday; but they found nothing, not even a trace of Mayer's car- a 2010 Nissan Sentra.
"We're not giving up hope and we won't end the search," said Mark Klinger, Mayer's son-in-law.
Many of the searchers have never even met Mayer, a fact that warms the troubled hearts of his loved ones. They waited for word on his whereabouts at the synagogue Mayer visited almost every day.
"I think he is confused and can't find his way home," Susan Mayer said. "Come home, Steven. Come home to us."
