place.”
Walking back into the lobby’s atrium, I stopped by
the company directory listings. Scanning the names and
floor numbers of the companies that were housed here,
I could find no listing for 718 Enterprises. Strange.
Where were all these young men going?
And what the hell was 718 Enterprises?
I figured I’d ask someone who might know. I walked
up to the security guard and said, “Hi, sorry to bother
you again. I’m looking for a company called 718 En
terprises. I’m pretty sure it’s here, but I can’t find it in
the directory and I forgot the name of the person I’m
supposed to meet.”
The guard looked me over. He was in his late fifties,
heavyset, with big wide eyes that looked like they
believed me as far as he could shove me down his throat.
“No, you didn’t,” he said.
“I didn’t?” I said incredulously.
“No. You’re not. I don’t know you, friend.” He
averted his eyes to the crossword puzzle on his desk. I
stood there for another moment, until the guard’s eyes
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came back to mine. He put his hand on the phone at his
desk and said, “Do I have to call the cops?”
I apologized and walked outside.
Standing there outside the building, I tried to piece
this together. Those young men who filed into the
building, who knew each other and were all dressed
alike, I’d be willing to bet they all took on the moniker
of Vinnie during their day job. And I’d also be willing
to bet that whatever 718 Enterprises was, it was some
sort of supplier.
I still had no idea what, if anything, they had to do
with the deaths of Beth-Ann Downing or even Stephen
Gaines. But it’s all I had. As thin and transparent as this
thread was, it was the only one I had to pull. And I’d
had thinner ones that ended up unraveling a great deal.
As I stood outside the building pondering my next
move, a lone straggler exited the building wearing the
telltale suit and carrying a bulging briefcase. He was
thin, younger-looking than his cohorts, and had a gangly
walk that told me he hadn’t been at this very long. He
began walking north. He took a cell phone from his
pocket, checked it then dropped it into his briefcase.
A thought crossed my mind. Suddenly it occurred to
me what I could do. What I needed to do. I certainly
wouldn’t feel good about myself…but my father’s
freedom was at stake. Finding a killer was my justifi
cation. I silently apologized for what I was about to do.
I began to walk faster, the young kid in my line of
sight. I was ten feet behind him. Nine. Eight. Seven.
I began to jog to keep pace, my pulse quickening.
The subway was just a few blocks away. I’d make it…
Pushing off my back foot to get a burst of speed, I
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lunged forward and grabbed the briefcase off the young
guy’s shoulder. It was loose with surprisingly little
effort, and suddenly, to my surprise, I was standing
there in the middle of the street holding a young man’s
bag that I’d just stolen.
He twirled around to see what was happening, and
just before I could react, he locked eyes with me. His
were light green, a mixture of anger and horrific fear
in them. He knew what he stood to lose.
I didn’t wait another moment. I turned around and
began to run as fast as I could, whispering, I’m going
to hell, I’m going to hell, as my legs churned.
“Stop! Thief!” I heard a high-pitched voice scream.
An arm reached out for me but I shrugged it away.
The N train would be too obvious and too close. If
the train took a long time to pull into the station, I’d be
dead. I could outrun this kid. I had to.
I sprinted east down Fifty-eighth Street as fast as I
could. The kid was screaming behind me. I peeked over
my shoulder, feeling a surge of adrenaline as I saw my
lead increasing. Once I got to Sixth Avenue, I turned
south and saw the entrance for the B and Q trains ahead
of me.
Pulling things into fifth gear, I leaped down the steps
into the station, fumbling as I got my MetroCard out. I
swiped it, went through, and took a millisecond to
decide to head for the downtown B train. I figured if I
was caught, at least he wouldn’t know the direction
where I lived.
The platform was all but empty. Bad luck for me. But
there was a red light in the tunnel signaling an ap
proaching train. It couldn’t come fast enough. I walked
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quickly toward the end of the platform, the weight of
the bag pressing on my shoulder.
As the train rumbled into the station, my breath
caught in my throat as I saw the kid clamber down the
stairs approaching my platform. I hoped he hadn’t seen
me.
When the doors opened I slid into the car, peeking
out once more.
The kid was on the platform, peeking into each car.
The train began to move. Faster and faster, it was
bringing me right toward him.
As the train passed where the young kid was
standing, I saw his eyes meet mine. His mouth dropped
open, and I could have sworn I heard a stream of pro
fanity. Then I was gone, into the darkness of the tunnel.
