wants another ten. Home base said to expect a lot of
Darkness deliveries today.”
“Another hundred and fifty bucks for five minutes’
work,” Theo said. He tried to whistle, but again it came
out more like an aborted attempt at a raspberry. “Let’s not
keep the man waiting.”
“Agreed,” Morgan said. He felt a strange sensation,
and for a moment couldn’t place it. Then, as they were
about to reenter the brownstone, it occurred to Morgan
the last time he’d felt that singular feeling of joy, confidence and ambition.
The day he got his first paycheck at his old job. That
was the first day he truly felt like he was going to
conquer the world.
“Let’s hurry it up,” Morgan said. “But this time let’s
take the stairs.”
29
“Always makes me smile a little,” Jack said.
“What does?”
“Tourists. They spend thousands of dollars to see this
city, but they really know nothing about it. You don’t get
a sense of Manhattan by taking pictures or sitting on a
double-decker bus.”
“Not everyone has had the fortune of being at gunpoint
in Vietnam,” I said. “For some people this is as close as
they can get.”
“I suppose,” Jack said, “but sometimes I wonder if I
even understand the city after all these years.”
“Are you still thinking about Paulina’s article?” I asked.
“A little. I never used to get scooped, Henry. Every time
I went out for lunch, I could feel a dozen eyes on me,
hating me. They were other reporters, and they were staring
daggers through me because they knew I was working on
stories that they’d never get. They’d be working mop-up
duty on yesterday’s page seven while I was breaking news.
It’s a great feeling to be hated for doing your job well. And
right now, I hate Paulina Cole. Not because she tried to ruin
my life, but because she got a story that I didn’t. So not only
do I hate her, but I hate her for making me hate her.”
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“That’s a lot of hate to be carrying around,” I said. “But
what we’re working on could squash that.”
“You aren’t going to know that until we follow the
bread crumb trail to the end. Maybe we find something,
maybe we don’t.”
“I know there’s something at the end,” I said. “My
brother didn’t die for nothing. Somebody had him killed.
And I know whoever had him killed knows what 718 Enterprises is.”
“You told me your brother was a courier,” Jack said.
“Right?”
“I think so. He was somewhere on the drug ladder, and
not at the bottom.”
“You think it’s a coincidence your brother gets killed—
you claim by someone higher up on the food chain than
he was—and then such a short time later this story breaks?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I think you have a feeling, the same one I do.You talked
to Butch Willingham, you know my reporting on the Fury.”
“I know you didn’t have enough to go on to report
more than you did,” I said. “And that wasn’t much. If the
Fury even exists.”
Jack stared me down, backed me down, knowing what
we both full well believed.
“Twenty years ago,” Jack said, “I thought I was certain
that there was some sort of kingpin, some sort of Wizard
of Oz named the Fury. And for whatever reason, that
person was eliminating midlevel drug dealers.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Paulina might have beaten us to the story, but I don’t
think she got the full story. Not even close. If the Fury
exists, he came to power in the eighties, right around the
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223
time the crack epidemic was strangling the life out of
New York. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“Go on,” I said. I felt that familiar rush.
“Twenty years later, your brother is killed. Then this
guy Ken Tsang is killed. Both around the same age, both
then Paulina’s article about this new drug, the Darkness,
gets printed. Two dealers killed. A new drug hitting the
streets. I think this person was instrumental during the
eighties, and is now taking it to a whole new level.”
“History repeats itself,” I said. “But this isn’t the same
city as it was twenty years ago. I mean, between Giuliani
and 9/11, you can’t argue that we’re not more secure.”
“Security is all relative,” Jack said. “When the economy takes a turn for the worse, especially when it nosedives like it has, it breeds crime and corruption. They’re
both sides of the same coin. You get one you get the
other. You know the expression, ‘can’t see the forest for
the trees,’ right?”
“Of course.”
“Right now, this city is staring at the forest. It’s looking
at the big picture. Terrorism, biohazards, all noble and important things to be watching out for. In the eighties and
nineties, we didn’t have to worry about things like that. So
guys like Giuliani, Ray Kelly and Bill Bratton could look
at it from the street level, the trees. There’s a reason Fortysecond Street looks like Walt Disney threw up all over it
and not like hooker paradise anymore. Twenty years ago,
the cops could look at the city through a microscope.
