Parker 05 - The Darkness (7 page)

in. Last time I was here, Scott Callahan and Kyle Evans

had signed in when they visited 718 Enterprises. But to

my surprise, nobody was here to visit the company. Not

a single name I recognized.

"Sir, please give that back," he said, his voice growing

impatient. "If you don't I'll have security down here right

quick." Figured they'd have security. Old Man River here

didn't look like he was hired to do much strong-arming.

"What's your name, friend?" Jack said.

"Edgar," the guard replied.

"Edgar, I'm Jack. My friend Henry here is a little impatient, for that I apologize. We were under the impression this company was located at this address.... How

long have you been working here?"

"It's my fourth day," Edgar replied.

"Really," Jack said. His voice was modulated to feign

interest, but I could tell that bothered him. "Who else

works this shift?"

"Nobody anymore. Building manager called the agency

that was looking to place me, said they needed a new

morning man five days a week, Monday through Friday.

They didn't tell me about the last guy, but this is a full-time

job. Thank God, because in this economy heaven knows

my savings and 401k aren't worth squat anymore."

"Thanks, Edgar," Jack said. "Come on, Henry." He

didn't say my name like we were partners, but like I was

his subordinate.

As we left the building, I said to Jack, "Next time

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you're going to do the good cop, bad cop shtick, how

about letting me know ahead of time that I'm going to be

the bad cop?"

Jack shook his head. "This is about the story, Henry.

Not your pride or your feelings. If I need you to be my

patsy to get someone to open up, that's just what I'll do.

And I'd expect you to do the same with me if the situation called for it. In fact, if you didn't, I'd wonder why I

was letting you tag along in the first place."

"Tag along? This is my sto..." I stopped talking. This

wouldn't get us anywhere. "I can tell what you're thinking."

Jack nodded. "Whoever did work here packed up and

left faster than my second wife left with my collection of

antique pens."

"You think it's because of Tsang?" I asked.

"No way. At least not entirely. Tsang was killed

yesterday. Edgar started a few days ago. If Tsang was

connected to 718 Enterprises--and ipso facto your

brother--they were long gone before they crushed his

bones into oatmeal."

I don't know what we should have expected to find,

but I guarantee it wasn't nothing. Not the nothing as in

"well, we got there but didn't quite find what we were

looking for." There was no trace of 718 Enterprises whatsoever. It was simply gone.

And as Jack and I stood there in the morning sunlight,

I couldn't help but think about the hundreds of people

who went about their day oblivious to this. Who'd walked

by this building for perhaps years, unaware that it was a

drug refueling station. And that all of a sudden whatever

had been there had suddenly been packed up and shipped

off as quickly and as easily as a parcel.

"Back to the office," Jack said. "We're not going to

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learn anything standing on the corner waiting for melanoma to sink in."

His hands were on his hips, a look on his face that

showed he was pissed off but wouldn't stop here. I'd

never seen Jack work, unless you counted watching him

hunched over a keyboard sipping coffee that smelled suspiciously like something you'd find on tap at an Irish pub.

I had the same gene. The "hell if I'll stop now" gene.

I smiled inwardly as Jack ran into the street to hail a cab,

moving like a man half his age. Not only did he have a

story to chase, but after months spent away from the game,

this was the closest he'd been to fresh meat in a long time.

"There has to be a building manager," I said. "A corporation who cashes the lease payments."

"Great minds, Henry. Great minds." He told the driver

to take us back to Rockefeller Plaza. I felt my cell phone

vibrate, picked it up, saw Amanda had left me a text

message. I opened the mail. It read, Luv u. I smiled. Sent

her one back that read, u 2 babe.

Then just before I closed the phone, I saw that I had

another unopened text. This one was from Curt Sheffield.

It read: News out about Ken Tsang's murder. Undercover cops say dealers are scared shitless, holing up.

Informants running like roaches.

And the text ended with one line that gave me chills.

Message delivered.

7

Morgan Isaacs didn't want to wake up. He was lying in

bed, forcing his eyelids closed, even though a few quick

peeks told him it was after ten o'clock and the day had

started without him. Again.

It had been just a week since Morgan had met with the

real estate broker as well as his dad's accountant (who

didn't charge him, thankfully, chalking it up to years of

family service). Both advised him, without a moment of

hesitation, to sell his two-bedroom apartment on Park

Avenue. Morgan pleaded his case, said he'd be back on

his feet in no time, but Morgan wasn't trying to convince

the advisor as much as himself.

He'd have to give it up. All of it.

It was a sweet pad, with nearly seventeen hundred

square feet, brand-new appliances, a hundred-fiftysquare-foot terrace, a fifty-two-inch plasma and a view

that most Manhattanites would chop off their left thumb

for. It was the kind of place Morgan dreamed of when he

first enrolled in business school five years ago, taking on

the kind of debt that would choke a third world country.

Sure, there were bigger apartments in NYC, but you had

to start somewhere. And even with the real estate market

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Jason Pinter

taking a nosedive recently you couldn't find a good twobedroom for under a million three. To get the three-and

four-bedroom pads you had to plunk down close to two

mil, and even though his debts were almost all paid off

he thankfully had decided to stick with the twofer until

his next promotion.

But then it all crashed down faster than a load of bricks.

