life another go.
She didn’t love Henry Parker anymore. At least not the
Henry she’d met years ago. Not the Henry Parker she used to
kiss behind the stacks in the Cornell library. She loved the
Henry Parker that had been invented by the newspapers and
magazines. The indestructible one who’d survived a three-day
manhunt, only to live and regain his job at the city’s most
prestigious newspaper. Not the Henry Parker who could
barely run without feeling the pain in his side from where the
bone shards punctured his lung. Or the Henry whose heart
beat fast every time he heard a police siren or a car backfire.
That was the Henry that only Amanda knew. And I was happy
she knew it. It felt real. Like it could last forever.
Mya loved the other Henry Parker. But that wasn’t me.
That Henry was a creation, a monster created by ink. I wanted
nothing to do with him.
At the same time, the year Amanda and I had been together
had seen incredible changes. When I’d first met Amanda—
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Jason Pinter
when I’d lied to her to save my skin—she’d been as lost as I
was. Her entire life existed in a trunk full of notebooks she’d
kept since she was a little girl. Notebooks she used to catalog
every single person she met, writing down superficial details,
mirroring the abandonment in her real life.
When she picked me up in her car, thinking I was a student
named Carl Bernstein, Amanda wrote down her thoughts
about that nonexistent man. I wanted her to know life wasn’t
something to be cataloged. With me, she could actually experience it. Soon after she moved in, the notebooks disappeared. One night, after making love, I’d asked about them.
She said she didn’t need a stupid pen and paper anymore. She
said real memories were good enough. And that’s what I
promised to give her. Even if it meant her playing practical
jokes with my ring tone.
I clicked the answer button and waited. I could hear
breathing on the other end. It was the fifth time this month
Mya had called after midnight, in addition to the myriad
calls to my office, always from unlisted numbers or pay
phones. At night, I could chalk it up to her being drunk.
During the day, I didn’t know what to make of it. A week ago
Mya had called at 3:30 a.m. She asked if I’d meet her for a
drink. To talk about stuff. We’d never really had a chance to say
goodbye, she’d said. I told her we did. And still she kept calling.
“Hehlo? Izzis Henry?”
“Yes, Mya,” I whispered, watching to see if Amanda
would wake up.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Why are you at home?”
“I was sleeping.”
“Why are you sleeping?”
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23
“Because I have work tomorrow.” I waited. She said nothing. “Listen, Mya, you need to stop calling me.”
“Oh, stop it,” she said, and I could picture her waving her
hand dismissively. “You’re not sleeping now. It’s early, silly.
Come out for a drink.”
“Mya, there’s no way…”
“Who is that?” I felt Amanda stir, her eyes fluttering open.
“Is someone on the phone?”
“It’s me,” I said softly. “Go back to sleep. It’s Mya again.”
“Again? Does she think you deliver pizza or something?”
Amanda said through a yawn. “Tell her to call Domino’s and
get out of our life.”
I waited a moment until Amanda’s breathing evened.
“Listen, Mya, I’m going back to sleep. Please. Stop calling.”
“I miss you, Henry.” Her voice had changed, choked up. I
closed my eyes. Tried not to think about the last time I’d hung
up on Mya late at night. I couldn’t do it again. She had to
choose to let it go.
“Come on, Mya, I’m with someone else now. You know
that. Please. Hang up the phone. Go back to your friends.”
“I have no friends. Please, Hen. I really want to see you.”
“Good night, Mya. I have to go. You should go.”
“Fine,” she said, and then I heard a dial tone.
I swallowed. Felt Amanda stir. Wished Mya hadn’t gotten
so screwed up after the whole mess last year. Wished she
could be happy.
And then the phone rang again. Amanda bolted upright.
“Don’t bars in this city have a closing time? I swear you
need to get a restraining order. If you answer it you’re sleeping
on the couch.”
“I don’t fit on the couch.”
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Jason Pinter
“Then you get the refrigerator. I have an eight-thirty tomorrow. It’s hard to convince a child that their future is in good
hands if their counsel shows up looking like Morticia Addams.”
I pressed Answer. “Mya, I told you I’m with someone—”
“That’s none of my business or concern, Henry, but if it
makes you feel better Jack asked me to blow you a kiss.”
Crap. It was Wallace Langston, the editor-in-chief of the
New York Gazette. My boss. And he definitely wasn’t calling
because he missed me. Wallace was a good man, had hired
me out of college, but I learned quickly that New York had a
way of chewing up and spitting out its good men. Few
newsmen were more respected, but readers didn’t care much
about professional courtesy. They wanted juice, gossip, and
sadly often the lowest form of both. And that was one thing
Wallace refused to give.
