“Yeah. Right.” She looked at her hand, still held in
mine, and pulled it back. Then she ran it through her hair,
and straightened her jacket. “I’ll call you once it’s done.”
As Paulina turned to walk away, Jack called, “Don’t
we get a thank-you?”
She turned back, glared at Jack. “I’ll thank you once
that blond bastard is either behind bars or in the ground.”
Then Paulina Cole walked away.
“I think that’s the closest she’s ever come to a real
thank-you,” Jack said. “I had a wager with myself, fiftyfifty odds that she slapped me before she left.”
“You might have just saved her daughter’s life,” I said.
“I think that’s at least enough to avoid a slap.”
“Eh, women like Paulina don’t always need a reason.
Especially when they feel like they’ve lost some sense of
power or authority, they get it back by lashing out. It’s a
gimmick for sure. In a way, I respect her more for that.
She’s so confident, she didn’t even feel the need to slap me.”
“If you’re disappointed, I can take her place. I have a
mean right hook.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Jack said, “though at least you
wouldn’t have nails. Those things leave scars.”
As we watched Paulina leave, my cell phone began to
vibrate. Jack heard it, too, said, “Your lady friend?”
The Darkness
243
I checked the ID, recognized it as Curt Sheffield.
“Hey, Curt,” I said. “How’s my favorite boy in blue?”
“Been better,” he said.
“Dunkin’ decided to discontinue their donuts?”
“That’s a terrible stereotype perpetuated by the media,
just like you.”
“My bad, man. What’s up?”
“It’s been a hell of a day,” he said. “I’ll give you the
heads-up because I didn’t know about Paulina’s story
until too late…but it’s true.”
“What’s true?” I asked, feeling my heart begin to beat
a little faster. It was a strange sensation. The excitement
of another thread unspooling mixed with the dread that
came with Curt’s apprehension.
“Homicide down in Chelsea,” Curt said. “Gruesome
stuff. I just left the scene, and…it’s bad, man. Real bad.”
“What happened?”
Jack’s composure from talking to Paulina was gone,
as he watched the conversation, trying to decipher my
reaction. I tried to keep a straight face, but when Curt told
me the details I felt my whole body drain of blood.
“We got the call about an hour ago,” he said. “A tenant
on the floor above. A girl comes home to find her husband
passed out on the floor. He’d been laid off a month ago,
and took every spare cent they had and spent it on drugs.
When she found out, she told him she was going to leave
him, then divorce him and take all their savings. And
that’s when he took a knife from the kitchen and sliced
her head nearly clean off.”
“That’s horrible,” I said. “Who’d you hear this from?”
“The killer himself,” Curt said. “The guy confessed to
everything, right before his brain nearly short-circuited.
He’d spent every cent they had around the house on what
244
Jason Pinter
he said was some new drug, something called Darkness
he said. Said it was the best high he’d ever had, and he
wasn’t going to give that up for anything, including his
bitch of a wife.”
“So Paulina’s story was true,” I said.
“We’ve had half a dozen calls today, from robbery to
assault to this, and all of them have one thing in common.
All the perpetrators ingested these little black rocks.”
“That’ll be all over the news tomorrow,” I said. “Not
just the Dispatch, but we’ll have to cover it, too.”
“Best publicity you can get,” Curt said. “But man, I
hope Paulina’s wrong about one thing, because if this drug
blows up we’re gonna have major problems in this city.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hell, the NYPD’s lost a thousand jobs since last year.
The narcotics division is strapped thin as it is, and our
men and women on the street haven’t caught a wink of
this thing. If the Darkness is being sold, it’s not being sold
through traditional dealers.”
I heard a siren in the distance, and I lost my focus.
Then I heard Curt’s voice again.
“Henry, Henry, you there, man?”
“Yeah, sorry, Curt. Just thinking about all of this.”
“Yeah, us, too. But listen, Henry, the main reason I
called, I wanted to tell you about one more thing.”
“What, this stuff isn’t enough? I got enough material
here for a week’s worth of stories.”
“Yeah, well, try this on for size and tell me if you
want to drop it. I think I found your man. The blond guy
who kidnapped Paulina.”
“No shit,” I said. “Who is he?”
“I haven’t told anyone else yet because, hell, after
what you told me and Paulina’s story quoting nonexis- The Darkness
245
tent members of the department, I’m officially a member
of the church of paranoia.”
“I’ve belonged there for a while,” I said. “So what
did you find?”
