I don’t know whether to be angry. Or upset. Or hurt. Or guilty. I’m a little of each.
“Yeah, okay, fine. I guess.” I shrug, trying to evaluate. And to think I’d been eager to share the WWXI blue Mustang lead. Still, eyes on tonight’s prize, the stakeout will work. Even though part of the fun is doing the story together. “You drop off the Explorer in valet parking. I’ll be waiting across the street. Are the cameras operating like we planned?”
“Yup. I did a few test runs. All worked great. We rented both cameras for two weeks, so we’re set. There’s, like, three, four hours of tape time. After that, we’re done. No matter what happens. It’ll go to black.”
“We’ll get what we get.” I twist my head around, looking up at the sky. A big snowflake plops onto one eye. “You think this’ll be a problem? The snow?”
“It’s winter.” J.T. shifts his car into Drive. “Valet parking could be even more crowded, you know? People don’t want to walk? Drop off their cars instead?”
“We’ll at least be able to see if the taping system works.” I yank my gearshift into D. “Let’s do it.”
It’s snowing hard as we arrive at the Longmore. It’s 9:00 p.m. I stay back, sneaking the Jeep into a bus stop half a block down the street from the hotel. The city’s glowing streetlights let me watch J.T. pull into the Longmore’s curved driveway, and see the nylon jacket of the valet parker come out. They chat. J.T. should be telling him the “staying late, maybe overnight” story. And then, just as we planned, the valet slides into J.T.’s place in the driver’s seat. J.T. pushes through the revolving doors and into the hotel. Inside the Explorer, three cameras are rolling tape. Just as we planned. We hope.
The Explorer, valet at the wheel, eases out into the street. Pulls to the curb. Double-parks next to a hotel van. Terrific. He can’t leave it there for long. I’m transfixed. I can’t take my eyes off the car.
There’s a bang outside my passenger-side door. I leap so high my head almost hits the roof. I whirl, eyes wide, terrified. It’s J.T., trying to get in. I click open the lock, he slides into the passenger seat.
“I came out the side door,” he says. “Worked without a hitch. One of these coffees for me?”
We keep vigil in our parking spot just down the street from the Longmore.
“You know, you don’t really need to clamp the viewfinder to your eye the whole time,” I say to J.T. “As soon as someone gets into the car, you can roll tape. Nothing’s happening. You’ve been like that for almost an hour.”
J.T. doesn’t move the camera from its ready position. “Soon as I put the camera down, something will happen. Never fails,” he says.
I can’t see his face, since the camera is between us.
“No question,” I agree. “Can you believe the Explorer’s been double-parked this long? All we’ve got is video of snow. And a couple valet parkers who used the front seat to get warm or something.”
“Here comes someone.” J.T. sits up straighter. One hand is on the lens, ready to focus on whatever happens.
My heart begins to race. This could be it. I click the gearshift back into D. “Ready. Cross your fingers for the hidden cameras.”
A man in a valet jacket, head bent against the increasing snow, opens the door to the Explorer. I see the rear lights go on.
“Here we go,” I say. I realize I’m holding my breath. Stakeouts. Hours of boring surveillance. Followed by instant and heart-churning adrenaline.
The minutes tick by. One. Two. Five. And then the lights go off. The valet gets out. And he trots back into the hotel.
“Are you kidding me?” I say. My mouth drops open.
“Are you friggin’ kidding me?” J.T. says.
“It’s eleven o’clock. Do you know where your car is?” J.T.’s got his elbow braced on the passenger-side window ledge. He hasn’t budged in the last two hours. And neither has our car. It’s still double-parked in front of the hotel.
I throw him a look, creeped out a bit by the “do you know where your car is” line. But of course, he can’t know about the Bexter phone calls. And it’s a such TV cliché, everyone uses it. I quickly go back to watching the Explorer. I can’t afford to miss anything that might happen.
“You’re truly a good sport,” I say, still facing forward. Despite what Maysie feared, this guy is the genuine article. Clearly not an ax murderer. And I may have judged him too harshly about the network stuff. He’s sitting in the car, not complaining. “I really appreciate it, J.T. No matter what happens tonight.”
“Not a prob,” he says. His eye is still locked to the viewfinder. A few cars hiss by in the increasing snow, headlights briefly glaring through our front seat, then leaving us in the semidarkness. We’ve chatted off and on, passing the time, about nothing. Our coffees are long gone.
“You were with the network, huh? You like it?” Might as well let him talk about it, if he loves it so much. Television is relentlessly nomadic. Everyone always on the prowl for the next big job. Everyone with a where-I-came-from and a where-I-want-to-go-next story. And everyone loves to tell theirs. Which reminds me, again, of New York. I push the thought away. “Where’d you start in TV?”
“I left college right after graduation,” he says. “Went overseas, you know, big adventure. See the world. Did some work as a stringer for Reuters, got some lucky breaks, got hired by CNN International. Israel. Syria, for a few weeks. Afghanistan. Then got nailed by the economy. Boom. Laid off. Everyone’s closing their overseas bureaus. Jerks. But Boston isn’t a bad gig. You?”
“Boring. Predictable. Lucky. J-school after college. Interned back home in Chicago, got a good résumé tape. They needed to hire a woman in Boston-equal-opportunity laws, thank you so much. So I got there at the right time and I got the job. That’s the lucky part. Then it was weekends and nights. You know the drill. For a couple years.”
I shrug, still facing forward. Still watching the car. “Seemed to work. Eventually I was assigned the investigative unit.”
“‘Seemed’to work? How many Emmys you got now?”
“Not enough,” I say. The car is silent for a moment.
“Your family must be happy you’re back in the States.” I try another probably safe conversational topic.
“Who knows.”
Even though it’s muffled by the camera, I can tell J.T.’s voice has changed. I wish I could look at him to gauge what’s wrong, or different, but I can’t risk it. More headlights flash by, both directions.
“Who knows?” I repeat, wondering what he means. This could be precarious territory. But he seems to be asking for another question. “Are they-?”
“Who knows,” J.T. says again. “I was raised in foster families. Never found my birth parents. When I was eighteen, I decided to ask. They told me the adoption was sealed. I stopped looking. Now it doesn’t matter. They must have had their reasons for giving me up.”
“The Shaws?”
“Who knows. Shaw is the name of the hospital where I was born. My birth certificate just says-Tommy. Last name unknown. And that’s where J.T. came from. Just Tommy.”
We sit in silence for a moment. I know it’s late, and I’ve had too much coffee. But it’s so profoundly revealing. Maybe about both of us. I’ve been impatient with him, dismissed him as an egotistical know-it-all. He doesn’t even know his own real name.
“J.T.,” I whisper. Adrenaline time. “Roll.”
I see the dashboard clock in my peripheral vision: 11:28. If we’re lucky, and we often are, we’ll have plenty of tape to record whatever is about to happen. I cross my fingers. And I watch.
The valet gets into the front seat. The rear lights, red then white, flicker on.
I look at J.T. “Are you-?”
“Don’t worry,” he says. His eye is pressed to the viewfinder. The red light is on. He’s rolling.
A puff of exhaust plumes from the back of the Explorer.