Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [44]
“As I said earlier: I’d prefer if we discuss this in person,” he says.
“I may not live that long.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Only mildly. I think I’m onto a great story,” I say, cringing at my tactic of playing to his romantic view of journalism. “I really need help following up on two leads.”
I tell him I need background on a woman named Lulu Adrianna Pederson. I briefly describe that she’s a scientist and that I’m anxious to learn more about her work.
“What is this about?” he asks.
I offer a cliché drawn from my days growing up in Colorado. “I’ve accidentally poked a hornet’s nest with a stick.”
“Meaning?”
I consider how much to disclose. I don’t know much about Chuck—whom he knows or may share my information with, and whether such sharing might compromise me or Grandma. But my journalistic experience has taught me that the best way to elicit help and information from an interview subject is to be as open and frank as possible. Candor and cooperation beget the same.
I hedge. “Can I explain later?”
He considers this in silence, then says: “No deal. I need some more information now. I’m guessing we’re not talking about some more rogue cops bent on burning down all the toilets in Northern California?”
I force a laugh. “Something more cerebral.” I decide to concede the information, or some of it.
I explain that Adrianna Pederson contacted me to give me a story tip but has since gone underground. I explain that the story might be very interesting and even involve powerful people in the scientific community doing something they shouldn’t; what that might be, I have no idea but my instincts tell me it’s absolutely worth pursuing.
“Where does your grandmother fit in?” he asks.
I hadn’t realized I’d mentioned her. But when he asks, I say aloud the revelation I’ve been brewing.
“As odd as this sounds, I think Grandma knows something about the story, a secret, maybe,” I say. “One that she shouldn’t.”
“Ha,” he says.
“What?”
“That’s the kind of wide-eyed conspiracy theorizing I like to see in my bloggers.”
He asks me to spell Adrianna’s name, and I take a stab at it.
“I’ll look into this. I’ll call you tomorrow to find a time to get together,” he says.
I feel my impatience rising. It’s the Internet era; people never get together in person.
“Fine,” I say. I need his help.
We hang up.
I look at Grandma. She’s sound asleep.
Five minutes later, I pass Betty Lou on the street. She stands three blocks from Magnolia Manor wearing a wool hat and long coat. She holds a shopping bag. The reason I pass her without stopping is because I want to make sure she’s alone, and that I’m not being followed. But I’m not quite sure whether I’ve accomplished either of these goals as I pull around the block a second time and park in front of her.
I roll down the window. Betty Lou’s gaze goes right to Grandma, who is in deep slumber. Then Betty Lou looks at me, hard, like a schoolmarm at a first-grader playing bongos in the middle of naptime. She’s wearing a necklace with a turquoise cat pendant dangling from it.
“Why did you just drive past me? It’s cold out here.”
“You want to get in?”
“I want to know why you’re pretending to be Sean Connery.”
“Get in please.”
She gets into the back, pushing aside my backpack and handing me a paper shopping bag.
“Sean Connery drove an Aston Martin and it didn’t smell like a dorm room,” she says.
“At least the Bond girls are still beautiful,” I say.
“Young people are so patronizing,” she says, for the second time today. Her tone turns serious. “What’s going on, Nathaniel Bond?”
I navigate a vague rhetorical path. I tell her that Grandma had been tense lately and so I decided to give her a little change of scenery for a few days and that I’ve taken her to a neurologist who also prescribes a break. I explain that Vince has taken exception to this notion and would prefer that I not take Grandma Lane away, however temporarily.