I heard Curt take a deep breath and say, “You gotta
swear to me this doesn’t come back with my name on it
until you figured out what the hell is going on. ’Cause this
stuff is scaring even me.”
“You know you have my word.”
“I think you’re going to want to sit down for this one.”
And when he told me who and what this man was, I felt
my knees go weak. Jack came over and we both sat down
on a bench in Rockefeller Plaza. I thought I was through
with stories like this, stories where the fire was so close it
could burn me. I looked at Jack, wondered how many
times he’d been through the kind of hell I’d gone through.
And knowing it all, feeling the scars beneath my clothing,
I knew there was a chance it could get bloody again.
“What is it, Henry?” Jack said.
The fact that he didn’t call me sport or kiddo or any
one of those nicknames scared me even more.
“Curt,” I said. “He found our man.”
“Who is it?” Jack asked.
“You know how Paulina wrote, in that article, about
how close this city was to burning down twenty years ago?”
“Yeah,” Jack said, his voice soft, monotone. “I lived
through it.”
“Well, I think someone’s turned the gas tank back on
and is getting ready to light this place up all over again.”
33
Morgan threw open his apartment door, tossed his coat
onto a chair and plopped down onto his couch with an
audible thump. He could feel his pulse racing as he
clenched and unclenched his fists.
He couldn’t sit there, not with this kind of energy, this
kind of juice flowing through him.
Standing bac
k up, Morgan walked to the refrigerator
and to his delight saw that there were two more tall boys
resting inside, nice and cold. He popped the top on the
first one and guzzled it down in one long messy gulp, then
wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He took the second beer
back to the couch and sat back down, buzzing, feeling
alive for the first time in months.
When he and Theo finally parted ways at five o’clock,
Morgan could scarcely believe how the day had unfolded.
At first he was unsure about this new opportunity. Sure
Morgan had done some blow in his day, never one to throw
a good party off its axis. But he never knew just how high
the demand was for product right now, and he never realized
just how many poor saps there were sitting in their apartments without a job, without hope, all their joy coming in
the form of some fine white powder…or a small black rock.
The Darkness
247
Morgan had no idea what the stuff did beyond what
Theo told him. According to his partner, this stuff, the
Darkness, was the most potent and addictive substance
to hit the populace since opium. It was cheap, it was
strong, and it gave you a rush every single time.
Morgan had no desire to try the stuff. Theo didn’t seem
to care either. When you had a good thing going, like they
did, you didn’t gum up the works by losing your head.
At the end of their first day on the job, Morgan and Theo
had sold nearly ten thousand dollars’ worth of product.
Over a full year, that amounted to well over three
million dollars.
And they were just one team out of God knows how
many.
And they were working, according to that Leonard
guy, the slow shift.
If all his calculations were correct, and this enterprise
had as many teams as Morgan supposed they did—then
this was a billion-dollar industry.
To be a part of something like that, with potential for
rapid growth, you didn’t take any chances.
It was unbelievable to think that Ken Tsang, who was
a relatively smart guy as far as Morgan was concerned,
would be stupid enough to rat out his partner. At first,
when Morgan found out he was dead, there was a fleeting
moment of remorse, of sadness. Now, he thought of Ken
Tsang like a homeless person you saw on the street.
Nothing more than pity, nothing less than scorn because
whatever predicament they were in, it was most certainly
of their own doing.
Morgan’s tongue tasted nothing, and he laughed, realizing he’d finished his beer several minutes ago.
For the last few months, Morgan Isaacs had spent his
248
Jason Pinter
nights on the couch, sitting alone, tipping back beers and
watching basketball games with teams he didn’t give a
rat’s ass about. The nights usually did not end until around
three o’clock in the morning, when, tired of infomercials
and out of snacks, Morgan would pass out on his sofa,
covered in a thin blanket, where he would sleep until the
sun woke him up midday.
It was a sad, dreary existence, but Morgan felt to some
extent that this was his penance, a punishment for not
living up to the promise he’d seen in himself.
How could he be a confident boyfriend—or lover at
all—with no income? How could he buy a girl a drink
knowing that he was three months behind on his credit
card payments? How could he buy his buddies a round
when there was a chance the card would be declined?
None of that existed anymore.
Morgan’s first paycheck would give him more than financial breathing room. It would give him his life back.
