Marked Man (9 page)

The fat meaty hands of Leonid worked at the knots binding Bollier to the chair. When she felt the restraints on her wrists snap off, Bollier brought her hands around and massaged them to get the blood flowing again.

“What is this?”

“Like I said, a great misunderstanding. Entirely my mistake. You are to be freed immediately and I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience. Is there somewhere that my men can take you? Some appointment you must keep?”

Bollier studied Shirokov’s face. He looked buoyant and playful again, like all was right with the world and he had not just threatened to slice her face into ribbons. Like he could just let a cop go after kidnapping them. Bollier could not make sense of it. Her head was spinning.

“You do not believe me, I know. But I assure you that no harm will come your way. Consider me your complimentary taxi service. Anywhere in the five boroughs that you would wish to go my men will take you there.”

Whatever sick game that Shirokov was playing Bollier did not know but had no intention of going along with it. After Leonid freed her feet she backed away several paces, waiting for the other shoe to drop, or a piano.

“I can see that you are confused detective. Shall we just say we return you to where we found you?”

“The parking garage?”

Shirokov
smiled and clapped his hands together twice like he was a genie granting a wish.

“The parking garage! Excellent choice. Gentlemen, if you please.”

Fists raised, and glaring defiantly at her captors, detective Bollier readied herself to go down swinging. Several of them surrounded and subdued her, but not before she got three or four solid punches in. As they were holding her down one of the Russians held a silk embroidered handkerchief up to her nose and Bollier smelled the chloroform again and the world went back to black.

Hours later, or perhaps it was eons, Bollier woke up in the driver’s seat of her car, head resting on the steering wheel. She was back in the parking garage in Queens. Dusk had passed and she wept.

Chapter Seven

Jordan’s restlessness grew while recuperating at the cabin in Connecticut. Shannon was certainly more congenial company than the empty bottles of bourbon he’d grown accustomed to, but not being active was beginning to drive him up the wall. During their texas hold ‘em marathons Jordan’s legs bounced and jittered for hours on end. He never even noticed the kicking until Shannon pointed it out. Jordan said sorry and managed to cut it out for five minutes before it started up again. The restless legs got worse on days when he wasn’t getting any hands. Whenever he was dealt a pocket pair or a high Ace the rocking of the table stopped. Shannon noticed this but was too polite, and too cut throat to let on that she had discovered such a glaring tell.

One day
nearly three weeks into his sojourn in the country Jordan had accumulated a considerable chip lead on Shannon. He was growing giddy, eager to earn what would be his fifth win out of some twenty games. Jordan rapped his fingers on the green felt and nodded along like a song was playing that only he could hear. His legs danced and rocked beneath the table and he uncharacteristically folded several hands in a row without any complaints, letting Shannon steal a blind here and there and waiting to spring a trap with a big hand.

When Jordan dealt himself a queen and an ace the jittering in his legs came to an abrupt stop. Shannon felt the reassuring seismic activity stop and glanced at her opponent. Jordan was exhibiting an impressively stoic face even though she knew he had to have a keeper; at least he had improved in that regard.

Jordan made a modest raise before the flop and Shannon considered for a long time before calling with her pair of twos. A queen, an ace, and a two came out. Jordan made another modest raise and Shannon another modest call. On the turn he checked, hoping to feign weakness and trick Shannon into a raise. Shannon paused for a long time and doubled the size of the pot. Jordan instantly jumped and re-raised her all in and Shannon called.

“I’ve got you know. Finally. I’ve got you!”

When Shannon overturned her twos, Jordan’s face sank into his socks.

The last card was a nine of diamonds, no help. Shannon scooped up the piles of Monopoly money from the center of the table, a thin smirk playing on the edge of her lips. Jordan still had a little bit left but her stack outnumbered his by nearly eleven to one. He threw up his hands and stormed from the room, then

“Where are you going?”

“Out for a walk.”

“You’re not supposed to…”

“Oh write a fucking letter why don’t you? I’m going out.”

Jordan threw on a tweed hunting jacket and a pair of wool boots and walked out into the crisp, open air for the first time in weeks. The chill took him by surprise but it was invigorating all the same. With no map and possess no knowledge of the local geography, Jordan decided to strike out in one direction away from the cabin and keep going until something blocked his path. After walking for just a little while Jordan felt his wind going but he pushed on, basking in the sun’s glare reflecting off of the snow. The biting cold made him wish that he’d at least taken the time to find gloves and a hat but it was too late for that.

