The Scarecrow

I spent another hour sitting on the hard folding chair, occasionally getting up to knock loudly on the door or to pace in the tiny room the way Bantam had. The abandonment started to work on me. I kept checking my watch or opening my phone, even though I knew there was no service and that wasn’t going to change. At one point I decided to test my paranoid theory that I was being watched and listened to the whole time I was in the room. I opened my phone and walked the corners like a man reading a Geiger counter. In the third corner I acted like I had found service and started through the motions of making a call and talking excitedly to my editor, telling him I was ready to dictate a major breaking story on the identity of the trunk killer.

But Bantam didn’t come rushing in and it only proved one of two possibilities. That the room wasn’t wired for sight and sound, or that the agents outside watching me knew my cell service was blocked and I couldn’t possibly have made the call I had just pretended to make.

Finally, at 5:15 the door opened. But it wasn’t Bantam who entered. It was Rachel. I stood up. My eyes probably showed my surprise but my tongue held in check.

“Sit down, Jack,” Rachel said.

I hesitated but then sat back down.

Rachel took the other seat and sat down in front of me. I looked at her and pointed to the ceiling, raising my eyebrows in question.

“Yes, we’re being recorded,” Rachel said. “Audio and visual. But you can speak freely, Jack.”

I shrugged.

“Well, something tells me you’ve put on weight since I last saw you. Like maybe a badge and a gun?”

She nodded.

“I actually don’t have the badge or gun yet but they’re on their way.”

“Don’t tell me, you found Osama bin Laden in Griffith Park?”

“Not exactly.”

“But you were reinstated.”

“Technically, my resignation had not been signed off on yet. The slow pace of bureaucracy, you know? I got lucky. I was allowed to withdraw it.”

I leaned forward and whispered.

“What about the jet?”

“You don’t have to whisper. The jet is no longer an issue.”

“I hope you got it in writing.”

“I got what I needed.”

I nodded. I knew the score. She had used what leverage she had to make a deal.

“So let me guess, they want it to read that an agent identified Freddy Stone as the Unsub, not someone they had just run out of the bureau.”

She nodded.

“Something like that. I am now assigned to dealing with you. They’re not going to let you inside the tape, Jack. It’s a recipe for disaster. You remember what happened with the Poet.”

“That was then and this is now.”

“It’s still not going to happen.”

“Look, can we get out of this cube? Can we just take a walk where there are no hidden cameras or microphones?”

“Sure, let’s walk.”

She stood up and went to the door. She knocked with a two-and-one pattern and the door was opened immediately. As we stepped into the narrow hallway that led to the front of the bus and the exit, I noticed Bantam was behind the door. I knocked the two-and-one pattern on it.

“If only I had known the combo,” I said. “I could’ve been out of here an hour ago.”

He found no humor in my comment. I turned away and followed Rachel out of the bus. Outside I could see that the warehouse and the alley were still nests of bureau activity. Several agents and technicians were moving about, collecting evidence, taking measurements and photos, writing notes on clipboards.

“All these people, have they found anything we didn’t find?”

She smiled slyly.

“Not so far.”

“Bantam said the bureau was swarming other locations-plural. What other locations?”

“Look, Jack, before we talk we need to be straight on something. This isn’t a ride-along and you’re not embedded. I am your contact, your source, as long as you hold the story for a day the way you offered.”

“The offer was based on full access.”

“Come on, Jack, that’s not going to happen. But you have me and you can trust me. You go back to L.A. and you write your story tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything I can tell you.”

I moved away from her down the sidewalk toward the alley.

“See, that’s what I’m worried about. You will tell me everything that you can tell me. Who decides what you can tell me?”

“I will tell you everything I know.”

“But will you know everything?”

“Jack, come on. Stop with the semantics. Do you trust me? Isn’t that what you said when you called me up out of the blue last week from the middle of the desert?”

I looked in her eyes for a moment and then back to the alley.

“Of course I trust you.”

“Then that’s all you need. Go back to L.A. Tomorrow you can call me every hour on the hour if you want and I will tell you what we’ve got. You will be up to speed until the moment you put the story in the paper. It will be your story and nobody else’s. I promise you that.”

I didn’t say anything. I stared into the alley, where there were several agents and techs dissecting the black trash bags we had found. They were documenting each piece of garbage and debris like archaeologists at a dig in Egypt.

Rachel grew impatient.

“Then do we have a deal, Jack?”

I looked at her.