The Darkness - Jason Pinter [86]
what you told me and Paulina's story quoting nonexis- The Darkness
245
tent members of the department, I'm officially a member
of the church of paranoia."
"I've belonged there for a while," I said. "So what
did you find?"
I heard Curt take a deep breath and say, "You gotta
swear to me this doesn't come back with my name on it
until you figured out what the hell is going on. 'Cause this
stuff is scaring even me."
"You know you have my word."
"I think you're going to want to sit down for this one."
And when he told me who and what this man was, I felt
my knees go weak. Jack came over and we both sat down
on a bench in Rockefeller Plaza. I thought I was through
with stories like this, stories where the fire was so close it
could burn me. I looked at Jack, wondered how many
times he'd been through the kind of hell I'd gone through.
And knowing it all, feeling the scars beneath my clothing,
I knew there was a chance it could get bloody again.
"What is it, Henry?" Jack said.
The fact that he didn't call me sport or kiddo or any
one of those nicknames scared me even more.
"Curt," I said. "He found our man."
"Who is it?" Jack asked.
"You know how Paulina wrote, in that article, about
how close this city was to burning down twenty years ago?"
"Yeah," Jack said, his voice soft, monotone. "I lived
through it."
"Well, I think someone's turned the gas tank back on
and is getting ready to light this place up all over again."
33
Morgan threw open his apartment door, tossed his coat
onto a chair and plopped down onto his couch with an
audible thump. He could feel his pulse racing as he
clenched and unclenched his fists.
He couldn't sit there, not with this kind of energy, this
kind of juice flowing through him.
Standing back up, Morgan walked to the refrigerator
and to his delight saw that there were two more tall boys
resting inside, nice and cold. He popped the top on the
first one and guzzled it down in one long messy gulp, then
wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He took the second beer
back to the couch and sat back down, buzzing, feeling
alive for the first time in months.
When he and Theo finally parted ways at five o'clock,
Morgan could scarcely believe how the day had unfolded.
At first he was unsure about this new opportunity. Sure
Morgan had done some blow in his day, never one to throw
a good party off its axis. But he never knew just how high
the demand was for product right now, and he never realized
just how many poor saps there were sitting in their apartments without a job, without hope, all their joy coming in
the form of some fine white powder...or a small black rock.
The Darkness
247
Morgan had no idea what the stuff did beyond what
Theo told him. According to his partner, this stuff, the
Darkness, was the most potent and addictive substance
to hit the populace since opium. It was cheap, it was
strong, and it gave you a rush every single time.
Morgan had no desire to try the stuff. Theo didn't seem
to care either. When you had a good thing going, like they
did, you didn't gum up the works by losing your head.
At the end of their first day on the job, Morgan and Theo
had sold nearly ten thousand dollars' worth of product.
Over a full year, that amounted to well over three
million dollars.
And they were just one team out of God knows how
many.
And they were working, according to that Leonard
guy, the slow shift.
If all his calculations were correct, and this enterprise
had as many teams as Morgan supposed they did--then
this was a billion-dollar industry.
To be a part of something like that, with potential for
rapid growth, you didn't take any chances.
It was unbelievable to think that Ken Tsang, who was
a relatively smart guy as far as Morgan was concerned,
would be stupid enough to rat out his partner. At first,
when Morgan found out he was dead, there was a fleeting
moment of remorse, of sadness. Now, he thought of Ken
Tsang like a homeless person you saw on the street.
Nothing more than pity, nothing less