Jason Pinter - The Darkness

“What do you mean?”

Paulina looked down at her cup, then back up. There was a look in her eyes I hadn’t seen, and I could tell that something was eating at her beyond what she was telling me.

“Just trust me,” she said. “Drugs.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Henry?”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

I shook my head, laughed. “I bet that was hard as hell for you to say.”

“You’ll never know. And don’t expect for it to ever happen again.”

I shook my head. “You don’t have to thank me for anything. We haven’t found him yet. And to be honest, I don’t know if I could turn down this request from anyone.”

Paulina smiled, but I noticed a slight smirk in there, like she found that statement funny. “That’s why I love you, Henry Parker. Everyone’s knight in shining armor.”

“Goodbye, Paulina. I’ll call you when I have something.”

I turned around and walked out of the diner, hoping she wouldn’t notice that my palms were practically bleeding sweat. She couldn’t know. Not yet.

Because I was pretty certain that the same man who threatened to kill Paulina Cole’s daughter was the same man who just blew Brett Kaiser halfway to hell.

It sure didn’t look like a financial company. In fact, if

Chester had told Morgan that they made rivets and girders, or maybe the occasional swamp creature there, he would have been more likely to bite.

They were somewhere in Queens, a borough just off the island of Manhattan but a world that couldn’t have looked or felt any more different. It wasn’t that Morgan hadn’t traveled to the outer boroughs, but as soon as he landed his first job the rest of New York City became a foreign territory. He used to have friends in Queens,

Brooklyn, Staten Island. But when you work fourteen hours a day, you hardly have the energy to get out there.

So he kissed that life goodbye, and hadn’t thought much about it since.

For a brief moment, as they were driving up to the front gate of what looked like an abandoned factory, Morgan had second thoughts. They only lasted a moment, but they were pure, pungent. A shot of hesitation mixed with an ounce of fright, stirred with a straw of what the hell am I doing here?

Did he really know this guy, Chester? Sure he came with a recommendation from Ken Tsang, but Ken was dead so obviously his hunches didn’t always pan out.

But then Morgan remembered his debts. His mortgage.

That bank account that had swollen so large and was now deflating like a punctured balloon. Even if this turned out to be nothing, even if Chester was full of crap and offered him nothing more than being a three-card monte dealer in Times Square, it was worth the trip. Not like he had any plans today, and even if there was a one percent chance of paying off his mounting debts, it was worth the trip.

As the Town Car approached the gate, Morgan saw a man approach from the other side of the chain link fence.

He was big, about three hundred pounds big, and Morgan couldn’t be sure but what looked like a rifle or machine gun of some sort dangled from his left shoulder.

Morgan’s eyes went wide, and he turned to Chester.

Chester seemed to notice this, and he smiled.

“Not to worry,” he said. “That’s Darryl. He’s part of our private security force, and he’s the best there is. We run a relatively small business, and have had to relocate our operations over the last few days, so security is at a premium. This might not exactly be what you’re used to, but I’m sure you won’t mind.”

Morgan shook his head as though agreeing with Chester’s assessment, but he couldn’t help but stare at the black muzzle pointing at the ground, wondering how often, if ever, it had been fired. And if so, what it had been fired at.

When the gate opened, the car drove through. Gravel crunched under the tires, and Morgan caught this armed man, Darryl, eyeing the backseat window intently as the car came to a stop. The driver got out, and Morgan went to open his door.

“Not yet,” Chester said. Morgan looked at him, confused, but then the driver came around to Morgan’s door and opened it for him. The driver bowed down, and Morgan slid out. Though this odd gesture in front of some sort of run-down warehouse confused him even more,

Morgan did not let it show.

Chester came around to him and said, “Follow me.”

The blond man led him up the driveway to a door. It wasn’t quite a front door, since this building didn’t seem to have been built with traditional comings and goings in mind, but Chester punched a security code into a small black keypad and an LED light turned from red to green. Chester turned the latch, opened the door and ushered Morgan in.

They were in a gray stairway, steps leading up and down. Chester took the path upward, and beckoned

Morgan to follow. They went up two flights of stairs.

Morgan could see numerous cameras lining the stairwell, each with red lights. At the top of the third-floor landing,

Morgan noticed that the camera was in fact moving, panning over the entire stairwell.

“Security measures,” Chester said. Morgan nodded.

Again Chester punched numbers into a keypad, and Morgan heard a latch unlock. Chester smiled at him, and opened the door.

“Go on in,” he said. “Take any open seat.”

“Thanks,” Morgan said, and stepped into the room.

And if he’d been confused before, this just took it to a whole new level.

The room inside was wood paneled, as though it had been transported from some high-end hotel. In the middle of the room was a long, dark mahogany conference table, polished and gleaming. Track lights illuminated the entire room. But what struck Morgan more than anything was not the room’s decor, but rather the dozen young men, dressed to the nines just like him, surrounding the table.

Morgan didn’t know what to say. The other men turned to see him when he walked in, but then turned away. They all had looks on their faces that looked startlingly like his own: confidence on the outside, but eyes that showed confusion, discomfort, and above all desperation.

Every face was cleanly shaved, every suit neatly pressed. The ties were knotted perfectly, and the room reeked of designer cologne. There were young men of every race and ethnicity. Black, white, Asian, Indian,

Arab. Tall, short, fat, skinny. Some had full heads of hair, some looked to be going prematurely bald. None of the men looked to be older than their early thirties, and some looked barely old enough to have graduated college. Yet every one of them looked like a hungry dog waiting for a meaty bone.

Morgan felt Chester’s hand on his back, and a soft voice said, “Sit down, Morgan.” The voice had become much firmer than Morgan was used to.

There was an empty seat in between a lanky Indian man and a chubby white guy with a red face and thick shoulders who was fiddling with his cuff links. Morgan walked over and sat down. The chairs were red leather, plush and comfortable. Morgan debated leaning back, but noticed that all the other guys were sitting straight, waiting for something, not wanting to be viewed as too aloof. Morgan guessed that they were all there for the same reason he was: money.

There was something oddly familiar about the grouping, and it didn’t take Morgan long to realize what it was.

Everyone at the table, their clothes, their mannerisms, their style and smell, all reminded him of men he used to work with.

Morgan looked back at the doorway, wanted to see

Chester’s reaction to all of this, but the blond man had closed the door. Morgan noticed there was another small keypad on this side of the door he’d entered from. The