A/N: This is either wonderfully dramatic or terribly overwrought. You'll have to decide. It will be more than a few days before I can post again. Oh, and after Sunday's episode, Brandi and Jinx have been banned from all further fiction. I would kill them slowly if I wrote about them right now. As for Marshall, he was absolutely dreamy.
Sheila
Chapter 4
He opened his eyes again, and tried to focus his vision. Blurry images emerged including the unlikely presence of a hot tub and a bed. The bigger man was seated in a chair backward, his beefy arms folded over the back of it. Marshall wished it made sense to smile because it was a small chair, and the burly man looked ridiculous perching on it like that.
"He's waking up, Idiot."
Marshall was becoming aware that his body was secured tightly in a chair. There was a fire in his gut that reminded him he'd been shot.
"Don't call me, Idiot. It was a freakin' stun. Who knew he was going to drop like that?"
Marshall moaned. From the pain, it seemed more likely that he had a bullet tearing through him. He knew what bullets felt like, and while he was in no state to compare, this pain had that epic quality.
"You set the voltage too high, Numbnuts. This was about incapacitating him not killing him."
Images cleared, and Marshall noticed the other goon seated at a table. He looked down and saw that his chair had been placed on a large sheet of plastic.
"Hey Buddy."
Marshall's head snapped up.
"Sorry for the inconvenience. We just need to do a little bit of business, and then we disappear."
Marshall squinted at him. The whole situation had become increasingly confusing. Two men he had never seen before had showed up at his door at dawn, shot him with a stun gun, dragged him to a luxury resort of some kind, and now wanted to conduct business. It was Tarantino-esque.
"You got some information we need. You give it and we're gone."
Marshall cocked his head at the thug. "This is how you do business?"
"We need an address on Angela Martin."
Marshall frowned, and then remembered where he knew that name. Everything snapped into place. The pain in his gut was joined by a cloud of fear. The plastic he was sitting on was what they were going to use to contain the mess after killing him.
He looked the man in the eye. "I don't know an Angela Martin."
The man shook his head. "I would hate for this to get out of hand. My friend here has a nasty temper."
He could hear the goon from the table stand up and walk over. The man in the chair nodded and the other man slammed his fist into the side of Marshall's head. It felt like his head exploded, and for a few minutes, Marshall hovered at the edge of consciousness.
"Listen Dickbreath, let's at least keep him lucid long enough to get what we need."
"Apparently, I don't do anything right. Why don't you do this shit yourself?"
Marshall attempted to focus again. "I don't know this girl. I can't help you."
The big man put up a hand. "Don't hit him yet. Listen Buddy, this is going to get ugly, and it would be easier if you just gave up a little bit of information."
Marshall jutted his chin forward. "You want some information? My great-great-great granddaddy was a U.S. Marshal. He was tortured by Navaho renegades for three months before he was rescued. My granddaddy was at the final shootout with John Dillinger. My daddy—"
"Hit him."
Marshall was ready this time and went with the punch. It was rough, but not as devastating.
"We don't have a lot of time, Buddy. This ain't no three month process, I ain't no Navaho, and you ain't getting rescued. I figure we got another two hours to figure out what you know. If you give it up, you can recuperate in this nice hotel room. If not, he's going to kill you with his bare hands."
Marshall shook his head slowly. "I'd have to disappoint five generation of Manns. Can't do it. You're just doing to have to do what you gotta' do."
The big man looked at his colleague. "He's a fuckin' hero. Show him what it feels like to be a hero."
The goon turned around and picked up a lead pipe from the table.
……………………………………………………………..
Mary shut the phone and stared at the highway. Her hand drifted up near her mouth, and it seemed to be attempting to cover a quivering lip. She blinked rapidly, and her hand eventually needed to migrate north to scrub at them a bit. Angel watched this, turning her head frequently to see if her girls were sleeping. When they slumped in their car seats, she turned to Mary, "They're sleeping. Tell me everything."
Mary nodded and worked her mouth for a moment before speaking. "Last night, men, I presuming your ex-husband's men, broke into the house of a U.S. Marshal and her husband. She was administrative. I'm sure they assumed she could find you for them. All she had access to was your assignment to Marshall. They beat her and her husband to death." She stopped and took a deep breath. "There are definitely signs of struggle at Marshall's place. There would have been enough time for your husband's men to get there by early this morning. Stan really found very little. He's sending a helicopter to get me at a little airfield up ahead. Marshals and State Patrol will meet us there, and take you and the girls the rest of the way."
"He's sending a helicopter for you?"
Mary's eyes were red, and she struggled with words. "I know Stan. He's sending a chopper…because he doesn't want me to hear about Marshall's death on the radio with hours left to drive."
Angel reached over and held her arm. "I am so sorry. I am so sorry."
Mary shook her head. "You didn't do anything wrong. You stayed with a bad guy too long, but it's the only thing that's going to put him back in prison."
For a long time, both women were silent. A road sign indicated that the airport was only ten miles away, and then her phone rang again. Mary picked it up and was surprised to find Marshall's ID flashing. She choked a little, and then put it to her ear. "Is it you? Are you okay?"
For a moment, there was silence, and then she heard a very raspy, wheezy sound. "It's…me. Listen."
Mary waited.
"Where…are you heading?" Marshall's voice was muddled and slow.
"You know I can't tell you that," she whispered.
She heard him mumble to someone, "She's…on a plane to D.C." Voices murmured in the background, but she could make out nothing definitive.
Then Marshall wheezed into the phone again. "I have to say…something. Listen to me, Mary."
She waited, a feeling of tremendous fear filling her gut.
