Marked Man II - 02 (6 page)

“Facing an arrest a lot of people will say anything, but yes I did. Kyle?”

Agent Clemons was about to drink from his club soda but he set it down and sneered at it instead.

“I’m going to have agents checking every warehouse in the borough first thing in the morning, but it’s probably going to take a few days with nothing more to go on than that. They didn’t have an exact address?”

Bollier shook her head.

“I don’t think Alexei and Timur are what you’d call inner-circle material exactly. But it’s a good bet it’s the same place they brought me when… you know.”

Together the three of them observed a moment of silence. Bollier’s abduction was a sore subject, the group’s greatest failure to date, up until this apocalyptic scenario with Mary’s family. Bollier had not been the same since. Jordan Ross doubted that she ever would be.

The waitress finally returned with their drinks and three coasters. She slid the last one under the Manhattan and winked at Bollier. Next to the Pabst logo a phone number was scribbled down along with a smiley face. She lifted the Manhattan and took a sip then pocketed the coaster.

Jordan Ross and Agent Clemons were blushing and looked like they were about to break into a grade-school ooooOOOoooh chant. The detective instructed them to shut up and they did so, sealing their lips tight before they even had a chance to be lurid.

The levity was short-lived. Jordan asked the question the trio had been dreading.

“So. Does anybody have any ideas how Shirokov found out I’m alive?”

The FBI agent and the detective exchanged a very concerned look. They avoided looking at their vigilante partner in the eye. Part of their deal was that nobody Jordan knew would be put in harm’s way. With Jordan dead that was easy, but alive was another thing entirely. Jordan waited for them to speak for a while and then he took an exceptionally long draught from his glass of amber ale.

“No theories? No clues? No suspects? No ideas whatsoever?” His voice was all acid.

Detective Bollier blinked and studied the etchings and vandalism on the table carefully.

“I’m sorry Jordan. We never thought that he had this kind of...”

“...It would appear that Shirokov’s arm is a lot longer than we originally thought possible,” Agent Clemons finished for her.

Jordan huffed bitterly.

“It would appear so.”

He drained the rest of his beer in one tip and a series of big gulps. When the last of it was gone down his gullet Jordan slammed the pint glass down onto his coaster and stood up to go. For a moment he loomed over the two of them, and it looked like he was about to say something else, but then he stormed away without a word.

Bollier reached to grab his arm but Agent Clemons quietly shook his head and said no.

Chapter Four

Vladimir Shirokov took two steps back and looked at the canvas, but it was not quite the right angle, so Shirokov stepped back several more. He had shed off the heavy cast and ditched the crutches the week before but still had to wear a walking boot on his right foot where the army man had shot him. The boot was better than the crutches but moving around was still an ordeal.

The canvas was 48 by 60 inches of warm colors, swirling around in a vortex that gave the illusion of drawing the viewer into a portal towards a dark and fiery nether region straight out of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Reds and oranges and yellows danced in the spiral, but the reds dominated the composition. When Shirokov was six paces away he felt the lighting was just right. He stood with a ceramic palette and a wet brush in hand and spoke to the lawyer.

“What do you sink?”

Avi Solomon was sitting off to the side of the studio, going through a ream of papers from the real estate agent’s office. The A-list attorney was an expert in many things but art was not one of them. Absently, Solomon looked up for a moment and then went back to his work.

“I don’t know. I think maybe it needs more red.”

The irony was not lost on Shirokov and he allowed himself a chuckle, but when he returned his gaze to the canvas he thought about it.

“Maybe you are right. Maybe you might have eye for painting after all.”

“That’s possible. But right now my eye is a little preoccupied with your trial. Have you made any progress on getting to a juror?”

Shirokov’s glowing amber eyes rolled in his head as he sat down and propped his walking boot up on a divan. His freedom may have been on the line but the subject of his trial had become an intolerable bore to him. The paintings were suffering with his mind distracted as such.

“Do not concern yourself with jury. Tell me about property.”

“There’s no new news I’m afraid. We have been over this. Finding a buyer after what happened out there on your front lawn is going to be extraordinarily difficult.”

With a shrug Shirokov turned his head toward the tall window. A breeze caught the curtain and he glimpsed a sliver of green.

