Marked Man (3 page)

From the driver’s side a door opened and a bulky man wearing a black leather jacket emerged. Moving gingerly, he slid out of the seat and stood on the pavement. He had long gray hair tied back in a ponytail and his gut sagged over his belt. A glittering gold chain hung from around his neck. The man reached into his jacket and produced a flip phone. As he approached the station wagon, Jordan thought
that he looked how Kenny Rogers might look if he permanently relocated to Las Vegas, shaved his beard clean off and completely let himself go.

“
Vladimir, allez-vous
?”

The fat man was speaking French into the cell phone.
Jordan spoke several languages fluently as part of his qualification for the Special Forces, but unfortunately French was not one of them. The Escalade driver didn’t look French though. Even two hundred years after Napoleon, many Russians and Slavs still spoke the emperor’s language.

Fat Slavic Kenny Rogers continued talking, waddling over to Jordan, who tried to call for help but nothing came out of his mouth. Jordan wanted to swing his arm up and get the guy’s attention but his arm refused to obey. It was drooping limp, the hand resting awkwardly on the overturned roof. Jordan listened close but he could only make out words here and there, not enough to understand the conversation, at least not with only half of it to go on.

Bending over and wheezing, the big man looked into the station wagon. Jordan had no other way to communicate, so he blinked twice so that the stranger on the cell phone could see that he was still alive and conscious. He instantly regretted that decision.

Big Slavic Kenny pulled a nine millimeter out of a shoulder holster and pointed the weapon at Jordan’s face.

“
Un seul le male.”

Jordan’s instincts were to grab for
his old service sidearm in the glove compartment but he could not move, could not speak and could not protest in any way. The best defense Jordan could muster was to close his eyes and gnash his teeth, waiting for the awful pop that would turn everything to black.

“
Êtes-vous sûr? Ok je vais.”

The pop never came. Jordan waited ten seconds and then opened his eyes. The big fat lumbering man was walking over to the curb. He got down on his knees and tossed both the cell phone and the nine millimeter weapon into a storm drain. Then he got up to one knee, dusted his hands off, and headed back over to the wounded Escalade.

Inside the vehicle somewhere he found a bottle of Stolichnaya. He tipped back the bottle and took a few hard gulps, after which he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. Jordan cringed on reflex. He used to do the same, but Sarah found the habit so revolting that she had purged it from him after just a couple of weeks living together. Sarah. Something was wrong with Sarah, Jordan realized. She had not made a sound. Jordan said her name but the word died on his lips and he could not move to check on her.

The portly frog talker in
the wide-waist slacks poured the Stoli all over the cab of the SUV. He doused the wheel, the driver’s seat, the dash, everything. When he was through he lit a cigarette. Jordan could not be sure but it looked like he winked right at him. Big Kenny smoked the cigarette down to the filter, put the cherry out on his tongue then tossed the butt.

This guy is completely mental
, Jordan thought to himself.

Sirens echoed in the distance. Flashing red and blue lights started coloring the scene.
The man walked towards the lights yelling, his arms wide and carrying the half empty Stoli bottle in one hand. After a couple of moments he stepped out of Jordan’s line of sight and he could only listen.

“Hey! Officer!
Dank God you are here I von to press charges.”

Jordan heard a car door open and slam shut. Another voice answered the sloppy Slav.

“Calm down sir. Could you put the vodka down and tell me what happened?”

“Dis man! Dis driver he is maniac. He collides
vis me out of blue and look vat he does to my Cadillac. I press charges. You must help.”

If Jordan could have said anything he would have called him a god damned liar
, although to be fair Jordan could not exactly recall how the accident happened. But he had not been at fault; that much he knew. The other voice seemed to belong to a cop, who said something into his radio and then addressed the big Slavic drunk.

“Sir. I need you to put down the vodka.”

“It is not mine the vodka. And is not important. Vat are you going to do about maniac in station wagon?”

