Parker 01 - The Mark (3 page)

Paulina chimed in, “Unlike Phil.”

Wallace nodded resignedly. “Yes, unlike Phil.”

I decided not to inquire about this Phil. It was newsroom gossip and I hadn’t earned the right.

“Well, have a seat,” Wallace said. “See how the old desk fits you.”

Watching Wallace to see his reaction, I settled into my new chair. The seat wasn’t meant for comfort, rather for a body that was constantly fidgeting, moving around. Designed more to keep you awake than keep you relaxed, and I was sure my spine would hate me for it.

“Well?”

“It’s perfect,” I said. Wallace laughed.

“Bullshit, but you’ll get used to it. Let’s have lunch Thursday. HR will send you info about benefits and 401k. Give me a holler if you need anything.” Just then a voice rang through the office. Wallace’s secretary.

“Mr. Langston! Rudy Giuliani on line two.”

He muttered, “Shit, he’s probably pissed about the piece on page five.” Wallace gave me a quick pat on the back. “And Henry?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t wear a suit and tie again. You’re a journalist, not a stockbroker. Lesson number one, your sources will want to feel you’re on their level. Not a level above them.”

As I settled in, Paulina turned to me, a cagey look on her face.

“And one more thing,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Remember one thing, and make sure you remember it good in every story you write. Ninety percent of this job is reporting good versus evil. And without evil, we’d be out of a job.”

“I
s a good space,” Manuel Vega said, inserting a nicked key into the lock. He met some resistance, smiled as though it was intentional, then jarred the door open with his shoulder. After seeing—and rejecting—twelve apartments in barely a month, I prayed this one would fit in my budget. Not to mention fit me.

The stench of mildew immediately attacked my nose. Flecks of white paint spotted my coat where I brushed against the doorframe. A rasping noise, like the death throes of an elderly marsupial, emanated from the radiator.

Putting my hands in my pockets, I gritted my teeth. “And this is how much?”

“Nine seventy-five a month. Six months rent paid in advance.”

It was manageable. Plus this was the only apartment I’d seen remotely in my price range and still on the island of Manhattan. Most were double the price and equal in size to my baby crib. Right now this apartment, nestled on the Northwest corner of 112th and Amsterdam, whose lone streetlamp seemed to share an electrical outlet with every hair dryer in the city, was the only one I could afford without turning tricks. And if I was going to work at a newspaper, a NewYork paper, I didn’t want to live anywhere else but in the city. If I was in, I was in all the way.

The last three weeks I’d been squatting with my girlfriend, Mya Loverne, at her apartment. Every second spent together was filled with palpable tension. We counted the moments until I finally got my own place. Most couples couldn’t wait to move in together. We couldn’t wait to be apart. I had eight grand in my bank account, savings from summers spent writing for the
Bulletin
back in Bend and odd jobs I took to offset my financial aid at Cornell. It took all my strength to go home after each semester ended, but I couldn’t afford summer housing. I could live for free in Oregon. I could live with being a ghost in my own home. That was the only way I could stay sane, slipping in and out without saying a word to the man on the couch, or the woman who couldn’t do anything to stop him. Eight grand was all the money I had in the world. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting any monthly stipend from the man I stopped calling Dad a long time ago.

Mya was a 2L at Columbia. Her father, David Loverne, was the former dean of Fordham law, had made a killing sitting on the Internet bubble and selling right before it burst. Needless to say, her ticket was punched a long time ago. The first two years of our relationship at Cornell were a dream, and just like a dream they ended before we knew what happened. The third brutal year felt like the cold sweat residue from a nightmare that never really ended. Mya was a year older. She moved to New York when she graduated. I stayed in the frigid barrens of Ithaca and watched our relationship freeze.

It was just a few months ago, this past February, that our relationship was dealt a mortal wound. Since then our pulse had slowed, the gangrene of that horrible night spreading and poisoning us. We hoped things would get better when I moved to the city, like a couple in a failing marriage that decides to have a child in the hopes that it will “bring them together.”