“Difficult yes. Impossible no.”

“Impossible quite very possible I’m afraid. I don’t care how many bathrooms you’ve got nobody wants to live on an estate where eleven people got killed. At least consider bringing down your asking price.”

Shirokov rubbed at his temples.

“Your negativity. It is tiring. Surely there must be one buyer who is not unnerved by ghosts and superstition.”

“There might be, but snagging him at what you’re asking is like praying for a miracle.”

“Miracles do happen, counselor. Miracles happen often. Now. What has happened to Alexei and Timur?”

Avi Solomon swallowed hard and set the stack of papers off to the side. His fingers formed a steeple and he tapped his shoe nervously.

“I received word from our source last night.”

Shirokov waited and eyed the lawyer with a cold patience.

“They have both agreed to cooperate with the police. You’re going to have to get that family out of that warehouse, along with everything else you’ve got there. The feds will be crawling all over it by this time tomorrow.”

Exhaling sadly, Shirokov signaled that it would be done. With some effort Shirokov got up from the divan. He picked up his brush and palette, then slowly clopped his way back to the enormous painting, as of yet untitled. From behind him the lawyer asked with no small bit of trepidation what he planned to do about the Prokorovs.

“You disappoint me counselor.”

“How? What did I do?”

“After all our time together. No matter how many times I have told you. And still you ask questions you do not wish to know the answer too. Leave them to me.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry.”

Avi Solomon gathered up the papers into his briefcase and bowed his way out of the studio. When the lawyer was gone, Shirokov dipped his brush into the burgundy and made two swift, precision strokes on the canvas.

…

Deputy Sheriff Larry Pembroke of Morris County was cruising his patrol car up Benton Avenue when he saw the perpetrator. He was a big man in a white tank-top leaning up against a black Lincoln Continental, slurping from a star in a cup of iced coffee. Chains of gold draped down around his neck, their pendants obscured just beneath the neck of his shirt.

The Lincoln was parked illegally by a fire hydrant right in front of Mrs. Orsini’s bakery. She was the one who called the Sheriff’s office to tell them. Old Mrs. Orsini made a habit of calling them whenever she suspected that “troublemakers” were around, or whenever she saw something “just a little bit fishy” in or around her shop. When the call came in over the radio the Deputy was idling comfortably in his vehicle, waiting at a speed trap behind the billboard just off the highway exit.

The dispatch told Pembroke that a “weird stranger” was lurking out front of the bakery and that his car was parked in front of the fire hydrant. He laughed at the description when it came in and the deputy had half a mind to ignore the call entirely, but it had been a slow day at the speed trap and he had nothing better to do, so he radioed an affirmative and drove over right away.

Now that he was pulling up outside the bakery, Deputy Pembroke could see why anybody would have been disturbed by the giant man’s presence, let alone fussy old Mrs. Orsini. He was easily over six feet tall and just as wide across. His face looked surly, and despite being clean-shaven there was something dirty, possibly foreign about his appearance.

Deputy Pembroke hung his walkie talkie in its place on the dashboard and got out of the car. Even though the Sheriff’s car was parked right behind his the giant man didn’t even seem to register his presence. Rather than confront him immediately, the Deputy straightened the bill of his hat and marched into the bakery.

“Oh my lord! Thank goodness you’re here,” is how Mrs. Orsini greeted him when he came in through the front door.

“Good afternoon, Marie. Something smells absolutely delightful. What’s in the oven?”

The worried look on the baker’s face disappeared momentarily and she smiled back at the deputy from behind the counter.

“That would be my apple tart. They’re almost done, if you’d care for a bite.”

“Thank you Marie, I may take you up on that. So what’s the story here?”

He gestured outside to the Lincoln and the big ape leaning against it like he didn’t have a single care in the world. Marie Corsini crossed herself and whispered over the counter.

“That man has been out there for an hour now. He just stands there, not moving or talking to anybody, sipping that drink of his.”

“So he’s just standing there. Hasn’t threatened anybody or done anything hostile?”

“No. He hasn’t. But I tell you, I just don’t like the look of him. My nana used to tell me, rest her soul, she told me that you could always tell by a person’s face. And that man out there is no good. I’ll bet my macarons on it.”

