Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(48)

I get out of Ericka’s car and watch her pull away. I knock on Henrik’s window and he leans over to unlock the door. 1010 WINS is playing two notches louder than my ears are prepared for.

“Good morning!” he says.

“Seen anything yet?”

He shakes his head. “No, no. She’s not coming out.”

“I wouldn’t if I were her.” My phone rings. It’s the desk.

“Hold for Mike,” says the receptionist.

I hold. Mike picks up. “What’s going on out there?”

“Nothing. She hasn’t been outside since Lisa saw her last night.”

“What about neighbors?”

“Ericka said she got one. I just got here. I’ll look for some more.”

“Talk to merchants. Deli, nail salon, whatever. See if you can get someone who saw him with the kids. Or her with him. She’s been at that address six years, so people know her. Maybe somebody’s got her headshot on the wall, like at the cleaners.” Right. Jerry Seinfeld, Bernadette Peters, Sarah Jessica Parker—these people get asked for personalized photos, not the forty-something former soft-porn sitcom sweetheart. “This is tomorrow’s wood, so get as much as you can.”

“I will.” The wood, in tabloid newspaper language, means the lead story, the story that’s going to get everybody excited. That’s going to, presumably, give them wood. When one of the editors first said it to me, I thought, he can’t mean what I think he means. But I’ve never had the balls to ask. “You know TMZ’s here, right?”

“Yeah. They’ve got an old shot of mom and dad at the beach. He’s in Speedos. Photo’s having a shit-fit. Jaime wants a family portrait. Is photo with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Who is it?”

“Henrik.”

“Fuck. Hold on. Jaime!” I can picture Mike, standing up, shouting over his cubicle to the photo desk. I hope Henrik can’t hear. “You’ve got Henrik on porn mom? Yes!… Rebekah, they’re gonna pull him. Photo will call you.”

“Okay.”

“Quotes,” he says. “Have you done a door-knock?”

“No, I just got here. Ericka says there’s a lady downstairs who…”

Mike cuts me off. “Is there a doorman?”

“No.”

“Good. Do another door-knock. Ask her if she suspected. Ask her if she’s seen the pictures. See if we can hang out until he gets home. Get the reunion.”

“Okay.”

Mike hangs up. Henrik’s phone rings. He listens, nods, hangs up.

“They are taking me off.”

“Oh yeah?”

“To Queens. To courthouse.”

“Okay, well, drive safe.”

“Say hi to porn mom,” he says, snickering.

I climb back out into the cold. My phone rings again. It’s a 917 number I don’t recognize. Probably the photographer. When you’re a stringer, strangers are always calling and you have to pick up.

“Hi, it’s Rebekah,” I say.

“It’s Bill from the Trib.” I know Bill. He’s thirtyish and claims to have been a war photographer. Apparently he shot “conflicts” in Africa. He’s got long wavy black hair that he usually wears in a ponytail. Once, while we were on a story, he said he knew a cute café for lunch nearby. But when we got to the restaurant, one of those tiny French bistros with thin iron chairs and the menu written in gold cursive on a mirror, a tall woman with short hair and chandelier earrings was waiting for him. We ate at separate tables.

“Hi, Bill.”

If he remembers me, he doesn’t say so. “I’m in Manhattan. I’ll be there in about an hour. Don’t do anything without me. Is the Ledger there?”

“Yup. And TMZ.”

“Fuck. I’m on my way.”

I stick my phone in my pocket and walk across the street, into the group of reporters in front of the building. I recognize the Ledger reporter, a girl about my age whose name I always forget. We smile and walk toward each other.

“Did you just get here?” she asks. Like me, she’s so bundled, she has to move her entire upper body if she wants to turn her head. Half her face is covered with a scarf, so I can’t see her lips move.

I nod.

“I was on this yesterday, too. It’s f*cking horrible out here. I think I’m getting a cold.”

“I was in Chinatown Friday. Then Gowanus, by the canal.”

She shivers. “There was a body, right?”

“Yeah, a woman. You guys had Pete Calloway on it.”

“Figures. He probably ferreted it out before the desk even.”

“Did you run anything?”

“I think it went in the blotter. You guys got the gardener angle before us.”

“Ah.”

“Well, porn mom’s a f*cking hoot. Everybody got a shot of her going in yesterday, but nobody’s seen her since.”

“Did you do a door-knock?”

“No, but if you do, I’ll come with.”

“I have to wait for photo,” I say.

“Mine’s here,” she says, motioning toward one of the two men on fold-out camping chairs.