Jason Pinter - The Mark

What if I had just turned myself in? Surely things could have been worked out. Surely the truth would have been revealed.

Surely…surely bullshit.

The only witnesses had publicly testified to my guilt. If my case ever went to court, it was the word of a man accused of killing a cop against three people plus the entire NYPD. Hell, if I was a cop I’d want me dead, too. But my survival depended on smoking the truth out from its hiding place. The mystery package, the one both Fredrickson and the man in black wanted, held the answer.

Five minutes later the door swung open. Amanda was holding another bag. She took out a bottle of alcohol and some cotton swabs, several gauze pads and an Ace bandage. Her face had the confidence of a doctor ready to perform her very first surgery while drunk and high on methamphetamines.

She sat me down, gently biting her lip as she poured alcohol onto a cotton ball. I closed my eyes, then felt a hot, searing pain rip into my leg. I gritted my teeth, a sharp yelp escaping my lips as she increased the pressure.

“Let me know if this hurts.”

I nodded, said I would. If she hadn’t picked up that it hurt like a motherfucker, I wasn’t about to tell her.

Eventually the pain died down to a dull throbbing sensation. Her hands were fluid, swapping pads caked with dried blood for clean ones, no hesitancy about touching my wound or cleaning it. Her fingers seemed hungry, kneading my skin as though it contained some hidden antidote for her as well. As much as she was helping me, fixing me, I knew I was helping her, too.

When she finished, Amanda placed a clean gauze pad over the wound and fixed it in place with the bandage. She fastened the end with small metal clasps and gave my leg a quick pat.

“How’s it feel?”

“Hurts like hell,” I said. “Are you sure it needs to be so tight? I think you cut off circulation to my leg.”

“Better than it getting infected. If the wound gets gangrenous, an amputation might be necessary.” She winked at me.

“Maybe it needs to be a little tighter.”

Amanda washed her hands, collapsed back into bed and sighed. Her eyes closed, her chest rhythmically rising and falling. My eyes traced her delicate curves, the brown silky hair spilling over her neck. Why now, in the middle of everything going wrong, did something feel so right?

“Why are you helping me?” I asked before I could think not to. Amanda didn’t move, simply laid there, breathing.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said drowsily.

“How do you know it’s the right thing? You just met me. You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough about you,” she said softly. “Believe it or not I’m a good judge of character. I trust my instincts more than any person’s word. Those men in my house tonight, you’re not like them.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re helping me. You could go home right now, call the cops and tell them where I am. Why don’t you?”

“Don’t you get it?” she said, rising to rest on her elbows, her voice plaintive. “I’m in danger, too. And if I turn you in, no justice will have been done. We’ll never know what Fredrickson was looking for, or why the Guzmans and Grady Larkin lied, what they were protecting themselves from. I’m with you, Henry, to the end of this. No matter what.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, knowing the enormity and truth in those two syllables.

Amanda nodded. Soon her breathing steadied, her eyes closed and she fell into a deep sleep.

Watching her sleeping peacefully only made me more aware of my own body. My bones felt like they’d been rubbed against a cheese grater. I needed a long, peaceful sleep, if only to remind me of the life I used to have. But sleep never came. I just watched Amanda, hoping her dreams were peaceful. Soon, I hoped, our reality would mirror those dreams.

David Morris was combing his hair-the thick, long hair that Evelyn fucking hated, god damn her-when the doorbell rang. Slamming down his plastic comb, David yelled at her to answer it. She didn’t respond. He heard the muffled sound of the television. Some sort of damn daytime talk show. Fuck. Couldn’t she get off her ass once a day?

David insisted she get a job months ago, and what did Evelyn do? Watched more television. Now that he was working full-time again, coming home late at night and sleeping until early afternoon, she had all day to be productive. Twice a week he had to make the three-hundred-mile drive from St. Louis to Chicago, arriving home long after the midnight hour, dropping into bed like a sack of bricks. And yet he still made time to get the kids ready for school, pack their lunches and drive them to soccer practice. Years ago he would wake Evelyn up for a quickie, gently tickle her neck and bite her earlobe. These days the thought of munching her ear made him sick.

Ever since they’d moved to Chicago, Evelyn had made David’s life a living hell. His salary was off the charts, but his home life sucked worse than an Eagles reunion. At least twice this month, David had seriously considered grabbing the kids from under her nose and getting out of the hellhole he called home. Throw some Hank Williams on the radio, throw his arm around David Jr. and little Cassie, and he’d be home free.

David pulled on an AC/DC shirt and trudged downstairs, leering in the direction of Evelyn’s talk show, silently cursing whichever red-faced evangelist had her attention this morning. He peeked out the side windows before opening the front door. Force of habit.

The man outside was wearing black pants and a black shirt, sunglasses shielding his eyes. He held his arm at an awkward angle, like he’d recently injured it. David was no stranger to the law-hell, his band had torn up the southwest in his younger days and he’d spent a few nights in county lockup-so he immediately knew the visitor was a cop. Sighing, he opened the door.

“Can I do for you, Officer?” The cop laughed, showed his white teeth, then removed his sunglasses, wincing as he bent his arm.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Can practically smell the gun oil through the front door.” David looked around for the squad car, saw only a beat-up rental. “Where’s your vehicle, Officer?”

“Federal Marshal, actually.”

“Fibbies drive rent-a-cars? Lemme see some ID.” The man pulled out his wallet-a handsome leather model-and flipped it open. Inside lay a government-issued ID stamped with one of those five-pointed stars sheriffs in western movies wore on their vests. The agent’s name was Spencer Bates.

“So what can I do for you, Agent Bates?”

Bates pointed to David’s truck. “That your Tundra?”

“Be a mighty coincidence if it were someone else’s.”

“Mind if I have a look?”

“Mind if I ask what this is all about?” Bates smiled and apologized.

“Mr. Morris, we’re tracking two fugitives by the names of Henry Parker and Amanda Davies. We have reason to suspect they hitched a ride out of St. Louis last night, and we’re doing a search of all vehicles we have reason to suspect may have aided in their escape.”

“I was in St. Louis all day yesterday for a meeting. What’s my truck got to do with this? I didn’t aid nobody.”

“We have a record of your E-Z Pass being charged at a tollbooth in downtown St. Louis late last night, around the same time the suspects were seen fleeing Ms. Davies’s house in that neighborhood. We’re just being thorough and following procedure. There’s a possibility they could have climbed in the back while you weren’t paying attention.”

“No way,” David said, stroking the hair flowing down the back of his neck. “I woulda seen something.”

“Maybe,” the agent said. “Maybe not.”