Marked Man II - 02 (14 page)

It was the first time that detective Bollier had heard the word thrown in her direction. Reflecting on it, she was surprised it took so long. But she was not going to go down easy. For the rest of the meeting she never once addressed or even acknowledged the incompetent drone from HR. She spit it back in Captain Branden’s face.

“All due respect sir, if there’s a problem with my work you should just say so. You don’t need to beat around my bush.”

The blush that came over the Captain’s face came as a real treat.

“Hold on detective, I’m not saying there’s a problem with your work, nobody is…”

“Well then for fuck’s sake what am I even doing here? If there’s no problem with my work then this is a complete waste of time and I should get back to it.”

Bollier got up to go when Captain Branden screamed.

“SIT DOWN DETECTIVE.”

The force of it brooked no argument so Bollier obeyed. Dylan from Human Resources scratched at his receding hairline and did his best to correct the Captain for his outburst.

“Now, Captain there’s no need for…”

“YOU. YOU TIRESOME LITTLE SHIT. Get out of my office.”

When he was gone Captain Branden spread his arms out and leaned over her desk. Bollier remembered that it was the same move she used in the interrogation room to intimidate the Prokorov brothers. She felt offended, even a little violated. Never before in her career had she seen the precinct captain so angry. Her instinctive reaction was to go on the offensive.

“You don’t have to shout, Captain. I’m drunk, not deaf.”

“Enough of this act. I’ve had enough. You can’t pull the wall over my eyes detective. Not everyone is as stupid as you think they are.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking ab…”

“ENOUGH. You either tell me what’s going on or I’m suspending you indefinitely as of right now.”

Bollier considered stonewalling him for a second but then thought better of it. She lowered her head and tried to think of a tell-all excuse.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m a drunk. I said it. Are you happy?”

“I know that you’re a drunk, detective. And quite frankly I could give a flying deep fried fuck. Half of the people working in this precinct are drunks. The difference is they come in every day and do their duty all the same.”

“But you said I’ve been doing my…”

“No. You have not. You have not been doing your job, detective. Ever since that business out on Riis Landing you’ve been phoning it in. I let it slide. No more. What have you been doing the last four months? Huh?”

Detective Bollier thought fast, trying to pull together the threads of her last investigation, but they kept slipping out of her grasp. Her mind was too lubricated for anything to stick.

“The. The Riis Landing dope. I’m still. There’s still somebody out there.”

“Don’t give me that. If you were on a case you wouldn’t be spending half your time in your office and half the time in a bar. It’s time for you to start bringing in cases again. Shirokov is over. Caput. It’s time to move on.”

“Captain. There’s still. There’s someone out there over his head. Someone is pulling the strings. Shirokov is just the tip of the iceberg.”

“I don’t care. Unless this mysterious Godfather you keep going on about is actively dropping bodies in this city, I could care less. Now. As it just so happens I’ve got some work for you.”

After rifling through his desk Captain Branden produced a case file folder. It was nearly two inches thick. He got up, walked over to where the detective was sitting, and dropped it in her lap. It could have made a handy dumb bell.

“What’s this?”

“New case, just last week in the 25th. Thai kid named Akio Montri. Exemplary student, enrolled at NYU, political science major. Internship lined up in Albany when he graduates. Out of nowhere he takes a header off the fourth floor of a condo uptown...”

All of the acting lessons in the world couldn’t have hid the dread on Bollier’s face. Captain Branden kept talking, going over the particulars, and she tried to focus. To listen.

“Covered in blood, not his. Was wearing a pizza outfit for a place he never worked for a day in his life. Boys up there in the 25th haven’t a clue plus they’re already swamped over there. And so the case got shuffled back to us. I need you to close this, detective.”

“But I can’t.”

The red flush of Captain Branden’s rage returned.

“Why not?”

“Because…”

In her head, Bollier tried to answer the question honestly, just to see how thoroughly crazy she would sound if she said it out loud.

Because I know who did this and if Jordan Ross gets arrested then I’ll be joining him in jail very shortly... Because I set up a vigilante with a credit card and an apartment and set him loose on the Russian mob like a mad dog... And the weirdest part is I wouldn’t even care because I have no regrets whatsoever and I want to see them all dead like I want nothing else on this earth...

Captain Branded was standing over her again.

“Detective. Is there any particular reason why you can’t take this case? If so, just tell me.”

And then she took the case.

Chapter Eight

Jordan Ross watched himself applying the ointment to his ear in the mirror. Re-attaching the part that had nearly been torn off had been no problem for the doctors. Yet his ear would never look the same. A jagged, angry looking pink scar crossed from one side of the top lobe to the other. The caustic-smelling ointment would minimize the appearance of it, but only so much.

