Faces of the Gone

CHAPTER 9

She came to me in the middle of the night, waking me without a sound. At first, I couldn’t even be sure what was happening. I was on Tina’s couch, but it was almost as if the couch were somewhere else. The living room of my boyhood home in Millburn? The mess hall at the summer camp I went to as a kid? I was still groggy, confused.

But it was definitely Tina’s couch. It had to be, because it was Tina on top of me. She had changed into the black cocktail dress, the one with the keyhole neckline she wore the other night. I could feel her entire body pressing against mine with an urgency that didn’t seem real.

I tried to get my bearings but there was no time. Tina was demanding every last ounce of my attention. Her eyes were huge and sparkling. It was like nothing else existed but her face, her hips, her hair, her breasts. It was all perfect, all mine to explore, admire, and enjoy.

How had it happened? There had been no seduction that I remembered, no soft music, low lighting, or sloppy drinking. But I guess I knew it was never going to happen the conventional way with Tina. It was going to be her show, done in her way, fitting her schedule.

So, yes, it was happening in the small hours of morning, with her more or less attacking me while I slept. I had no memory of waking up nor of any conversation. Tina never gave me the chance to deny her. Not that I would have. I was just the innocent bystander in her not-so-innocent scheme, allowing her to dictate the action. I almost felt detached from it, watching it all happen from somewhere high above.

But then suddenly I was back in my body and it was time to take control. My mouth began exploring the soft spot where her neck and shoulders met. My hand caressed the curve from her hip to her breast. The keyhole dress slipped away and we were soon one.

It was incredible, the kind of incredible you almost never got the first time with a new partner. There was no awkwardness, no fumbling, no slowing down to make sure everyone was okay. It was just two bodies fitting perfectly into each other and nothing to interfere with the pleasure.

And then I went to finish and. . couldn’t. I kept at it, thinking I would feel the release any second. But it didn’t happen. I increased my pace, then slowed it, then increased it again. Still nothing. And then I started smelling. . bacon? And pancakes?

And then I woke up.

It was Saturday morning. Tina was nowhere near me and apparently never had been.

I tried to sit up but then immediately lay back down. I needed time to get my bearings and give the throbbing in my pants time to subside. I tried to recap how my Friday night ended: after deciding there was nothing more to be learned at Ludlow Street, I returned to the office and picked up a key from Tina, then went back to her place and fell asleep so quickly I’m not sure I was even aware of closing my eyes. The next thing I knew, it was morning.

So why did I feel so crappy? Let’s see: I’d slept in the clothes I had been wearing for two days; I could carry everything I currently owned in my back pocket; my last three meals had consisted of a bagel, Pop-Tarts, and two slices of pizza; and my sources kept getting bombed, burned, and killed.

Yeah, that would do it. I looked at the clock on Tina’s cable box. It was 9:18. I might have gone right back to sleep except for what had woken me up in the first place-a smell that had wafted in from the kitchen and worked its way up my nose, making my olfactory system convince the rest of me life was worthwhile after all.

Pancakes.

And bacon.

I suddenly found the strength to stand and wobble into the kitchen, where Tina was building a stack of pancakes that could have sated three hungry truckers.

“I think I’m in love with you,” I said.

“Since you’re the first man to say that to me this morning, I’ll let you eat some of this with me.”

Tina had her hair up in a ponytail. She was wearing jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and not a hint of makeup. And she looked absolutely slammin’. (“Slammin’ ” is a word I heard from one of the kids answering the phones at work-apparently it’s a good thing.) Most women could summon the right mix of hair spray, makeup, and clingy clothing to look good in a club on a Friday night. It was the true beauty who looked just as good over pancakes the next morning. Tina was one of those.

“Thanks for putting that extra blanket on me last night,” I said.

“No problem. You were drooling a little bit. It was pretty cute.”

She had that morning’s paper sitting on the island in the middle of the kitchen. We had splashed the ongoing Ludlow Street story all over A1, and the layout people had done a nice job tiling together three photos: the Stop-In Go-Go dancers (all appropriately clad, of course) outside their scorched home; the remains of Booker T Building Five, shot from the top of one of the other buildings so you had a cool bird’s-eye feel; and the sheet-draped body of Rashan Reeves with his sneakers sticking out.

Underneath were two articles: the nonbylined story of all the blitzed buildings that Tommy and Hays had done; and the late-breaking account of Rashan’s murder, with my byline on it.

I was proud of the whole thing. Sometimes we pussed out and pulled our punches on stories like this. It was part of the endless battle that rages in newsrooms across the country, pitting those who worried we would offend readers if our words and images were too graphic against those who felt we were obligated to show the world as it really existed. I was naturally part of the latter camp: a newspaper existed to tell the news, not sugarcoat it.

Our camp was often outvoted. But not this time.

“This looks great,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“Your doing?”

“Once the murder happened, I took the night editor’s prerogative to rip up the front page and start from scratch,” Tina said. “I’m sure I’ll take some flack for it on Monday, but I think it looks great, too.”

