The Fury hp-4

by Jason Pinter

  Not for the first time I wondered if perhaps I'd be happier elsewhere, if Amanda and I lived in a place where I could report in a town where the media wasn't the focus of the media itself, where good work could be done out of the spotlight.

  Where nobody else would get hurt.

  News was in my blood. Had been for a long time. But was this what I wanted, what I'd dreamed of? At first it had been. That first day at the Gazette, seeing Jack

  O'Donnell at his desk, the first time I read my own byline, each of these was one of those moments in your life that you remember for years. What was happening now, though, I didn't want to remember. But if my father was going to survive, and if Stephen Gaines's killer was going to be brought to justice, I sure as hell couldn't forget.

  It was only a few days before my father went in front of a grand jury. That jury would more than likely indict him for the murder of his own estranged son. No doubt once that judgment was passed along, my father would go through the same ringer I did when I was wrongly accused of the crime. Only for him, he would be incar cerated, a slab of meat lying in a cage for the wolves to pick at whenever they chose. Even though I escaped with a pierced lung, my ordeal never made it to court.

  I had to get my father out before that took place.

  There was one person who had knowledge of 718

  Enterprises. One person who likely knew both Hector

  Guardado and my brother. One person I knew enough about to make him listen.

  I had to wait about eighteen hours before I could confront him.

  It was going to be a long day.

  I sat on the front stoop sipping from a cup of coffee, one of those great, old-fashioned cups that were made of cardboard and had cute little illustrations of mugs with wings on the side. Coffee cups these days seemed to be tall, sleek models that looked more like tubes of enriched uranium than something you drank to wake up in the morning. The deli I got this from had no logo, no branding, and the bag they gave it to me in had one of those cheerful INY slogans on the side. Those were the bags you gave out when you didn't have a Web site, and didn't have spontaneous MP3 downloading capa bility.

  There was no definitive time when he'd be home. I'd arrived at 7:00 p.m. on the chance it was an early day.

  So far it had not been. Around eight-thirty I went for a quick walk up and down the block to keep my blood flowing, and to make sure people in the neighborhood didn't get suspicious.

  Finally at eight-thirty, just as I was beginning to feel the need to pee, I saw him walking down the street.

  He carried the briefcase lightly. It was clearly empty.

  As he got closer I could see that his suit was wrinkled, stained through with the sweat from a day spent going house to house, subway to subway.

  When he got close enough to the point where he could see me, I stepped out onto the sidewalk. Right in front of him. He was bigger than I remembered, and the ill-fitting suit didn't fully stretch enough to hide the muscles in his arms. The shock of black hair that had surely been neatly combed that morning now sat askew on his head, beads of sweat traveling down his forehead and nestling in the collar of his formerly white oxford shirt. The man stopped for a moment, eyed me curi ously, defensive, as though he half-expected me to take a random swing at him.

  "Scott Callahan?" I said.

  "The hell are you?" Scotty replied, taking a step back.

  "My name is Henry Parker," I said. "And you're going to want to talk to me."

  Scotty walked in front of me the whole way, like a prisoner heading toward the electric chair, knowing there was no chance of reprieve. On the street, Scotty had told me to go to hell. I responded by telling him ev erything I knew, how I'd followed him the other day.

  How I'd observed him going into each of those houses, how I knew he was selling drugs.

  I had to leave out my stealing Hector Guardado's briefcase. He didn't need to know I was so close. I wanted to have leverage on Scotty, but put too much weight on a person and rather than talk they'll simply buckle. If Scotty thought I knew so much to the point where I could incriminate both him and 718 Enter prises, he'd feel no reason to talk to me. He needed to feel there was a way out. If there was a chance at survival, there was a chance to talk his way out of it.

  I told him my name, my job. That he could end up on the front page of the Gazette tomorrow. Naturally I didn't tell him this was a personal investigation, but chances were Scotty Callahan would not be the kind of guy who'd consider filing a suit for libel.

