Sheryl said, her gaze straight ahead. She spoke as if I
was asking her about her previous employment. And I
noticed she used the past tense— hadn’t. Most people,
when discussing a recent death of a friend or family
member, would slip up, say haven’t as though the
person was still alive. Somehow I got the feeling this
was a day Sheryl Harrison was prepared for.
“Did she ever try to reach out to you?” I asked. “Or
mention friends, associates, anyone?”
“Mr. Parker,” Sheryl said, a hint of annoyance
creeping into her voice. “I answered your question. My
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mother and I were not close. Not even before I left the
city. Yes, she did try to reach out once or twice. I didn’t
return her phone calls.”
“Why not?”
“Perhaps you’re too young to have experienced this,
but when someone hurts you so badly—I’m not talking
about a faulty relationship or bad argument—I’m
talking about hurts you in such a way that decimates
you, your confidence, your life in such a way that the
only chance you have to life is by cutting off a diseased
limb, you don’t care or make an effort to reconnect. If
anything, you stay away from it.”
“What did your mother do to you?” I asked. This
came out less incredulous than expected. If I didn’t
grow up with a father whose mission in life seemed to
be to alienate his family, this kind of revelation from
Sheryl might have taken me aback. Instead, I under
stood, maybe even empathized with her.
“What didn’t she do.” Sheryl sighed.
“When you left,” I asked, “was it one act that drove
you away, or did the camel’s back suddenly give out?”
“A little of both,” Sheryl said. We turned right on
Madison, began to walk uptown, my legs growing sore
with the exertion. I was in good shape, but Sheryl
Harrison looked like she was ready to compete in the
Olympics. “But if there was one thing that I could point
to that destroyed my relationship with my mother,” she
continued, “it was the drugs.”
I stopped for a moment. Sheryl did not stop with me,
so I had to jog back to keep pace.
“Drugs?” I said, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“Well, when I left it was still the crack,” Sheryl said
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with the blank expression of a clinical diagnosis. “I’m
sure there were a few other things mixed in there—
meth, weed—but it was the crack that burned her
humanity from the inside out.”
“She did this while she raised you,” I said.
“I don’t think she was as heavily into it while I was
a child, but by the time I got to high school it was like
coming home to a woman who’d turned into a funhouse mirror.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“I don’t think Jesus smoked crack,” Sheryl said. For
the first time, I heard a lightness in her voice, as though
she was amusing herself. “And all those people who
call you late at night to ask if God has a plan? I tell them
God didn’t have a damn thing for me. He gave me a
treasure map to a pile of dog shit, and I had to clean up
after it myself. Finally I got tired and moved on.”
“How long did your mother do drugs?” I asked. “Was
it something she picked up?” I felt slightly off kilter
with this line of questioning. Growing up, I’d experi
enced many forms of addiction of personal evils, both
in my family, my relationships and my friends. I’d lived
through Jack O’Donnell’s alcoholism. I’d seen first
hand what external poisons could do to a person inter
nally. One thing I’d never been exposed to on a personal
level was a habitual drug user. Yet both of us had left
family behind to free ourselves from their trappings.
“Let’s see…how long did my mother use? My whole
life,” Sheryl said. “You know you can pretty much make
your own crack pipe using household materials. My
dad died when I was a baby. One of my first memories
was seeing all these pretty flowers my mother, Beth,
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used to keep around the house. Pretty flowers inside this
metal tubing. One day I brought one to school, and I got
a belt across the back because of it. Turns out those
little roses you buy at any gas station are actually crack
pipes in disguise. You just take off the foil and remove
the rose, stuff about an inch of Brillo pad into the tubing.
That’s your filter. Take a rock and put it on the Brillo
pad, then run a lighter over it, constantly rolling the
tube between your fingers to make sure the rock burns
easily. Some kids learn how to build sand castles, braid
hair, make macaroni necklaces. I learned how to build
a crack pipe.”
“Do you know if your mother was still smoking it
when she died?”
“I’d be shocked as hell if she wasn’t,” Sheryl said.
“And I remember there were days when my mother
forget to pay her electric bills, and rather than own up,
she’d just go with Helen up to that cabin. Don’t get me
wrong, Henry, in some way I loved my mother. But I
saw her death coming from miles away. It was only a
matter of time before her life ended, and ended badly.
But one thing I do know, that lovely Ms. Helen Gaines?
She was the biggest enabler my mother ever had.”
