The Stolen - Jason Pinter [106]
County, New York, today."
Hobbs County. Why was I not surprised. I checked my
watch. It was three-thirty. I had plenty of time to drive up
to Hobbs County.
"Give me the address," I said. I jotted down the information, thanked the secretary and hung up. I chewed on
the tip of my pen. I had no idea what Reggie Powers would
know. I sure as hell had a few questions he needed good
answers to.
I put my tape recorder and notebook into a small
backpack, stopped in to Wallace's office to tell him where
I was going. He told me to check in once I was done with
Powers. I got the sense Wallace understood how big this
story was getting. And that scared me.
I took the subway Uptown to my apartment, got in the
rental car and began the drive up to Hobbs County.
41
"Tomorrow," Paulina said. She was sitting at her desk,
leaning back in her desk chair, the one the assistants
commonly referred to as the "bitch throne." She'd caught
James Keach referring to it as such one day, but rather than
admonish the boy, she merely laughed and told him not to
be shy about it. From that day on, James commonly
referred to the chair with that moniker, using the slight
whisper of a child who can't believe his parents permit him
to curse in the house.
The copy was set. The pictures had been laid out. She'd
pored over every inch of the article with greater focus than
any story she could remember. She couldn't say for sure
whether this piece would be her crowning moment as a
journalist--in fact, she wasn't sure she'd want it to be--but
in many ways it meant the most to her. It represented a clear
turning point in her career, and would mark perhaps the first
official shot of the war. To this day it had been the newsprint version of Russia versus the U.S. No casualties, lots
of trash talk and hidden agendas everywhere they turned.
Paulina's article would change all of that. So while
nobody quite knew just who fired that first shot at Lexington and Concord, in the future they could pin this one to
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Jason Pinter
her blouse. The Parker stories had been small potatoes.
Going after a baby fish as though people would care. To
this point, Henry hadn't been in the game long enough for
people to truly care. Like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair,
the sting would have been worse if they had the tenure of,
well... Paulina laughed.
A bottle of Dom was waiting in her fridge. Myron's
phone number was on her cell phone. At first she debated
calling him again--the last thing she needed tonight was
another pity party--but ending the night with a good drink
and a great lay would be the perfect capper. The end of the
beginning, the beginning of the end.
And even though she hadn't seen him in many months,
Paulina rather wished she'd be able to see the look on
Henry Parker's face in the morning.
42
The sun bathed Hobbs County in a beautiful melange of
reds and golds. This could be such a breathtaking town, I
hated to think so much evil had taken place here. When I
parked the car in the lot by the construction site, I took a
moment to take it in, to breathe it in. You didn't get many
views like this in the city, one of the trade-ins you had to
make to live there. I didn't mind so much. Spending my
whole childhood growing up way out West, I'd seen
enough sunsets to quench a lifelong thirst. Living amid the
steel and bustle of New York didn't quite feel like home
yet, but it was getting there.
I turned off the car and parked outside the site.
The mall was coming up well. Steel beams were exposed
everywhere. Tools and wheelbarrows and mixers were scattered about. I had no idea where I was supposed to meet
Reggie Powers. I figured there would be some sort of office
structure set apart, or he'd just be waiting for me outside.
Yet as I took a quick look around, there was no sign of him.
As I walked through the construction area, dipping
under low beams, peeking around corners, I felt a queasy
sensation in my stomach when I realized there wasn't a
single person in sight.