The Mark

42

One month later

I never liked spiders. Don’t really know anyone who does. But sitting on a bench in Rockefeller Plaza, sipping a cup of coffee and watching the brilliant summer sun gleaming off those metal arachnid monstrosities, I couldn’t help but think I’d missed something the first time around.

It was late June and deliciously warm, a gentle breeze wafting through the city. Summer nights in New York were long, and I planned to savor every second of them. I’d been back at the Gazette for less than a week, still taking my time from the staph infection in my leg and two subsequent surgeries. A week in ICU, armed policemen outside my door. My mother came to visit. She cried, then asked if I’d found a job yet. She said my father couldn’t take the time off work.

Mya visited me, too. Thankfully when Amanda wasn’t there. That would be an awkward conversation for a later time. She said she was glad I was okay. She said she was sorry things had ended so badly between us. She said she hoped we could still be friends. I told her I’d like that. And I meant it. But she looked at me in a way she hadn’t in a long time. And I knew friendship wasn’t all she hoped for. And a small part of me wished we’d had one more chance. I would never tell Amanda that. I’m with her now. My past might never be buried, but at least now I had a future.

The docs told me to wait a few weeks before returning to the Gazette. Try working two or three hours a day at first, they said. Increase your hours as your strength returns. But they knew that wasn’t going to happen. If I was back at the Gazette, I was going full bore.

So I took a few more weeks to sit on my ass, plowing through books and newspapers in an effort not to go stir-crazy, and now here I was, back where it all started. If only I’d agreed to write Wallace’s story about these stupid metal bugs, I’d have one more rib, one less incredible story. And one less love.

I felt a slight tug in my chest, took a deep breath. The scar would always be visible, but the pain would eventually subside. Denton’s bullet had shattered my lowest true rib, a sliver of which punctured my right lung. The doctors said when they opened me up it looked like a crumpled-up grocery bag. Tubes were inserted into my chest to siphon the air that had built up between my collapsed lung and rib cage. Before they put me to sleep I saw Amanda’s face through the glass. You couldn’t get a better vision before going under.

I could feel the scar tickle the skin below my clothing, like an amputee who still feels pain in a missing limb-a silent reminder of that night. Sometimes I still see the bodies, smell the smoke, hear the gunshots. And I know they’ll never leave me.

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 amp; 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.