by Jared Paul
“I let him go because it was the right thing to do. You said yourself that he could have witness protection if he wanted. He gave us that boat. He gave us everything we asked for.”
“Oh so now you’re going to play the honor card?”
“What do you want from me? If we’re going to second guess every decision…”
Jordan stopped talking, Bollier assumed because he was trying to suppress his temper, but it was because a stranger was approaching the bench. A young man with a dark complexion and a Mets hat with the sticker still on the bill. He was carrying what looked like a manila envelope. When Bollier heard his footsteps she wheeled around to face him and stood up next to Jordan.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you the detective woman?”
Bollier instinctively tugged at the lanyard around her neck. It was reassuring somehow.
“I’m Detective Bollier. Who are you?”
“Here. This guy gave me this to give to you.”
He shoved the envelope forward for her to take but Bollier didn’t move a muscle.
“What is this?”
The young Mets fan shrugged and looked at Jordan Ross, as if asking him to explain the situation somehow. On the envelope someone had scrawled DETECTIVE BOLLIER in all caps in an even hand with a red marker.
“Who gave it to you?”
“I don’t know lady. Some Polish dude or something. Gave me fifty bucks and said all I have to do was give it to you.”
Jordan took a step towards the young man, who flinched a little.
“Where? Where’s the guy who gave you the fifty?”
Turning, the young man raised his hand up and made a visor by his forehead. The Mets cap could have done the same, but it was turned sideways.
“Over there. In the Chevy.”
He pointed and Jordan followed the line of his finger towards a black Chevy Tahoe parked on the curb about fifty yards up on Weehawken. The glare of the sun on the windshield made it impossible to identify whoever was at the wheel. Jordan walked a few tentative paces towards the Tahoe, feeling for the .38 at his waist. The big truck gunned its engine and pulled out of the parking space, then made a quick and violent U-turn and sped away, leaving a scent of burnt rubber behind in its wake.
Bollier already had the envelope torn open. The kid in the Mets hat swaggered off, lifting a pair of giant headphones onto his ears and nodding to the beat.
“What is it?” Jordan asked when he rejoined the detective.
She flipped the envelope open and pulled out a single loose leaf sheet of paper, folded into fourths. The paper smelled vaguely like cigar smoke. There was nothing written on it. Bollier flipped it over, revealing an address written in the same style as her name on the envelope.
“It’s just some random address.”
The detective read the address and then read it again. She scanned her memory for anything significant associated with it, but she couldn’t think of anything. After a minute she handed it over to Jordan to read.
“No idea. You?”
Jordan Ross examined the writing.
313 Revere Court, Montville, New Jersey.
He dropped the paper and began breathing heavily. Jordan’s mouth hung open and he stared up the length of Weehawken Street in the direction where the Chevy had sped off too.
“What? Does it mean anything to you?”
“That’s my sister Mary’s address.”
“Oh God.”
Detective Bollier tried to grab Jordan but he was already off to the races, sprinting towards his car in a manic dash.
“Corporal! Use your head! It’s obviously a trap. They want you to go there.”
She screamed after him until her voice was hoarse. It didn’t make any difference. Jordan Ross was already breaking the speed limit on his way to Montville before Bollier even got back to her car.
Chapter Three
Jordan Ross steered his trusty Honda CRV steed on pure instinct, ignoring stop signs, red lights and cross traffic. He drove like he was playing a racing video game with nothing more at stake but a few wasted minutes and a press of the reset button. At the first intersection he made a dangerous U-turn and headed south on Washington Street, aiming for Canal.
The radio was tuned in to the classic rock station and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s hit Bad Moon Rising was thumping through the speakers. Jordan didn’t consciously hear a single word of the song but some part of his subconscious was listening intently and his left foot tapped the rhythm while his right worked the break and the accelerator. Jordan would have been ashamed to admit that his heart rate was jacked and he was just as excited as the first time he walked into Ashley Gent’s bedroom in the tenth grade, but that wouldn’t have made it any less true.
Mary Ross had been a typical older sister to Jordan his whole life. When they were kids and she had three years and four inches on him, their playful wrestling matches turned into savage beat downs more often than not. They began innocently enough. After a long day of sitting still in private Catholic school both Jordan and Mary were restless and needed an outlet for their physical energy. In that special hour after they got home from school and before mom and dad got home from work they fought ferociously, almost every day. Mary would pin Jordan first and tell him to say uncle.
Sometimes Jordan would refuse and Mary subjected him to all sorts of diabolical torments that only an older sibling could devise. She would use a single blade of grass to tickle the inside of his nose, or shove him into the bathtub and let the faucet drip on his forehead, promising that eventually it would make a dent. When they got older and Mary brought boyfriends home the tortures grew worse. The boys of Saint Francis Academy seemed to delight in tickling her younger brother to tears to impress Mary. Once Jordan was spent or screamed too loud they let it go and locked themselves in Mary’s room until the Ross patriarchs came home.
