he said, “Fellas, would you give me and Henry a minute?”
They all gave Jack a firm handshake, a pat on the back,
a hug or two. I could tell Jack hadn’t been hugged a
whole lot. He wasn’t sure where to place his hands. Once
the crowd had thinned, he motioned for me to pull up a
chair. I grabbed one from an empty desk a few rows away
and pulled it into his cube. “Sit down,” he said. I obliged.
“It’s great to have you back,” I said. “I wasn’t sure—”
“You’re late,” Jack said. I checked my watch.
“It’s not even ten past eight. You told me to be here at
eight-thirty.”
“If a press conference is called for four and you show
up at three-thirty, you’ll be sitting in the back row with
the reporters from the high school newspapers.”
“I get your point,” I said.
Jack continued. “So far, you’ve made it by on talent
The Darkness
25
and luck. You want to be great at this job, you need to add
a spoonful of brains. With the story we’re going to be
chasing, there’s no half an hour early. Murderers don’t
want for you to be on time. Drug dealers don’t use personal data organizers. When you catch people off guard,
that’s when the truth comes out. Never give someone the
time to make up a lie.”
“I know how important this is,” I said. “I know that
what my brother was killed for goes higher than the
assholes who pulled the trigger.”
Jack stared at me. “You don’t know anything, Henry.
You never go into a story ‘knowing’ anything. A good
reporter is open to every possibility. If you have on
blinders, you miss the bigger picture. You might think
there’s a massive conspiracy, but then you look for facts
to support your thesis. You may be right about Gaines.
But you don’t know anything yet. So let the picture paint
itself for you.”
“Gaines was killed because somebody thought bumping
him off was the quickest route to money and power,” I said.
“And they wouldn’t have thought that without a reason.”
“You said there was a connection between Gaines and
some company, right?”
“718 Enterprises,” I replied. “I think it’s a shell corporation. I saw a battalion of drug dealers leaving the
company’s midtown headquarters, but I didn’t find out
what it is or who runs it. Plus my buddy at the NYPD,
Curt Sheffield, told me that five people connected to 718
have been killed over the last few months. 718 is hiding
something major, and for some reason its employees have
shorter shelf lives than a chicken at KFC. So you think
we should start by looking into 718?”
Jack put his thumb to his lip, tapped it as he thought.
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Jason Pinter
Then he shook his head. “You don’t get a story by meeting it head-on. You need to confront the big dogs with
facts, not accusations. We need to poke around. Find out
who and what exists at the peripherals. We…”
Just then my cell phone rang. I noticed that the red
message light was blinking at the voice mail on my desk.
Whoever was calling had tried to reach me at the office
and was now calling my cell.
My first thought was Amanda, but she was likely on
her way to the office. I took the phone from my pocket;
the number on the caller ID made my stomach lurch.
There’s no way he’d be calling this early in the morning
unless something had happened. Something bad.
I answered the phone. “Curt?” I said.
“Henry,” Curt Sheffield said. Curt was an officer with
the NYPD. A good buddy and dedicated cop. He’d helped
me with numerous cases over the last few years, often
giving me scoops ahead of other papers because he knew
I’d do the right thing with them. A lot of other news outlets,
not that I’d name names, would takes quotes out of context,
make officers who stuck their necks out look bad.
The thing you learned in the news business was that
the cops needed you almost as badly as you needed them.
If the cops needed to swing public opinion on a certain
topic, or if they needed help from the community in
catching a perp, they turned to the papers and television
anchors. It wasn’t enough for them to come up with a
sketch of an alleged rapist—they needed a medium to get
the guy’s face in front of millions of people. Curt understood that. He wasn’t looking for fame, or to see his name
in the paper. He didn’t have the sense of rebellious pride
most sources had. He was just trying to be a good cop.
“You should come down here right away,” the cop said.
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27
“Where are you?” I said. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been a murder. Just dredged the body up
from the East River this morning,” he said. And something in Curt’s voice told me this wasn’t just any run-ofthe-mill domestic quarrel or guy jumping off the Triboro
Bridge kind of death. “We’ve identified the body. His
name was Ken Tsang. We checked his records, and
Henry…the guy was Hector Guardado’s roommate.”
“Jesus,” I said, my heart pounding. Jack’s eyes were
wide open, imploring me to tell him what was going on.
Hector Guardado, I believed, worked as a drug courier
for 718 Enterprises. He was a colleague of the men who
killed Stephen Gaines, one of the anonymous suits who
delivered their drugs to buyers in their homes.