I’d gotten used to late-night calls from the office. Jack
O’Donnell—my colleague and professional idol—was prone
to doing it just for kicks. Like Mya, sometimes late at night
I could smell the Seagrams on his breath through the phone.
Jack worked late. He was unmarried, had no children. He just
needed to hear a friendly voice, I supposed, because there
weren’t many in his life. So I didn’t mind. And thankfully
Amanda slept like wood.
“Wallace, what’s up?”
“I need you at Thirteenth and Eleventh. Right away.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t so we can spend nine bucks on a
beer at one of those clubs in the meatpacking district.”
He ignored me. “Just get in a cab. There’s been a homicide
at some swanky shindig called the Pussy Club, I need you to
cover it. I’d send Jack but he hasn’t set foot in anything but
an Irish pub since the seventies.”
“Pussy Club…you mean the Kitten Club?”
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25
“I mean it’s 2:33 a.m. and if you’re not here in ten minutes,
we’re going to get scooped by the Dispatch, the Observer and
those crummy papers they give away for free on the subway
platforms.”
“Why me? Who’s on night shift?”
“You’re the only guy who’s even remotely young enough
to even understand this stuff. Now get dressed.”
“What stuff? I don’t follow.”
“Athena Paradis was shot to death this morning. Looks like
it might have been some sort of execution. Single shot, from
familiar with her, er, résumé than Jack is.”
I was stunned. Athena Paradis. The world’s most famous
socialite. Famous for, well, something. She averaged three
page ones a month at the Dispatch. Wallace refused to give
her that kind of coverage unless she cured AIDS or something. But murder changed all that, I guess.
“On my way,” I said.
“I was never a fan of hers,” Wallace said, offering more information than he needed to. “But the way it looks down
there…she didn’t deserve what this monster did.”
3
The New York night was muggy. Even at two-thirty in the
morning, when the sun, like most of the city, is hibernating
and waiting for the start of a new day, something kept the air
thick. It was early May, and humidity already choked the
streets. Late night revelers all wore shirts soaked through
with sweat, foreheads shiny, content for the sun to never show
its face again.
My cab slowed down and then stopped as we approached
a tangled mess. I could see flashing lights nearly three blocks
away. Kids lining the streets with worried looks. It took a lot
to ruin a good night. I could only imagine what had happened
here.
I walked the last few blocks to Thirteenth, wading through
honking cars and loaded partiers screaming on cell phones. I
couldn’t help but hear the panicked voices.
“Man, there was blood everywhere. I was right near her,
man!”
“She…they think she’s dead. Oh God, does that mean her
album won’t come out on time?”
I saw Wallace Langston talking to a cop and jotting down
some notes on a spiral pad. Wallace didn’t get out of bed for
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27
many stories. He left that to his city desk. But this wasn’t just
New York front-page news, this was a national headline. The
kind of tawdry story that Paulina Cole and the Dispatch would
be sopping up with a biscuit and squeezing dry.
I hadn’t seen Paulina Cole in months, and I prayed she
wasn’t here tonight. I didn’t need any distractions. Paulina
Cole had once been a top reporter at the Gazette but left after
penning a series of controversial yet shockingly popular
articles where she insinuated that my murder accusation was
merely the next story in a succession of young journalists
whose names always ended up in brighter lights than their
stories. Didn’t matter that my murder rap was bogus. The
articles enabled Paulina to jump to the New York Dispatch,
the Gazette’ s biggest rival. She got more money, more perks,
and of course the chance to hoist her name among brighter
lights.
Covering Athena Paradis’s murder would be tricky. If we
played catch-up to Paulina and the Dispatch’s muckraking,
they would dig a grave and bury us in a pile of our own moral
righteousness.
Above the Kitten Club was perched a gigantic neon sign
in the shape of a kitten. And not just any run-of-the-mill
kitten, the kind of kitten that apparently wore a halter top and
stockings and every few seconds tipped back some sort of
pink cocktail that probably cost more than my pants and contained less alcohol than a glass of seltzer. Appearances. Atmosphere. That’s what Kitten Club patrons came for. And last
night they got it. In the form of Athena Paradis, world-famous
socialite, erstwhile fashion model, nubile actress, soon-to-be
recording artist, and, depending on who you asked, either
your personal hero or the bane of your existence.
I had nothing against Athena personally, but a few weeks
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Jason Pinter
ago a colleague forwarded me a leaked demo of her first
single. Not even three straight hours of Bruce and Dylan
could rinse that stain off.
