Jason Pinter - The Darkness

I had to tell Jack. This was getting too big. This man had scope and vision and knew exactly what getting to

Paulina would do. Jack needed to know.

And he was staring right at me. Knew full well I was thinking something.

But to my surprise, the look on Jack’s face wasn’t full of wonder at what I was thinking…it was one of disappointment because he knew I was hiding something.

“Time to spill it, Henry,” he said. Jack’s face turned to stone. This was a look I hadn’t seen before, and immediately I felt awful, lying to the man I’d idolized for so long. The man who’d been my partner on this story, who was motivated to come back to work because of what I’d uncovered.

I left that man in the dust, but now he’d caught up to me.

“After the explosion at Brett Kaiser’s apartment…” I said, trying to look at Jack but finding it hard. Finally I met his eyes. “I got a call.”

“From who?” Jack said. He said it as much just to get me to admit it as he did to find out the answer.

“Paulina Cole.”

If Jack’s face had been stone, this caused it to crack a bit. His eyes opened wider, mouth opened just enough to show the surprise on his face.

“Paulina,” he said. “Why in God’s name…”

“She was kidnapped,” I said, the dam bursting. But truth be told, it felt good.

“Kidnapped? By who? And why the hell would she call you?”

I could see Jack’s eyes reddening, but his anger at learning the truth was now tempered by his desire to know the full story. And he’d get it.

“She doesn’t know,” I said. “But the man who did it threatened to kill her daughter.”

“You know I always kind of assumed Paulina was some sort of devil spawn. I’m moderately surprised to learn that she has a reproductive system.”

“She thinks the guy who did it has connections in the

NYPD. He said if she went to the cops he’d know.”

“So she goes to you because you know cops you can trust.”

“Partly, yeah.”

“So what does she want from you?”

“To help her find the man who did it.”

“And in return, let me guess, you get the story.”

I nodded. “That’s right.”

“Jesus, Henry,” Jack said, tilting his head back, wiping his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “The story she wrote this morning, did you know it was going to run?”

“No, I swear I didn’t.”

“But?” Jack said.

“But she told me she had to do something for him.

That was the deal for him not to harm her daughter. My guess is the story this morning was what she promised, what he made her do.”

“That would explain why the cops don’t know anything and why nobody would go on the record. Strange that for an article about a potential drug epidemic nobody from the narcotics division was quoted, or even knew about it.”

“Or why the cops patrolling the streets haven’t heard about it.”

“Today,” Jack said, taking a breath, “was the comingout party for this drug. Paulina’s story was the spark to get the Darkness into the mainstream. A cover story in a major New York newspaper will be read by over two million people, and another few million will see the headline and remember it.”

“Word of mouth,” I said. “Best marketing in the world, and they got it for free.”

Jack lowered his head. “They used us.”

“There’s more,” I said. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that the guy Chester who kidnapped Paulina is the same guy who killed Brett Kaiser. Physical descriptions matched.

Curt Sheffield is helping me track him down, going off the physical info plus access to explosives and drugs.”

“Do you think this guy,” Jack said, “could be the Fury?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “The descriptions from both

Paulina and Kaiser’s doorman peg the suspect in his late thirties or early forties. It’s not impossible but I suspect twenty years ago he would have been a little too young to run a drug empire.”

“So then he must be working for somebody,” Jack said. “Somebody smart enough to go after Paulina, and somebody powerful enough to have their fingers dug into the NYPD.”

“So how the hell do we find out who this guy is?” I said. “Sheffield is looking into it, but if Paulina is right then most of my contacts in the department are useless.

Paulina said this guy showed her a picture of her daughter that was part of an album posted on a social networking site. The way these things work is that the only people who have access to the pictures you post are the people you accept as friends.”

“You’re saying this guy would be stupid enough to be her friend online?”

“No,” I said. “But I think he found someone who was because this particular photo was left off the site. Paulina gave me a list of everyone her daughter is friends with.

Jack, I know you’re used to typewriters and ink quills, but this is going to take some electronic legwork.”

“I can use the Google,” Jack said.

“Yeah…I was afraid you’d say that. The list is upstairs.

Forget about Victoria Kaiser for now. What we need to do is cross-check everyone on that list with Abigail Cole, if need be call everyone she’s friends with online.”

“She’s in college, right? That could be hundreds of people.”

“Good thing you don’t have any children, you won’t go into it knowing how damn difficult it is to talk to someone in their late teens or early twenties.”

“You’re not that far from that age, Henry,” Jack said.

“Yeah, I know. Why do you think I know they’re all nightmares?”

Jack laughed. “Okay, sport, let’s go. Just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I accidentally spilled coffee on my keyboard. Can you ask the help desk for a new one? This would be my fourth and I don’t think they’ll give me another one.”

“Sure,” I said. “Come on, George Jetson, let’s go find

Mr. Joshua.”

I forgot what it was like to be a college student.

Abigail Cole had one hundred and ninety-seven friends on Facebook. Many of them had public profiles, and from that I was able to glean phone numbers and sometimes e-mail addresses. To those who had e-mail addresses, I sent notes asking to speak to them in a matter pertaining to an ongoing investigation. I clearly identified myself, hoping one would cop to giving Chester the photo.

At least four of them picked up their cell phone during class. I could tell this because someone said quite audibly that if the phone wasn’t turned off posthaste, F would be merely the first of four letters on that student’s papers.

When I was in college, one of my dreams was to have a beeper some day. As young as I was, sometimes I felt pretty old.

Frustration began to seep in after I’d contacted nearly thirty of Abigail’s friends and made no headway. I wasn’t even sure how many of these people she was still close to, or whether or not they were real friends or just random friends-of-friends-of-friends.

There had to be an easier way to do this. And just when I was about to brainstorm what that was, Jack came walking over.

He had a big smile on his face, the kind of smile that you didn’t often see on a man approaching seventy. This was more along the lines of a young child who’d accidentally discovered a hidden Christmas present that they didn’t expect to be there. Jack almost looked embarrassed to be happy.

“What’s got you so toothy?” I said.

“I think I found it,” he said.

“Found what?”

Jack took a chair from an empty cubicle and pulled it over to my desk. He laid a series of printouts in front of me.

They looked to be from some sort of Web sites. They were chock-full of random ruminations, thoughts and pictures.