Resurgence (12 page)
“Okay, that’s enough. I’ll cop to the charge of not having been all that low profile lately—with no small thanks to your brotherhood, the Fourth Estate, for that.”
“Who’s the Fourth Estate? I don’t belong to no brotherhood of the Fourth Estate.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Brownie. You know damn well what I’m talking about, not that it’ll make any difference at this point. I’m referring to the media notice I attracted recently when my business relationship with Colin Elliot came to an end—when I got my fifteen minutes of fame that made me identifiable to those having nothing better to do than—”
“Hey! I wouldn’t be callin’ the kettle black if I were you, and I wouldn’t be kidding myself, either. You’ve always been identifiable to those of us makin’ it our business to know who you are and what angles you might be playin’. That nasty period after your boy was put outta commission back in ’eighty-four saw to that. You couldn’t go after somebody like Gibby Lester the way you did without callin’ a certain amount of attention to yourself and—”
“I’m not here to reminisce,” Nate says, “and I’m not here just to be tipped off to some unwitting notoriety on my part. You left word at my office that you had something significant for me, cash has exchanged hands, so let’s have it.”
Nate frowns at the reporter with whom he’s avoided eye contact until now. It’s hard to believe they’re contemporaries, were once considered equals in parallel fields of study at Penn. Brownell Yates III appears to have aged a decade in the two or so years since they last had a face to face; very little remains of the gleam that set him apart in their college days.
“I hear ya, I hear ya,” Brownie says while fishing something from an inside pocket of his rumpled suit jacket. “Fact is, I was on this strictly for my own reasons before it started lookin’ as though you might likewise think there could be a link between the Lester and Kaplan killings. And why wouldn’t you, what with the historical connection to Lester and the fresh tie-in to the moron of a photographer that was gonna take a shot at sucking your boy dry for loss of livelihood and permanent facial disfigurement?”
“How do you know what Kaplan was planning to do?”
“I had better luck than you. I’m not sayin’ I was able to break into Kaplan’s place, but I did have a productive sit-down with a girlfriend of his that I latched onto at a neighborhood watering hole he used to frequent. Didn’t take that many fuzzy navels to get her to say that Kaplan was plannin’ to hold Colin Elliot up for a bundle in damages.”
“And your reasons for pursuing any of this?”
“The usual. For bucks, and maybe the one big story that’ll get me the cover and a byline on one of the weeklies—legit weeklies, if you know what I mean.”
When pigs fly, Nate rates Brownie’s chances of going legit without help.
“So, you’ve just sold me the electrifying news that the photographer assaulted by my so-called boy planned to sue for whatever astronomical figure the courts would allow. You’d better have more than that or we’ll be talking about a full refund.”
“I’m gettin’ to it, I’m gettin’ to it.” The hard-luck reporter unfolds an item retrieved from an inner pocket and hands it over.
Nate gasps at sight of an intact photograph he’s only ever seen in part. “Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus
,” he says, his detachment shattered. “Where . . . where did you get this?”
“The girlfriend. She had presence of mind to remove the questionable items from Kaplan’s place before the cops ransacked it. She sold this to me for ten bucks and says she’s got more if I have a market for ’em. By the look on your face I’ll say I do.”
“I’d prefer to negotiate with her directly. What’s her name and number?”
“No way. My way or no way. And I’m not namin’ the source that says the powdery residue found in Gibby Lester’s floor safe—the
only
thing found in Lester’s floor safe, by the way—is an exact match for the bulk product shoved down Sid Kaplan’s slit throat.”
To buy absorption time, Nate signals for the waitress and orders coffee and a bagel; to recover a semblance of detachment, he reminds the reporter he no longer works for Colin Elliot in any capacity. But it’s too late to pretend he has no interest in preventing the willful distribution of porn featuring Colin Elliot’s late wife. That cat’s out of the bag, and he may or may not have telegraphed the rush of gratification he feels—akin to expiation—at news of the drug match.
The crotch shot of Aurora pleasuring herself is face down on the table, where he flipped it after the identifying glance. He doesn’t have to look long at the watermark on the back of the photo paper to know it’s the same as the one partially revealed on the back of the photo remnant socked away in his home safe.
“Ten bucks, you say?” Nate refolds the photo and slips it into his own inside pocket.
“Yeah, and I catch what you’re makin’ of this—that the girlfriend didn’t know who the subject was or she woulda held me up for more money.”
“Make it clear you’re doing her a favor to take this shit off her hands. Buy everything she’s got, make sure she’s not holding out on you, and don’t pay a cent more than five dollars a copy or she will start wondering who the subject is. I’ll cover your costs plus ten percent and—”
“Twenty percent.”
“Shut up and listen. I am your one and only hope for ever going legit, as you put it. Work with me on this and I’ll see that you get your chance. I’ll fucking
guarantee
your chance.”
“I’ll need an advance and exclusive rights.”
Nate hears echoes of the deal struck with Cliff Grant when Colin resorted to that source to get a lead on Aurora’s whereabouts. And look how that turned out.
“Not yet, you don’t. You’re covered for the porn purchase plus the ten percent finder’s fee, but until there’s more to go on than you’ve brought today, there’s no big story here.”
“Oh puh-
leeez
. Who d’ya think you’re messin’ with anyway? I saw your inside lights go on when I mentioned the drug match, and you were freakin’ spellbound by the marking on the back of the porn pic. Tell me you haven’t seen it before and aren’t makin’ deductions right and left even as we speak. Makin’ me wonder what’s
your
interest in all this? What are you out to prove, and what’re
you
expectin’ to gain?”
Broken capillaries on Brownie’s nose deepen in color as he stresses his justifiable point. But no way in hell will Nate deliver a mission statement predicated on a two-and-a-half-year-old occurrence and an ongoing desire to find peace of mind.
