Marked Man

by Jared Paul

  With some effort, Bollier helped Jordan out of the car. She slung his arm over her shoulder and told him to not worry and go ahead and lean his weight on her. Slowly Bollier escorted the limping man through the backyard. A blue plastic tarp was fastened tight over the pool but it looked like the Jacuzzi had been in use earlier that evening. Thankfully there weren’t many steps to climb from the deck to the back door. Bollier rustled around in her purse for the set of spare keys, then tried them on the door.

  “Hello?”

  Bollier called in to the interior of the rustic cottage house that smelled of pine and cinnamon. Nobody answered so she hung her keys on a hook by the refrigerator and then directed Jordan through the kitchen and into the living room.

  “Oh my god, shit!”

  Two women were writhing naked on the leather sofa and they hurried to cover themselves as the detective and her limping companion came in.

  “Leslie?”

  One of them asked. She was on the bottom and using a throw pillow to cover her breasts. Her hair was a natural auburn red, cut short to just above the ears. Bollier hissed her name.

  “Shannon.”

  “I was…”

  “Save it. We can talk about this later. You,” Bollier pointed at the other naked woman straddling Shannon with a strong pair of hips. “Get out right now and forget that you ever saw us. I’m a cop.” She flashed her NYPD detective’s credentials. After looking pleadingly at Shannon for a moment the girl gathered up her clothes and scampered away.

  As the woman who answered to Shannon dressed she looked at Jordan, who did not look good.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Earl, Earl Monroe. The two of you can be properly introduced another time maybe. He’s been shot through the leg and he needs your help. Right now.”

  Guiltily Shannon bit at her bottom lip and did her best to avoid her partner’s eyes.

  “Right NOW!”

  Shannon bolted from the room and came back a minute later, having fetched a bottle of ibuprofen, acetaminophen, a needle, a thread, bandages, and a wide swath of gauze. She helped Leslie carry Jordan into the guest bedroom and laid him down. Before Shannon set to stitching him up she had Jordan take a handful of the painkillers and gave him a wooden spoon to bite down on. When she cut the pant of his leg open and saw the gaping wound, she turned to the detective, her mouth hanging agape.

  “What did this?”

  “A bullet did this,” Bollier answered nonchalantly, almost daring her partner to say something. Shannon almost took the bait but forced her mouth shut and went back to work.

  Even with all the painkillers Jordan growled viciously with each stitch Shannon sewed into his leg. On the third loop around he cried and bit down so hard that the wooden spoon snapped in two. Shannon asked if he wanted her to stop, but he shook his head and muttered something that sounded like keep going. Half way through the next stitch Jordan finally passed out.

  For the next nineteen hours Jordan slept as soundly as he ever had, dreamlessly floating along on a warm black river with an easy current. He twitched occasionally but did not wake but once when the distant broken sounds of a muffled argument filtered into the room through the air vent stationed just over his bed.

  “… don’t care where he’s from what is he doing here?”

  “… really going to lecture me right now?”

  “… gave me no choice you are completely obsessed with these people and now you bring a marked man here to my summer house?”

  “… need a drink of water… look thirsty up there on your cross. Did she bind your feet and hands the way you like?”

  “… gone by the end of the weekend. Or else.”

  “… or else fucking what? You’ll cheat on me again?”

  “… not babysitting for you.”

  That was the extent of the row that Jordan could hear but by the time he woke up he had long forgotten it.

  The first thing that greeted Jordan’s eyes when he awoke was an antique dresser arranged against the wall. On top a box of costume jewelry hung open. The sun was slanting in through the window and reflecting off of the looking glass attached to the top end of the dresser. Jordan had no conception of where he was, how he had gotten there, or what time it was.

  Yawning and stretching, Jordan sat up in the bed and placed his feet on the carpet, digging his toes into the canyons and valleys in the fabric and savoring the feeling. He felt a slight stinging feeling on the back of his left leg. Without thinking he stood up to get a better look and immediately collapsed to the floor. The leg had simply refused to bear any of his weight.

