The Stolen hp-3

by Jason Pinter

Rourke said, "Oh, man, you didn't see it?"

  "See what? Speak to me, goddamn it."

  Rourke spun around, looked at the desk across from him. Then he stood up, went over and began rifling through the garbage can. I wondered what the hell he was doing, but then when I saw him take a newspaper out of the can, that queasiness returned. He handed it to me, front page out, and said, "Like I said, this sucks."

  I unfolded the front page and held it up. It was a copy of this morning's New York Dispatch. When I read the headline, in huge bold print, I nearly threw up.

  The headline read: A Lush Life: Jack O'Donnell and

  All the Booze That's Fit to Print.

  The byline was credited to Paulina Cole.

  The two l 's in all were liquor bottles. Below the headline were two pictures. And both made me sick to my stomach.

  The first picture looked to have been taken in some sort of storage room. It was about the size of a walk-in closet, with three rows of shelves traversing the space.

  Every single space was lined, front to back, with empty bottles. Wine. Beer. Whiskey. Bourbon. The caption below the photo read: Jack O'Donnell Downs in One Year What

  Most People Drink in a Lifetime!

  The second photo, the one that made me clench the paper into a wad in my hands, was of Jack. Lying in the hospital. Tubes running through his veins.

  I recognized the setting. It was taken after I'd brought

  Jack to the hospital after he nearly choked to death on his own vomit. Somebody had snuck into the hospital and photographed Jack while he was unconscious and recovering from alcohol poisoning. I couldn't imagine the kind of black heart needed to do such a thing.

  I took the paper without saying another word to Frank and took it to my desk. There I read the entire article, every single word. And when I was done, I crumpled it up, took it to the incinerator on our floor and chucked it into the darkness.

  Paulina Cole had done one of the worst hatchet jobs on

  Jack I'd ever read. Somehow she'd gotten one of the porters in Jack's building to collect the liquor bottles from the recycling bin every morning. Easy, since he occupied the entire floor himself. The bottles were then brought straight to Paulina Cole. Every single one was fingerprinted to confirm that Jack had in fact drunk them himself. No other fingerprints were found on any of the bottles. And there must have been several hundred in the photograph. And he'd drunk them all himself over the span of one year.

  The article described how much alcohol must have been absorbed by Jack's bloodstream over that year. It also made mention of every correction in every story that

  Jack had written that same year, comparing it to his previous work. It portrayed Jack as a man whose professional life was now ruled by one of the most aggressive bouts of alcoholism ever seen in the newsroom, whose work had depreciated to the point where his stories were filled with more holes than an O. J. Simpson alibi.

  Then the story took a more macro perspective, going into great detail about how the Gazette promoted Jack as one of the legends of New York journalism. Paulina ended her story with the following paragraph:

  "It can be said that a news institution can be judged on one thing, and one thing only: the reputation of the men and women who report the news. Jack O'Donnell is a man whose reputation, built over years more through joviality and cronyism than true journalistic integrity, has opened a window into the true nature of this black-and-white beast. And what an ugly, ugly creature it is."

  The next thing I knew I was going straight for Jack's desk. It was unoccupied. But worse than that, it was empty.

  The computer was off. There were no odds and ends on the countertop. There was nothing.

  I marched to Wallace Langston's office and threw open the doors. The editor-in-chief was on the phone. His face was ashen. I knew the feeling. He motioned for me to take a seat. I declined.

  When he hung up the phone, I said, "Wallace, what the fuck is going on? Where is Jack?"

  Wallace sighed and leaned back in his chair. I knew my anger was misplaced, but my mind was going a thousand miles an hour in a hundred different directions. "Jack is on leave," he said.

  "On leave? What the hell does that mean?"

  "I assume you saw the story in today's Dispatch, " he said.

  "I just finished it."

  "Well, word came down from Harvey Hillerman himself that Jack had two choices. An extended personal leave to deal with his demons in a treatment center. Or the termination of his employment with the Gazette. " Harvey

  Hillerman was the president and CEO of the Gazette. If it came from him, it meant Jack had no way out.

  "And?"

  "And as of this morning, Jack O'Donnell is no longer an employee of this newspaper."

  I felt as if a cannonball had hit me square in the stomach. My knees went weak, and I fell into the chair across from Wallace.

  "He can't do that," I said. "Jack is this newspaper."

  "No, he's not, Henry. Jack has done more for this paper than any employee in its history. But we are not one and the same. You've seen Jack over the past few months. You know things have been going downhill. He was hospitalized just last week."

  "Yeah, and I know that damn picture is out there for everyone to see."