“Thanks for using my byline.”

“Peterson told me what you said. I wasn’t going to do it, but Peterson fought for you. He pointed out it wasn’t going to do more harm-this creep knows who you are already. And it might even do some good, if people in the community realize you’re the guy on this story and they call you with more information.”

I nodded and waited for more, but she was done. I debated telling Tina about the dream I just had, mostly because it was so vivid I couldn’t get it out of my mind. But, really, how do you start that conversation? So, Tina, I had this dream where you raped me last night. .

Nope. Not happening. Instead we dove into her stack of pancakes together, dividing the paper then switching sections when we were done with them.

After a leisurely half hour, she got up from her side of the table and came around behind me, placing a pair of warm hands on my shoulders. She began massaging, and I allowed myself to go limp.

“This is amazing,” I murmured as she spent a few minutes working on several days’ worth of adhesions.

Then she leaned over and, with her lips inches from my earlobe, said, “So what do you say we stay in and lay on the couch together watching movies until we get hungry enough to go out for an absurdly large steak? My treat.”

“Ordinarily, that would sound heavenly,” I began.

“But. .” she interjected, sighing and standing up, releasing my shoulders from her grasp.

“But I’ve got a story to follow.”

Tina excused herself by saying she had an errand to run, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek on her way out. I dawdled over the paper for a little while longer, did the dishes-I’m a supporter of federal You Cook I Clean legislation-then hit the shower.

I stayed in there a long time, letting the hot water erode some of my exhaustion. My thoughts started coming in disconnected bits, like ticker tape floating down from a skyscraper.

I should have someone keeping an eye on Irving Wallace, someone dependable like Tommy. It was possible his movements would give him away as being more than just a government scientist.

I should head into Rashan Reeves’s old hood to see if I could find some of his buddies. Perhaps they would know something useful.

I should work on Hector Alvarez a little more, find some way to get more leverage on him.

I should visit Brenda Bass in the hospital. I didn’t know if she would receive me-or if she was even in a condition to receive me-but it seemed like a decent thing to do.

I should pitch some kind of write-through on the whole week-long Ludlow Street saga to the Sunday editor, who would undoubtedly be looking for one.

I should work with Hays to get as complete a background on Irving Wallace as I could.

I should do something to expand my wardrobe, which at the moment consisted of one pair of soiled tan slacks and one extremely wrinkled blue button-down shirt.

I should eat more vegetables.

I should start exercising more.

Finally, I turned the water off. That was enough thoughts, especially when I didn’t know if I’d get the time to do any of them. For all I knew, Irving Wallace had found my Malibu and I was one turn of the key away from being the subject of one of Peterson’s obits.

I stepped out of the shower and had just gotten a towel wrapped around my middle when Tina nudged her way through the door.

“Knock, knock,” she said after it was already open.

“Nothing to see here,” I said.

“Too bad,” she said. Then she lifted up a Banana Republic bag. “I hope I got the sizes right,” she said.

She pulled out a new shirt, slacks, socks, and boxers.

“I take back what I said before,” I said. “I don’t think I’m in love with you. I am in love with you.”

“Oh, you have no idea how true that is,” Tina said, waving a plastic bag. She pulled out a brush, a razor, deodorant, shaving cream-all the things a boy like me needed to feel fresh scrubbed again.

“You’re the best, Tina. Really. I don’t know what else to say.”

She just stood there, smiling sweetly at me, looking so damn hot. The dream was still fresh in my mind-as was the backrub and the sweet whispering-and I just couldn’t help myself. I gently removed the bags from her hands and pulled her close for the kind of deep, wet kiss that was by now about three days overdue.

But somehow she dodged it, turning my big move into a hug. And it wasn’t a full-body, this-is-about-to-turn-into-something-good hug. It was strictly shoulders and arms, the kind you’d expect to receive from your girlfriend’s best friend.

“A simple ‘thanks’ will do,” she said, giving my towel-covered butt a playful smack as she pulled away.

“Well, thanks,” I said sheepishly.

“Get dressed. You’ve got work to do.”

She left me to shave and inspect my new clothes, an open-collared shirt with enough Lycra in it to give it a little bit of a stretchy feel and pinstriped pants that were, naturally, flat-front.

“How come everyone is always pushing me toward flat-front pants?” I hollered. “What’s wrong with pleats?”

“You’re right,” Tina called back from the living room. “There’s nothing wrong with pleats-if you’re seventy-two years old and need a little give so your pants won’t rip during a particularly strenuous game of shuffleboard.”

I harrumphed and finished dressing. When I emerged from the bathroom, Tina was seated at the kitchen table, her head in a crossword puzzle. She looked up and gave me a wolf whistle.

“Looking good there, Mr. Ross.”

I gave her a model’s half turn. “Yeah, GQ just won’t stop calling.”

“So what’s your plan now that you’re all spiffy?”

I went back to my various shower-stall brainstorms and tried to prioritize. Eating vegetables and exercising came in last. Putting Tommy on Irving Wallace watch and visiting Brenda Bass came first.

