The Mark Read online

  Last week I visited John Fredrickson’s family, to pay my condolences to his widow, Linda. She now knew the truth. She knew why her husband was there that night. But her husband was still dead because of me.

  She looked me over, her lip trembling. And then she slapped me across the face. And closed the door. I stood there for a minute and felt the pain. There were some wounds that would never heal, no matter the balm. And I’d have to live with that. Linda Fredrickson would, too.

  Joe Mauser refused to die.

  I visited him, too. Some movie studio paid him a bunch of money for the rights to the story while he was still hooked up to a breathing machine. Publishing houses were throwing money at him to write a book. Jack told me this stuff was common. Few cops could live on their salary alone, and most secretly hoped for the one big case that could offer financial comfort for their families. That is if Mauser lived. I knew he would.

  Jack’s story was a smashing success. His Page One headline read The Mark, and featured stock photos of Michael DiForio, Agents Joe Mauser and Leonard Denton, a presumed dead assassin named Shelton Barnes, and the photo from my driver’s license.

  The piece began with my interviewing Luis Guzman, and ended with Leonard Denton’s death. The Gazette sold out its entire print run. There were talks of a Pulitzer. And when Wallace offered me my old job back, the first thing Jack did was make sure that at the end of the story, there was a line which read: Additional Reporting by Henry Parker.

  The only photos came from police photographers and the Associated Press.

  Paulina left the Gazette a few weeks earlier. The New York Dispatch doubled her salary and made her a featured columnist. Her first column was entitled How Henry Parker Ruined The News. Next to it was an article about a television star suspected of undergoing liposuction and breast augmentation.

  She was slammed by everyone across the board, but it was the Dispatch’ s most-read and most-discussed article in years that didn’t have to do with a boob job or a model’s husband sleeping with a teenager. If people were bashing her, it meant they were talking about her. I heard rumors she was interviewing my old classmates, my parents, and had even called Mya for dirt. She even called me, said it was only business, you can’t take things personally in this industry, and…

  I hung up before she finished the sentence. The story still ran. A few days later I got my first piece of hate mail.

  Heartless. Spoiled. Hateful. Deceitful. Just a few of the choice words this admitted fan of Paulina Cole had for me.

  But here I was, working again. Doing what I was born to do.

  I was writing in my notebook when suddenly a shadow blocked the sun.

  “Visiting your friends?”

  Amanda was standing over me, the sun shining directly over her head. I inhaled her beautiful smell, again had to remind myself she was real. She was wearing her turquoise tank top—my favorite one—and her lovely brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. I never thought it would be possible, but Amanda looked even more beautiful now than the day I met her.

  “They don’t leave you alone, do they?”

  She was referring to the smattering of plainclothes cops stationed around the AP building. Just in case Michael DiForio got frisky and decided he wanted payback. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat some nights, unsure whether it was all over, whether those three days had cost me peace for the rest of my life. Then I would look at the girl beside me, and I knew she could give me whatever I might have lost.

  Amanda.

  “So you wanted to see me?” I said. Forty-five minutes ago, Amanda called me at the office, told me to meet her outside. She said it was important. And she didn’t use that term lightly.

  “So what’ya writing?” she asked. She reached for my notebook, and I tucked it away.

  “Wallace gave me an assignment to write a story about these—” I pointed to the large insects swarmed by tourists “—things. I never got around to it last time, so I’m making amends.”

  “Sounds like a nice little human interest piece,” she said. She wrapped her arms around my neck. I could smell her, sweet and light, a scent to wake up to forever. “Know any other humans that interest you?”

  I smiled. “I can think of one, but I haven’t run a DNA check to make sure she’s not from the planet Melmac.”

  She playfully punched my arm, then lowered herself into my lap. Amanda leaned in and nuzzled her cheek against mine. I felt her lips brush my nose, my ear. I could taste her on my tongue. Amanda. The woman who saved my life.

  Then I felt something kick my leg, looked up to see a young girl on the ground. She’d tripped over my foot, but jumped up like an acrobat in training, brushed off her overalls.

