The Fury - Jason Pinter [35]
"Have been for a year now," Rose said. She stood up,
picked up the ashtray and brought it into the kitchen
where she tapped out the contents into a trash bin. She
came back, put the tray back into a drawer like it had
never been taken out. "Trying, at least. The hooks are
a lot easier to dig in than they are to pull out."
"What about Stephen?"
Rose sighed, leaned back in her chair. A wistfulness
crossed her face. "I thought he was trying to quit. He
seemed like he was. See, I never really thought Stephen
had that serious a problem. Just recreational crap. I mean,
everyone smokes a bit. Shoots up a bit. It's all about
keeping it under control. I did that, and then I quit. Stephen
never quit. And in case you haven't noticed, addicts never
stay even keel. They either get better or they get worse."
"And Stephen got worse."
"Like cancer," she said.
I looked again at the skin under Rose's shirt. I could
see the bruises weren't track lines, but destroyed veins.
Dark blues and black, yellow skin surrounding them.
Perhaps even an infection gone untreated. Whether drug
addiction started off as a disease I didn't know, but sure
as hell once those hooks dug in, the virus swam around
in your system until it ate you from the inside.
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Jason Pinter
"What do you do for a living, Rose? I mean, all those
drugs couldn't be cheap."
"Graphic designer," she said proudly. "I make eighty
grand a year."
She noticed how impressed I was.
"And your employer, they..."
"Never knew a thing. Been working for a television
studio doing Web site design for six years. They figure
the geeks are wired differently than everyone else, and
that we were all born in the same freaky nursery. So you
come in with your hair messed up smelling like stale
cigarettes and beer, they figure you were up late
'hacking.' Most people can't differentiate between a
designer and a programmer. As long as you know html,
you're golden. As if they even knew what the letters
stand for."
"Stephen," I said. "What did he do?"
The moment I said it I felt a sadness. The more I
learned about Stephen Gaines the closer I got to him.
The more I despised having never known this man at
all.
"I know he tried to write for a while. He wanted to
do culture reporting, trend pieces..." Rose's voice
trailed off.
"Did he get any published?"
"No," she said. "I'm not sure he ever really tried. He
just talked about it."
"So how did he make a living?"
"You know," she said, furrowing her brow, "I'm not
really sure. But at some point he stopped talking about
writing altogether. The drugs got a hold of him worse
than ever. It was all he could do to get up in the morning,
The Fury
107
and he looked like death when he did. I barely saw him
after that."
"When was the last time you saw him?" I asked.
"A week ago," Rose said. She sighed again, but this
time a sob cracked the noise. Her eyes began to water.
As hard as this was for me, I didn't know Stephen at
all. This woman had lost a loved one. A lover.
"He said he was going to get clean," she said, the
cracks in her voice becoming more evident. "He
promised me. He said he was going to get help. Rehab.
We spoke on the phone. He swore on his mother. Then
he stopped returning my calls."
Rehab, I thought. My father said Helen Gaines was
looking for money to help Stephen get help. That part
sounded like it was true. But unfortunately all it did in
the eyes of a prosecutor was likely bolster my father's
motive in Stephen's murder.
"Did you know Helen at all?" I asked.
Rose nodded. "They lived together. She was dirt
poor, and Stephen seemed to make enough money to
pay rent and keep food on the table. I met her maybe
half a dozen times. Kind of quiet, like she was scared
of life. Made good coffee, but never drank it with you,
if you get my meaning."
"I got it," I said. "You wouldn't by any chance
happen to have her contact information, would you?"
"I don't have a phone number or e-mail or anything
like that. But when Stephen used to write, he'd always