The two of them may have been scuffling. Grunting, the police officer commanded the man to get on his knees and place his hands behind his back. Jordan heard a pair of handcuffs click locked. The officer directed big fat Kenny to stay put while he went to examine the other car.

“Hello? NYPD. Is everybody ok in there?”

Around the fender the cop came wandering. He looked young an
d fresh-faced, and the uniform still fit him well. Over his heart there was a name-tag that read Richardson.

“Sir? Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

Jordan blinked once, hoping Officer Richardson would get the idea. He tried to shift his eyes to demonstrate that the big drunken handcuffed jerk could not be trusted, but that was too ambitious.

“Hey buddy can you say anything?”

Jordan did not blink.

“Is anyone else in there with you?”

Jordan blinked twice.

Officer Richardson
leaned over and shined a flashlight into the car. With a slow, uncertain sweep, he directed the light towards the back seat. His face dropped. Jordan blinked furiously, trying to ask what was wrong.

“Oh buddy.”

When the paramedics arrived they used the Jaws of Life to free Jordan from the wreck. They put him on a gurney, put the gurney in an ambulance, and drove him to the Woodhull Medical Center on Broadway. One hospital was pretty much the same as the next, as far as the way they look. But Woodhull happened to be the emergency room he took Sarah too the morning she went into labor with Emma. Jordan would remember the acoustic tiling on the ceiling for the rest of his life because he stared at it for hours, anxiously waiting for any news on how the delivery was going. Sarah’s contractions were so slow that after nine hours they decided to induce. Emma came out perfectly fine, eight pounds and five ounces of bright shiny red beauty.

One of the first things the nurses did with Jordan was to hook him up to a morphine drip. Jordan grew fond of the button in no time, enjoying the warm wave of euphoria
that accompanied each click.

It was a busy night
for Brooklyn emergency rooms, as so many full moons are. Woodhull was close to capacity, and the staff looked haggard and tight around the temples. Several times a Filipino nurse pulled the curtain aside that was hanging around Jordan’s gurney and apologized for the long wait. Eventually a doctor figured out that Jordan could understand and communicate through blinking. After wheeling him out of the X-ray room, he showed him the slides and explained the situation.

“Mister
Ross can you hear me? Blink twice if you can understand.”

Jordan obliged.

“Ok Mister Ross. The bad news is that you were in a very serious car accident, as I’m sure you’re aware. You are aware of that, correct?”

Jordan blinked once.

“Alright. Your arm is broken, you sustained several deep cuts from the crash and lost a fair amount of blood but with a few transfusions you’ll be just fine. You also appear to have suffered a concussion which might result in some temporary memory loss. You do know what a concussion is? Blink three times if so.”

Jordan blinked three times and wanted to scream for the doctor to get on with it already.

“Also there may be a spinal bruise, which would explain why you’re unable to move or have full power of speech, but the X-Ray shows no structural damage so that should clear up in a few days. But you will have to take it easy for a few weeks, so no flag football. Blink once for me if you’re not going to play flag football.”

Jordan blinked once. The doctor sighed and started clicking a pen against his clipboard.

“Ok so there’s just one more thing. Uh. I’m not really sure how to. This is very difficult. There’s the matter of the other passengers in your vehicle, Mr. Ross. I’m afraid that uh, they weren’t as fortunate as you. The impact. Uh. I’m terribly sorry Mr. Ross. I’m afraid that they did not make it. We did our best to revive them but by the time the ambulances arrived… I’m uh. I’m very sorry. Do you understand what’s happened? I understand how hard this must be, but. Your wife and your daughter have passed on. Can you blink once for me if you understand?”

Jordan stared at the doctor for a long time, but he did not blink.

Chapter Two

For the first few days Jordan Ross showed up at physical therapy
for treating his broken arm. He did the exercises but was gloomy and bitter, sometimes demonstrating a short fuse. When he stopped coming to the sessions his trainer did not go out of her way to bring him back. It wasn’t a bad break in any case and would heal on its own in time. He preferred to pass his recovery time alone, in the dark.