The rumors began to swirl about a month ago that the

bank Morgan worked at as a trader was having tough

times, that its liquidity was nowhere near what the CEOs

were claiming. Then he read a newspaper article saying

there was a chance it would be bought out by one of the

company's competitors. Then, a week ago, Morgan got a

call from his boss at eleven-thirty on a Saturday night,

telling him to be at the office at 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning.

Morgan was there, dressed in a suit and carrying his

briefcase, unsure of what to expect. When he got to the

conference room he was informed, along with several

dozen of his colleagues, that the firm's equity had been

bought for five cents a share, that the employee stock

purchase plan was essentially worthless. Oh yeah, and

that they were all out of a job. They would not be permitted back to their desks, and any personal items would be

mailed to their forwarding addresses.

Morgan blinked. It was all he could do. They would

receive one month's severance for each year they'd been

with the company. For Morgan, that was three months.

Three months that would cover his mortgage and BMW

payments until he could find a new job. Surely that

wouldn't be hard. He had his MBA, his CFA, and had

graduated from Wharton in the top five percent of his class.

Whether that severance would pay for the nearly

thirty-three thousand dollars in credit card debt he'd

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57

racked up...he didn't even want to think about it. Uncle

Sam giveth, and Morgan would be damned if he'd let

Uncle Sam taketh away.

Then the next day another bank closed. And suddenly

the terrifying realization hit Morgan that he would be

competing for jobs in a market where opportunities had

just been halved, and his competition increased by two

hundred percent. In less than a month there were nearly

twenty thousand young men and women just like him,

many of whom were just as qualified if not more, looking

for the same opportunities he was.

Suddenly those monthly payments, over eleven thousand a month, loomed like a pile of bricks about to rain

down on his head.

He went out that night to a dive bar in his neighborhood, fully intent on getting stinking drunk and hooking

up with whatever girl noticed the two grand in jewelry he

wore. Brianna be damned, she was going to break up with

him anyway. He had no illusions about why she was with

him. She didn't care about cuddling or having doors

opened for her. She wanted the gold. Literally.

Just like Morgan, Brianna would be getting a severance package, maybe a small diamond necklace, no more

than a grand. Morgan was a big fan of
The Sopranos,
and

he always thought Tony was brilliant for giving his jilted

paramours a small token when he divested himself of

them. The kind of women who dated Tony Soprano were

the kind of women who dated Morgan Isaacs; they loved

the money, the power (granted with Morgan it was on a

slightly smaller scale). Once Brianna learned the truth,

she'd be gone and in the pocket--and pants--of some

upper manager who managed to hold on to his sevenfigure job.

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Jason Pinter

So it was a morning like this, a Monday, a day where

he should have already been on to his third Red Bull and

second cigarette break, that Morgan Isaacs couldn't bring

himself to unwrap himself from the fifteen hundred

thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.

He'd let his dirty blond hair grow too long, and

whereas he used to weigh a trim hundred and eighty

pounds, Morgan was now threatening to blow past the

two bills mark. In fact, there was a pretty good chance

he'd already done so, but was too frightened to step on

the scale and know for sure.

Maybe he'd fix a breakfast. Toast with peanut butter

and strawberry preserves sounded good. There were some

good judge shows on in the afternoons. For some reason

watching brainless poor people fight with some condescending judge over twenty-three dollars made Morgan

feel better about his own situation.

Then he heard the chirp of his cell phone, still set to

The O'Jays' "For the Love of Money." He didn't recognize the caller ID, and assumed it was a telemarketer. He

was about to spin the dial to Ignore when he considered

the faint possibility it could be one of the firms that still

had his resume and had sworn to get back to him.

He answered the phone with a peppy "This is Morgan," hoping to sound like a man who'd been awake all

morning and not someone trying too hard to sound like

he didn't still have sleep schmutz in his eyes.

"Morgan Isaacs?" the man on the other end replied.

"That's right."

"I was referred to you by a former colleague, Kenneth

Tsang. I hope you don't mind my calling."

"Kenneth, yeah, of course," Morgan said. Ken was a

good guy, went a little too crazy at the strip clubs back

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59

when he was still working at Wachovia, and even after

he was laid off the guy threw bills around like they were

tissue paper. Ken was a good guy, but if you were stupid

and careless, eventually you'd piss off the wrong person.

At some point, Morgan was sure, Ken would do just that.

"My name is Chester. Kenneth was doing some work

for my firm and he passed your name along to us before

his unfortunate passing."

"That's mighty kind of him," Morgan said, scooping

some gunk from his eye. "What firm did you say you

were with?"

"If you're interested in employment that will pay you

quite handsomely with fair hours, meet me on Fifth

Avenue at noon. Northwest side of the street between

Fiftieth and Fifty-first. Right in front of the statue of Atlas."

"I'm sorry," Morgan said. "I don't mean to be rude, but

can I have a little more information? I want to be prepared, you know, just in case."

"Noon in front of the statue," Chester said. "Ken vouched

for you. He said you were reliable and that you enjoyed the

lifestyle your former employment afforded you. I promise

that if that's the case, you won't be sorry you came."

"Wait, how will I know who you are?" Morgan said.

His voice reached only an empty phone. Morgan sat

there a moment, thinking about the call. Then he stood

up, tossed off his briefs and marched right to the shower.

He had just over an hour and a half. An hour and a half

to get his life back.

8

Sifting through ownership records and property deeds

was nearly as much fun as it sounded. We found papers

for the nearly two dozen companies who currently held

leases in the building formerly housing 718 Enterprises,

but for whatever reason there was no deed of ownership