Exit Strategy

by Charlton Pettus

“Almost done,” Sam said, and a second later he withdrew the needle, eliciting a deep slumping exhalation. A single drop of blood formed at the exit point and then mixed with the sweat beading Jordan’s chest and ran down in a streaky rivulet. Jordan felt warmth and a prickling sensation work its way slowly down his arm.

  Sam took a small plastic cylinder out of the pouch and unscrewed the lid. He scooped out a glob of clear jelly with what looked like a glass grain of rice with some tiny electronics and a wound coil inside. “This is the Angel,” he said, laying it on a clean piece of gauze. “Can you flex your hand for me?” Jordan tried to move his fingers but only managed a little twitch of the ring finger. Sam nodded. “Almost ready.” On a fresh length of gauze he laid out a scalpel, a pair of forceps with handles like scissors and a curved needle and poured alcohol over them. Jordan began to breathe more quickly. His arm felt completely numb now. He tried to move it but couldn’t. It felt improbably heavy. He remembered a night in Tokyo when he’d passed out with his arm off the sofa and had woken up with it completely asleep, seven and a half pounds of meat and bone, deadweight.

  Sam pulled on a pair of latex gloves and picked up the scalpel. “Okay,” he said. Dennis took a long piece of the gauze and folded it over several times to make a square. He put the square on the table and placed Jordan’s hand on it, holding it firmly at the wrist. Jordan felt the pull on his body as it moved but felt nothing at all from the arm. Nor did he feel anything when Sam made an inch-and-a-half-long incision between the metacarpals of his middle and index fingers. Blood immediately filled the cut and began to run down his wrist but Dennis dabbed it away with fresh gauze. Jordan felt like he was going to faint. Sam glanced at him.

  “Don’t pass out on me. Close your eyes, hang your head down, breathe deep and slow.” Jordan did and felt his blood pressure stabilize a little. He tried not to think about the cause of the tugging sensation in his right shoulder. “Count to a hundred,” Sam said. At seventy-three, he said, “Done.”

  Jordan opened his eyes. The back of his hand was neatly sutured with clear thread. The pad was stained with a fair amount of blood but the hand was clean. It was a professional job. “Can you stand?” Sam asked.

  “I think so,” Jordan said, but he stumbled as he tried to get to his feet. Sam took his left elbow and Dennis put an arm around him and, supporting the useless right arm, they helped him to the sofa.

  “You should probably take it easy for a while,” Sam said. “The sedation will wear off in a couple of hours, but honestly, I’d relax for the rest of the day. Tomorrow you’ll be good as new. The hand’s going to hurt a little but it shouldn’t be too bad. I’m going to leave you these—” he held up a vial of pills and then put them on the coffee table “—to make sure your body doesn’t reject the Angel. I would definitely take them until they’re gone. Much easier going in than coming out. The stitches will dissolve in a week or so.”

  He sat down and looked Jordan in the eye. “This is goodbye for us, Jordan. The Angel is powered by your muscle movement, so it should run for many years, and as long as it’s going we shouldn’t need to see one another. I know you’ll miss our little chats,” he said with a wry smile, “but I’m sure you’ll get over it. Dennis has left you a care package. The usual things—ID, phone, bank card. If you are reasonable, the money will last for quite a while. The phone has the game you like on it. My little gift to you. There is also a number if you ever need to contact us, not that I expect you will.” He put his hands on his thighs and pushed up from the couch.

  “So, best of luck, and remember the rules. And, Jordan, this is important—please don’t think about removing the Angel. If it touches the air, it sends an alarm and, well, that would be bad.”

  “Oh, yes, almost forgot.” Dennis handed him a small envelope and Sam plucked a few strands of Jordan’s hair and put it in the envelope.

  “What’s that for?” Jordan said, rubbing his scalp.

  “Just a DNA sample,” Sam said. “Open, please.” He scraped Jordan’s cheek with a long Q-tip and put that in another envelope and sealed it.

  “Why do you need my DNA?”

  “Just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “In case there are ever any questions, I suppose.”

