David Jackson - Marked

‘Doyle! Glad you decided to accept my invitation.’

Doyle shrugs, then jerks a thumb toward Whitey. ‘How could I refuse, with your boy here asking so nice? For a while I thought he was gonna get down on one knee and propose.’

‘Yeah, Sven’s a charmer, all right.’

Doyle turns to the man with the snowy hair. ‘Sven, huh? And what part of Ireland are you from? Maybe I know your folks.’

Sven just glares back at him, possibly because he’s not sure if Doyle’s question is serious or not. Possibly because he doesn’t give a shit and just wants to tear Doyle’s limbs off.

Bartok says, ‘Looks like you didn’t fall for him right away, though, Doyle. That’s some whack you took to the cheek there.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. I can’t look at it without a mirror. Makes my eyes go funny.’

Doyle waits for everyone to tense, and he gets it. He gets it because he just broke the cardinal rule. The one which says: Don’t make fun of Lucas Bartok’s eyes.

Lucas Bartok is cross-eyed. And we’re not just talking a mild squint here. Not a slight drifting of a pupil. No, Bartok’s eyes are so misaligned he can have staring competitions with himself.

Everyone in this room is aware of Bartok’s condition, but none of the other men here will have dared mention it. Not ever. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in this room. They’d be somewhere nobody would ever find them. Decomposing.

Doyle says it because he needs to show these people that he’s not afraid. The jokes too. Humor to hide the fact that he’s actually scared shitless. To hide the fact that, although he may seem unruffled on the surface, inside he’s trembling. Because if there’s one thing he knows not to do right now, it’s to show weakness. Weakness could get him killed. But then again, so could pushing Bartok too far, because Bartok is certifiable. Doyle found that out last Christmas. He witnessed first-hand what this man is capable of when roused.

‘Get him a chair,’ Bartok orders, the amusement gone from his face now.

‘I don’t mind standing,’ says Doyle. ‘I don’t plan to stay all that long.’

One of the men brings a heavy oak chair over, places it behind Doyle, then pushes down on his shoulders to make him sit.

‘Long time no see,’ says Bartok.

It seems to Doyle that it’s a statement just crying out for a personal insult, but he decides it’s prudent to hold back this time.

‘Yeah, we should get together more often. Say, what are you doing next Thursday? I got tickets for Springsteen.’

‘Yeah? I’m tempted. Let’s wait and see if you’re still alive then, huh, Doyle?’

‘Why? What’s my doctor been saying to you?’

‘You got a clean bill of health. For now. Which is good news for me, because I got a job for you.’

‘No thanks. I already got a job. I got a long list of scumbags to lock up.’ Doyle selects one of Bartok’s eyes at random and focuses on it. Letting him know that he’s high on that list.

‘Yeah, well you’ll just have to fit this into your busy schedule. You don’t get to say no to this one.’

‘And if I say no anyway?’

Bartok glowers at him. At least, Doyle thinks it’s aimed at him. Then Bartok slides open a drawer in his desk and takes something out of it. He holds it up and studies it, allowing Doyle to do the same.

It’s an icepick.

It could be worse. It could be a meat hook, that being Lucas Bartok’s implement of choice when he really wants to go to work on someone. But an icepick can be lethal enough. Go ask Trotsky.

‘What does this say to you, Doyle?’

‘You’re expecting another ice age?’

Bartok’s sigh is more of a snort. He gets up from his chair, still brandishing the pick. Doyle’s eyes dart around the room as he tries to decide his best move. He’s got a psychopathic killer in front of him, and a wall of muscle behind him. And they’re armed too. The odds don’t seem in his favor.

He relaxes only slightly when Bartok walks across the room, away from Doyle and over to the tarpaulin-covered object.

‘You know what’s under here?’ says Bartok.

Doyle doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to see what he’s about to be shown, because he knows what it is.

When Bartok whips away the tarpaulin, Doyle’s fears are confirmed. It’s a man, sitting on a chair. To be precise, it’s a man who is very naked and very dead. And, also to be precise, he’s not exactly sitting; he’s more kind of perched there. He’s scrunched up into a ball, his knees pushed up to his abdomen and his arms folded across his chest. His fingers are stiffened into claws and his eyes are open. He stares accusingly at Doyle. As well he might.

The sight of this figure is disturbing enough, but there’s something else that makes it all the more horrific.

The man is frozen solid.

Doyle can see the vapor tumbling down the frost-whitened flesh. He tells himself it doesn’t matter to the victim. He’s beyond feeling the cold. But still it doesn’t sit right with Doyle. You freeze turkeys. You freeze fish — even those with bones in. You don’t freeze humans. Even in the mortuary, bodies are usually stored a couple of degrees above freezing.

‘What are you thinking, Doyle?’

Doyle can’t tear his eyes away from that grotesque solidified corpse. Can’t shake the feeling that it in turn is looking right into Doyle’s soul. The icy glare chills him, and he wants to shiver.

‘Pretty good, Lucas. Can you carve swans too? I prefer swans.’

Another quip. Bravado. Trying to prove how unmoved he is. But it lacks conviction. It sounds hollow, even to himself.

Bartok leans closer to the frozen head of the man. He seems morbidly fascinated, like a kid observing a bug after he’s pulled the legs off it. Slowly he raises the icepick, then with the tip of it he gently taps one eyeball. The harsh clicking sound sets Doyle’s teeth on edge.

‘Now that’s what I call a stiff. You remember this guy?’

Doyle swallows hard. Do I remember? Of course I remember. Sonny Rocca. He worked for the Bartok brothers, back when there were two of them. I killed him. I had no choice.

Even though Rocca was a career criminal — a failed Mafia applicant who saw the Bartoks as the next best thing — Doyle kind of liked him. In life Rocca was good-looking and had a disarming smile, and Doyle almost felt sorry for him because of the treatment he received from the Bartoks. He never desired to see Rocca dead. But fate put the two of them in the alley outside, guns drawn, and it was clear only one of them was going to walk out of there alive. Doyle decided it had better be him.

All of which might have been fine had Doyle been here on official police business, fighting the good fight against the forces of evil. But he wasn’t. He came here because he’d struck a deal with Lucas’s brother, Kurt. A deal that effectively involved Doyle signing his soul over to that man, putting him forever in his service. Luckily for Doyle, but not so luckily for the Bartoks, Kurt wound up dead shortly before Rocca did. That put an end to the deal, but it didn’t make Doyle’s actions any more forgivable. He couldn’t tell anyone that he’d consorted with known violent criminals, and he certainly couldn’t reveal that he’d killed one of them.

He watches now as Bartok traces the point of the icepick down the face of Rocca. Onto his neck. Then down his torso. Doyle listens to the scraping sound it makes.

‘See here?’ says Bartok. ‘Four holes, though not the best grouping in the world, Doyle. The slugs are still in there. Your bullets. From your gun. The cops would know that, wouldn’t they? I mean, if I was to give them Rocca’s body here and they took a look inside, they’d be able to figure out who did it, wouldn’t they?’