I found Manuel Vega on Craigslist. The announcement was in tiny lettering, as though embarrassed to compete with the bigger notices with bolder font.

“So you’ve seen the apartment. Now you rent the apartment,” Manuel said. He pulled a piece of paper and pen from his pocket, held them out to me.

“Whoa, hold on a second, chief. What if I don’t want to rent it?”

“What’s not to like?” he said, as though personally insulted. “You have four walls, ceiling. Refrigerator even.”

How could I argue with that logic?

The price seemed reasonable, even for such a uniquely odorous pad, and I had no other options. Manuel even offered to cram himself into the fridge to prove its square footage. I politely declined.

After briefly investigating for vermin, and finding none visible, it was time to get down to business. I needed the space. Maybe space would bring Mya and I closer. And maybe there were gold bricks buried along with Jimmy Hoffa in the walls.

“So, six months rent, up front. That’s a lot,” I said, sighing. Unbelievable. I was on the verge of shelling out over two-thirds of my savings for an apartment that looked like the only witness to a teen horror flick.

“Up front. You pay down payment now.”

“
If
I take the apartment,” I said. Manuel shrugged and nibbled a fingernail.

“You don’t take now, someone will tomorrow.”

“That right?”

“I place the ad yesterday, amigo. You the third person to see it today. You write check today, maybe I tell the others to scram.”

“Damn,” I said, a little too audibly. “Is there a cable hookup? Is the apartment Internet-ready?”

“Of course,” Manuel said, a toothy grin spreading over his face. “You have all the Internet you want.”

“All right,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ll take it.”

I took the papers, read them over.

“You fill these out now, have a certified check for me tomorrow for the first six months. Six thousand, eight hundred seventy-five dollars.”

“You mean five thousand, eight seventy-five.”

“Yes, right. And you don’t pass your credit check, I put ad back in the paper.”

I nodded, followed Manuel downstairs to an office on the first floor. He took a seat behind a squat metal desk littered with papers and empty candy wrappers. I filled out the application, my chest swelling when I filled in the “employer” field. When I handed it back to Manuel, he turned the page around, pointing to that very space.

“This,” he said. “Who you work for?”

“The
Gazette,
” I said. “You know, the newspaper.”

“You take pictures?”

“No, I’m a journalist. I’m going to be the next Bob Woodward.” Manuel eyed me, eyed the form.

“Woodward?”

“You know, Bob Woodward?
All the President’s Men?
”

“Yes, the building has very good woodwork,” Manuel said, tapping the wall behind him.

No sense explaining. Soon enough, everyone would know. The newsroom at the
Gazette,
that was my Batcave. This apartment would be my Wayne Manor, the shell covering the hero underneath. Though I doubt Wayne Manor housed mice the size of beagles.

“You’ll like it here,” Manuel said. “Just like home.”

Yeah, I thought. Just like home. Like the home I wished I’d had, instead of a clapboard box where the only noises were a faulty sink and the venom spewed from the man who called himself my father. Home. At last.

I went straight to Mya’s once we finished the paperwork. Before moving out I wanted to celebrate, spend one last night in her bed. See if those familiar sparks could be ignited one last time. I called ahead to propose a celebratory dinner, but she replied with a curt, “Henry, I have finals next week. Dinner will take hours. If you want we can grab something from Subway.”

I declined. I’d eat on the way.

She met me at the door wearing a red bathrobe, her blond hair stringy and wet. She smelled great, fresh. I wanted to gather her up, hold her like I held her when we first met. When nothing else mattered and real life seemed so far away. I placed my hand on her arm, rubbed it gently.

“Henry, I just moisturized.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s just…”

“I know.” She sighed, smiled faintly.

I took off my sneakers and lay them outside her door. She sat down on the bed, her lips pursed, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“So tell me about the new place.”

“Well, as far as I know nobody’s ever died in it.” Mya didn’t seem to find me funny today.

“Come on, seriously. What’s it like?”