  Jordan thought for a second, struggling to think clearly. “So someone isn’t buying it. Who is it? Insurance? Stephanie? Police?”

  “Just a precaution,” Sam said calmly.

  “If it’s Steph, she’ll know.” Adrenaline cut through the fog. Maybe there was a glint of daylight. Not hope but a tiny step on the road to hope.

  “Why do you say that?” Sam said nonchalantly, continuing to repack the nylon bag.

  “The sample won’t have decayed right? It’s called necrotic decay. When you take a DNA sample from someone who’s dead, there’s a predictable degeneration of the sample. Most forensic labs won’t look for it. They’re just looking for correlation with the control. But if Stephanie was looking, she would catch it immediately.” He looked from Sam to Dennis and back. Both were impassive. Jordan’s heart was hammering but he kept his voice steady. “I could fix it. I could make it look like it was from someone who died when I supposedly did.”

  “I see,” Sam said, zipping up the bag. “Well, as I say, it’s only a precaution. I don’t think we have to worry about it too much. Goodbye, Jordan. Come, Dennis, let’s let Mr. Butler get some rest.”

  When the front door closed the pressure made the windows to the street swing wide-open and a pool of bitter cold air swirled through the room. Jordan pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, his right arm flopping at his side, and went to shut the windows. Glancing down he saw Sam and Dennis getting into the car. Sam was on the phone, and as he closed his door he snapped, “Well, find out!” and ended the call with an abrupt stab of his thumb.

  41

  LE POULET

  Alex walked down the stairs of the Marlboro Street apartment. It was the quietest hour of the morning. The night owls had gone to bed and the early birds were not yet stirring. He was pretty sure the Bolshy was sleeping, though he had considered the possibility that she was faking. Their relationship had become more complicated lately.

  The phone vibrated in his overcoat pocket. Seven missed calls, two texts and a voice mail. All from Stephanie.

  Call me, at 8:32 p.m. 0_0, at 3:17 a.m.

  At 3:22 a.m. she had left the voice mail. “Don’t be mad. I called that policeman. He didn’t answer. I didn’t leave a message. I’m sorry.”

  “Shit!” His voice sounded unnaturally loud. He called her back. Straight to voice mail.

  “Steph, if he calls you back, tell him it was a mistake. Say you pocket dialed him or something. My guy is close but it’s all going to get fucked up if the cops get involved. Let me know you got the message.”

  He hung up and dialed another number. “It’s me. I need something soon. She’s freaking out. I can handle it but I’m going to need something.”

  He hung up and shoved the phone into his pocket. He decided to walk home. The snow complained like Styrofoam under his feet. The air made his eyes tear. He passed up through the alphabet—Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford, up to Mass. Ave. where he turned left. The buses had started running, taking the first shifters to work. Alex cut through the Fens. The first glow at the horizon came as he walked past the still exterior of the Gardner. He hadn’t meant to come this way. His stomach felt hollow. He thought he’d stay up, hit the gym, maybe go to bed early tonight.

  * * *

  Jordan woke up on the couch. The feeling had come back to his arm and his hand hurt like hell. He was famished. It was still light out but the light had softened—he guessed late afternoon. There was a phone on the dining room table next to a manila envelope and the key. Jordan pocketed the key and phone, grabbed the envelope and stumbled down the stairs and out onto the street. The sign on the
corner, built into the wall, identified the street, rue Bonaparte, and the arrondissement, the sixième. Fucking Drake.

  He allowed himself to be carried by the flow of foot traffic, mostly people heading home from work, it seemed, their heads down, some urgency in their stride. He turned left at rue Jacob, an even smaller street, only wide enough for a single car. Two blocks down he came to a little neighborhood brasserie. Ornate lettering on the awning identified it as Le Pré aux Clercs. The collection of warm smells and gentle chatter of dishes and conversation from inside drew him in.

