American Blood (27 page)

He stood watching for a few seconds, and then he lowered the gun and went back into the motel room where the two men from the Bronco lay dead and the duty manager was bound and gagged in the bathroom.

Marshall checked the bodies. No phones. They were probably in the truck. The first guy had some cash and a set of keys and a canvas pouch of lock picks. He found a knife on the second guy and used it to cut the masking tape securing the manager’s wrists. The man spat his gag and lay gasping with weak relief and Marshall knew his frame of reference for terror had been skewed a long way.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. They were going to kill me. Oh, man.”

Marshall wondered why they hadn’t. He said, “It’s okay. Can you stand?”

He helped the guy to his feet.

“Just close your eyes. I can lead you out. Are you okay?”

“Yes. Just get me out. Please.” Shaking and pale.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. Shut your eyes now.”

Marshall took him by the elbow and with the man shuffling like an invalid they left the room. The sliding window above the bed had been opened to permit a clear shot, and the table had been moved to the center of the room to support the rifle on its bipod.

Outside, the smoke from the burning truck was blowing in a loose and noxious skein across the front of the building and a few cars had stopped at the edge of the highway. Guests in the other units were at their windows and a woman came out to take the man’s other elbow, and Marshall walked with them a few steps and then turned back to the room.

He could hear sirens, several cars inbound. He stood by the table and made a last brief scan. Their final seconds chronicled in blood. Marshall knelt and pocketed the canvas lock pick bag and crossed the unit to the bathroom. He lowered the seat on the toilet and stepped up and pushed the window wide and put one leg outside so he was straddling the sill. The ground-floor units were stepped beyond the line of the upper-level wall, forming a lower roof. He gripped the sash and pulled the other leg through, and then lowered himself carefully. He crouched at the gutter a moment, gauging the impact, and then he jumped down and walked away.

*   *   *

There was a Denny’s farther up the highway, a few places past the Chevron station. The motel action had it low on patrons. Marshall went in and checked faces and saw that everyone’s attention was with the blue and red lights down the road. He leaned on the counter.

A waitress saw him and smiled. “Hon, you go round wearing pink glasses, people’ll wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

She shrugged. The gum she was chewing smacked wetly. “I dunno. Something.”

“Do you have a phone I can borrow?”

“Yeah. But you got to buy something.”

He ordered coffee and paid with his breakfast change. Once she’d poured him a cup she brought him a cordless handset, smiling as she chewed, like there’d been something flirty in the request.

“Thanks.”

“You know what’s going on down there?”

He looked out the window. Three state police cars and a sheriff’s unit over by the Tahoe. Smoke from the Bronco was blowing across the highway. He said, “Car on fire, I think.”

“Quite a turnout, whatever it is.”

Marshall didn’t answer. He sipped the coffee, standing side-on to the counter so he could see the door, and when she moved away he called Cohen.

“Gather it was you who incinerated that truck I’m lookin’ at.”

Marshall said, “Had to get them out of the room before they shot someone.”

“And I imagine that would’ve done the trick.”

“Yeah.”

Cohen said, “Where are you?”

“I’m at that Denny’s you can probably see.”

“You going to come back and give a statement?”

“No.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m going after Rojas.”

“You know where he’s headin’?”

“No. But I’m good at making guesses.”

Cohen didn’t answer.

Marshall said, “You going to keep the pizza uniform?”

Cohen thought about it. He said, “Maybe just the cap. For when I’m cooking homemade.”

“You kill those two guys in the Tahoe?”

Cohen took a moment, like it wasn’t quite reality until you put it into words. He said, “Got the driver over the line, but the other one’s only halfway there. Just have to hope.”

Marshall wondered if that was a wish for dying or surviving, but he didn’t ask. He said, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to call Loretta, tell her how much I love her and that sort of thing. Right now that’s the sum total of my intentions.”

Marshall didn’t answer.

Cohen said, “Maybe the one savin’ grace of this kind of thing. You see the world with a bit of extra clarity, and you know pretty well what your priorities are.”

Wisdom applicable to himself, but in a slightly different way. Marshall sipped his coffee, careful to hide the noise. He said, “I’m glad you’re all right.”