Jordan got so exhausted and annoyed with neighbors coming by to offer their condolences that he drew the curtains and unplugged the answering machine. When the phone rang he let it ring. Knocks on the door went unanswered. Mail and magazines piled up on the porch. Dog poop accumulated on the front lawn, a slight Jordan would never have allowed under normal circumstances. He had chased a hipster and his Beagle off once for not picking up the mess. Now not even the sight of seven
tightly coiled mounds of dog crap could get him off of the chair.

One day after flipping through 190 channels and not finding a single thing worth watching, Jordan decided to get out for some fresh air. Wearing sunglasses and an old army jacket, he opened the front door and glanced both ways to make sure nobody would come rushing at him to say how sorry they were, and ask if he needed any help around the house. Once he was sure the coast was clear he locked up and ambled down the stairs. It was chilly, light flakes of snow falling here and there and evaporating before anything could pile up. Jordan hugged the jacket closer and walked with his head down to the corner liquor store a few blocks away.

The owner of the store was Dominick, a cranky but charming Italian guy who had not seen Jordan in years.

“Jordan how you been? Long time no see uh?”

“Yeah long time.”

“How’s the uh…”

Dominick seemed to be on the verge of asking about Jordan’s family but he caught himself. Jordan wanted to thank him for his discretion but that would have only drawn more attention to how awkward it was. More than anything else these days, Jordan Ross simply wanted to become invisible and thus escape the stares that seemed to follow him wherever he went.

Rummaging through the cheaper whiskeys Dominick kept in stock, Jordan found his old favorite bourbon, Zachariah Harris. He bought a half pint and started sipping from it before he even got back to the house. The next day at around the same time Jordan went back to Dominick’s place and bought another half pint of the same stuff, the day after that he bought a whole pint.

Since leaving the hospital he noticed that his attention span had shrunk. One of the doctors told him that was to be expected given the concussion he suffered in the wreck. In the dark interior of the living room, Jordan passed the day drinking and staring at the television, but not really watching anything. He removed all of the items in the house that reminded him of his wife, including all the framed photographs and the furniture they had picked out together. There wasn’t much left over after the purge.

Bills started piling up along with the newspapers and letters from distant relatives who heard the news. Jordan Ross was retired
prematurely, and his veteran’s benefits weren’t enough to cover the mortgage. Sarah had been carrying the load with her generous salary courtesy of the foundation. A woman who called herself Joanne Keeler kept leaving messages. She worked in the same office with Sarah and had some personal affects to return to her loved ones. Every other day for weeks she left the same message. He ignored those calls, and the ones from the collection agencies. Two days after receiving a threatening letter from the bank, Jordan heard a knock at the front door. He was of a mind to cuss out whoever they’d sent and throw it in their faces, so he stomped to the door and swung it open aggressively.

“Who are you?”

A tall, slim woman in a gray overcoat was glancing him over, as if she was appraising Jordan somehow.

“Jordan Ross?”

“Incorrect. That’s my name, so it can’t be yours too, unless this is a hell of a coincidence.”

The woman laughed. Her voice sounded jaded by years of smoking and too much time spent with people living on the other side of the tracks. Jordan assumed she was a cop.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Detective Leslie Bollier with the NYPD…” She showed him her badge. “…do you mind if I come in and chat for a couple of minutes?”

Jordan wasn’t in the mood for guests but something told him to let her in, and he appreciated the fact that she didn’t bring up his dead wife and daughter first thing like
everyone else had. He ushered her in and offered her a cup of tea or a tumbler of bourbon. Bollier surprised him again by choosing the whiskey, which she took neat, no ice or mixers. They clinked their glasses together and drank in silence. Her eyes swept over him again a couple of times, probing for some kind of information.

“Do you always stare at everybody like this detective?”