“Does Tommy Hernandez work on Saturdays?” I asked.

“Tommy is an intern. He works when I tell him to.”

“Perfect. I was thinking it would be really nice to have a set of eyes on Irving Wallace. Think Tommy is up for a little game of Spy versus Spy?”

“Would you like to make the call or should I?”

“I’ll do it,” I said, pulling out my cell phone and selecting Tommy’s number. It rang five times before a very sleepy-sounding young man picked up.

“Hello?” he said. It wasn’t Tommy. The voice was too deep.

“Hi. Can you put Tommy on?”

The young man was instantly on guard. “And who’s this?” he said, the jealousy oozing through the phone.

“Relax. It’s his boss.”

“Oh,” he said, then I heard him say, “Honey, it’s your boss.”

Tommy picked up. “You’re not my boss.”

“Yeah, but I’m with your boss right now, so it’s really the same thing.”

“Does that mean you spent the night?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean you finally did it?”

“None of your business.”

“That’s a ‘no,’ ” Tommy said, clearly disappointed. “How am I ever supposed to become Uncle Tommy to Tina’s baby if you don’t make the honorable move and shag her dirty?”

“No comment,” I said. “And now I’m changing the subject. I need you to do something for me today.”

“Oh, come on,” he whined. “I have plans.”

“Not anymore.”

“But it’s Saaaaturday,” he persisted.

“Yes, and tomorrow is Sunday and the next day is Monday.”

“Is he giving you a tough time?” Tina asked me.

“Of course,” I said.

“Give me the phone,” she said. “Let me show you how an enlightened manager deals with her people.”

I tossed Tina the phone.

“Tommy, stop being a bitch,” she said, waiting briefly for Tommy’s response.

“I don’t care, stop being a bitch,” she said. “And whatever you’re about to say next, I don’t care about that, either. So stop being a bitch. We’re done. Get to work.”

Tina held the phone out for me. “Problem solved,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, that was really inspired leadership there,” I said, walking over and taking it from her. “You learn that from reading a book or did you get it from the sensitivity seminars they make you attend?”

“Hey, it worked,” she said. “You’ve got your spy, don’t you?”

I filled Tommy in on the latest details and how I had come to believe Irving Wallace was the Director. Tommy listened well. As I wound down the conversation, I reminded him to stop in the office and pick up a copy of the police sketch Red had provided, then gave him one last warning.

“Remember to stay hidden,” I said. “I don’t want this guy to make you, because then Tina and I will have to explain to your father why there are all these homosexuals at his son’s funeral.”

Ileft Tina’s apartment with a sisterly kiss on the cheek to speed me on my way. It was like being in middle school all over again, except I no longer felt it was appropriate to drape my arm around her shoulder in a lame attempt to cop a feel.

Still, between breakfast, the shower, and my new clothes, I felt like I had been reinvented. On the way to my car, I stopped at a flower shop and picked out an arrangement in a simple glass vase. The card I selected had a blank space for my own individual message. I wrote in neat script, “My sincerest apologies. Carter Ross.”

Upon arriving at University Hospital, a sprawling, ever-expanding complex of buildings in the middle of Newark, I wandered around for twenty minutes before finding the burn unit. I asked at the nurse’s station for Brenda Bass, and was pointed to a room just down the hall. I’m sure if they’d known I was with the newspaper, they would have thrown a fit. But I wasn’t really there as a reporter. I was just another guy clutching flowers, looking for a sick person I cared about.

I walked softly into the room. Miss B was lying still with her eyes closed. The lower half of her face was covered in a mask connected to an oxygen tank. She was breathing on her own, though I thought I heard some raggedness with each inhalation. A bag of fluids hung to her left, slowly dripping into her through an IV in her arm. Other than that, she appeared quite peaceful. I didn’t see any burns, any gauze, any sign of trauma.

Tynesha, who had been asleep in a chair pulled next to the bed, stirred as I entered. I wasn’t sure what to expect from her, given the way she had received me outside the Stop-In Go-Go.

But it seemed her bedside vigil had taken some of the spite out of her. Or at least she didn’t immediately move to claw out my eyeballs.

“Hi,” I said cautiously.

“Hi,” she said. There was no anger in her voice, just fatigue.

“I came to drop these off,” I said, and placed the vase down on the ledge next to the window. The card dangled down and Tynesha grasped it, turning it over.

“You’re apologizing?” she said.

“I owe her at least that much,” I said. “I owe it to you, too. I. . Look, I had no idea this was going to happen. To say I feel awful about it wouldn’t even be a start. I wish I could go back to Monday and have myself hit by a bus. I just. .”

I let my voice trail off. She turned toward the window and gazed out, maybe so she wouldn’t have to look at me. She was wearing what appeared to be borrowed clothes-sweatpants with a nonmatching sweatshirt. Her hair was matted and I guessed she had spent the night in that chair. Her eyes, which were brown without the aid of the amber contact lenses, had dark smudges underneath them.

“I shouldn’t have been so rough on you yesterday,” she said.

