by Jared Paul
Winston had never seen anything like Black Dolphin and was less thrilled with the accommodations.
“Yeah. And for a long-ass time too.”
Shirokov regarded his new cellmate with a look of concern.
“What is the matter? We have books! We have light! In Russia never do we have these things.”
“Shit man you out of your mind being happy in here. I’m in this bitch for twenty five years. Sorry if I ain’t all enthusiastic about it. How ‘bout you? How long you in for?”
According to the chemist, it was somewhat of a guessing game. Shirokov thought back to their first conversation about the compound, and tried to remember exactly.
“Ehh. Between two, maybe three weeks. Depending.”
“Hold up. I thought you said you was convicted for two life sentences. For all that H you was bringing in.”
“This is true my friend. That was my sentence. But what you asked was how long I would be in this place. My best guess, two or three weeks. Depending.”
“Depending on what?”
“My digestion.”
Winston raised an eyebrow, obviously wondering if he had just been sentenced to spending the next twenty five years in a small cell with a Russian lunatic. Shirokov could see this.
“I can see what you are thinking my friend, but do not worry. In no less than three weeks’ time you and I, we will walk out of this place together. You have my word.”
“Shit man you really are crazy ain’t you.”
At this Shirokov started laughing again. After a while Winston could not help but joining in. His new cellmate had a bizarre and magnetic kind of charisma, a passion more infectious than polio. Soon enough Winston was laughing at the sound of Shirokov laughing. They kept at it until they were red-faced and completely out of breath.
Not long after the cells all opened up and the prisoners came out for dinner. Shirokov followed Winston and the other inmates down a metal staircase, through a long hall and into the cafeteria area, which was already half full. The prisoners lined up around the wall with scratched plastic trays, waiting for their meals.
The cook gave Shirokov a piece of white bread, two slices of meatloaf, a small puddle of cream corn, and a container of tapioca pudding. For a second Shirokov paused and held the line up. He asked the cook for an extra item.
“Excuse me. Do you have any prunes?”
“Prunes?!”
The inmate behind the counter serving as head chef said the word like it was an unthinkable curse. He stared at Shirokov, uncomprehending and apoplectic. He repeated the word.
“You asked for fuckin prunes?!”
“Yes. Please.”
“Get this simply motherfucker out of my line. Asking for prunes. This look like the produce section at fuckin Whole Foods to you?”
Winston came along and steered Shirokov away from the counter.
“You got to be careful man. I can’t be looking after you out here. I’m gonna go eat with my peoples. You got to go sit with yours.”
Not understanding, Shirokov was about to ask Winston what he meant by this, but by the time he turned to do so his cellmate was gone. Winston crossed the cafeteria and sat down at an empty space on a bench. All of the men at his table were black. Shirokov scanned the room, and noticed that much like the bus, this was highly segregated as well.
Slowly, Shirokov walked over towards one of the half-empty white tables, carrying his tray. He was half way there when three Neo Nazis stepped up and blocked his path. The squirrel man who he quarreled with on the bus was pointing at him again.
“That’s the one. That’s him. That’s that Jew Vladarada Rochmanov Shirokov something!”
He stood behind a much larger man as he made this accusation. The man’s hair was buzzed on the sides and grown into a Mohawk on top. On either side, a gothic German cross was burned into his scalp. The man slapped the tray out of Shirokov’s hands, sending his dinner tumbling to the floor. Still yammering behind his taller friend, the squirrel man laughed.
“That’s right bitch. You’re in our house now. You filthy Jew bastard. White power!”
“White power!”
Several other men sitting nearby joined the chorus. Shirokov glanced to his left and to his right. He nodded and lowered his head, seemingly about to accept this degradation as the established order of things.
Then Shirokov lunged forward and viciously head-butted the tall man who had knocked the tray out of his hands. The man’s face exploded into a weeping mess of blood and broken teeth. He went to his knees. Shirokov grabbed for the squirrely looking man and wrestled him to the ground. Some of the black prisoners, including Winston, rushed over and began trading punches with the other Neo Nazis.
Whistles and the sound of nightsticks striking bare flesh echoed through the cafeteria. By the time the guards were able to untangle Shirokov from the loquacious, skinny little white power inmate he had already broken his nose and permanently blinded him in one eye.
Two guards known only as Harper and Simpson yanked Shirokov off and dragged him away to solitary confinement. Before they got out of the cafeteria Shirokov heard Winston bragging loud to his friends.
“Aw hell yeah. I told yall my roommate was fuckin crazy. It’s a NEW DAY up in here now.”
Shirokov felt a swelling of pride, but once the guards had his hands and feet cuffed they beat him mercilessly with their nightsticks. He lay face down on the floor of the dark cell and did not move a muscle the rest of the night.
