The Fury hp-4

by Jason Pinter

  "I need a favor," I said to Rose. I put the statement bluntly, accentuating the word need. Not want. Need.

  And since she was close to Stephen, and aware that I was tracking down his killer, she might be more apt to Jason Pinter accept the rather large, not to mention illegal, favor I was about to ask of her.

  "What can I do?" she replied. Good start.

  I filled her in on the details of Beth-Ann Downing's murder, and the disappearance of Helen Gaines. I told her about my conversation with Sheryl Harrison, and the confession that her mother had maintained a ruthless addiction her whole life. The silence on the other end told me that Rose was well aware of why I was coming to her.

  When I finished, I asked if I could fill her in in person. She agreed, and I was on the next subway down town to meet her.

  Before turning on to Rose's block, I stopped at an

  ATM and withdrew two hundred dollars. I had no idea how much I'd actually need, but I figured better to have more money and not need it than need more money and not have it.

  When I got to her building, I buzzed up and she rang me through. She opened the door wearing a tank top and pajama bottoms. Her eyes were weary, deep bags settling under them like squished blueberries.

  "Morning," I said.

  "Is it morning already?" she asked.

  I noticed the shades were all drawn, and there were no clocks in sight. Half a dozen wrapped candy bars were strewn around, as well as what looked like a month's supply of Red Bull. It looked like the apartment was stocked and prepared for a bout of hibernation.

  "It's almost 9:00 a.m.," I said.

  "Huh. Didn't realize it."

  "Listen," I said. "I have a favor to ask of you. A big one."

  "You said that already. What gives?"

  "I need you to order something from Vinnie," I said.

  "I want to know who he works for."

  Rose sat back in her overstuffed leather couch. The confident woman I'd just met looked like she'd just been swallowed up whole.

  "I've been clean for a long time," she said. "I've put that behind me."

  "I don't want you to use anything," I said, attempt ing to clarify things but wondering if that mattered at all. "All I need is for whoever's playing Vinnie this week to come here so I can follow him."

  "So why don't you call him yourself?"

  "They won't know me," I said. "They'll trust you.

  I'm willing to bet that whoever these Vinnies work for, they keep a record of addresses, customers. The runners might be idiots, but their bosses never are. I intend to follow this guy, see where he goes, and I don't want to chance being recognized. They know you."

  Rose shook her head violently, as though shooing away demons that were swirling around. A pang of guilt thudded in my stomach, and I wondered if my onetrack mind in finding Stephen's killer could hurt others as well. The last thing I wanted to do was encourage

  Rose to relapse, but…I didn't know where else to turn.

  And I needed to know where the stream started. Or at least needed to find the next level.

  "I'll do it," Rose said. "But I won't order anything stronger than weed, and I won't pay for a cent of it."

  "Fair enough," I said. "What's the smallest amount you can order?"

  "You don't want the smallest amount, trust me."

  "Why not?"

  "They'll know my phone number. Let's just say back in the day, I never ordered the smallest amount. Not to mention I haven't ordered in a long time. If all of a sudden I call up and ask for one tab of ecstasy, they won't believe me. Somebody who comes back to the stuff after such a long layoff, it's because they fell off the wagon. Hard. We want to make the order sound realis tic. You order a dime bag of schwag, he'll laugh in your face and tell you it's not worth his time. And then he'll never take my call again because he'll assume I'm turning on him. Cops on stakeouts are cheap. You want a real delivery, an ounce of decent weed will probably run you a hundred fifty or so, though I've been out of the game for a while so, you know, inflation and everything."

  "Really? Inflation affects drug sales?"

  "We live in the United States, don't we? You think people will pay more than four bucks for a gallon of gas but won't pony up a Ben Franklin to get high with their friends? A gallon lasts until the next exit. A good high will give you stories that'll last for years-if you can remember it. I'd go with this-order a quarter ounce of mids. Decent enough stuff, probably run seventy-five bucks. Enough so it's worth the trip for them, but it won't put a big crimp in your discretionary fund. That work, champ?"