“I had it coming. Believe me, I did.”

“Yeah, you did,” she said, smiling slightly for the first time, and we left it at that. Miss B made a ragged, gasping noise, then quieted.

“How’s she doing?” I asked.

“Not good. The doctors say her lungs are, like, melting or something. Maybe it starts getting better or maybe it don’t. They say there ain’t much they can do.”

“Is she going to make it?”

“They don’t know. They say she’s holding on for now but they don’t know how bad it’ll get. They said sometimes it looks like someone ain’t going to make it and they do, but sometimes someone who looks like they’re going to make it don’t.”

Tynesha shook her head and continued. “I don’t think these doctors know what the hell they’re talking about. Half the time they talk to me like I’m stupid. The other half the time I feel stupid ’cause I don’t know what they’re saying.”

“Are they giving her any drugs or anything?” I asked.

“Just painkillers.”

“Has she been awake?”

“Not since I been here.”

“It’s probably better that way,” I said.

We watched Miss B breathe for a minute or so. I had written about enough fires to know what was going on inside her. All the delicate mechanisms that normally kept the lungs clear of junk were failing and the congestion was building up. If it stabilized in time, she’d pull through. If not, she would drown in her own fluids.

“Wanda’s funeral was supposed to be today,” Tynesha said, breaking our silence. “We told ’em to hold off for a few days. The family decided Miss B wouldn’t want to miss her daughter’s funeral.”

Or maybe, I thought grimly, the family was thinking the funeral might have to become a double feature.

“So you’ve been here all night?” I said. Tynesha nodded.

“I hope you don’t take it the wrong way when I say you look like you could use some breakfast and a change of clothes,” I said.

“Ain’t got no clothes to change into. They all burnt up.”

“Yeah, mine, too,” I said. “But I had a guardian angel buy me a new outfit this morning. How about I do the same for you?”

Tynesha looked at Miss B, frowning.

“I don’t think I should leave her,” she said.

“Tynesha,” I said, “I really don’t think she’s going anywhere.”

That bit of logic was enough to convince Tynesha to join me for breakfast-or perhaps it was the combination of logic and hunger.

We went to an IHOP across the street, continuing the global theme to our dates, and were soon seated in a corner booth with formidable stacks of pancakes in front of us. This was, technically, my second breakfast of the day. But I found room.

“The cops get any further with Wanda?” Tynesha asked as she forked a bite of omelet into her mouth.

“Well, technically, it’s not the cops’ case anymore,” I said. “They handed it over to a federal agency called the National Drug Bureau, which claimed jurisdiction over it.”

“So have the National Drug Bureau cops figured it out?”

I thought about L. Pete and the toe fungus I hoped he was developing.

“Probably not,” I said. “They think it has something to do with this guy, Jose de Jesus Encarceron. Ever heard of him?”

Tynesha shook her head.

“Well, neither had I,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure the NDB is just grasping at straws. They don’t know the real answer so they pretend they know.”

“Just like those doctors in there,” Tynesha said, and I chuckled.

“Sometimes doctors are too smart for their own good,” I said. “They get so used to being smart, they have a hard time admitting that they don’t have the answers.”

It was a cautionary tale for any profession, especially mine. The reporter who assumes he has all the answers is usually a reporter who finds his stories being mentioned in the correction column with considerable frequency. It’s an easy trap to fall into when your job is to find the truth. The trick is never assuming your information is absolute or infallible. You have to stay flexible enough to still be able to recognize when your premise is all wrong. You also have to remember to keep going back to your sources with new knowledge and seeing what else they know.

With that in mind, I stopped chewing for a second and asked, “Did Wanda ever mention the name Irving Wallace?”

“Naw. That’s a pretty unusual name. I think I would have remembered it. Who’s he?”

“He’s a chemist for the federal government.”

Tynesha thought for a moment.

“Well, I don’t know if this guy was a chemist or nothing,” Tynesha said. “But I remember this one time a couple months ago Wanda brought me this guy who I thought was another client of hers. But then she said, no, he wasn’t a client, he was like her boss or something.”

“Her boss?” I said, sitting up in my seat a little and feeling a hankering for a notepad, like I should be writing this down. “How come you never mentioned this before?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t think about it until you mentioned a government guy. Don’t get all uptight.”

“Sorry, sorry. Anyway, go on. You thought he was Wanda’s boss. .”

“Yeah. I guess he was some kind of grand poobah or something. They wasn’t even supposed to be looking at each other, but he broke the rules with Wanda. I guess he got sweet on Wanda-a lot of guys got sweet on Wanda, you know? But she wouldn’t turn no tricks. So she sent him to me so he could get his rocks off. But she said because he was like her boss, she asked if I could, you know, do him for free. As, like, a favor.”

“So you, uh. .”

“Yeah, I sucked him off.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know,” Tynesha said. “It’s not like I spent a lot of time looking at his face, you know?”

“Was he a big guy?”

“Naw, he was a little guy.” She paused, then snickered. “And I mean little in every way.”

