“Jack, come on…”
“It’s us or nothing now, Henry,” he said. “I don’t trust
anyone in this city and I won’t until we know what the
hell is going on.”
I heard my cell phone beep. I took it out, saw I had a
text message. It was from Curt Sheffield.
Four people dead in midtown hi-rise. Looks like a
triple murder-suicide. Bags of the Darkness found all
over the place. One of the victims was Lil’ Leroy.
I snapped the phone shut. “This is not good,” I said.
“What happened?”
“According to Curt, they found four bodies, one of whom
was LeRoy Culvert, also known as the rapper Lil’ Leroy.”
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“Damn,” Jack said. “He’s famous enough that even
I’ve heard of him.”
“He was found with three other bodies, and they’re all
dead, drawn and quartered. I mean the place looks like a
bloody Rorschach test. And apparently the cops found
drugs at the scene. Darkness.”
Jack lowered his head.
“There’s something else…” I said. “Somebody wrote
‘Fury’ on one of the walls. In blood.”
“Just like Butch Willingham. This is how the bloodshed
begins. This is how it starts. Things will only get worse.”
“This will be all over the papers tomorrow,” I said.
“Front-page stuff, probably, and it will go national. The
Fury only killed dealers. And once people know what
kind of drugs Culvert was killed over…”
“People all over the country will want it.”
“Guy had to be worth millions,” I said. “Always saw
him drinking expensive champagne and hanging out on
yachts. Guy like that only indulges in the good stuff.
Killing him creates instant demand. This is the best marketing money could buy.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Jack said. “Even
crack…it took a while to seep in. This drug sounds like
it’s already swimming in the city’s bloodstream, polluting it from the inside out.”
“And people are literally dying to get their own
taste,” I said. Then I went into my wallet and pulled out
a piece of paper.
Jack’s eyes widened. “You didn’t give that to the
cops?” he said.
I opened the money order made out to Morgan Isaacs,
looked at it.
“Like you said, I don’t trust anybody either now. This
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297
is our only lead. And even though I trust Curt, I don’t trust
the whole department. We lose this, it might never be
seen again.”
“Henry, this is dangerous,” Jack said. “You could get
in trouble for that.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “This isn’t about a story anymore.
It’s about stopping whatever the hell is happening to this
city.”
“Leonard Reeves,” Jack said. “Who the hell is he?”
“Let’s find out. His name is on this order. He has to
live and work in the city. And I’ll bet he has some connection to 718 Enterprises. And maybe to my brother.”
“So, what, you think we can just dial four-one-one and
the operator will connect us?” Jack said.
“No, but guy like this has to be connected. He has to
have access to a large amount of money, or at least people
who can get it. I want to use my LexisNexis account, see
what we can find.”
“Great, let’s go to the office.”
“No way,” I said. “Like you said, trust no one. We’re
doing this from my apartment.”
“Your apartment? Won’t your lady friend mind?”
“Her name is Amanda,” I said, slightly annoyed.
“You’ve met her. You know that.”
Jack nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You guys
doing well?”
“Just fine,” I said.
“Glad to hear it.”
I laughed. “Come on, Jack. We both know it wasn’t too
long ago you told me to dump her in so many words. And
I stupidly listened to you, and it almost ruined my life to
do it. I trust your relationship advice as much as I trust
your recommendations on aftershave.”
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“You do what you want,” Jack said. “I’m in no position
to judge anyone. I do seem to remember you standing
over me in a puddle of my own puke.”
“Glad you remember that,” I said. “Not exactly either
of our finer moments.”
“Not something I’ll want brought up in my eulogy.
Come on, let’s see what we can find out.”
“You’ll behave yourself?” I said.
“What do you think I am?” Jack said, finishing the last
of his coffee and dropping a few singles on the table. He
wiped at his shirt where a few drops of black liquid had
stained it. “Uncouth?”
42
I turned the key in the lock. Amanda was staying at my
place tonight. Odds were she was asleep and I didn’t
want to wake her.
But when I turned the knob and opened the door,
Amanda was sitting on the couch, a beer in her hand,
staring at the door like she’d been patiently waiting for a
toaster to go off.
The room smelled like flowers, and I could tell she’d
been burning one of her scented candles. A copy of a Nora
Roberts book lay dog-eared on the table, and a spoon
covered in chocolate lay next to it.
