by Ben Sanders
‘Yeah, a few times.’
‘What do you recommend?’
‘I’ve only ever had the massaman curry. Beef.’
She smiled. ‘Why break a good habit.’
‘Exactly.’
They ordered drinks, and some spring rolls for starters. When the waitress moved away, Jordan asked him how people end up undercover with the mob.
Marshall smiled. ‘I’m not sure there’s a typical induction process. I had a longish, unpleasant slide into it. Got involved because of my uncle, really. He was always around made guys, hung out on the edge of the Asaro family for a long time. He had a gambling debt with them that he couldn’t get on top of, and it reached the point, they weren’t going to let him out of anything unless I did a job for them. They knew I was a cop, obviously thought I could be of some use. In the end, I said yes.’
He tended to be pretty circumspect about his work, but it was easy, somehow, talking to Jordan. He liked how relaxed she seemed about it, quiet and patient and interested, watching him over the top of her water glass, swilling it a little.
He said, ‘It went downhill from there, basically. I was documenting everything, logging evidence, so NYPD liked the arrangement. But I was just getting … I didn’t like where it was heading. Morally, I guess. And it’s no kind of life, that’s for sure. You can’t live for that long with your paranoia dial cranked up to eleven all the time. That’s what it’s like. I was certain I was going to be made, and I felt essentially stuck in this holding pattern of being debriefed, and then going back in for another round. On and on, you know. In the end …’
He thought about how to put it, one of those moments where brute facts had to be elided for the sake of social niceties, or a pleasant dinner. Although, seeing her there across the table, he had the feeling he could tell her anything and she wouldn’t hold it against him. He went with the polite version anyway, and said, ‘Tony Asaro had a place on the Upper West Side, in the Langham there by Central Park. I went in one day, blew my cover, that was it.’
Blown his cover in quite a literal sense, actually. He almost said that, wondering if it would sound clever or just sort of morbid. He decided to leave it out.
He said, ‘They got Tony on tax evasion in the end. He went to one of those prisons that looks like a weekend retreat for middle management.’
She laughed. Their drinks arrived: pinot noir for Jordan, micro-brew beer in a can for Marshall. He tried to ignore the parallels, the weird feeling that hit him. He saw himself with Vialoux the other night. The restaurant, the window table, and then the figure with the gun …
He broke himself out of it with a smile, forcing himself into something brighter, still watching the street in his periphery.
He said, ‘Anyway. That’s my life. How’s yours been?’
She laughed again, quieter this time, and then looked away, maybe weighing up the question, and he felt dumb for being so offhand about it.
She said, ‘Well, I always thought mine was unconventional, but I think my perspective just had a re-alignment.’ She looked at him. ‘I grew up in a commune, actually. Back in New Zealand. Until I was twelve, anyway. Then I think my mother had enough of it, and we went to live with my grandmother.’
Marshall said, ‘Twelve years, that’s definitely giving it a fair chance.’
‘Yeah. She was there fifteen, actually. Three before she had me. I don’t think she minded sitting in a circle playing guitar, but fetching water from a well and making stuff out of flax hit its limit eventually …’
She had some wine, smiled around the lip of the glass, and he could see in the movement of her eyes she was making the same assessments he was: what to include, and what to omit.
She said, ‘It was part of why I came overseas. Got to a point, I really just wanted some distance on everything.’ She shrugged. ‘Haven’t been back.’
Marshall nodded, nothing to offer on that immediately, and he realized in a detached sort of way that he wasn’t in any rush, either. Something extremely pleasant about shared silence in candlelight with this sort of company.