  “Ta-da!” she squealed, like she’d meant to do it all along.

  “Alyssa!” Her mother came jogging up, holding a New York City map and a Dean & DeLuca bag. “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “Kids can be clumsy.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. I leaned down so my face was close to Alyssa’s, Amanda’s arms still clenched around my neck. “Careful there, Alyssa, you don’t want to disturb these guys.” I pointed to the spiders.

  “Why not?” she asked, her little mouth confused, but spread in a mischievous grin.

  “Because if you don’t watch out, they might…” Then I began tickling Amanda, until she squirmed and squealed out of my arms. Alyssa was clapping and jumping, giggling like a baby.

  “Or else they tickle you?” she asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Her mother smiled at me, took Alyssa’s hand and led her away.

  “What can I say,” I said, pecking Amanda on the lips. “Kids love me.”

  “I think she was sweet on you,” Amanda said, her jeweled eyes laying me open. “Do I have anything to be jealous about?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve decided to forgo my gorgeous, mature girlfriend in lieu of a much younger woman whose parents have a more stable bank account and a good sandbox.”

  She kissed me, placed her hand on my chest where the bullet had torn through my skin.

  “How does it feel?” she asked.

  “Still burns sometimes, but not as bad. Doc says it’ll hurt more in the winter. That gives me about three months of summer sun, and after that you’ll have to keep me warm.”

  “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  “So what’s the emergency? Sounded important.”

  “It is,” she said. She took the notebook from my hand, kissed it, then reached into her pocket. When she looked up her face was serious, more serious than I’d seen in a long time.

  “I want you to have this,” Amanda said. “I’ve never given one to anybody before, but…” Her voice trailed off. “You deserve to see it.”

  Into my palm, she placed a notebook of her own. The cover looked familiar. I opened it up. There were two words written at the top of the page. Carl Bernstein.

  “Remember that night in my car, how you wanted to know what I could possibly have learned in such a short amount of time?” I nodded, knew that night vividly. “Well, now I want you to know what I thought about you that day. Go ahead, look.”

  I read it.

  Carl Bernstein

  Early to midtwenties. No baggage other than a backpack, all alone. There’s a look in his eyes like something I’ve never seen, a tenderness that seems to come from out of nowhere. Like he’s scared, vulnerable. He acts like I’ve saved the life of somebody I’ve just met.

  I scanned the rest of the page. When I was through, I stood up, gathered Amanda into my arms and swung her around, our lips never parting, until my rib hurt and I had to put her down.

  Amanda leaned down and kissed my shirt, right where the slug had entered my body. She rose back up and grinned. “I think scars are actually kind of manly. And you know what I like most about them?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You never know exactly what’s below them.” She smiled. “Now come on, hero,
you have a story to write.” We both laughed and walked down the street, arm in arm. Amanda laid her head on my shoulder. Kissing her forehead, I held her tight.

  Never to look back.

  Epilogue

  T he cold wind snapped and bit Michael DiForio’s face as he stepped off the curb. An aide he’d never met stepped into an ankle-deep puddle as he opened the door to the Oldsmobile. Fucking new guys, DiForio thought. All utterly worthless.

  They’d had to take on extra help after Barnes massacred four men in that run-down building on 80th Street. The new faces only added to the disharmony, only made their family weaker. And over the last few weeks, Michael’s family barely had the strength to continue.

  In the last three weeks, nearly all of DiForio’s protection had ceased communication, fell off the face of the damn earth. Most had simply stopped responding to phone calls, others would whisper stop calling and hang up. That’s why the new faces. That’s why the whole thing had gone up in smoke.

  According to a Lieutenant at the 53rd Precinct, several weeks after Henry Parker’s vindication on three counts of first-degree murder, every officer, politician and newsman on the DiForio payroll received a mysterious package in the mail. Inside each package was a reprint of a photograph that Michael recognized as the handiwork of the late Hans Gustofson. Accompanying these photos was a letter, warning that unless all illegal activities were ceased immediately, the pictures in question would be released to the press.

