So what started out as a proposed series of background articles for Parallax has gradually morphed into a book-length project with the provisional title House of Vaughan-a book that will apparently cover a period stretching back over nearly a century and a half. The only problem is that the project seems to have turned into something of a black hole, and one that Gilroy himself has more or less disappeared headlong into.
Ellen occasionally gets e-mails from him-yesterday’s was the first in several months-but she’s heard other stuff, stories from people in the business, rumors that Gilroy doesn’t have a publisher or any kind of a contract, that he has encountered all sorts of obstacles in getting research done, that he’s been subjected to subtle forms of intimidation and even manipulation, that he’s had to sell his apartment in Dublin to keep going, that he’s had a nervous breakdown, that he hasn’t actually written a single word.
Ellen liked Jimmy Gilroy, and she got on well with him over the few weeks that they ended up working together. But he was young and relatively inexperienced, even a little callow, and when he took off on his initial research jag to the Democratic Republic of Congo she wondered if he’d ever be heard from again.
The occasional e-mails she got from him were reassuring, but they didn’t reveal much.
Yesterday’s revealed a bit more than usual.
It turns out that he’s been living in Brooklyn for the last three months working in a bar and trying to patch his manuscript together.
But go figure is what he seemed to be saying in the e-mail yesterday.
Just as I’m getting somewhere with this book, James Vaughan retires? What, is he going to die on me next? Rendering the book even less relevant than it apparently already is? And his replacement is this boring-as-shit Craig Howley guy? Seriously? Watch him on Bloomberg tomorrow and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
So here she is, watching, and what is it that catches her attention? Craig Howley’s mention of Paloma Electronics is what. This is the company that uses thanaxite to manufacture its military robots in Connecticut. But it’s also the company that Frank Bishop had a retail McJob with until very recently-before he shot his mouth off and got fired, and was then catapulted to national attention when his daughter…
Ellen shakes her head.
She doesn’t know. You see weird connections all the time. They don’t have to mean anything, and they usually don’t. But the result of this particular connection is that she is now thinking about both Jimmy Gilroy and Frank Bishop, and it’s giving her the strangest, weirdest feeling. She doesn’t believe in intuition, not really, except when it shows results, and even then it’s more often than not because you worked pretty hard to achieve those results anyway.
But sometimes…
She hasn’t answered Jimmy Gilroy’s e-mail yet. She gets up from the couch, goes over to her desk, opens up a reply, and starts typing. She says it’s great to hear from him and that they should meet up soon for a drink-that she has some stuff she wants to talk to him about.
What that stuff might be specifically, what form it might take, she’s not quite sure herself yet. But she’s not worried about it.
She presses SEND.
Then she picks up her phone.
She called Frank Bishop earlier in the day and left a message. He never got back to her.
When she saw him on Monday evening he was in pretty bad shape, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, apart from answer his questions. She hadn’t met him to get a story or anything. He’d called her. Besides, as far as she was concerned the story had played itself out-and as for a human interest angle, the grieving father in the aftermath of a tragedy? That held no interest for her whatsoever.
So why did she call him today?
And why is she about to call him again now?
She doesn’t know.
Intuition?
She waits.
“Yeah?”
“Frank? Hi, it’s Ellen.”
“Ellen.” Pause. “Hi.”
He doesn’t sound any better. Though why would he, she supposes. After all, he is a grieving father in the aftermath of a tragedy. A few days isn’t going to make any real difference.
“How are you, Frank?”
“I’m okay. I was pretty drunk a little while ago. Then I got sick. Not drunk anymore.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah, I was watching TV. A thing with, an interview with… what was his name again?”
Still sounds a little drunk.
“I don’t know, Frank.”
“Craig Howley. That’s it. One of these big, fucking… private equity guys.”
Ellen’s heart stops. “What?”
Frank Bishop takes a deep loud breath. “Private equity guy. Even turns out I used to work for him. What do you think of that?”
“But… how did…?” She knows how she came to be watching the interview with Howley on Bloomberg. But Frank?
“Huh?”
“How come you were watching that?”
“I’ve been watching all the business channels, Ellen, reading business magazines, business books. I’m an expert now. On the financial crisis. I couldn’t explain any of it to you, but-”
He stops. There is silence for a moment, and then he starts coughing.
Definitely still drunk.
Ellen stares at the floor, waiting.
This is her fault. He was trying to make sense of what had been going on in Lizzie’s head, and she more or less told him that to have any chance of succeeding he’d have to… do what he was apparently doing. It was outside the diner on Ninth Avenue. They were standing on the sidewalk. She doesn’t remember her exact words, but-
“-it’d make no difference anyway,” Frank says, recovering. “These people are just carrying on regardless. I mean, you ought to hear what this guy was saying, he-”
“I know, Frank,” she cuts in. “I saw him, I was watching it, too.”
“Sorry… what?” He seems confused. “You were watching it?” He takes a moment to fold this information into his argument. “Well, then, you know what I’m talking about, right? Because… this motherfucker, he’s like the one that got away. In fact, he’s worse.”
Ellen feels something creeping up on her here, a chill. That phrase he’s just used, the one that got away-that was also from their conversation the other night. She just can’t remember the exact context, and which of them used it first.
She looks up and across the room.
It’s more likely to have been her, though.
“What do you mean, Frank?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I don’t know. It just struck me that-”
He’s trying to be cagey now.
“What?”
“That… that I wish I was still drunk.”
She has a knot in her stomach.
“Where are you, Frank?”
“I’m in this shitty hotel, the Bromley. Deb says the FBI is being difficult. They told her we’re not going to see the body… see Lizzie… until at least…”
There’s a long pause here. She stares at the back of her couch.
“Frank?”
“Until-”
He makes a loud gulping sound. It’s followed by another one, even louder, and some heavy sniffling.
Then the line goes dead.
“Frank?”
She tries the number again immediately, and a couple more times after that. It goes to message each time.
She puts her phone down.