The words struck me like a punch. Helen Gaines? I
knew Stephen had a habit, but Helen?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Sheryl said. “Based on
where they lived during that time, Alphabet City in the
’80s? Would’ve been a surprise if they didn’t end up
addicts. I mean, I remember this WASPY-looking
young punk always coming by the house to drop off
whatever my mom had ordered. Remember his name
too, Vinnie.”
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“Vinnie?” I said, the surprise in my voice evident.
Rose Keller had said that whenever she needed a new
supply she would call some delivery system where
they’d send over a guy named Vinnie. I had no idea how
many Vinnies there were, but it was clear this system
had been in place over a decade and was likely still in
business today. This wasn’t just some petty drug deal,
but something much larger.
“Take that British singer, Amy Winehouse,” Sheryl
said, “then multiply it by ten and that’s how bad my
mother was. So my guess is this. If my mother was
killed while hiding out with Helen Gaines, I’d bet my
husband’s Infiniti it’s got something to do with drugs.
And Stephen Gaines must have crossed some damn un
pleasant people.”
17
Rose Keller was home. This didn’t quite surprise me—
most graphic designers worked freelance. So I figured
she wasn’t the kind of person who w
oke up to an alarm
clock at six forty-five, got dressed and grabbed a tall
latte on the way to the office. When I called at eight in
the morning, it was no great shock that Rose Keller
sounded like a bear awoken from hibernation.
Actually, she kind of reminded me of what Amanda
sounded like before her first cup of coffee.
One thing I learned early on when talking to sources:
get them early, or get them late. During the day, everyone
was at work. There was always an excuse not to talk. I
hate to say this, but often a source would agree to talk
to you if only to prevent you from ever interrupting their
private time again. Probably the only time I would
compare my profession to that of the noble telemar
keter.
“I need a favor,” I said to Rose. I put the statement
bluntly, accentuating the word need. Not want. Need.
And since she was close to Stephen, and aware that I
was tracking down his killer, she might be more apt to
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accept the rather large, not to mention illegal, favor I
was about to ask of her.
“What can I do?” she replied. Good start.
I filled her in on the details of Beth-Ann Downing’s
murder, and the disappearance of Helen Gaines. I told
her about my conversation with Sheryl Harrison, and the
confession that her mother had maintained a ruthless
addiction her whole life. The silence on the other end told
me that Rose was well aware of why I was coming to her.
When I finished, I asked if I could fill her in in
person. She agreed, and I was on the next subway down
town to meet her.
Before turning on to Rose’s block, I stopped at an
ATM and withdrew two hundred dollars. I had no idea
how much I’d actually need, but I figured better to have
more money and not need it than need more money and
not have it.
When I got to her building, I buzzed up and she rang
me through. She opened the door wearing a tank top and
pajama bottoms. Her eyes were weary, deep bags
settling under them like squished blueberries.
“Morning,” I said.
“Is it morning already?” she asked.
I noticed the shades were all drawn, and there were
no clocks in sight. Half a dozen wrapped candy bars
were strewn around, as well as what looked like a
month’s supply of Red Bull. It looked like the apartment
was stocked and prepared for a bout of hibernation.
“It’s almost 9:00 a.m.,” I said.
“Huh. Didn’t realize it.”
“Listen,” I said. “I have a favor to ask of you. A big
one.”
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“You said that already. What gives?”
“I need you to order something from Vinnie,” I said.
“I want to know who he works for.”
Rose sat back in her overstuffed leather couch. The
confident woman I’d just met looked like she’d just
been swallowed up whole.
“I’ve been clean for a long time,” she said. “I’ve put
that behind me.”
“I don’t want you to use anything,” I said, attempt
ing to clarify things but wondering if that mattered at
all. “All I need is for whoever’s playing Vinnie this
week to come here so I can follow him.”
“So why don’t you call him yourself?”
“They won’t know me,” I said. “They’ll trust you.
I’m willing to bet that whoever these Vinnies work for,
they keep a record of addresses, customers. The runners
might be idiots, but their bosses never are. I intend to
follow this guy, see where he goes, and I don’t want to
chance being recognized. They know you.”
Rose shook her head violently, as though shooing
away demons that were swirling around. A pang of
guilt thudded in my stomach, and I wondered if my onetrack mind in finding Stephen’s killer could hurt others
as well. The last thing I wanted to do was encourage
Rose to relapse, but…I didn’t know where else to turn.