  Half the cops were scared shitless. The others all had a “change of heart.” The photo album had disappeared completely. And countless hours and dollars had been thrown out the window.

  We can’t work for you anymore, Michael. We swore an oath to the city.

  Goddamn fucking saints going back on their word after they’d already taken Michael for thousands. Cut him off, just like that. That goddamn Parker was behind it. He had to be.

  Michael’s first order of business was to find Henry Parker and end him. The kid had ruined so much, Michael wasn’t sure how much was salvageable. Regardless, vengeance had to be dealt, and swiftly. Michael had to regain control.

  Blanket slid into the backseat next to DiForio. A portly driver who reeked of fried onions got behind the wheel. Blanket gestured to the new man, who gave Michael a nervous nod.

  “Boss, this is Kenny. Kenny’ll be driving you for the time being until we take on more help.” DiForio gave Kenny a quick nod, nothing more.

  Kenny turned the ignition and began to ease out of the driveway. He braked abruptly, then started up again, sending Michael lurching forward. Kenny clearly hadn’t done much driving outside of the pizza truck or wherever they’d found his sorry ass. Kenny pulled out of the complex, zipping along at four miles an hour, like a teenager afraid to piss off his driving instructor.

  Henry Parker. A twenty-four-year-old kid, had all but ruined him.

  The album was gone. Gustofson and Fredrickson were dead, as was Shelton Barnes. Leonard Denton, a reliable soldier for years, was dead. Luis and Christine Guzman were in protective custody. So many soldiers dead. The rest deserting like rats from a ship.

  DiForio had known all along about Denton’s history, figured sooner or later it would catch up to him. Talk about shitty timing, even if he wanted to take out Parker right now—which he did, oh, God, how he did—goddamn video surveillance was on him like the clap on a prostitute.

  The papers didn’t mention a funeral for the third man, didn’t even identify the man’s name. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t worth a funeral. And for the second time, Michael DiForio had killed Shelton Barnes. And this time, he wasn’t coming back.

  “Hey, Ken, whatever the fuck your name is, you want to step on it?”

  “Ken’s new, Mike,” Blanket replied. “You’ll get used to him.”

  “I’ll be late for my own fucking funeral the way he drives. Hey, Ken, you see that movie about a bomb on the bus? You go a mile an hour under fifty the rest of the way and I’ll cut your fucking ears off.”

  Ken nodded. The mood he was in, Michael just might keep his word.

  Ken pressed his foot down on the gas and DiForio watched the speedometer climb to five, then ten, fifteen. At least Ken listened. It was a start.

  As the car passed through the wrought-iron gates, a tremendous explosion shattered the air, and the car erupted into an enormous, golden fireball he detonation knocked down dozens of pedestrians, shattering windows up to three blocks away.

  Orange flames shot into the sky as the fuselage caught fire, sending the car’s chassis ten feet into the air. Molten debris rained across the street.

  When the car crashed to earth, black smoke pouring from the windows, people gathered around the smoldering wreckage, whispering in hushed tones, hands over their mouths to stifle the horror. Cell phones were taken out, 911 immediately inundated with horrified callers. Most simply watched the car burn, gasping at the charred corpses inside. Wondering who’d fallen victim to such a ghastly fate.

  Slowly one man began to make his way through the crowd. He was tall and his skin was pale. Thin, like he’d recently lost a tremendous amount of weight. His cheeks were sunken and he wore dark sunglasses, a thick black overcoat wrapped around his gaunt frame. He walked with a slight limp and held his right arm in a sling. The man stepped forward, carefully winding his way through the gaping onlookers. As he approached the twisted mass of destruction, the man removed something from his breast pocket. It was a picture, worn and tattered and smeared with red.

  He pressed his lips to the photograph, then set it on the ground by the burning wreckage, just a few feet from the charred bodies inside.

  Standing back up, the man coughed into his fist, and said two words.

  For Anne.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-0258-4

  THE MARK

  Copyright © 2007 by Jason Pinter.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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