I eyed those dice tattoos. Wondered what it took to scare a man who wasn't afraid to get ink shot into his neck with a needle.
'I hear the town is different now,' I said. 'A lot's changed in five years.'
'New coat of paint, same cracked wood underneath,'
Stavros said. 'You don't start from the ground up, poison's still gonna be there. Anyway, you're booked for a return trip, right? I'm sure you'll be fine, long as you're finished before the sun goes down. The dealers and hoods come out thinking you're the po-lice.'
'I really think you're wrong,' I said, my voice trying to convince me more than Stavros. 'Anyway, when we get there, I don't think you'll have to worry too much about being alone. If I know the press, they'll be camped out at this house like ants at a picnic.'
'That so? Where exactly you headed?'
'Interview,' I said. 'A kid.'
'Not that kid who got kidnapped. Daniel something, right?'
'Daniel Linwood, yeah.'
'Hot damn, I've been reading about that! Awful stuff.
I mean great he came back, but I got a six-year-old and I'd just about tear the earth apart if she ever went missing.
Those poor parents. Can't even imagine.'
'Better you don't.'
We merged onto 287, then headed north on Route 9, driving past a wide white billboard announcing our entry into the town limits.
Hobbs County was covered in lush green foliage, the summer sun shining golden through the thick leaves. Trees bracketed sleepy homes, supported by elegant marble columns. I lowered the window and could hear running water from a nearby stream. This was NewYork, but not the big city you read about in newspapers. It was the kind of place where you bought homemade preserves and knew everybody's name. Over the past few years, though, the names got wealthier, the jams more expensive. Shelly Linwood didn't work. I wondered how the Linwoods were able to afford the newfound royalty of Hobbs County. And whether Daniel had come back to any sort of recognizable life.
We wound our way to Eaglemont Terrace, threading down Main Street. All the stores were open, Hobbs residents walking small, freshly groomed dogs while carrying bags from the town's boutique shops. Lots of cell phones and BlackBerries. Pretty much the same ratio of technology to people as NYC.
It was just before noon. I had two hours before the interview was scheduled to begin. As we turned onto
Woodthrush Court, I made out a row of cars and vans clogging the street, metal lodged in an artery. The main cluster looked to be centered around one house, no doubt the Linwood residence. I didn't want to make any sort of grand entrance, and once the other reporters saw me, they wouldn't leave me alone. They knew I had the exclusive, and they wouldn't make my job any easier.
'Do me a favor, stop here,' I said to Stavros. The Greek man obliged, eased on the brakes until we were stopped a few blocks down from the mess.
'You want to hang out here? I can put the radio on, even got a few CDs in the glove. You like The Police?'
'Eh. Sting never really did it for me. Just want to walk around the neighborhood for a few minutes. Get a sense of the place.'
'Your time,' Stavros said. 'Tell you something, it might have been a few years ago and my memory's as soft as my dick, but this sure ain't the same town I drove through a while back.'
'Hold that thought,' I said to Stavros, unbuckling my seat belt. 'The last one, not the one about your…never mind. I have your cell number, so I'll just call when I'm ready to leave, right? You'll be here?'
'Faster 'n instant coffee.'
'Glad to hear that, thanks.'
I grabbed my briefcase, stepped out of the car. It was a sunny day, high seventies, a light breeze rattling leaves and lowering the humidity. I breathed in the fresh air, wished
I could find it in the city outside of Central Park. It was strange to be in a town where you could see the horizon miles away. Unobstructed views over houses just a story or two tall.
While what I said to Stavros was partly true, about wanting to stay incognito to the press as long as possible,
I also didn't want to give the wrong impression to the
Linwoods themselves. I didn't want to roll up in a Lincoln with a driver, step out of the backseat like some dignitary.
If I was going to talk to Daniel Linwood, it was going to be on his level. With all the attention he'd be facing over the coming weeks, his family didn't need to feel like they were being talked down to.
I walked to the opposite side of the street, slow enough to avoid arousing suspicion, fast enough that residents wouldn't think a solicitor was creeping around in their front yards.
When I was just a block away, still unnoticed, I stepped into the pathway between two clapboard houses and sat down on a stone bench. I gathered my notes, made sure the tape recorder had fresh batteries. And then I sat and watched the beehive.
The reporters camped outside the Linwood home were standing on the grass, their vans having left tire tracks in yards all across the street. No doubt the locals would complain to the city council about this, but with a story this big there was no stopping the boulder from rolling downhill.
Since the night Daniel came back, the only comment from the Linwood home had been 'no comment.' Today that would change.
I sketched brief descriptions of the homes, the climate, the scene in front of me. Enough to give Hobbs County some color. I snapped a few pictures of the houses, even took a few of the press corps just for kicks. Then I waited.
At one-forty I stood up, stretched and started to walk over. My heart was beating fast, and I wiped my palms on the inside of my jacket. One of the tricks of the trade Jack taught me. Most people wipe their hands on their pants, and that does nothing but make your source think they're being interviewed by a guy who can't jiggle out the last few drops of piss. Inside the jacket, nobody could see you were hiding the Hoover Dam in your armpits. Good thing
Jack was a classy guy.
I was hoping to enter the Linwood residence as quickly as possible. I didn't want to answer any questions, or see my face on any newscasts. I'd had enough of that.
Silently I crept toward the house, when all of a sudden a gravelly voice said, 'Look who crawled out of the sewer,' and I knew I had a better chance of finding a winning lottery ticket in my hamper than staying incognito.
One by one the heads turned. Clean-shaven newsmen with three-hundred-dollar haircuts, women wearing makeup so thick it could have been a layer of skin. They all looked at me with sneers reserved for subjects they were used to interviewing in solitary confinement. A piece of gum snapped, then landed on my shoe. I flicked it off, kept walking without looking to see who was guilty. Never let them see you angry.
I nudged my way through the crowd without making eye contact with anyone. I recognized a male reporter from the New York Dispatch, somewhat surprised to see that Paulina Cole hadn't taken on the story herself. Paulina
Cole was the Dispatch 's top columnist, a post she took after leaving the Gazette. We'd actually worked next to each other for several months, but now there was as much love between us as Hillary and Monica.
You'd never picture the devil as a five-foot-six woman with platinum-blond hair, impeccable skin tone and a takeno-prisoners, ball-busting attitude that could have made the toughest Viet Cong piss his pants. At first I admired
Paulina. The newsroom had very much been an old boys' club during her climb, and she'd had to endure a lot and work fantastically hard to get where she was. But then she showed her true colors. She showed that one thing's for certain in the media: throwing someone under the bus can make quite a lucrative career.
