Desperate Measures

20

About the only thing in his favor, Pittman decided, was that it was Saturday. The man he needed to contact would more likely be at home than at work. The trouble was that when Pittman looked in a Manhattan telephone directory, he didn’t find any listing for the name of the man he was looking for: Brian Botulfson. He called information and asked an operator to see if Brian Botulfson was listed in any of the other boroughs.

In Brooklyn. The operator wouldn’t give Pittman the address, though, forcing him to walk to the New York Public Library, where he looked in the directory for Brooklyn and found the address he wanted. He could have phoned Brian, but one of the things he’d learned early as a reporter was that while phone contact had the merit of efficiency, it couldn’t compare to an in-person interview. The subject could get rid of you on the phone merely by hanging up, but a face-to-face meeting was often so intimidating that a subject would agree to talk.

Pittman had met Brian only a couple of times, mostly in connection with Brian’s arrest for using his computer to access top secret Defense Department files. The last occasion had been seven years ago when Brian had done Pittman a favor, obtaining Jonathan Millgate’s unlisted telephone numbers. Now Pittman needed another favor, but there was a chance that Brian either wouldn’t remember their previous conversations or wouldn’t care-at least on the phone. The contact had to be one-on-one.

Pittman dumped his grungy coat in a waste can. After using some of Reverend Watley’s five dollars to buy orange juice and a Danish from a sidewalk vendor, he boarded a subway train for Brooklyn, took his electric razor from his gym bag, made himself look as presentable as he could, stared out the window, and brooded.