Martin"s Secret

Martin followed the host to a small table at the back of the restaurant and pulled a chair out for Jessica. Gas candles lined the rustic brick walls and rays of colorful prisms refracting from a crystal chandelier vibrantly speckled a small stage and dance floor across the room. The two opted for Cabernet Sauvignon which appeared on a wait-tray a few moments later.

“This place reminds me of a 1970s discotheque,” Martin opined.

“How would you know? We’re about the same age, we weren’t even born.”

“I occasionally read, or at least look at the pictures,” he joshed and smiled, then raised his glass slightly in a toast.

“Touché,” said Jessica, before excusing herself to visit the ladies room.

It was an opportunity for him to do likewise but not before taking her in. Her exercised calves enhanced by red mid-heels and the appealing sway of her hips emphasized the feminine curvature of her alluring backside. Martin found this spontaneous confirmation of his sexuality in the absence of empirical reference reassuring.

For dinner, he enjoyed linquine with clams and fennel and Jessica had Halibut with Spring onion and summer squash saute’. They peppered dining with casual discussion that touched on music, art and other topics used by couples to evaluate potential for compatibility. Before long, Jessica steered the conversation back to Martin’s bullet-riddled car.

“The mechanics showed me the interior before the replacement parts were delivered.”

She knew she was snooping and anticipated some measure of resistance and searched his clear, green eyes for an unguarded response. What she received was a dimpled smile and casual graciousness, which she filed away as disarming.

“I’m pleased, thank them for me.”

“I will,” she promised, and smiled.

It was the same smile that dissembled him at the dealership - cautious, yet vaguely flirtatious. It was a smile that conveyed a private recognition of his existence that seemed to balance the foggy abyss he had wandered through for months.

When the two men entered the restaurant, Martin fixed a cold gaze on them. They returned a hurried look as the hostess led them to a table near an exit. One carried a briefcase and the other a trench coat draped over an arm. The men surveyed the room before taking seats at the table, but appeared uninterested in other diners.

Jessica was relieved that Martin’s stare elicited no immediate response from the men. She felt inexplicably threatened and a chill came over her, but she decided to ignore them. Soon she and Martin’s conversation turned to music, a subject both enjoyed even though Martin could not recall attending a concert or making love under the influence of a particular. Jessica was impressed by his ability to match singers with their songs and even the songs’ host albums.

After googling Martin’s full name at work, Jessica learned there were three Martin Harbach’s about his age. One was a psychiatrist from Atlanta who bore no resemblance at all, another was a rotund, bearded shrimp-boat owner from coastal Louisiana and the third was a Special Forces veteran who served three tours in Afghanistan and earned a prestigious cache of medals, but there was no picture. None of those Martins had been a sure match although the decorated soldier came closest because she could imagine Martin wearing a military uniform with an abundance of medals.

She wanted to know more about this man because he was mysterious yet casual about things that were dangerously exciting. She was naturally attracted to strong men, but cautious, not vulnerable. Martin was different. For some reason she felt compelled, emotionally bound, to risk her heart. The force that sanctioned this inexplicable drive was stronger than grievers’ guilt, the well-worn shield she used to deflect most advances. Martin was a character molded by her innate director to costar with her in a surreal, title-less play. Instinct told her to walk away, but for the first time in a long while, her heart demanded an audition.

“Okay, I gotta ask you something, Martin” - she sighed and put her hands on the table and laced her fingers - “a guy comes to my work and he’s interesting and seems interested - but his car is all shot up with, you know, actual bullets. Later I find him sleeping in the parking lot and he acts as though it’s just another day. So I was wondering, who you are?”

Martin examined his wine glass, shrugged, then gazed into her eyes, but said nothing.

She sensed vulnerability, a humble characteristic she had not observed in him before that moment.

“I’m not holding back, or at least I’m not trying to. I’m just having problems remembering things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Most things,” he replied.

Jessica folded her hands in her lap and straightened her back as her glossy, brown eyes widened.

“I’m listening.”

“This will sound weird, but I know stuff, more stuff than I want to know, but my personal life began a few months ago for all practical purposes.”

“You don’t remember anything before three months ago, like nada?” she pressed.

“No. Nothing personal, nothing substantial. I get flashes of names and places, and I usually write them down, but it’s like intuition – nothing specific to piece things together. I have amnesia, a bad case.”