“Sorry it’s just a habit. Cops eyes we call it. Everyone feels like when we’re looking at them that they did something wrong.”

“Have I?”

Bollier smirked and took a long, slow pull from the bourbon.

“Not yet as far as I can tell.”

Bollier drank the last of hers and refused another one. She let Jordan finish his before she got down to business.

“So I want to talk to you about the night of the accident. I don’t know if you remember but I came to see you in the ER a little while after you were admitted. Yo
u were too doped up and traumatized to make a whole lot of sense.”

“Can’t say I remember. How can I help you?”

“I was hoping that maybe over time some of your memory came back. Concussions are tricky I know. My brother played a lot of football back in high school and then in college at Seaton Hall. He would be dazed for a few weeks but eventually he came out of it. Usually.”

Remembering the events of that night was not a place that Jordan Ross particularly cared to go. A dozen times since he’d closed his eyes and tried to put himself back in the station wagon right before they were hit, but he always failed, maybe because he wanted too. Even though he
doubted it would do any good, he gave it a shot for the detective.

“Yeah. I’m afraid there’s no
thing new.”

Bollier deflated a little bit but she nodded and said she understood.

“I figured as much. Aksakov is going to trial next month and we’re looking for witnesses. I was hoping that maybe…”

Without a reliably memory of the events to go on, Jordan had to be filled in on the details by his lawyers. That night a man named Anton
Aksakov was going on a joy ride around Brooklyn, driving with a bottle of Stoli in his lap and blasting the radio at full volume. He was going 85 miles per hour when his Cadillac Escalade rammed into the station wagon. The first police officer on the scene said he was so drunk that he actually wanted to press charges based on the damage to his vehicle. Jordan shook his head.

“Sorry to disappoint you. I’ll testify of course but I honestly don’t know how much help I can be.”

Bollier thanked him for his time and stood up to leave. On the way out she paused at a photo hanging in the vestibule, one of the few Jordan had not touched. Next to an armored tank Jordan was posing with a group of his buddies from Charlie Company. Silly Lasko and Williams, Giacomini, and crazy Redman. The detective looked over the picture in some detail.

“You were at Fallujah.”

It was a statement of fact, not a question. Jordan took the picture off the wall and held it at an angle so Bollier could read the inscription better.

“That I was.”

Bollier did the once over probing eyes thing again. When she was through it looked like she had discovered a newfound respect for him. “Thanks for your service Mr. Ross, and for the bourbon.” She shook his hand firmly and went out the door. Jordan watched her go.

Lingering on the last step, the detective turned around.

“One last question if you don’t mind Mr. Ross.”

“Shoot.”

“How much do you know about your wife’s work at the foundation?”

Jordan shrugged.

“Not a whole lot. Helped immigrants out, got them green cards and stuff like that.”

The detective appeared to be mulling over something. She opened her lips to speak but then seemingly changed her mind and shook her head. Bollier said thanks again and
got into a Ford Taurus with special edition NYPD plates and drove away.

Not long after the trial for Anton
Askokov got under way. Jordan pulled himself away from his drinking long enough to sit in the court room gallery, stewing in the same suit he married Sarah in. It was the only one he owned and he was frankly amazed that it still fit. In their opening argument, the prosecutors laid out the scenario. The day of the accident Askokov went on an epic bender, celebrating a win for his favorite soccer club back in his homeland in the Ukraine. Witnesses had seen him at a bar in Williamsburg earlier in the day, downing shots of cheap vodka like water. When the final buzzer sounded he became animated. He wanted to buy shots for everybody at the bar and when nobody took him up on the offer he turned belligerent and had to be expelled. At home Askokov ate a half a plate of microwaved lasagna and then got into a shouting match with his wife. He left shortly after and took his new Cadillac Escalade out for a joy ride, drinking and singing all the while. Just after 11:04 PM he blazed through the intersection at Bedford and Foster and collided with the Ross family vehicle, which overturned four times before coming to a stop. Sarah Ross, 34, and Emma Ross, five, were killed instantly by the force of the crash. The only survivor in the vehicle was Jordan Ross, a decorated veteran of the armed forces who survived a horrible ordeal in Iraq only to come home to a new terror, a drunken lunatic who had showed reckless disregard for anyone on the road that night, a dangerous madman whose own wife had agreed to testify against him. Once he was through summarizing the damage that Anton Askokov had caused, the prosecutor asked the jurors to look at Jordan and see a man whose life had been stripped away from him, and to please remember that when they made their decision.