I transferred at the next station onto the uptown B,
then rode it until the 125th and Frederick Douglas
Boulevard station. From there I walked home, the bag
on my shoulder burning a hole.
I was tired, weary, trudging up the stairs, my blood
still pumping, however, with my prize. My guilt had
been overcome by my curiosity.
When I opened the door, I saw Amanda sitting at the
dining-room table eating a bowl of cereal. I forgot how
early it was, that she hadn’t even left for work yet.
She was wearing a formfitting tank top that accen
tuated her amazing figure. Her hair was held together
in a ponytail, and her shapely legs disappeared beneath
her chair. I smiled, and she returned it.
“Whatcha got there, sweetie? A present for me
maybe?”
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I sat down at the table opposite her. I stuck my hand
in the outside pocket and came out with a cell phone.
The same one the young kid had been using.
Then I unlatched the brass buckles on the outside.
When the bag was unlocked, I folded back the top and
turned it upside down.
Out poured five white bricks the size of VHS cassette
tapes, as well as several thumb-size bags of the stuff. It
also contained a dozen small bags of marijuana with
varying quantities, and several pieces of tinfoil. I didn’t
want to open or touch anything I didn’t need to, so
whatever was in those packets would remain a mystery
for now. Chances
were, it was either coke or crack.
One package, though, was half-open. Sitting on one
loose piece of foil were three small off-white stones that
looked almost like sugar cubes. But I knew exactly
what they were. Rocks of pure crack cocaine.
“Wow,” Amanda said, staring at the mass of drugs.
“Remind me to buy my own birthday present next year.”
I reached for one of the packages, but Amanda
grabbed my arm. I looked at her to see what was up, and
she was shaking her head like she was scolding a child
about to eat paste.
“Do you really want your fingerprints on those?” she
asked rhetorically. “Don’t we have enough problems
with fingerprints where they didn’t belong? I assume at
some point we’re going to have to get the police
involved, and we’ll have a much easier time convinc
ing them if it doesn’t look like you were rolling around
in the drugs beforehand.”
My arm shot back. The girl had a point.
“This is unreal,” I said, the words not even doing
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justice to the feeling of seeing all the drugs spread out
on our table. My college never offered a Drug Dealing
101 course, so I had no idea what the value of the nar
cotics were. Though, based on the amount of stops
Scotty had made yesterday, and the money Rose Keller
claimed to have shelled out over the years, it had to be
several thousand at least. And if I factored in all the dif
ferent suit-wearing carriers I saw this morning, there
had to be at least a hundred grand making its way
around the city every single day.
“What do we do with this?” Amanda asked. The truth
was I wasn’t sure. If I delivered it to the cops with the
story, I’d have to explain the stolen briefcase. And then
I’d have to explain how I got there, how I’d followed
Scotty, and why I was doing all this in the first place.
The goal, of course, was to find Stephen Gaines’s
killer and free my father. That would likely have to wait
until I had the full picture. If I went in with half a bird
in hand and the other half hiding in the bush, they’d
laugh me off and then possibly arrest me. Neither of
which sounded particularly appealing.
I picked up the cell phone. It wasn’t as fancy as mine
or many of the newer models, and didn’t look to have
photo or video capacity. There was no flip top, just a
dimly lit LCD screen and chunky buttons that looked
old and worn. Clearly, this phone was meant for one
thing, and one thing only. And whoever was using it
didn’t need all the excess accoutrements.
The phone was still on. The screen said there were
five missed calls. I checked the log, and saw they’d all
come from the same number. I didn’t recognize it, and
rather than a name popping up it was just the number.
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Most likely it was the kid whose briefcase I’d stolen
calling from a pay phone, praying someone would pick
up. It was only a matter of time before the phone was
disconnected.
Though somehow I didn’t think there was a high
probability of the owner calling the cops to report it.
On the LCD screen, there was a “contacts” line
directly above a flat, rectangular button. I pressed it.
Immediately a roll call of the kid’s contacts came up.
I scrolled through the names, hoping for something.
Then I saw two names that did ring a bell.
Scott Callahan and Kyle Evans.
Scotty and Kyle from this morning.
It didn’t shock me that they were listed in the kid’s
contacts list. They did share the same “occupation,”
and odds were Scotty and Kyle had this kid’s number
in their database as well. I kept scrolling.
