five.”

“Sixty,” she replied.

“Seventy. You negotiate more I’ll throw your ass right out this door and you can get distributed by those assholes down by the Brooklyn Bridge, give you ten cents on the dollar because they empty the product themselves. Seventy/thirty.”

“Deal,” the woman said.

“Deal. If,” Culvert added, “you are who you say you are.”

“You’ll be the judge of that.”

The woman stood up. The blond man followed suit. They shook hands with Culvert, who had a look in his eye like he’d just pulled one over on them.

“Be back later this week. If I like it, we’ll discuss specifics. Shipments. You down with that?”

“We’re down with that. Let’s go.”

She turned around to leave. Doughy accompanied them to the front door and opened it. Just as they stepped through the doorway, Culvert yelled at them, “Y’all call yourselves businessmen, but y’all got a lot to learn about how to be a real businessman.”

Doughy slammed the door shut behind them. The woman and the blond man were alone in the hallway. They did not say a word or even look at each other until they left the building and were across the street. When they were out of view of Culvert’s building, the dark-haired woman reached behind her head and undid her braid. The long, shiny hair cascaded down her back. She removed her jacket, revealing a dark tank top that showed muscle tone that belied her age.

She shook her hair out and handed the jacket to the blond man. He took it and slung it over his shoulder.

“What a small man,” she said. “The more somebody talks, the weaker they are. By Thursday, he’ll be begging us to let him have thirty percent.”

She checked her watch.

“The chemist?” the blond man said.

She nodded. “Thanks, Malloy. Let me know when it’s done and we’ll get the Asian.”

“Will do.”

As the blond man walked away, the woman said, “When we go back there, bring the cop.”

The blond man raised his eyebrows.

“Those fat guys take a few more bullets to bring down. We’ll need the firepower.”

“I’ll get him,” the blond man said. “The chemist. Do you want me to leave a message?”

“No,” she said. “This one needs to stay as quiet as possible. The Asian is different. Culvert is different. The chemist just needs to disappear.”

“When we get the Asian,” the blond man said, “do you want me to bring a gun for you?”

The woman smiled and turned away.

“No,” she said. “We’re going to have a little fun with this one. We’re going to carve him like a turkey and make sure everybody sees what’s inside.”

Chapter 3

Jack O’Donnell walked into his apartment, dropped his bags on the floor and stifled a sob. It had been months since he’d set foot in this place, and the last time he did that was one of the worst moments of his life. Crying, humiliated, left as a joke for the city’s vultures to feast on.

Jack had spent his whole life chronicling New York. He knew every nook and cranny, every in and out, could recite from memory the history of the city from Robert Moses to Phil Spitzer. He truly felt this city was a part of him, and he would die leaving a part of himself in it.

But not like this. Not like this.

Not a broken mess, a broken man, shamed into a rehabilitation center by a vengeful competitor who wanted nothing more than to embarrass him for profit. Paulina Cole, a woman who was a parasite with a good wardrobe. Vermin who could apply eyeliner. A woman he’d worked with for years, only to fall victim to her savage muckraking.

It was Paulina who’d uncovered the full extent of Jack’s alcoholism and splayed it all over the pages of her newspaper. There was no reason for it. Jack was not a celebrity. His demons would not sell newspapers like he was some nasty debutante caught with her pants down or some singer caught on film smoking a crack pipe. He was a newspaperman. That’s all. Which made what Paulina did that much more hurtful. She did it for no other reason than to humiliate him, to try to ruin his career.

And she nearly did.

Jack barely had the money for the rehab stint. He didn’t even try to get the Gazette to cover it. Asking for that money would have been nearly as embarrassing as the stint itself. And whereas Jack had made good money over the years on his books and film options, he was not the world’s most thrifty spender. Several divorces had left his savings a fraction of what they had been, and along with the drinking, he’d been known to throw a few bets down from time to time.

And now Jack O’Donnell stood there in his foyer, wondering if perhaps in some way, Paulina Cole had done him a favor.

He brought the bags into the bedroom and unpacked. Strange, he thought as he placed the folded clothes back into the closet. He’d never been one of those people who unpacked right after a trip. His duffels would sit there stuffed to the gills for a week or more before Jack finally began to run low on underwear. But now, unpacking was something cathartic, cleansing. It meant he was home.

Jack had gone to see Henry even before returning to his loft. Henry was the reason Jack checked out of rehab, the reason he was here right now. He still had a few friends at the Gazette, people he could trust with his ordeal knowing they wouldn’t go blabbing to Wallace Langston-the editor-in-chief-or Harvey Hillerman, the publisher. And when they told him what had happened to Henry, about Stephen Gaines and the enigma known only as the Fury, Jack knew the time was right for him to reclaim his life.

Jack had written about the Fury nearly twenty years ago. It had been a small part of a larger book-the only reason it was not more prominent was that there was a severe dearth of facts. There were rumors, innuendos, but what Jack could print and back up was scant.

Now, it seemed, Henry had stumbled upon the scent Jack had left lingering all those years ago, and it seemed like fate that this would be the story to rejuvenate his career. Jack had never worked side by side with Henry on a story before, and he was curious to see what the kid could do. Henry was young, scarily young, but had broken more stories and shown more guts than some reporters who’d been around forty years. Bloodhounds were born, not made, and the key to finding the best stories was being able to sniff them out on your own. Any reporter could have a “deep throat,” someone who handed them a lead on a platter. It took a special kind of person to find that thread themselves and pull it until the spool unraveled.

Jack had been like that. Years ago. And he wanted to believe Henry was like that.

He would find out tomorrow.

Once his bags were emptied, he stripped down and went into the bathroom. The mirror’s reflection was not too kind. His gray beard had gone scraggly, his eyes had heavy bags. He did look worse than he felt, for whatever that was worth, and he hoped his appearance would not affect his job performance tomorrow. People could sense a man who was tired, and had been through too much to perform properly.

Jack took a long, hot shower. He scrubbed away at his body hard enough to remove a layer of skin. Then he trimmed his beard, clipped his nails and combed his hair.

The reflection this time came back a little better, a little more dignified, but Jack knew that what was inside him mattered the most. Still, he wanted to feel like a new man. Or at least the man he had once been.

Jack went over to the leather sofa in his living room, plopped down and sank into the plush cushions. Comfy, he thought. Before rehab Jack had rarely taken the time to relax. Most hours spent on the couch were with a snifter of something strong, something to dull the nerves, while some idiotic show ran on the television.

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