Paulina nodded. Then she looked at her watch.

"I can be there in a few hours," she said.

"So go," I said.

"Yeah. Right." She looked at her hand, still held in mine, and pulled it back. Then she ran it through her hair, and straightened her jacket. "I'll call you once it's done."

As Paulina turned to walk away, Jack called, "Don't we get a thank-you?"

She turned back, glared at Jack. "I'll thank you once that blond b.a.s.t.a.r.d is either behind bars or in the ground."

Then Paulina Cole walked away.

"I think that's the closest she's ever come to a real thank-you," Jack said. "I had a wager with myself, fiftyfifty odds that she slapped me before she left."

"You might have just saved her daughter's life," I said.

"I think that's at least enough to avoid a slap."

"Eh, women like Paulina don't always need a reason.

Especially when they feel like they've lost some sense of power or authority, they get it back by lashing out. It's a gimmick for sure. In a way, I respect her more for that.

She's so confident, she didn't even feel the need to slap me."

"If you're disappointed, I can take her place. I have a mean right hook."

"I think I'll pa.s.s," Jack said, "though at least you wouldn't have nails. Those things leave scars."

As we watched Paulina leave, my cell phone began to vibrate. Jack heard it, too, said, "Your lady friend?"

243.

I checked the ID, recognized it as Curt Sheffield.

"Hey, Curt," I said. "How's my favorite boy in blue?"

"Been better," he said.

"Dunkin' decided to discontinue their donuts?"

"That's a terrible stereotype perpetuated by the media, just like you."

"My bad, man. What's up?"

"It's been a h.e.l.l of a day," he said. "I'll give you the heads-up because I didn't know about Paulina's story until too late...but it's true."

"What's true?" I asked, feeling my heart begin to beat a little faster. It was a strange sensation. The excitement of another thread unspooling mixed with the dread that came with Curt's apprehension.

"Homicide down in Chelsea," Curt said. "Gruesome stuff. I just left the scene, and...it's bad, man. Real bad."

"What happened?"

Jack's composure from talking to Paulina was gone, as he watched the conversation, trying to decipher my reaction. I tried to keep a straight face, but when Curt told me the details I felt my whole body drain of blood.

"We got the call about an hour ago," he said. "A tenant on the floor above. A girl comes home to find her husband pa.s.sed out on the floor. He'd been laid off a month ago, and took every spare cent they had and spent it on drugs.

When she found out, she told him she was going to leave him, then divorce him and take all their savings. And that's when he took a knife from the kitchen and sliced her head nearly clean off."

"That's horrible," I said. "Who'd you hear this from?"

"The killer himself," Curt said. "The guy confessed to everything, right before his brain nearly short-circuited.

He'd spent every cent they had around the house on what 244.

he said was some new drug, something called Darkness he said. Said it was the best high he'd ever had, and he wasn't going to give that up for anything, including his b.i.t.c.h of a wife."

"So Paulina's story was true," I said.

"We've had half a dozen calls today, from robbery to a.s.sault to this, and all of them have one thing in common.

All the perpetrators ingested these little black rocks."

"That'll be all over the news tomorrow," I said. "Not just the Dispatch, Dispatch, but we'll have to cover it, too." but we'll have to cover it, too."

"Best publicity you can get," Curt said. "But man, I hope Paulina's wrong about one thing, because if this drug blows up we're gonna have major problems in this city."

"What do you mean?"

"h.e.l.l, the NYPD's lost a thousand jobs since last year.

The narcotics division is strapped thin as it is, and our men and women on the street haven't caught a wink of this thing. If the Darkness is being sold, it's not being sold through traditional dealers."

I heard a siren in the distance, and I lost my focus.

Then I heard Curt's voice again.

"Henry, Henry, you there, man?"

"Yeah, sorry, Curt. Just thinking about all of this."

"Yeah, us, too. But listen, Henry, the main reason I called, I wanted to tell you about one more thing."

"What, this stuff isn't enough? I got enough material here for a week's worth of stories."

"Yeah, well, try this on for size and tell me if you want to drop it. I think I found your man. The blond guy who kidnapped Paulina."

"No s.h.i.t," I said. "Who is he?"

"I haven't told anyone else yet because, h.e.l.l, after what you told me and Paulina's story quoting nonexis- The Darkness 245.

tent members of the department, I'm officially a member of the church of paranoia."

"I've belonged there for a while," I said. "So what did you find?"

I heard Curt take a deep breath and say, "You gotta swear to me this doesn't come back with my name on it until you figured out what the h.e.l.l is going on. 'Cause this stuff is scaring even me."

"You know you have my word."

"I think you're going to want to sit down for this one."