*   *   *

Marshall drank and watched the light show.

Vance dead by the Chrysler. The other thug dead in the Tahoe. The two men dead in the motel room. To him it was the natural outcome, but it would be nice to know the odds. If somehow there existed a great accounting of the world with a cosmic tally of human traits he could see the number that had brought him to this moment alive.

He’d done this a long time and he’d always been on the side of good fortune. But one thing he knew was that all safe bets run their course and eventually even the slimmest chance will manifest as the thing you’re facing. Maybe this was his final win. Maybe come next time whatever good luck he’d ridden would be gone, and Marshall with it.

Who would they tell? Probably his mother, wherever she was. His father, wherever and whoever. His private self so carefully concealed, Sarah could never know. Abby would say: Where’s Marshy Marsh?

He’d just be a bygone element of someone else’s life. Perhaps he already was.

He drained the mug. The waitress asked if it was to his satisfaction and he smiled and told her it was.

Last night’s phone call with Rojas was playing in his head:

I’m planning on killing you. That lady cop, too.

Lady cop.

Lauren Shore.

He had another cup of coffee while he thought about what to do. Without exception he placed the mug in the same position after every sip with the handle perpendicular to the counter edge. He had his sleeves down to hide the blood from the two men he’d killed in the motel room, and he buttoned each cuff in turn. When the coffee was finished he picked up the phone again and dialed information and asked for the New Mexico MVD. The call was redirected to an automated service. He listened to the prerecorded options and pushed the button to speak to an operator. A woman picked up.

“New Mexico Motor Vehicles Division, you’re speaking with Diane, how may I help?”

Marshall, talking in a murmur, said, “Yes, hi. My wife’s just re-registered her car, you might have actually spoken to her. Her name’s Lauren Shore, the car’s a Chevrolet. Let me see here.” He recited her license plate number from memory. “What I was wanting to check, she’s actually overseas right now but we’re moving in three days, but I don’t know if she’s swapped the car over to the new address. Sorry, I’m not being very helpful, I don’t actually know if she had it on our house, or if it was registered to the office, I normally just leave this stuff to her.”

He waited. He could hear typing.

The woman said, “Shore. Chevrolet. Uh. Loma Del Norte Road, Northeast?”

“Oh great, she must have changed it. And number twelve hundred, I think? That’s the new place.”

“Uh. No sir, I’ve got eighty-one fifty-six here.”

“Oh, of course, twelve hundred’s the new office. That’s fine, thank you for your help.”

“Have a good day, sir.”

Marshall put down the phone and walked out.

2010

One of the taskforce safe houses was on Foster Avenue in Brooklyn, a temporary lease above a grocery/deli on the ground floor, only a short walk from the PD’s 70th Precinct. When Marshall arrived at nine
A.M
. the three of them were waiting:

Lee Ashcroft from the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau, Sean Avery from the FBI, and Avery’s supervisor, a guy in his midforties Marshall had named the Ray-Ban Man on account of his eyewear.

They were at the table by the window, blinds partially drawn. A narrow view across the street of brownstone frontages, the steel fire stairs a thin black sawtooth on the brick. On the glass in reverse gold print was written
EZRA SILVERSTEIN, DIVORCE ATTORNEY
. Marshall didn’t know if it was part of the ruse, or if Ezra was a former tenant. He sat down.

Ashcroft said, “We sent a unit down along Eighty-sixth, no Mikhail.”

Marshall said, “There must have been witnesses. I saw about a dozen people.”

Ashcroft nodded. “He was only there a few minutes, two guys came and got him.”

“How’d they find him so soon?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Lloyd called and tipped them off. Who knows.”

Marshall didn’t answer. Ashcroft was fiftyish, a big guy going bigger, stomach the main culprit. Neck approaching the girth where the top button would be a touch-and-go affair. Avery was your standard government man: polite in a kind of cool and detached way, no real spark. Nothing unpleasant, but nothing you’d look forward to seeing again. The Ray-Ban Man seemed to be cut from the same cloth: a trim gray suit to match his trim gray haircut, quiet and concise, an air of oncologist about him. Accustomed to bad news, and good at being polite with it. Right now he sat with arms folded, back against the wall beside the window, head turned so he could look out along the street. On his right Avery held his mirror pose, between them both directions covered.