She wasn’t one of those girls who did that kind of thing
often. She didn’t eat ice cream when she was depressed,
didn’t have a weakness for chick flicks or romance
novels. At least not for the same reasons as most people.
Amanda only did those things when she was nervous,
when taking her mind far away from the real world. When
reality was too frightening a place to be in.
When she saw me, Amanda slowly stood up, came
over and threw her arms around me. I felt a cold splash
of beer drip down my back, but I didn’t care. I closed my
eyes and hugged her back.
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“I’m going to have to install a GPS device on you,” she
said. I laughed. Then she pulled her head from the crook
of my neck and kissed me hard. I pressed my lips against
her, held her tight.
I felt her hand travel down my lower back until she was
cupping my butt. It felt great, and for a moment I totally
forgot that I hadn’t come home alone.
Then Amanda saw him and shrieked.
“Mr. O’Donnell?” Amanda said, her arms still around
me, but her hand jerking away like she’d touched a hot
stove.
“Sorry to intrude, Ms. Davies,” he said. “Your boyfriend and I have been through a lot today, and we unfortunately have to take up a little more of your time.”
“Henry?” she said. “What’s going on?”
“We found something at the scene,” I said. “A document
that we hope will connect the guy who killed Hollinsworth
to 718 Enterprises. We just need to find out who he is.”
“And then what?” she said. “
You’re going to call the
cops?”
I looked at Jack. He shrugged, as if to say this is all yours.
I turned back to Amanda. Her arms had slipped from
my shoulders. I took her hand, held it, but she was reluctant to hold on.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Somebody knew we were meeting Hollinsworth. I
don’t know how they found out, but until we know who
did it we’re going to play this pretty close to the vest.”
She nodded, understanding it though it was clear she
wasn’t happy about it.
Then she looked at Jack, said, “How are you? Feeling better?”
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301
Jack smiled. “I am. Thank you for asking.”
“So get on with it,” Amanda said. “If you don’t mind,
I stopped reading in the middle of a really good sex scene.
Have you ever heard the term ‘purple-headed warrior’?”
“Uh, no,” I said, “but whatever floats your boat.”
“I think the warrior in this book does float,” she said, “at
least according to the narrator. His ‘mast’ sounds big
enough to sail down the Amazon. Anyway, good luck,
guys.”
Amanda went back to the sofa, lay down, kicked her
feet up and dove back into the book.
“She’s a pistol,” Jack said.
“Sure is. Here, we can sit at the table.”
Jack took a seat at our meager dining room table as I
hooked up my laptop. Once I powered it on, I accessed
LexisNexis and did a search for Leonard Reeves.
Half a dozen hits came up. I opened the first one.
It was from The Daily Princetonian, the student newspaper at Princeton University. We searched through the
highlighted article and finally came across the name
Leonard Reeves. The passage read:
The Princeton economics department, spearheaded by
Professor Sheila DeWitt, has seen its fair number of notable
professionals in the fields of finance and economics.
The article was accompanied by a photo of a middleaged black woman who must have been Professor DeWitt.
She was standing at the front of a small classroom. Two
students were visible in the front row. One was a girl, early
twenties, with a ponytail and wearing a skirt and blouse.
The man was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt,
his hair short, and he wore glasses. The caption read:
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Rachel Vine ’93 and Leonard Reeves ’94 are capti-
vated by the renowned professor.
“Is that him?” Jack said.
“I don’t know. Let’s see the next article.”
I pulled up the next search result. It was from Crain’s
business daily. The article was from 1998, and the headline
was: Economic Boom Sees Rise in Dot Com Investors.
We found Leonard Reeves’s name halfway through the
piece. It read:
Flush with cash, many young men and women who
have prospered during unparalleled growth are putting their money into what many consider to be
risky investments—namely Web sites and Internet
domains. Leonard Reeves, a graduate of the Princeton economics department and executive at Morgan
Stanley, admits to finding thrill in such a venture.
“You don’t get into this industry to watch from
the sidelines,” said Reeves. “The people who take
the biggest risks reap the biggest rewards.”
Reeves, who already owns three apartments in
New York City, says he plans to take his earnings
from Internet ventures and invest even further in the
housing market.
“Man, that can’t have worked out too well for him,”
Jack said.
“Holy crap,” I said.
“What?”
“Look, there.” I pointed to the next article. The headline said it all.
The piece was from 2001, and was published in the
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303
Wall Street Journal. It read: Reeves Named as Liaison to
New York City Department of Finance.