“Well, it’s in Harlem, 112th and Amsterdam. The building won’t win any awards from
House and Garden,
but the utilities work, I have room to live, the door locks and that’s all I need.”

“Is it clean?”

“Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “I’m not sure clean is the word. But it’s livable.”

“Do you expect me to come over?”

“I was hoping you would, being my girlfriend and all.”

Mya stood up and walked to the open window. She stared out across the street. The night sky stared back, cold and un-inviting, as she chewed her nails.

“I thought you stopped chewing,” I said.

“I did for a while. Just came back.”

I could feel the brutal static between us. Why were we together? Just because we’d weathered the storm and were content to hit dry land? Or did we really think we had a chance? That maybe we’d remember those first nights, when every moment was the only reality we needed?

Staring out the window, Mya said, “I hope your apartment works out for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” And this, I knew, was the end.

“That’s all I mean. I hope you like your apartment. Don’t try to analyze so much.”

“No, there was something in your voice. ‘I hope you like your apartment, but…’I just want to know what the ‘but’ was.”

Mya turned around. Her hair fell around her shoulders, her skin shined.

“I wonder sometimes, Henry.”

“Wonder about what?”

She turned back around. “Nothing.”

“Don’t do that, that thing where you ask a question and then say it’s nothing.”

“It’s not worth talking about.”

“Yes it is. It always is.” I walked over to her, put my hands on her shoulders. She shivered for a moment, then relaxed.

“Sometimes I think about things.”

I knew where this was going and felt a knot rise in my stomach. My hands fell off her shoulders and I took a step back. Then her voice got soft, quiet. “Things have been different. I think you and I both know that.”

“I know it has.”

“It’s been like this since…”

“Since that night.”

“Yes,” she said, sighing. “Since that night.”

I sat down on the bed, wrapping my arms around a lace pillow. I looked up at Mya, could see the faint scar on her cheek. It was barely noticeable unless you knew it was there. I knew it was there.

“I just think about that night and wonder if it was an omen, you know. A sign.” I nodded, knowing too well what she was saying.

“So what do you suggest we do? End it now, right when things get hard?”

“This isn’t hard, Henry. Hard is what’s going to happen when I graduate from law school and you’re working night shifts at the
Gazette.
School and work take up time, but—” she paused “—they’re really only stepping stones. I just don’t want to slip up before I graduate. I don’t want to lose focus.”

“This isn’t—we aren’t—a stepping stone. If we work hard we’ll find a way to make it work. I know things have happened.” I hesitated, my voice catching, a lump rising in my throat. “Bad things. But we can get past them.”

“Maybe,” she said, uncertainty coloring her voice. “But when I’m a lawyer and you’re a…journalist or whatever, we’ll have even less time to talk things out. At some point we need to step back and really wonder if it’s worth it.” I knew I shouldn’t ask. It wasn’t the topic of discussion. But it burned me, and I had to.

“What do you mean a journalist or whatever?”

“I just mean when your career is on track. When you’re doing whatever you want to do.” I shook my head, tossed the pillow onto the headboard, where it lay at an awkward angle.

“You’ve never had faith in me.”

“That’s not true. I’ve always stood by you.”

“That’s easy to do in college, easy to say when you’re not even there. But what about now? Would you stand by me now?”

Mya’s face grew cold, all the life fell away from her. “Don’t you ever
dare
talk to me about not being there.”

Mya stepped forward and put her arms limply around my neck. She pressed her lips against mine, then removed them. I left moments later.

The next time I spoke to Mya, three men wanted me dead.

I
f I was less ambitious, none of it would have happened. But I was stubborn, impatient. I like to think all great minds are. But I never dreamed ambition might cost me my life.

My fourth day at the
Gazette,
Wallace offered up my first reporting assignment. It came at the perfect time, too. Mya and I hadn’t seen each other in days. I was in desperate need of a pick-me-up. And an assignment did a better job of that than a six-pack.