I realized my shoulders had gotten tensed up and I relaxed them. Certainly, if Tynesha had given Irving Wallace a hummer, it would have been stop-the-presses time. I’m not sure how I would have attributed it in an article-“according to a hooker who gave Wallace a blow job” just wasn’t going to fly in our family newspaper-but it would have been a pleasant enough problem to worry about as I was plotting how to plaster Irving Wallace’s name and picture all over the Sunday paper.

Alas, Tynesha describing her John as a “little guy” meant he couldn’t have been the six-foot-five, three-hundred-pound van-driving menace I now surmised was Irving Wallace. But maybe he was an associate of Wallace’s.

“So what made you think this guy worked for the government?”

“Well, he wore a suit. And he had one of them badges on his belt,” Tynesha said. “He just looked like one of them guys that plays the government agent in the TV shows, like he was CIA or FBI. Well, not CIA, because they always have glasses and look all cool. So maybe he was FBI or something.”

“You get his name by any chance?”

“Oh, yeah. I get all my customers’ names. I get their names, their home addresses, their wives’ and kids’ names, and then we exchange Christmas cards.”

“Okay, dumb question,” I said.

“The only thing I remember about him is that when he was done he gave me all the usual, ‘Oh, baby, that was great. . Oh, baby, you’re the best.’ And then he didn’t give me a tip or nothing. You know what he did?”

I spread my hands in an I-got-no-clue gesture.

“He told me maybe if I sucked him off again sometime he would take me to a game at Giants Stadium,” Tynesha continued. “I didn’t say nothing, because he was Wanda’s boss. But I was thinking, ‘A game? Are you for real?!?’ Sometimes, guys are just too stupid for words.”

Tynesha refused my offer of a quick trip to the Jersey Gardens Mall for a clothing run, saying she felt like she didn’t want to spend that much time away from Miss B. We parted with promises to keep in touch and I went back to the office to regroup.

The Saturday newsroom is a relatively relaxed place, consisting mostly of interns who are still groggy from the night before. Feeling a little woozy myself, I settled into my desk. Out of habit, I glanced at my office phone’s voice mail light. It was off, but the caller ID was showing eleven missed calls. They were all from the same number, a 908 area code. Someone, who was apparently desperate to talk to me, didn’t believe in leaving messages.

I was about to begin figuring out who my persistent caller was when my phone rang: the 908 number flashed on my caller ID for a twelfth time.

“Carter Ross,” I said.

“Irving Wallace,” came the reply.

I could feel my pulse surge and I instinctively drew in my breath. I didn’t want to talk to Irving Wallace. Not right now. It’s not that I avoid confrontation-hell, I’m a reporter, I thrive on confrontation-it’s that I wasn’t ready for this one yet. I liked to have my gun fully loaded before I went into a showdown with someone like Irving Wallace, and I felt like I had barely gotten the first bullet in the chamber.

“Why, hello, Irving. How are you this fine day?” I said through gritted teeth. I had a loathing for this man like I had never felt for another human being, but I had to try not to let my voice betray it.

“Fine, thanks,” he said. “Just running around doing errands with the family, you know, the usual Saturday routine.”

The breeziness in his tone was chilling. But wasn’t that the essence of antisocial personality disorder? He could commit multiple murders and go on with his life as if nothing were happening. Because that’s what killing people felt like to him: nothing.

“Right,” I said. “Errands.”

“We’re off the record, yes?”

“Oh, off the record, sure,” I said, shaking my head at the nerve this guy had.

“Okay, off the record, I’ve been figuring out some things with regard to that heroin you gave me that I think you’d find interesting-very interesting,” he said. “Ordinarily I might handle it through my own channels, but I really don’t know who I can trust at this point. So I think if it just spills out in the newspaper, that’ll be best.”

“If what spills out?” I said.

The line went silent for a few moments. I tried to keep my breathing steady.

“It’s not something we can discuss over the phone,” he said, finally. “There are some things you’ll have to see with your own eyes. We really need to talk about it in person.”

Sure we did. It’d just be a cozy chat between Irving, me, and his.40-caliber handgun.

“When can we meet?” I asked, because I wanted to appear to be playing along.

“I’d like to do it right now, but I just can’t-a ten-and-under girls’ basketball team needs its coach,” he said. “But let’s do it tomorrow morning. Do you work on Sundays?”

Amazing, the calendar Irving Wallace kept. Let’s see: shopping with the wife and kids on Saturday morning, check; coaching the girls’ basketball team on Saturday afternoon, check; killing the pesky newspaper reporter on Sunday morning, check.

Still, the Summit Squirt Girls’ Basketball League schedule was a break for me. It gave me time-time to do more reporting without looking over my shoulder, time to figure out a plan.

“We’re a daily newspaper,” I said. “I work whenever I have to.”

“Great,” he said. “I can’t have you coming by my office-even on a weekend, someone might see you. So why don’t you come to my house for brunch tomorrow? It’s a Wallace family tradition. We do waffles, eggs, toast, the whole thing. Then after brunch we can go to my study and I’ll lay everything out for you.”

