The Stolen - Jason Pinter [9]
The Stolen
31
suffered. If you press the wrong button, touch the wrong
nerve, he and Shelly will clam up fast. And the Dispatch
will be on top of this as fast as Paulina Cole can get up to
Hobbs County."
"I'd die before Paulina scoops us," I said.
"Don't make it come to that, Henry. The Linwoods are
expecting you tomorrow at two. Get there at noon, spend
a few hours checking out the neighborhood for local color.
But if Daniel wants to talk to you at one-forty-five, twofifteen or three o'clock in the morning, you'll have your
tape recorder ready to go."
"You got it."
"That means going home right now and sobering up."
"I'm on my way." This included a hot shower, a fresh
set of clothes, suit and tie. I prayed these were all at the
ready, otherwise an all-night Laundromat would soon be
graced by my clothes' aromatic presence.
"Call me before you leave tomorrow," Wallace said.
"And I mean that. Call me. I don't want to come into the
office tomorrow and see you asleep and drooling on your
keyboard. You have a home. Go there."
I said nothing. Telling Wallace that my apartment didn't
feel like a home was neither his business nor concern. All
he cared about, and rightfully so, was this story. I'd been
granted leeway the past few years most young reporters
never got. Many in my position would have been shown
the door, either landing in the safety net of a small-town
paper or spewing angry blogs about the dumbing-down of
American media. I had no desire to do either, and preferred
to help from the inside. Big-time news was in my blood.
A while ago Jack O'Donnell had told me that to truly
become a legend in your field, you had to lead a life with
one purpose. You had to devote yourself to your calling.
32
Jason Pinter
Splitting your passions between that and other pursuits--
hobbies, family--would only make each endeavor suffer.
The past few months I'd whittled down my extracurriculars to nothing. All for stories like this.
"You'll hear from me first thing tomorrow morning," I
said. "And, Wallace?"
"Yeah, kid?"
"Thanks for the opportunity."
"Don't thank me, thank Shelly Linwood. I'm not the
only one counting on you to do the right thing."
The call ended. I stood there in the warm night, the
sounds of the bar and the street fading away. This night
held nothing else for me, but tomorrow presented a golden
opportunity. So many circumstances surrounding Daniel
Linwood's disappearance were a mystery, and because
the boy himself couldn't remember, I wondered how
much, if any of it, would ever come to light. I wondered
if never getting that closure would bother the Linwood
family. Or if they were just thankful to have their son
back.
I put the phone in my pocket, went to the corner and
hailed a cab back to my apartment. For a moment I
wondered if, like Daniel Linwood, I was returning to a
place both strangely familiar, yet terribly foreign at the
same time.
3
The Lincoln Town Car pulled up at 10:00 a.m. on the dot,
shiny and black and idling in front of my apartment as
inconspicuous as a black rhinoceros. I'd heeded Wallace's
advice and gone home, sleeping in my own bed for the first
time in weeks. I stripped the sheets, used a few clean
towels in their place, and got my winks under an old
sleeping bag.
I woke up at eight-thirty, figured it'd be plenty of time,
but it took forty-five minutes to clean the crud out of my
coffee machine and brew a new pot, so by the time the
driver buzzed my cell phone I was tucking my shirt in,
making sure my suit jacket was devoid of any lint. Unfortunately I missed the open fly until we'd merged off the
West Side Highway onto I-87 North. My driver was a
Greek fellow named Stavros. Stavros was big, bald and
had a pair of snake-eyed dice tattooed on the back of his
neck that just peeked out over the headrest.
I sipped my Thermos of coffee, grimaced and doublechecked my briefcase. Pens, paper, tape recorder, business
cards, digital camera in case I had a chance to take some
shots of the neighborhood surrounding the Linwood residence