“Are we good?” he says as though he were not in the crosshairs of the reporter’s reasonable right to know, and places a few bills on the table next to the coffee and bagel that just arrived.
“You gonna leave that?” Brownie indicates the coffee and bagel as though no other question had been asked.
“Knock yourself out.” Nate slides out of the booth and gets to his feet.
“Till next time.” Brownie releases a humorless laugh and burlesques a toast with a coffee cup raised on high. “And there will be one.”
The full relapse hits him somewhere in Jersey City, where he’s speeding along the Turnpike as though he could outrun these new reasons to believe anything is possible. He reverts to weaving threads of coincidence and similarity into whole cloth while traversing the Holland Tunnel. On a northbound avenue in Manhattan, Nate resurrects a few of the more farfetched theories resulting from his undercover sweep of L.A., and they don’t seem quite so implausible in light of the newly forged link between Lester and Kaplan. He approaches home, visualizing a graphic of the kind Amanda would utilize to illustrate a nexus—if one can be made to exist—and sees himself stepping onto firmer ground.
At home, he assembles a fresh pad of paper, a pair of pencils, a beer, and a cordless phone on the breakfast table. A little before five p.m. GMT, he dials Amanda’s work number and clicks off when the call goes to machine. Next he tries her number at the Grosvenor House. No luck there, either. Impetus weakens, enthusiasm wanes. As a last resort, he dials the number for her service without any expectations, great or small. He’s in neutral territory by the time Amanda returns his call a half hour later, then filled with chagrin when she reminds him it’s Sunday—Easter Sunday, a detail he’d overlooked altogether—and lets him know she’s at a social gathering.
She refuses his offer to postpone the update. “Oddly enough, we were just talking about you, so you’re really not interrupting anything.”
“Talking about me in what regard?” he says, taking for granted she’s with other members of David Sebastian’s London staff or David himself.
“I should let Laurel answer that. She’s the one who brought up the possibility of your—”
“Laurel? Where
are
you?”
“I’m at Colin’s estate in Kent, I’m at Terra Firma. Don’t you just love the name? Hold on, I’ll get Laurel.”
He’d rather hang up than be caught in unauthorized contact with Laurel Chandler on a line owned and eavesdroppable by Colin Elliot. Laurel may have similar concerns because she comes on the line sounding as tentative as he’s ever heard her. She states her qualms up front like a disclaimer. But it’s not Colin’s displeasure she’s afraid of incurring, it’s the potential for insult that’s worrying her when she asks if he would consider becoming her financial advisor.
“If you agree, I’ll eventually tell Colin I’ve enlisted your professional help, but not right away. Not while he’s preoccupied with getting the band back together and getting ready for the memorial concert and the tour.”
Nate’s immediate priority is learning where Colin is as they speak. Upon being assured that Colin is far out of earshot, off on one last Easter
egg
hunt with the children, he cautions Laurel to first of all, stop thinking that her request could be heard as an insult.
“If anything, I’m flattered that you’ve asked. Second of all, don’t wait too long to tell Colin. You know as well as I that he has zero tolerance for being shielded.”
“I do indeed. Point well taken. I’ll tell him as soon as seems reasonable. And I cannot thank you enough. Quite a load off my mind. We can be in touch by phone and fax for the preliminaries, then I’d like to meet in person when final decisions are ready to be made. Is the third week of the month too soon—when you’re here for the memorial concert?”
“I wasn’t planning to attend.”
“Well, now you have good reason to attend and you can write it off as a business trip.” She laughs, and in that laughter he hears a lightheartedness that never quite came to the surface when she was only official biographer.
“I’ll look into it. If the date doesn’t work out, I’ll try to clear something for soon after. Meanwhile, I can have your real property evaluated in case you decide to liquidate, and I’m sure I can arrange a private sale for your car unless it’s already spoken for.”
“No, no, no, you don’t have to do that. Now I feel as though I’ve asked you to take on the job of caretaker and that’s not at all what I had in mind. Is it any damn wonder I was afraid of seeming insulting?”
“Trust me, you’re not. It’s the least I can do for you—for having taken Colin off my hands.”
There’s a slightly worrisome pause—as though Laurel is unsure if he’s capable of lightheartedness—until she transmits more of the wonderfully infectious laughter that has him revved up again when Amanda comes back on the line.
“I’m alone now,” Amanda says, and they quickly slip into the easy intimacy that’s characterized the many calls exchanged since she left the States. With minimal preamble, he fills her in on what Brownie Yates had to say and she responds exactly as he hoped she would—with a premise he hadn’t yet considered
She offers her version of network theory, positing that if a link has been forged between Cliff Grant and Sid Kaplan via the porn connection, and another link created between Gibby Lester and Kaplan by way of the drug match, then a join between Lester and Grant can’t be more than a few steps away.
“But it’s hard to imagine you—we—are alone in thinking these homicides are related. Some cop somewhere has to be working that angle, and will have to go on working it until
somebody
steps forward with info that’ll tie it all together. Don’t you think?”
Can this be the slip of a girl who was having a crisis of confidence only five days ago? In the privacy of his kitchen, Nate cracks an indulgent smile and voices his agreement. He switches to another topic—one less apt to offer opportunities for innuendo—and initiates a run-through of her several accomplishments to date. That uses up a quarter-hour and most of the subject matter deemed acceptable between them.
“I miss you” is what he wants to say despite her never having occupied a large enough space in his life to make that believable. He’d like to say that he feels like a castaway on a desert island, despite having privately interfaced with at least a hundred different people during the last two days alone, and mingled anonymously with hundreds more anytime he was out in public. But that wouldn’t ring true, either. Not at this stage in the game. So he says an impersonal goodbye, makes a vague promise to talk again soon, and leaves it at that.
