The Darkness

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.”

“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 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 likely somewhere on the totem pole in the drug game. And 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 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 article 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.

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.”

“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.”

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.

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.”