  We went into a 24-hour coffee shop, somewhere quiet where we wouldn't be disturbed and didn't have to worry about being kicked out. Scotty walked with his head down, and for a moment I felt sorry for the guy.

  He was still in his rumpled suit, still carrying the same briefcase. As he walked, the case flopped against his side like a fish running out of air.

  I led him to the back of the restaurant, where we took a booth. A waitress came by and dropped two menus on the table with a thunk. One good thing about New

  York coffee shops, they took the food from every menu in the city and crammed it under one roof. You could order anything from a BLT to baby back ribs to sushi.

  Though I wouldn't recommend coffee-shop sushi.

  Scotty slid into the far end of the booth. He looked tired, and I could imagine that this was literally the very last place on earth he wanted to be. After a long day delivering house to house, I was sure a cold beer and a warm bed were the next two items on his agenda.

  They'd have to wait a little while.

  "You're making a big mistake," Scotty said. "I don't know anything."

  "See right there," I said, pointing at him. "That's how I know you're lying. Anyone who says 'you're making a big mistake' knows a whole hell of a lot."

  "Great, so you're a mind reader. Read my palm and let me the hell out of here."

  "You stand up before I say you can, and you know what the front page of the paper says tomorrow?" I held up my hands as though spelling out a movie matinee for him. "It says, 'Scott Callahan, drug dealer.' Now, I don't know what your dreams and am bitions are, Scotty, but I'm going to guess you'll have a tough time finding gainful employment after that happens. So we're going to sit here, I'm going to have a big-ass chocolate milk shake, and we're going to talk. Then, maybe, if I feel like you've been honest, you can go."

  "And if not?"

  I held up my hands again, framing the marquee.

  "Then consider yourself Spitzered."

  "You're a classy guy."

  "Yeah, and how's the drug-dealing business going?"

  "I'm not a drug dealer," Scotty said. The anger in his voice told me he actually believe what he said.

  "Now, I'm not sure what the actual term 'drug dealer' is in Webster's, but I'm pretty sure that if you go door to door selling drugs, you'd find a picture of yourself next to that definition."

  The thing was, I had no proof of Scotty being a dealer. I could link him to 718 Enterprises, and Hector

  Guardado, and possibly even my brother, but I hadn't actually witnessed him doing it. Thankfully by denying it with such vehemence he proved it for me.

  "I'm not a dealer," he said. His voice was quieter this time. I wondered if Scotty had ever sat alone in the dark thinking about what he was doing, what he'd become.

  The softness in his tone told me he had. "That's not what

  I do."

  "Then, please," I said. "Enlighten me."

  He looked at me suspiciously, his eyes traveling over my shirt, my chest. Then he leaned over and peered under the table.

  "Can I help you?" I said.

  "Are you wired?"

  I shook my head. "I'm not. This is between you and me, for now. I'm not looking to bust you. That's the truth. I just want some answers and I know you have them. You help me, I help you."

  "How do you help me?" he said.

  "By keeping my mouth shut."

  "And how can I know I can trust you?" he asked. "I have a family, man. I ha
ve friends. They all think I'm living on a sweet severance package."

  I sat for a moment. "You know what guys usually say in the movies when someone asks how they know they can trust them?"

  "No."

  "They say, 'because you have no choice.' So right now, you have no choice but to trust me. I'd be happy to strip down to my George Foreman underwear, but I don't think that's a scene either of us needs."

  Just to show him I was on the up-and-up, I stood up, flattened out my jeans and did a quick flip-up of my top.

  Sitting back down, I could tell Scotty was far from sat isfied, but he also knew if motivated, I could cause him a world of trouble.

  "They're not my drugs," he said. "I never wanted to do it. I mean, you're a reporter, right?"

  "That's what my business card says."

  "So you've got a job. And even though everyone's saying newspapers are going in the tank, you're still getting paid, right?"

  I wondered where this was going, but nodded.

  "I had my life planned out. I was gonna have my

  MBA by twenty-six," Scotty said. "So much for that.