“That’s terrible,” she gasped. “You don’t remember your hometown, your family, your age?”

“Exactly,” he replied. “I have impulses that come out of nowhere so I just follow them in hopes they’ll lead me back to a life. I know I have to go to Montrose, then to Florida. I’m not sure why, just hunches.”

“You poor man,” she replied, her voice softening with sympathy and affection. But seconds later her brows arched and her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Martin, if this is a pick-up line, it’s a doozy.”

“It’s not, I wouldn’t knowingly lie to you, but don’t assume I’m not interested in picking you up.”

Their eyes met and his followed the lines of her shoulders and cleavage before, without blinking, moving to her mouth, cheeks, and then back to her eyes. His eyes said he was interested without need for words.

“Tell me about Montrose. Why there?” asked Jessica.

“I’ll tell you what I can, but it’s not much,” he admitted.

“Deal.” said Jessica.

However, before he could share his next thought, a female patron at an adjacent table discharged a primal scream and Martin instinctively flipped backward and rolled as bullets splintered his chair and exploded dinnerware and condiments.

He returned a volley of three shots with lightning speed. The first round entered the forehead and messily exited the skull of the man with a trench coat folded over his arm as the large-caliber handgun he had concealed under the raincoat fell, hitting the floor with a thump. The second round tore flesh along the side of the other shooter’s neck and was followed by a round that passed through his heart.

Martin stood and asked Jessica if she was hurt, but she could only shake her head; the gun-fight had left her speechless. He nudged her toward the foyer as panicked diners and wait-staff scurried about and once outside, he remotely started the Mustang’s engine and unlocked the doors. He pulled the seat-belt across Jessica as they peeled out of the parking lot, tires smoking.

“Oh my God… you’re shot!” blurted Jessica, staring at his blazer.

Martin steered with one hand, pulled open his coat, and looked at the red blotch on his shirt bathed in the car’s interior lights. His attention quickly returned to the road and the yellow lines that blurred into one as the Mustang’s tachometer neared its red line. He sensed no pain other than a familiar sharp stab above his eye which relented after a few seconds.

“Ketchup.”

“What?” Jessica gulped.

“It’s ketchup, from the restaurant,” he said.

She put her hand over her heart and laughed nervously as they sped south on Highway 50 away from Mesa County.

After turning on the vehicle’s GPS, Martin touched on a destination and turned down a two-lane county road that wound through valleys and mountains.

“I could have gotten you killed back there. I’ll take you to Montrose then you go back to your life,” Martin promised.

Jessica’s hands trembled as she hooked her hair over her thumbs and pulled it back. She struggled to process the chain of events that unfolded but became reasonably calm.

“I don’t have a life,” she said, staring out of the passenger window into the darkness.

“Don’t say that, you’ll be fine” - he tried to read her thoughts in the faint light of the instrument panel – “I got you into this, I’ll get you out.”

“What happened back there scares the hell out of me, but that’s not what I meant,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” he confessed.

“My husband died in Afghanistan five years ago - I’m a forty-year-old, college-educated widow with no family who works at a car dealership in a town with a population of 7,000 people. So maybe I don’t want out of this.”

“I like you a lot” – the Mustang’s tires squealed a bit as he over-steered a curve – “but right now I’m a moving target.”

“My husband was a captain in Special Forces,” she said, ignoring his comment. “I loved him very much. We planned to have a family, you know, a couple of kids.”

“What happened?”

“There should have been plenty of time for him to start a civilian career and for us to make babies after he returned from Afghanistan. But he never came home... not alive.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your husband.”

Jessica bit on a knuckle as tears welled.

“It’s okay, I’ve grieved too long.”

“What do you mean?” Martin thought he understood but wasn’t sure.

“The biological clock. You know, a little late in the game for a Hail Mary or little Johnny.”

“I’m sorry, Jessica. I really am sorry that things didn’t work out. But you’re getting involved with a guy with a bounty on his head, a guy who doesn’t remember his birthday.”

“You’re not the bad guy in this, Martin” – she moved closer and brushed his cheek with the back of her fingers” – “and that’s all I have to know right now.”

Their lips touched briefly and they stopped talking, letting the Shelby’s purr fill the void.