Marked Man II - 02 (11 page)

When they had Jordan laid out on the X-Ray bed the orderly excused himself to go and find the radiologist technician. The surface of the bed felt unreasonably cold on the back of Jordan’s legs, considering the heat index outside was approaching 100 degrees. He felt Agent Clemons moving around somewhere.

“I think you’re way off base about the pizza.”

“I’m not really interested in what you think. You’re wrong.”

“The question you should be asking is how Shirokov manages to know everything. Your star witness in protective custody. Those Prokorov brothers. My apartment. How come he’s always one step ahead?”

“What are you getting at? Just come out and say it.”

Laid out flat on the table, Jordan shrugged beneath the heavy lead vest.

“You’re a smart guy, Clemons. Despite all the recent evidence to the contrary. Why don’t you? Unless you’re afraid to say it out loud.”

“That’s impossible. There is no leak in my boat.”

Jordan chuckled but the pain emitting from his ribs made him stop.

“Leslie knows it too. She’s just too scared to confront you about it. You’re the only blind mouse out of the three of us.”

Agent Clemons’ voice picked up several decibels.

“Don’t you even dare try to put this on me or the bureau. I’m not the idiot that ordered pizza delivered to an apartment that’s supposed to be a closely guarded secret. You’re supposed to be dead. What did you think was going to happen?”

Jordan kept his voice even but let an acerbic tone creep in.

“Right. I’m the idiot here. How many witnesses have ended up dead on your watch?”

“Listen you fucking low brow, trigger happy son of…”

The radiologist finally came in, carrying a clipboard with Mr. Wallace’s medical information on it. Forging all of the identification documents plus getting the medical history to coincide with Jordan Ross’ body had cost Agent Clemons’ fiscal budget a small fortune. While he had considerable resources as the head of the organized crime task force, it was not unlimited by any means. It wasn’t even July and he was already in the red and had to dip into his own pockets. Just another reason why he was furious with Jordan for going off the reservation and ordering pizza. He sat down, fuming.

Absorbed in the clipboard, the radiologist seemed to take no notice of their quarrel. He licked his thumb and flipped through the charts.

“Okay Mister Wallace. It says here that you were out jogging when you got attacked by a Doberman Pinscher?”

“That’s right.”

The radiologist frowned.

“Such a shame. They have a horrible reputation but they really are very gentle animals. We had a couple in my house growing up. It’s all on their owners. You teach them to be vicious and that’s what they do, but their nature is sweet. It’s all conditioning.”

Jordan blinked.

“Well. Conditioning or no it all feels the same.”

“I’m sure. Your ear will be fine, but let’s have a look and see if there’s any trouble inside. Now I need you to hold very still or we’ll just have to start all over again.”

The radiologist walked across the room and stepped into the booth.

Between all the white wine and the Vicodin Jordan was in a sleepy, playful mood. While he was waiting for the machine to do its business Jordan hummed the tune to Three Blind Mice. Just loud enough for his friend to hear. Over in his seat in the corner Agent Clemons felt a vein bulging in his forehead, threatening to burst.

The big metal apparatus on the ceiling slid up and down. In his booth the radiologist clicked a button to snap the pictures. In a few short minutes he was done.

“Excellent job mister Wallace. You’re as good at being still as I’ve ever seen.”

“Why thank you.”

“I’m going off to develop the images. I’ll be back in just a tick. You can sit up now.”

As soon as the radiologist closed the door Agent Clemons sprung on him.

“You two. I tell you. I swear to God you’re both clinically paranoid. If Shirokov had that kind of connection, if he had someone in the FBI, we would know it.”

Jordan gradually pulled himself up. He sat on the edge of the X-ray table, his bare feet dangling over the edge.

“We do know it. You would too if you could find a way to dislodge that grotesquely large college educated head of yours out of your ass.”

The federal agent prided himself on staying unruffled, no matter the circumstances. It was, according to The Director, one of his best qualities. It would take him places. But he was only prepared to tolerate so much. The accusations and wild conspiracy theories were getting under his skin. He rose and took a step towards Jordan.

“This giant head is the only thing keeping you alive, smartass. If it wasn’t for me and the bureau the Russians would eat you for breakfast.”