When Wallace called me into his office, the possibilities flew through my head. I knew the stories Jack O’Donnell was reporting. Sometimes when I passed him on the way back from the Flavia machine, I’d look over his shoulder and see the words on his computer.

For the last six months, Jack had been working steadily on a story so big, the
Gazette
was planning to run a weeklong feature upon completion. I knew what the story was. Everybody in the office did. Jack had risked every source and even his life to dig it up. Jack was investigating the brewing war between two organized crime families, a story that first took shape twenty years ago when O’Donnell wrote a book chronicling the resurrection of the New York
Cosa Nostra,
personified in the form of John Gotti. The book sold almost a million copies and was made into a film starring James Caan. When I was a teenager back in Bend, I bought a tattered copy at a used bookstore. It sat on my shelf like a trophy. And now, years later, in the wake of Gotti’s death, O’Donnell was exploring the new wave of organized crime—the men fighting over the crumbs of an empire, trying to create their own dynasties in the wake of Gotti’s Rome.

Due to public outcries, even the mayor had acknowledged it with hyperbolic platitudes, calling the unrest an ugly river of bile trying to flow up out of the sewers and erode the peace of the last decade. I wrote that quote down.

Following Gotti’s death, mob activity in NewYork had all but vanished. But recently bodies had been turning up, each punched with more holes than a drug addict’s memoir. Talking heads got worked up on Fox News, warning us that the sleeping giant had awakened. A man was shot dead outside a famous Chinese restaurant. A fire broke out at a tailor shop in the meatpacking district. There were murders so ghastly the papers tripped over themselves to see who could color it in the purplest prose.

The two men assumed to have picked up the slack were Jimmy “The Brute” Saviano and Michael DiForio. While I’m all in favor of creepy nicknames, “The Brute” seemed a little too overt for my tastes. Too in-your-face. Like a guy nicknaming himself “Killer” in the hopes it would make up for the fact that one of his testicles hadn’t descended.

The Saviano family had started out small. More like a crew with a couple dozen loyal thugs who knew their chance to pocket six figures was only possible through the noble profession of cracking heads. Guys more loyal to the amenities of the lifestyle than to Puzo’s
Omerta.

But once Gotti’s crew folded, his men searched for a new start, another strand of crooked DNA. Most shifted allegiances, promising obedience to Saviano.

The other family, the one that seemed to be instigating this 21st-century war, was led by Michael “Four Corners” DiForio, who’d inherited the mantel from his father, Michael, who’d inherited it from
his
father, Michael. Clearly originality wasn’t what put the family on the map.

In my opinion, the nickname “Four Corners” was much more effective than “The Brute.” It referred to DiForio’s preferred disposal of his enemies, via the act of literally cutting him—and sometimes her—limb from limb and sending them to the four corners of the earth. Obviously nobody had informed DiForio that the earth was round. After all, it really is the thought that counts.

I knew I had to cut my teeth before getting close to stories of that caliber. Yet in the back of my mind I hoped Jack might have heard some good things, come across my clips from Bend. Maybe he’d need help with research, someone to make a few phone calls, pick up his dry cleaning, whatever.

Wallace called me into his office on a Thursday, and I was pretty sure he could see my heart beating through my shirt. The thin smile on his lips meant he surely had a hard-hitting story for me. Something from the top of the pile. Uncovering some deep-rooted corruption that helped the common good. I had no sense of entitlement and wasn’t driven by ego or narcissism. I just wanted to be the best damn reporter the world had ever seen.

My chin dropped when he handed me a white index card. A name, telephone number and address were scribbled on the front. Without looking up Wallace said, “I need an obituary for tomorrow’s paper. I want to see copy by five o’clock.”

I stood there for a moment, scanning his face for sarcasm. Maybe Wallace had a sense of humor. Nope, nothing.

“All right,” I said, pulling out a notepad and pen. “Who’s…ahem…Arthur Shatzky?”

Wallace scratched his beard. “Arthur Shatzky is—was, I should say—a classics professor at Harvard until he retired about fifteen years ago.” Wallace looked at me, tented his fingers and breathed into them. “Write something nice, Henry. Jack O’Donnell was an old student of Arthur’s.”