As for his broken ribs, they were nearly back to normal. Jordan still winced when he made a quick move or anytime he used his obliques, but they would completely heel. The days spent in the boarding house recovering made him restless. When he went out he was leery, believing that every person he passed on the street could be a potentially lethal hire for the Russians.

Even though he had been instructed to do no strenuous activity until he was back to 100 percent, Jordan could not resist going to the YMCA every other day to work on his legs. He was exceedingly careful when he ventured out into the vaporous Manhattan heat. He walked in circles to
make sure he was not being tailed. When Jordan needed to buy groceries and other essentials he paid with cash, and he spoke to nobody.

The most frequent excursion he made was to the vitamin ship on 2nd Avenue. This was where he was most paranoid. For one, it seemed that most of Shirokov’s gang that he came across spent a lot of time lifting. The chances or randomly running into one of them was infinitesimal he knew, but he could not shake the suspicion that haunted him every time he shopped there. Jordan mostly bought multivitamins and whey protein in two pound jars. As the cashier rang up his purchases Jordan nervously glanced around the store. He eyed everybody like a tweaking amphetamine addict.

One Saturday morning Jordan’s tweaks caught the attention of another customer. He was a slim, dark-haired man in windbreakers and a white tank top. A silver chain drooped from around his neck. He met Jordan’s gaze, and unlike almost everyone else he held it. And held it. Jordan stared back, feeling a strong urge to reach for the .22 hidden under his shirt, but resisting.

It’s just a guy buying fish oil. It’s just a guy buying fish oil. He doesn’t know you. He’s only staring because you’re staring. Stop it. Stop it Jordan. Just look away.

This runaway train of thought distracted him so that he didn’t hear the cashier not four feet away talking to him.

“Sir?”

“Sir? Your bags are ready.”

Jordan snapped out of it and finally broke eye contact with the mysterious looking stranger in the tank top.

“Huh?”

“Your bags.”

“Oh right.”

Gathering his items together, Jordan looked up at a reflective surface where the wall met the ceiling. A security camera hung next to it. He saw the stranger strolling through the aisle, picking at different bottles on the shelf. His interest in Jordan seemed to have disappeared.

Once Jordan got a hold on all of his bags he hustled out of the shop, then hurried all the way back to the boarding house, not stopping once to catch his breath. Back in his room, Jordan dropped his bags and clutched at his chest. The run had badly irritated his rib cage, and he had no choice but to lie on his back the rest of the weekend.

The episode in the vitamin shop made Jordan feel ridiculous. A nutcase conspiracy theorist. He told himself that if the Russians turned him into a hermit they won, even if he lived. Two days later he went back to his regular routine, but he doubled his precautions, circling back on the same block two or three times and glancing over his shoulder constantly. Walking around the corner for a dozen eggs became a half hour long ordeal. Jordan despised living this way. Sweating alone in the tiny boarding house room, Jordan promised himself that the next Russian he came across would pay all the more dearly for his inconvenience.

…

Detective Bollier feared what it would mean if she told Jordan Ross she was assigned to his case. The Corporal had no ties left in New York, outside of his sister. He had no family. Maybe he would sense that the walls were closing in and just pack up his guns and leave, never to be seen or heard from again. Losing Jordan would leave her with one less friend in a world where she was already woefully short of them. She decided to sleep on it.

In the morning she had no better idea how to broach the subject, and her hangover made abstract thinking an exercise in agony. Bollier decided to sleep on it again.

Finally refreshed and clear headed, Bollier ate a quick breakfast and lit out for the 25th precinct to find more information. There she was told that originally Akio Montri’s case was assigned to a Detective Jonathan Slade, now on administrative leave. No news as to why. Bollier did her best to charm an address out of them but the precinct only provided her with a phone number, which turned out to be disconnected.

Bollier disliked asking Agent Clemons for Intel on general principle. She was a big girl. She worked alone, and nine times out of ten she could find out anything she needed to know without anybody’s help. But time was a factor so she swallowed her pride and made the call. Inside an hour Agent Clemons gave her Slade’s home address. When he asked what it was for she stonewalled him, but promised that they would talk again as soon as she knew more. She had a feeling it was going to be one of those life changing conversations, and Bollier dreaded those like the plague.

Detective Jonathan Slade lived in a two-story Gable Front house in Queens. His wife was home with summer influenza, and he asked Bollier to be as quiet as possible because she was sleeping upstairs. He made coffee and they sat on the living room sofa.

“So. What can I do you for, detective?”

“Well. It’s this case that just got dropped in my lap. Akio Montri.”

Slade sipped from his mug and said he recalled the name but not the particulars. He said it a little too fast for Bollier’s liking.

“I know how it is. After a while they all start looking the same. The cases I mean.”

“They certainly do.”

“You must be enjoying yourself getting some time off. Your Captain said it was administrative leave?”

