Jason Pinter - The Fury

"He's not a coward either," I said. "He kept that bit in there for a reason. Like you said, a footprint."

"Maybe he did," Wallace said.

"I need his files," I said.

"Henry," Wallace said, folding his hands across his chest. "You know better than that. Besides, company policy states that any work, research or otherwise, done on books is kept outside of the office."

"He must have something here," I said. "I've seen

Jack's apartment. He barely had any furniture, let alone files. Please, do me a favor. Let me see Jack's files. I know there's a storage room here. I swear I won't take anything that doesn't pertain to the Willingham case.

And I'll even do the digging for you."

"I can't let you do that," Wallace said. "But I'll meet you halfway. I'll go through it myself and send it over to you if I find anything. I'm going to err on the side of caution, though, so don't expect much."

"Thank you," I said. I stood up, prepared to leave.

Then I saw a copy of that morning's Gazette on

Wallace's chair. I looked up at him, raised an eyebrow.

"Go on, take it," he said, grinning. "But after today you don't get diddly-squat for free until I see your name below a story."

The subway was hot and humid as I went back uptown.

I had no idea how long it would take for Wallace to get me those files. The man had been gracious enough to offer, and frankly I didn't expect much going in. I des perately wanted to know what Jack knew, what else he knew about the Willingham murder. And what, if anything, it had to do with Stephen Gaines.

The strange thing was, the deeper I looked into this, the further away it seemed to go from Gaines. From him to Beth-Ann Downing, from Rose Keller to Butch Wil lingham, there seemed to be a pattern of behavior that went back twenty years. I had no idea how long, if at all, my brother had been dealing. But I was damn sure that it had somehow gotten him killed.

Now, I've read the books. I've seen the TV shows. I read as much news as I can take until my eyeballs hurt.

I'm well aware that pushing is not a profession made for duration. People get into it hoping to make a quick buck, usually because they have no other options. They have neither the education to get a job punching a clock, nor the desire to work for a corporation that can terminate them without a moment's notice. There was some thing romantic about the notion of a drug dealer, some thing that went against the system. But when I saw

Stephen Gaines that night on the street, I did not see a man defiant in the face of unspeakable odds stacked against him. I saw a defeated, emaciated, broken-down young man. A man scared of something. Something he felt, for some reason, I could help with.

I was a newspaper reporter. Nothing more, nothing less. I sincerely doubted Gaines came to me because I was his flesh and blood. He'd had years to try to reach out. He came to me because something about my pro fession, my line of work, could have helped him, thrown him a lifeline.

I sat down, my butt immediately becoming stuck to the seat by a clear substance I hadn't seen before. The joys of traveling on the MTA. Unfolding that morning's copy of the Gazette, I put all thoughts of Gaines and

Willingham out of my mind until I got home. Perhaps good old-fashioned newspaper reporting would help me out. Clear my mind.

But when I saw the story on page eleven, I nearly threw up.

Man, 27, Shot to Death in His Apartment

A photo accompanied the article. I recognized the man in the shot. I'd seen him just recently.

It was the guy whose briefcase I'd stolen. He was found last night, murdered, shot twice in the back of the head.

I couldn't think of any words. My mouth was dry, my head throbbing. Amanda and I were sitting in a cold room in the Twenty-eighth Precinct on Eighth Avenue between 122d and 123d streets. On the table in front of us were several items: an empty briefcase, several thousand dollars' worth of various types of narcotics; and one cell phone.

The man's name was Hector Guardado. He was twenty-seven years old. Lived alone in Spanish Harlem.

According to police reports, Hector had less than a thousand dollars in his bank account. But upon search ing his apartment, they found nearly fifty thousand dollars in cash stuffed underneath a fake floorboard in his kitchen.

Hector was not some young kid with no education dealing to make ends meet. He had an MBA. A freaking business degree. Yet despite the degree, despite the hundred thousand dollars he spent to attain it, Hector

Guardado had not been able to find employment since returning to New York City, his hometown.

The other day I'd stolen Hector's briefcase to learn more about his dealings, to learn more about this group of misfits that my brother may or may not have been a part of. And now the man was dead, murdered in cold blood. Another young man killed like a piece of meat, shot twice in the back of the head, surely by someone who knew him.

Because of that, I called Amanda the moment I got out of the subway. Stopping at the apartment first to pick up the briefcase and its contents, I headed straight for the police. No more clandestine detective work. No more hiding my hand until all the cards were dealt. A life had been taken.

It made me sick to my stomach to think that Hector

Guardado's life might have been taken because of his stolen briefcase, but two days ago he was alive. Two days ago the briefcase, along with the drugs and his cell phone, were in his possession.

And now today he was dead, and the drugs were in police custody. I wasn't willing to write it off as a coincidence.

"You okay?" Amanda asked. I didn't nod. I wasn't the one on a slab somewhere, or being written about in the newspaper. She seemed to get this, because she didn't ask again.

Soon the door opened and a familiar face walked in:

Detective Sevi Makhoulian.

Makhoulian sat down in a chair across from us.

Looked me over, then looked at the items on the table.

He took a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket, spread open the black folds of the suitcase and peered in.

"This everything?"

I nodded.

"And this was all in Guardado's possession when you took it from him."

I nodded again. "You can fingerprint it," I said. "I never touched the stuff." I nudged Amanda slightly with my elbow, giving her a silent thanks for the advice.

Makhoulian sighed and leaned back in his chair. He folded his arms behind his head as though deciding what to watch on television. He didn't look the least bit concerned with anything.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Frankly," he said, "I'm not sure yet. Unfortunately we can't charge you with theft, because Mr. Guardado would have been our only witness, and frankly it would be a waste of time. Because, though I don't know you that well, anytime a person willingly brings half a pound of weed, a fourth of a kilo of cocaine and enough crack rocks to keep Flavor Flav's teeth chattering for a year, they're not the ones using it."

"We're not," Amanda said. "We weren't."

Makhoulian nodded, then thumbed his lip. "Look,

Parker, I know you think your father is innocent. If I was in your shoes, I'd want to do anything I could to help him, too. And if he is innocent, he'll be found as such by a jury of his peers."

"The case hasn't even gone to the grand jury yet,"

Amanda spat.

"True, but we all know that's a mere formality. We have his fingerprints. We have his receipts from his trip to New York. And we have a motive."

"Does the name Butch Willingham ring a bell?" I asked suddenly.

Makhoulian looked confused. Said, "No, why?"

I believed him. "Nothing," I said. "Just a guy who was killed a long time ago."