Parker 05 - The Darkness (21 page)

since you don't know who the hell he is."

"That's why I'm coming to you. So we can eventually

call him by his real name."

"Gotcha. One more anonymous baddie, coming up.

Like we don't have enough to worry about right now."

Curt spoke these words with a little more bite than I was

used to. He wasn't above bitching about his job, but there

was a current underneath this that caught my attention.

"You okay, buddy?" I asked.

"Yeah, just, you know."

"No, I don't know. What do you mean?"

Curt shifted, blew into his hands and rubbed them

together. "Department has been hit hard lately. The city's

budget's been slashed beyond belief so the mayor could

make his budget targets, and we're taking it in the ass just

like everyone else."

"In what way?"

"Well, frankly, the city has no money."

"Yeah, I remember the governor's press conference

where he made it seem like we were some sort of third

world country outpost."

"You wouldn't think it, you know? That a city where they

can charge fifteen bucks for a martini would go broke?"

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Jason Pinter

"Tourists," I said. "The dollar is so weak that people

from pretty much all over the world can come here and

buy anything basically half off. They pay it because they

can, and we get stuck with the inflated prices because we

have no choice."

"The rich get richer and...you know how the rest

goes," Curt said. "But right now there are parts of the city

with less cops. And less cops means less supervision,

means the bad guys get emboldened."

"But the NYPD?" I said, confused. "Isn't that one area

they don't have a choice but to keep fully loaded?"

"They're trying," Curt said. "Louis Carruthers, the

Chief of Department, said the brass is looking into more

funding, but it might take a little while. At the state and

city level right now, they have less money than Michael

Jackson. A lack of money means the city is cutting back

on pretty much everything that the government picks up

the tab on. Overtime, patrol routes, even new recruits.

Starting pay for a first-year police officer is just below

your average hot dog vendor."

"Which is just above that of a journalist," I said with

a smile.

"Yeah, at least you get those fancy suit jackets with

elbow pads."

"I've never heard anybody claim to be jealous over

those."

"You can never guess where fashion trends go. If

tomorrow Kanye shows up with one of those tweed

jackets, five million kids will show up at Diesel begging

for them. So what do you got for me on this guy besides

hair color?" Curt said.

"First off, you need to know that anything you do

could come back and bite you in the ass."

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171

"Isn't that why we're friends?" Curt said. "I don't have

enough problems at work or at home, so I come to you to

satisfy my daily craving for emotional and physical trauma."

"Your breath is terrible," I said.

"Point proven," Curt said.

"Seriously. It smells like you ate a hot dog, then burped

up that hot dog, then fried the burped-up hot dog, ate it,

and burped it up again."

Curt stared at me. "I think my stomach just threw up

inside of itself."

"Then my job here is done."

"You're a laugh riot. Go on. Tell me what you know

about this dude."

"I was outside of Brett Kaiser's building right before

it turned into something out of
Dante's Inferno.
The

doorman told me a guy with blond hair came and went

at freaky hours."

"You told me this. That's not a hell of a lot to go on."

"I'm not done. You know Paulina Cole, right?"

"Of course. Hot piece of ass who works at that dirt rag

and has no love lost for you. Am I close?"

"Enough for a shave."

"I don't know her personally, but I've heard some of

the guys talking about her. She doesn't have a lot of

friends in the department. Ever since she wrote that article

accusing NYPD recruits of being underqualified and unmotivated. Things like that tend to rub cops the wrong

way. Rumor has it they won't give her scoops anymore

because of the crap she's written, so she has her lackeys

covering the crime beat act as spies for her."

"Yeah, well, that's part of the problem. Turns out she

was kidnapped a few days ago, and I'm ninety-nine

percent sure the guy who did it is the same one who char-172

Jason Pinter

broiled Brett Kaiser. Her description of him matched the

same one I was given by Kaiser's doorman to a T. Blond,

late thirties or early forties, muscular."

"Does she know the same guy is a suspect in the Kaiser

murder?" Curt said.

"No. You're the only person I've told."

"So I'm looking for a blond guy, about six-one or sixtwo, two hundred ten pounds or so if he's well built."

"Sounds like a ballpark to work in."

"Right. That ballpark narrows it down to about ten

thousand men in New York."

"There's one more thing," I said. "Paulina said he's

involved in drugs."

"Drugs."

"Yeah."

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"That's all I know. Let's just say she was a little secretive on that part."

"So we have a blond guy. Somewhere between six

feet and six foot two, two hundred and ten pounds, who

for all we know has smoked weed sometime in his life."

"Chester," I said. "She said he introduced himself as

Chester. And she said he might have lost a family

member, and it didn't sound as though it was as a result

of natural causes."

"Sounds to me like Paulina could be cooking up a

stew of major league bullshit to me."

"I don't think so," I said. "Paulina is a lot of things,

but she had to swallow some major pride to ask me to help

her. And she's not a woman who's too keen on losing

face. Especially to me. And this guy threatened her

daughter. Paulina's low, but not low enough to make up

something like that. She wants this guy caught. All

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173

between the physical description and the alias, it should

give you enough to at least do some digging."

"Plus if this is the same guy who turned Brett Kaiser

into burnt toast," Curt said, "it wouldn't surprise me if this

guy has some sort of explosives or military background."

"That's gotta narrow your ten thousand down a bit."

"Maybe so."

"Be careful," I said. "Paulina's pretty sure this Chester

has eyes in the NYPD. Can you do some digging without

anyone seeing your shovel?"