  "Whatever you say. You call and order. When Vinnie buzzes up, just send a text message to my cell phone. I won't respond, but that's the signal that it's the right guy. Then send me one more when he leaves, just to be sure." I took out my wallet, peeled off two hundred dollars and handed it to Rose. "In case it's more than you expect. Or you need to, like, tip him."

  "Tip the drug dealer," she said, laughing. "Right.

  I'm sure he'll take it back to the Dairy Queen and divide it up among his colleagues. What are you, some kind of nitwit? Didn't you smoke in college?"

  "Once or twice," I said, "but I don't think anyone ever trusted me to handle the business transactions. I just assumed you tip people in the service industry."

  "All right," Rose said. "But after this, no more favors.

  I told you everything I know and then some, and now you have me risking my sobriety for you."

  "It's not for me," I said. "It's for Stephen."

  "Are you sure?" Rose asked, one eyebrow arched.

  "'Cause I've been around a lot of users before, every kind of drug you can imagine. I've seen too many friends die because of the pipe or needle. But not every addict smokes or drinks or inhales. A lot of them get off on other things. I see a little bit of that in you, Henry.

  You're a bit of an addict, too."

  I didn't know how to reply to this, but something about it didn't feel good. Rather than respond, I simply thanked Rose for helping, and went outside.

  I was still thinking about what she'd said when I found a park bench to sit on that afforded me a full view of her building's entrance.

  Addict. I repeated the word to myself. It was a cool, sunny day, and if I weren't tracking a drug dealer I could envision myself sitting here with Amanda, watching the families play. Young children growing up in a city that seemed to offer them brief pockets of respite, small guarded sanctuaries in between the play grounds for millionaires.

  Addict.

  It was an ugly word, one I never associated with myself. Yet when Rose said it, I felt an angry fire burning inside me. I wanted to argue with her, but somehow felt it would have strengthened her point.

  Addict.

  I watched the children play and wondered if she was right.

  My eyes stayed fixed to the building entrance. Every time someone entered-old, young, white, black,

  Hispanic-I would place my hand over the pocket holding my cell phone. It was set to vibrate. Every few minutes I would take it just to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Nothing yet.

  An hour and a half passed, when a man wearing a

  Yankees hat approached the doorstep. He pulled out a cell phone, checked it, then went up the steps. He was young, maybe nineteen or twenty. He wore baggy jeans and a chain looped around from his belt to his back pocket where he kept a wallet. And most importantly, he was carrying a backpack.

  As he went to press the buzzer, another man walked up to the steps. He was wearing a dark suit with slickedback hair and sunglasses. An expensive-looking brief case was in his hand. He was a few years older than hat guy, maybe twenty-four or -five, but looked like he lived in a totally different world. Not to mention bank account. Funny, I thought, that he was standing there next to a drug dealer and didn't even realize it.

  They both pressed the buzzer and waited. When they were rung through they both entered, the nicely dressed guy holding the door for the young punk.

  Ten m
inutes after the door closed, I felt my cell phone vibrating. I took it out, looked at the call log. It was Rose. Jackpot.

  Adrenaline began to course through me. As soon as hat guy came through the door, I was prepared to go wherever he did. My hands were sweating. I was ready.

  Then the front door opened, and a man stepped through. Only it wasn't the young guy with baggy pants and a backpack that looked sketchier than a forty-year old at a dance club. It was the young-executive type.

  I looked at him with intense skepticism, debating whether to wait until the other guy came through. This guy didn't look anything like a dealer. He looked too well off, and I doubted most drug dealers bought their briefcases at Coach.

  It couldn't be. The guy was young, looking like he'd just stepped out of his b-school graduation. He was about five foot ten, in terrific shape. There was a small, moon-shaped birthmark on the front of his neck, and he gripped the briefcase so tight it looked as if it could crumble in his hands.