You’d think my generation would have more to offer. I’d
like to say they do, but lying to yourself is pretty pathetic.
Within hours all those people soundly sleeping in their
beds would wake up to find out that one of the most famous
women on the planet had been murdered. That the suspect
was still at large. That there would be a city-wide manhunt
that would put all other investigations—including my own—
to shame. Not to mention the resources that Athena’s father—
Costas Paradis—would likely contribute. Bottom line, if your
finger pulled the trigger, you were a marked man. But as
soon as the killer fired that round, the reverberations created
a news story. It was my job to see all the ripples.
Problem is, New York is a city eight million strong. If you
want to disappear—and don’t have a pile of mush instead of
brains—you could disappear. Hundreds of crimes and dozens
of murders went unsolved every year. All this guy did was raise
the stakes. Raised them to a level that would scare off pretty
much anyone without a death wish, but raised nonetheless.
I saw Wallace, approached him. The editor-in-chief of the
New York Gazette was a tall, slender man. He wore a neatly
trimmed brown beard flecked with gray, and though his
stature was hardly imposing, his intelligence shone through.
He wore a light jacket, hands tucked into the pockets. Wallace
and I acknowledged each other with a brief nod, then turned
back to the scene.
A line of police tape had cordoned off a thirty-foot radius
around the spot where Athena’s body had fallen. Even against
the dark red of the carpet, I could make out a darker, more
gruesome shade. The body had been removed from the scene,
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29
but forensics had taped off the angle at which her body had
fallen. Several areas were marked with flags, presumably for
ballistics and blood spatter experts. Some of the spatter
appeared to be as far as ten feet from where Athena had fallen.
Only a high-caliber slug could cause that much damage. I saw
a flag on the carpet, in front of a piece of chipped pavement.
Quite possibly where the bullet had lodged after exiting
Athena’s skull.
The other bars in the district had been emptied out by the
cops. The music had been turned off. The only sounds were
the sirens and the cops, but the fear was louder than all of it.
“Warm out tonight,” I said. Wallace nodded, wiped his
forehead with a handkerchief as though reminded to.
“Gunman shot Athena from a distance. Goddamn sick
coward.”
“Just what I was thinking,” I said. I looked around. “Guy
would have been noticed on the street,” I said. Wallace lifted
his head, looked at the rooftops, didn’t need to say more.
“How do you shoot a woman like that?” Wallace said, to
nobody. “Disgusting, that’s what it is.”
“Athena wasn’t just a woman,” I said. “You get that
famous, you become bigger than yourself. Become an ideologue or something.” Wallace looked at me, knew we were
both thinking about what happened to me last year. When
> people thought I’d murdered a cop, I was no longer Henry
Parker. I stood for something evil. And even when I was vindicated, the stench lingered. Athena lived in that spotlight
every day of her life.
Police were questioning several young men and women
who were sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against an ambulance. They looked visibly shaken. Eyes red, heads down.
Confidence sucked out of them. Several were crying. I
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Jason Pinter
wondered whether they were crying due to the horror they’d
just witnessed, or because the world had been robbed of
Athena Paradis.
“Cops aren’t going to get anything from witnesses who were
inside the club,” I said. “Figure at least fifty paparazzi outside,
all those strobe lights, every single eye was focused on her.”
“How can you be so sure?” Wallace asked.
“’Cause mine would be. You tell yourself you could care
less about celebrities like Athena Paradis, but it’s damn hard
to turn away. And this was her scene.”
I thought of Mya. Wondered if she was near here when she
called. I hoped she’d made it home safe. I debated calling her
just to be sure.
“This is page one,” I said to Wallace.
“We’re too late for the print edition,” he said. “I want your
copy on the Gazette website in an hour. And I want updates by
the time Al Roker is smiling his way through the weather report.”
“Awful generous deadline of you.”
Wallace looked at me. “We mishandle this story in any
way, the Dispatch will cannibalize our circulation rate and
spend all winter bragging about its superior reporting.”
“They couldn’t report their way out of the 6 train,” I said,
expecting a laugh, but receiving none.
“Doesn’t matter,” Wallace said softly. “Story like this, it’s all
about how sensational you can make it. Who runs the cover
photo of Athena in the most revealing dress. Gets the best quotes
from her exes. Finds the most salacious angle to play up, even
if it turns out to be bogus later on. You know Paulina will be all
over this.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“You know the sign I keep by the elevators to all our news
divisions, right?” I nodded. The sign Wallace was referring
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31
to was simply titled The Three Types of Reporters. It was a
piece of paper containing four short, handwritten sentences.
Some reporters are always one step behind.
The Guilty (2008) Page 2