And when he told me who and what this man was, I felt my knees go weak. Jack came over and we both sat down on a bench in Rockefeller Plaza. I thought I was through with stories like this, stories where the fire was so close it could burn me. I looked at Jack, wondered how many times he'd been through the kind of h.e.l.l I'd gone through.

And knowing it all, feeling the scars beneath my clothing, I knew there was a chance it could get b.l.o.o.d.y again.

"What is it, Henry?" Jack said.

The fact that he didn't call me sport sport or or kiddo kiddo or any or any one of those nicknames scared me even more.

"Curt," I said. "He found our man."

"Who is it?" Jack asked.

"You know how Paulina wrote, in that article, about how close this city was to burning down twenty years ago?"

"Yeah," Jack said, his voice soft, monotone. "I lived through it."

"Well, I think someone's turned the gas tank back on and is getting ready to light this place up all over again."

33.

Morgan threw open his apartment door, tossed his coat onto a chair and plopped down onto his couch with an audible thump. He could feel his pulse racing as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

He couldn't sit there, not with this kind of energy, this kind of juice flowing through him.

Standing back up, Morgan walked to the refrigerator and to his delight saw that there were two more tall boys resting inside, nice and cold. He popped the top on the first one and guzzled it down in one long messy gulp, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He took the second beer back to the couch and sat back down, buzzing, feeling alive for the first time in months.

When he and Theo finally parted ways at five o'clock, Morgan could scarcely believe how the day had unfolded.

At first he was unsure about this new opportunity. Sure Morgan had done some blow in his day, never one to throw a good party off its axis. But he never knew just how high the demand was for product right now, and he never realized just how many poor saps there were sitting in their apartments without a job, without hope, all their joy coming in the form of some fine white powder...or a small black rock.

247.

Morgan had no idea what the stuff did beyond what Theo told him. According to his partner, this stuff, the Darkness, was the most potent and addictive substance to hit the populace since opium. It was cheap, it was strong, and it gave you a rush every single time.

Morgan had no desire to try the stuff. Theo didn't seem to care either. When you had a good thing going, like they did, you didn't gum up the works by losing your head.

At the end of their first day on the job, Morgan and Theo had sold nearly ten thousand dollars' worth of product.

Over a full year, that amounted to well over three million dollars.

And they were just one team out of G.o.d knows how many.

And they were working, according to that Leonard guy, the slow shift.

If all his calculations were correct, and this enterprise had as many teams as Morgan supposed they did--then this was a billion-dollar industry.

To be a part of something like that, with potential for rapid growth, you didn't take any chances.

It was unbelievable to think that Ken Tsang, who was a relatively smart guy as far as Morgan was concerned, would be stupid enough to rat out his partner. At first, when Morgan found out he was dead, there was a fleeting moment of remorse, of sadness. Now, he thought of Ken Tsang like a homeless person you saw on the street.

Nothing more than pity, nothing less than scorn because whatever predicament they were in, it was most certainly of their own doing.

Morgan's tongue tasted nothing, and he laughed, realizing he'd finished his beer several minutes ago.

For the last few months, Morgan Isaacs had spent his 248.

nights on the couch, sitting alone, tipping back beers and watching basketball games with teams he didn't give a rat's a.s.s about. The nights usually did not end until around three o'clock in the morning, when, tired of infomercials and out of snacks, Morgan would pa.s.s out on his sofa, covered in a thin blanket, where he would sleep until the sun woke him up midday.

It was a sad, dreary existence, but Morgan felt to some extent that this was his penance, a punishment for not living up to the promise he'd seen in himself.

How could he be a confident boyfriend--or lover at all--with no income? How could he buy a girl a drink knowing that he was three months behind on his credit card payments? How could he buy his buddies a round when there was a chance the card would be declined?

None of that existed anymore.

Morgan's first paycheck would give him more than financial breathing room. It would give him his life back.

Morgan picked up his cell phone, scrolled through his address book until he found her name. And then Morgan smiled. Svetlana. When in doubt, go with the Russian model.

Svetlana was beautiful and nearly six feet in heels, with jet-black hair, legs that were longer than a New York City lamppost, and a body that would make Putin himself kneel and beg for mercy.

She was a tough one. Her father was a doctor, and he'd been killed recently or something, and Svetlana refused to ever discuss it. Not that Morgan minded; if anything he preferred that they keep their relationship as uncomplicated as possible.

The s.e.x was freaking mind-blowing, and d.a.m.ned if he didn't miss that the most. And now that he could treat her 249.

again like he did in the old days (well, at least he was getting there), he felt that sizzle, that confidence that had been robbed from him all coming back.

He dialed the number and held it to his ear, praying that she wasn't somewhere without service or, G.o.d help him, with another man. If she was, Morgan might just have to kill him.

"Who is this?" the female voice said on the other end.

It wasn't said with any sort of real curiosity, but with anger because she knew exactly who was calling.