Fully awake again, she starts thinking more clearly than she has done in a while.
“Okay,” she says, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, “it wasn’t part of the plan, but that was then, what’s the plan now?”
Alex sighs, shudders almost. “There isn’t one. I mean… Julian… he can’t take this, he’s falling apart in there. I don’t know what to do.” Now his eyes fill up. “I’m sorry, Lizzie. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in this, in our family shit. I just… I wanted you around-”
“Oh, Alex,” she says, her heart swelling, “I love you.” She reaches out to touch his face again, and this time he lets her. After a moment, she whispers, “What did you tell them… when they called? What happened?”
He looks confused. “I… I don’t really remember. We just talked bullshit. Julian was incoherent. I told them to fuck off, and that if they didn’t, we’d… you know…” He stops, exhales, unable to finish putting the thought into words.
Lizzie uses her other sleeve to wipe his tears away.
“Listen to me,” she says, adrenaline starting to pump through her system now. “We really need to focus. This is not the time to be incoherent. You guys did what you did for a reason, okay? And you were very focused when you were doing it. So that’s what you’ve got to hold on to here. What we’ve got to hold on to. And when they call back, which they’re bound to do sooner or later, you articulate that reason, over and over, hammer it home, show them you’re not just a pair of crazy fucks, that there’s a way out, a route to the other side.” She pauses and swallows, unsure where any of this is coming from. “And then, when we get out of here,” she goes on, “that reason, that rationale, whatever it is, even if it’s fucked up or hopelessly deluded, it’ll be a platform, and a passport, to some kind of public sympathy. It won’t be much, but what else is there?”
Alex stares at her, then nods his head. “Yeah,” he says, in a loud whisper, “yeah, you’re right.”
“So go back in there. Talk to Julian. Work something out. The phone might ring in the next five minutes. It might not ring all night. But you have to be ready.”
She leans forward and kisses him on the forehead.
Moments later, he’s back in the other room, and she hears their voices again, Alex whispering to Julian, Julian whispering to Alex.
Then she looks up at the cupboard where the coffee is. She looks at the stovetop. It’s dark in here, but not completely. How hard can it be?
With her heart still racing, Lizzie breathes in, reaches for the edge of the table, and slowly pulls herself up.
It’s in a bar on Norfolk Street-at around 5 A.M., while having a quick drink with Val Brady-that Ellen Dorsey decides she’s had enough of this whole story and should really go home. It’s been a long night of huddled conversations with other journalists, of rushed phone calls and live tweeting, of trying to make contact with Frank Bishop again but being blocked at every turn (she’d given him her number but somehow, stupidly, in the confusion, hadn’t taken his), and ultimately of realizing she’s lost all control of the story, that it’s moved ahead without her, that she works for an outlet where breaking news just doesn’t figure into the mission.
Not that she didn’t know this already, but she’d certainly been trying to ignore it in recent days.
She looks across at Val Brady now.
There’s an early edition of the New York Times spread out on the table in front of him. This is his first-ever page-one byline, and he can’t stop staring at it. He also hasn’t been able to stop thanking Ellen for texting him the previous afternoon and giving him the jump on everyone else.
She knew there was no point in trying to get anything up on the Parallax site, or even on her own page-because, to be honest, who would see it in time? This needed to be addressed head-on, and within minutes, literally. So while she might have been trapped in a car on I-87, texting Val meant that he could be the first one on the scene.
And she has to admit that he did a great job, because not only was he the first one to publicly name the Coady brothers, he also managed to dig up some pretty electrifying background material on their father.
At one point during the evening he offered to share his byline with her, but for various reasons, political, logistical, whatever, that was never going to happen. She didn’t mind, though. He got to break the story, and that’s how it goes.
But man, thinking about it now, at 5:00 A.M. with a drink in her hand…
“So you don’t get to do this,” she says after a while, “but I think I’ll slink off to bed.”
“No fair.”
“Fuck you. Do your job. That means no sleep for the next twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six hours, whatever it takes.”
Val already looks shattered-bleary-eyed and coffee-jagged-but it’s what he signed up for.
“Come on,” he says, “why don’t you stick around?”
“Because I don’t have to, that’s why. I can read about it in the paper”-she flicks the Times with the back of her hand-“or online, or watch it on TV, with much better pictures and angles.” She picks up her drink, releasing a long sigh. “I’m done here. My last thread to this was the girlfriend’s old man, but they won’t let me near him, and besides, he’s probably signed a movie deal already.” She drains what’s in her glass. “Plus, there’s no point, I don’t work for a daily newspaper. What am I going to do? Fucking live tweet developments all day? I’m a journalist, not a civilian.”
“Right.”
“I just need to look for a new job, that’s all.” She puts her glass down. “But that’s not going to happen today. Plus, plus, I have this Ratt shit to deal with.”
Val laughs and is about to say something when his phone pings. He whips it up and reads the message, starting to slide out of his chair as he does so. “Er, I have to get back. There’s been a-”
Ellen holds up a hand. “No, don’t tell me. I’ll read about it. Just go.”
He hesitates, knows not to say thanks again, half-smiles, and leaves.
A few minutes later, she leaves herself, gets a cab on Delancey, and within half an hour is at home and in the shower.
She’s tired and tries to sleep, but isn’t able to. After a while she moves from the bed to the couch and considers turning on the TV. She decides not to and throws an eye instead over the Ratt Atkinson article with a view to arming herself for later. There won’t be as much interest in it as there was yesterday, but she likes to be prepared.
At what she considers a reasonable hour-reasonable, that is, for her sister, a mother with two school-age kids-Ellen calls Michelle and slips into their familiar routine… or at least tries to, because as it turns out all that Michelle wants to talk about is this horrible siege thing up in New York. When Ellen, with some reluctance, fills her in on a few of the background details, Michelle is transfixed. The point of the call, however, gets lost, and can’t be retrieved.
When she puts the phone down, Ellen is more tired than ever, but even less likely to be able to sleep. Stretched out on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, she pictures that deserted block on Orchard Street, pictures a small second-floor apartment. It’s been nearly fourteen hours now. What the fuck is going on in there?