The Fury hp-4

by Jason Pinter

  These two, as well as their well-heeled cohorts, looked as if they were in this game to make as much money as possible. With the exception of the kid whose briefcase now sat in my living room, they all looked like red-meat alpha males, the kind of guys who would normally be braying on the floor of the stock exchange rather than riding the subway to dole out dime bags.

  Thing is, the cocaine in the briefcase made it clear that not all of their scores were small-time. Any company built its business on a combination of small revenue streams mixed with larger ones. The larger ones took more effort and paid higher dividends, but the smaller ones tended to be the most dependable, the ones that would always be there.

  With the economy tanking the way it was, with people watching their wallets to a degree I'd never ex perienced in my lifetime, it wouldn't surprise me if dis posable income for recreational drugs-like it was for

  all other consumer products-was being severely limited. Especially since coke was a favorite amongst bankers, financiers (i.e., high-salaried types). The kind of people whose livelihoods were being dashed against the rocks as the economy tumbled.

  Maybe Stephen and Helen really were trying to start a new life. After all, Helen had desired nothing more than to raise her son with James Parker (why on God's green earth she would want to do this is an entirely dif ferent matter. One I'm not sure had a satisfactory answer).

  Leaving the country would enable them to start their lives anew, to begin fresh somewhere they weren't known. Where demons and drugs wouldn't follow them.

  But that last word…Fury. I still didn't know what it meant, if anything. It might have been a spasm, some thing Helen Gaines wrote while her mental faculties bounced around like Ping-Pong balls.

  I put it on the back burner. If it was relevant, it would come up again.

  The apartment felt warm and inviting, though compared to the visitation room in a correctional facility an icebox would have felt warm and inviting. We both stripped off our clothes, Amanda jumping into the shower while I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

  Before long, steam was pouring through the slat in between the door and the tiling.

  I approached the door silently, then knocked gently.

  There was no answer. I knocked again, and when there was still no reply I knocked again, louder.

  One more knock and I heard the water turn off.

  "What is it, Henry?" She sounded annoyed.

  "Just wanted to say hi," I said. "Go back to your shower."

  "Gee, thanks."

  The water came back on. Good thing there was no lock on the bathroom door.

  I gently turned the knob, the cool air flowing into my face. I could see Amanda's body hazy behind the shower glass. She hadn't seen me yet.

  I stripped off my shorts, flung the T-shirt onto a chair.

  Then I pulled open the shower door.

  Amanda spun around, shampoo in her hair. The look on her face quickly went from annoyance to surprise to pleasure. She pushed the door open and I joined her, wrapping my body around her, feeling her warmth surround me.

  We kissed, and then our bodies were clinging to each other, skin on skin. Pain and hurt and everything else melted away as we touched. My body was on fire as I kissed her neck, Amanda throwing her head back as she sighed. I kissed her up and down her body, feeling her skin tingle below my fingertips. Then I pressed myself against her, hard, and she moved in perfect rhythm with my body.

  We touched and held and moved against each other under that beating stream for a long time, until the heat became so unbearable that we ended up in bed, naked, clinging to each other like we always did when we wanted the world to melt away for a little while.

  I left Amanda sleeping in bed and crept into the living room. Booting the computer up, I poured myself a cup of ice coffee from the jug we kept in the fridge. I took a sip. Stale. It'd probably been sitting in there close to a week. I checked the freezer, but we were fresh out of grounds. Instead, I poured a healthy dollop of milk, added enough sweetener to make my teeth chatter and sat down.

  Our Internet connection was spotty at best, so it was a sigh of relief when my home page came up. I'd changed my preferences so that the Gazette 's page would load whenever I opened my browser. I took a moment to read the latest stories, then went to Google and began my search.

  I typed in the name "Scott Callahan." To no great surprise, over four thousand entries came up. To refine the search, I added "New York."

  That narrowed it down to under a thousand. There were a few wedding notices and Web sites for law offices, but unfortunately none of them had any pictures. I scrolled through a few dozen pages hoping for something that would perhaps be linked to the Scott

  Callahan I followed the other day, but nothing came up.

  I went back to the Google home page and typed in

  "Kyle Evans" and "New York." Two thousand entries came up. I sighed, having no choice but to slog through.

  Nothing seemed to be terribly interesting until the fourth page. The page title was "Dozens laid off in wake of financial collapse." I clicked the link.

  The article was from a financial magazine, dated about six months ago. It was a feature on the recent meltdowns of several financial institutions and the decision to lay off massive numbers of workers, some of whom had just graduated from business school. The author had interviewed several recently fired employ ees, including one man named Kyle Evans.

  The section read:

  Kyle Evans expected to pay off his student loans in a matter of months, having taken a six-figure job right after receiving his MBA. Yet within weeks of his first day, Evans, a twenty-seven year-old Wharton graduate, was unemployed and unable to find a job.

  "Between undergrad and Penn I owe about a hundred thousand dollars," Evans said. "I was going to have a bitch of a time paying it back anyway, but now what do I do?"

  Though the article was posted on the Web, there were several photos taken of its subjects. They were small thumbnails, and according to the site these were exclu sive and had not been printed in the physical magazine.