  “Agggh!” He groaned and grabbed at the stinging. Jordan turned his leg over and discovered a heavy gauze wrap covering most of his calf, a small red streak in the middle seeping through the bandage.

  A short, skinny woman with auburn hair appeared and got down on the floor to help him.

  “Oh shit. You must have fallen over when you tried to stand up. Come on. Up. I’ll help.”

  Jordan let the tiny woman help lift him up and guide him over to the bed again. Sucking in deep breaths of relief, he thanked her, then looked at her curiously, blinking.

  “I’m Shannon, I… I’m not sure if you remember me.”

  “Shannon…”

  Junior high, just before 8th grade he had dated a girl named Shannon for a brief week at summer camp. There was also a famous actress named Shannon, Jordan was pretty sure. But the name attached to this face didn’t mean anything to him.

  “My girlfriend brought you here the other night. Leslie?”

  Leslie was also drawing a blank. Jordan wondered if the symptoms of the concussion had returned.

  “Bollier?”

  “Oh! Right, the detective. You’re uh… you’re her girlfriend…” Jordan remembered the awkward entrance, finding the two women naked on the couch.

  “Not sure anymore, but for now yes. She went out to get groceries for dinner, should be back soon.”

  Shaking his head, Jordan tried to make sense of the time.

  “Dinner?”

  “Yeah. You were out cold for almost a full day. Are you hungry?”

  The thought of food had not occurred to Jordan in some time and he realized that in fact he was, and moreover that he couldn’t even recall the last time he had eaten. Shannon took his hand and helped Jordan out into the living room and set him down in a plush club chair so soft it threatened to swallow him up. Jordan let himself sink into the cushions and took in the living room.

  Comfortably furnished, all of the chairs were circled around legitimate old fashioned fireplace. Antlers from what must have been an enormous moose were featured above the mantle. The hunting rifle that slew the animal was hanging underneath. The air was all fresh pine needles, mulberry, and rose. A short Christmas tree decorated lightly with tinsel and a gold star stood on a coffee table.

  “Nice place.”

  Jordan said behind him to Shannon, who was banging around in the kitchen.

  “Thanks it was my dad’s, I inherited it a couple years back when he passed.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Oh don’t be, he was a miserly cunt. He’d been saying for years he couldn’t wait to go.”

  “There are worse things I guess.”

  A while later detective Bollier returned, bearing several bags of groceries. The mousy woman called Shannon whispered something to her when she came in.

  “Mr. Ross?” She called from the kitchen.

  “Yeah?”

  “Glad you’re awake. Would you like some pork chops and mushrooms? Or maybe you’d prefer breakfast.”

  “Pork chops for breakfast will be perfectly fine.”

  The two women exchanged another few words in hushed tones and then went about their business preparing the meal, leaving Jordan to lounge in peace in the club chair. It had the feel of a chair that a large man had spent many hours kicking back with a cigar and a scotch in. The way the chair was situated it had a westerly
view of rolling wooded hills, dusted with snow and bathing in the day’s last lazy rays of sunlight. While Bollier sizzled pork chops in a frying pan, she dispatched Shannon outside to collect firewood. Jordan watched the diminutive woman from his chair collecting bits and pieces of timber from the snow.

  “Everything alright with you two?” he called to the detective.

  “No, not that it’s any of your business Mr. Ross,” Bollier sighed and then quickly apologized. “Sorry I’m obviously dealing with a lot at the moment.”

  Outside Shannon had a log set up on a trunk. With an impressive single swing of an axe, she split the log clean in two. From the kitchen Jordan heard the detective chopping at a plate of onions and mushrooms violently. Jordan swallowed a lump in his throat. When Shannon came in with a bundle of wood she stuffed them into the fireplace and in a minute had flames going. She glanced at Jordan.

