Rough Justice (14 page)

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I was just researching.” Marta watched with anxiety as Bogosian lumbered around the circular conference table, squinting slightly at the documents and photos. She realized he was nearsighted. He touched the papers scattered around the table’s perimeter, moving deliberately as the minute hand of a clock. Where was security? Would they come? Bogosian flipped through the legal pad Marta had written on, and she was glad she hadn’t left any notes.

“This what you were writin’?”

“Yes. You want to read it?”

“No, I don’t want to read it,” Bogosian said, mimicking her.

Marta’s throat was a hard, dry knot. Where the fuck was security? They’d check even a false alarm, wouldn’t they? If she got out of this alive she’d have them all fired. She lingered near the open doorway as Bogosian inched around the table. He was in the perfect position on the other side. Every muscle in her body wanted to run, but she told herself to wait for help. She remembered with a shiver how fast Bogosian covered ground.

“Why’s the computer all black?” Bogosian asked, frowning over the laptop. “I don’t like the looks of this.”

“If you hit a key, it comes on again.” Marta pulled out a chair near the laptop and grabbed her purse from it as if she were making room for him. No telling if she’d need it later. “Here, sit down,” she said. “If you don’t trust me, stay here while I work.”

“Fuck you.”

Suddenly Marta heard a noise behind her. The rattle of the elevators. The
ding
of the bell as the doors opened. Two security guards came off the elevator, laughing. One was the young man who had signed her in. This was it.

“HELP!” Marta screamed as she bolted from the conference room. “HE HAS A GUN!” She dashed past the shocked faces of the guards toward the exit stairway. Her heart raced. Her head pounded. Her ribs hurt so much it brought tears to her eyes. She flew down the hall and behind her heard the crack of gunfire. One, two, three shots. An anguished moan. Oh God. Marta hoped it wasn’t the guards.

“HELP!” she screamed again as she pushed open the door to the stairway. She pitched down a set of concrete stairs, then another. Her pumps clattered on the steel edge of the steps. She panted from exertion and terror. No sound came from the top of the stair. There was no pursuit. Could Bogosian be dead? An alarm went off in the building and clamored in the concrete stairwell. Thank God. More guards would come. “HELP!”

Marta kept running. She hurtled down the stairs, leaping, nearly falling from landing to landing. A painted 10 on the wall told her there were ten floors to street level. She got dizzy as the tight stair twisted around. The alarm bell clanged in her ears. Her screams joined the cacophony. Six floors to the bottom. Go! Faster and faster, pitching forward. Flying down the stairs despite the pain and fear. Four floors left.

Bogosian wasn’t chasing her. Maybe the guards killed him. Maybe she was free. Marta reached the bottom floor and threw herself against the exit door. It banged open into the lobby just as the elevator doors opened across the white marble floor.

It was a horrible sight. The elevator was an abattoir. Blood dripped from a huge splotch down its white walls. The two guards lay dead, crumpled in seeping heaps on the elevator floor. One had his face blown completely away. Between their bodies stood Bogosian.

Taking aim at Marta.

M
arta ran, breathless, for her life. She streaked for the building’s entrance, skidding on the slick marble floor, and burst through the glass double doors. She hit the street. Frigid air blasted her face and chest.

“HELP! PLEASE, SOMEBODY!” she screamed, though the snow-covered street was deserted. There were no cops around and no help. The security alarm was muffled outside the building. The guards were dead. The poor men. Bogosian was a killer.

“HELP!” Marta tore down the sidewalk in the deep snow, her purse flying from her shoulder. Icy flakes stung her face and lashed through her wool suit. She stumbled and her hand went elbow high into a snowdrift.

CRRACKK! Marta heard a gunshot behind her, echoing in the silence.

Oh God. Bogosian was going to shoot her down. Terror jolted her senses alive. She heard herself cry out as she half stumbled, half sprinted through the freezing snow. She dashed past darkened stores and swerved around the corner so he couldn’t get a clear shot. Her legs were soaked and her feet numb, but she kept running. She couldn’t hide because she’d leave footprints in the snow. Tears streamed down her face. “HELP!” she screamed futilely.

CRRAACCKK! Another gunshot.

Marta ducked, panic-stricken. Bogosian was going to kill her. His aim was off, but not for long. One of those bullets would find its target. Her spine. Her heart. Her head. She was going to die. She spotted the lights of Chestnut Street and raced across the street to them. There’d be people there.

