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
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
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