"Big man, mole, right cheek, hot tub—" The mumbling behind him turned into shouts, and then there was a sharp crack and that phone went dead.
"Marshall! Marshall!" She yelled into the phone, waking the girls in the backseat. Angel turned around shushed them back to sleep.
She redialed but no one picked up. Angel leaned over, "What did he say?"
Mary repeated his words softly. "I think he was supposed to fish for information or maybe negotiate. I don't know."
Angel bit her lip. "The last words were…hot tub, man, right cheek?
Mary nodded. "Big man and mole on right cheek. He was trying to give me clues. They wanted him to negotiate, but he gave clues instead."
Angel closed her eyes. "Tiny…that's sounds like Tiny Litness."
Mary stopped the car on the side of the highway and turned to her. "Tell me more."
"Tiny and Michael grew up together. He was always at the house. Big guy and he had a big black mole on his face."
"Would Tiny be the kind of guy Benoit would send out to find you?"
"I think so. He was always nice to me, but sometimes when Michael was threatening me, he said that I would learn my lesson if he left Tiny alone in a room with me for an hour. It always gave me chills. And the hot tub, that's another thing. Tiny likes to say that all he wants in life is a hot tub and a bottle of Cristal. The guys were always teasing him when he got back from a trip. Like "Hey Tiny, did you get your hot tub and champagne?"
"Does he have connections in Albuquerque?"
Angel shook her head. "Mary, I would have no way of knowing, but if he is staying somewhere, it's a spendy place. Tiny isn't cheap."
Mary grabbed her cell. "Stan, I just heard from Marshall….I don't know. He didn't sound good. He gave me clues before they stopped him. Listen, you need to check area hotels and resorts. Look for someone in the last 24 hours who wanted a room with a hot tub and some Cristal…His name is Tiny Litness…I'm sure he's using an alias. He's a big guy with a distinct mole on his right cheek. Okay? Remember big man, mole, hot tub and…Angel, what was the other thing?...Right cheek. Got it?..Stan, he was supposed to get information when he called. He didn't and lied to them about where we were going…I'm just so worried…This is killing me…I know, Stan. I'm doing my best. We'll be at the airport in ten minutes…Okay, call me about everything."
Mary dropped the phone into her lap, no longer making any pretense of hiding the emotion on her face. Angel's hand gripped her arm tightly. "Turn around, Mary. We'll go back with you. They can have me. It's the girls I worry about. Promise me, they can't have the girls."
Mary's mouth dropped and she shook her head slowly. "Not in a million years. Surrendering you would be the worst thing. Dead or alive, Marshall would never forgive me. Don't even think it. Our lives are only worth living if they are honorable ones. I believe that and Marshall does too."
"But you could lose him."
Mary turned the car back onto the highway. "If I lose him, it will break me in ways that I am not prepared to even consider." She swallowed hard and squeezed her face tight. "Angel, our lives are this work; providing protection to witnesses so that dangerous criminals can be brought to justice. There are no shortcuts to getting there."
Angel leaned over. "More than anything, I wished I hadn't played around with him. I do have feelings for him, but I knew his feelings were for you. He loves you."
Mary smiled through her tears. "We're best friends."
"But he loves you and I think you know that. Mary, you have to know that. He even asked me for advice on how to win you."
Mary bit her lip, struggling to concentrate on the road.
"You're stubborn, tough, and a little mean, but he loves all of it. Do you ever pay attention to how he looks at you?"
Mary shook her head. "I can't talk about this."
"I know. I'm probably making it harder, but you and I may never talk again, and whatever happens, I want you to know that you were treasured by him…in a very real way." Angel hesitated a moment and then said, "You and I would have ended up friends, you know."
Mary reached for her hand and squeezed.
………………………………………………………………………..
Marshall's body went limp, his head under water in the hot tub. Tiny waited a minute, then pulled him out by his scruff, and pushed him onto the ground. Marshall crumbled like a ragdoll onto the carpet. Tiny looked down at him with a frown.
His partner burst through the door. "Tiny, just got a call. They found that broad and her husband this morning. We figured they wouldn't find 'em until early evening. Damn! We gotta' motor, Man."
Tiny's eyes never left Marshall's limp form. "We still got work to do."
"He still breathing?"
"Naw. He's done. I held him under for quite awhile."
He glared at Tiny. "You want to take the time to clean up and haul his sorry ass out to the desert? You crazy, Man."
Tiny shrugged. "It's a nice place. I might want to stay here again."
"Shut up, Man. We're in enough trouble when we tell Michael that we didn't get her. I ain't hanging out until the local sheriff stumbles on us. Let's hit the road."
Tiny rolled Marshall over with his foot. The U.S. Marshal was barely recognizable. His face was red and purple from the beating, cuts and bruises dotted his chest and legs, and yet through all the bruising, it was clear that all the color had left his body. "I never had a guy hang on like this before. He never came close to giving her up. Never seen that before."
"Let it go, Tiny. They found the broad too early. If we'd broken him, it wouldn't have done any good. They probably put Angela on a plane within an hour of discovering the broad in L.A."
Tiny sat on his haunches and stared at Marshall's battered body. "He was unexpected."
"Tiny, I'm going to leave your ass in about ten seconds."
Tiny nodded and stood up, groaning as his knees struggled under his big frame. His partner handed him the lead pipe. "Give him a little good-bye tap. Just a little insurance."
Tiny waited until the man went outside. He aimed it at Marshall's head and then froze. Then he put it down gently next to Marshall and walked out.
……………………………………………………
Next Chapter Sunday? I'm out of town for a few days.