  Three-point-nines all the way through college. Paid my own way through school because my parents could barely afford to buy the clothes I took with me. And right before I graduated, I got a six-figure job with

  Deutsche Bank structuring CDOs. That's the American dream, right"

  "CDOs?" I said.

  "Collateralized debt obligations. Basically you have a lot of banks giving out hundreds of thousands of loans.

  These loans are packaged into what's called a security.

  Then a bunch of securities are piled into what's called a CDO. Then when the crisis hit, we all got screwed."

  "Still not quite sure I follow."

  "Think about it like you were selling eggs," Scotty said. "There are dozens of chickens laying hundreds of eggs. Those eggs are taken from all different chickens and put into one carton, which is then sold. But what happens if the whole coop was diseased? Every egg in the carton is basically worthless. That's pretty much what happened. We ended up with a bunch of packaged loans that were in essence worthless. And once the economy got turned upside down, everyone who worked in that branch got the ticket out of there. I was at Deutsche Bank less than a year when I got canned."

  "I'm guessing you didn't live with your parents while you were working."

  "No way. Bought me a sweet two-bedroom for threequarters of a mil. Between salary and bonus, I could afford the payments while paying off my student loans.

  But then I lost my job, couldn't make the payments, and took a hundred-thousand-dollar loss selling the apart ment."

  "Wow," I said. "I think you lost more on that pad than my apartment is worth."

  "Don't be too sure. There's always someone willing to overpay for Manhattan real estate. If I could have waited six months I would have found a good buyer, but

  I couldn't afford my mortgage anymore and it was either that or live on the street for a while."

  "And now?"

  "And now what? I live with my parents. They still think I'm gonna be some financial genius. Warren

  Buffett or something. That's why you gotta keep this quiet, man. They can't know. It'd kill them." Scotty was starting to breathe harder, red flaring up under his collar.

  He was getting angry just talking about this. "You know what that feels like? You work your ass off for ten years, you pour every penny you have into your future. And then just when things seem like they're going your way, the rug is pulled out from under you and you're left with nothing but debt, bad credit and a crappy old bedroom that wasn't big enough when you were in high school."

  "So you start dealing. To make ends meet."

  "It's not permanent," Scotty said. "Things will turn around. There are peaks and valleys in every time cycle.

  In a year or so I'll have the job of my choice, back in a sweet-ass apartment. Living the dream."

  "You tell that to all the people you're poisoning?"

  "Screw yourself, Mr. High-and-Mighty. I'm doing what I need to do to survive. I owe fifty grand on my tuition, and even if I do get another job, who knows how long that'll last. You're a reporter, right? You ever think about all those people you feed bull to day in and day out?

  All those magazines telling women how they can doll themselves up, get sliced open just to be prettier? So maybe they can look like whatever anorexic slut you shove on your cover? Don't tell me about poison, man.

  You think I'm any worse than you are, you're deluding yourself."

  "I don't need to defend myself. I know what I do, and

  I know what you do. If you can even compare the two, you're the delusional one, Scotty."

  A waiter came over. He took a notepad from his pocket, licked his thumb and turned to a fresh page.

  "Can I get ya?"

  "Pastrami and rye," Scotty said. "With Swiss and mustard. And a cream soda."

  "Chocolate milk shake," I said. "And a side of fries."

  The waiter nodded, walked off. I turned back to

  Scotty.

  "When did you start?" I asked.

  He sighed, for a moment saying nothing. He was steeling himself up to talk. "'Bout a year ago," he said.

  "I went to my buddy Kyle's house one night a week after I got laid off. It was a few of us. Kyle's girlfriend, some chick I'd been seeing for a month who dumped me a few days later when she realized I couldn't afford tables at the China Club anymore."

  "Wow, that's a sob story if I ever heard one. Let me call up Larry King for you."

  "Dude, you're missing the point. Do you have any idea what it's like, how utterly fucking hopeless you feel, to live your whole life working for something only to know it can end-" he snapped his fingers "-just like that?"