  It was a small place with four tables lining the windows looking out at the street and then, past the bar and down two steps, another room with five or six more tables. Three of them had been pushed together for a large group—Jordan guessed coworkers. They were loud, laughing; several carafes of wine were spread around. Jordan chose the last of the small tables along the window, as far as he could get from the group. As soon as he sat down a girl with an unruly blond ponytail came by and deftly swept the two coins on the table into the pocket of her black apron as she cleared the empty espresso cup and water glass and mopped the table with a couple of swipes from a damp bar towel. She asked him something in French, which he didn’t catch, but answered with a hopeful “Oui, merci.”

  She glanced at him for a split second without breaking her momentum and said something else unintelligible as she headed back to the bar. Seconds later a carafe of red wine and a small glass materialized together with a basket of sliced baguette, a white paper place mat and silverware tightly wrapped in a paper napkin. Jordan poured a glass of the wine and opened the envelope.

  Justin Butler. Canadian passport with a visa good for five years. Apparently he was from Winnipeg. There was also a Crédit Lyonnais ATM and Visa card with initial password on a Post-it. A sheet labeled CV listed Justin’s academic credentials: BSc from the University of Manitoba, MSc and PhD from McGill. Genetics, that was convenient. He finished the glass of wine and, as he put it down, the waitress appeared and refilled it.

  “Monsieur?” she said, waiting. When he didn’t answer, she said in heavily accented English, “Would you like to order?”

  “Oh, of course, I’m s-sorry,” he stammered. “Could I see a menu?”

  She pointed to a blackboard over the bar with several items scrawled in an angular cursive. Poulet frites was the only thing that was both legible and recognizable as a food, not an internal organ sautéed and plated, though he wasn’t sure if it meant fried chicken or chicken with fries; at any rate it sounded safe.

  “La poulet, s’il vous plaît,” he said, nodding toward the board.

  “Le poulet,” she confirmed and corrected with a smile, and headed for the kitchen humming under her breath, ponytail flouncing.

  As it turned out it was a half roast chicken, redolent of garlic and tarragon, the skin bronzed and crackling, the flesh infused with lemon and pepper, served with a heaping plate of perfect slender fries, deglazed pan sauce on the side. Jordan ate with relish. It was comfort food; it was familiar and simple yet elegant and foreign. It was a world away from Tokyo. The only immediate irritant was the man at the next table who lit a particularly rank-smelling unfiltered cigarette just as Jordan’s food arrived and continued to smoke throughout his meal. The waitress paid no attention to him and the man pointedly ignored the looks Jordan directed at him.

  When he had picked the plate clean the waitress took it away and brought him a small espresso and the bill, which was a tented slip of paper with the number twelve scribbled on it. Jordan put down a ten and five euro coins from the money Sam had left him and stood to go. The waitress pocketed the ten and two of the coins and flicked one more into her apron and handed the last two back to Jordan with a “Merci, monsieur.” As he passed the next table on his way out he was certain the man blew his smoke right at him.

  * * *

  It was weird. The bitchy wife from the Parrish thing had called in the middle of the night. No message. Herron had called her back around 9:30, straight to voice mail, no call back. He’d been professional, courteous. “Hello, Mrs. Parrish, this is Detective Herron returning your call. I should be around all day. Please call me back if there’s anything I can do for you.” Not that he was anxious to talk to her again. She’d been a cold fish, the kind of lady who made you feel self-conscious about your shoes and the way you pronounced your Rs.

  Still, it was weird.

  42

  GITANES

  Jordan lay on the couch, folding. The app on his phone was awkward at first compared to the Kinect but soon it had become second nature. At first he had no idea what the sound was—a rising series of digital tones, not really intrusive but annoying if only for the repetition. Alarm? Some kind of timer, maybe? Then it hit him; it was the kitchen phone. Jordan crossed the apartment and picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Jesus, you’re a hard guy to reach.” Jordan recognized Dennis’s voice, the flat Midwestern vowels and clipped military delivery.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize it was the phone. I don’t get a lot of calls. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m supposed to find out what you need to do your DNA thing.” Dennis was low-key, business as usual, but Jordan knew what it meant. Someone was asking questions.

  It had to be Stephanie. She had doubts. The realization knocked the air from his body. Jordan struggled for breath, holding the phone away from him as he turned in a half circle and sank to the floor.