Deputy Pembroke chuckled and straightened his hat again.

“That’s quite a bet. Well, thanks for letting us know. So long as he hasn’t hurt anybody I’ll get him moving along and out of your hair.”

He turned to go and Mrs. Corsini followed him out to the door, telling him to be careful. When he was outside again she latched the hook on the frame. The Deputy walked out into the street, strolling around the back bumper of the Lincoln. After coming to a stop in front of the colossus dark-haired man he cleared his throat.

“Excuse me sir. I don’t know if you noticed but your vehicle is parked illegally.”

The towering brute turned his head and looked at the Lincoln like it was the first time he had ever laid eyes on it, then he shrugged and took a slurp from his drink. He neither said anything to the Deputy nor acknowledged his presence beyond that.

“Look sir, it’s a hot day so I’m going to let you off with a warning. I think you’d better get back in your car and move along. What do you say?”

In response the big ape in the tank top just stood there, impassive as a stone monument. The Deputy put a hand on the pair of handcuffs linked to his belt and shifted his weight so as to appear more assertive. It did not work.

“I gave you a real nice chance to just get on out of here but if you want to play the hardass we can do that too. Last chance now. Get in your vehicle and go.”

Bending his head down, the giant man put his lips to the straw and sucked up a mouthful of iced coffee, then spit it out in the Deputy’s face. Larry Pembroke flustered and wiped the cold, sweet liquid out of his eyes and then reached back to his belt to pull the cuffs out. But before he could get them loose the big man dropped the drink and grabbed him by the throat. Back inside the bakery, Mrs. Corsini shrieked and picked up the phone to dial 911.

The enormous hands were clasped tight over his throat, but the Deputy still managed to squeak out a few words.

“You… are… under…. arrest… you have… the right… to remain...”

Larry Pembroke was unable to finish reading the perpetrator his Miranda Rights. He lost his wind and blacked out, then drooped forward unconscious. The big ape pulled the Deputy’s head back and then pushed forward, slamming his face onto the roof of the Lincoln. He let the Deputy fall down and lie prostrate on the pavement. Mrs. Corsini was frantic, describing the scene as it unfolded. When Deputy Pembroke went down face-first to the ground she become nearly hysterical and begged for the operator to get a SWAT team and call out the National Guard. The operator promised that help was on the way. After she hung up Mrs. Corsini’s hands went scouring through the shelf of cheese Danishes. She ate one fast and then grabbed another one.

Instead of running away or driving off like a sensible person, the giant violent just leaned his weight against the Lincoln.

Backup arrived less than a minute later. Mrs. Corsini watched two officers get out of the car and point their weapons at the assailant. They told him to put his hands in the air and get down on his knees. When he refused they shot him with the taser and he collapsed, jittering and flopping like a fish on a riverbank.

The Montville Police department cuffed the assailant and forced him into the back of a squad car with some effort. At the station when they were processing him he refused to speak in his defense, or even give them so much as his name. The intake officer finally had to reach into his pocket and take out his wallet. She found the man’s New York state driver’s license and set it down next to the keyboard. She had been working at the Montville station for many years and her eyesight was starting to desert her. Squinting at the name, she hunted for the right key and pecked them one at a time with her index finger.

Under the heading identification she typed:

I-D-2-0-9-4-4-7-2-9-7

Then she read the name printed on the license and entered it into the system:

L-E-O-N-I-D- SPACE -Y-E-N-O-T-I-N.

…

Detective Bollier was in bed when she got the page.

Hours earlier the waitress from Stacey’s had fallen asleep, and was lying on her side facing away, curled up in the sheets. After the aerobics Bollier had tried to go to sleep herself but failed. Instead she lay awake and stared at the ceiling as her mind raced.

Wide awake, Bollier stared at the ceiling fan and listened to it cutting the warm air, or she turned and watched the waitress sleep. The waitress’ back was bare and rising and falling gently with her breathing. The longer she watched her the more envious she became. Several times in the night Bollier almost got up to fix herself a cup of tea, or fiddle around the bedroom, but she resisted these impulses. She was a miserable insomniac but waking the girl just to have someone to talk too seemed unspeakably selfish. So, Bollier lay awake, restless and feeling like her eyes were going to bleed.