David Jackson - Marked

He hears nothing, so he buzzes again, then hammers on the door with his fist.

A light comes on. A shadow appears behind the blinds. LeBlanc hears a fumbling of chains, the drawing back of bolts, the turning of keys. As he pulls open the door, Proust shuffles backwards, maintaining the door as a shield between him and LeBlanc. Only a fraction of Proust’s face is visible, and even that is cast into silhouette by the light behind it.

‘Mr Proust? You mind if I come in for a moment?’

‘Is Doyle with you?’

Proust’s voice is faint, croaky and filled with fear. LeBlanc swallows. It worries him that Proust’s first question should be about Doyle. He seems terrified of the man.

‘No. No, he’s not. It’s just me. Is that okay?’

‘I. . it’s not really a good, unh, time.’

LeBlanc hears the slight grunt. Like Proust is in pain. Jesus, could he. .

‘Mr Proust, I promise this won’t take long. And I’m not here to give you any trouble. A couple of questions and I’m gone.’

Proust says nothing. Just stands there. Then the door swings open a little wider.

LeBlanc steps inside. Takes a quick look around. Nothing amiss that he can see. Everything in order. He turns back to Proust, who is closing the door. From the back he seems strangely bent and stiff, like an old man.

And then Proust faces him.

LeBlanc gasps. ‘Jesus Christ! What happened? What the hell happened to you?’

The man is a wreck. He looks as though he has just tumbled from the top of a mountain to the bottom. How is he not on a slab in the morgue?

‘I’m okay,’ says Proust.

‘Okay? You’re not okay. Have you seen yourself? How did you get like this?’

Proust limps past LeBlanc. ‘I was, uhm, I was mugged.’

As soon as LeBlanc hears the explanation he knows it is not true. And then he starts to feel sick with the realization of what the truth might be.

‘You were mugged? When were you mugged? Where?’

‘Here. Two guys came in this morning. They wanted my money. I told them I didn’t have any. So they beat the shit out of me.’

LeBlanc says nothing for a while. He doesn’t know what to say. Proust’s story is a crock, but he’s not certain he wants to drag the real one out of him. He watches as Proust sits himself down on a stool, wincing as he does so.

‘Have you reported this to the police?’ LeBlanc asks.

LeBlanc snorts a laugh, then follows it up with a cry of pain. ‘The police? Are you kidding me, man? After the way you guys treated me yesterday? Something tells me I wouldn’t get a whole load of sympathy from you people.’

LeBlanc looks him up and down. Jesus! This was no ordinary beating. Somebody wanted to give him a message. They probably didn’t even care if he lived or died.

‘These men. What did they look like?’

‘I don’t remember. They were big and they were mean. That’s all I know.’

‘They use fists or weapons?’

Proust shrugs. Winces again.

LeBlanc chews his lip. Break through the lies, or leave it be? This is a fellow cop we’re talking about here, Tommy. Do you want to know? Do you really, really want to know?

‘Did Detective Doyle come here again this morning?’

Slowly, Proust raises his head. Turns his battered, misshapen face full into the light. Through half-closed lids, his eyes twinkle as they stare at LeBlanc.

‘Detective Doyle?’

‘Yes. Was he here this morning?’

A long pause. Then: ‘No.’

Except that it’s a no which means yes. It’s a no which says, You’re a cop too and I don’t trust you and so I’m playing it safe, because all you cop bastards stick together and anything I say against one of you is said against all of you.

All of that in one word. That’s what LeBlanc hears. That’s what shakes him to the core.

And now he’s not sure what to do. A part of him wants to pursue this. A part of him wants to put the badge away and talk to Proust as another man, another human being. He wants to tell him that he will listen, and that whatever Proust says to him will be treated in the strictest confidence. He thinks that might work. He thinks that Proust might open up to him.

And then he takes a mental step back. He thinks, I am a cop and Doyle is a cop, and Proust is still a suspect. Despite the apparent fuck-up that Doyle seems to be making of this case and his own life, our roles haven’t changed.

It is not without some shame that he opts not to side with this man against one of his own, and so he offers to do what he can: ‘Get up,’ he says.

Again there is fear and suspicion in Proust’s eyes. ‘Why?’

‘I’m taking you to the hospital.’

‘I don’t need no hospital, man. I’m okay.’

‘You might have broken bones. Internal damage. You need to be checked out. Come on, I’ll take you in my car.’

Proust stares at LeBlanc’s beckoning hand for some time before making a decision. As he gets off his chair, he grimaces. If he wasn’t in so much obvious discomfort, it could almost be mistaken for a smile.

Doyle sees the glance from the man with the backpack. He knows the guy has seen him. Can tell by the way the man speeds up his rhythmic lope that he’s trying to put as many yards as he can between him and Doyle without it seeming too obvious.

Doyle pushes himself away from the window of the bodega and takes up pursuit. The man speeds up. Doyle speeds up. The man risks a quick look behind him and increases his pace a little more. Doyle decides he’s not in the mood for burning calories.

‘Freeze!’ he calls.

Coming from a cop, that would usually mean only one thing. It would mean, I have a gun trained on you right now, motherfucker, and if you so much as blink too fast then I’m gonna blow your sad ass off of this planet.

Or words to that effect.

On this occasion, however, it doesn’t mean that. The man Doyle is chasing is called Edwin Jones, but nobody other than his mother ever calls him Edwin. They know him as Freezeframe Jones, or Freeze for short. And the reason they call him that is because one of the ways he chooses to scrape a living is by selling pirated DVDs. Doyle knows he’s built up a thriving business over the years. Freezeframe prides himself on always being able to get hold of the latest movies, sometimes even before they hit the theaters. His boast is that he had the first Harry Potter movie before J. K. Rowling had finished writing the book.

Freezeframe stops and turns, then affects a grin of recognition. He is as tall as Doyle, but gangly with it. He has an angular face, with prominent cheekbones. His arms seem too long for his body, and he has a habit of waving them around with abandon, threatening bodily harm to those who get too close.

‘Yo, D! S’up, man?’

‘Hey, Freeze. For a minute there I thought you were avoiding me.’

‘Who, me? Nah. Just didn’t recognize you, is all. Can’t blame a cat for tryin’ to stay safe and shit, you know what I’m sayin’?’

‘Got something worth protecting?’

‘Only my life , yo. Worth sumthin’ to me, even if no other motherfucker give a damn.’

‘My heart bleeds for you. I was talking about the movie business. You made director yet? Producer? Or is sales and marketing still your thing?’

Freezeframe feigns puzzlement. ‘You lost me, D. I don’t know nothin’ about no movie business.’

‘Uh-huh. I bet the bodega owner does. What’s his thing? The new Tom Cruise? Or is he more your alien invasion kinda guy?’

‘Only thing I know is he sells gum.’ Freezeframe digs a pack of chewing gum from the pocket of his hooded top and shows it to Doyle. ‘You want a stick?’

Doyle shakes his head. ‘What’s in the backpack?’