Walking through a clearing of pine trees, Jordan heard a rustling of leaves to his right and turned to see a male buck darting off through a snow bank. At first he was scared by the sudden movement but Jordan relaxed as the deer bounded away, graceful strides carrying him towards the sunset. He glanced back over the hills and figured he had gone about a half mile straight west from the cabin. Jordan walked a little further until he came across a steel ladder
affixed to the trunk of a wide, sturdy chestnut tree. On a whim Jordan climbed up the ladder and found a seat made out of wire mesh at the top; a hunter’s perch. Gingerly Jordan raised himself up, turned around and settled into the chair, which offered a commanding view of a rippling creek and a scattered pile of pinecones.

For a while Jordan just sat peaceably in the tree stand watching the shadows of naked tree branches crawl across the snow. He had a thought that it would be a beautiful place just to come and sit in the summer, with green all around. Jordan had never been hunting but was not fundamentally opposed to the idea. When it was all finished, when Sarah and Emma were avenged and the last breath in the last Russian’s body exhaled, Jordan decided that he would take up the sport as a hobby.

Jordan had been resting in the hunter’s roost for a while when he heard the crunching of footsteps in the snow approaching.

A burly man wearing an orange vest and a camouflage hat was plodding along at a leisurely pace. Two dead
pheasants were swinging upside down from a game hook he carried. He laid the birds down at the base of the tree stand, then began going up the rungs one at a time, going slow as he carried a shotgun with one arm and climbed with the other.

Not wanting to scare the old man Jordan called down.

“Hello.”

The hunter looked up and squinted through a thick pair of glasses that were fitted to his face with a retainer decorated with Coca Cola polar bears. He stopped climbing and stared up at the stranger in his perch, mouth hanging open to collect the cold, arid wind.

“Who’s that up there?”

“Is this your hunting thing?”

“Is it my hunting
thing
? No sir, this is my tree stand. Now who may I ask are you and what are you doing on my property?”

Easing down, the hunter
descended the first few rungs and stood on the solid ground again.

“My name’s Earl. I’m staying with some friends of mine in the cabin about a half mile that way,” Jordan pointed in the vague direction of where he’d come from, “do you know the Reeds?”

Spitting a splash of tobacco juice into the snow, the hunter nodded, one eyebrow raised up at the stranger.

“Put it this way. I KNEW Mr. Reed. Can’t say as I care much for his children and some of the uh, unconventional lifestyle choices that they’ve made. What’s your connection with them?”

“I’m just staying with them on sabbatical for a while.”

“Sabbatical, I think I’ve heard of that. Isn’t that some sort of a Jew holiday?”

Jordan stifled a laugh and shook his head. His breath was getting more visible the lower the sun was. It was getting past time that he returned to Shannon and the cabin. He had already ventured too much by showing his face out in public, a potentially lethal misstep. The hunter was not going to run around crowing to everyone about the stranger named Earl that he met on his land, but it was not a risk worth taking anyway. Jordan could practically hear detective Bollier’s signature sharp reproaches in his head.
What in the hell were you thinking, Corporal? Do you have some kind of a death wish?

“No just a vacation. I didn’t realize I was on your land. I’ll come on down and get home. I was just enjoying the view for a while.”

The hunter waited until Jordan was back down on his level before resuming the conversation.

“Yeah it’s as pleasant a way to pass the time I can think of, sitting up there looking at the good lord’s work, waiting for a meal to come flying by. I don’t mind you taking your sabbatical out here and enjoying the view you just gave me a
scare.”

“Understood.”

Jordan reached out to shake his hand and the hunter noticed it was almost frostbitten.

“What did you forget to bring gloves?”

“I guess I did.”

Without hearing a word of protest, the hunter went rummaging into his bag and produced a pair of mittens, then handed them over to Jordan.

“I would give you a hat too but I’m afraid I don’t have one to spare. Now just go on home and you bring these mittens back to me another day. My name is Jasper Williams. You ask the Reeds and they’ll tell you where to find my place. It’s just on the other side of that ridge. Alright?”

“Alright thanks.”

Red faced and shivering, Jordan hiked back to the cabin. When he had covered about half the distance Jordan heard the echo of a shotgun blast. A family of quail came out of their cover in a nearby maple tree and flew away from the source of the sound. Shannon was sautéing a frying pan of sausages, peppers and onions when he came in, stamping the snow from his boots.