  “You look like you could use a drink.”

  “What are you some kind of wizard?”

  Shannon announced she was going downstairs to the bar to fetch a drink for her and Leslie’s friend and asked if she wanted one.

  “No I’m good. Should he be drinking after all that aspirin?”

  “He’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t drink a fifth.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Remind me which one of us spent eight years in med school?”

  Bollier didn’t respond to the provocation and set the table but Jordan thought he heard her say something like heinous preppy bitch under her breath. Shannon came back up, carrying a tray with two glasses and a decanter of amber liquid. She poured two fingers for Jordan and handed him the drink then watched him sip at it.

  “That’s fantastic. What is it?”

  “It’s a twenty year Macallan.”

  Jordan almost choked.

  “Jesus, that’s like what 300 dollars?”

  Smiling playfully, Shannon answered him “more like 330.”

  “I can’t. I can’t drink this, it’s too much. Any old whiskey will do you don’t have to give me this.”

  From the kitchen Bollier sniped at her partner.

  “Oh let her spoil you. Shannon loves nothing more than flaunting her socioeconomic status. Isn’t that right peachy doll?

  Rolling her eyes, Shannon poured herself a glass and toasted Jordan, who decided that he might very well need it to get through dinner after all.

  Following a delicious but awkward dinner where Jordan had to carry the conversation by rehashing basically his entire career in the Army, Bollier sat down with him and Shannon and told them what was going to happen next. Very quick Jordan learned that the detective wore the pants in this relationship, and probably in every relationship in her life.

  “So. Here’s how this will work, Mr. Ross. Until you are one hundred and twenty percent on your feet again and in shape to run a decathlon you’re going to stay here with Shannon who will function as your nurse and guardian. You are under no circumstances to leave this cabin for any reason. If you need anything at all, Shannon has gracefully offered to drive into town to buy it for you. Right?”

  The high end scotch had clearly gone to the skinny woman’s head. As Bollier talked Shannon mouthed O-K like a petulant teenager humoring her tragically unhip parents.

  “Right. You are not to use the telephone or the internet. Luckily there is no internet connection here so I don’t foresee that becoming a problem. There is no television so I’m certain that you’ll get bored very quickly which is all the better because this is not a long term arrangement. Shannon can find you books and newspapers, magazines, whatever. There’s a treadmill and a bunch of free weights in the bedroom. And there’s a bar that I’m sure can keep even the two of you occupied for quite some time. Any questions?”

  Jordan swished the ice and whiskey around in his glass.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well unlike certain parties in present company I actually have a job to do. I’m going to head back into the city on Monday to follow up a few leads on Shirokov and see what else I can find out. In my very spare down time I’m going to talk to a friend of mine at the Bureau. He’ll help me dig up all of the research there is out there on the Russians, and he’ll have some idea of what to do with you.”

  When the detective left on Monday morning Jordan wished her good luck and told Bollier to be careful out there, which she found amusing enough to laugh at. She punched Jordan on the arm and thanked him for his touching concern. Detective Bollier would be just fine on her own.

  …

  It took a week before Jordan Ross could stand up straight on his own power. The Russian’s bullet had cut deep through the muscle, and Shannon estimated it would be several months before it fully recovered all of its former formidable strength.

  Glumly Jordan lounged around the cabin those first seven days which felt more like seven years. Country living was not something he was cut out for, having grown up in Memphis and spent most of his adult life in New York. Things would have been easier if he had been completely mobile. Sitting on his ass, watching the shadows crawl across the walls, he felt as if time kept going everywhere else in the world except in the cabin, which was stuck in 1972. Jordan glared out at the woods, wanting to sprint out with an axe and chop every single one of the tress down. With each cut he would hiss a Russian name.