  Then, as the man began to walk away, I saw him stop, look at his briefcase. He picked it up, clicked a loose clasp into place, then walked away.

  Then my cell phone vibrated. The screen had a text message from Rose. It read

  Gordon "Vinnie" Gekko has just left the building.

  That sealed it. This man about town was Vinnie.

  Waiting until he was half a block ahead of me, I began to follow. He walked north to Fourteenth Street, when he stopped for a moment to look at his cell phone.

  I stopped as well, retreating into the shadow of an elec tronics store. When he put the phone back in his pocket, he began to look around. His eyes caught something, and suddenly he turned and jogged across the street. He zigged between several cars, making it impossible for me to follow him without drawing attention to myself.

  Instead, I watched in between traffic as he approached a pay phone. I saw him put money in the machine and make a call. He hung up less than fifteen seconds later.

  No doubt he was calling whatever number had just come up on his cell phone. Briefcase man had another delivery to make.

  He turned West on Fourteenth Street and made his way to what I assumed was the Union Square subway stop.

  I picked up the pace, narrowing the gap between us to thirty feet or so. I wanted to remain behind him, but if he was heading for the subway, losing him in the bustle of pedestrians was a chance I didn't want to take.

  He went down into the subway, paid his fare and headed for the 6 train. I followed.

  He went down the two flights of stairs onto the 6 train platform. I followed ten feet behind. He walked halfway down the platform then stopped and waited. I stopped two car lengths away, and hung out behind a steel column, peeking out every now and then to make sure he was still there.

  The 6 train rattled into the station. My heart was pumping. I wanted to run up and grab this guy, make him give up everything he knew. But that would cut off my only source of information. And unless I killed him, he would tell whoever he worked for what happened, and the whole thing would clam up faster than a mute on the witness stand. And while I was willing to do a whole lot to figure out just what exactly happened that night at Helen Gaines's apartment, murder wasn't on my approved list of actions.

  The man stepped into the car, and I got into the adjacent one, making sure I could see him through the separating window. For a moment I had a sense of deja vu, remembering that it was not too long ago when I was on the subway running from two men who wanted me dead. Funny how the tides turn.

  The doors closed, and the man took a seat. That likely meant we were traveling a few stops. I stayed standing, not wanting to lose sight due to a bad angle.

  This was slightly awkward considering there were half a dozen open seats and I was the only person standing in our car. Still, I'd rather be considered an antisocial weirdo than lose the rabbit.

  Every stop I braced myself in case my target left.

  Finally as we approached the Seventy-seventh Street subway stop, I saw him stand up, check to make sure his briefcase was still looped around his shoulder and approach the door. I didn't move.

  When the train stopped, a mass of passengers exited.

  The Seventy-seventh Street stop was right by the entrance to Lenox Hill Hospital. This Upper East Side location was right near a large residential area. Though heavily populated, it wasn't as crowded as Union

  Square or one stop higher, Eighty-sixth Street.

  The man walked east across Seventy-seventh. I followed him. Between First and Second Avenues, he went up to a brick town house, stopped in front of it. I sat on a small brick outcropping and pretended to tie my shoe. He took out his cell phone, looking like he was double-checking something, then went up the stairs and pressed a buzzer. I heard a ring, then he said something but I couldn't hear what. He opened the door and walked in.

  I retreated around the corner, peeking back every few seconds to make sure I didn't lose him.

  I only had to wait five minutes, then the man was back outside and walking west, toward me. My heart raced. If he was dealing-or delivering-drugs, this seemed to fit the profile. Short and sweet. No chitchat.

  Just in and out, over and done. Pay the man his money.

  And the bulge in the briefcase even seemed to have gone down a little bit.

  I bought a bottle of water at a corner store as he walked past, then I got back into our familiar pace. I needed to see how many stops he made, see if anything interesting presented itself. I decided to follow him the rest of the day. I took out my cell, and sent Amanda a text message.

  Got a lead. Will call when I can.

  Don't wait up.