“Too much vacation time built up. I get my pension in another twenty-six months and I haven’t taken a day off since the 90’s. Union said I had to use it up, something about priority protocols.”

“Sounds like you’d rather be out there working.”

“I didn’t say that exactly.”

“No?”

Detective Bollier was only half disappointed to discover that Slade was no slouch. He danced around her line of questioning with the ease of an old pro. There were only so many homicide detectives who truly knew the game. The NYPD was missing one of its heaviest hitters out there. Only Slade was too evasive. If he was truly yanked off the case over vacation time he wouldn’t be so slippery.

It was a ploy, he wanted her to know that something was utterly rotten, but he was too clever to come out and say it. They volleyed back and forth for a few minutes. Bollier felt a sense of desperation setting in.

“Look, Jon. I can see you’re smart police. Ordinarily I could sit here and banter with your all day. But this case is… different.”

“Lady, you’re not fucking kidding.”

“Why did they pull you? Really?”

Detective Slade threw up his hands.

“I haven’t the slightest idea. I must have pissed up the wrong rope somewhere along the way. One day I’m out on assignment at the kid’s dorm. Next thing I know I’m back at home base and the Chief of Internal Affairs is telling me I’ve got to take an eight week leave of administrative absence.”

A shudder passed through Bollier that she could not conceal.

“The IA Chief? Personally?”

Detective Slade nodded grimly and took a very long pull from his steaming French Roast. He stared out the window onto the street, where a handful of neighborhood kids were riding by on twelve speed bikes.

“Maybe I should consider it a message. Like maybe it’s time to retire early.”

“When you’re so close to your pension?”

“There’s things more important than money.”

Bollier agreed that this was true and did her best to settle her nerves. After a while she worked up the courage to ask the question she came there for.

“Alright. I’ll get out of your hair in a minute. Just one more thing. I know you only had a little while to work it, but did you find anything unusual about Montri?”

“Unusual?”

“Yes, anything that could help.”

Detective Slade pondered this for a moment before he spoke.

“I don’t know how helpful it will be, but there was something that struck me as odd.”

Bollier already had a pen and a small spiral notebook in hand. She clicked the tip out and told Slade she was ready.

“Go ahead.”

“I suppose you know that he was some kind of political prodigy. Top of his class. Heading for the state house for a cushy internship. So I suppose it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that he travelled in exclusive circles, but…”

The detective stopped talking and stared at the blank, black TV screen like the mysteries of the universe could be discerned there, if only one had the patience to watch long enough.

“Yes?”

“I pulled Montri’s cell phone records. In the seven days before he fell outta that building he got five calls from the New York State Capitol.”

She said the name. 

“Marvin Greene.”

Detective Slade had enough sense not to ask how she’d guessed.

“And on the night in question?”

“Forty seven minutes before they found him.”

Bollier lifted the delectable cup of French Roast that Detective Slade had brewed to her lips. She let the coffee pour into her mouth, but she found herself unable to swallow. It took three tries before it went down.

...

Jordan Ross was just beginning to calm down when he saw the same man in the vitamin shop again the next week. Jordan was thumbing through a fitness magazine when he caught a glimpse of him in the supplements section.

Of course Jordan could not be sure, but he thought he saw him look his way. If Jordan was being truthful with himself he would have admitted it didn’t matter if he was sure or not. The fact that he ran into him twice was proof. Somehow, the Russians had got a scent on his trail. Perhaps he’d slipped up. In one of those circuits between the gym and the boarding house he must have missed a tail. One person in the crowd that was all it took. New York was the best place in the world to hide.

Jordan kept his distance. He followed the man as he made his way through the store. He kept several paces back, but never let his eye wander off. This time the man was wearing a Jordan brand t-shirt to go with a pair of matching basketball shorts. He bought two bottles of fish oil, a Vitamin C, and an iron supplement. At the checkout he looked up at the same reflective surface Jordan saw the first time. Their eyes met. The man thanked the cashier and headed for the exit. Jordan left his magazine on the rack and followed him out.

Wherever he was going it must have been close. Jordan was relieved that he did not flag down a taxi, as he doubted very much he had the funds to chase him around the island in another one. He walked briskly right past the parking lot and turned onto 62nd.

As he hounded the stranger from a distance, Jordan kept his hand close to the .22. The Russians could have had a roaming hit squad nearby, just waiting on the word from their special spy. If he made a sudden grab for a cell phone Jordan would have shot him.

Jordan was careful not to be too obvious about what he was doing. He stayed close enough so that he could close the distance with a short sprint, but far enough so that the vitamin man wouldn’t suspect anything. The man walked four blocks without stopping. The longer he followed the more leery Jordan became. He kept expecting the man to suddenly whirl around and unload on him with a handgun, but he just kept on walking.