I pulled "718 Enterprises" into Google, Yahoo! and half a dozen other search engines. Less than a dozen hits came up, none of them looking as if they had anything to do with a company of that name or with any relation to New York. I twiddled my thumbs. I'd never been a thumb twiddler, but at this point I wasn't quite sure where to go or who to talk to. And we still had no idea where Helen Gaines was.
I opened up the music player on my computer, took a pair of headphones out and put on some Springsteen.
Something about the Boss always made me think a little more clearly. There was honesty in his voice that was often missing from popular music, and his earlier works were like pure blasts of adrenaline. That's what I needed right now. An energy boost to carry me along. There were half a dozen threads in this story, and I had no doubt that when unravelled they would all lead to
Stephen's killer. I just needed that one connecting thread that told me how the story would all play out.
I sat there for half an hour, shuffling between songs.
"Dead Man Walking" came on. It was a haunting tune, composed for the movie of the same name where Sean
Penn played a character named Matthew Poncelet, on death row for the murder of two teenagers. The film was based on a book by Sister Helen Prejean, and Poncelet as actually a composite of two men Prejean had coun seled. Prejean grows closer to this man many viewed as a monster, trying to understand the humanity beneath the inhumane crime. The music was simple, tragic, and the lyrics filled my head as my eyes closed, the sounds enveloping me.
All I could feel was the drugs and the shotgun
And the fear up inside of me
Suddenly my eyes opened. I stood up, the head phones flying off my head and clattering on the floor.
Drugs.
The Fury. I knew that word had sounded familiar, in a context that, if I was right, made terrifying sense.
We kept a bookshelf in the living room, spines three deep and nearly pouring out onto the floor. I'd bought it used for seventy-five bucks from a thrift shop. It was maple, still in good shape, with one large crack running lengthwise down the side. I figured a good book was one read so often the spine was cracked, a good bookshelf was one that was cracked as well. That might have been jus tification for the piece's condition, but it made sense to me.
Sometimes when I'd finish a book I'd bring it to the office, drop it in the Inbox of a reporter who I thought might enjoy it. Sports books went to Frank Rourke, trashy celebrity tell-alls went to Evelyn Waterstone. I knew the gal had her soft spot.
There were some books, though, that would never leave this shelf. And no matter where I moved, or what life planned for me, they would never be far away.
Without a second thought I pulled a pile of books from the middle shelf and sent them toppling to the ground. The noise was loud, and soon Amanda entered, bleary eyed, clearly wondering what was making such a racket. I must have looked half-crazed, throwing books on the floor, looking for that one book I knew was there.
But I couldn't find it.
I threw more books on the floor, the shelves emptying, my frustration growing. Where the hell was it? I knew it was here, somewhere.
"Henry," Amanda said, the patience in her voice sur prising me. "I'm not going to ask. I assume there's a good reason for this. What are you looking for?"
"A book," I said stupidly, still rifling through the few books left. I told her the title and author. She looked at me, then walked back into our bedroom. I figured she'd had enough, would try to go back to sleep. But a minute later she came back holding something in her hands.
And when my tired eyes focused, I saw what it was.
Through the Darkness, by Jack O'Donnell.
"I was reading it, remember?"
"You are so freaking beautiful," I gushed, standing up and taking the book from her.
I opened the cover, thumbed to the table of contents.
There it was, chapter eight. "The Unknown Devil."
I began to skim, looking for that one word, that one phrase I knew existed. It was the link, what Helen
Gaines was talking about. What she and Stephen were running from.
Then I found it. Midway down one page. I read the paragraph, feeling a chill run down my spine.
As the '80s came to a close, police were baffled by a string of homicides occurring at seemingly random locations at random intervals. Between August 1987 and October 1988, two dozen men were found murdered execution-style, often with one or two bullets emptied into their heads. These men were notable because they had previously been either arrested or identified as drug dealers, peddling primarily crack cocaine (among other narcotics).
It was felt, both by the law enforcement com munity as well as within the criminal element it self, that these murders were part of a larger consolidation of Manhattan's drug trade. Whis pers began to grow about a man presumably re sponsible for the carnage, a ghost whose identity nobody could confirm, and details about whom nobody would (or could) go on the record about.
In fact, the only evidence there was to this man's existence at all was at the murder scene of one Butch Willingham. Willingham had been shot twice in the back of the head. The wounds were catastrophic, though miraculously, neither bullet was instantaneously fatal.
The autopsy concluded that Willingham had lived between five to ten minutes after the shoot ings, though the terminal damage to his brain pre vented him from moving, speaking or doing anything to save his own life.
Apparently the bullets did not completely de prive Willingham of all of his motor skills during that brief period he remained alive, because while Willingham lay dying, his skull shattered by the slugs, he scribbled two macabre words on the floor of his apartment, using only the blood leak ing from his own body.
21
I spent the rest of the night rereading Through the
Darkness. It had been several years since I'd last read it, and the sense of awe I gained by reading Jack's work was tempered by the sudden knowledge that a forgot ten passage from the book was somehow relevant to two murders today.
Most of the book came back to me, like seeing a good friend after a long absence. Amanda woke up, kissed me on the cheek and left for work, knowing how important this was. There were no other explicit refer ences to the Fury, no other mention of who it was, or whether or not he or she even existed. People say some strange things when they've been shot in the head.
I opened up the search engine on my computer and looked for any old interviews Jack had done for the book. Unfortunately most had either not been archived digitally or they'd been lost, because only two came up.
Neither mentioned the Fury in any way.
Working at the Gazette, Jack's presence was missed on a daily basis. Now, his absence felt like a hole in my stomach, an emptiness. I needed to talk to him, to see what he knew, what he remembered. But Jack was re covering from his own battle with alcohol, and I couldn't bring myself to interrupt that. There was one person, though, who might be able to help. Thankfully he worked long hours, and started the day early.
Wallace Langston picked up on the second ring.
"Henry," he said. "I was wondering when next I'd hear from you. You do still work here, right?"
"How are you, Wallace?" I figured I'd ignore the question.
"I'm doing well. Henry, what's up? Or did you just call to make sure I'd had my morning coffee?"
"Actually, that's why I called," I said. " Seriously, I need some help. Listen, Wallace, I need to ask you a question. It's about Jack."
There was a moment of hesitation on the other end.
"What is it?" Wallace said curtly.
"I'd rather we talk face-to-face. It's not about my job or the paper. You can say no if you want…but I need to know. It's kind of personal."