The Fury - Jason Pinter [77]
hour, maybe two, and a week later I'm on the street."
"But not really 'on the street.'"
"Nah. Anyone who thinks dealers in NYC sit on
street corners waiting for crackheads to come up to
them is watching too much HBO. This is a business, run
and worked by businessmen. There's no room for street
hustling or stupidity."
"Any women?" I asked.
"Not that I ever saw."
"Guess it's not all that different from finance after all."
"No," Scotty said with a laugh. "Guess not."
"So you say this whole thing is run like a business,
streamlined and thorough. So let me ask you this...how
did I find you?"
Scotty shifted in his seat. "I don't know."
"This recruiter you're talking about. The head
honcho. You say you met with him."
"Just once," Scotty said. "After I had my...interview
I guess you could call it, I was always dealing with mid
dlemen after that. Guys lower on the food chain."
"Are they the ones who give you the re-ups at the
office in midtown?"
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Scotty's eyes shot up, and for the first time a sense
of fear crept into them. "Who told you that?"
I said nothing. Just stared at him. He needed to know
he wasn't dealing with an amateur, and that if I'd come
this far there was surely a lot more to dig up.
"Yeah. The Depot, we called it. The main guy was
never there, it's kind of like as soon as we met him, he
disappeared into thin air and stopped existing. We had
his phone number just in case, but if anyone called it
without a good reason, we knew they might not come
in to work the next day."
"Did you ever hear anyone mention someone or
something called the Fury?" Scotty looked at me,
confused.
"No, not that I can think of." He seemed truthful.
"So Mayor McCheese. The Big Kahuna. The Big
Boss. The recruiter. Who was he?"
"Just some guy," Scotty said. "We never really
learned anything about him."
"I mean what was his name?"
Scotty had to think for a minute, then he said.
"Gaines. Yeah, that was the dude's name. Stephen
Gaines."
26
"You're a liar," I said. Panic and rage cut through my
body like a hot blade. My stomach churned, the milk
shake feeling like it could come back up at any
moment. "Stephen Gaines can't be, he's...dead." The
last word came out empty, hollow, as though I was
arguing with thin air.
"I know that," Scotty said. There was no emotion in
his voice. He was simply telling me the news as he
knew it. "But what do you want me to say? You asked."
I had no energy to argue with him, and no argument
to counter the claims. How the hell would Scotty even
know my brother's name unless...unless...
It was too terrible to even think of. Was it possible
that my brother was much higher up on this food chain
than I'd thought? Not just one of the lower men, the
Vinnies, the ones who carried tinfoil and Saran Wrap
around the city like some alternate-universe grocer, but
someone who actually was responsible for a piece of the
action. Perhaps much more than a piece.
Was it possible Stephen Gaines was the Fury?
No, I thought. That was impossible. Somebody
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227
killed him. He was innocent. A man with demons, sure,
but not somebody who deserved to die.
The only way you're murdered in that kind of
business is if somebody bigger than you thinks you're
hindering the operation, preventing someone more am
bitious from carving a larger slice of the pie.
Unless...what if he was knocked off by a smaller
dealer, somebody whose eyes simply got too big for
their head? Somebody who felt scalping my brother
would give them street cred, a trophy, to assume the
mantle for their own?
What if my brother wore a target on his back?
Immediately my mind went back to that night. The
night Stephen found me at the Gazette. His face filled
with fright, his body wracked with pain from the drugs
and some secret he was carrying. Is it possible he knew
he had a death wish, and simply needed help? If Stephen
was so powerful, what could I possibly have done for
him?
I'd seen men and women whose lives had been de
stroyed by drugs, by alcohol. Hell,