Morgan picked up his cell phone, scrolled through
his address book until he found her name. And then
Morgan smiled. Svetlana. When in doubt, go with the
Russian model.
Svetlana was beautiful and nearly six feet in heels,
with jet-black hair, legs that were longer than a New York
City lamppost, and a body that would make Putin himself
kneel and beg for mercy.
She was a tough one. Her father was a doctor, and he’d
been killed recently or something, and Svetlana refused
to ever discuss it. Not that Morgan minded; if anything
he preferred that they keep their relationship as uncomplicated as possible.
The sex was freaking mind-blowing, and damned if he
didn’t miss that the most. And now that he could treat her
The Darkness
249
again like he did in the old days (well, at least he was
getting there), he felt that sizzle, that confidence that had
been robbed from him all coming back.
He dialed the number and held it to his ear, praying
that she wasn’t somewhere without service or, God help
him, with another man. If she was, Morgan might just
have to kill him.
“Who is this?” the female voice said on the other end.
It wasn’t said with any sort of real curiosity, but with
anger because she knew exactly who was calling.
“It’s me, babe,” Morgan said. “What are you doing
right now?”
“What am I doing?” she said. God, he loved that
accent. “I am sitting on my ass because my worthless
friend Sabina decided to go on a date with some lawyer.
So I was about to open a bottle of wine when you called.
Why the hell are you calling, Morgan?”
“What are you wearing?” he said.
“What am I wearing? What the hell is wrong with
you? Why does that matter?”
“Because I want you to pick out your hottest outfit
in half an hour.”
“And why would I do that?” she asked, her hesitancy
melting.
“Because I’m back, sweetheart, and I’m going to get
us both wasted and then I’m going to make you thank
God you were born a woman.”
“Morgan?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
34
She didn’t remember the drive taking this long. Maybe
because last time, time was of the essence. Or maybe last
time there was an excitement about seeing her daughter
for the first time in months.
As the yellow lines sped past in a blur, as the trees on
I-95 merged into one long emerald line, Paulina thought
about those days nearly twenty years ago when she first
held Abigail in her arms. She was so tiny, so fragile, and
Paulina remembered breast-feeding her, thinking that this
small person was dependent on her for love, for life. And
though she’d never wanted that feeling to die, it had done
just that a long time ago.
Paulina had never wanted to be one of those corporate
mothers who took a week off for maternity leave, was
back in the office like nothing had ever happened while
her child was raised and cared for by nannies with calloused hands and heaving bosoms. She never wanted her
daughter to grow up h
earing somebody else’s voice read
her bedtime stories, never wanted her daughter to feel the
same sense of loneliness that Paulina had as a little girl.
Abby would be her daughter forever, and she would
not let her daughter grow up without a true mother.
The Darkness
251
Of course, life didn’t work out that way. As soon as
they wanted her to take on bigger stories, she jumped at
the chance. Paulina told herself that it was only for a
short period of time, that she would make money and
make a name for herself so that when she finally stepped
back from the job, she would have created a better life
for Abigail.
But Paulina never stepped back.
The stories got bigger and bigger, and the chase became intoxicating. And when her name didn’t grow at the
pace she wanted it to, she left the Gazette and took a job
at their rival. And now, finally, after so long in the
trenches of this industry, Paulina was a name, a brand,
making the kind of money that she always hoped to.
Some people said newspapers were a dying industry,
but if you wrote what people wanted to read, they’d never
bury you. There was always a medium.
And then one day, Paulina looked back and realized
that Abby was gone. A grown woman, a college student,
with her own hopes and dreams and desires and loves.
And Paulina had not been there for any of it.
Which is why this drive felt like the longest hours of
Paulina’s life. Because just as she’d reentered Abby’s life
the other day, today she was going to pull the shade over
a part of Abigail’s life that Paulina had been too busy to
realize had even felt sunshine.
She arrived at the dorm as the sun was setting, casting
a beautiful orange hue over the treetops and green grass.
The red brick of the dorms looked radiant in the glow, and
for a moment Paulina had to stand and watch them.
Then as shadows began to creep across the grounds,
Paulina locked the car door and prepared herself.
She walked up to the front door and dialed Abby’s cell.
252
Jason Pinter
She had no idea what her daughter’s schedule was,
whether she had evening class, what time she went to
dinner, if she had plans to see a movie tonight.
It didn’t matter. She’d wait at the door all night if
she had to.
Fortunately Abby picked up right away.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hey, Abby, it’s your mother.”