And I needed to know where the stream started. Or at
least needed to find the next level.
“I’ll do it,” Rose said. “But I won’t order anything
stronger than weed, and I won’t pay for a cent of it.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “What’s the smallest amount
you can order?”
“You don’t want the smallest amount, trust me.”
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“Why not?”
“They’ll know my phone number. Let’s just say back
in the day, I never ordered the smallest amount. Not to
mention I haven’t ordered in a long time. If all of a
sudden I call up and ask for one tab of ecstasy, they
won’t believe me. Somebody who comes back to the
stuff after such a long layoff, it’s because they fell off the
wagon. Hard. We want to make the order sound realis
tic. You order a dime bag of schwag, he’ll laugh in your
face and tell you it’s not worth his time. And then he’ll
never take my call again because he’ll assume I’m
turning on him. Cops on stakeouts are cheap. You want
a real delivery, an ounce of decent weed will probably
run you a hundred fifty or so, though I’ve been out of the
game for a while so, you know, inflation and everything.”
“Really? Inflation affects drug sales?”
“We live in the United States, don’t we? You think
people will pay more than four bucks for a gallon of gas
but won’t pony up a Ben Franklin to get high with their
friends?A gallon lasts until the next exit.A good high will
give you stories that’ll last for years—if you can remember
it. I’d go with this—order a quarter ounce of mids. Decent
enough stuff, probably run seventy-five bucks. Enough so
it’s worth the trip for them, but it won’t put a big crimp in
your discretionary fund. That work, champ?”
“Whatever you say. You call and order. When Vinnie
buzzes up, just send a text message to my cell phone. I
won’t respond, but that’s the signal that it’s the right
guy. Then send me one more when he leaves, just to be
sure.” I took out my wallet, peeled off two hundred
dollars and handed it to Rose. “In case it’s more than
you expect. Or you need to, like, tip him.”
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139
“Tip the drug dealer,” she said, laughing. “Right.
I’m sure he’ll take it back to the Dairy Queen and divide
it up among his colleagues. What are you, some kind
of nitwit? Didn’t you smoke in college?”
“Once or twice,” I said, “but I don’t think anyone
ever trusted me to handle the business transactions. I
just assumed you tip people in the service industry.”
“All right,” Rose said. “But after this, no more favors.
I told you everything I know and then some, and now
you have me risking my sobriety for you.”
“It’s not for me,” I said. “It’s for Stephen.”
“Are
you sure?” Rose asked, one eyebrow arched.
“’Cause I’ve been around a lot of users before, every
kind of drug you can imagine. I’ve seen too many
friends die because of the pipe or needle. But not every
addict smokes or drinks or inhales. A lot of them get off
on other things. I see a little bit of that in you, Henry.
You’re a bit of an addict, too.”
I didn’t know how to reply to this, but something
about it didn’t feel good. Rather than respond, I simply
thanked Rose for helping, and went outside.
I was still thinking about what she’d said when I
found a park bench to sit on that afforded me a full view
of her building’s entrance.
Addict. I repeated the word to myself. It was a cool,
sunny day, and if I weren’t tracking a drug dealer I
could envision myself sitting here with Amanda,
watching the families play. Young children growing up
in a city that seemed to offer them brief pockets of
respite, small guarded sanctuaries in between the play
grounds for millionaires.
Addict.
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It was an ugly word, one I never associated with
myself. Yet when Rose said it, I felt an angry fire
burning inside me. I wanted to argue with her, but
somehow felt it would have strengthened her point.
Addict.
I watched the children play and wondered if she was
right.
My eyes stayed fixed to the building entrance. Every
time someone entered—old, young, white, black,
Hispanic—I would place my hand over the pocket
holding my cell phone. It was set to vibrate. Every few
minutes I would take it just to make sure I hadn’t missed
anything. Nothing yet.
An hour and a half passed, when a man wearing a
Yankees hat approached the doorstep. He pulled out a
cell phone, checked it, then went up the steps. He was
young, maybe nineteen or twenty. He wore baggy jeans
and a chain looped around from his belt to his back
pocket where he kept a wallet. And most importantly,
he was carrying a backpack.
As he went to press the buzzer, another man walked
up to the steps. He was wearing a dark suit with slickedback hair and sunglasses. An expensive-looking brief
case was in his hand. He was a few years older than hat
guy, maybe twenty-four or -five, but looked like he
lived in a totally different world. Not to mention bank
account. Funny, I thought, that he was standing there
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