The Stolen - Jason Pinter [6]
up at the baseball game. Out of the dozen or so patrons,
only two or three seemed to care about the outcome. The
others were nursing a drink, chatting up the bartender or,
like the six people my age playing darts, far too busy
reveling in their own bliss.
I'd gotten to know the bartender, Seamus. Things like
that happen when you become a regular. Some nights I had
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trouble sleeping. This necessitated finding somewhere to
go to kill time. Somewhere I could be lost in my own
thoughts. That's how I stumbled upon Finnerty's. Quiet
enough to lose yourself. Loud enough to drown everything
out.
Most nights I was happy to imbibe among young Irish
gents and apple-cheeked female bartenders. U2 and Morrissey seemed to emanate from the jukebox on an endless
loop. Though I enjoyed the Irish pub, sitting in Finnerty's
made me feel that much closer to the elder drinkers, sitting
with bottomless glasses of whiskey, talking to the bartender because he was cheaper than a psychiatrist. All of
this, by proxy, made me feel more and more like I was
becoming Jack O'Donnell. In many ways being compared
to Jack would be a compliment. Just not this one.
Jack O'Donnell, to put it bluntly, was my idol. He'd
worked the city beat for going on forty years, and any conversation about New York journalism was incomplete
without mention of the old man. Growing up, I'd gone out
of my way to read every story O'Donnell wrote, not an
easy task for a kid who lived three thousand miles away
from New York. I had our library special-order the Gazette
on microfiche. I would take on an extra newspaper route
just so I could afford the next O'Donnell book in hardcover
when it hit stores. I couldn't, or wouldn't, wait for the
paperback.
A few years ago I'd arrived at the New York Gazette a
fresh-faced newbie reporter who deigned only to shine
O'Donnell's shoes. He was a journalistic institution,
writing some of the most important stories of the past half
century. Despite his age, Jack seemed to grow younger
with every word he typed. Even though Jack's first assignment for me led to disaster--namely me being accused of
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murder--he was the first person at the newspaper to give
me an honest shot at showing what I was worth. Both Jack
and Wallace Langston, the Gazette's editor-in-chief, had
taken me under their wings, given me stories that I grabbed
on to tenaciously and reported the hell out of. Without Jack
I probably wouldn't have come to New York. Because of
him I found my calling.
Like any idol, though, once you got closer you could
see that some of the gold paint covered a chipped bronze
interior. For all his brilliance with a pen, Jack's personal
life was a disaster. Several times married and divorced. On
the highway to alcoholism while seeming to hit every
speed bump at sixty miles an hour. Yet, despite Jack's
faults, he was the tent pole to which I aspired to in this
business. As long as I could stop there.
Nights like tonight, I was content to sit on the aged bar
stool and ignore everything. It was easier that way.
Then I felt a cold splash on my back, whipped around
to see a tall, lithe redhead standing over my shoulder, her
hand over her mouth as if she'd just seen a bad car accident.
"Oh, my gosh!" she said, grabbing a pile of napkins off
the bar and mopping at my shirt where she'd spilled her
drink. From the look and smell, I could tell she'd spilled a
cosmopolitan. I'd say I was thankful it wasn't one of my
good shirts, but the truth was I didn't own any good shirts.
Just one more article of clothing with an unidentifiable stain.
"No big deal," I said, wringing as much liquid from the
cloth as I could. "It's a bar. You kind of expect to be hit
with a drink or two."
She smiled at me. I wondered if she thought I was
funny, or if she was just relieved I wasn't the kind of
asshole who would bark and shout at a girl who'd accidentally spilled a drink on him.
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She was pretty. Tall, in good shape, but