Guardado was killed just a few days ago. And now his
roommate was dead as well.
“I’ll be right down there,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Eighty-fourth, by the East River, on the promenade,”
Curt said. “You might want to bring some antinausea
medication.”
“Why?” I said. “What happened?”
“Whoever killed Ken Tsang,” Curt said, “wanted his
corpse to have more in common with a boneless chicken
than a human being. Somebody broke every single one
of his joints. Turned his toes, fingers, arms, legs and
finally neck in all sorts of ways they ain’t supposed to go.”
3
By the time Jack and I arrived at the East River, the smell
of vomit was choking the air. The view from the promenade was breathtaking early in the morning. The sun glistened off the river, as New Yorkers jogged, walked their
dogs, sat in silence admiring the beauty. Normally you
would see fishing poles out. Today’s catch must have
driven them away.
The scene on this day, though, had the promenade at
a standstill. There were no bystanders going about their
business; they were all being held back by the same
yellow police tape that would soon cordon off my colleagues and competition.
I could see three cops who, by the look of them, were
a breakfast short and still green around the gills. They’d
roped off about fifty feet along the red brick walkway, and
from just beyond that I could make out a white sheet
covering the outline
of a body. An ambulance waited
twenty feet away. Its lights weren’t on. They didn’t need
to be. There was no rush here.
“You never like to see cops this quiet,” Jack said.
“Most of the guys on the force, they’ve seen everything.
Drive-by victims, people burned to death, children, every- The Darkness
29
thing. One thing we have in common with them, you
need to learn to desensitize yourself from the horrors you
see sometimes. Without that, you won’t last a year on
either job. It takes a lot to send a shock wave through
those nervous systems.”
I saw Curt Sheffield among the crowd of cops. He saw
me and began to walk over. I didn’t see any other reporters just yet. Curt must have given me first shot at this.
“Hey, Henry,” he said, nodding. He didn’t offer his
hand, and I didn’t expect it. Even though we were friends,
cops were expected to keep their distance from reporters.
They were naturally distrustful of us, and as much as I
hated to admit it, sometimes rightfully so. I’d seen what
the media could brew without all the facts. News, like a
bell, could not be unrung. Once you were accused of
something, once information was given to the public, it
was nearly gospel. And for cops, once your uniform was
stained, fair or unfair, it never washed off.
“Hey, man,” I said. “Thanks for the heads-up on this.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said. Curt was a good-looking
guy, about six-two, and filled out his uniform. As a young
black officer, he’d made high marks and was even used
in some promotional materials for the department when
recruiting was down. The taglines on the poster read:
Good People Make Good Cops. Good Cops Make a Great
City. Curt was a good cop, and, as much as he hated to
admit it, a good poster child. Thankfully for him he didn’t
get recognized on the street much anymore. “I see a few
motherchuckers in the crowd.”
“You see that body,” Curt said, “you’ll lose your last
three meals, guaranteed.”
“You look fine to me,” I said.
“That’s ’cause the girl I’m seeing, Denise, can’t cook
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Jason Pinter
anything that doesn’t say ‘microwavable’ on the box. And
even then I have to remind her to take it out of the box.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Oh yeah? I had chicken casserole a la cardboard two
nights in a row. I swear, if the girl didn’t screw like a
jackalope…”
“How’s the leg?” I said. Talking about sex in front of
Jack had the same appeal as discussing it with my parents.
Curt had taken a bullet recently, the bullet nicking an
artery, necessitating some time off the streets. The man
went stir-crazy, but considered his scar a badge.
Not to mention he liked to talk about it more than sex.
“Feels good today. Hurt like hell yesterday. Touch and
go. Know the worst thing about being shot in the leg? You
can’t really show people the scar without causing a
scene.” Curt looked at Jack. I realized they’d never met.
“Sorry. Jack, this is Officer Curtis Sheffield. Curt, Jack
O’Donnell.”
They both nodded, familiar with the drill.
“Henry’s talked a lot about you,” Curt said. “I figure
he must go through your garbage the way he knows you
front to back. Take care of our boy, he’s one of the few
journos we can trust in this burg.”
“I’ll teach him everything I know,” Jack said with a smile.
“Hey,” I said, “how’s Detective Makhoulian? I didn’t
really get to thank him for his help.”
Detective Sevag Makhoulian was the officer assigned
to investigating my brother’s death. He’d been an invaluable asset to the investigation. Plus he had impeccable
timing. Makhoulian was Armenian. Quiet and intense, as
no-nonsense as they came, but he’d proved his reliability and dedication. I owed him, big-time.
