Jason Pinter - The Mark

“Linda?” he said, his chest contracting, hot tears filling up his eyes. “Lin, please talk to me.” She blew her nose, a pitiful rattle.

“Funny,” Linda said. “It was always John who said he’d take care of me. He never said anything about me taking care of myself. I guess I just believed he’d always be there, and I wouldn’t have to worry. Why’d he have to leave me? Jesus, Joe. I loved him so much.”

Mauser felt a tear slide down his cheek, sobs racking his throat.

“I know you did, Lin. I did, too. I know it’s no consolation, but I’ll be there for you. Now and always.”

“Thanks, Joe. I know you will.”

“You want me to come over?”

“No,” she said with an air of finality. “I need to be alone right now. I know that sounds selfish since he was your family, too-but I need this. Do you understand? Please tell me you do.” Mauser said he did.

“Can I do anything for you? Bring you anything?”

“You can do one thing for me,” Linda said. Mauser felt a chill run down his spine.

“Name it.”

“I want you to kill the man who killed my husband. I don’t care what it takes, Joe. You find him and you fucking cut his head off.”

“Lin…”

“I know, I know,” she said. “Thanks for calling, Joe.”

“I’ll talk to you soon.”

“I love you.”

The words leaked from his mouth like a balloon’s final gasp of air. “I love you, too.”

Mauser put the receiver down. He dropped his head into his hands as convulsions of sadness and rage seized his body. When Joe looked up, his vision was streaked, his eyes burned.

For Linda, he thought.

For me.

The Ringer sat baking in his car, going over the conversation in his head. He’d just spoken with the Arab deli owner, confirming that the man had, in fact, seen and scared off Henry Parker that morning.

“Just picked up my bat,” the man said, smacking the wooden mallet against his palm. The Ringer held his hands up in mock surrender. “And the cocksucker ran outta here lickety-split. You know one of the greatest things about this country is baseball. This Parker fellow probably saw it in my eyes. If I was born here I woulda made the majors. I would’ve thumped him a good one.”

The Ringer placated the man for a minute, then returned to his car. He tuned the radio into 1010 WINS, where a rumor was circulating that the cops had found Parker-and lost him-in the area nearby Columbia’s campus.

Mya Loverne. The cops were all over her by now. Why had Parker gone uptown and risked capture? There had to be a reason besides the girl. He was resourceful. There had to be another angle.

Parker was born with a pedigree that had been run over by a Mack truck, but still managed to work himself into an Ivy League school, pulled good grades and landed a job at one of the country’s most respected newspapers. He was a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps archetype. The Ringer hated them, hated chasing them. If forced into self-reliance early on in life, one’s abilities in that regard would only mature with age. Knowing this, it was probable Parker had fled the city and the cops were searching for a needle in an empty haystack. That boded well. At least he was on equal footing with the cops.

He opened his notebook and wrote down every conceivable route out of New York he could think of. He crossed off the airports and bus terminals. It was impossible for Parker to get past security. Subways were a problem, but they could only take him within the five boroughs. From what DiForio and Blanket said, Parker had no reliable contacts in New York other than his employer and girlfriend.

His employer was Wallace Langston, editor in chief of the New York Gazette. The same paper that had, reluctantly, he was sure, run a front-page story about John Fredrickson’s murder that morning. In a letter from the editor, Langston himself referred to Parker as a “young employee who’d met their hiring expectations with flying colors and had exhibited no hostile, let alone homicidal, tendencies,” then adding, “The Gazette will do anything and everything possible to bring all the facts to light, without any bias or prejudice.”

If Langston made any attempt to aid Parker, his paper would be in jeopardy. The Ringer knew these newsmen. Most of them considered themselves noble, even altruistic, but in truth they lusted for fame, the glory of the byline. Hungry writers were no doubt chomping at the bit to write the Henry Parker/John Fredrickson story. Betraying friendships for the sake of notoriety.

Columbia. It didn’t add up.

The Ringer picked up the phone and dialed Information, asking to be connected to the Columbia University directory. A sweet lady, her voice young and slightly timid, answered the phone. The Ringer asked to be connected to whatever office handled student transportation.

This time, a gruff man, sounding like he hadn’t trimmed his beard in several months, answered.

“Hi, my name is Peter Millington,” the Ringer said. “And I’m thinking about coming to Columbia for grad school. I live in California and I was wondering if you could tell me what forms of transportation there are for students on campus.”

“Well,” the operator said, “you got JFK and LaGuardia a cab ride or subway trip away…”

“No good, my family won’t pay for the airline tickets. What are the cheap ways if you need to go a long distance off campus?”

“There’s plenty of buses, trains. You got Port Authority and Penn Station…”

“Anything else?”

“Well, if you’re going cheap, there’re the student shuttles.”

“Student shuttles.” A bell went off in the Ringer’s head. “If I wanted to learn more, maybe talk to a student about these shuttles, how would I do that?”

“One moment, let me transfer you to someone who can help.”

As he waited for the call to go through, the Ringer penciled three schools down on his list: Columbia, which was doubtful. Small chance Parker would hang around uptown, waiting to be snatched by a black-and-white. Hunter and NYU had higher probabilities. And both were right off the 6 train.

Finally he was connected to the Office of Student Services. Under the guise of Lennie Hardwick, sophomore and racked for time, he persuaded a very nice lady named Helen to check the student shuttle postings for him. One match came up, a junior named Wilbur Hewes who was driving home to Ontario at 11:00 a.m. this morning. No other rides were registered for today. Hitching a ride to Canada made sense-assuming Parker didn’t get stopped at the border. The Ringer wrote down Hewes’s name and asked for the phone number on the posting. Lennie figured he’d keep it in case he ever wanted to do some fishing up north.

The Ringer called Wilbur Hewes’s cell phone, got a curt response on the third ring.

“Yeah?”

“Hello, is this Wilbur?”

“Yeah, what?” The Ringer could hear the rush of the highway, Wilbur’s voice full of static. Horns blaring. Heavy metal music loud enough to make his eardrums throb. The Ringer smiled. Wilbur was stuck in traffic.

“Hi, Wilbur, my name is Oliver Parker. I’m calling from Montreal, and I was informed by the helpful operator at Columbia that my son Henry might have gotten a ride from you.”

“No Henry here. Nobody responded to my posting.”

“Really?” the Ringer said, crossing Columbia off the list. “You sure he didn’t tell you to keep it a secret? It’s my birthday today, maybe he wanted to surprise me and show up unannounced?”

“Listen, man,” Wilbur said. The Ringer could hear the agitation of bumper-to-bumper traffic getting to Wilbur. “Nobody called about a ride. Unless your son’s hiding in my trunk, wedged between three big-ass suitcases, he’s not with me. All right?”