  And there, in a group of three other men and woman his age, was the very Kyle Evans I'd seen on the street the other day. His hair was shorter and he was about ten pounds heavier, but there was no doubt it was him.

  Suddenly Kyle's career choice made more sense.

  With no income, and training for jobs that didn't exist anymore, Kyle had decided to take another route to paying off his loans, joining an industry that didn't have as many down cycles. One that could afford him the same lifestyle. The same money.

  It was a fair assumption that Scott Callahan-and maybe some, if not all, the other briefcase men-were victims of the same circumstances as Kyle. If you thought about it, who would make better drug couriers?

  These people were young, energetic, highly motivated, perhaps by money above all else. And, most of all, they owed. And if they owed enough, they'd be willing to take a few risks, break the law for a while before they found their footing. But who was employing them?

  What was 718 Enterprises?

  I pulled "718 Enterprises" into Google, Yahoo! and half a dozen other search engines. Less than a dozen hits came up, none of them looking as if they had anything to do with a company of that name or with any relation to New York. I twiddled my thumbs. I'd never been a thumb twiddler, but at this point I wasn't quite sure where to go or who to talk to. And we still had no idea where Helen Gaines was.

  I opened up the music player on my computer, took a pair of headphones out and put on some Springsteen.

  Something about the Boss always made me think a little more clearly. There was honesty in his voice that was often missing from popular music, and his earlier works were like pure blasts of adrenaline. That's what I needed right now. An energy boost to carry me along. There were half a dozen threads in this story, and I had no doubt that when unravelled they would all lead to

  Stephen's killer. I just needed that one connecting thread t
hat told me how the story would all play out.

  I sat there for half an hour, shuffling between songs.

  "Dead Man Walking" came on. It was a haunting tune, composed for the movie of the same name where Sean

  Penn played a character named Matthew Poncelet, on death row for the murder of two teenagers. The film was based on a book by Sister Helen Prejean, and Poncelet as actually a composite of two men Prejean had coun seled. Prejean grows closer to this man many viewed as a monster, trying to understand the humanity beneath the inhumane crime. The music was simple, tragic, and the lyrics filled my head as my eyes closed, the sounds enveloping me.

  All I could feel was the drugs and the shotgun

  And the fear up inside of me

  Suddenly my eyes opened. I stood up, the head phones flying off my head and clattering on the floor.

  Drugs.

  The Fury. I knew that word had sounded familiar, in a context that, if I was right, made terrifying sense.

  We kept a bookshelf in the living room, spines three deep and nearly pouring out onto the floor. I'd bought it used for seventy-five bucks from a thrift shop. It was maple, still in good shape, with one large crack running lengthwise down the side. I figured a good book was one read so often the spine was cracked, a good bookshelf was one that was cracked as well. That might have been jus tification for the piece's condition, but it made sense to me.

  Sometimes when I'd finish a book I'd bring it to the office, drop it in the Inbox of a reporter who I thought might enjoy it. Sports books went to Frank Rourke, trashy celebrity tell-alls went to Evelyn Waterstone. I knew the gal had her soft spot.

  There were some books, though, that would never leave this shelf. And no matter where I moved, or what life planned for me, they would never be far away.

  Without a second thought I pulled a pile of books from the middle shelf and sent them toppling to the ground. The noise was loud, and soon Amanda entered, bleary eyed, clearly wondering what was making such a racket. I must have looked half-crazed, throwing books on the floor, looking for that one book I knew was there.

  But I couldn't find it.

  I threw more books on the floor, the shelves emptying, my frustration growing. Where the hell was it? I knew it was here, somewhere.

  "Henry," Amanda said, the patience in her voice sur prising me. "I'm not going to ask. I assume there's a good reason for this. What are you looking for?"

  "A book," I said stupidly, still rifling through the few books left. I told her the title and author. She looked at me, then walked back into our bedroom. I figured she'd had enough, would try to go back to sleep. But a minute later she came back holding something in her hands.

  And when my tired eyes focused, I saw what it was.

  Through the Darkness, by Jack O'Donnell.

  "I was reading it, remember?"

  "You are so freaking beautiful," I gushed, standing up and taking the book from her.

  I opened the cover, thumbed to the table of contents.

  There it was, chapter eight. "The Unknown Devil."

  I began to skim, looking for that one word, that one phrase I knew existed. It was the link, what Helen

  Gaines was talking about. What she and Stephen were running from.

  Then I found it. Midway down one page. I read the paragraph, feeling a chill run down my spine.

  As the '80s came to a close, police were baffled by a string of homicides occurring at seemingly random locations at random intervals. Between August 1987 and October 1988, two dozen men were found murdered execution-style, often with one or two bullets emptied into their heads. These men were notable because they had previously been either arrested or identified as drug dealers, peddling primarily crack cocaine (among other narcotics).

  It was felt, both by the law enforcement com munity as well as within the criminal element it self, that these murders were part of a larger consolidation of Manhattan's drug trade. Whis pers began to grow about a man presumably re sponsible for the carnage, a ghost whose identity nobody could confirm, and details about whom nobody would (or could) go on the record about.