“You were gone a while.”

“Yeah. I know that I’m not supposed to go out but I was going to go postal if I stayed in this cabin for one more minute. Man that smells delicious.”

“It’ll be done in a few minutes. And it’s okay I’m not your mother. Frankly I’m surprised that you lasted this long without going crazy and running outside. What’s the deal with that anyway? Are you a vampire?”

Jordan wondered exactly how much Bollier had told her cheating partner about him. Something told him that if Shannon knew the kind of jeopardy he’d put her in by going for his little stroll through the woods that she wouldn’t be quite so nonchalant about it. He hoped to throw her off the scent by making it out to be nothing at all.

“
No I’m not a vampire, not yet. It’s just a precaution. No big deal really. You want me to fix some more of that garlic bread from the other day?”

“
Mmm yes. Please do.”

Shannon was swimming a back stroke through a tall tumbler of her departed father’s finest twenty year scotch and abruptly forgot all about Jordan’
s curfew.

Later that evening when they were drinking by the fire Jordan slipped up and mentioned the hunter.

“So I met your neighbor out there earlier when I went for a walk.”

“Neighbor… well there’s only one so I have to assume it was old Mr. Williams.”

Shannon’s face curled into a sneer as she spoke the name.

“That’s the one. He seemed like a decent enough guy.”

“They all do when you don’t really know them and when they don’t know you. But as soon as they figure out what you are people go running off. Mr. Williams is all country drawl friendly but if he could he’d have me locked up until the end of time. And why?” Shannon hiccupped and began ending every sentence in the form of a question, “because I choose to live a different way than him? Well fuck him? Who the fuck is he? To tell me or anybody what I can or can’t do?”

Jordan shrugged and took a deep satisfying pull from his bourbon, which he still insisted on paying for on his own even though there was an ample supply of booze in the bar downstairs. Shannon was on a roll and he decided it was best to let her keep going.

“And Leslie too? I mean we have something going and it’s great as what it is, but then why does everything have to become a cage? Every relationship. It’s like if you don’t even.” Shannon burped. “If you don’t even have the exact same idea about the other person about what you’re doing together it can’t work out? So I go with other girls once in a while. Does that mean that I love Leslie any less? It’s ridiculous. She’s controlling. That’s what she is. She comes off all wise to the world and everything but deep down underneath all that she’s just a control freak who is terrified of anything that might spin out of her orbit. She does it with everybody. With you too. Whatever you have going with her I don’t know but I do know Leslie and I know that she’s controlling you for her own ends.”

“It’s not like that. We have a common goal. We’re working together on something.”

Shaking her head and wagging her finger, Shannon set her glass down on the table and spoke earnestly to Jordan. The fabled moment of alcoholic clarity had come washed over her completely. Jordan knew it well enough. Shannon was on the perfect dividing line bordering the terrific carefree land of the tipsy and the scorched and barren world of the wasted; an elusive plateau where only the good feelings are manifested and every word coming out of her mouth was pure gold. In twenty minutes she would be moaning and throwing up into the sink but in the moment Shannon was a mystic dispensing infallible prophecies and indisputable wisdom with every breath.

“You think that but you’re wrong. She’s convinced you of something that isn’t true. I don’t know what it is. But I do know that there’s another way. There’s always another
way. But Leslie only sees things through her narrow prism of revenge. It’s medieval the way she thinks, her entire worldview. Blood for blood. Do you want to know something? She’s obsessed with this Russian guy, this gangster who killed her partner. It’s all she thinks about. Getting back at this guy. Used to be when we first started going out she made plans for the future, she was a complete person. Now this is all she lives for. She has nothing left. There is nothing left of her for me to love and she gets mad at me for trying to get off with someone else?”

Shannon broke into sobs and Jordan patted her on the back. After a few minutes she whimpered, “I don’t feel so good,” and ran off to the bathroom.

…

Detective
Bollier dipped her head and let a fresh wave of steam wash over her. Her eyes were closed and she was making a concerted effort to empty her mind of all the angles and plots and horrors that seemed to be closing in around her investigations. The steam room in the precinct had become her last oasis. For weeks Bollier’s nerve had failed her when it came to returning to her apartment, and after being kidnapped in broad daylight by Shirokov’s thugs she had become a full-on recluse.