“He’s doing well. Mandatory leave for an officer
The Darkness
31
involved in a shooting, but it’s a clean-cut case and he’ll
be back on the street any day now.”
“Good. City needs more cops like you guys.”
“Not going to argue with you there. I keep telling my
captain that they need to clone my ass. Sure as hell save
the city some money, and they need to save every penny
they can these days.”
Jack decided to chime in. “So according to Henry,” he
said, “Ken Tsang’s body was beaten pretty bad?”
“Naw. The cops pushing three bills who have to play
center field on our softball team get beaten pretty bad.
This guy looks like somebody took a baseball bat and
decided to flatten him out to the point where you can slip
him inside a mail slot.”
I felt a bad taste in the back of my throat.
Curt said, “Worst part is, Forensics thinks at least half
of the bone breaks were inflicted postmortem. Which
means whoever killed Tsang didn’t just want him to hurt.
They wanted people to see him look more like a bean bag
than a person.”
“First Hector, now his roommate. Somebody is taking
out drug runners in the city.”
“Taking them out,” Curt said, “with extreme prejudice.
This isn’t just about somebody cleaning up their mess, this
is sending a message that if you don’t watch your back,
you’ll find yourself dumped in the East River a whole lot
more flexible than when you woke up that morning. What
I want to know is, who is this message going to?”
“Officer Sheffield, where exactly was the body
found?” Jack asked. He’d taken out a small notepad, uncapping a pen with his teeth. I did the same, feeling
informal. Friend talking to friend, both aware of the
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Jason Pinter
other’s professional responsibilities. But Jack was right.
The story came first. Curt looked at the pad, saw Jack was
waiting for his answer.
“Garbage scow saw a big canvas bag floating in the
river, a few blocks south of the garbage transfer station
on Ninety-first Street.”
“The body was in a bag?” I said.
Curt nodded. “Big, heavy burlap sack.”
“You said it was floating,” Jack said. “How would a
canvas bag with a body inside float on a river without
sinking?”
Curt blinked. He wasn’t holding back. He just didn’t
know.
“Hold on a second,” he said. He walked off quickly,
and I could tell Curt was as curious about the answer to
that question as we were.
Jack was busy scribbling in his notepad. I held back a
smile. His eyes were focused, his handwriting sloppy, but
that didn’t matter. Mine was no great shakes either, but
as long as we could decipher our own it would make do.
Of course recently my handwriting had taken a turn for
the worse, whic
h led to several notes from Evelyn Waterstone, the Gazette’ s managing editor, with helpful tips
like “Learn basic penmanship.”
“How you feeling?” I said to Jack.
“Hm?” He didn’t look up from the page.
“Just wondering how you’re feeling. That’s all.”
“Fine,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I waited to see if he was going to laugh, but Jack was
totally serious.
“I mean, come on, this is your first day back on the job
in almost a year. You disappeared faster than Michael
Moore at a Weight Watchers convention, and nobody’s
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33
heard from you. Just, you know, want to see how you’re
holding up.”
“Just fine,” Jack said with a wry smile. “If I start to
slag, be sure to tell me.”
I just nodded, then saw Curt Sheffield walking toward
us. There was a strange look on his face, his lip turned
upward as if processing information. He came over to
where we were standing and said, “Guy was inside a bag
that was tied to a buoy.”
“A buoy?” Jack said, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, the body was in a big burlap sack, but get this.
Whoever dropped it into the drink attached it to a freaking
buoy. Not only that, but they tied a freaking balloon to
the buoy so it could be spotted. A garbage scow noticed
the balloon and rope this morning and called it in.”
“They’re sending a message,” Jack said. “Using us as
the messenger.”
“Us?” I said.
“This will make the first ten pages in every newspaper. The message isn’t for cops. It’s for other dealers.
They read about what’s happening to their friends, they
keep their noses clean. So to speak.”
“You could be right,” Curt said.
Jack tapped the pen against his lip. “You said the bag
was found by a garbage scow a few blocks from the
Ninety-first Street transfer station. Do you know if that
was where the body was dumped from?”
“That isn’t public knowledge yet, and I think I’ll get a
reprimand if I tell you guys anything else. Listen, I gotta
run, but we’ll release more info as it comes. Meantime,
you two are smart enough to put two and two together.”
“Actually, I’m waiting for Jack to teach me that.”
“Yeah, take it easy, Henry. Mr. O’Donnell.”
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Jason Pinter
“Officer,” Jack said. When Curt was out of earshot, Jack