The Hunters - Jason Pinter [9]
Now, it seemed, Henry had stumbled upon the scent Jack had left lingering all those years ago, and it seemed like fate that this would be the story to rejuvenate his career. Jack had never worked side by side with Henry on a story before, and he was curious to see what the kid could do. Henry was young, scarily young, but had broken more stories and shown more guts than some reporters who’d been around forty years. Bloodhounds were born, not made, and the key to finding the best stories was being able to sniff them out on your own. Any reporter could have a “deep throat,” someone who handed them a lead on a platter. It took a special kind of person to find that thread themselves and pull it until the spool unraveled.
Jack had been like that. Years ago. And he wanted to believe Henry was like that.
He would find out tomorrow.
Once his bags were emptied, he stripped down and went into the bathroom. The mirror’s reflection was not too kind. His gray beard had gone scraggly, his eyes had heavy bags. He did look worse than he felt, for whatever that was worth, and he hoped his appearance would not affect his job performance tomorrow. People could sense a man who was tired, and had been through too much to perform properly.
Jack took a long, hot shower. He scrubbed away at his body hard enough to remove a layer of skin. Then he trimmed his beard, clipped his nails and combed his hair.
The reflection this time came back a little better, a little more dignified, but Jack knew that what was inside him mattered the most. Still, he wanted to feel like a new man. Or at least the man he had once been.
Jack went over to the leather sofa in his living room, plopped down and sank into the plush cushions. Comfy, he thought. Before rehab Jack had rarely taken the time to relax. Most hours spent on the couch were with a snifter of something strong, something to dull the nerves, while some idiotic show ran on the television.
Jack had been a zombie for years, and it took abject humiliation for him to realize it.
He turned the television on, flipped through a hundred channels of nothing before turning it off. When he’d exhausted that, Jack walked into his study. It was a room about twelve feet by sixteen, filled with cherry-wood bookshelves and a thick oak desk that was nearly bare. Funny.
When Jack was a young man, the only thing he wanted more than to be a reporter was to have a desk massive enough to hold all his worldly possessions. A big desk was a sign of stature, a symbol that you’d made it. And now he had that desk, and it was embarrassingly empty.
Jack did a brief inventory of the items on his desk:
—one printer, not hooked up
—two empty picture frames
—one picture of his old dog, Bubbles, who had been more of a partner than any of his wives
—one beer mug, still with alcohol residue staining the bottom. It was a miracle fungus had not begun to grow from it.
—between two heavy paperweights, first printings of the American editions of each of his books
His old desk at the Gazette was a third of the size, but had three times as many items on it. Fitting, he supposed, since work was really where his life took place. That was where he kept newspaper clippings, notebooks, important phone numbers. It was at home where Jack ceased to function properly. At work Jack had everything he could possibly need.
Jack went over and plucked out a hardcover copy of Through the Darkness. He hadn’t picked up the book in years. He remembered all the aching late nights, spent hunched over a typewriter while the sun rose outside of the crummy one-bedroom apartment he rented in Hell’s Kitchen. At the time Jack remembered hating it, but looking back, he couldn’t think of any fonder memories.
He remembered the pride he felt when he sent the finished manuscript to his publisher, and the letter he received from his editor just days later with