Marked Man by William Lashner Page B

late, it was after seven, and Twenty-first Street was pretty much deserted, the shoe-repair shop closed, the Korean grocery closing. There was plenty of traffic on Chestnut, but I was heading away from Chestnut, just past the alley at the edge of my building, when the man had stepped in my way.
    “That’s right,” I said. “And you are?”
    He raised a small digital camera and took a snap, the flash momentarily blinding me.
    “Whoa,” I said, blinking away the afterimage. “What are you, a reporter?”
    “Not exactly,” he said, and he wasn’t exactly dressed as a reporter either, no ratty sport coat, no wrinkled shirt, no mustard stains on his tie, no air of bored disappointment with his life. Instead he was wearing shiny white sneakers, pressed jeans, a retro 76ers jersey over a white T-shirt, silver chains hanging down, and a white baseball cap with the Sixers logo embossed in cream. It was a strange look, stranger still on a guy with gray hair who was shaped like a pear.
    “You mind turning your head a bit to the side, Victor, so’s I can catch your profile?”
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Hey, pal, I’m just trying to snap some pictures here. No need to get hostile. Now, be a Joe and turn to the side.”
    “Go to hell,” I said, and as soon as I said it, something hard clamped down on the back of my head, holding it stiffly in place.
    I reached back and found a gnarled hand attached to an absurdly thick wrist. The hand turned my head to the side. From that angle I could see what had hold of me, a younger man in the very same outfit, except his retro jersey was green, for the Bucks, and his chains were gold. This second man was a foot shorter than me, but with the girth of a bull.
    Camera guy took another photograph, checked the outcome on the camera’s small screen.
    “Jesus, I hope that isn’t your good side,” he said. “Turn him around, Louie.”
    Louie twisted his wrist and spun me around 180 degrees, like we were partners at a square dance.
    Camera guy took another photograph.
    “I think we’ve got enough here,” he said. “I want to thank you, Victor, for your generous cooperation.”
    Louie let go of my head. I shook my neck, straightened my jacket, tried to restore some level of dignity.
    “What the hell is going on?” I said.
    “Louie and myself, we’ve come here to deliver a message.”
    “From who, the mayor?”
    “The mayor? Now, why would the mayor be sending someone like you a message?”
    “For his buddy Bradley. To threaten us off the Theresa Wellman case.”
    The guy in the Sixers jersey raised his eyebrows in sadness as he shook his head.
    “Isn’t that what this is about?” I said.
    “Unfortunately for you, no,” he said. “We didn’t get dispatched from City Hall. But let me tell you something, Victor. If the mayor’s irritated at you, too, maybe you ought to rethink your life. No, we’re here with a message for your buddy Charlie.”
    “Charlie?”
    “Yeah, Charlie. Your boy Charlie the Greek. And this is the message. You tell that bald piece of dick we haven’t forgotten that he spilled last time he was in the stir. Fifteen years is but a snap of the fingers to us. You tell him painting or no painting, if he shows his face in this town, I’m going to personally rip it off his skull.”
    That’s when Louie piped in. “Off his skull, boysy,” he said, his voice soft and gravelly, like the crush of bones underfoot.
    “We’ve picked a bog for him already. He’ll understand. Tell him he’ll be crapping cranberries into eternity.”
    “Cranberries,” said Louie.
    “And you tell Charlie, wherever he is right now, he ought to be running, because we’ve called in our friend from Allentown.”
    “Your friend from Allentown?” I said.
    “Allentown, boysy,” said Louie.
    “Charlie will know who we’re talking about,” said the man with the camera. “He’ll know enough to take it seriously.”
    “Who the hell are you guys?”
    “The