He’d lay me out, is more like it. I would go to the Wallace household to find the wife and kids were gone. He’d offer some flimsy excuse then need to show me something-in the basement, probably, where he could kill me and clean up the mess easily. Then he’d eat his waffles and toast. Then he’d load my body in the white van parked in his garage, find some way to dispose of my corpse and my car, and no one would ever be the wiser. He even thought he had the ideal cover: everyone in our circulation area knew someone was trying to kill me. So when I turned up missing, he could just say I was still alive when I left his house and I must have been grabbed on the way back to the office. The smug bastard figured no one would suspect the gentle government scientist.

It was the perfect trap, except for one thing-it’s not a trap when you know what’s coming.

“Brunch it is,” I said. “Can I bring anything?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“For brunch,” I reminded him. “Can I make something? Bring some juice? Just trying to be a good guest.”

How about that: I was keeping up his pretense better than he was.

“Oh, right,” he said. “No, just a pen and a notepad. I’ll take care of everything else.”

The shopping. The cooking. The killing.

He gave me his address and directions, not that I needed either. He was so easy about the whole thing, almost charming. But isn’t that what people always said about Ted Bundy?

“We go to the early church service, so we’ll be home by ten-thirty,” Wallace said. “Why don’t you plan on being there around eleven?”

“Sounds fine. See you then,” I said, hanging up.

The clock on my computer read 2:14. I had less than twenty-one hours to go.

Ilooked around the newsroom with eyes that could barely focus. There were a dozen emotions and a hundred thoughts bouncing around inside me, each clamoring for my attention. There was rage and relief and nervousness. There were schemes and gambits and ploys. I couldn’t untangle one thing from the other.

It was time to compartmentalize. If I didn’t start dealing with things one at a time, I wasn’t going to be able to accomplish anything. First order of business: I had a story to write. Irving Wallace had to wake up and find something in his Sunday paper, or he’d get suspicious. Plus, I’d promised the Sunday editor.

A story. No problem. I had written thousands of stories, I told myself. Just treat this one like all the rest. Quotes. I needed quotes. I started with the Newark police, calling their Public Noninformation Officer, Hakeem Rogers.

“What the hell do you want?” Rogers answered.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant Rogers,” I said, trying to ooze as much falseness as my voice could muster. “Carter Ross from the Eagle-Examiner here.”

“Why are you calling me? You seem to know everything already.”

“Why, whatever are you talking about, Officer?” I asked sweetly.

“Stop being a dick. You printed a victim ID before we located the family.”

I dropped the courteous act: “Hey, it’s not our fault you guys suck at finding next of kin.”

I heard Rogers huffing through the phone. “Is there any reason you’re calling or can I hang up on you?” he asked.

“Anything new on the Rashan Reeves investigation?”

“That investigation has been turned over to the National Drug Bureau. Since it’s no longer our investigation, I have no comment.”

“Okay. Anything new on the explosions or fires?”

“National Drug Bureau. No comment,” he said again.

“Fair enough. You ever give them that sketch my friend was nice enough to provide you last night?”

“Yeah, we gave it to them,” Rogers said. “I think they’re lining their trash cans with it as we speak.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when we told them the ID was offered by a drunk, homeless guy, they said it was useless.”

“It’s got to be worth something,” I said.

“Yeah, well, that’s their business now. Anyway, since we no longer have any investigations that are of interest to you, can I get on with enjoying a Saturday afternoon surrounded by people who love me?”

“Assuming you can find any? Sure,” I said, happy to get one final shot in.

I leaned back in my chair, feeling a twinge of desperation. Sure, I could give the Sunday editor a nicely written rehash of what we had already reported-we had tossed enough out there that needed tying together. But journalistically, that was unsatisfying. Unless you had at least some new information to offer readers, you may as well have been a third-grader writing a book report.

It was just frustrating: the National Drug Bureau seemed to have been given jurisdiction over everything that mattered in Newark, and the NDB had been little more than a big stone wall of disinformation and nonanswers from the start. I was beginning to hope the toe fungus I had wished on L. Pete earlier was now spreading to his jock.

Just then, I got a call on my cell phone from a blocked number.

“Carter Ross.”

“Carter, Pete Sampson from the National Drug Bureau.”

“Hey, Pete. I was just thinking about you.”

“That’s great, just great,” he said. “Your story today was really well done.”

“Thanks. I understand you guys have taken over that investigation.”

“Yes. Yes, we have,” L. Pete said cautiously, then paused like he didn’t dare to say anything else, lest it get him fired.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I prompted.

“Remember that exclusive interview I promised you?”

“Of course.”

“Could you be at our offices in ten minutes? My boss wants to do it right now. With everything happening, he says time is of the essence.”

An interview with L. Pete’s boss. Maybe the big stone wall was about to come tumbling down.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll see you in ten.”

Before we hung up, L. Pete gave me instructions to park in a secure lot under the building-there would be plenty of room on a Saturday, and it would save me having to find a spot on the street.

