Parker 04 - The Fury (31 page)

up as I listened, a surge within me as a ray of hope

appeared.

"Henry, it's Wallace. I have those files you wanted.

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257

Let me know how you want to get them. Call me. Hope

you're okay."

I immediately called him back, Wallace's office

picking up on the first ring. His secretary connected me.

It was great to hear the editor in chief's voice.

"Henry, how are you?" he said. "I was beginning to

worry."

"About me? Why?"

"If you've given me one reason not to worry about

your safety in the time we've known each other, I'm not

aware of it."

"I'll try harder."

"So I have Jack's files," he said. "Of course, there could

be more at his home, but this is everything he kept at the

office pertaining to
Through the Darkness.
They'll be here

waiting for you. They're in my office for the time being."

"Wallace, you're a lifesaver. With any luck this will

shed some light on this Fury thing and help get my dad

out. And when it's all over, I think there might be a hell

of a story."

"I was hoping you might say that," Wallace said,

"And frankly, if there wasn't, we'd need to have a

serious chat about all this 'personal time' you've been

taking. So in case I'm not here, I'll make sure you have

access to my office."

"You know," I said, "is there any chance you could

have them messengered over?"

"Why?" Wallace asked.

"Something happened last night, let's just say I need

to stay out of sight for a little while."

"What the hell did you do, Henry?" I could sense the

frustration in his voice.

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Jason Pinter

"Nothing. Really. It should all blow over soon."

"Spoken like someone who has no idea what he's in

for."

"Please, Wallace," I said.

"Fine," he sighed. "I think I have your address some

where in my Rolodex here..."

"Actually, I need them sent to a different address."

"Okay, where to?"

"It's on the notepad here, one sec."

"On the notepad?" Wallace asked. "Where the hell

are you, a bar?"

"Not exactly. But on that note, there's one more

thing...if this does lead to a story, I might need to talk

to you about extending my expense account for a few

days. Oh, and I'm staying under the name Leonard

Denton."

"Henry," Wallace said, "what the hell have you

gotten yourself into?"

I had an hour before the files were to arrive, so I went

downstairs and found a deli where I bought a bagel

with cream cheese and a bran muffin with two large

coffees for breakfast. I could almost feel Wallace's hair

turn a deeper shade of gray when I told him where we

were staying, but there was a chance if a story came out

of all of this that the
Gazette
would pick up the tab.

Since I might have to resort to selling locks of my hair

if the charges remained on my credit card, I hoped for

my sake and theirs that one would emerge.

When I got back to the room, Amanda had showered

and was wearing a pair of jeans and a tank top. She was

sitting out on the balcony, the breeze whipping through

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259

her hair, a glass of water on the edge of the lounge

chair.

She turned her head to look at me, smiled.

"This is kind of nice," she said. "Maybe we should

move in here."

"I'll go buy some lottery tickets."

"Sit down," she said. "Stay a while."

We ate on the balcony, the skyscrapers of Times

Square surrounding us. When the coffee was done, I

went inside and brewed another pot from the instant

machine and we had seconds. It might have been the

greatest breakfast I ever had.

When we finished, the phone rang from inside. I

picked it up. It was the front desk. A package had arrived

for me.

I went downstairs and signed for the package, a large,

bulky padded folder with Wallace's messy handwriting.

A minor miracle it didn't end up somewhere in Antigua.

I brought the package upstairs, cleaned off the bed

spread and laid out all the papers in front of me. There

were reams of pages, half a dozen thick notebooks filled

to the brim. This is what Jack had worked with while

writing one of the seminal books of his generation on

crime. Just looking at these old pages brought a smile

to my face and courage to my heart.

And with those in mind, I began to read.

Amanda stayed in the living room, watching something

on television at a low volume. I was perched on the bed

amidst a mess of files, trying my best to keep them in order.

From the smell of the pages I could sense that nobody had

gone through them in some time. No need to, until now.

I knew that wherever he was, Jack would approve.

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Jason Pinter

The amount of research and notes Jack took was

staggering.
Through the Darkness
was forty-two

chapters long, and these pages only touched on twelve

of them. Jack had transcriptions of interviews with

dozens of people, from street dealers to middlemen, to

cops and politicians, to local residents who'd witnessed

their streets regress from thriving neighborhoods into

third world countries.

He'd looked at this story from every angle. And I

would have killed to be able to discuss it with him.

Some of the statistics Jack had uncovered were stag

gering, and in the years since the book was published

they could have only grown more bleak.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, over

four
million
people in the United States had used crack

cocaine at some point in their life, including nearly five

percent of all high-school students. The drug was used

primarily by men over the age of twenty-five. The

typical user was African-American, aged twenty-eight,

with an income at or below the poverty line.

The main reason, Jack had written, that crack cocaine

had become so prevalent was due to its relative cheap

ness to manufacture, as well as the immediate high it

produced. An eight ball, or an eighth of an ounce of rock,

cost about thirty dollars depending on where it was pur

chased.