Jordan’s head had been drooping beneath the weight of the drugs. He brought it up and studied Agent Clemons’ face. He thought retorting with another witty comeback, then he thought of something better.

In a quick flash Jordan punched Agent Clemons in the face. It was a right cross delivered to the jaw, maybe half as hard as he was capable of hitting, but it still rocked the FBI man and sent him into the wall. A chart of the human skeletal system got jarred loose and fell. A couple of pushpins bounced on the floor too and rolled away under the X-ray table.

He made a move like he would come roaring back at him, but instead Agent Clemons stood there holding his cheek. He glared at Jordan. Jordan gave it right back.

They did not say another word until the radiologist returned with the scans. He hung them up on a board on the wall and clicked the backlight on.

“Ok then Mister Wallace. I’m afraid I have some bad news. According to your X-Rays you have hairline fractures in your seven, eight, and nine ribs on the left side, and some serious bruising on the costal arch...”

As he was speaking the radiologist pointed to the injuries with the tip of his fountain pen.

“... It must have been a very large Doberman.”

“Yeah it was.”

“Too bad. Lovely animals. So, I’m going to prescribe you some Percocets for the pain. You should take it easy and rest. No strenuous activity for at least four weeks. You should probably take time off work. What do you do?”

“I’m retired. From the army.”

“Must be nice. That makes taking time off from work easy doesn’t it?”

Jordan tried to laugh but the agony in his ribs did not let him.

“It sure does.”

For the first time the radiologist took notice of Agent Clemons.

“So. You’re not a relative I take it. A friend?”

“No I wouldn’t say that exactly. I’m more of a caretaker. Without me he wouldn’t be able to dress himself in the morning.”

Sensing some hostility, the radiologist awkwardly smiled at the two of them.

“Ah. Well it’s good he has someone to take care of him. Well then, just make sure he stays off his feet, drinks plenty of fluids. He’ll be back to his old self in no time.”

After he left Jordan spat on the floor.

“We’re through. I don’t need your help. I was crazy to think I ever did.”

Agent Clemons shook his head and rubbed at the bruise that was already ballooning up on the left side of his face.

“What are you going to do? Honestly.”

“I’m going to find whoever’s got my sister and her family, and I’m going to terminate them with extreme prejudice.”

Pushing himself off the table, Jordan almost lost his balance. Agent Clemons made a move to help but Jordan pushed him away. He steadied himself and started making baby-steps for the door.

“Come on. Seriously? Don’t be such a baby, Corporal. Where are you going to go? You need my help.”

“Thanks Clemons. I’ll feel much safer without it.”

On his way out Jordan gave flipped him the bird.

Chapter Seven

Vladimir Shirokov awoke in the black cell to the pitter patter of tiny feet. He opened one amber eye slowly, and then the other. Neither one of them could find a light in the morass of darkness. He lay still and waiting for the anxiety to pass. The guards, or somebody had stripped off his prison jumpsuit and everything else. Shirokov was naked in the dark.

The sound of the tiny feet scurrying in the black came and went. A little rodent was scrounging through the solitary cell looking for food, or perhaps enlightenment. Whatever tiny creatures in the dark search for when their basic needs are fulfilled.

Shirokov felt slimy. For a while he puzzled over what appalling substance he could possibly be covered in. When he realized it could only be his own sweat he relaxed. The cell was feverish. How hot could it be? The naked prisoner tried to think of the heat in terms of degrees; Celsius, Fahrenheit, kelvin, but the heat made him dizzy and clouded his mind. There was no air circulating whatsoever in the cramped space. Shirokov could feel his toes touching one wall and his fingers brushing the other.

Christians, American Christians in particular liked to believe that this was what hell was like. Hot, dark, solitude for eternity, weeping and gnashing of teeth. Shirokov knew better. Every Russian knew better. Hell was cold. One of the books that he’d brought with him to Sing Sing was Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. He had it right. Especially the lower levels, where the worst sinners resided hell was cold. But it was only a fiction. The real hell was solitary confinement in a Siberian prison.

An anecdote from the Second World War echoed in Shirokov’s head. From a conflict with so many fine anecdotes and heroic stories, it was his favorite.