Marshall said, “I want out.”

Nobody answered.

The Ray-Ban Man’s sunglasses were on the table in front of him, folded in a square by way of hinges at the bridge and temples. He looked at them and then looked back out the window and said, “Is your cover compromised?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So as far as he’s concerned, you’re just a bent cop?” Trying to be gentle with it.

Marshall said, “Uh-huh.”

“So what’s the issue?”

All three of them looked at him, like this would be good.

Marshall said, “The issue is my morals are compromised.”

The Ray-Ban Man looked at Ashcroft, a silent question exchanged: Will you do it, or shall I?

Ashcroft leaned forward, arms on the table, poised to deliver a difficult truth. He said, “It’s the nature of the work. You might have to do things you don’t like.”

“I shot a guy in the stomach. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

Nobody answered. Avery traced an eyebrow very carefully with a thumbnail.

Marshall said, “What about that tail job we had last week? That guy in Koreatown who Jimmy Wheels shot?”

Ashcroft said, “Who’s that, the little wheelchair guy?”

“Yeah. Wheelchair guy.”

Ashcroft said, “Midtown South said the transfusion almost saved him.”

“Almost.”

“Yeah. Not quite.”

Marshall said, “Wonderful.”

Ashcroft said, “This is New York organized crime. Sometimes people get hurt.”

Marshall looked at him and smiled. “I appreciate that, Lee. The problem I’ve got is I’m supposedly doing this for the greater good, except I’ve got no sense of where the end is and I’m complicit in things I’m going to regret for the rest of my life.”

Ashcroft said, “Killing people.”

“Well. Killing people who maybe didn’t need it. Like maybe that Russian guy from the night before.”

The Ray-Ban Man said, “So what do you propose?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” Delicate, like he knew how this would go. “You want out, how do you think you’re going to do it?”

Marshall said, “Like any job. Just don’t show up on Monday.”

The Ray-Ban Man smiled, doctor with the prognosis. He said, “Are you going to take your uncle with you?”

Marshall didn’t answer.

“Or were you just going to disappear and see what happens? Assume Tony won’t think to ask Eddie where you’ve gone. Or that he won’t hurt him, either.”

Marshall said, “I’ve been doing this nine months now. I didn’t write you a blank check so you could work me forever.”

The Ray-Ban Man said, “Yes. But you’ve got to stay with it long enough for us to make an arrest.”

“And when’s that going to happen?”

“Eventually.”

Marshall said, “What’s the Bureau’s priority?”

“All kinds of things. We’ve been through it.”

“Yeah, but what’s the big-ticket item you want to hang on him?”

The Ray-Ban Man said, “I’m retiring in a month, so goals might get a shakeup. But if you find me the Dallas Man, it would make a nice retirement present.”

The Ray-Ban Man chasing the Dallas Man. Marshall liked the namelessness of it. He said, “Lloyd mentioned him the other night.”

The Ray-Ban Man nodded slowly, like some private mystery had just gained clarity. “What did Lloyd have to say?”

“Nothing we don’t already know: Tony uses him on the tough jobs, makes people just disappear.”

“How’d you get onto that subject?”

Marshall said, “He said he was going to have him kill me if I didn’t stay in line.”

Not a glimmer, nothing. As threats went he’d probably heard worse. “And that was it?”

“I guess it struck him as a pretty good line to close on.”

Nobody answered.

Marshall said, “I can’t believe after nine months you still don’t have enough.”

Avery said, “Keep digging.”

His one curt contribution, didn’t even deign to look at him.

Marshall said, “Did you read my report?”

The Ray-Ban Man said, “All it seems to say is you shot a guy, and Tony Asaro poked someone in the eye with a spoon.”

Marshall didn’t answer.

Ashcroft made a steeple with his fingers, tips only just touching. He said, “It would be nice to get him on something bigger than assault with cutlery.”

Marshall said, “So is this Dallas Man going to be big enough?”

The Ray-Ban Man checked his nails. He said, “If you find him and prove he’s been killing people on Tony’s dime, then we’ll make an arrest.”