  “You there?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I was just making something to eat. So what are you saying? You guys do want me to age the sample now?”

  “Apparently. Sam decided better safe than sorry.”

  “Right, okay.” Bullshit, he thought. He had to think.

  “So what do you need?”

  “Wow, in Paris? I don’t know... I know all the good labs in the States but over here—”

  Dennis interrupted, “We have access to a lab. I just need to know what else you need.”

  Jordan’s mind was racing. If Steph was asking questions, what did that mean? He had assumed she must hate him. He knew the cover story—the fictitious girlfriend, the apartment—and all of it so believable the way things had been between them. But now if she didn’t buy it, if she kept asking questions? They’d kill her. Parts of him wanted to scream, or run, or to curl up in a ball on the kitchen floor and rock back and forth until it all went away. But one part of him, a small part, cleared a tiny space amid the clutter and noise and went to work. Fundamental principles. Stephanie was a scientist. She knew you didn’t prove theories true; you proved them false. Good old Popper. She would look for holes.

  Dennis was talking. “Sorry, listen,” Jordan said, “it’s a pretty long list. Can you come by tonight?”

  “Sure. Eight?”

  “That’s fine.” Dennis rang off. Jordan dropped the phone and leaned back against the fridge. A few minutes later the compressor kicked on, and he felt the vibrations through his body. A long list.

  * * *

  “Hi, Mrs. Parrish, this is Detective Herron again, just following up with you, making sure everything’s okay. Call me back when you get the message.” He clicked off and dialed another number. “Hey, Jules, it’s Mike. Got a chance for you to even things up. I need the last twenty-four hours on a number. It’s 617...” He looked down at the phone and paged to recent calls. “Sorry, 617-595-3112. Got it—595-3112? No big rush, just email me the log when you get it. We’ll call it square. Talk to you.” He clicked the phone off. Probably a waste of time.

  * * *

  Dennis glanced quickly over the list before folding it over and stuffing it in his jacket pocket. “I’ll pick you up in the morning,” he said, standing up.

  “Are you serious? You’re not going to be able to get all that by tomorrow morning.”

  “I think we’ll be fine,” Den
nis said.

  Jordan looked at him with a half smile. “You’re fucking with me, right? What’s the joke?”

  Dennis clapped him on the shoulder. Jordan flinched but forced the smile to stick.

  “See you in the morning, Justin,” Dennis said. “It is Justin, right? I lose track sometimes.”

  * * *

  Jordan had eaten every meal since arriving in Paris at Le Pré aux Clercs. The waitresses knew him now so he was spared the humiliation of negotiating a new linguistic truce in an establishment where the terms might not be as favorable. The food was basic bistro fare but varied and usually excellent. Depending on how crowded it was he either sat at his end table in the window or at a single table in the back corner of the sunken dining room. His meal times were still pretty random; it had only been four days and the jet lag still played havoc with his sleep cycle. If it was morning, the waitress would bring a pot of coffee and one of steamed milk and a tartine of toasted baguette with butter and a collection of little jam jars—apricot, cherry and occasionally raspberry or orange marmalade, the last being the only disappointment.

  If it was too late for breakfast, a half carafe of red wine and a pitcher of water would arrive instead, followed by whatever the waitresses thought the shy American might like. They had guessed wrong only once when an order of sautéed sweetbreads in brown butter had languished untouched for twenty minutes before being mercifully whisked away and replaced with a more conservative steak frites.

  The Gitanes smoker, for that turned out to be the brand of his particularly pungent unfiltered cigarettes, also appeared to be a regular. He was usually there when Jordan arrived, reading Le Figaro and ashing in his saucer or noisily sucking scraps of meat off the gracile bones of a greasy squab. Jordan made a point of not avoiding him even though he would in general choose the table that offered the most privacy. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He would take an adjacent table, even leaning slightly into his nemesis as he squeezed past. For his part, Gitanes never missed an opportunity to blow his fetid plume Jordan’s way or to simply glower while muttering dark imprecations in his own particularly phlegmatic French.