  "You need to think about Jack," Wallace said. "The man needs help. More than what you or I can do. If he chooses to do it on his own, so be it. My take is that he didn't want to be forced into doing anything. That doesn't surprise me. It's always been the way he's worked."

  "So what now?" I said. "We just keep working like nothing ever happened?"

  "That's impossible," Wallace said. "Jack's been here so long some of his blood does run through this paper's veins.

  But we have to move on. You've done some amazing work in your time here, Henry. Jack has put down his mantle for now. And I expect you to be one of the people to take it.

  To carry it with pride."

  "You don't take that because it's been thrown down,"

  I said. "You earn it. I can't just take Jack's place.

  Nobody can."

  "That's true. So just do your job to the best of his ability.

  Learn from his mistakes. Don't let your problems overwhelm you. Because at the end of the day, you're remembered for the end of your career, not the beginning. And the saddest part of all this is a generation might only know the Jack O'Donnell on the cover of today's newspaper."

  I couldn't listen to any more. I slammed the door to

  Wallace's office and left the building. Hailing a taxi, I instructed the driver to take me to Twenty-Seventh and Park.

  The offices of the New York Dispatch.

  I left the cab, throwing the fare at the driver, and entered the building through the revolving door, feeling as if I could tear the walls apart with my bare hands. A security guard stopped me as I approached the turnstiles. He said,

  "Sir, you'll need to check in and show your ID."

  I went to the security post. Another guard sat there looking bored. "Who are you here to see?"

  "Paulina Cole. New York Dispatch. "

  "Do you have an appointment with Ms. Cole?"

  "No."

  "Does she know you're coming?"

  "No."

  The guard looked confused. "Sir, can you state your business with Ms. Cole?"

  "That's between me and her."

  The guard eyed me suspiciously. Then he said, "I'm going to have to pat you down." I let him. He found nothing. "Let me call upstairs."

  He picked up the switchboard phone and dialed a few buttons. I was growing impatient. I needed to see that bitch face-to-face.

  The guard put down the phone and said, "Sir, Ms. Cole is not picking up her phone. I can leave a message that you stopped by."

  "I can wait for her upstairs."

  "No, sir, I can't let you do that."

  "Listen, asshole," I said. "I'm seeing Paulina Cole today. Whether you let me upstairs or not."

  Just then I heard a co
mmotion by the revolving door.

  Several voices were congratulating someone. A throng of people surrounding one person.

  Then they parted and Paulina Cole continued walking toward the turnstiles.

  She saw me and stopped. She was startled for a moment, then a slow smile spread across her face.

  "Hi, Henry," she said. "It's been so long. Have you been keeping up with the news?"

  "You fucking bitch," I said, starting toward her. I didn't take more than two steps before I felt a pair of hands grab my arms and pull me backward. The security guards were

  holding me. I thrashed and struggled to get free. "He was a friend to you," I spat. "How could you?"

  "It was easy," she said, stepping forward. "And you know what probably angers you the most, Henry? That every word of it is true."

  I tried to pull free, but then the two guards began dragging me outside. We passed by Paulina. She raised her hand, waved a sarcastic goodbye before the guards shoved me through the doors and out onto the street.

  I tumbled onto the sidewalk, then scrambled to my feet. The guards stood there with their hands across their chests.

  "Sir," one of them said, "if you don't leave the premises, we will be forced to call the authorities."

  I took one step forward, hatred boiling inside me, but then I stopped. Jack had been broken. Defeated. Getting arrested would affect nobody but myself. Jack had been an idol to me for years. I owed him more than that.

  I left the Dispatch and took the train up to Jack's apartment. The whole way I sat there shaking, not knowing what to say, what to think. After everything with Daniel

  Linwood, now that Amanda and I seemed to be on good terms, I'd finally felt like things were on the right track.

  No more days drinking at bars by myself. No more nights sleeping at the office because I couldn't face my own bed.

  Then, I wondered, how many nights had Jack O'Donnell had just like that?

  When I got to Jack's building, I buzzed his apartment, dying to see that grizzled face in the hopes that it would all make sense. There was no answer. I buzzed again. Still nothing.

  I took out my cell phone and rang his house line. It went right to voice mail.

  "Jack," I said. "This is Henry. Please call me back. I need to speak to you. Please tell me you're all right."

  I clicked off the phone and took one last look at the building. Then I turned around and went back to work.

