Jason Pinter - The Mark

“What?” he said, his voice irritated, like a cranky teenager woken from a nap.

“Hi, uh, we’d like a room.”

He grimaced, then reached beneath the counter for a water bottle with an inch of viscous black liquid at the bottom. He raised it to his mouth and spit chewing tobacco into the lip. Whatever missed the bottle dripped down the side like an insect’s number two.

“Minimum’s one night. None of that ‘we need fifteen minutes for a quickie’ bullcrap. You want that you best go a mile down the road to the Sleep ’N’ Snuggle Inn, fifteen bucks an hour at that slop house.”

“Then we’ll take a room for one night,” I said.

“Don’t you be bull crappin’ me,” he spat. “If you plan on stayin’ more than three nights I need a down payment. Too many peoples coming in here staying and don’t paying.”

“Just one night,” I repeated. “Honest. And we’ll even pay that up front.”

“Well, all right then.”

He reached under the counter and pulled up a gigantic logbook, its yellowed pages more like remnants of Talmudic scripture than loose-leaf. He turned it around to face us, and motioned to a pen attached to a chain. Not a dinky chain of metal balls like they have at banks, but a full damn chain. If this is how he protected writing implements, I wondered how he tethered his pets.

“Need your name-both of ’em-and John Hancocks.”

“No problem. Can we pay in cash?”

“This is still America, right? Haven’t gone all to plastic yet.”

“Far as I know,” Amanda said.

I took the pen and logbook and began to scrawl. B-O-B W-O-O-D.

Before I could finish, Amanda jabbed me in the ribs.

S-O-N, I wrote. Bob Woodson. Stupid name.

Amanda took the pen. With delicate penmanship, she wrote in Marion Crane. When I looked at her, she was blushing.

Marion Crane. Janet Leigh’s character in Psycho. The woman who ran from her lover and the police with $40,000 of embezzled cash, before becoming Norman Bates’s carving block.

Marion Crane. The girl who just wanted a better life.

He said, “Now I’ve blocked the rooms from dialing those 900 numbers. You want me to unblock it, I’ll need a credit card imprint. Seen some people run up ungodly charges on those things.”

“No thanks, that won’t be necessary,” I said.

He gave me a creepy smile, smiled at Amanda. “I’m sure it won’t.”

He handed us a small key attached to a palm-sized block of wood. “So you don’t be stealin’ it,” he reprimanded us. The key was stamped 4. He pointed us down the hall and told us to hook a right. All the doors were a faded red, the paint cracked and dirty. We passed by a soda machine. I was thirsty, but the machine was sold out except for the Diet Shasta Orange. Yum.

After we turned the key, room 4 took several hard kicks to open. Just like home.

The bed was concave, as if it had recently been vacated by a particularly obese buffalo and hadn’t yet taken back its normal shape. Thankfully the bathroom was clean. The shower stall was cramped, but at least the water ran.

Amanda collapsed onto the bed. Her legs hung off the end as she took long breaths. I sat down at a small desk in the corner and pulled up my pant leg, pain shooting again as the fabric grazed my wound. Dried blood the color of charred wood had congealed around the yellowed gash. I gently pressed my finger against it, winced.

I stood up and went over to the scratched oak dresser, throwing open the drawers one by one. All I found was a Gideon’s bible and a wadded-up tissue. Ew.

“What’re you looking for?” Amanda asked, her voice sluggish.

“Just checking to see if anyone might have left some spare clothes, socks maybe.”

“Sure, I bet the Salvation Army figured they didn’t need little Johnny’s socks anymore and tossed ’em in the drawer.”

“Whatever,” I said, easing back into the chair. “I need to get out of these clothes, take a shower.”

“Be my guest.”

I removed my socks and shoes and lay them neatly by the radiator. Stepping into the bathroom, I hung my shirt and pants on the shower stall, hoping the steam might rinse away some of the sweat and dirt.

Steam wrapped my body like a glove and I closed my eyes, the world seeming ever so far away. Just a few minutes, and I forgot all about John Fredrickson. The last two days never happened. The weight of the world disappearing down the drain.

I was back in the Guzmans’ apartment. Luis was reciting lines from The Glass Menagerie while Christine showed off booties for their unborn child.

I was back at the Gazette, writing obituaries while Wallace and Jack observed from across the newsroom. Everything was right with the world.

Then it all came rushing back like a busted dam. The gunshots. John Fredrickson’s body prone on the ground, blood everywhere. The pistol pointed at Amanda’s head. The cold glare from the man in black. The cops who wanted me dead. Hours cramped in the back of a truck, knowing every breath might be my last. Death and destruction, all following me like my own shadow.

Suddenly I was awake. I looked at my watch. Half an hour had gone by in a blink.

I shut the water off and grabbed a crinkled towel. My clothes were still damp, so I wrapped the towel around my waist and rejoined Amanda. Modesty damned to hell, I wasn’t going to put those nasty clothes back on until they’d been boiled and disinfected.

To my surprise not only was Amanda awake, but she was wearing a different shirt. A large plastic bag lay at her feet.

“Is that new?” I asked, incredulous. When we arrived, Amanda was still wearing her fleece. Now she had on a blue T-shirt with the letters CPD embroidered on it. Chicago Police Department. What a sense of humor. “What’s in the bag?”

She threw it at me, and I thankfully managed to catch it while keeping my dignity around my waist. Inside was a shrink-wrapped package containing a fresh T-shirt, a package of underwear, size XXL, and a pair of cargo shorts that looked like a stiff breeze could undo the lining. I looked at Amanda, her eyes sparkling, anxious for my reaction. Had she gone shopping?

“Sorry about the underwear,” she said. “They were out of large and XL, and you don’t look like a medium kind of guy.”

“Large usually, but I’m not going to complain.” I paused, looked into her gorgeous eyes. “Thank you.”

She nodded. “So what do you think of the T-shirt? I felt it was appropriate.”

I shook my head. “Maybe I should get one that says ‘Fugitive’ on it. We can wear them at Halloween, maybe accessorize with a ball and chain. I’ll carry the pickax.”

“You can be Harrison Ford. I’ve always had a crush on Tommy Lee Jones.”

“I’m not sure I needed to know that. Besides, you’re much prettier than Tommy Lee Jones. And a lot less leathery.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Well, he is an attractive man,” I said with a grin. “Amanda, really, you didn’t have to do this.”

“I know, but I did it anyway.”

My smile came easily. I emerged from the bathroom a minute later feeling like I’d just taken a dozen hot showers after being stuck in a mudslide. New clothes never felt so good.

“Jesus, your leg,” she said. I glanced down. The wound was angry and yellow and deeper than I’d thought. “What happened to you?”

“A bullet…when I was running from those cops.” I made a slicing motion through the air to drive the image home. Amanda shuddered.

“We need to take care of it,” she said.

“We don’t need to do anything,” I replied, stern.

“Hold on,” she interrupted, bolting for the door. “I’ll be right back.”

Before I could stop her, Amanda was gone. I sighed, in no position to chase after her, and turned the television on, flipped to CNN. Then I turned it off. I didn’t want to see the news. Everything was already too real.