  Every morning Shannon cooked him breakfast and then offered to drive into town to grab him anything he might want. Some days Jordan shook his head and replied he didn’t need anything, others he asked her to pick up a copy of the New York Times and a fifth of bourbon. Jordan had refused Shannon’s overtures that he should deplete the remarkable collection of scotch in her father’s bar, it just didn’t seem right he told her. If they didn’t have Zachariah Harris he would settle for Evan Williams.

  Entertainment at the cabin was limited to Monopoly, Uno, Checkers and cards. Neither Shannon nor Jordan could stand to sit through an entire game of Monopoly so more often than not they played with the deck of cards, which was missing an eight of hearts but they made due. Shannon’s father had been a professional gambler after retiring and had taught her everything he knew about Poker. Jordan could hold his own until he took a bad beat and then lost emotional control. Shannon never got emotional, never seemed to make a mistake, which infuriated Jordan to no end. The afternoons were reserved for their daily no-limit Texas Hold ‘em game, which more often than not ended with Shannon holding all of the Monopoly money. At five o’clock they began drinking as a rule. Dinner was at seven, and by ten both of them were usually too drunk to do anything but go to sleep.

  Nine days after Detective Bollier drove Jordan out to the cabin he read a disturbing news item in the Times. Shannon had retired early after their game and Jordan was holed up in the library, reading the Metro section when he came across a piece that said the FBI was looking for him in connection with the three violent deaths that occurred at his home the previous week. The article asked any readers with information on the whereabouts of Jordan Ross to contact the FBI field office in Kew Gardens.

  When Jordan’s eyes reached the last period in the article he jumped up from his chair, the first time he was able to do so without enduring a blast of incredible pain.

  “Shit!”

  Jordan roused Shannon from bed and told her that he needed to talk to Bollier right away. Using the cabin’s ancient land line candlestick telephone, he dialed Bollier’s mobile number.

  …

  Detective Bollier pushed the manila folder full of crime scene photos off to the side of her desk. She picked up her cell phone and let out a protracted sigh when she read the number, then answered in a terse tone.

  “I told you not to call. This better be an emergency.”

  “Nice to hear from you too, detective.”

  “Oh, I thought that it would be Shannon calling from the number. What’s going on, Mr. Ross?”

  “They’ve got a manhunt going for me. Did you read the Times today?”

/>   “Sadly my hours here afford very little time for leisure reading, but I am aware. You’ve been all over the local TV news for the last couple of days here.”

  “You sound very relaxed considering.”

  “There’s no need to panic. I’m going to get it taken care of. I’ve been bogged down here so I haven’t had time to see my friend at the Bureau but tomorrow I have an appointment to see him in the afternoon.”

  “So? What? He can call off the dogs?”

  “He owes me favor. Don’t worry about it…” Bollier heard a knock at her office door. “I have to go. Don’t call me again unless it’s a real emergency.”

  Bollier ran her fingers through her hair, trying to work out the knots. She had been quite literally living at the precinct since returning from the cabin in Connecticut. Even though she was craving the luxurious queen sized mattress in her loft on the upper west side, Bollier thought it would be imprudent to go home when the Russians could still be after her. A cot and a sleeping bag were rolled up in the corner. Bollier was anything but vain, but she didn’t want to look like she was living out of her office. When she was finally ready she said come in.

  Detective Morris Castillo walked in and Bollier instantly regretted even having bothered to shower that morning in the women’s locker room. Castillo had a familiar swaggering look about him that seemed to come out whenever he’d been out drinking with his uniformed buddies still walking the beat.

  “Heyyyyyyy Leslie. How’s it going?”

  Bollier forced a fake smile and said hello. Castillo’s moustache was overdue for a trimming and there were faint traces of sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt.

  “Boy you sure know how to keep the old nose to the old grindstone. Burning the candle at both ends, I see. What are you workin on?”

  Instinctively Bollier shifted her weight and pushed the files on Shirokov and his gang further away. She had never trusted Castillo to begin with, and his incomprehensible cluster fuck handling of Jordan Ross made Bollier think he was either borderline stupid or something much worse.