Buildings really think so little of
Times
reporters that they thought they could feed us information and we wouldn’t question it?
Would
I have questioned it if not for Abe Starkman? The truth was, I didn’t know.
Someone had already brought Elliot his morning coffee so I had to wait twenty minutes for an audience. This time he asked me to shut the door before I could suggest it myself, indicating that he had been thinking about this and took it seriously. And also, possibly, that he was nervous about where it might lead.
“They called?”
“They called. And I made the follow-up call to Russet. It was exactly like my source said it would be. It was like they were reading from a script.”
Elliot leaned back and twirled a freshly sharpened pencil between thumb and forefinger. Then he laid it on his desk, picked up the phone and buzzed an in-house extension. Through the glass wall of his office I saw Courtney answer his call and react to his directive: “I’m teaming you on a story with Darcy. A
possible
story. She’ll fill you in on the details. This is confidential for now so zip it up.” As he said that, I watched Courtney pull an invisible zipper across her smile.
So that was that. I was on the story. With Courtney. It was unnecessary to question Elliot’s decision to pair us; Courtney had experience reporting on criminal cases and would be an excellent guide into that world. Her smile told me that she felt as I did: pleased that we’d be working together for the first time. And apparently she’d said nothing about her deadline, which only confirmed what I already knew about her: that she was a true and hungry reporter.
She filed her story at eleven thirty, half an hour before her deadline, and we went outside together to catch a cab to the Queens Property Office in Long Island City. The morning rain had stopped, leaving behind a humid and overcast afternoon, so we shed our raincoats and carried them with our drip-dried umbrellas under our arms.
On the Queensboro Bridge, high above the East River, Courtney told me a bit about where we were going. It was known as the Pearson Place warehouse and it was the New York Police Department’s most notoriously unreliable evidence storage facility. She told me it was better and more organized than in the past but even so I should “prepare myself” and I “wouldn’t believe it”. When I had told her what we were looking for and why (again, without mentioning Abe Starkman’s name), an expression of understanding dawned across her face.
“Pearson would be the perfect place to lose something you didn’t want anyone to find until you were ready to help them find it,” she said.
We drove off the bridge and along Jackson Avenue for a bit before turning onto Thompson and then Skillman, a long avenue banked on one side by a rail yard. After a few dilapidated blocks we turned onto Austell Place where our taxi pulled to a stop in front of a huge four-story warehouse. We paid and got out. Courtney had been here before, she knew the place and the people, so I held back and let her take the lead.
Which she did, in style. She had on tight jeans, cowboy boots and a tailored purple blouse through which you could see her black lace camisole. Her face was free of makeup but with the hair luminescent down her back and her long, confident stride she came on like a movie star. I followed her through the door into a low-ceilinged anteroom that smelled badly of mildew.
Courtney greeted the receptionist with familiarity, leaning her big white smile right up to the round hole cut into the foggy Plexiglas barrier. “Hey, Tanisha, how’s it going?”
“Hi, Courtney.” Tanisha looked up from a mound of papers she appeared to be collating very slowly.
“Anand here?”
Without answering, Tanisha buzzed an intercom and summoned Anand. While we waited, Courtney dug into her purse for a lipstick and applied some to her mouth: bubblegum pink. After a minute Anand appeared through
Times
reporters that they thought they could feed us information and we wouldn’t question it?
Would
I have questioned it if not for Abe Starkman? The truth was, I didn’t know.
Someone had already brought Elliot his morning coffee so I had to wait twenty minutes for an audience. This time he asked me to shut the door before I could suggest it myself, indicating that he had been thinking about this and took it seriously. And also, possibly, that he was nervous about where it might lead.
“They called?”
“They called. And I made the follow-up call to Russet. It was exactly like my source said it would be. It was like they were reading from a script.”
Elliot leaned back and twirled a freshly sharpened pencil between thumb and forefinger. Then he laid it on his desk, picked up the phone and buzzed an in-house extension. Through the glass wall of his office I saw Courtney answer his call and react to his directive: “I’m teaming you on a story with Darcy. A
possible
story. She’ll fill you in on the details. This is confidential for now so zip it up.” As he said that, I watched Courtney pull an invisible zipper across her smile.
So that was that. I was on the story. With Courtney. It was unnecessary to question Elliot’s decision to pair us; Courtney had experience reporting on criminal cases and would be an excellent guide into that world. Her smile told me that she felt as I did: pleased that we’d be working together for the first time. And apparently she’d said nothing about her deadline, which only confirmed what I already knew about her: that she was a true and hungry reporter.
She filed her story at eleven thirty, half an hour before her deadline, and we went outside together to catch a cab to the Queens Property Office in Long Island City. The morning rain had stopped, leaving behind a humid and overcast afternoon, so we shed our raincoats and carried them with our drip-dried umbrellas under our arms.
On the Queensboro Bridge, high above the East River, Courtney told me a bit about where we were going. It was known as the Pearson Place warehouse and it was the New York Police Department’s most notoriously unreliable evidence storage facility. She told me it was better and more organized than in the past but even so I should “prepare myself” and I “wouldn’t believe it”. When I had told her what we were looking for and why (again, without mentioning Abe Starkman’s name), an expression of understanding dawned across her face.
“Pearson would be the perfect place to lose something you didn’t want anyone to find until you were ready to help them find it,” she said.
We drove off the bridge and along Jackson Avenue for a bit before turning onto Thompson and then Skillman, a long avenue banked on one side by a rail yard. After a few dilapidated blocks we turned onto Austell Place where our taxi pulled to a stop in front of a huge four-story warehouse. We paid and got out. Courtney had been here before, she knew the place and the people, so I held back and let her take the lead.
Which she did, in style. She had on tight jeans, cowboy boots and a tailored purple blouse through which you could see her black lace camisole. Her face was free of makeup but with the hair luminescent down her back and her long, confident stride she came on like a movie star. I followed her through the door into a low-ceilinged anteroom that smelled badly of mildew.
Courtney greeted the receptionist with familiarity, leaning her big white smile right up to the round hole cut into the foggy Plexiglas barrier. “Hey, Tanisha, how’s it going?”
“Hi, Courtney.” Tanisha looked up from a mound of papers she appeared to be collating very slowly.
“Anand here?”
Without answering, Tanisha buzzed an intercom and summoned Anand. While we waited, Courtney dug into her purse for a lipstick and applied some to her mouth: bubblegum pink. After a minute Anand appeared through
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