Nowadays, they need to look at it via satellite. And when
you look at things from a macro perspective, when you’re
looking at rooftops and airplanes, you miss the rat holes.
Beneath our noses, there’s something big brewing. And
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Jason Pinter
whoever’s behind it is smart enough to know that this is
the right time, and that we might be defenseless.”
“Paulina’s story,” I said, “all it’s going to do is create
demand for the product.”
“Without a doubt. Nothing gets people motivated like
being told they shouldn’t do something. Word of mouth
takes a match to ignite it. For all of Paulina’s moxie in
getting this story, I worry that she’s going to inadvertently
do the exact opposite of alarming the public—she’s going
to make them want it even more.”
I suddenly felt nauseous. When I’d met with Paulina, she
told me there was a quid pro quo with the man who kidnapped her and threatened her daughter. She would have
to do something for him in order to keep her daughter safe.
Now I knew what that quid pro quo was. And why
it was asked.
The blond man, the same one who’d killed Brett
Kaiser, had told her to write the article. He’d gotten her
all the information she needed, perhaps even fabricated
a few quotes, and those were her “unnamed sources.”
I’d never seen Paulina scared, and I’d never seen her
lie. In the last few days I’d seen both. And they scared the
hell out of me.
Whoever the man was that asked her to write the ar
ticle
knew that it would create an automatic demand for the
product it featured. Paulina’s weapon was words, and
he’d given her ammunition to forge something dangerous and potentially deadly.
I had to tell Jack. This was getting too big. This man
had scope and vision and knew exactly what getting to
Paulina would do. Jack needed to know.
And he was staring right at me. Knew full well I was
thinking something.
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225
But to my surprise, the look on Jack’s face wasn’t full
of wonder at what I was thinking…it was one of disappointment because he knew I was hiding something.
“Time to spill it, Henry,” he said. Jack’s face turned
to stone. This was a look I hadn’t seen before, and immediately I felt awful, lying to the man I’d idolized for
so long. The man who’d been my partner on this story,
who was motivated to come back to work because of
what I’d uncovered.
I left that man in the dust, but now he’d caught up to me.
“After the explosion at Brett Kaiser’s apartment…” I
said, trying to look at Jack but finding it hard. Finally I
met his eyes. “I got a call.”
“From who?” Jack said. He said it as much just to get
me to admit it as he did to find out the answer.
“Paulina Cole.”
If Jack’s face had been stone, this caused it to crack a
bit. His eyes opened wider, mouth opened just enough to
show the surprise on his face.
“Paulina,” he said. “Why in God’s name…”
“She was kidnapped,” I said, the dam bursting. But
truth be told, it felt good.
“Kidnapped? By who? And why the hell would she
call you?”
I could see Jack’s eyes reddening, but his anger at
learning the truth was now tempered by his desire to
know the full story. And he’d get it.
“She doesn’t know,” I said. “But the man who did it
threatened to kill her daughter.”
“You know I always kind of assumed Paulina was
some sort of devil spawn. I’m moderately surprised to
learn that she has a reproductive system.”
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“She thinks the guy who did it has connections in the
NYPD. He said if she went to the cops he’d know.”
“So she goes to you because you know cops you can
trust.”
“Partly, yeah.”
“So what does she want from you?”
“To help her find the man who did it.”
“And in return, let me guess, you get the story.”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“Jesus, Henry,” Jack said, tilting his head back, wiping
his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “The story she
wrote this morning, did you know it was going to run?”
“No, I swear I didn’t.”
“But?” Jack said.
“But she told me she had to do something for him.
That was the deal for him not to harm her daughter. My
guess is the story this morning was what she promised,
what he made her do.”
“That would explain why the cops don’t know anything and why nobody would go on the record. Strange
that for an article about a potential drug epidemic nobody
from the narcotics division was quoted, or even knew
about it.”
“Or why the cops patrolling the streets haven’t heard
about it.”
“Today,” Jack said, taking a breath, “was the comingout party for this drug. Paulina’s story was the spark to
get the Darkness into the mainstream. A cover story in a
major New York newspaper will be read by over two
million people, and another few million will see the
headline and remember it.”
“Word of mouth,” I said. “Best marketing in the world,
and they got it for free.”
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227
Jack lowered his head. “They used us.”
“There’s more,” I said. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure
that the guy Chester who kidnapped Paulina is the same guy
who killed Brett Kaiser. Physical descriptions matched.