The defense took great offense to that last ploy and
Askokov’s lawyer shouted until he was red in the face. Stoically, the judge banged his gavel and instructed the court reporter to strike the prosecutor’s last remark from the record then he asked the jury to try to forget the flagrant appeal to their emotions.

Although Jordan didn’t enjoy being thrust up as a symbol of sad hopelessness,
Jordan admired the prosecutor’s decision. He had to know that the judge would sustain the defense’s inevitable objection but the point had been made. Try as they might to be rational, the jury would be thinking of Jordan when the time came to render a verdict.

At the conclusion of the first day of the trial Jordan was filing out of the court room along with everyone else when a strawberry blonde woman accosted him.

“Jordan Ross! Jordan Ross? Hi! How are you? My name is Joanne Keeler. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Of course, Ms. Keeler. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. We may have met before. I’m still having this memory loss thing, pain in the ass.”

How could he not have recognized that voice? At least she had filled up his voicemail so much that there was no room left for anyone else to leave insipid sorry-for-your-loss messages.

“I’m certain it’s been very difficult and I am sorry for your loss. Truly. Listen, I have some things of Sarah’s at the office. As you know she practically lived at the foundation in D.C. during the week, so there is quite a bit of material. Is there any chance you or someone you know could swing by and pick them up?”

Something about this Keeler woman rubbed him in the worst possible way. Had he been his customary sulky drunk self, Jordan might have said some ugly things and frightened her off for good. But Jordan was in a relatively pleasant mood at the way the first day had played out. Jordan decided to make Keeler uncomfortable but not be too vicious about it.

“Right
right. The personal affects. I had totally forgotten. I’ve just been so busy lately, what with my physical therapy, and burying my wife and my five year old child and everything, it must have slipped my mind. Tell you what. I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon to get everything. Does that work for your schedule?”

Joanne Keeler
looked like she wanted to curl up into a snail’s shell and hide until judgment day.

“I’m um. Yes. That would be fine, I’m sorry. It’s no trouble really. There’s no hurry.”

“Not at all. As soon as the proceedings here are done tomorrow I’ll drop by.”

Jordan flashed a smile that showed all of his teeth but never reached his eyes. Looking contrite, the woman shuffled away quickly with her head bowed. When he went to visit Dominick’s liquor store after he got home Jordan bought two pints of bourbon instead of his usual one. He got through a pint and a half then passed out with his mouth hanging open, the television still chattering away.

For breakfast Jordan had twelve aspirin and four eggs to relieve his hangover then he drove his new Pontiac to the district court house to watch from the gallery again. The prosecutors called Askakov’s neighbors in as character witnesses; he was a genuine class act by all accounts. When Anton’s wife took the stand, she ranted about his drinking, his slovenliness, and to the delight of the crowd, his impotence. Jordan heard himself chuckling for the first time since the accident. He testified about his own injuries and ongoing difficulties as a result of the accident. He would have liked to do more but given the amnesia anything from that night would be inadmissible at best. Askakov had pled guilty to vehicular manslaughter, reckless endangerment, driving under the influence, and resisting arrest. Up on the stand the fat defendant apologized repeatedly for the lives he had ruined and could only beg for forgiveness but he never met Jordan’s eyes. After the closing arguments the judge banged his gavel and said that they would reconvene the next day to hear the jury’s verdict.