79
THERE WAS nothing Candace hated more than sitting on big news. She’d promised to keep quiet about the Nazario hearing until Duncan called her after it was over. Candace was braced for a dull day of waiting around, but that was before she received an e-mail from Tommy Nelson. Candace’s surprise grew as she read it: Nelson said he had something to show her. He asked her to meet him in Tompkins Square Park in one hour, and instructed her not to call him.
This felt wrong. Candace remembered what Nelson had said to her the last time they’d spoken, how she should believe her own alarm bells. After a moment she picked up her office phone and called ADA Sullivan. “I think someone’s about to try to kill me,” she said.
A HALF hour later she found herself in a conference room off the newsroom with Sullivan and a Detective Gomez. Gomez had given her a small wireless transmitter, instructed her on attaching it to the clasp of her bra.
“We’re going to have a dozen plainclothes all over the park,” Sullivan said. “We’ll have sharpshooters on a roof. We’ll be able to hear every word, will come in once we’ve heard enough or if you seem to be in any danger. If you want us to break it up just say, ‘Enough is enough.’”
“What do you think their play is here?” Candace asked.
Sullivan shrugged. “I assume they really want to talk to you, find out what you know. They could just try to do that through subterfuge, or they could try something worse than that. As long as you’re in a public place with us all over it, you should be okay.”
“Should be?” Candace said. She was scared, and didn’t mind if Sullivan knew it.
“If they just wanted to shoot you, there’s no reason to set up a meeting, but obviously this isn’t risk-free. You don’t really need me to tell you that.”
CANDACE TOOK the N train down to the East Village, then walked down Saint Marks Place to the park. While even Saint Marks wasn’t immune from gentrification, the mohawked street kids and punk rock T-shirt stores were still the same as when Candace was a teenager, though now they were interspersed with Japanese restaurants and tourists.
Tompkins Square bore virtually no resemblance to the place Candace remembered from twenty years ago. Back in the late eighties the park had been full of a volatile mix of anarchists and hard-core addicts, largely surrounded by dilapidated squats. Now the park was surrounded by condos, and the people gathered in it looked little different from those in Central Park.
Candace walked over to the benches near the chess tables. All of her senses were on high alert, and fear had knotted her stomach into a tangled ball. Candace noticed every passing face, the wind through the trees, the angry sounds of city traffic. She’d been sitting there for about five minutes, scanning the crowd, when a well-dressed middle-aged black man came and sat down beside her. Candace glanced over at the man, who looked back, smiling.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you Candace Snow?”
Candace gave the man a long look. She couldn’t swear to it, but she was pretty sure he was Darryl Loomis. They’d never met, but Candace had looked up a photo of him while writing the eviction story. If she was right, Candace was surprised Darryl would show up himself—it seemed like an unnecessary risk. “Do I know you?” she asked.
“I’m a friend of Tommy’s. He sent me to come get you.”
“Come get me?” she said, stalling. The plan was for whatever was to happen to take place in the park. It was risky enough to be here, even with police surveillance in place and a mic under her shirt; it was something else entirely to leave with this man.
“To take you to Tommy, and what he’s got to show you.”
“Tommy didn’t say anything about any friend,” Candace said, still thinking it through. It would be dangerous to go, obviously. But Candace thought it didn’t make sense for Darryl to go about it this way if all he wanted was to kill her.
“He’s worried that you’re still being followed,” Darryl said. “The last time he talked to you, he ended up with his ankle broke. Besides, what he has to show you, it’s not portable. You got to go to the source.”
“Where’s the source?”
“The building he used to work at, down in SoHo.”
This came as a surprise to Candace. “The Aurora?” she asked.
“That’s it, yeah.”
Candace wanted to get Darryl talking here at the park, but she wasn’t sure how. “This seems awfully cloak-and-dagger,” she said. “I mean, no offense, but I don’t have any idea who you are.”
“The name’s Reggie Watson,” Darryl said, putting out his hand. Candace looked at it for a moment, then shook.
“Can I call Tommy and find out what the deal is?”
Darryl shook his head. “No phones. Whoever these people are you’re looking into, they’ve got Tommy more spooked than I’ve ever seen him.”
“So what’s the idea, exactly?”
“My car’s parked over on C. We drive a little, make sure nobody’s following; then I take you to the Aurora, Tommy shows you what he’s got to show you.”
“Which is?”
Darryl shrugged. “Just the messenger.”
Candace made no attempt to hide her discomfort. Darryl smiled at her. It was clear he wasn’t going to say anything while they were here. If she was going to get him to incriminate himself, she was going to have to go along with whatever he was up to. After a moment Candace stood. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”