Marked Man

by Jared Paul

  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. You 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 nothing 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 i
n 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.

  Still fighting a wicked headache, Jordan got into his Pontiac and started the long slog to D.C.

  The foundation where Sarah worked was on E street not far from the Capitol. At the front desk Jordan introduced himself and the receptionist started crying. When she pulled herself together she paged Joanne Keeler, who came out in a bright blazer and welcomed Jordan like they had been bosom sisters in a past life. She led Jordan through a maze of cubicles and past a series of furtive glances.

  “I hope you know how much your wife meant to us. The foundation I mean. Everyone loved her here, and she spent so much time at the office we were practically like family.”

  “Yeah I know.”

  Keeler dropped Jordan off at what had been Sarah’s corner office.

  “I’ll give you a few minutes. If you need anything just holler.”

  For a moment Jordan was about to say thanks and then decided to swallow the word. He glanced around at Sarah’s things. A short house plant was withering near the window, dying due to dehydration. Several framed photographs lined her desk; Emma in the bathtub, Sarah and Jordan together on their honeymoon in Boca Raton, friends from the university. Someone had thoughtfully left a couple of cardboard boxes for Jordan. He began filling them up when he heard a knock behind him.

  “Mr. Ross?”

  A tall man in a turtleneck was standing in the doorway.

  “That’s me.”

  “Hi. I’m Tim Nance. I was a colleague of Sarah’s.”

  Jordan said how nice it was to meet him then went back to collecting things to dump into the boxes. At first he was very careful about stacking the items then he started tossing them in at random. Tim Nance had not gotten the idea apparently as he was still talking.

  “I just wanted you to know how much her work meant to us. She saved so many lives. I don’t know how much she told you about it.”

  “We had a strict arrangement. Since she spent her whole week here she didn’t talk about it. Weekends belonged to Emma and I. You understand.”

  “Sure, sure. Anyway. Sarah really was an angel. She saved dozens of women from the sex trade. Unimaginable stuff. Their handlers pawed them off on six, seven customers a night. When they complained they got beat or shipped off to another state.”

  The subject of Sarah’s work had always been a sour point, but Tim Nance seemed determined to upset him. Jordan shoved a plush koala bear into the second box and slammed the lid shut.

  “Unimaginable.”

  “They could make half a million dollars in a year, easy, but they weren’t allowed to keep a dime.”

  “Half a million?”

  Tim Nance nodded and at least had the sense to offer to help carry one of the boxes out for Jordan. The weather in the Capitol was fittingly gloomy. All of the monuments and national parks had been shut down for a week as a result of an impasse in Congress. Drizzle was starting to come down as they trudged out to the parking lot, talking as they went.

  “Who are these handlers? Mafia?”

  “If this was 1976 maybe, the Italians are no longer a factor on the east coast really. The Russians are running things now. They’ve got the sex trafficking and drug trade locked up good and tight. But Sarah sure was not making things easy, got three dozen girls out in the last six months alone. It’s going to be hard to pick up where she left off.”

  Jordan started crunching the numbers in his head. When he realized that Sarah Ross, his wife and one and only had put an 18 million dollar dent in organized crime he felt a glowing sense of pride. A remarkable woman; Jordan reflected that there should be a statue erected for her on the National Mall, and meanwhile the braying jackasses in the Capitol building were getting paid for doing absolutely nothing. Once they finished packing the boxes and the dying house plant into Jordan’s trunk, he shook Tim Nance’s hand.

  “Thanks. Nice to know she made a difference.”

  A bitter taste was creeping into Jordan’s mouth and he was getting a fresh hankering for whiskey, even in spite of the pounding in his eardrums. He said good bye to Sarah’s colleague and hit I-95 north again, speeding all the way.

  …

  The next day at the trial Jordan Ross tried a scientific experiment. He wondered if he glared hard enough and long enough at Anton Askokov
if he could bore a hole right through his chest. It didn’t work. Dressed in a subdued black two piece suit, Askokov kept glancing nervously around the court room as if he was expecting to see a ghost. More than once his lawyer smacked him on the back of the hand and told him to sit straight and pay attention.

  Jordan stared at the defendant the entire time and even though he kept fidgeting around he never once looked in Jordan’s direction. When the judge came in he asked for the prosecution and the defense to make a short summary of their closing arguments. Askokov’s lawyer reiterated that his client was indeed a lecherous drunk, but that he was sincerely sorry for all the hurt he caused. The prosecutor brought twelve phone books with him and made a show of handing one to each juror then he asked them each in turn to throw it at the defendant and give the maximum punishment.

  Not amused by the antics, the judge advised the prosecutor that the next bit of theatrics would get him found in contempt of court.

  The jury deliberated for an hour and a nervous hush fell over the court when they returned.

  “Have you reached a verdict?”

  “We have your honor. We find the defendant Anton Askokov guilty of all charges.”

  The judge thanked them for their service and sentenced Askokov to 14 years in a federal penitentiary. As the gavel fell the defendant deflated like a balloon that had been punctured by a sewing pin. Two court officers came and placed handcuffs that barely fit around Askokov’s pudgy wrists then fitted his feet with restraints as well. They took him by the shoulders and pulled him away from the defense table, then began parading him down the middle aisle.

  Askokov kept his head bowed as if he were in prayer at Mass. He walked in short waddling little strides to begin with and the chains on his feet made it all the slower. Just as Askokov was passing by Jordan’s row, he turned his head to the side and winked.

  Far back in the recesses of Jordan’s mind something clicked. A neuron that had been jarred out of place by the accident suddenly fired again, and everything started coming back to him. Feeling dazed, Jordan sat down on the bench as his mind was flooded with the memories. It came in bits and pieces.