They dealt with the spring rolls, and the waitress came back and took their entrée order. Marshall went with the massaman curry again, no sense at all in seeking out alternatives, given he’d found something essentially above reproach. Jordan had the stir-fry vegetables. He wanted to hear more about commune-living, but didn’t want to go in too heavy with the questions. He told her about his Jackson Pollock project, his thousand-piece Convergence jigsaw, recounted his session at the desk the other night, the way he’d managed to lay that piece down clean, no lineup, just something telling him it was right. He liked the way she listened so intently, cutlery poised but waiting for him to finish. Something about his explanation that put a light in her eye, making her smile. He didn’t know what it was, but it was good being listened to like that, someone seeing the magic of the world in the same way he did.
He would’ve liked to stay there another hour or two maybe, draw it out, just sit there watching her talk. He thought if they ran a city-wide test somehow, scanned everyone’s brain and took a reading of contentedness, he’d be right up at pole position, no question. But they were through coffee now, and the wait line was out the door, and when the waitress brought the check, he thought it may as well have had a timer on it, bright red numerals counting backward.
They had an awkward back-and-forth for a moment, both of them making moves to pay, but Marshall came up trumps. He had cash, and he’d known it would give him an edge in this situation, the fact he could lay down the full amount and then just walk away from it, hostage to chivalry. They threaded out past the line at the door, and then they were on the sidewalk in the cold again with the Brooklyn night lights and the crowd, and Marshall hoped the evening still had more to give him. They started walking back up toward the subway station at Graham, and he said if she had time, they should get a drink somewhere. There were a few places down Metropolitan he wanted to try. Jordan told him that would be great.
Then she said, ‘Jake’s away for the weekend, of course. So …’
He waited for it.
She said, ‘Yeah, whatever. We can find a place, or you can come over, and I’m sure there’s something in the cupboard …’
‘Ok, great. Yeah. Let’s do that.’
She said she’d get them a cab, given he bought dinner, and Marshall told her he’d prefer to take the subway if that was all right. His MetroCard expired at midnight, and he wanted to capitalize on its final hours. He wasn’t quite sure if she saw it his way or not, but she smiled and said that was fine – he’d be stupid not to take advantage, obviously.
She only had pinot noir in her apartment. Marshall wasn’t really a wine drinker, but he deliberated carefully, and he decided this was one of those times when it was in his interest to make an exception. They had a couple of drinks, Jordan telling him more about commune-living, something about how the philosophy of the place was essentially doomsday prep, but then that principle ended up subordinate to a resurrectionist Christian doctrine, and that puritanical element served as a kind of bug light for the social fringe: anti-vaxxers, people with unyieldingly strict ideas about gender roles, and some other stuff Marshall didn’t really keep up with. Not due to lack of interest, but simply because he had other things on his mind right then. They were on the sofa by that point, things heading nicely in the right direction, Marshall thought, and at nine o’clock Jordan had finished her second wine, and she put the glass down and said, ‘That’s enough of that.’
Marshall said, ‘What do you want to do now?’
And Jordan looked at him and said, ‘Hmmm.’
That was an hour ago. Now he was alone in her bed, feeling unimprovably happy. The pressure of the last few days gone, at least for now. No sound in the apartment except the faint hiss of shower water, Jordan in the bathroom through the wall. He thought he could lie there all night, watching the ceiling, listening to the water, give his brain a holiday. Nothing but w
hite noise, radio between stations.
He searched through bedding debris and found his underwear and shirt. The wine had grown on him, actually. He went into the living room and poured them each a half-glass to finish the bottle. He sat on the sofa, still feeling pretty good about everything, and a minute later Jordan came out of the bathroom wearing a towel.
‘I’ve turned you into a pinot man, have I?’
‘Don’t know if I’d go that far. But it has its merits.’
She sat down at the table. He remembered her sitting there yesterday when he visited, and it was nice to superimpose the two Jordans in his mind – this one right here in front of him, and the one from yesterday – appreciate the supreme good fortune that got him from one situation to the other.
He said, ‘I wouldn’t mind some more of that Eric Clapton Jake had on yesterday.’
‘I wouldn’t mind some, either. Except it’s in his room, and I’m forbidden to enter under any circumstances. And he has a sixth sense for other people setting foot in there.’
