The Hunters - Jason Pinter [8]
“What a small man,” she said. “The more somebody talks, the weaker they are. By Thursday, he’ll be begging us to let him have thirty percent.”
She checked her watch.
“The chemist?” the blond man said.
She nodded. “Thanks, Malloy. Let me know when it’s done and we’ll get the Asian.”
“Will do.”
As the blond man walked away, the woman said, “When we go back there, bring the cop.”
The blond man raised his eyebrows.
“Those fat guys take a few more bullets to bring down. We’ll need the firepower.”
“I’ll get him,” the blond man said. “The chemist. Do you want me to leave a message?”
“No,” she said. “This one needs to stay as quiet as possible. The Asian is different. Culvert is different. The chemist just needs to disappear.”
“When we get the Asian,” the blond man said, “do you want me to bring a gun for you?”
The woman smiled and turned away.
“No,” she said. “We’re going to have a little fun with this one. We’re going to carve him like a turkey and make sure everybody sees what’s inside.”
Chapter 3
Jack O’Donnell walked into his apartment, dropped his bags on the floor and stifled a sob. It had been months since he’d set foot in this place, and the last time he did that was one of the worst moments of his life. Crying, humiliated, left as a joke for the city’s vultures to feast on.
Jack had spent his whole life chronicling New York. He knew every nook and cranny, every in and out, could recite from memory the history of the city from Robert Moses to Phil Spitzer. He truly felt this city was a part of him, and he would die leaving a part of himself in it.
But not like this. Not like this.
Not a broken mess, a broken man, shamed into a rehabilitation center by a vengeful competitor who wanted nothing more than to embarrass him for profit. Paulina Cole, a woman who was a parasite with a good wardrobe. Vermin who could apply eyeliner. A woman he’d worked with for years, only to fall victim to her savage muckraking.
It was Paulina who’d uncovered the full extent of Jack’s alcoholism and splayed it all over the pages of her newspaper. There was no reason for it. Jack was not a celebrity. His demons would not sell newspapers like he was some nasty debutante caught with her pants down or some singer caught on film smoking a crack pipe. He was a newspaperman. That’s all. Which made what Paulina did that much more hurtful. She did it for no other reason than to humiliate him, to try to ruin his career.
And she nearly did.
Jack barely had the money for the rehab stint. He didn’t even try to get the Gazette to cover it. Asking for that money would have been nearly as embarrassing as the stint itself. And whereas Jack had made good money over the years on his books and film options, he was not the world’s most thrifty spender. Several divorces had left his savings a fraction of what they had been, and along with the drinking, he’d been known to throw a few bets down from time to time.
And now Jack O’Donnell stood there in his foyer, wondering if perhaps in some way, Paulina Cole had done him a favor.
He brought the bags into the bedroom and unpacked. Strange, he thought as he placed the folded clothes back into the closet. He’d never been one of those people who unpacked right after a trip. His duffels would sit there stuffed to the gills for a week or more before Jack finally began to run low on underwear. But now, unpacking was something cathartic, cleansing. It meant he was home.
Jack had gone to see Henry even before returning to his loft. Henry was the reason Jack checked out of rehab, the reason he was here right now. He still had a few friends at the Gazette, people he could trust with his ordeal knowing they wouldn’t go blabbing to Wallace Langston—the editor-in-chief—or Harvey Hillerman, the publisher. And when they told him what had happened to Henry, about Stephen Gaines and the enigma known only as the Fury, Jack knew the time was right for him to reclaim his life.
Jack had written about the Fury nearly twenty years ago. It had been a