…
Detective Bollier and Agent Clemons freaked out trying to revive Jordan Ross. That was no easy task as it turned out. At first they shook him, then shouted, then slapped him across the face. Scattered around her living room floor, Bollier found several Tylenol tablets and worried that their vigilante had gone Marilyn Monroe on them. They picked him up and carried him into the bathroom and loaded him into the shower, where the cold spray of water shook him awake almost instantly.
Jordan Ross screamed and twisted madly in the tub.
“It’s alright Mr. Ross. It’s alright,” the FBI man assured him. “Do you know where you are?”
“Yeah I’m in a tub of freezing fucking water. Turn it off! What are you a sadist?”
Agent Clemons turned the handle and the shower died.
“Sorry. We found some Tylenol laying around. We weren’t sure if you maybe took too many with your wine.”
“You thought that I was going to…”
The former Special Forces Corporal stared at the FBI agent, and then at the detective. Bollier handed him a towel so that he could dry himself off.
“We didn’t know what to think because we don’t know what happened. Jesus, Kyle look at his ear.”
“What happened Jordan?”
Patting his face with the thick cotton towel, Jordan shook his head. When he pulled the towel away he discovered a streak of red on the white fabric. He slowly reached up and poked at his ear and immediately regretted it. Jordan let out a hiss, then kicked the eggshell fiberglass at the bottom of the tub.
“There was a hitman. He got one clean shot off. Clipped my ear I guess. Sorry about your towel.”
Bollier sucked in her breath.
“Fuck the towel! How did this happen? Where was it? At your apartment?”
“Yeah.”
The look that Bollier gave Agent Clemons haunted him for the rest of the week. She was completely livid, more than he had ever seen her before.
“So? Some Russian got a shot off then what?”
“It wasn’t a Russian. They hired some Thai kid. I got the gun away from him but then it turns out he’s some kind of god damn black belt ninja.”
Agent Clemons looked thoroughly confused. He helped Jordan out of the tub and eased him down onto the lid of the toilet. He was still woozy from the wine.
“They hired a ninja to go after you? That doesn’t sound like Shirokov.”
“No it doesn’t. Anyway. I think he broke a couple of my ribs with his las
t kick, but I threw him off of the balcony.”
Detective Bollier’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head.
“The balcony of your apartment.”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. Jesus Christ. The department’s going to have people looking for you.”
“Couldn’t be helped.”
“I know, I’m just saying. How many pills did you take?’
“Three.”
“That’s it? Just three?”
“I said three. What do you think I’m suicidal? I lost half my fucking ear and broke a couple of ribs. I’m sorry if my methods of self-medication are troubling to you, detective.”
“I’m not judging, Corporal. Calm down. I’m just worried is all. We have to get him to a hospital.”
The FBI agent sighed and put his hands on his hips. He tucked his tie into the folds of his shirt so that it would not get splattered with blood when he helped Jordan out of the tub. It was meaningless. But nevertheless to Bollier it seemed incredibly calloused given the gravity of the situation. Agent Clemons nodded a couple times.
“Yeah. I think you’re right. Are you okay to walk Mr. Ross?”
Jordan answered that he was perfectly fine and stood up on his own. One and a half seconds later he lost his balance and fell back on the porcelain throne.
“Three pills?”
“If you ask me again I’m going to punch you in the face.”
“Oookay. Fine. I believe you. Easy now. Let’s go.”
Agent Clemons and Detective Bollier picked him up, cradling one arm each over their shoulders to support his weight. Both of them were too drunk to drive so they flagged down a taxi on 149th and took him to St. Luke. On the way they coached Jordan as to what to tell the doctors when they asked about his condition. The best theory they came up with between the three of them was a Doberman attack. Doctors had to notify police of an assault, not so with an animal attack. Bollier was concerned that in his state Jordan would forget the plan, so just as they were pulling into the emergency room lot she asked Jordan to go over it one more time.
“Alright. So. What are you going to tell them?”
“I’m going to say hello my name is Evander Holyfield.”
“That’s very cute. They like cute guys in federal prison, which is where you’re going if anyone connects you to the ninja corpse that got tossed off your balcony. OH! Good news!”
Bollier and Agent Clemons had momentarily forgotten all about the trial.
“What?”
“Since we found you like we did we totally forgot to tell you. Shirokov was convicted. The judge gave him two life sentences.”
Jordan shrugged like it was the least consequential news in the world.
“Well that’s something at least.”