The men and women in the gulag were kept in frigid cells, packed together like cattle. Forty, maybe fifty of them in a space not meant to fit half as many. There was no room even to sit down. Life was beyond reckoning for these exiled political enemies of the Brilliant Genius of Humanity, but at least it was short. One of their very few amenities came when new prisoners were brought in with news of the outside world.

One freezing afternoon a man was brought in who had a copy of a Russian newspaper.

Stalin was visiting dignitaries in Europe. This was before the situation in the Soviet Union was known to the rest of the world, and he was still a media darling, nearly as popular as Roosevelt in some western nations. Stalin made a speech to his friends about the deplorable conditions of the jails for communists in Mussolini’s Italy. He excoriated the world community to stand up and do something. The exact details Shirokov could not remember. Something about those poor souls were only allowed one meal a day. They were beaten by guards. Six men cramped into a cell for four. They were not even allowed their own beds to sleep in!

When the man finished reading the article the entire jail erupted into hysterical laughter. It went on for hours.

That was hell.

This was an American prison that he would be leaving shortly. This was nothing. Sometime later a hole in the door opened and a guard slid a tray into the cell. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, steaming vegetables. With butter on them! If Shirokov had anyone to speak too he would have laughed with them long and hard at the extravagance.

Moving was heinously painful, but Shirokov willed himself to get up. He ate in the dark, eagerly lapping up every milligram of meat from the chicken bones. By the time he was through and had tossed the bones aside, not even the little creature crawling in the dark could get a scrap of food from them.

Shirokov laid back down on the scorching floor and stared into the black, day-dreaming about girlfriends or else wishing that he only had a book and a light to read by. He did not sleep. The next morning when the hatch slid open again a cold breakfast of orange juice, cereal, and a muffin was pushed through. Three meals a day even in solitary! There were times in Black Dolphin when he did not get three meals a week, and they were definitely not as appetizing as this. One drawback to all this decadence was the persistent irritating presence of the rodent. There were no such animals in Russian prison. They could not possibly have survived.

He ate the muffin and the cereal and drank every drop of the milk and orange juice. The poor little rodent would once again go hungry thanks to Shirokov’s meticulous eating. He knew this because he heard the pitter patter again later in the day, the animal sniffing around his empty cup and bowl.

The coming and going of meals was Shirokov’s only way to mark the passing of time. He counted five and figured he had been in solitary going on forty eight hours. He wondered how long prisoners were allowed to be kept in this way in America. In Russia, some men were locked away in the dark for six months, sometimes longer. Upon leaving the cells they were not the same men that went in. Their wills were broken. Or, if they were not destroyed they were irrevocably changed. Shirokov knew one man who stayed in solitary from October all the way through until the next April. Afterwards he could not focus. He was a literate man, but somewhere in the dark his mind had deserted him. The letters on the page mutated into strange, unfamiliar symbols. A threatening alien language. He gave up reading. After a while he gave up talking as well. In the end he paid another inmate to cut his throat.

Towards the end of the second day Shirokov decided that the mouse, or whatever it was, had to go. He was not bothered in the slightest by its presence except when he was trying to sleep. This was when the animal scampered around most. When he was moving or eating it slunk away to hide. But when he lied down to sleep it grew bolder, and ventured out freely through what must have seemed a vast wilderness of dark.

The tiny pitter patter was what kept him awake. Shirokov found this absurd. In Russia he had learned the fine art of sleeping on his feet. He had slept without a blanket on a freezing bed of iron pipes. On one occasion he had even slept hanging upside down. And yet, this infinitesimal noise, this puny insignificant creature running around in the night had robbed him of his rest.

Breakfast on the third day was cereal again. He licked the bowl clean. This time he left one morsel of food uneaten, a scrap of scrambled egg. Shirokov placed it in what he believed to be the middle of the floor and then laid down.

Shirokov lie still as the grave for hours. He waited. At last when the squeaking, pattering noise came it was subdued. When he was first thrown into the cell unconscious the creature ran quick and fearless. Now its gait was slow, almost melancholy. The little beast must have had its energy sapped by not eating.

Tip tap. Tip tap. The steps were tentative, like the animal suspected that there was something amiss about the speck of egg. And yet it came on two steps at a time. Driven by its growling stomach against its better judgment. Tip tap. Tip tap.

Shirokov let the rodent eat. It seemed the humane thing to do, a last meal. Even in Russian prison a condemned man was given this consideration. So too with the rodent.