Then a name appeared on the list that made me
catch my breath.
“What?” Amanda said. “What it is?”
I showed her the phone, my finger underlining the
name.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Why would he be…”
I looked at her. We both knew why he was there.
Halfway down the lists of contacts was the name
Stephen Gaines.
“He knew my brother,” I said. “Wait a second…”
I exited the contacts list and returned to the main
menu. I knew what I was looking for but didn’t know
if it was there.
I hoped it wasn’t.
I pressed the send button to bring up the list of the
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most recent calls from this cell phone. There were
several from a name marked Office. I clicked edit to see
the number. It was from a 646 area code in Manhattan.
I wrote it down, then kept on scrolling.
None of the names were recognizable.
But then, at the very end of the list, was the one
name I’d hoped not to see.
“He called Stephen,” I said to Amanda. “He called
my brother the night he died.”
19
The next morning, Amanda and I took the subway to
100 Centre Street, which housed the New York County
Correctional Facility. My father was being held there
before his grand jury hearing, and we were on our way
to show support, discuss his court-appointed lawyer.
And ask him some questions to which I hoped he would
hold the answers.
Amanda and I had spent the previous night talking
and thinking about the Gaines family, Rose Keller and
Beth-Ann Downing. Drugs seemed to be the only link
between the four people. Two of them were dead,
Stephen Gaines and Beth-Ann. And the stash of narcot
ics from the stolen briefcase was hidden inside my
laundry hamper. I figured if anyone were to break in, the
stench itself might deter even the most hardened thief.
Stephen used to date and party with Rose Keller.
She claimed they’d met randomly. But I had to wonder.
Stephen’s name was in the kid’s cell phone I stole.
Which meant one of three things.
First, the two were merely friends. Which was
highly unlikely.
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Second, that Stephen was the kid’s client. That one
was a possibility.
Third, and perhaps the most frightening yet the most
plausible, was that Stephen Gaines was a dealer himself.
Perhaps Stephen, before he died, was one of the
faceless suit monkeys who entered that office building
in midtown for re-ups. Perhaps had I gone there another
day, I would have seen my brother enter with an empty
briefcase and exit with a full load of narcotics.
Helen Gaines had somehow befriended Beth-Ann
Downing after relocating from Bend to New York City.
They both had children—though I had no reason to
suspect Sheryl and Stephen had met, unless Stephen
happened to have sold to Sheryl’s mother. Sheryl was
likely gone by the time Helen and Stephen settled in.
And at some point
along the line, both Helen and BethAnn had developed drug addictions.
Chances were Stephen discovered the path to his
own demise through his mother. Anytime you grow up
in a household in which such evils were not only
common but encouraged, it was just a matter of time
before you followed in step.
In my relatively short time on this planet, I’d learned
that there were two types of people. Those who were
doomed to follow in whatever footsteps had been laid
out for them, and those who were strong enough to
carve their own path.
Amanda and I were lucky. I could have turned out
like my father, with a general disregard for decency
and an attitude toward women that could be described
as combative on a good day. Amanda could have been
swallowed by her grief as a child, stifled by the tragic
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deaths of her parents. She never grew close to Lawrence
and Harriet Stein, her adoptive family. She feared that
she would never truly be close to another person again.
She began to write in diaries. There were hundreds of
them, each one chronicling every waking moment of
her life, cataloging every soul she met on her aimless
journey. A moment-to-moment timeline of loneliness.
After we met and later began seeing each other, she
stopped writing in them. I like to think that, in each
other, we found a path through the darkness. She found
someone who would be with her every night and every
morning, and I found a woman strong enough to show
me my weaknesses as well as my strengths, beautiful
enough beneath the skin to make me want to smooth
over the rough edges.
And there were a lot of them.
Stephen Gaines never found that path. He’d never
had a chance. Between his mother and her friends, the
darkness was too much for him to bear.
I gripped the handrail tight as I approached my des
tination. My childhood memories of my father were of
this great and powerful man who never feared anything.
He was an omnipotent tyrant, a man unconcerned with
convention or emotion. I never saw him cry, never saw
him beg. Even when I knew our finances were dwin
dling and my mother was as distant as the sunset at
dusk, he stood rock solid, impenetrable. Seeing him
today would be the opposite of everything I knew as a
child. He was the negative in my life’s photograph. And
I wasn’t sure if I was prepared.
The New York County Correctional Facility had
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