Sometimes Jordan would say uncle and just as soon as he felt Mary’s weight lift from his body, he would shove her off as hard as he could. One time she flew back and hit her head on a doorknob and suffered a concussion. Thanks to his flawless Catholic upbringing he never fully forgave himself for the incident, but Mary gave at least as good as she got.
As Jordan swung a hard right onto Canal Street he remembered one particularly hot afternoon in the spring when he was twelve years old; he dropped Mary’s nail polish remover while he was rummaging through her purse. The bottle shattered on the floor and the smell of it got everywhere. Mary discovered him a minute later. She blackmailed him for months, forcing him to do weekend chores in exchange for her silence. One Saturday when Mary told him to rake the backyard which was full of leaves, Jordan declared he didn’t care anymore and dared her to go and tell their parents. They greeted the news with a shrug and instructed Mary to rake the lawn like they’d said. Jordan would never forget the look on Mary’s face, but he was sure that he was still more upset than she was considering everything he’d put up with during the last several months.
The Holland Tunnel was a predictable mess of crawling tail lights, even though it was the middle of the day. Jordan honked his horn twice and then resigned to waiting in line with the rest of the cars. While he was still in the queue to go in his burner rang. Detective Bollier was calling. He answered.
“Hello detective.”
“Corporal, I sincerely hope you’re not going where I think you’re going.”
“You know I am.”
What are you doing? Can’t you see this is obviously a trap?”
“Gee really do you think? I can see how you got your job.”
“Well then why the hell are you driving out there? Do you have a death wish or something?”
“Detective. All due respect, we’ve been doing things your way and Agent Clemons’ way for the last three months. Today we’re going to do things my way.”
“Ok I know maybe it’s time to take the fight to them, but…”
Jordan cut her off.
“But n
othing. I need you to trust me, detective. I know what I’m doing. I’m not going to run into a hail of bullets. Don’t worry about me. I’m not even going in the house. I’ll leave that to your people. They’re going to try to ambush me outside.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Very simple. I’m going to ambush them first.”
On the other end of the line Detective Bollier sighed.
“Alright go ahead. But don’t expect me to show up at another one of your funerals.”
Jordan clicked to end the call and tossed the phone into the empty passenger’s seat.
Another dozen memories of growing up with his sister danced through Jordan’s mind as he waited to enter the cool, artificially lit tunnel.
Both of them had inherited the Scotch-German temperament that came with their name, and Mary and Jordan fought hard and dirty like only a strictly-raised Scotch-German child could. Their father just scoffed and turned the TV up louder when they quarreled. Their mother tried to make up for his indifference by scolding them all the louder, all the harsher, which only served to make her reproaches seem that much more ridiculous.
Once Jordan sprouted a few facial hairs and a couple of extra inches, the fights with Mary took on a different tone. They still hassled but not as often. As Jordan eased into the tunnel he found himself wondering if it was because she had grown wary of his newfound masculine strength or because wrestling was no longer appropriate once they were both of age.
Jordan loved Mary Ross all the same. She was his sister, and he’d only been given one. She might have been a violent, domineering sort of a tyrant, but she defended him at school when he got into trouble. When he’d grown old enough to learn that her abuse was the norm for an older sister rather than a cruel exception to the rule he accepted that she had been a decent sister, all things considered.
The Russians had discovered his secret. How and why were matters to deal with another day. The whole idea behind faking his death had been to protect the few people that Jordan Ross cared about from those animals. Now, as he jerked and zig-zagged his way through the tight confines of the Holland tunnel Jordan found himself grinding his teeth and kicking himself for the whole damn-fool idea, even if it wasn’t his to begin with.
Special Agent Kyle Clemons truck Jordan as a sharp guy. He wore a well-fitted, conservative kind of suit that seemed to say this was a man who did not take stupid risks, or come up with half-baked plans that melted under the microscope of reality. Perhaps he had misread him.
Uri Grigoriyevich was under the care of the FBI as far as Jordan knew, and now he was dead. The plot to fake Jordan’s death to throw off the Russians was an FBI production, and now that had failed as well. Jordan was not the kind of person who was prone to complaining about the efficiency of the federal government but he was beginning to understand why some people ended up as conspiracy kooks and libertarian wing-nuts.
Everything that Special Agent Kyle Clemons and Detective Bollier seemed to have come up with had gone wrong. Jordan was upset with himself for disobeying his gut. He should have never trusted them. He should have wasted Shirokov and then disappeared into the wind, never to be seen or heard from again.
But against his better judgment Jordan had listened to the detective and the federale. All he wanted was a simple matter of revenge. After he wiped out Shirokov and his gang, Jordan could have gone anywhere or done anything and it wouldn’t have mattered, but now because he had tried to toe the line, to play by the rules, Mary and her whole family was in danger.
