Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(42)

Silverman nodded. “You seen that movie?” he asked. “Documentary, true story. There’s a guy—working actor, lived on a rooftop for years, in the middle of Manhattan. I mean years. But he’d get up, put on a suit, shave in the public restroom—no one knew. Hits the street, he’s the best-dressed guy in town. It’s a great movie. Not one of mine, I’m afraid.”

“Put on a suit. Yeah. I’m down with that.” But to Angel, sotto voce, she said, “I tell you, hon, I ain’t shaved my legs in ten days now, ’cause I ain’t got no razor, and I am—oh, jeez, I am like bigfoot down there . . .”

She pushed the wrappings of her meal away. She’d eaten everything—even licked her finger to dab up the crumbs, the bits of burnt fries, the grains of salt.

Silverman said, “Stella, now. We need to ask you about div.”

She hesitated. Picked a last crumb from the paper.

Without looking up, she said, “You know I don’t talk ’bout that.”

“I know that, Stella. And I know this is going to be hard for you. But it’s really important.” Then he said, “I thought we had a deal.”

“And we did, yeah . . . sorta.”

I had wondered, sometimes, how he got his interviews. He came across as bumbling and uncertain of himself, barely even competent, much of the time. Yet I saw now, those were the very qualities that put people at ease. There was no sense of threat about him, no intimidation, only an urgency, a need to know what others knew, to hear what they had to say.

“Chris and Angel . . . want to know what happened, Stell.”

“Nothing happened. That part of my life—it’s gone, OK? Gone, like, I don’t think about it, I don’t talk about it. That kinda gone, see?”

“They need to know, Stella. I won’t film it. We just need to know.”

She said nothing. Her eyes flicked to the door, and I thought for a second that she’d run for it.

Silverman said, very gently, “You talked to me a bit about it last time. If you could tell me—just a bit more . . .”

She looked to me. She looked to Angel. “I said: I don’t do drugs. I said that, and it’s true. But I hit a bad patch, ’bout a year ago. I was really down. This guy comes by, says he’s got some new shit, says it’s gonna lift me up. ‘Make you divine,’ he says. That is really what he said. And I’m havin’, like, the worst time. Like my whole life is just foldin’ in on me, y’know? I don’t know if you even understand what that’s like.”

“A bit,” said Angel. “Not much, but a bit.”

Stella looked down at the table.

“Not gonna talk about it here, though.”

“Anywhere you want.”

Her eyes went briefly to Angel again. Angel met her gaze, then nodded, silently.

Stella said, “Will you take me to the Castle? After? Will you do that?”

“Sure,” said Silverman.

I said, “This really is important, Stella. It would be a big help to us, and perhaps to other people, too.”

“Yeah, well.” With her fingernail, she scrubbed a patch of dirt from her shirtfront. “That’s what I’m all about. Bein’ helpful. Anyone’ll tell you that . . .”





Chapter 38

The Interview




We hid under the trees, out of the sun. Green, watered lawns fell to a dried-up streambed, shored with timbers, and beyond that, a children’s play-park—swings, climbing frame, wooden dinosaur—done out in garish, candy colors.

There was nobody about.

It was much too hot.

“What I’m showin’ you,” said Stella, “what I’m showin’ you, is outdoors.”

She had dropped her pack and excess clothing, and she paced now, in and out the shadows, holding the floor like she was playing Shakespeare.

“You got indoors, you got outdoors. We agree on that?”

I nodded.

“Well.” She wagged a finger. “First thing. You lose your home, an’ suddenly, no more indoors. Gone.” She snapped her fingers.

Silverman said, “Div, Stell. You were going to tell us about div.”

“Now you hush, Paulie. I’m tryin’ to set the scene here. I thought about this lots, an’ it’s important, right? It means something.”

“Go on,” he said.

“See—indoors, ain’t yours. That’s the story. You think it is, but, fact o’the matter, someone else owns indoors. And when you got a home, you’re kind of in on that, too, just a little, ’cause you got your own little piece of it, an’ that gets you all those other little pieces of it, too. You don’t got that—nuh-uh. You got nothin’. You out here, in the hot an’ the cold, don’t matter what you say.” She batted at a fly that buzzed around her face. “You think, hey, let’s go to the mall, check out the stores. But mall security, see, he knows you. He knows that you ain’t buyin’ shit. An’ if you ain’t buyin’—honey, you are out of there.”

She jerked her thumb.

“Notice how they put the benches in the sun, hey? Notice that?”

I said I hadn’t.

“You will. If it’s your only place to take a break.”