Jason Pinter - The Mark

“So what now?” Amanda asked. She’d wrapped her arms around her delicate body, looking at me for a sign of hope. I held the album under my arm, feeling the plastic edge biting my skin, unsure of what to say, what to do.

John Fredrickson. I knew he worked for Michael DiForio. He wasn’t just “in the neighborhood” three days ago, like Luis had said. He’d gone to the Guzmans with a purpose: to retrieve this album and deliver it to Michael DiForio. With these photos, DiForio had New York in a vise. Releasing the photos would damage the city beyond repair. And losing them wasn’t an option he’d want to consider. And yet somehow there had to be a way to use the album, some way to set us free. Turn evil into good.

Again I tried to distance myself, cast away all emotion, look at it like a journalist.

Like a magic trick, a great story was one where you showed all the facts but gave away none of the secrets behind them. You offered the audience what they needed to see, wanted to hear, and nothing else. There were two groups of people out there: those who wanted me dead and those who wanted this binder and then wanted me dead. The trick was giving them both what they needed, yet making them want only what I offered.

It had to end tonight. I had no energy left, nothing else to offer Amanda in the way of solace. I was tired, cold, hungry. And finally I’d been given a small foothold that might support my weight.

I looked at the large brownstone in front of us. So strange in this neighborhood. Like one rotten head of lettuce in a well-cultivated garden. Like Henry Parker in New York.

“This has to end,” I said to Amanda. Her head dipped, her eyes coming up to meet mine. She leaned into me and I wrapped my arms around her thin waist, pulling her close.

God, I just wanted to breathe her in, hold her near me, think of nothing else but her. Amanda’s breath was warm on my cheek. I inhaled it, closed my eyes, pressed myself against her skin. When I opened them her head was on my chest. I stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. Everything will be all right…

Then she tilted her face upwards, her lips parting slightly. I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers, felt her push back. Soft and inviting, we both gave in. The hurt and pain being sucked away. For a few seconds, we were the only people in the world, and I completely lost myself in Amanda Davies. And when we finally separated, Amanda’s head falling back onto my chest, I knew it was more intimate than anything I’d ever experienced. If only it were on another night, in a different world.

Then I stepped back, opened the photo album.

“I need to finish this,” I said. She nodded. She was crying.

“I want to help.”

“No. This is my responsibility now, and mine alone. I don’t know what’s going to happen or how it’s going to end, but you can’t be a part of it. You’ve already done too much, I can’t bear the thought of endangering you any more.”

“Please,” Amanda said, tears streaking down her cheeks. She put her hand on my face, her light touch sending shivers through my body. I bit my lip, warmth spreading through me. “Henry, I’m a part of this, like it or not. Let me help you.”

I shook my head. Then I opened up the binder and removed the photo negatives. I handed them to Amanda. She took them, confused.

“If anything happens to me, give these to Jack O’Donnell. Tell him everything. He’ll know what to do.”

“I don’t understand. Why can’t I help you?”

“You already have, as much as possible, more than I ever would have expected from anyone. I can’t let you do any more.”

Amanda nodded, bit her lip.

“What about you?” she asked.

I smiled faintly, stroked her cheek gently.

“Trust me,” I said. “I’ll think of something.”

The plane touched down a few minutes after 2:00 a.m. Joe Mauser made his way unsteadily down the narrow stairs, still feeling the effects of the seemingly endless blast of turbulence the jet had hit half an hour in. He closed his eyes, thought about the millions of tiny lights scattered over the New York landscape. Soon he’d be back into the heart of New York, and hopefully Henry Parker would be ready to have his heart ripped out.

Fighting back nausea, Joe saw Chief Louis Carruthers standing on the tarmac, two steaming cups of coffee in hand.

“Agent Mauser,” Louis said, offering up the java. “Agent Denton.”

“Lou,” Joe said. The men shook hands, a solemn gesture.

Sipping the coffee, Mauser grimaced. Louis must have poured an entire dairy farm into the cup. Damn thing tasted more like milk than coffee. As they walked toward the Crown Victoria parked in a lot near the hangar, Mauser’s cell phone chirped. He took it out, found his voice-mail icon blinking. He must have missed the calls while in the air. He checked the call log and felt his heart drop.

Six calls from Linda. She’d left three messages. Joe didn’t have the heart to listen to any of them. He pictured his sister at home, waiting for good news, a sign that her husband’s death wouldn’t go unpunished. But right now he couldn’t give her that hope, and it was eating at him like acid through a drainpipe.

“Fredrickson’s widow?” Denton asked. Joe could only nod.

“So fucking hard on her,” Mauser said. “I wish we had something. If I could, I’d string that fuck Parker up by the thumbs and give her a key to the room. I just want this kid so bad.”

“You’ll get him, Joe. It’s almost over,” Louis said. “We’ve got the city locked up tighter than my sister on prom night. If he’s here, he’s not going anywhere.”

“You know how many fucking black holes there are in this city?” Mauser seethed, forcing another swallow of the so-called coffee down his throat. He felt the caffeine settle right into his bloodstream, a surge of adrenaline coursing through him. “You know how easy it is to disappear? Parker’s not stupid, but he only needs to fuck up once. Use a credit card. Make a telephone call. Cross the street at a red light. Anything.”

Just then another officer, this one young enough to look like Denton’s son, came running up. He held a clipboard and a walkie-talkie in his hand and spoke like the world would end if he didn’t get out a hundred words a minute.

“Slow down,” Mauser said. “I missed the first, middle and last thing you said.”

“Sorry, sir,” the kid said, grinning from ear to ear. “But we got him.”

“Parker?” Joe’s stomach dropped. The kid nodded, then smiled at Chief Carruthers. Goddamn police force being overrun by guys who looked like they weren’t physiologically old enough to even have children.

“How?”

“Telephone call, Agent Mauser. Parker used a pay phone and charged it to the same calling card we got him with before.” Joe smiled, nudged Denton.

“Who did he call?” Denton asked. The kid looked at his clipboard. Static came over the radio. Mauser couldn’t understand a word of it, but the kid clicked a button and responded “ten-four.”

“Parker called his parents in Bend, Oregon,” he said. “We traced his call to a pay phone on East 80th Street, by the river. It was placed nine minutes ago.”

“About goddamn time we had a break,” Mauser said. “You have a tape of the call?”

“Absolutely.”

“I want to hear it,” Mauser said, making a beeline for the Crown Vic. “Lou, have them patch the recording through to my cell phone. I want to hear Parker’s voice, I want to hear the phone call.”

“Done. You heard him,” Carruthers said. The young officer clicked the radio again.

“Uh, dispatch, can you patch through the Henry Parker call to Agent Mauser’s cell phone?” Joe gave him the number. Denton stood there chewing gum, his hands fidgeting. Mauser nodded slightly, acknowledging Denton. It would be over soon. Finally the rat had nowhere else to run.