Curt Sheffield is helping me track him down, going off the
physical info plus access to explosives and drugs.”
“Do you think this guy,” Jack said, “could be the Fury?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “The descriptions from both
Paulina and Kaiser’s doorman peg the suspect in his late
thirties or early forties. It’s not impossible but I suspect
twenty years ago he would have been a little too young
to run a drug empire.”
“So then he must be working for somebody,” Jack
said. “Somebody smart enough to go after Paulina, and
somebody powerful enough to have their fingers dug
into the NYPD.”
“So how the hell do we find out who this guy is?” I
said. “Sheffield is looking into it, but if Paulina is right
then most of my contacts in the department are useless.
Paulina said this guy showed her a picture of her daughter
that was part of an album posted on a social networking
site. The way these things work is that the only people
who have access to the pictures you post are the people
you accept as friends.”
“You’re saying this guy would be stupid enough to be
her friend online?”
“No,” I said. “But I think he found someone who was
because this particular photo was left off the site. Paulina
gave me a list of everyone her daughter is friends with.
Jack, I know you’re used to typewriters and ink quills, but
this is going to take some electronic legwork.”
“I can use the Google,” Jack said.
“Yeah…I was afraid you’d say that. The list is upstairs.
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Forget about Victoria Kaiser for now. What we need to
do is cross-check everyone on that list with Abigail Cole,
if need be call everyone she’s friends with online.”
“She’s in college, right? That could be hundreds of
people.”
“Good thing you don’t have any children, you won’t
go into it knowing how damn difficult it is to talk to
someone in their late teens or early twenties.”
“You’re not that far from that age, Henry,” Jack said.
“Yeah, I know. Why do you think I know they’re all
nightmares?”
Jack laughed. “Okay, sport, let’s go. Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I accidentally spilled coffee on my keyboard. Can you
ask the help desk for a new one? This would be my fourth
and I don’t think they’ll give me another one.”
“Sure,” I said. “Come on, George Jetson, let’s go find
Mr. Joshua.”
30
I forgot what it was like to be a college student.
Abigail Cole had one hundred and ninety-seven
friends on Facebook. Many of them had public profiles,
and from that I was able to glean phone numbers and
sometimes e-mail addresses. To those who had e-mail addresses, I sent notes asking to speak to them in a matter
pertaining
to an ongoing investigation. I clearly identified
myself, hoping one would cop to giving Chester the
photo.
At least four of them picked up their cell phone during
class. I could tell this because someone said quite audibly
that if the phone wasn’t turned off posthaste, F would be
merely the first of four letters on that student’s papers.
When I was in college, one of my dreams was to have
a beeper some day. As young as I was, sometimes I felt
pretty old.
Frustration began to seep in after I’d contacted nearly
thirty of Abigail’s friends and made no headway. I wasn’t
even sure how many of these people she was still close
to, or whether or not they were real friends or just random
friends-of-friends-of-friends.
There had to be an easier way to do this. And just
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when I was about to brainstorm what that was, Jack came
walking over.
He had a big smile on his face, the kind of smile that
you didn’t often see on a man approaching seventy. This
was more along the lines of a young child who’d accidentally discovered a hidden Christmas present that they
didn’t expect to be there. Jack almost looked embarrassed
to be happy.
“What’s got you so toothy?” I said.
“I think I found it,” he said.
“Found what?”
Jack took a chair from an empty cubicle and pulled it
over to my desk. He laid a series of printouts in front of me.
They looked to be from some sort of Web sites. They were
chock-full of random ruminations, thoughts and pictures.
“What is this?” I said.
“Well,” Jack continued, the pride in his voice unmistakable, “I took the list of all of Abigail Cole’s online
friends. I did every kind of search imaginable—Google,
Yahoo, LexisNexis, you name it—and cross-referenced
her name along with Web sites that contained photos. I
figured if somebody had access to personal photos, they
might have had access even earlier than when Paulina was
first taken.”
“Why would you assume that?” I said.
“Whoever took Paulina wanted her to write that article
to help publicize the Darkness. Which means these plans
have been in the works for a lot longer than the little time
gone by since her abduction. This blond guy needed to
know how to get to Paulina well before he actually did
it, meaning he needed to be sure of who had access to her
daughter’s photos ahead of time. So when I did all that…I