Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(47)

I look down. She’s right; I’ve conflated the two.

“I know,” I say.

“Do you?”

I nod, but I can’t bring my eyes back up to hers.

“Hey,” says Iris, putting her arm around me. “I love you. This is it. This is your story. It’s about your people. It’s about what you care about. No one else is going to keep this woman’s death alive but you, right? That means something.”

I look at the two of us in the mirror. Her with dark eyes and sleek new bangs and a faded chicken pox mark on her nose not yet hidden with foundation. Me with my wild red hair and too pink cheeks. Iris is the closest thing I’ll ever have to a sister and she looks nothing like me.

“You can do this,” she says. “Just be careful. Be smart.”

*

Porn mom lives in a pretty prewar apartment building on the corner of Third Street and Eighth Avenue. From a block away I can see the scene has turned into a celebrity-style clusterf*ck. Two photogs are camped out in folding chairs at the corner. A van from the local Fox station idles in front of the fire hydrant, and a half dozen other reporters, bundled like Arctic explorers, linger near the building’s front door.

Ericka is leaning back in the front seat of her Honda Civic, reading today’s paper. I knock on the window and she motions for me to come around and sit inside. She’s got a police scanner on the dashboard and a pile of McDonald’s bags behind the passenger seat.

“What’s the scoop?” I ask.

“Same shit. She’s up there. Lisa saw her go in. I did a door-knock around ten last night but she didn’t answer. Nothing since. There’s no doorman, but there’s a biddy on the first floor who keeps screaming she’s gonna call the cops if we try to come in again. Of course, they’ll still make you go.”

“Of course,” I say.

“You don’t have a car?”

I shake my head.

“It’s f*cking brutal out there. I burned a tank of gas not freezing last night.”

“Is photo here?”

“The German guy with the point-and-shoot.”

I sigh. I’ve been on several assignments with Henrik, who is Austrian, and he always manages to get in the way. In December, we were at a press junket in Midtown for a treadmill-workstation that was supposed to revolutionize the cubicle, and he wouldn’t get off the thing. There were four PR chicks in black all standing around giving him the evil eye as he trotted in place asking questions about balance and liability and calories. I tried to pretend he wasn’t with me by gorging on the free sushi and crudités until I could pull a black dress aside and ask her some questions, the answers to which, I knew, would never make the paper. Half the “stories” I get sent on don’t make the paper. Stringers are cheap and the editors are frightened they’ll miss something. It was cold that day, too, I remember, and Henrik was in shorts—with socks held up by tiny garters. And instead of a proper SLR like every other professional photographer I’ve ever seen, Henrik carries a Canon point-and-shoot on a string around his wrist.

“How long’s he been here?”

“Since about eight. He’s in the red Mazda.” She points up the block to Henrik’s car. He has a bumper sticker that says SAVE THE HUMANS.

“Okay,” I say, readying myself to return to the cold. “Anything else? What did porn mom say when she went in?”

“Nothing. Lisa said she just kept her head down.”

“Have you seen the kids?”

“Nope. Probably with Grandma or something.”

“What apartment is it?”

“3E. There’s a window—two, actually—one’s frosted, like it’s a bathroom. But she’s got the curtains closed.”

“Did you talk to any neighbors?”

“I got one coming in last night with his dog. He said the usual, she seemed nice, kids are nice. Blah blah. He gave me a good quote about the guy, though. Something about how porn dad was always in the lobby without a shirt on.”

“Nice.”

“Did you ever see that show she was on?”

“I think it was before my time.”

“Me, too—but I watched one of the Melrose episodes on YouTube. She played a hostess at a club. Maybe they’ll replay the porn on Cinemax now that she’s famous again.”

“So she’s blond?” I need to make sure I recognize her if she leaves.

“Tom got a picture of her yesterday. Have photo e-mail it to you. She was all bundled up, but she looks blond. She’s still thin, too. She was wearing a red coat.”

“If she’s smart, she’ll change it to black.”

“She can’t be that smart if she’s living with porn dad.”

“True.”

“TMZ’s here somewhere. And The Insider.”

“Fantastic.” I know most of the other reporters at the Ledger, and a couple from the Times. We’re used to competing for quotes on stories. But the celebrity press frightens me. At the Trib we’re still rewarded for good leads and the occasional social service story (often involving how the MTA is scheming to f*ck riders, or how the teachers unions are scheming to f*ck students); all the celebrity press does is stalk. And they’re good at it.