“HELP!” Her leg muscles were tiring. Her chest felt like it would explode. She could feel blood running warm down the back of her neck; her wounds must have reopened. She didn’t know how much longer she could run. Bogosian was strong. He would catch her and kill her like a dog. She couldn’t let him.

Marta dashed around the corner onto Chestnut Street. A huge white pickup truck with a plow mounted on its front bumper churned down the street, pushing a heap of snow and ice in its path. Gargantuan tires jacked it up obscenely and ground snow into deep ruts in its wake. The pickup looked like it belonged at a monster truck rally. Its vanity plate read ELVIS.

Marta sped up, almost hysterical with relief. She would be safe. Alive. She had to get the driver’s attention. She scissored her arms frantically, but the truck didn’t stop. The cab was too high and dark to see in.

“HELP!” she screamed, but the plow still didn’t stop. She couldn’t hear herself over the roar of its engine. She had to get in front of the truck. Get the driver to see her.

Marta ran faster to catch up with the snowplow. Clouds of hot exhaust burned her eyes. Soot flew into her mouth. The truck’s gigantic wheels powered through the snow, spraying splinters of ice. She had to stop the plow. She didn’t have enough energy to keep running forever. She kept waving and it took almost all her wind. She ran as hard as she could, then harder. A few more steps and she’d be there.

One, two, three. Yes! Marta caught up with the plow and ran parallel to it. She waved her arms, frantic this time, but the plow still didn’t stop. Fuck! Marta glanced wild-eyed over her shoulder.

Bogosian was running after her, closing in. A deadly figure charging into the storm. His gun was drawn.

Oh, God. Marta was out of choices. Only one way to go. She hoped it wasn’t suicide. She darted in front of the massive snowplow. The driver honked loudly but he didn’t stop rolling. What? Was he crazy? He’d run her over.

Marta bolted ahead to the middle of the street and ran down the street between the truck’s headlights, waving, screaming. The driver honked again and kept coming. Why didn’t he stop? Maybe he thought she was a nut or a drunk. The plow was moving so fast Marta didn’t risk turning around or slowing down. A mountain of packed snow rolled at her heels, threatening to engulf her.

She burst forward in fear. Her breath came in ragged bursts that tore at her ribs. Her head felt light. Her legs buckled as she ran. Her pumps skidded with each stride. She raced into the snow and dark, momentum hurling her forward.

Marta checked behind her. A giant wall of snow chased her up the street, so close she could feel its chill. But she couldn’t see anything behind the snow-plow. If she couldn’t see Bogosian, he couldn’t see her. Marta had lost him.

She couldn’t run another step. She jumped out of the snowplow’s path, threw herself into a snowdrift at the curb, and dolphined under the surface of the cold powder.

“Fuck!” Bogosian shouted from the sidewalk. He watched the snowplow roll down the street toward the center of the city. The bitch was nowhere in sight, even if he could see that far. He couldn’t go after her. There’d be people there for sure, emergency crews, and he had blood all over his shirt from the guards. Bobby wasn’t about to risk his ass.

“Fuck!” he yelled into the storm. He spun around on his heels. He broke a sweat even though it was zero fuckin’ degrees. Bogosian felt like he was all closed in, like he was back in the joint. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe. The fuckin’ noise from the radios. The fuckin’ niggers with the do-rags. The stink.

“Fuck!” he shouted louder, but it only made him madder. He was all tensed up. He felt like a big giant coil ready to come unsprung. Like a cork that needed to pop. He wanted to scream. He wanted to kill. He wanted to come. Blood filled up his muscles, his dick. He heard himself yelling again and rammed his fist into the thick concrete wall of a bank.

Once, then again. He didn’t even feel the pain. He hit it again and again until the skin on his knuckles split open and blood gushed out. Then he felt everything. Pain exploded in his hand. Heat came out of his own blood. Skin crawled all over his body.

Bogosian could take pain. He could take any pain. He drew his hand back and stared at his bloody fist like it belonged to somebody else. He remembered how his sister would cut herself. A straightedge razor that made little baby slices on her thighs and arms. All in a row, like lines of coke. Dumb bitch. They were all dumb bitches. The one up the street and the other two. The young ones from the law office, going to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. Bobby knew what that meant. Grays Ferry, where Steere had popped that nigger.

