Jason Pinter - The Darkness

When I got to my desk, there was a voice mail waiting for me. It was from Linda Veltre, the woman who’d edited

Jack’s book Through the Darkness nearly twenty years ago, chronicling the rise of the drug trade, the story where

Jack had first learned of the Fury. Her publisher wanted to reissue Jack’s book. And she wanted me to write the introduction.

Plus, she said, if I had any thoughts of writing my own book about the investigation of Eve Ramos and 718 Enterprises, she’d love to talk to me over lunch. Apparently she’d already received a call from Paulina Cole’s literary agent expressing interest in writing a book about the story, but the editor felt mine was the right one to tell.

It was something to think about, but another day.

The day after Jack’s funeral I walked into the offices of the New York Gazette, and immediately something felt different, off. I received several nods from my colleagues, the same ones who congratulated me with their eyes, but were afraid to speak because they knew what Jack had meant to me.

Sitting down, I looked out over Rockefeller Center, at a city Jack had known better than most people know themselves. It was a city that pulsed with a million dif-372

Jason Pinter ferent veins, a million different stories. And those stories were still out there, waiting to be discovered.

Life would go on. Jack would have wanted it to.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Wallace Langston making his way across the newsroom floor. There was somebody with him. I couldn’t see who it was, but Wallace was talking to him earnestly, pointing at things as they walked.

As they got closer, I could see that Wallace was leading around a young man. He looked to be twenty-one or twenty-two, a good-looking kid with short black hair, sharp features, and an air of wonder about him. He was following Wallace’s lead like a child experiencing a museum for the first time.

A new reporter. I smiled. The day Wallace had shown me the ropes didn’t feel that long ago.

Wallace was not introducing the new guy to anyone.

That would come later.

Then Wallace took a detour and stopped by my desk.

The new guy’s cheeks were red, embarrassed, and he had trouble making eye contact.

“Henry,” Wallace said. “This is Nicholas Barr. He’s fresh out of J-school.”

“Nice to meet you, Nicholas,” I said, offering my hand.

“Yeah, nice to meet me, too. You. I mean meet you.

Me, nice to meet you.”

“Easy there, Nicholas,” I said.

“You can call me Nick,” he said, his voice shaking. “Or

Nicholas. Nicky. Whatever you want.”

“Nick it is.”

“That’s cool,” he stammered. “I mean, okay.”

“We’ll catch up later, Parker,” Wallace said, and I felt the veteran editor’s hand on my shoulder. Wallace would miss Jack as much as I would. It’d be good to tell stories of the old man. “Maybe you’ll show this new kid the ropes sometime.”

“You got it.”

And then, when Wallace and Nick Barr had left my desk, I heard the young reporter whisper enthusiastically to Wallace, “Dude, that was Henry Parker.”

“He’s a great reporter,” Wallace said. “And actually, I think the two of you will get along quite well.”

“Unreal,” Barr said. “This whole place. Unreal.”

I smiled, thinking about several years ago, my first day at the Gazette, when I swiped Jack O’Donnell’s coat with my hand just to see if it was real. I remembered the pride and disbelief in knowing I’d be working just mere feet from a living legend.

Unreal. It had all seemed unreal.

Then I looked at Nick Barr, standing where I’d been just a few short years ago, and knew that Jack might be living on through me.