"That sounds sexy," Curt said.

"Come on, Curt."

"I'll grow eyes in the back of my head," Curt said.

"Digging, I can do. But if we find out who this guy is,

I'm going to need to bring Paulina in to ID him so we can

charge him."

"I hear you. But wait until you know who he is for

certain before we make a move. And make sure you only

tell people you can trust."

"Yeah, and if you need help typing or proofreading,

I'll give you a hand. Come on, I know how to do my job,

Henry," Curt said.

"Just looking out for you, buddy."

"Appreciate it."

"How are things, you know, with the job?"

"Strange times, Parker," Curt said.

"Care to elaborate?" I said, smiling. Curt did not return

the pleasantry.

"This city, you know, just a different vibe right now.

People see cops now, they look at us differently. Like they

really need us. Not that they ever didn't, but it's like the

city is waiting for another shoe to drop. You know that

dude who lost fifty billion dollars in a Ponzi scheme?"

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Jason Pinter

"Madoff," I said.

"You know the city spent more money protecting that

scumbag than it does Joe Six Pack? People just don't trust

anymore. You know the saying, but it's true. People

expect things are gonna get worse before they get better."

"The city needs cops like you," I said. "Protect and

serve, right?"

"Yeah, I appreciate that, man. Anyway," Curt said,

standing up, "break time is over. Gotta get back to protecting the rest of this overcrowded island." He breathed

into his hands, then held it up to his nose. "My breath

really that bad?"

"Makes my toes curl just talking to you," I said.

"That's the way I like it. This way I don't ever have to

pull my gun."

He held out his hand, and I shook it.

"Later, Henry."

Curt walked off. I stretched my legs, felt the cup of

coffee I'd inhaled half an hour ago take hold. Amanda was

probably still in bed, still asleep thanks to her friend the

snooze button.

Right as I was about to head toward the subway, my

cell phone rang. It was Jack. I knew the man's mind was

always working, but it was not normal for him to be

calling me before breakfast, especially when we had no

meetings planned.

I answered the phone. "Hey, Jack. Either you're up

early or you're up really late."

"Why the hell aren't you here yet?" Jack said.

"At the
Gazette?
It's barely seven, and I was meeting

Curt Sheffield to give him more details about the Kaiser

investigation."

"That's old news," Jack said. "Wallace and Harvey

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175

Hillerman are about to bite our nuts off, so get your ass

over here right away."

"Why? What happened?"

"Have you seen the cover of today's
Dispatch?
" Jack

said.

"No, figured I could wait until getting in before reading

about which celebrities were caught in the Dominican

Republic sunbathing in the nude with their boy toys."

"Laugh all you want, but Henry...we got scooped."

"Yeah, right. By who? We have every inch of this town

covered, so unless I've been working in a different city...

By the way, who scooped us?"

"Paulina Cole," Jack said. "She's got an exclusive

that'll make your eyes pop out."

24

I hailed a cab, which slowed to a crawl once we hit

midtown. I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington, threw the

driver a good tip and sprinted the few blocks over to

Rockefeller Center. I was nearly disemboweled pushing

through the security turnstile when my ID failed to work,

and got off on the eleventh floor out of breath and with

possible internal bleeding.

I entered the newsroom, and as I walked through the

sea of desks my heart dropped when I saw Tony Valentine approaching.

"Henry," he said, huffing as he jogged over. "Do you

have a minute?"

"Actually, I don't. Not right now," I said.

"Come on, Parker, you've been avoiding me since I got

here. At some point you'll need to open that hard heart

of yours for a get-to-know-you session."

"Listen, Tony, I appreciate that, and at some point we

will. But right now I have a situation to deal with."

"A situation? That sounds juicy. Do tell."

"Like I said, Tony, not right now."

"Do you have a problem with me?" Tony asked, his

eyes narrowing, offset by a strangely playful smile.

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177

"I'm just trying to be a good sport. Fit in with my new

colleagues."

"Listen, Tony, I'd be lying if I didn't think our two

types of...reporting didn't really overlap. But today there

actually is something going on. No joke."

He looked me over, trying to determine if I was telling

the truth or lying just to get out of a conversation. I certainly wasn't above doing that, at least not with Tony.

That I didn't have much respect for the profession of

gossip columnist was no secret to anyone who'd ever had

a conversation with me about the job. I ranked its importance on the Journalism Scale of Importance somewhere

between the people who filled up tubes of Wite-Out and

telemarketers.

"Fine," he said. "I'll take a rain check for today. But

at some point I'm going to cash in all my checks and

you're going to have lunch with me."

I offered a noncommittal nod/shake, and Tony walked

away. In the meantime, I had one person who might

actually skin me alive if I didn't answer to him soon.

I arrived at Jack's desk only to find it vacant. It didn't

take me long to figure out where he'd gone.

The shouting coming from Wallace Langston's office

could be heard throughout the entire newsroom, and reporters who tended to make more noise than the average

airbus on takeoff sat dead silent listening to the barrage.

Wallace tended to be a fairly mellow guy. In fact, in

my few years at the
Gazette,
I'd rarely heard him chew a

reporter out, rarely saw him get pissed at the copy desk

(if he had, Evelyn Waterstone might have impaled him on

one of the flagpoles outside). What really burned Wallace

was losing a story to the competition. And since Jack was

the newsroom's elder statesman, he surely took the brunt