I wrote down the info, my heart slowly sinking. Not exactly front-page material.

“And Jack didn’t want to take the story?” I asked. Wallace laughed.

“Jack O’Donnell is a national treasure. He writes what he wants, when he wants. He hasn’t written an obituary in forty years.” Wallace stood up, clamped his hand on my shoulder, squeezed it gently. “Everyone’s got to start somewhere, Henry.”

I offered a weak smile and returned to my desk, making an effort not to drag my heels. Paulina shot me a quick glance that didn’t go unnoticed.

“So what’d Mayor McCheese want?” she asked.

I sat down, said, “Gave me an assignment.”

Paulina’s eyes perked up. I sensed jealousy and shook my head. “Don’t get worked up. He’s got me writing an obituary for one of O’Donnell’s old professors.”

Paulina sniffed, then blew her nose into a tissue that she let float to the floor.

“Been here one week, you’re already writing for O’Donnell.” She seemed more than a little peeved. “You get a few stories syndicated out of some Podunk paper in Bumblefuck, Ohio…”

“Oregon.”

“Same place. I’ve been syndicated around the
world,
Hank. And Jack’s barely said two words to me in ten years.” She took a sip of black coffee. “And now they have a flavor of the month who probably gets carded at the movie theater.”

I held it in. Kill them with kindness. “It’s just an obit. I’m not writing it ‘for’ Jack.” Paulina let out an exasperated sigh, turned back to her computer. She spoke without bothering to look at me.

“They’ll be saddling up and riding you, Henry. Oh, yes, they will. But that bronco’s gonna buck like you wouldn’t believe. So keep that golden-boy trophy nice and polished, otherwise they’re gonna pawn it and sell it to the next kid who walks through the door and can spell right.”

If I wanted to make a career out of writing obituaries, I was off to the right start. Two weeks later and the sting had been taken out of death. It refused to sink in any deeper than my computer screen. First Arthur Shatzky, then a painter named Isenstein I’d never heard of, then an electrician who’d fallen down an open elevator shaft.

There are four steps, Wallace told me, to writing a good obituary. First, their name and occupation. Second, the cause of death—even if they fell down an elevator shaft, make it sound tragic. Third, use one quote each from a former business associate and family member. Fourth, list the immediate surviving family. If they have no family, list the companies and committees that will lose their leadership. A life boiled down to a template.

I respected the dead, but in my opinion hiring a promising young journalist and making him write obituaries was like hiring Cassandra and having her make coffee. Screw ego, it was the truth.

On my third Monday, Wallace came over to my desk, interrupting my obituary of an architect whose sleep apnea had finally caught up to him.

“Henry,” he said, “I have a job for you.”

“Yeah? Who died now?”

Wallace gave a hearty laugh. “No, nothing like that. You’ve seen Rockefeller Center, right?”

“I’m vaguely familiar with it. We do work here.”

“So you’ve seen those spiders they have out front, right?”

I didn’t like where this was going.

“Uh, yeah, I have.” The arachnids Wallace was referring to weren’t real spiders, but huge twenty-foot monstrosities some
artiste
had constructed out of what looked like metal from an old barbecue. The only people interested in this “art” were visor-wearing tourists and small children who climbed it like some playground out of Stephen King’s nightmares.

“I want three hundred words on the artist and sculptures. Minimum of two quotes from bystanders. Copy for Wednesday’s edition.”

I heard Paulina stem a chuckle. Rather than leaving, Wallace stood there, waiting for a response.

“I think he’s got a problem with the assignment, Wally.” Paulina. Chiming in at the perfectly wrong time. Wallace raised his eyebrows. I avoided eye contact with both of them.

“Is that true?” he asked. I said nothing. Paulina was right. I hated writing obituaries and I sure as hell didn’t want to interview bumpkins from North Dakota about metal insects the size of commercial airliners.