When the little animal was through eating the egg Shirokov slammed the cereal bowl on top to trap it. The creature scurried around and around and around inside the bowl, frantic. No doubt driven out of its mind by terror. Perhaps if it was an intelligent creature it would also be angry with itself, trying desperately to articulate this frustration but not having the means, and so growing all the more exasperated.

With a swift strike Shirokov lifted the bowl and plucked the creature up from the floor. The little thing struggled in the grip of his palm, its fur tickling his skin. By the weight and feel of it just a common household mouse.

Shirokov gave the mouse a French benediction.

“
Jusqu'à la prochaine fois
.”

He squeezed his hand and broke the mouse’s neck. The creature stopped struggling instantly. Shirokov dangled the dead rodent by its tail for a moment, then flung it away from him into the endless pit of black. Shirokov curled himself up into the fetal position, and for the first time in three days he slept, content and smiling.

The guard came with lunch came soon after, but the prisoner was sleeping so soundly he never heard the trap door open. Shirokov slept through dinner too and straight on until the next morning, when a banging clamor shook him out of his dream.

“Shirokov! Wake up you Jew piece of shit!”

It was a familiar voice. Shirokov recognized it as belonging to one of the guards who had cuffed then pummeled him before throwing him into solitary.

The massive iron door swung open and the massive influx of light invading the cell gave Shirokov a blinding headache. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to shield them as if it were the flash of an atomic blast. Again the guard yelled.

“I said get up!”

A kick to the ribs lurched Shirokov up into a sitting position. He tried to stand but his legs failed him, plagued by atrophy. Another guard came in and they lifted him up together, then dragged him out of the cell. They shoved a pile of fresh orange prison duds at him, a bar of soap on top. They led him down a hallway then pushed him into a large empty room with showers.

“Wash all that Jew filth off. Can’t have you mucking up good clean uniforms with your stink now, can we?”

The pair of them found this extraordinarily funny. Shirokov glowered at them but turned on the water and showered all the same.

When he was through and fully dressed the guards both came into the shower. The fat one on the right snickered as the other spoke.

“Now. You need to learn your place around here. This is Sing Sing. This is a white man’s prison. It’s time you got used to that. Every time you get out of order and hit your betters like that we’re gonna beat you stupid and throw you in the clink again. Is that clear?”

Shirokov did not answer. Instead he sniffed and took a measure of the two men. Their insecurities came wafting off of them like some cheap men’s fragrance, all leather and bergamot and no musk. In Russia Shirokov had met guards who would eat these men raw with a side of caviar.

“Looky hear, Jew. I asked you a question. When a white man asks you a question it’s your duty to answer. So what’s it gonna be? Are you gonna keep your head down or what?”

In reply Shirokov lowered his head for a moment.

“That’s better.”

Shirokov lurched forward and punched the fat guard in the crotch with as much force as he could muster. All the wind rushed out of him, and he hit the deck red-faced, grabbing at his jewels. The other guard took the nightstick to Shirokov’s head. He fell down and the guard went at it on his back. Then his arms and legs.

When they were through they dragged Shirokov back to the same solitary cell, where he would reside for the next five days.

…

The boarding house on 84th street was overrun by wolf spiders. Bollier passed by two of them just going up the staircase to the second floor. Bollier did not shriek or run from them, and was in fact more disturbed by the heavy odor of pesticide, which the owner must have sprayed every day twice a year for a decade. It had permeated the wood which creaked with each step up in Bollier’s running shoes.

Bollier found Jordan Ross’s room on the right end of the hall. She knocked and waited until a shadow appeared over the crack at the bottom.

“What’s the password?” Jordan whispered through the cedar.

“We didn’t agree on a password.”

The shadow was quiet for a moment.

“You weren’t followed? You aren’t under duress?”

“Let me in for Christ’s sake, Corporal.”

Jordan unlocked the latches from the inside and the door swung open. As she stepped into the room, he flicked the safety on his weapon and tucked it into his hip holster. Aside from that and a protective cast around his chest, he was only wearing a pair of basketball shorts. Jordan kicked a couple of pizza boxes out of the detective’s way and scooted a chair out for her to sit on.

“Never can be too careful these days. Sorry about the mess, I was going to clean…”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Corporal.”