The article was also accompanied by a photograph. It
was definitely the same guy from the Princetonian article.
“He worked for the government?” Jack said. “You’ve
got to be kidding me.”
I sat there, stunned. How was that possible? Could this
have been the same guy?
The other articles were not dated any later than 2004,
and all were references to Reeves’s job with the DoF. There
were no other hits for the name, nothing else came up.
“It has to be him,” I said. “But I don’t get it. If this is
the same Reeves as on the order made out to Morgan
Isaacs, what the hell is someone who worked for the government and who worked for one of the biggest brokerage
firms in the world doing associated with 718 Enterprises?
I mean, these people are drug dealers, plain and simple,
and the crap they’re producing is killing people. How did
someone like Reeves get connected to that?”
Jack sat there, thinking. Not listening to me, but lost
in his own thoughts. Then I heard Amanda’s voice from
the couch.
“What if Reeves didn’t just use to work for the government?” she said. “I mean, what if he still does?”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “Obviously Reeves fell on hard
times somehow and ended up selling his soul for a pile
of black rocks.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever heard of the name Gary Webb?”
“It rings a bell, but I’m not sure why.”
“Okay, well, have you heard of the Dark Alliance?”
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“That’s a little more familiar,” I replied. “Something
about Nicaragua, right?”
“Something like that,” Jack said. “In the eighties, Gary
Webb was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. ”
“Now it rings a bell,” I said.
“What does he have to do with this?” Amanda said.
“In nineteen ninety-six, Webb published a three-part
series of articles in the Mercury News called ‘Dark Alliance.’ See, in the eighties, President Reagan was embroiled
in the Iran-Contra affair where it was determined that the
U.S. government had supplied a group of Nicaraguan
Contras with financial aid through the sale of weapons to
Iran, in part thanks to our buddy Oliver North. Our government was supporting the Contras as part of the Reagan
doctrine, which supported organizations that opposed communistic and socialistic regimes. The Nicaraguan government in the eighties, let’s just say, fit the bill.
“Webb claimed in his articles,” Jack continued, “that
not only did we supply the Contras with funds through the
sale of weapons, but through the sale of drugs as well.”
“That’s ridiculous. We weren’t selling drugs,” Amanda
said.
“We weren’t,” Jack said. “But the Contras were reaping
millions of dollars through the sale of drugs within the
United States. Crack cocaine spread like wildfire through
urban areas in the eighties, and much of the money from
those sales went directly into fund
ing the Contras. Webb
claimed that members of the NSC, or National Security
Council, were aware that money from drug sales in the
U.S. was being funneled to the Contras. Webb found out
that not only was our government aware of this, but
members of the NSC purposefully withheld that information from the Drug Enforcement Agency. They felt that
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305
by curtailing drug sales and cracking down on shipments,
we would effectively stem the flow of money to the
Contras and in turn hurt their efforts to overthrow Nicaragua’s communist FSLN government.”
“So in essence,” I said, “they were selling drugs in our
cities, killing our citizens and choking the national crime
rates. And we turned a blind eye because we felt it pushed
our agenda in another country.”
“Pretty much,” Jack said. “When Webb published
these articles, he caused a firestorm unlike many seen in
journalism. It was without a doubt one of the most controversial articles of the past twenty-five years. So what
happened to Webb? Well, he was completely discredited
by the government which issued denials faster than meter
maids issue parking tickets. He was eventually pushed out
of the Mercury News, and after years in which he failed
to get another job at a major newspaper, Webb put a gun
to his head and pulled the trigger.”
“Damn,” Amanda said.
“Twice,” Jack added.
“Twice? How does someone shoot themselves in the
head twice?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Jack said. I glared
at him. “Apologies, Ms. Davies. Sometimes I forget that
I’m around a lady.”
“This lady thinks she could kick your old ass,” Amanda
said.
“Now that’s my kind of lady,” Jack said. “Hold on to
this firebrand, Henry. Anyway, common thought was that
Webb had been bumped off. But it turns out Webb was
genuinely depressed and had written despondent letters
to his family. And an autopsy and gun residue test proved
that the man really did shoot himself twice. It doesn’t
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happen often, but it does happen if the suicidal person
happens to have lousy aim.”
“So, what, you think the sale of drugs in New York
City is being funneled to, who, some shady overseas organization? Some anti-Taliban fighting squad?”
“Not at all,” Jack said. “If what I’m thinking is correct
at all, and if this guy Reeves is connected the way I