“She told me if I found the guy, I could have whatever story there was.”
“If there is one. If this guy isn’t just some loon who took umbrage with one of her scorch-the-earth columns.”
“I get the feeling it was more serious than that. One thing I know about Paulina Cole, she doesn’t scare easily.
This guy was serious, and he scared her so bad that she won’t go to the cops and came to me. I have access to the cops she doesn’t. And I can investigate without drawing attention, because if this guy does have a mole in the
NYPD he wouldn’t expect anything from my end. They’re watching her. Not me.”
“But if they find out that someone is asking questions about this guy, it won’t matter who it comes from.”
“Curt,” Henry said. “I can trust Curt.”
“Maybe,” Amanda said. “But who can he trust?”
Henry didn’t seem like he could answer that, so he just leaned back. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you think you might be putting him in danger?”
Amanda said.
“When I talk to him,” Henry said, “I’ll tell him everything. Including that we think they might have people inside the PD. Curt is smart. If there’s information to get, he can get it without drawing suspicion.”
“And how do you know he’ll do it?”
Henry looked at her, his eyes full of confidence.
“Because Curt is like me.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I suppose he is. What are you going to tell Jack?”
Henry sighed. Looked back over at the table. Stared at the bottle of wine, debating pouring another glass. As much as she enjoyed watching him pass out, watching him breathe as he slept, she was kind of hoping he’d be in the mood to fool around a little.
“That’s a little more complicated.” He looked at her.
“I can’t tell him.”
“About Paulina?”
Henry nodded. “I have to cue Jack in on the lead, but if he finds out I got it from Paulina, that I’d even spoken to the woman who tried to ruin his career…he’d never speak to me again. Plus Jack deserves better.”
“From who?” Amanda asked.
“From me. I don’t really know. But the bottom line is that he doesn’t need to know. Not right now. If we catch this guy, it’s old news. But for now…I can’t do that to him.”
“You know him better,” Amanda said. “If you think it’s the right thing to do, then trust your judgment. But at some point you need to tell him, because he’ll eventually find out.”
“I know and I will. But now’s not that time. We’re getting close on this story, and I still need to know who was really responsible for my brother’s death. Somehow this all connects with the Fury.”
“So you do believe this boogeyman exists.”
“I think there’s someone who knew about the plans to kill my brother before anyone else, and maybe even pulled the strings. Stephen was working for some sort of cartel, and in every organization, legitimate or not, there’s someone at the top of the ladder.”
“You think that might be this guy?”
Henry shook his head. “The CEOs never get their hands dirty. They have people below them to do that for them. If this person does exist, he’s been able to hide in the shadows because he didn’t take stupid risks. The blond guy is acting on this person’s behalf. So even if he’s not the gold at the end of the rainbow, he knows where the pot is located.”
“So what are you then, some sort of freaky ass leprechaun?”
Henry laughed. “Got me the luck of the Irish.”
“You’re not Irish,” Amanda replied.
“Yeah, but Jack is. I knew he was back for a reason.”
“Come to bed. I hear leprechauns are lucky.”
“Are lucky, or get lucky?”
Amanda stood up. Pulled her shirt over her head.
Smiled at him as he gazed up and down her body.
“I guess we’ll have to find out.”
22
The glass sat in front of him. Empty. The last remnants of the liquid sloshed in his mouth, and he finally swallowed it, his taste buds begging for more.
“Fill it up, Jack?”
Jack O’Donnell looked at the bartender, a big Irish bloke named Mickey, and said, “One more. Then I’m cutting myself off.”
Mickey laughed. “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard you say that, Jacky boy.”
“I mean it this time,” Jack said, but something in his voice made the barman laugh. Jack had to smile. “Hit me once more.”
“You got it.”
Mickey took the nozzle from beneath the bar, brought it up to Jack’s glass and filled it to the brim with fizzy, bubbly soda.
“Here,” Mickey said. He reached into a small plastic tray and removed a single maraschino cherry. Holding it by the stem, Mickey delicately placed it on top of the soda and said, “Voila. Figure since you’re drinking girly drinks these days, you might as well go the full nine and have it look girly, too.”
“You’re a saint,” Jack said. He raised the glass and tipped it toward Mickey. “To never swilling a pint of that godforsaken ale again.”
“You can toast to that, my friend. ’Fraid if I do the same I’ll be out of a job.”
“This world today you’ll be out of a job in the next six months anyhow.”
“Did you come here just to ruin my day, Jack?”
“I’m the black cloud hanging over every man’s driveway,” Jack said with a grin. He sipped the soda.
“As long as you pay your tab,” Mickey said, cleaning a glass.
Jack held up the soda glass, shook it gently, the ice cubes clinking. “This stuff, what do you charge for it?
Two bucks a glass?”
“Four,” Mickey said, slight embarrassment in his voice.
“Four dollars,” Jack said. “What does it cost to manufacture? Three cents?”
“No idea,” Mickey said. “I’ll tell you one thing, it costs a whole lot more than three cents to buy the syrup.”
“See, this is exactly what’s wrong with this country,”
Jack said.
“Christ, here we go.”
“No, hear me out. My paper, you can buy it on the street for fifty cents. And for that fifty cents, you get hundreds of articles written by some pretty smart people- okay, some of them are dumber than my shoes-about everything you need to know about the world. Now, for this little glass of sugar piss, you could buy one of my newspapers for eight straight days.”
“I thought it was more expensive on the weekends.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” Jack continued. “Anyway, people don’t value things like that anymore. When I started out in this business, you couldn’t walk down the street without seeing everyone carrying a copy of the morning’s paper under their arm. Now, they’re doing everything but reading. iPods, BlackBerries, video games, text messages,
