Secret Agent Affair

“Where the hell are you?” Tania demanded with exasperation the moment she came on. “You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. I need the car. They called me in to cover for Michaelson. If I don’t get to the hospital in fifteen minutes, I’m going to be late for my shift.”

Marja picked her words carefully. She didn’t want to say any more over the phone than she absolutely had to. “I need you to come down, Tania.” She glanced toward the slumped figure to her right. “I’ve, um, got a slight problem.”

For a moment there was silence, then anger. “There better be nothing wrong with the car or you’re going to be facing more than just a ‘slight’ problem,” Tania warned her.

The next moment the connection was abruptly terminated.

Marja closed her cell phone, pocketing it along with her car keys. Squaring her shoulders, she braced herself for a lecture when Tania arrived. The car was really Tania’s, although they did share it. Her sister had bought it from Sasha after their oldest sister had purchased a new one, an SUV to accommodate her family increasing by one. In its time, the vehicle had ferried all five of the Pulaski women to and from the hospital, as well as the house in Queens where they all grew up and where their parents still resided.

Deciding to give it one more try, Marja shook her unconscious passenger’s shoulder again and wound up with the same results.

“If you know what’s good for you,” she murmured to the unconscious stranger, “you’ll come to—fast.”

The elevator leading up to the other floors was located on the far side of the garage. Marja watched as the doors opened. Her sister had arrived faster than she’d anticipated.

Tania, casually dressed in jeans and a blue pullover sweater, a giant purse slung over her shoulder, quickly cut the distance between the elevator and the parked vehicle to nothing.

It wasn’t until she was only about two feet away from her car that she saw Marja wasn’t alone in it. And it wasn’t until she’d reached the car that she noticed the passenger’s condition.

Marja was already out. Rounding the hood, she opened the passenger door. “I need your help to get him upstairs.”

Tania stared at her sister, stunned. She was accustomed to Marja bringing men home, but they were usually in a far better state than this one—and conscious. She looked back at the slumped passenger.

“Bringing home hospital overflow, Marysia?” she quipped.

This wasn’t the time to get into a discussion. She needed to take care of the stranger’s wound before it became infected.

“Just help me get him upstairs, Tania,” Marja said wearily. “It’s been a long night, not to mention a long day.”

Tania made no move to help. Instead she leaned over the passenger side and peered at the man.

“Scruffy, but definitely not bad-looking,” she pronounced. Straightening, she glanced at her sister, an incredulous expression on her face. “You were the one who always brought home strays,” she recalled. The habit had driven their mother crazy, despite the fact that Magda Pulaski found a way to house each and every wounded animal. “But this—” Tania gestured toward the stranger “—is over the top, even for you.”

Marja started to struggle with the man, trying to move him into position so that they could pull him out of the vehicle. If they both took hold of an arm, they could get him into the elevator.

“I hit him with the car, Tania.” It wasn’t something she’d wanted to admit, at least not yet. Not until Tania was at least a grandmother. But it was obvious that her sister needed to be coerced.

If she was shocked, Tania didn’t show it. Instead she placed her hands on Marja’s shoulders and moved her out of the way so that she could get a closer look at the man. After a quick assessment, she raised her eyes to Marja’s. “Since when does the car shoot bullets?” she asked. “Sasha never mentioned it could do that little trick.”

Annoyed, Marja shifted her out of the way and resumed trying to pull the stranger farther out of the vehicle. “Don’t get sarcastic, Tania.”

“Don’t get stupid, Marja,” Tania countered, her arms crossed before her chest. “We’re not bringing him upstairs.”

“Fine,” Marja snapped. She’d finally managed to get him to face out. It was like pushing a rock into position. “I’ll do it myself.”

Tania watched her continue to struggle for exactly five seconds, muttered a sharp oath and then grabbed the unconscious stranger by the other arm. Marja looked at her in surprise.

“You are the most stubborn woman on the face of the earth,” Tania declared angrily. Between the two of them, they hoisted the all but dead weight up to his feet.

“Blame Mama. I got it from her,” Marja gasped, struggling beneath the unconscious man’s weight and doing her best not to pitch forward or to fall backward as they slowly made their way to the elevator.

Tania held on to the man’s wrist, his arm slung across her shoulders as she took unsteady steps toward the elevator. “You know this is crazy, don’t you?”

Marja kept her eyes on the prize, silently counting off steps until they finally reached the steel doors. “We’re doctors,” she pointed out haltingly.

Leaning her forehead against the wall to help brace herself, Marja pressed for the elevator. When the doors opened almost immediately, she had to keep from falling forward. Breathing a huge sigh of relief—they were halfway there—she punched the button for their floor.

“We’re supposed to heal people,” she concluded, drawing in a lungful of air as she braced herself for the second half of the journey—getting the man to their apartment once they reached the fifth floor.

Tania craned her neck around the man they held up between them. “That doesn’t mean going out and trolling the streets for patients.”

“I wasn’t trolling. I told you, I hit him with the car.”

“How—?”

She’d braced herself for that same question. “One second he wasn’t there,” Marja answered. “Then he was. And I hit him.”

“But you didn’t shoot him,” Tania insisted. The elevator came to a stop and Tania shifted, getting what she hoped was a better hold on the man. “Why didn’t you just take him to P.M. or call the paramedics?”

Holding tightly on to his other hand, lodging her shoulders beneath his arm, Marja began to walk. “Because he wouldn’t let me.” Why hadn’t she ever noticed before how far away their apartment was from the elevator?

Tania glanced at the unconscious face. “Doesn’t seem to be putting up much resistance at the moment. The man could be a criminal, you realize that, right?”

Almost there, Marja thought. Almost there. “He’s… not.”

Tania all but threw herself against the door, then waited as Marja fished out her key. “And you know this how?” she gasped.

Marja didn’t answer until she’d managed to unlock the door and resumed her forced march, this time through the doorway. “He doesn’t have criminal eyes.”

“Right. You’re crazy, you know that?”

Marja was getting a second wind. From where, she had no idea. “Whatever you say, Tania. Let’s get him… to the sofa,” she instructed.

Together, they deposited the man on the sofa. It was hard not to drop him, but they managed. Because of her position, Marja went down with him, then immediately scrambled to her feet.

“I can take it from here,” she told Tania, dragging in gulps of air. “You just get to the hospital.”

Tania took a step back. She glanced down at her clothes, checking herself over to see if any of the blood had gotten on her. Miraculously, it hadn’t.

Losing no time, Marja made her way to the kitchen for some clean towels and a basin of water. “I said you can go,” she called. “You don’t want to be late,” she added.

Tania glanced at her watch. “I’m already late,” she answered, seeming hesitant to leave. Tania shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Look, I really do have to go. I told them I’d fill in for Michaelson,” she said. “But let me call Jesse.” She began to take out her cell phone. “He can be here in ten minutes and he’ll stay with you until you finish being the Good Samaritan.”

“No,” Marja protested from the kitchen. In less than a second she was back in the room. Water sloshed out of the basin as she came. “No, let Jesse sleep,” she insisted, putting the basin down on the coffee table.

The cell phone remained in Tania’s hand. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. “All right, I’ll call Byron, then.”

That was equally unacceptable. She wasn’t about to put anyone out on her account. Besides, she could take care of herself. The fact that she was petite and young had nothing to do with her ability to defend herself if need be. “No.”