“Thanks for agreeing to come so quickly,” L. Pete said. “When this is all over, we’ll have to go to a Jets game. I’ve got season tickets. We’ll have a few beers, swap war stories.”

“Sure,” I said. “See you in a bit.”

I hastily collected my notepad and threw on my jacket. Then, as an afterthought, I stuffed my digital recorder in my pocket, just in case L. Pete had a boss whose mouth moved faster than my pen.

As I drove toward the NDB’s Newark Field Office, I was actually feeling optimistic for the first time since my house blew up. Maybe it was how L. Pete prefaced that one sentence-when this is all over. .-but I was allowing myself to daydream about getting Irving Wallace locked up then putting my life back in order. I would use the insurance money to build a new bungalow-a better bungalow, one with a home theater instead of a living room. I would buy new electronics equipment, new clothes, new kitchen appliances. I would buy furniture with salsa-resistant fabric.

I was somewhere in the midst of thinking about the golf clubs I would buy-Callaway irons and TaylorMade woods? Or just go all Titleist? — when Tommy called me.

“Hey,” he said in a hushed voice. “The guy finally came home. . in a van.”

“What kind of van?” I asked in a whisper, even though I suppose I could have talked at normal volume.

“I don’t know. I guess you would call it a minivan,” Tommy said. “I couldn’t give you make and model. But it’s one of the big, boxy ones.”

I realized I never got much description from Mrs. Scalabrine about exactly what kind of van Irving Wallace had been driving. That was a detail I’d have to sort out later.

“What color is it? White?”

“More of a tan, actually,” Tommy said.

Which was close enough to white. Mrs. Scalabrine saw the van in the early morning. The rising sun can play tricks with colors, what with all that refracted light.

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“Well, he parked,” Tommy narrated. “A blond woman-looks like bottle blond-popped out of the passenger side. Then three kids got out of the back. They’re unloading groceries.”

Well, at least Irving Wallace hadn’t lied about one thing: he really was shopping with the family. I wondered if his wife knew she slept next to a murderer every night.

“How tall is he?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s tall. I mean, it’s hard to tell for sure, but I’d put him in the six-four, six-five range for sure.”

“Does he look like the sketch?” I demanded.

Tommy hemmed for five seconds, then hawed for five more.

“Don’t force it,” I cautioned. “The sketch could be a bit off. I’m sure Red would be able to pick the guy out of a lineup.”

“It’s. . it’s just hard to tell,” Tommy said. “He’s got a hat on, so I can’t see him that well. It’s not easy going from a sketch to a real face, you know?”

“Okay, okay. That’s okay,” I said quickly, to reassure myself as much as anything. “No problem. Where are you watching him from?”

“Two houses down on the opposite side of the street.”

“Good,” I said. “By the way, Irving Wallace just called me in the office not long ago. He invited me to brunch tomorrow at his house-said he had an important story to give me.”

“That’s scary,” Tommy said. “Are you going to go?”

“Oh, hell, no. Not when the quote he wants to give me goes, ‘Bam, bam, you’re dead,’ ” I said. “What I’m trying to figure out now is-”

“Oh, shoot,” Tommy interrupted. “He’s looking right at me. I gotta go.”

Tommy hung up and I felt a little panic setting in. But, no, he would be fine. If he saw Wallace coming, he’d be able to get away in plenty of time.

There was the small problem that if Wallace spotted Tommy, he’d know someone was on to him-even if he didn’t know it was us. It would make him more cautious.

Then again, this would all be a moot point in about fifteen minutes, when my new friends at the National Drug Bureau told me they were poised to arrest Wallace and execute a search warrant on his residence and office. I was about to get caught up in that daydream again when I reached the NDB’s Newark Field Office. Following L. Pete’s instruction, I pulled under the building. A guard stopped me for a moment, then waved me through after I identified myself.

The parking area was empty save for a smattering of dark, government-issue sedans. Apparently, anyone working on a Saturday was important enough to be furnished wheels courtesy of my tax dollars.

I took the elevator up to the lobby, where a couple of marshals-the same square-jawed types as before-were waiting for me. With a series of nods and polite gestures, they gave me the metal-detecting/wanding/patting routine. They took an extra moment or two over my recording device and let it slide only after I demonstrated it for them. But they paused over, of all things, my cell phone.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you for your phone,” one of the square-jaws said.

“Why, you need to make a call?”

“No, sir. Elevated threat level today. Cell phones can be used as detonators.”

“Okay,” I said, waving it around, “but no dialing any of those nine-hundred numbers you fellas like so much. I know they say there are young boys waiting to turn you on, but those are really middle-aged women doing those voices.”

“Sir?” he said, holding out his hand, unamused.

“Fine,” I said, handing it to him. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Just a moment, sir,” he said, then picked up the phone on the wall.

My wait was much briefer than it had been the last time-the key difference being that they were marginally happy to see me. L. Pete himself came down to the lobby to retrieve me.

“Hi,” he said, extending his hand and smiling with far too much enthusiasm. “Thanks for being prompt.”