The tunnel opened into a blinding sheen of New Jersey sunlight. Jordan turned left and then right and then on to 280 North and hit the freeway at eighty miles an hour and he didn’t slow down until the exit was coming on fast and he had to slam on the breaks because his heavy foot had him going 115 miles an hour.
The town where his sister lived was an ideal place to raise a family. More than once Sarah had brought up the possibility of moving from Brooklyn to Montville before Emma started high school. Jordan was resistant to the idea, and not just because it would cost a limb to send her to private school in a posh Jersey suburb. Jordan loved the city. He loved the bustle and dirt of New York and wanted Emma to experience the cultural capital of the world as long as she could. None of that mattered now.
Mary Ross Pollard lived with her husband and two kids in a private gated community just north of Montville called Cedar Peaks. Good schools, low crime, easily navigated so long as you didn’t have to use public transportation. All of the houses in Cedar Peaks were made in the same design, two story bungalows with dormer windows and a swimming pool in the backyard. Strict guidelines were enforced within the community about what could and could not be done regarding the homes and properties. When Mary tried putting up a basketball hoop in the driveway so that her son could practice shooting her neighbors shunned the whole family, refusing to speak or even acknowledge them until they finally took it down. The same thing happened when her husband Phil erected a tool shed next to the garage that did not follow Cedar Peak’s specifications as to the color scheme. For two weeks Phil held out. Mary begged him to just give in and repaint the damned thing, but in the end he tore it all down rather than accommodate the code.
Equally stringent were the procedures that visitors had to go through before gaining admittance to Cedar Peaks. At the main gate there was a small enclosed security outpost. Two guards were stationed there around the clock. Before the gate opened the guards had to contact the homeowners and verify that they were expecting the visitor. If there was no answer nobody got in.
When Jordan pulled up to the gate and saw only one security guard his suspicion was aroused. He rolled down his window and the guard leaned forward from his post.
“Can help you?”
Jordan paused momentarily before answering, taking in the guard’s baggy, ill-fitted uniform, dirty blonde hair and sharp blue eyes. The nametag on his chest read Steve.
“Yeah. I’m here to see Mary Pollard.”
The guard nodded quick and then glanced at something inside the little structure.
“And your name?”
“Just tell her that it’s her brother.”
He tensed and waited while the guard leaned back in his station and fiddled around out of Jordan’s line of sight. Jordan heard him speaking.
“Misses Pollard? Your bruzzer is here to see you.”
Time slowed to a dull crawl. Jordan tried to get an angle to see what Steve was doing but he could not raise himself up high enough without getting out of the car. Jordan was not under any circumstances doing that. Five seconds passed that felt like five hours and then Steve stood up and smiled at Jordan.
“Yes. Right away. You can go in.”
Steve pressed a button and the rail controlling the gate receded, opening the entrance to the happy little family community. When he was still officially alive and visiting Mary for the holidays, Jordan had never been allowed to pass through the gate without giving his name and showing a photo ID to corroborate it.
Jordan looked up the road and then back at the guard. His foot was on the break. His left hand was on the steering wheel and his right was inching slowly toward his waistband. Jordan never took his eyes off of the guard, and he returned the stare.
The guard gaped impassively at Jordan, then waved his arm forward. The sleeves of his uniform were rolled up to the elbow and a red phoenix was tattooed on his antecubital.
“Thanks. Steve is it?”
“Yes. Yes it is Steve. You go in now.”
Jordan almost laughed. He gazed hard at “Steve” and waited patiently for him to blink. When it finally came Steve lunged for something behind him and Jordan whipped out his .38. The Russian must have had his weapon loaded, cocked and ready beside him because he got one shot off before Jordan did. He missed. Jordan did not.
Two bullets struck “Steve” in the chest, sending him flying back into the interior of the security outpost, shattering a pane of glass and breaking
a card table. Jordan kept the gun trained on the spot where the Russian fell for a moment just in case he came lurching up, coughing blood and desperately firing away before he expired. Once Jordan was sure he was dead he kicked the accelerator down and drove onto the main road of Cedar Peaks.
Several concerned neighbors who heard the gunshots were peeking out from their curtains. A mother rushed outside to gather up her kid who was drawing a hopscotch table on the sidewalk, then quickly bolted back to her house.
The street was long and narrow and had a sort of phallic shape to it with a cluster of homes arranged in a semi-circle around the tip. Mary’s house was in the middle of the cluster. At the edge of her driveway a very familiar looking black Chevy Tahoe was parked. Exhaust wafted out of the rear tail pipe.
As Jordan drove closer he put the CRV into the next gear, then kicked as hard as he could down onto the gas pedal. He aimed the nose of his vehicle directly for the Tahoe’s driver. Just before the impact, a wide-eyed, shaved bald Russian tried opening the door to escape. He correctly assumed that he would not have time to get out of the way, so he shut the door and crept back inside to brace for the collision.