He slumped against the building, suddenly exhausted. The snowplow and the other trucks were gone. The street was quiet. Bobby hid his face against the building. The concrete scratched his forehead. Snowflakes collected on his shoulders and fell in his collar. He didn’t want to tell Steere he fucked up. He never fucked up before. He had to make it right, then he’d call.

Bobby stood up and tried to button his jacket to cover the blood, but his beat-up hand wasn’t working. He was a stupid fuck to mess it up like that. He’d have to score a new shirt. Now where the fuck was he gonna get that? Motherfuck! Everything was fucked up! It was all that bitch’s fault. She’d pay for it.

Bobby had to get it going again. He’d find her and the other ones, too. He might have to call Gyro, but that was okay. Gyro could help out, he was a meat-eater. Gyro would cut big time into his profit margin, but Bobby had to get the job done. That’s what it meant to be a professional. Bobby closed his jacket and lurched into the snow.

M
arta yanked the ratty curtain closed and flopped onto the plastic seat of the photo booth. Woolworth’s was the only open store on Chestnut Street and it smelled simultaneously of disinfectant and dirt. Her pulse thudded, her chest heaved. Each breath was agonizing, and Marta inhaled to slow her breathing and ease the pain. She slumped in the booth like a boxer in his corner.

There was no noise outside the booth, and Marta suspected she was the only person in the store except for the salesclerks in their red smocks, two of whom she’d run into as she was coming in. The store would be closing in ten minutes, they told her, wide-eyed at her bedraggled appearance. She’d explained by saying she’d gotten caught in the storm. In a way, she had.

Marta’s breathing returned to normal and the rib pain subsided slightly. She sat up and rested her back against the wall of the booth.
PHOTO ILLUSIONS
, read the sign in front of her. Underneath the sign was a TV monitor, and across the screen flickered a sampling of the photos offered with hokey cutouts: YOU with the President! YOU on a dollar bill! YOU wanted by the FBI!

Marta’s gaze fell on a mirror framed with a fake wood. YOU with ELVIS THE SNOWPLOW! She looked away, purposefully avoiding her reflection. She didn’t need a mirror to know what she looked like. Her hair stuck to her face in soaked strands and her skin was mottled with exertion, every wrinkle boldface with anxiety. Her suit was wet and hung in rags, but at least she was alive. She had escaped Bogosian. It was a miracle. Then she thought about the security guards, who hadn’t been so lucky. They had families, unlike Marta. Who would have missed her if she’d been killed?

It caught her up short. The answer was clear. Nobody. Marta had no family left and wasn’t seeing anyone who mattered. She loved no one; she supported no one. Not a soul depended on her except maybe her office personnel, who would find other jobs in a blink. They weren’t exactly well paid. And they certainly wouldn’t miss her. Once she’d overheard her secretary wishing her dead.

Marta squirmed on the hard seat. She bucked up as she always did, by calling on her inner resume. After all, she was one of the country’s premier criminal defense attorneys. Past chair of the Criminal Justice Committee of the ABA, member of Trial Lawyers of America, guest lecturer and legal commentator. In other words, a highly retained pain in the ass. A bitch with a tax bracket that just wouldn’t quit. Suddenly it didn’t seem like much to have accomplished.

Marta used to think she had come so far. Escaped the Maine woods, gotten herself to law school and beyond. Put a country between herself and a woman who for years took her into car after strange car with the same dangerous lie.
Can you lend me twenty dollars, sir, to take the train? Our car quit on us, and we were on our way to the hospital to see the child’s father. The next train station is right down the road
.

Marta knows the men don’t believe the lie even as they give her mother the money and drop them at the train station, where mother and daughter wait five minutes and go right back out to the highway. Marta knows that the men give the money because of her; she’s the prop, the token. An exhibit, even then. The only time there’s trouble is the blue station wagon and after that, it stops. After that her mother goes out alone to the highway. And after a time, is gone longer.

Marta shook it off. It was past. It was over. Why did it keep coming back up? Why now? Her thoughts were mixed up, her world out of kilter. She wiped the bangs off her damp brow. She should be in the present, happy to be among the living. How many dead had there been, and why? Would she be the next one? No time to feel sorry for herself. She had to keep moving. Bogosian could still be after her. She still had the jury to beat and Woolworth’s would be closing any minute. Marta stood up, brushed snow from her wet suit, and peeked out of the photo booth’s curtain.