The Darkness - Jason Pinter [110]
out. "Officer needs assistance. We have a motor vehicle
accident. One civilian is down and hurt, potentially fatal.
He's not breathing."
Curt put his fingers to the man's neck, searched for a
pulse.
He felt nothing.
Picking up the man's wrist, he tried again. Still nothing.
No use. He was long gone.
"I think I lost him," Curt said into the phone.
When he was assured an ambulance was en route,
Curt stood up, took in the scene unfolding in front of him.
Cars were lining up down the street, drivers getting out
at first to see what was causing the traffic holdup. Then
when they saw what was going on, phones came out as
they called 911. Onlookers began to crowd the sidewalks.
A few people started heading toward the body. Some
looked concerned, fearful, but a few had a glint in their
eyes that Curt didn't like. He knew that not everybody
was concerned for this guy's well-being.
Curt stood up, pulled out his badge. Let his arm hang
loose so his jacket opened up a bit, revealing the gun and
holster inside.
"NYPD!" he shouted. The surge stopped. A few people slipped back into the crowds and disappeared, disappointed they didn't have a chance to search the man
for jewelry or money. "An ambulance is on the way. I'm
going to need everyone to back away and clear room."
He walked toward the crowd, and they stepped back,
obeying. Then Curt remembered something.
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He turned and jogged back to the street corner where
he'd seen the man. Reaching into the garbage can, he
managed to find the man's cell phone he'd dropped
inside. He wiped off the crud and liquid, relieved to see
the machine was still working.
He clicked it on.
The home page blinked on, and an LCD screen read
Gil's Phone.
Gil. That was the dead man's name.
Then Curt scrolled through the numerous functions
until he found a button marked Recent Calls.
He clicked on it, and saw Gil's call log from the last
twelve hours. Incoming calls marked with an orange
"down" arrow, outgoing with a red "up" arrow.
Then Curt felt his breath catch in his throat.
There was one phone number that stood out. Gil had
called it no less than ten times in the last three hours.
And the number had a 718 prefix.
Without hesitating, Curt called the number from
Gil's phone.
It rang twice, and then was picked up.
"Mr. Meadows, we've already explained to you the
situation. Until you have legal tender available, we cannot
serve you. Goodbye."
The person on the other end hung up.
And as soon as they hung up, Curt called one more
number. A number he never thought he'd be calling to
help him do his job.
Curt had never gone undercover. He wasn't sure he
could pull this off.
But he knew, without a doubt, that Henry Parker
could.
44
"You're insane," Amanda said, watching as I went
about straightening up the apartment. I had already
cleaned up my dirty socks, stacked the magazines into a
neat pile, organized the DVD collection and even cleaned
the stove top.
"They should be here in less than fifteen minutes," I said.
"Who the hell are you expecting? Martha Stewart? It's
a freaking drug dealer, Henry. They're not going to care
if your floor is clean enough to eat off of. In fact, they'll
probably be a little suspicious if the place doesn't look
like, oh, I don't know, somewhere a junkie might live."
"I don't have to be a junkie," I said. "Just a guy who
wants a late-night hit to calm my nerves." I smiled at her.
"It has been a long week."
She was right, of course. I was cleaning more out of
nerves than anything.
I didn't know what to expect. Curt's call had come out
of the blue, something about getting a lead on 718 Enterprises. He had a plan, he said, but to me it sounded like
a plan he'd hashed up in about thirty seconds.
Not that it mattered.
To this point, all of the investigating I'd done on 718
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Enterprises, this shadowy person known only as the Fury
and this new drug called Darkness had been done in just
that: darkness. I hadn't written a single word of copy for