Marshall said, ‘I guess talking is fine, then.’
She laughed. ‘What’s the plan of attack for tomorrow?’
‘Find D’Anton’s wife. We can figure out the details tomorrow.’
‘Yeah. We’ll sort it out over coffee.’
He smiled at that, and they drank some wine, and Jordan said, ‘What does it say under all the redaction marks in your personnel file? Or whatever D’Anton was talking about?’
Marshall said, ‘I don’t know. I think that’s the point of redactions.’
She was still looking at him, though.
Marshall said, ‘When I blew my cover, they thought I’d taken some cash out of Tony Asaro’s safe. Internal Affairs was looking at it for a while, didn’t charge me in the end. It would’ve got written up on a DODA form and then blacked out if it was related to covert stuff.’
‘What’s DODA?’
‘Disposition of disciplinary action.’
She said, ‘So did you?’
‘What?’
‘Take any money?’
‘They didn’t think so.’
She paused, looking at him as she sipped her wine. ‘OK.’
Marshall said, ‘Can I ask you a question, too?’
She looked at him for what felt like a long moment, and then said, ‘Uh-huh.’
Marshall said, ‘Did you have an affair with Ray Vialoux?’
She didn’t answer.
Marshall said, ‘I just thought … well. If you only worked a handful of jobs with him, why would D’Anton Lewis remember you so well? He must’ve had some reason to check you out. And the fact you still had a key to his office. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d have unless you knew him pretty well.’
Jordan had some wine. She said, ‘Any other clues?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not making anything of it. I’m just asking the question. I thought right from the start, the fact you were prepared to find out what happened, I wondered if maybe you and he were an item.’
She said, ‘Is that why you’re trying to find out what happened? Were you having an affair with him, too?’
That had an edge to it that he hadn’t heard before.
She said, ‘You forgot to ask if that was why my marriage ended. Maybe my husband left me because he found out about me and Vialoux.’
Marshall said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that, actually.’
‘Slower than usual, then.’ She looked around, as if weighing up the situation somehow.
She said, ‘What was the plan … wait until after sex, and then hit me with the hard questions?’
He didn’t answer.
She said, ‘Look, this has been great. But I think we should call it a night.’ She put her glass down, and the sound of it hitting the table seeming to punctuate her line, reinforce the finality.
Marshall nodded slowly. There was some minor comfort in the fact he hadn’t seen this as an outcome of his questioning. It felt exculpatory, in a way. The problem was, he realized, he’d seen everything as part of the same mystery, intrinsic to the central question of why Ray was dead. He should’ve seen where the line was, the divide between the pertinent and the personal, the stuff that was none of his business.
She was in the bedroom now, and when she reemerged, she had his coat and his trousers draped on one arm, the other hand still holding the towel together. She dropped the clothes beside him on the sofa.
‘It isn’t midnight yet. You can still get another ride out of your MetroCard.’
But it was midnight by the time he got down to the station. With a sort of irrational hope, he ran the magnetic stripe through the turnstile reader, and the little green text window said INVALID. The metal push-bar didn’t budge. For a vexing and unpleasant second, the message seemed to resonate with life more broadly, a galling applicability to the present moment. Then he bought a single fare, and placed his change in a cup beside a sleeping homeless man, and waited in the midnight quiet of the empty station, nothing but furtive rat motion for five whole minutes. Then shadows moved, and with the stilted syntax of a prototype robot the automated voice told him that a train was arriving, and sure enough it did, and a moment later Marshall stepped on.
Thirty minutes past midnight wasn’t late in New York terms. When he got to Flatbush, there was still a decent crowd out on Clarendon Road. When he turned down his own street, heading south, it was quieter: no one else on the sidewalks, and only occasional traffic.
He didn’t notice the SUV until it was alongside him, the driver timing the approach so the vehicle came abreast of Marshall at a clear stretch of curb, no parked cars to shield him.