We shook hands and he gripped as hard as he could. Why do some short guys always try to prove they possess superior forearm strength? Did they want us to know that, despite their lack of stature, they could still open stubborn mayonnaise jars?

“Nothing makes a journalist move faster than the promise of an easy scoop,” I said.

“Right, right,” he said, waving me onto the elevator. He slid his card through the slot on the control panel, then pushed the button for the fifteenth floor. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be glad you came.”

As the elevator launched us skyward, I took the opportunity to turn on the recorder in my pocket. I suppose it wasn’t the most polite thing to be recording a conversation without the other party’s knowledge. But in New Jersey it wasn’t illegal. And what L. Pete’s boss didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

When we disembarked, I was ushered past a succession of closed office doors until we reached the one in the corner, whose name plate announced it belonged to Field Director Randall N. Meyers. L. Pete knocked softly.

“Yes?” a powerful voice inquired from behind the door.

“It’s me, sir,” L. Pete said.

The powerful voice replied, “Come in, Monty.”

“Who’s Monty?” I asked as L. Pete opened the door.

“Oh, that’s me,” L. Pete said. “I’ve gone by ‘Pete’ since grade school. But when Randy found out my first name was Lamont, he started calling me ‘Monty.’ ”

The Director surveyed the young man who followed Monty into his office and was almost disappointed. This was his nemesis? This was the greatest threat his operation had ever known? This was Carter Ross?

The Director buried his attention back into a pile of meaningless papers on his desk, not wanting the reporter to know he was being studied. In that quick glance, the Director had already seen enough to know Carter Ross would not pose any further difficulty.

He wasn’t armed-the cut in his trendy clothing left no room for a concealed weapon. And, physically, the Director could crush him. Carter Ross was nothing more than a pretty boy. There was no real meat hanging on his shoulders, no thickness in the chest or arms that might suggest he was dangerous. He looked like any one of those yuppies who spend time in the gym strictly for vanity, doing arm curls to get a small bulge in their biceps, with their only goal to look good in a tight T-shirt. They were not like the Director, who worked out for the express purpose of being able to overpower other men-for moments exactly like this.

The only real challenge of killing Carter Ross was what to do with him afterward. You couldn’t just dump his body down on Ludlow Street, like the Director had with the others. That would work for lowlife drug dealers, who would not be missed by anyone important. It wouldn’t work for newspaper reporters.

So the Director had spent his morning planning Carter Ross’s disappearance. Unbeknownst to him, “Carter Ross” had already booked an eight o’clock flight out of Newark airport to the Dominican Republic.

Making it appear Carter Ross was actually on the flight had taken a few hours of work. First, the Director asked one of the National Drug Bureau’s computer technicians to hack into the Eagle-Examiner’s network, telling the tech it was part of an investigation and he had a judge’s order to do so. Once inside the mainframe, the Director accessed Carter Ross’s account and poked around long enough to get a sense of Ross’s e-mail style.

Then the Director wrote two e-mails-one to Harold Brodie, one to an e-mail account Ross had labeled “Mom amp; Dad” in his contact list. The e-mail to Brodie was more formal in its punctuation and sentence structure. The e-mail to Mom amp; Dad was more colloquial. Each said the same thing: their dear Carter had been so traumatized by the events of the past week, he felt he needed two weeks in the Dominican Republic to recover. The Director scheduled the e-mails to be sent at precisely 5:59 P.M. and 6:01 P.M., to make it appear “Carter Ross” had dashed off the e-mails then gone straight to the airport.

The next step was ensuring “Carter Ross” didn’t miss his flight, but that was easy enough. The National Drug Bureau had authorization to create passports for agents traveling under assumed names, so the Director created one with Carter Ross’s name and birthday-but Monty’s picture.

Then, at six o’clock, Monty would drive Carter Ross’s car to the airport, use the passport to check in for the flight and get through security, then use it again to get through customs on the other side. The next day, Lamont P. Sampson, using his own passport, would fly back-leaving “Carter Ross” on his Dominican vacation.

The Director knew someone would eventually notice when Ross didn’t return, but he was less concerned about that. The authorities up here would locate Ross’s car in long-term parking, check the airline manifold then conclude he had gotten on a plane for the Dominican Republic safe and sound.

To the authorities down there, Carter Ross would be just one more American who went on vacation and decided, for whatever reason, not to come back. The Director didn’t know whether Ross’s family had means to investigate his disappearance. But it didn’t really matter. The Director knew how to weight down a body. Unless his family had a submarine, they were never going to find him.

It was all so perfect the Director was tempted to get it over with quickly: to stick a bullet in Ross’s ear, dispose of the body somewhere wet and cold, and be home for supper with his family.

But no, a small amount of patience was required. First, the Director needed to find out if Carter Ross knew more than he had let on-and if he had shared those thoughts with anyone else. Maybe Ross would be unwitting enough to spill, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe the Director would have to coerce it out of him. The end result would be the same: Carter Ross’s final hour on this earth was already well under way.