Fifteen minutes later, sitting on a bench in the park in front of the Flatiron, Jimmy calls Ellen Dorsey. He’s heard of her, even read some of her stuff online – from Rolling Stone, The Nation, Parallax, Wired – and he’s intimidated.
Of course.
‘Yep? Ellen Dorsey.’
But that’s not going to stop him.
‘Hi Ellen, my name’s Jimmy Gilroy, I just got your number from Bob Lessing.’
Silence.
That’s what Lessing told him to say.
Then, ‘Call me back in ten minutes.’
Click.
Ten minutes. He does a quick Google search on his phone. She’s thirty-nine. From Philadelphia. There’s a roll call of articles she’s written, stories she covered, awards won. There’s a link to a clip of an appearance she once made on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but he can’t access it.
He checks the time and calls her back.
‘Jimmy Gilroy, yeah? So, Bob tells me you’ve got something. And he assures me that you’re not a plant. Bizarrely enough, I trust Bob, so shoot.’
Jimmy pauses. ‘Not over the phone.’
‘Of course, right. Not over the phone. You know what, let me give you my address. You come here. I’m working, but we can talk.’
This is all happening pretty fast.
She lives near Ninety-third and Amsterdam. He walks a few blocks over and takes the subway. On the train up, he wonders what Bob Lessing said about him on the phone. At no point did Jimmy make it clear to Lessing who he was or wasn’t working for. He deliberately left it vague and Lessing didn’t ask.
He gets off at Ninety-sixth and Broadway, goes back to Ninety-third and wanders along until he finds her building.
She buzzes him up.
It’s still hot and he’s still overdressed and as he walks up to the fourth floor he feels like he’s going to faint.
He doesn’t.
Ellen Dorsey is waiting for him. She’s small and lean and spiky, with short dark hair and blue eyes. She’s wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt.
‘Come on in.’
They shake.
‘Thanks for seeing me.’
She holds the door open for him. He walks into the apartment. In a weird way, and though a lot bigger, it’s not unlike his own. Books everywhere and a desk covered in shit. Hers backs onto a window, overlooking the street, so when she’s working at it, the idea is, presumably, she’s facing the room, less distraction.
She goes over and sits behind it now, and indicates for him to take the chair in front of it.
‘I’m in the middle of an article,’ she says, ‘with a looming deadline, so you’ll excuse me if I multi-task for a bit here.’
‘No, of course, fine, go ahead, I won’t keep you long anyway.’
‘Tea, you want some, or water, or -’
‘No. I’m fine.’
Ellen Dorsey nods and then starts clacking away at her keyboard, looking down at her notes. ‘So,’ she says, ‘talk.’
Jimmy starts, fixing his gaze on a knot in one of the floorboards.
He tells it pretty succinctly, and doesn’t hold back as he did with Lessing. He explains about the biography. He describes his conversations with Larry Bolger and Dave Conway. Then he spells it all out – the conference, the mine, the thanaxite, Gianni Bonacci, the helicopter crash.
BRX, Gideon Global.
At one point he realises that the clacking has stopped and he looks up.
Ellen Dorsey is staring at him. ‘Holy shit,’ she says, holding her mouth open. ‘Holy shit.’ Then she laughs and shakes her head. ‘You couldn’t make this up, so I’m assuming you haven’t.’
‘No, I haven’t.’ He shifts his weight in the chair. He realises he has made quite an impression on her. ‘My only problem,’ he says, ‘as you’ve probably guessed, is the lack of hard evidence.’
Dorsey nods. ‘Sure, sure, but still.’
First time he’s heard that.
‘The other thing I don’t have’, he goes on, deciding to lay all his cards on the table, ‘is a job. This started out as something else, a book about that actress who died in the crash. So I don’t have resources, or any kind of support.’ He pauses. ‘I came here to New York because it seemed like the next logical move.’
Dorsey considers this, swivelling in her chair. ‘Have you made contact with any of the principals? Do they know you’re looking into this?’
‘Not directly, but someone knows.’ He tells her about the break-in at his apartment. ‘Also, I’m not sure, but I have the impression I’m being followed.’
Dorsey laughs again. ‘Well, if you’re not, you certainly will be when you leave this place. I get a lot of attention from interested parties. You get used to it.’ She stops swivelling. ‘By the way, what’s the connection with Bob Lessing?’
Jimmy explains – the eighties, Phil Sweeney, his old man.
Dorsey seems to get it. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Look. This is an incredible story, and I’ll be honest with you, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. The scramble for resources in Africa has thrown up a lot of nasty shit going back for the last, what, hundred, hundred and fifty years? But the problem, as you say, is proving it. With companies like BRX, guys like Rundle, that takes a lot of work, a lot of digging, a lot of time. You don’t come at them head-on or they’ll crush you, in some cases literally. You gnaw at them, like a tiny rodent they can’t see until it’s too late. And that’s the thing about this job. It’s got a glamorous image, but most of the time it’s mind-numbingly boring.’
Jimmy wants to say, I know, believe me, but he holds back.
‘So, what have we got here?’ she says, shunting her chair forward and leaning on the desk. ‘I’m the one with experience and connections, you’re the one with the story, is that it?’
He supposes it is, and nods.
‘Well, you’re going to have to give me time to think about it, do a little background. How long are you here?’
Jimmy’s heart sinks. ‘End of the week.’
She clicks her tongue. ‘Hhhm. I got to finish this.’ She taps the pile of notes on her desk. ‘Let me call you tomorrow, OK? Then we can sit down and hammer it out.’
‘Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it.’
She smiles. He stands up.
Back out on Ninety-third, Jimmy finds it hard not to be disappointed. Whatever expectations he had coming over to New York were clearly unreasonable. This is a big project, requiring time, and lots of it.
But how much time does he have?
He walks back towards the Ninety-sixth Street subway station – slowly, lost in thought. As he approaches the entrance stairwell, his phone rings. He stops and takes it out.
‘Hello.’
‘Jimmy? Ellen Dorsey. Listen, I’ve just been flicking around online and I came across something. Might be an opportunity.’