Read Online Brooklyn Secrets by Triss Stein - Free Book Online

him.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œEspy! What are we talking about? He was old by then, sick.”
    â€œForgotten?”
    â€œNot really. Never, really, but he hadn’t chased a story in years. Naah, decades. He missed it. You never really lose that addiction, being an adrenaline junkie.”
    Like someone else I knew?
    â€œI met him because we were doing a story about him, some anniversary thing. They got out a bunch of old pictures he took, and got one of him, himself, very rare. He always said he belonged behind the lens, not in front of it. He lived upstate then, all retired.”
    He reached for another piece of bread. “Really hated it. I mean, he could see cows out the window. This is a guy who lived across from a police station so he never missed out on a story.”
    â€˜You’re making that up.”
    â€œNo, I am not and I didn’t just hear it from him.” He grinned at me. “Always have to have some corroboration and I did. I got the address and believe me, it was a real dump.”
    I looked around his living room without a word and he saw me do it.
    â€œWorse. Way worse. One room, bathtub in the kitchen. But he could see the station out the one window, and could be out and on a cop call in two minutes. Like the man says, location, location, location.”
    There he was, Leary the living, breathing time machine. That’s why I put up with him. And because I have become fond of him. Hard to explain but true.
    â€œI have a book from the exhibit.”
    â€œYeah? Learn anything?” He was now scraping tomato sauce out of the pasta bowl.
    â€œDid you know he was a Brooklyn boy? He came from Brownsville.”
    Leary shrugged. “Don’t know if I did, or not. It wasn’t important. His whole career was shooting the dark side of Manhattan. And he started real young, like a kid. You could do that then. Ya know? No one cared about his roots.”
    â€œWell, I care. I’m looking at Brownsville now for my dissertation.”
    â€œWhen are you going to get that thing done?” He looked mischievous. He knows it’s not a welcome question.
    I shocked us both by tearing up.
    â€œHey, hey.” It’s probably the only time I’ve ever seen him with no words. He handed me a napkin. I mopped my eyes, took a gulp of wine and a deep breath. Two deep breaths.
    â€œSorry about that. I just feel like…some days…I’m stuck in the swamp. Forever.”
    He was silent, drinking. Finally he said, “Even been stuck in a real swamp?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYour tears are clouding up your eyes, not your ears. You heard me. I said, ‘real swamp.’”
    I stopped crying. “I live in Brooklyn. New York. Not in, like, Louisiana.”
    â€œI thought so. No real swamps. Bet you’ve never even seen one?”
    He seemed to be waiting for an answer. “True.”
    â€œYou got no idea. I was in ‘Nam. There are real swamps and then there are problems, okay? You have a problem. So fix it.”
    Strangely, his lack of sympathy helped. I took another deep breath, looked him in the eyes and said, “What do you know about old-time Brownsville?”
    It turned out to be nothing. It was never his home or his beat, but he did have a few more stories about Espy. I couldn’t figure out how I could use them in my work, but I wanted to.
    Back home I left a note on my door for Chris, “Do not wake me,” and staggered off to bed hoping to sleep a long time.
    The call that woke me the next morning was the NYPD. They caught me just before I needed to leave for work. They wanted me for a lineup today, as soon as I could get there, to help identify some young men who had accosted me the other day.
    Oh, crap, I thought. My days, my whole life, was tightly scheduled. There was no room for this.
    I called the museum and told them I had an emergency. Then I e-mailed my actual boss with more details and headed out