  If I were a girlfriend and my boyfriend sent me that kind of text, I'd probably scour the city looking for him, half expecting to find him in the arms of some illicit lover. But I trusted Amanda. And after everything we'd been through, I believed she trusted me back.

  My phone vibrated. I took it out, checked the message.

  Go get em, Tiger.

  God, I loved this woman.

  The man with the briefcase made four more stops the rest of the day: 124th and Broadway, Ninety-eighth and

  Broadway, and then back downtown to Fourteenth between Fifth and Sixth. Each time I noticed the bag on his shoulder became a little easier to carry. It swung at greater arcs as he carried it. As his stash grew lighter, the bag weighed him down less.

  During his journey, I decided that I would follow him home. I had no idea what to expect, or what I would say to this man. But I needed to know where someone like him lived. And I needed to know where I could find him again.

  It was nearing eleven o'clock. My legs were getting heavy. Vinnie had just downed his third bottle of water of the day. So when I followed him to the N train, the night having fully descended over the city, I hoped this would be our final ride of the day.

  Vinnie rode the N train to the Canal/Broadway stop.

  He looked weary, his eyes fluttering open and closed as his breathing grew deeper. I knew how he felt. My muscles felt sluggish. Private detective work was cer tainly not a calling I was prepared for. Spenser I was not.

  Where he sat, Vinnie opened his bag and dug through it. He pulled out an MP3 player, then scrounged around some more. He seemed unable to find something. Then he turned the bag upside down and shook it. A thin white wire fell out. He picked it up, plugged one end into the MP3 player and took the two earbuds and fit them into his ears. Then he pressed a button on the player and relaxed.

  No doubt this was the last stop. When he turned the bag upside down, not a thing fell out. No bags, no foil, no vials.

  Vinnie was heading home.

  I followed him out of the station. At this point I probably could have walked right next to him and he wouldn't have noticed or recognized me. He walked two blocks west and one block south before approach ing a row of town houses. He was walking slowly, but then all of a sudden his head perked up.

  Another young man was walking down the street in the ot
her direction. He looked to be the same age as the guy I was following, maybe a year or two younger. He was wearing loose jeans, sneakers, a Mets cap with the brim turned sideways. The other guy's head snapped up, too, in a familiar greeting.

  These two men knew each other. They slowed down as they approached. I slipped behind a wall, out of sight, but easily able to hear every word they said.

  "S'up, Scotty?" the other man yelled as they got closer.

  "SSDD," my guy, apparently Scotty, yelled back.

  Same shit, different day.

  As they got closer, their voices lowering, I heard

  Scotty say, "What'd you pull in today?"

  "Four-fiddy. Would've been more but these trustfund princesses thought they could get a taste for free if they shoved their tits in my face. Don't need to tell them I can get that on my own. How 'bout you?"

  "Five-twenty," Scotty said, a note of pride in his voice. "And that's after the man takes his cut."

  "Better than serving lattes," the other guy said. "I'm cleaned out for the night. Gotta re-up in the morning."

  "Same here," Scotty said. "How's your moms doing?"

  The other guy shrugged. "Her hair hasn't started falling out yet, but the docs say it's a matter of time."

  He scratched his nose. "She's strong as a bull. Wouldn't mind moving out on my own like you, but not while she's like this."

  "Give her my best, bro'."

  "Will do. Hey, meet on the corner tomorrow morning at seven? Go over together?"

  Scotty nodded. "Sounds like a plan. 'Night, Kyle."

  "Later, Scotty."

  The kid named Kyle kept on walking, as Scotty entered his building.

  I stood there stunned as Kyle passed by me.

  Re-ups tomorrow morning. I knew what that meant.

  They'd both cleaned out their stash today, and would need to restock tomorrow to make more deliveries. It meant they weren't working for themselves, and they didn't keep any drugs at their houses. Somebody held them for re-upping. And there was enough to resupply at least two soldiers.

  Which meant that if Scotty and Kyle were going to meet at seven, I would be there waiting for them.