The Fury - Jason Pinter [73]
forget.
It was only a few days before my father went in front
of a grand jury. That jury would more than likely indict
him for the murder of his own estranged son. No doubt
once that judgment was passed along, my father would
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go through the same ringer I did when I was wrongly
accused of the crime. Only for him, he would be incar
cerated, a slab of meat lying in a cage for the wolves to
pick at whenever they chose. Even though I escaped
with a pierced lung, my ordeal never made it to court.
I had to get my father out before that took place.
There was one person who had knowledge of 718
Enterprises. One person who likely knew both Hector
Guardado and my brother. One person I knew enough
about to make him listen.
I had to wait about eighteen hours before I could
confront him.
It was going to be a long day.
I sat on the front stoop sipping from a cup of coffee,
one of those great, old-fashioned cups that were made
of cardboard and had cute little illustrations of mugs
with wings on the side. Coffee cups these days seemed
to be tall, sleek models that looked more like tubes of
enriched uranium than something you drank to wake up
in the morning. The deli I got this from had no logo, no
branding, and the bag they gave it to me in had one of
those cheerful INY slogans on the side. Those were
the bags you gave out when you didn't have a Web site,
and didn't have spontaneous MP3 downloading capa
bility.
There was no definitive time when he'd be home. I'd
arrived at 7:00 p.m. on the chance it was an early day.
So far it had not been. Around eight-thirty I went for a
quick walk up and down the block to keep my blood
flowing, and to make sure people in the neighborhood
didn't get suspicious.
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Finally at eight-thirty, just as I was beginning to feel
the need to pee, I saw him walking down the street.
He carried the briefcase lightly. It was clearly empty.
As he got closer I could see that his suit was
wrinkled, stained through with the sweat from a day
spent going house to house, subway to subway.
When he got close enough to the point where he
could see me, I stepped out onto the sidewalk. Right in
front of him. He was bigger than I remembered, and the
ill-fitting suit didn't fully stretch enough to hide the
muscles in his arms. The shock of black hair that had
surely been neatly combed that morning now sat askew
on his head, beads of sweat traveling down his forehead
and nestling in the collar of his formerly white oxford
shirt. The man stopped for a moment, eyed me curi
ously, defensive, as though he half-expected me to take
a random swing at him.
"Scott Callahan?" I said.
"The hell are you?" Scotty replied, taking a step
back.
"My name is Henry Parker," I said. "And you're
going to want to talk to me."
Scotty walked in front of me the whole way, like a
prisoner heading toward the electric chair, knowing
there was no chance of reprieve. On the street, Scotty
had told me to go to hell. I responded by telling him ev
erything I knew, how I'd followed him the other day.
How I'd observed him going into each of those houses,
how I knew he was selling drugs.
I had to leave out my stealing Hector Guardado's
briefcase. He didn't need to know I was so close. I
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wanted to have leverage on Scotty, but put too much
weight on a person and rather than talk they'll simply
buckle. If Scotty thought I knew so much to the point
where I could incriminate both him and 718 Enter
prises, he'd feel no reason to talk to me. He needed to
feel there was a way out. If there was a chance at
survival, there was a chance to talk his way out of it.
I told him my name, my job. That he could end up
on the front page of the Gazette tomorrow. Naturally I
didn't tell him this was a personal investigation, but
chances were Scotty Callahan would not be the kind of
guy who'd consider filing a suit for libel.
We went into a 24-hour coffee shop, somewhere
quiet where we wouldn't be disturbed and didn't have
to worry about