David Jackson - Marked

He drives his foot with unerring accuracy into the man’s groin. The force of the impact is magnified by the man’s own forward momentum. He comes to an abrupt halt as though he has just run into a brick wall — which would probably be less painful — then clutches at his privates as he drops heavily to the ground. Doyle sees tears well in the man’s eyes before he bows to touch his forehead to the wet sidewalk like a praying monk.

One down, two to go, thinks Doyle. Although he starts to acknowledge that’s a little ambitious when the other two gorillas start smashing their fists into his midriff. He hears his own breath being forced out of him as the men pummel his ribcage and pulverize his abdominal wall. And when they’ve run out of steam and they allow their captive to sink to his knees, Doyle notices that the first attacker is back on his feet. He approaches warily and shakily, and Doyle prepares himself for the coup de grâce.

Raising his face, Doyle looks at the man, who is still clutching at his groin and baring his bloodstained teeth in agony.

‘That’s a terrible Michael Jackson impression,’ says Doyle.

Instead of a laugh, he gets a kick to the face. Doyle’s head flies back and bangs into his car door. The dark shapes flood into his consciousness again. They try to merge together to form total blackness, and Doyle has to fight to keep them separated.

He feels himself being dragged again, his feet scraping the ground. He hears a car door being opened. The hands frisk him and take away his gun. Then he feels himself being lifted from the ground and tossed into a vehicle. More doors open. The three goons climb in. Doors slam shut.

Doyle does his best to raise himself into an upright position in his seat. As the car takes off, he looks through the rain-washed window. The streets are mostly empty. Everyone has fled from the rain. The ones who are still out there stare back at him from beneath their umbrellas. One person points. Doyle knows that it’s unlikely they will report the incident.

Fighting the nausea that is starting to creep into his system, he starts to turn toward the man in the seat next to him. Stops turning when his temple touches the gun barrel leveled at him.

‘Gimme an excuse, dickwad,’ says the man.

‘Where are we going?’ Doyle asks. ‘Did Proust hire you?’

‘Who’s Proust?’ the man answers, and Doyle can tell he really doesn’t know. It was a long shot anyhow. Why would Proust risk organizing something like this, right outside his own premises?

No, somebody far more dangerous than Proust is behind this.

The conversation isn’t exactly sparkling during the journey. Doyle puts several questions, gets several stony glares in return. Oh, except that one time when one of the men tells him to shut the fuck up.

The guy sitting next to Doyle — the one who started all this with his offer of a free lumbar puncture — has white hair that contrasts starkly with the blood still dribbling from his lip. Not old-person white. Just white. And he’s not an albino either. Doyle wonders whether to ask him if he’s had an accident with bleach recently, but thinks better of it.

The other two bozos sitting up front are big and ugly and stupid. All muscle and no brain. It’s a wonder either of them has enough intelligence and coordination to drive.

But somehow they manage to transport Doyle across town without incident. He keeps an eye on the changing streets as he tries to work out where they’re taking him. The buildings around him become large brick-built warehouses, now mostly converted for use as bars and restaurants. Directly ahead, he sees the horizontal slash of the High Line — the elevated park that was once a section of the rail system. His stomach begins to churn.

His fears are confirmed when the SUV makes a sudden turn into a narrow alleyway. That’s when the sun comes out, if only figuratively. In reality, the rain clouds continue to piss on everyone. But at least Doyle now knows exactly where he is. Knows exactly whom he has been brought to see. Knows exactly why he’s here. Shoulda guessed, he thinks.

This is the meatpacking district — a tiny quadrilateral that once somehow managed to contain over two hundred slaughterhouses and packing plants. The smell of death is rarer here now.

But not always entirely absent.

Doyle has been here before. Last Christmas, to be precise. It wasn’t fun then, and it won’t be any more hilarious now.

When the men drag him out of the car and he stands on the slick cobblestones, looking up at the dark-brick building, it all comes flooding back. He remembers every detail of that night. He has never told anyone else about it. Not the police, not his wife.

He has never told them about how he shot and killed a man in this alley.

The man with the whiter-than-white hair steps up to a side door in the building, pulls out a bunch of keys, and opens up. His two associates take Doyle by the arms and lead him inside.

They move through a dim utility room, then through another door that opens into a vast empty chamber. Doyle has never seen it like this before. The last time he was here, the place was heaving with gyrating, sweaty bodies. The air was filled with a rhythmic pounding that shook his bones. Everyone stoned and happy and oblivious.

Now, though, the nightclub is as forlorn as an abandoned ship. The dance floor is deserted and marked with scuffs and numerous unidentifiable stains. The bar is unmanned, and black steel shutters have been lowered to keep out intruders. The walls are of bare brick — harsh and unwelcoming.

The footfalls of the men echo around the converted warehouse as Doyle is led over to an iron staircase. They start to climb, and the metallic clatter reverberates. They arrive at a walkway that runs the length of one wall. Doyle can still picture the half-naked female dancers that were positioned here on his last visit.

They don’t stop here, but continue up another staircase to the next level. Doyle is guided along the walkway to a door at its center. Whitey knocks three times and waits.

‘Maybe he’s in the shower,’ says Doyle. ‘Or busy jerking off.’

The man to Doyle’s left gives him a smack on the side of the head.

When the door is finally opened, another man-mountain comes into view. He’s even bigger and uglier than the three who were sent to collect Doyle. The kind of guy who should be holding a peeled banana in one hand while picking his nose with the other.

‘Would you like to buy some of our cookies?’ Doyle asks him. ‘Or chocolate brownies? You look like a chocolate brownie kind of guy.’

The man furrows his eyebrows slightly, like he’s smelled something unpleasant in his cave. Then he looks at Whitey, and a spark of recognition fires in the recesses of his brain. He pulls the door wide open and steps aside.

The men hustle Doyle into the room, and he feels his breathing become faster. It’s a large office. Wood floor and oak paneling on the walls. A massive oak desk in the center of the room. The air is cool — the building designed to prevent its carcasses from rotting when it was used to house animal corpses. That time was way before Doyle’s last visit here, but even in his own memory this is a place of violence and bloodshed. He will never forget what happened here in front of his eyes.

There are two things vying for Doyle’s attention here. One is an object covered by a gray tarpaulin. It stands over to Doyle’s left, like a life-size sculpture waiting to be unveiled. Doyle isn’t sure what’s under that tarpaulin, but he can make some guesses.

Then there’s the man seated at the desk. He wears a dark suit, no tie, shirt open at the collar. He is broad of shoulder, broad of head, and carries a broad smile. His name is Lucas Bartok. Despite his smile, he is not a pleasant man. In fact, as Doyle knows only too well, Lucas Bartok is the stuff of nightmares.