According to Jack's interviews, a surprising number

of people would actually cook the mixture themselves

rather than buy it ready-made, simply due to monetary

concerns. It was cheaper to be your own chemist than

go to the store. It was carried and sold in everything

from glass vials to cellophane to tinfoil, even the rolls

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261

people generally used for coins. It was most predomi

nant in larger cities with more densely populated urban

areas, such as Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore and

Chicago.

It was also surprising to note that in interviews with

nearly twenty dealers, Jack was unable to find one

person who actually used the drug.

Flipping through the pages, I came upon an interview

with Butch Willingham that Jack had apparently con

ducted just weeks before Willingham was killed. Wil

lingham denied ever using the drug, and in fact said that

anyone who did was frowned upon. Jack had pressed

in the interview:

BW: People who smoke don't do their jobs. They

sit around all day acting stupid. They ain't out

there making money. They ain't out there selling

product. This a business, man. Isn't one of the first

rules of business to always get rid of the bottom

ten percent?

JO: I've heard that before:

BW: See, in our line of work, that's more like

twenty-five percent. Figure ten percent get stoned,

take themselves out of the game. Another ten per

cent get busted.

JO: And the other five percent?

BW: They gots ta be made gone. I been around

the country, man. Lived in L.A. and Baltimore be

fore coming to NYC. Got family and friends

everywhere. Cities change but things ain't that

different. Don't matter where you are or where

you work. If you sell, you gotta sell right.

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Jason Pinter

JO: Butch, you said if someone doesn't sell

right, they have to be "made gone." What do

you mean by that?

BW: I mean, if you run a business, and some

one's screwing up the bottom line, what do you

do with them?

JO: Somehow I don't think you're talking about

early retirement, a pension plan.

BW: You might call it an early retirement.

JO: So if someone needs to be "taken out," where

does that come from?

BW: Come again?

JO: Who decides that bottom five percent? Who

makes the final call which people, pardon the ex

pression, live or die?

BW: Don't know, man. Ain't up to me, that's for

sure.

JO: But surely you don't work for yourself. There

are other people higher than you, I guess you

might call them the board or something along

those lines.

BW: Always report to the crew leader (Note: Wil

lingham refused to identify his crew leader's

name, but it was confirmed by several subjects to

be a man named Marvin Barnett, age thirty-one),

and I know he don't take home every penny that

come into his hand.

JO: So where does the rest go?

BW: I don't know that. Don't know about no

"board" neither. Heard rumors about one dude

who runs the whole show, but not like anyone's

ever seen him, so it's probably bullshit.

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263

JO: So where do you see yourself in five years?

The main man?

BW: Hell no, man. The main man got too many

problems. There's a reason it's called the crown

of thorns. You only sit at the top for so long be

fore someone decides he don't like your way of

doing business. Guys in my spot, as long as we

keep our head down and keep selling, we be all

right. Might not make as much money as the big

man, but I'll be alive a lot longer.

I read the interview again. It wasn't much, but even

then Willingham seemed to think there was some higher

power, some authority figure running the show. The

strange thing is that Butch seemed adamant about not

doing drugs, about respecting the hierarchy of which he

was a part. I wondered if there was a chance Willingham was killed over the book, but the book came out

long after Butch was killed.

In addition, most of the numerous references to

dealers were protected by fake names, monikers used

to protect them in case their employers sought retribu

tion along the lines that Butch had received. From

Jack's perspective, he probably figured he didn't need

to protect Butch Willingham's name since the man was

already dead.

I found it to be a little too much of a coincidence that

just weeks after this interview, the man was found dead

with the words
The Fury
scrawled in his own blood. It

didn't seem like Butch would have overstepped his

bounds, but I couldn't be sure. Dealing wasn't exactly

the most legitimate enterprise, so it was entirely

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Jason Pinter

possible he was blowing smoke up Jack's ass just to

make himself sound like a good soldier.

Regardless, something had happened in those weeks

between the interview and Butch's death. He'd done or

seen something that required him being "made gone."

Looking back through the interview, I noticed this

line of questioning:

JO: How do you come to grips knowing that the

product you sell will be used by children?

BW: That ain't on me. I got a son, and I raise that

boy right. Clarence gonna be fifteen next month.

He knows if I ever see him lift a pipe or a needle,

he's gonna feel a pain a lot worse than what those

drugs can do to him. Grown-ups make their own

decisions. I ain't got no sympathy for a grown

man who uses. But a child, that's on the parent.

If you can't raise your boy or girl right, and they

end up sucking on a pipe, well, then, that's on the

parents. There's a manhole in my street. City ain't

never bothered to fix it. But I know it's there and

step around that sucker. Someone else falls in? It's

their own damn fault for being stupid.

Butch Willingham had a son. Clarence. It was a long

shot, but there was a chance.

Using my cell phone, I went to 411.com and plugged

in the name Clarence Willingham. Two matches came

back; one living in Crown Heights, the other by Mor

ningside Park on 107th Street.

I called the first number. A man picked up.

"Yeah?"

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265

"Hi...is this Clarence Willingham?"

"Um, no," the man said, sounding irritated. "This

was
Clarence Willingham."

"Excuse me?"

"My name is Clarence Savoy now. Just got married

last month."

"You...married...oh, I get it. Was your father Butch