  The old man stood by the window for a long time, watching the boy walk away until he'd disappeared from sight. When Henry Parker turned the corner, he stepped back into his apartment. His body was racked with convulsions, the sobs like mortar rounds. Then Jack O'Donnell slid down the wall until his frail, arthritic knees were tucked up under his chin, and he began to cry.

  46

  Though I hadn't been a reporter that long, I can honestly say I'd had some long days on the job. The longest weren't the ones where I was on deadline, typing page after page or sifting through an entire casebook worth of notes. The longest days were those where nothing happened. I wasn't waiting for a source to call back. I wasn't waiting for

  Legal to approve a story. I wasn't waiting on anyone or anything. The day just passed.

  Today was perhaps the longest of my career. Every few minutes I would turn around to look at that empty desk, wishing upon nothing that Jack would appear magically and just start writing. There would be no story written by

  Jack O'Donnell in tomorrow's edition, or next week's papers, or any for the foreseeable future.

  I was merely a soldier who, until today, had been following the example set by Wallace Langston and Jack

  O'Donnell. But our ranks had been broken. And who knew if it would ever be repaired.

  I left the Gazette at five o'clock on the dot. The first day

  I could ever remember leaving on time. The train ride home was lonely. More so when I saw people reading the very paper that had changed the landscape of my world.

  When I stepped off the train, the sun was already beginning to set, and any day now the summer sun would begin to fade into fall. I walked down the street, my bag heavy, not caring where I stepped, my eyes looking no more than two feet in front of me.

  Rounding the corner onto my block, I was surprised to hear a voice call out, "Careful, there, I see a hydrant with your name on it."

  I looked up to see Amanda standing in front of my building, her hair rippling lightly in the wind, her face golden in the orange haze. If there was one sight that could melt away a man's sorrows, it was that one.

  She was wearing tight jeans and a red sweater. Walking closer, I recognized the sweater. I'd given it to her on our six-month anniversary. That seemed like ages ago.

  "What are you doing here?" I said, silently chiding myself for the impatient tone in my voice.

  "I thought you could use someone to talk to tonight," she said. "I saw the newspaper."

  I nodded, only because there was nothing else to say.

  Amanda approached me, put her hand on my shoulder; the other hand tilted my chin upward.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I know what Jack meant to you."

  "He'll get things together," I said softly. "He has to."

  "I hope he does. I guess at some point everyone needs to take stock of their life."

  "I've been doing a little of that," I said.

  "Me, too."

  I looked up at her. "Why you?"

  "I don't know," she said, brushing a strand of brown hair from her eyes. "At this point in my life, I want to think about what I have. What I want. What I have that I don't want. What I want that I don't have."

  "What do you want?" I said.

  She smiled demurely. "I'm not a hundred percent sure," she said. "I didn't say it happened all in one day. But I wanted to wait for you. I thought it might be a nice way to end what must have been a pretty crappy day."

  "You have no idea," I said.

  "How's Curt doing?" she asked.

  "He's going home this weekend. I sent a few Olsen twins movies to his apartment as a joke. Figured if Ashley and Mary Kate can't cheer him up, the guy's hopeless."

  Amanda smiled. "You're a true friend."

  "He's lucky to have me," I said. "So you came here because you wanted to talk about things? About us?"

  "Not so much talk," she said. "I had an even better idea.

  I hope you're okay with it."

  "Yeah? What's that?"

  "I'm going to take you out tonight. Dinner and a movie.

  There's an Italian place on Eighty-Third that's supposed to serve the best gnocchi in the city."

  "Wait," I said, "this sounds an awful lot like a date."

  "I could be coy and play hard to get, but what's the point?

  Henry Parker, I would love to take you out on a date tonight."

  My heart swelled. It was probably from the huge emotional swing, but suddenly I found myself hugging

  Amanda, pulling her as hard as I could into my chest.

  Then her hands were on me, pushing me away. Confused,

  I stepped back, looked at her.

  "Are you kidding?" she said, smiling. "This is a first date. You don't get to hug before the movie popcorn."

  "Wait, a first date?" I said. "Was I imagining, you know, our whole relationship?"

  "Uh-uh. But when I thought about it, I realized we'd never really gone on an actual first date. Meeting when you were on the run for your life and all. So I thought let's go back, start where we never got the chance. Dinner and a movie, sport."

  "Shouldn't I pay, then?"

  "This is the twenty-first century, Henry, get real.

  Besides, I think I make more money than you."

  "I can't say no, can I?"

  Amanda smiled "Do you really want to?"

  "Not in the slightest."

  "Just a date," she said. "Then we'll go from there."

  "Just give me one more chance," I said, "and I promise it will be worth it."

 
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