  Scotty sat there, leaning across the table like a life coach trying to convince me of the path to righteous ness. Though Scotty and I had almost nothing in common-not our clothes, not our upbringing, not our vocation-something about what he said hit home for me. With my industry seemingly scaling back by the day, not to mention the far too often times my life was endangered by that chosen vocation, I knew how tenuous things could be.

  "Your friend Kyle," I said. "Go on."

  "We stayed up late, drank a lot. I think our girls were starting to get pissed off, feeling like we were paying each other more attention than we were them. And they were probably right. At some point I start jonesing for a toke. I used in college a bit. I asked Kyle if he knew where we could get some good stuff, and he kind of looked at me and laughed."

  Our food came, and Scotty tore into it before mine had even been set down. The pastrami and rye disap peared in several ravenous bites, washed down with a chug of cream soda. When he finished, Scotty smiled and said, "Best sandwich in the world."

  My chocolate milk shake looked a little silly in com parison, but I took a long sip and felt like a kid again.

  He wiped his mouth, placed the napkin gently on the table and continued. "Kyle just got up, went into his bedroom and came back with what looked like an eighth of great bud. At first I didn't ask questions, I was just looking forward to the feeling. When we were good and baked-and man, that stuff baked us quick -I asked him where he'd got it. Know what he told me?"

  "What?"

  "He said, 'leftovers.' I didn't know what the hell that meant, so I asked him. He said times were tough, and he'd been dealing a bit on the side. His mom just got diagnosed with cervical cancer and she didn't have health insurance. So he was dealing to help her out with the bills. Kyle's dad died about ten years ago, drank away every penny they had, even gambled some that they didn't. So I asked him who set him up with that, and he said he'd met a guy who was kind of like the head recruiter. Kind of like Ben Affleck in Boiler Room, the grand pooh-bah of the game. The guy you want to talk to if you want in."

  "So Kyle set you up with this guy."

  "Yeah. Kyle said he was at some party where a guy named Vinnie came and sold the h
ost some coke. Kyle was curious about making some extra coin, so he pulled

  Vinnie aside. Vinnie gave him a phone number, and that's all she wrote."

  "And how did you get involved?" I asked.

  Scotty chugged more of his cream soda, a frothy mustache trail on his upper lip. He saw me staring, and wiped it away. "After a few weeks, I noticed Kyle was coming home later and later, and then I saw him with this sweet watch, a Movado. Brand-new, bought from the store. He said he was pulling down two, three grand a week easy. And that was just the beginning. So I asked if Kyle would introduce me to his man, this recruiter guy. Kyle tells me this guy is the one who makes all the decisions, the guy who's in charge of everything. Kyle sets up a meeting, I go in and talk with this guy for an hour, maybe two, and a week later I'm on the street."

  "But not really 'on the street.'"

  "Nah. Anyone who thinks dealers in NYC sit on street corners waiting for crackheads to come up to them is watching too much HBO. This is a business, run and worked by businessmen. There's no room for street hustling or stupidity."

  "Any women?" I asked.

  "Not that I ever saw."

  "Guess it's not all that different from finance after all."

  "No," Scotty said with a laugh. "Guess not."

  "So you say this whole thing is run like a business, streamlined and thorough. So let me ask you this…how did I find you?"

  Scotty shifted in his seat. "I don't know."

  "This recruiter you're talking about. The head honcho. You say you met with him."

  "Just once," Scotty said. "After I had my…interview

  I guess you could call it, I was always dealing with mid dlemen after that. Guys lower on the food chain."

  "Are they the ones who give you the re-ups at the office in midtown?"

  Scotty's eyes shot up, and for the first time a sense of fear crept into them. "Who told you that?"

  I said nothing. Just stared at him. He needed to know he wasn't dealing with an amateur, and that if I'd come this far there was surely a lot more to dig up.

  "Yeah. The Depot, we called it. The main guy was never there, it's kind of like as soon as we met him, he disappeared into thin air and stopped existing. We had his phone number just in case, but if anyone called it without a good reason, we knew they might not come in to work the next day."