  In fact, the only evidence there was to this man's existence at all was at the murder scene of one Butch Willingham. Willingham had been shot twice in the back of the head. The wounds were catastrophic, though miraculously, neither bullet was instantaneously fatal.

  The autopsy concluded that Willingham had lived between five to ten minutes after the shoot ings, though the terminal damage to his brain pre vented him from moving, speaking or doing anything to save his own life.

  Apparently the bullets did not completely de prive Willingham of all of his motor skills during that brief period he remained alive, because while Willingham lay dying, his skull shattered by the slugs, he scribbled two macabre words on the floor of his apartment, using only the blood leak ing from his own body.

  21

  I spent the rest of the night rereading Through the

  Darkness. It had been several years since I'd last read it, and the sense of awe I gained by reading Jack's work was tempered by the sudden knowledge that a forgot ten passage from the book was somehow relevant to two murders today.

  Most of the book came back to me, like seeing a good friend after a long absence. Amanda woke up, kissed me on the cheek and left for work, knowing how important this was. There were no other explicit refer ences to the Fury, no other mention of who it was, or whether or not he or she even existed. People say some strange things when they've been shot in the head.

  I opened up the search engine on my computer and looked for any old interviews Jack had done for the book. Unfortunately most had either not been archived digitally or they'd been lost, because only two came up.

  Neither mentioned the Fury in any way.

  Working at the Gazette, Jack's presence was missed on a daily basis. Now, his absence felt like a hole in my stomach, an emptiness. I needed to talk to him, to see what he knew, what he remembered. But Jack was re covering from his own battle with alcohol, and I couldn't bring myself to interrupt that. There was one person, though, who might be able to help. Thankfully he worked long hours, and started the day early.

  Wallace Langston picked up on the second ring.

  "Henry," he said. "I was wondering when next I'd hear from you. You do still work here, right?"

  "How are you, Wallace?" I figured I'd ignore the question.

  "I'm doing well. Henry, what's up? Or did you just call to make sure I'd had my morning coffee?"

  "Actually, that's why I called," I said. " Seriously, I need some help. Listen, Wallace, I need to ask you a question. It's about Jack."

  There was a moment of hesitation on the other end.

  "What is it?" Wallace said curtly.

  "I'd rather we talk face-to-face. It's not about my job or the paper. You can say no if you want…but I need to know. It's kind of personal."

  "My door's always open, Henry. As long as you're honest with me about what you want and why you need it."

  "You have my word. I'll be there in forty-five minutes."

  I was putting on my shoes before I even heard the dial tone.

  The newsroom was loud, boisterous.

  I heard Frank Rourke shouting at someone over the phone, something about a report that the Knicks were about to can their coach. I heard Evelyn Waterstone chewing out a reporter who'd misspelled the word borough on his story. All of these sounds make me smile. Who would have thought this kind of chaos could be an antidote to everything that had been going on?

  I made my way down the hall, toward Wallace's office.

  "Henry, what's shakin', my man?"

  I turned slowly, eyes closed, my stomach already feeling sick. Tony Valentine was standing in the hallway, a goofy grin on his face. At first something looked different about him, then I noticed how unnatu rally smooth his forehead looked. And not many people could smile without creating smile lines. I wondered if he had a Botox expense account as part of his salary package.

&nb
sp; "Listen, Parker, I got something for you. I know you've got a girlfriend-don't we all? But there's this actress… can't tell you her name, but it rhymes with

  Bennifer Maniston. She's a good friend of mine and she's in town for a few days. I was thinking the two of you could go out to dinner. Nothing special or fancy, but tomorrow it's in my column. You get great press for ca noodling with a star, she gets good press for dating a nice young reporter who won't ditch her for a costar. Sound good? Say the word and you've got reservations for two at Babbo."

  I stared at Tony for a minute, then said, "Goodbye."

  I turned around and headed for Wallace's office.

  He was sitting down, elbows on his desk, papers splayed out in front of him. "Henry, sit down," he said.

  The last few months had been tough on Wallace. Jack's departure had hit the paper hard, but Wallace person ally. Harvey Hillerman, the publisher of the Gazette, had been eyeing the bottom line closer than ever.

  Whether Jack had lost a few miles of his fastball was to some extent irrelevant. He still brought readers to the paper, and he knew New York City better than anyone alive. His name off the masthead hurt our readership, bit into our circulation and took a bite from our adver tising revenue. There was no replacing him. We were all praying for his recovery, but Wallace was praying for more than that. He needed Jack for the paper. For his job. For all our jobs, in a way.

  I envisioned myself as the kind of reporter who could ease the Gazette into the next generation, but I never saw that happening without Jack. He wasn't someone who simply disappeared. He had to leave on his own terms, when he was ready.

  And having known Jack for a few years, having gotten close enough to him for the man to confide in me,

  I knew that before his battle with the bottle nearly killed him and his reputation, he had no desire to go quietly into that good night.

  "Thanks again for seeing me."

  "No problem," he said. "My door is always open."

  I laughed. "So I wanted to talk about Jack. Specifi cally something he wrote a long time ago."

  "Shoot."

  "It wasn't for the paper."