The nurses at St. Luke gave Jordan Ross a Vicodin while he was waiting to see a doctor. Agent Clemons was about to object that that might not be such a great idea but when Jordan shot him a look he changed his mind. Detective Bollier paced around the waiting area, calling around the department to find out who was working the case of the mysterious Asian youth who fell four stories through the roof of a parked cab on Morningside Drive. With her long strides she made at least a few miles around the other patients waiting to be seen. Jordan held an antiseptic sponge to his ear and observed them.
A bony college-aged kid with red hair was shivering uncontrollably in a chair on the far side of the room, shaking his head and refusing to tell his parents what he’d taken.
Two men wearing tank tops and basketball shorts were lounging together. One of them had a sneaker off and his leg elevated. His ankle was swollen, black, and wrapped in ice.
Whimpering low in the corner, a child was holding her stomach. She almost seemed to be trying to keep her intestines from spilling out onto the clean linoleum floor. Tears rolled down her cheeks freely, but she did not cry, as it caused too much pain. And so she just kept up a steady low whine going.
An elderly man that barely fit into his seat was wheezing. Every other minute he held a mask up to his face that was attached to an oxygen tank, which he wheeled around on a small gurney. His wife was reading the May issue of Better Homes and Gardens and admonishing him for wheezing too loud.
Bollier weaved in and out of these folks in a figure eight pattern. Jordan watched her so long he got dizzy and had to look away.
Agent Clemons was reading the June issue without much interest. He flipped through the pages three at a time, stopping here and there to glance at a dinette set or a rock garden that caught his fancy. Sitting there he looked even more uneasy than most of the assembled patients. Jordan nudged him to get his attention.
“Hey. Something on your mind?”
The FBI man snapped the magazine shut like he was intensely upset at being interrupted.
“What’s up?”
“There’s just one thing I can’t wrap my head around.”
“Do tell.”
“I don’t know if this is the best place to discuss it, Mister Wallace.”
“We’re all friends here. Besides I think these other folks are a bit preoccupied with their own problems at the moment to eavesdrop.”
“It’s really more of a private kind of conversation. Mano e mano, comprendo?”
“Might be waiting here a long time. Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Agent Clemons scanned the waiting room. The pair of basketball players were absorbed in a friendly disagreement over whether or not the fateful play was in fact a charge or a block foul. The jittery college kid was clutching fistfuls of his hair, staring at the ground while his dad whispered prayers or threats over him. The whimpering girl was tugging at her mom’s sleeve and telling her that it hurts over and over. Only the obese man with the oxygen tank met Agent Clemons’ eyes, but his gaze was vacant. He may as well have been watching clouds drift through the sky.
“Alright. You want to do it here, we can do it here.”
“By all means.”
“So this Thai ninja kid they sent after you. How did he get into your place? Did he break down the front door?”
A cynical smirk spread across Jordan’s face. He knew where Agent Clemons was going with this, and he couldn’t care less.
“No. He came in disguise as a pizza delivery boy.”
Agent Clemons’ jaw dropped a couple of inches and he leaned in.
“You ordered pizza.”
“Every Thursday night around seven o’clock yes.”
“You ordered pizza more than once.”
“Yes.”
The federal agent stood up and puffed out an angry gust of air. He regarded Jordan Ross like a kid who had spent every penny of their allowance on cotton candy.
“To your apartment. When you’re supposed to be dead and not drawing any attention to yourself and you already have everything you could possibly…”
A beep echoed over the intercom system. One of the St. Luke nurses working behind the scenes called out a name.
“Robert Wallace. They are ready for you in Radiology.”
Agent Clemons stopped in mid rant and helped Jordan to his feet, but by the sound of his breathing he was not done by any means. Bollier had heard the name and came over, cradling her cell phone between her neck and shoulder.
“I heard them call his name but I missed the rest. Where are they taking him?”
“X-Ray. Any word yet?”
“Getting the run around. I’m on hold with the precinct. Busy day out there apparently. I’ll be out here if you need anything.”
Agent Clemons thanked her and helped Jordan limp to the back office behind the emergency room’s front desk. An orderly in a green smock came over with a wheelchair and the two of them helped him sit. He pushed the wheelchair through a series of hallways, Agent Clemons trailed close behind.
When they had Jordan laid out on the X-Ray bed the orderly excused himself to go and find the radiologist technician. The surface of the bed felt unreasonably cold on the back of Jordan’s le
gs, considering the heat index outside was approaching 100 degrees. He felt Agent Clemons moving around somewhere.
“I think you’re way off base about the pizza.”
“I’m not really interested in what you think. You’re wrong.”
“The question you should be asking is how Shirokov manages to know everything. Your star witness in protective custody. Those Prokorov brothers. My apartment. How come he’s always one step ahead?”