Jason Pinter - The Mark

Just as my finger entered the smooth, circular hole, I felt his meaty finger join mine. On the trigger. Then his finger tightened its grip.

There was a tremendous explosion, and a flash of light burned my eyes. The gun propelled itself into my shoulder, knocking me backward. I got to my knees, surprised to find the gun in my hand. Finally I had control. I looked for my target.

He was lying on his side. And he wasn’t moving.

A faint curl of smoke wafted from a tattered hole in his raincoat. A pool of blood began to spread out on the floor beneath him.

“Oh fuck,” I said. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.”

The gun clattered to the floor. I looked around the hallway, saw faces peeking out of doorways. I locked eyes with an elderly woman, who quickly shut her door when she saw the carnage. Christine picked herself up, wincing as she touched the back of her head. She limped over and looked at the man. Terror was etched on her face, as though she were being lined up before a firing squad.

“Dios mio,” she said softly, crossing herself. “He can’t be…we didn’t have it…”

“Is he…” I whispered. Christine said nothing.

I knelt down, my legs like cooked pasta. The man’s eyes were wide open, his mouth frozen in an O shape. A thick slab of tongue lolled in his mouth as I fumbled for his wrist, pressed my fingers against his veins. Nothing. I felt my wrist, just to make sure I was holding the right place, and felt blood coursing through my body faster than I thought possible. Gingerly stepping over the spreading pool of blood, I pressed my fingers against his fleshy, unshaven neck. Nothing.

“Oh…my God,” I said, standing up, stumbling backward.

“Is he…” Christine said, nodding at the body.

“I think so.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” she whimpered. “God, no.” She should have felt safe now that he was dead, but the look of terror in Christine’s eyes was even greater than before.

Luis was still slumped in his chair. Christine stumbled past me into the kitchen, returning with a carving knife. She began slicing through her husband’s bonds. I caught my breath, dizziness spreading over me, the lifeless eyes of a corpse boring a hole in my back.

“What are you doing?” Christine yelled.

I said, “Shouldn’t we…”

Sirens blared in the distance. My blood ran cold.

“Go!” she cried, tearing rope away from Luis’s wrists. “Get out of here!”

I stumbled back, picked up my backpack and charged into the stairwell. I took three steps at a time, pain shooting through my body with every breath.

I burst into the warm night. Nothing made sense. I broke into a full sprint, headed south down Broadway and didn’t stop until my lungs were on the verge of bursting.

I ducked into an alleyway, saw a homeless man sleeping under a cardboard box. My head throbbed. I couldn’t run anymore. I sat down, and pulled my legs up to my knees. I heard faraway sirens, and the blackness overcame me.

Joe Mauser couldn’t sleep. His torso was warm under the covers. His legs were naked, cold. He eyed the finger of scotch on his nightstand. He left one there every night. Sometimes it worked. Often it didn’t. And often he found himself going for a refill.

Sitting up, Mauser squeezed the sleep from his eyes and looked at the clock-4:27 a.m. He flicked on the antique lamp that was a gift from Linda and John for his forty-fifth birthday. It was a reading lamp, they said. Only thing he read by that light was the proof number on the bottle. The only other item on the nightstand was his Glock 40.

Joe lifted the scotch and took a small sip. He felt the liquid burn under his tongue, considered turning on the television. Sometimes watching QVC put him to sleep. Maybe scan the movie channels. No, that wouldn’t work. Only things on this late were titty flicks and infomercials.

His legs were sore. Early morning runs. He’d lost twenty pounds over the last six months, working off a few years of complacency. Down to two-ten. Not terrible, but on a five-eleven frame dropping another twenty would do him good.

Early morning runs were easy when you didn’t sleep much to begin with.

He switched off the lamp and closed his eyes, hoping sleep might meet him halfway. Just as he felt darkness descending, the shrill ring of the telephone shattered any chance he had of slumber.

Cursing, Mauser turned the light back on and picked up the receiver.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Joe? I wake you?” Mauser recognized the voice of Louis Carruthers, his old friend and the NYPD Chief of Department. Carruthers held the job since ’02, the fourth Chief of Department since 1984, back when it was referred to as Chief of Police.

“No, you asshole, I just got home from the bowling alley.”

Joe and Louis had been partners for three years in the NYPD. Then Mauser left to join the Feds down in Quantico, while Louis continued up the ladder. They met for drinks once or twice a year, but those occasions were always planned out weeks in advance. Louis calling this late, Joe didn’t think it involved sitting on bar stools and shoveling snack mix down their throats.

“I’m uptown at 105th and Broadway,” Louis said. “We’ve got two assault victims on route to Columbia Presbyterian. There’s one more, and he’s…he’s not making it. Joe, you need to come up here.”

“So you got a stiff up in Harlem,” Mauser said. “And you call me at the butt crack of daylight for what?”

He heard Louis take a breath. He was struggling to get it out. “The victim, he took a. 38 in the chest. He was gone when we got here. We don’t want to move him until you have a chance to come up here, Joe.”

“Is it the Pope?” Mauser asked. “’Cause if it isn’t the Pope or the President or someone really important, I’m going back to bed.” He heard deep breathing on the other end. Muffled speaking. Louis trying to cover up the phone.

“You should come down here,” his friend said. “105th and Broadway. Follow the squad cars. It’s apartment 2C.”

“Is there a reason I should give up a good night’s sleep to check out a random vic that’s not even under my jurisdiction?” He paused a moment. His heart began to beat faster. “Lou, is this call personal or professional? Should you be calling the bureau?”

“I thought you should hear it from me before I do. Joe,” he said, his sigh audible over the phone, “we have an ID on the victim.”

“Who is it?”

“Please, Joe. I don’t want to tell you over the phone.” Mauser felt a flash of pain shoot through his stomach. It wasn’t the scotch. Something in Louis’s voice.

“Lou, you’re scaring me, buddy. What’s going on?”

“Just come down here.” Mauser swore he heard the man choke back a sob. “A lot of the guys haven’t seen you in a while. They’ll be glad to know you’re coming.” Then he hung up.

Three minutes later Joe Mauser had on his leather jacket, a pair of beaten khakis, house keys snuggled in his pocket. Gun strapped to his ankle holster.

Stepping into the warm May night, Federal Agent Joseph Mauser cinched up his coat and walked to his car. He turned on the radio. Listened to two talking heads argue over whose fault it was that the Yankees lost. He drove uptown, a gnawing feeling in his gut that the body he was about to see would mean many more sleepless nights lay ahead.

You wake up in a sun-dappled alley. Your ribs hurt. There’s a knot on the back of your head that throbs nonstop. You feel dizzy. A man wearing a cardboard box for a blanket blinks at you, his eyes adjusting to the sight of this stranger sharing his alley. His beard is frazzled and dirty. His hands look like he’s worked in a coal mine for twenty years. You think it has to be a dream. There’s no rational explanation. You have a bed. You live in an apartment paid for with your money. You have direct deposit. You have a MetroCard. You may or may not be in a relationship. You have a college degree. You have parents you fled three thousand miles to get away from.