“You want me to be honest?” I asked.

“It would upset me if you weren’t.”

I looked at Paulina. She was pretending to type.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this piece. No offense to spiderphiles, but to be honest you’re really not getting my best work right now. And I think you know that.”

Wallace put his thumb to his lip, chewed at the nail.

“So you’re saying you’d rather work on more interesting stories.” I nodded. This was thin ice. I was asking the editor in chief of a major metropolitan newspaper for, essentially, more responsibility. After less than a month on the job. There were probably a thousand people who’d kill to write obituaries at the
Gazette,
but I’d worked damn hard to get here and screw it, I could do better.

Finally Wallace said, “I’m sorry, Henry, really, but this is all I have right now. Believe it or not, these stories are important. You want…” But all I heard was
blah blah blah,
trust me,
blah blah blah.

“You see what I’m saying?” Wallace asked. I couldn’t hear Paulina anymore; she was in full eavesdropping mode. I didn’t move, didn’t nod. I knew what he was saying, but in my heart I didn’t believe it. Then right as I was about to open my mouth, an unexpected voice rang out through the newsroom.

“I have something Parker could help me with.”

Three heads turned to stare. The voice belonged to Jack O’Donnell, and he was staring right at me. Thankfully I peed after lunch.

A slight laugh escaped Wallace’s lips, and with a flamboyant wave of his hand he directed me toward the elder reporter.

Before I could even register that Jack O’Donnell—Jack
freakin’
O’Donnell—was talking to me, my legs had stumbled over to his desk. He was leaning back in his chair. A light gray beard coated his face. His desk was covered in Post-it notes and illegible scribblings. A photo of an attractive woman at least twenty years his junior.

“So you’re looking for more action?” he said. My chin bobbed and I muttered a “Yes, sir” beneath my breath. I could smell tobacco and coffee coming off his breath in waves. I wondered if I could bottle it and bring it back to my desk.

O’Donnell slid his hand under a pile of paper and removed a notepad. He scanned it, then ripped off the top sheet and handed it to me.

“Not sure if you’ve heard, but I’ve been working on some copy about criminal rehabilitation.” I nodded again, kept on nodding. “You all right, kid?” I nodded some more.

Jack sighed an
okay
under his breath. “What I’m doing is profiling a dozen ex-convicts, a kind of ‘where are they now’ of the scum of NewYork. Then hopefully tie that into a larger investigation about the criminal justice system and its effectiveness, or lack thereof.” More nods. I was getting good at it.

When I asked, “What do you need me to do?” my voice cracked worse than a fifteen-year-old working at the drive-thru. I coughed into my fist. Repeated myself in a much deeper tone of voice.

O’Donnell tapped the paper, underlined the name, address and phone number on the page.

Luis Guzman. 105th and Broadway.

“I’ll call Mr. Guzman to tell him an associate of mine will be coming by for an interview. I’ve already spoken to his parole board, and they’ve confirmed it with Luis. They put pressure on ex-cons to do this kind of thing, put a happy face on the correctional programs. Don’t be afraid to lean on him if he’s reluctant to talk. I simply don’t have time to interview all twelve of these people by deadline. Give me the transcript and pick out some choice sound bites. Then give copies to me and Wallace. You get what I’m looking for, I’ll give you an ‘additional reporting by’ credit on the byline.”

“Wait, so I’ll be working with you on this?”

“That’s right.”

“Directly with you on this?” O’Donnell laughed.

“What, you want me to push you around in a stroller? Guzman did a few years for armed robbery, but records show he’s been a model citizen since parole. Half a dozen good, usable sound bites, and you’re done. Think you can handle that?”

I nodded.

“I’m assuming that’s a yes and you don’t have Tourette’s syndrome.”

“Yes. To the first question.”

Jack looked me over, clapped his hand on my elbow. Wallace liked the shoulder, O’Donnell the elbow. When I got my first page-one story, maybe I’d slap people on the neck to be original.

“You do this right, Henry, I might need some more additional reporting down the line.”