The SUV’s rear door opened while the vehicle was still rolling, and when it came to a halt just ahead of Marshall, a man slid out and stepped up onto the curb in front of him. It was one of the guys from last night, at the bagel place: the guy with the ponytail. He had a gun in one hand, hanging against his leg, and he raised the weapon to gesture at the open door.
‘In.’
TWENTY-SIX
The guy was twelve feet away, which meant there was little hope of taking the weapon off him. Far more likely to get a bullet in the chest before he closed the gap in any meaningful sense. Behind him were street-front town houses, effectively a solid wall. No prospects there, escape-wise. His only option really was to turn around and run for it, back toward Clarendon. Except this guy was a few years younger and several pounds lighter than Marshall, and he had better footwear, too – trainers as opposed to Doc Martens – and all of that together sounded like a recipe for being chased down and shot in the spine.
Marshall said, ‘How’d you find me?’
‘Drop your phone on the ground and get in the car. Or I’ll shoot you right here. Your choice.’
He had his tone just about perfect. Flat and indifferent, like it was nothing to him whether Marshall was a passenger or a murder victim.
Marshall waited.
The guy shook his head. ‘Don’t make me count, pal. I won’t do it out loud. I’m just going to drill you.’ He gestured with the gun. ‘Take your phone out, put it on the ground, get in the car.’
Marshall placed the burner on the sidewalk, and got in the car.
Ponytail followed close, cutting off his exit but standing hip-forward, keeping the gun back out of grab-range. That same SIG pistol from last night. He knew what he was doing. The worst way to handle a weapon was to give the other guy a chance to have it.
‘Far side. Move.’
Marshall slid across the rear bench, the right-hand side of the car, behind the empty front passenger seat. Leather, and a piney scent of air-freshener. Mini-television screens built into the front headrests. Oddly luxurious, he thought, given the circumstances. He recognized the driver: Benny, from the bagel shop last night.
The guy with the gun jumped in behind the driver’s seat and said, ‘Go,’ as he pulled his door shut.
Benny got them rolling. He was tense: upright in his
seat, arms locked at ten and two on the wheel, triceps standing out with the effort.
Marshall said, ‘What’s the plan? We going to a meeting, or are you dumping me somewhere?’
Ponytail said, ‘Shut up, pal.’
He was sideways in his seat, back propped against the door, the gun pulled in tight against his hip as he aimed at Marshall.
‘You’re better to pretend you never found me. Penalties for abduction are pretty high.’
‘Hold your left hand out. Slow.’
From up front: ‘This fucking GPS, honestly. It always wants an actual address. How do I … I just want a general area, you know?’
‘Pull over and figure it out. Don’t fuck around with it while you’re driving.’ Then to Marshall. ‘Left hand up. Now!’
The car swerved gently on the shout, and Benny said, ‘Chris, Jesus.’
The guy called Chris didn’t answer. He was holding handcuffs, one bracelet hanging open like a claw.
‘Left hand up. Now.’
Voice back to its chilly norm. Something in his eye that said the night had been long enough already.
‘I’m not going to argue the point. I’d rather put one through your head and out the window than have to sit here watching you.’ He shrugged. ‘Your choice.’
Marshall held his left arm out.
The guy cuffed his wrist, cinching the ratchet tight and then keeping hold of it.
‘Lean forward. Head against the seat.’
He should’ve argued for longer. He’d be dead if he couldn’t use his hands. But the guy was keeping the gun back well out of reach, close in by his hip.
Marshall said, ‘I get motion-sick if I can’t see a window.’
‘Don’t test me, pal. Lean forward.’
Marshall leaned forward. He felt the guy’s gun against the back of his neck, shoving his head against the seat in front of him.
‘Put your right hand behind you.’
He did so, and felt the cold grip of the second handcuff bracelet as it clicked into place.
Trapped.
‘There. No moving, no fucking talking. All right?’