Blood Rust Chains

by Marco Etheridge

  “You think someone stood out here and scratched a message in my neighbor’s car hood?”

  “No Mr. Boyd, I do not. I think that our vandal had a pre-made stencil. See how exact the lettering is? Whoever this person was, they placed the stencil on the car, taped it down, and then painted it with some kind of acid. Muriatic acid would be my guess. The stuff they use to strip metal.”

  “Officer Perkins, you seem to know a lot about this sort of thing.” Quinn turned to face the hulking man.

  “Used to work in an auto-body shop when I was a kid. Long time ago. Whoever did this, they had a real good idea of what they were doing. And I don’t think I’m stepping on any detective’s toes when I say that this was a very personal thing.”

  “Yeah, ya think?” Quinn turned back to the message on the car. “Damn, I bet James almost had a stroke over this.”

  “Uh huh. Quinn, do you mind if I call you Quinn? A word of advice?”

  “Quinn is fine. That Mr. Boyd stuff was getting to me.”

  “Good, we’ll go with that then. Quinn, I’d advise you, as a police officer and as a disinterested observer, to give your neighbor a wide berth. In no way do I think you had anything to do with this, okay? But that doesn’t mean that our friend Mr. Watson feels the same way. You steer clear of him, yes? Don’t let this thing get out of hand. Stuff like this can go south real quick. You hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yes Sir, loud and clear.”

  “Right then. Look, if things get hot with your neighbor, just walk away. If you have to, you can call us. Not a problem. Just ask for us by name, dispatch will know where we are.”

  The large man paused to make sure the words were sinking in. From Quinn’s silence, it seemed that they were.

  “Okay, duty calls Mr. Boyd. I can make my own way back. I hope to not see you again, right?”

  “Rodger that Officer Perkins.” Quinn watched the huge shadow of the man edge around the dumpster. He looked back at the writing on the hood of the car, shook his head, and looked up at the night sky.

  “Okay, okay, I get the message already. Maybe you could just dial it down a little bit. What do you say?” Quinn walked to the building and disappeared through the back door.

  Chapter 11

  Quinn

  Quinn stood brooding in the kitchen. He pulled apart his well-worn coffee press, rinsing it in the sink. More coffee, Stat! One cup is certainly not going to do it. Wait, there is more coffee, isn’t there? Quinn peered into one of the tiny cupboards, pushing aside the packages of tea and dry cereal that blocked his view. Behind a half empty box of pasta his hand closed on what he needed, a full bag of espresso-roast beans from Nicaragua. Hell yes, bring on the heavy hitters. Quinn slit open the bag like a hungry man gutting a fish. He dropped a measure of the black beans into the grinder and sloshed the rest into the wide-mouthed jar that stood on the cluttered counter. Over the whine of the electric grinder, a mantra rang in his head. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Order Beans! Order Beans! Order Beans!

  With the practiced movements of a robot, Quinn slid a paper filter into the base of the press and fitted the press over his coffee mug. Dumping in the ground coffee, he reached for the variable temperature electric kettle. Hot water filled the press. He stirred the contents while counting to ten. It was an automatic ritual. Rinse off stirring paddle with more hot water. Dampen plunger and insert into press. While waiting for the magic brewing to occur, Quinn took two steps across the tiny kitchen to where a white board was screwed to the wall. Grabbing at a marker hanging on a string, he scrawled COFFEE BEANS across the slick surface of the board, underlining it three times. Quinn returned to the press and laid a hand over the plunger. The press slid to the bottom of the cylinder with an oh-so satisfying hiss. He threw the plastic apparatus into the sink a little harder than necessary. Taking the first sip from the fresh mug, he heard his phone tweet. Quinn leaned against the counter, mug in one hand, grabbing at the phone with the other. Sonya’s message flicked across the screen.

  How is your morning Q? Just btwn mtgs. This case is brutal!!

  Luv U. S

  Quinn cradled the phone with one hand, thumbing the tiny electronic keys. From his other hand, the coffee aroma rose across his face.

  Meh!! Not so good. Luv U2. Q

  ??? Normal morning Meh or more??

  2 much to txt abt. Im fine tho. All good. Can U call ltr?

  Yes. Lunchtime OK??

  Yuppers. Will be here. No worry, K?

  Oops. Gotta go. Luv U!!

  K. Luv U2!!

  All good. Quinn snorted. Okay, that was not even close to the truth. He walked out of the kitchen, coffee in hand. Reaching into the cramped office, he snatched the laptop out of the mess on the table and retreated to the living room. Sprawling across the couch, Quinn felt the events of the preceding evening push at him. That son of a bitch! Calling the cops, that was the last straw. He could understand the sorry bastard being a hall-monitor. That was a character flaw, a seriously messed-up character flaw, but still understandable. Those kind of assholes just couldn’t help themselves, the miserable fucks. But calling the cops and then directly accusing your neighbor, that was way over the line. Quinn flipped open the laptop and settled back on the couch.

  With a few mouse clicks, a bookmarked website flashed up on the screen. Quinn slid the mouse over the selections, popping them into his basket. Of course I want expedited delivery, this is a damned emergency. He hit the automated checkout button and breathed a sigh of relief. Four bags of coffee beans would be delivered in two days. Quinn switched screens, bringing up the notes for the genealogy article. He clicked on the story of Charlie Boyd and reached for his mug of coffee.

  Reading over the story of the ill-fated young man, Quinn had the feeling he was missing something. Okay, getting pissed off is one thing, and then getting drunk over it is another. Lord knows he could relate to that. But in the light of day, on a Sunday no less, to shoot a man without saying a word, not so much as a curse? How did the poor kid get to that place? Looking across the couch, he spied his messenger bag. He pulled the bulging bag into his lap and fished around inside. Tossed into the jumble of notepads, pens, and tangled charging cords, he found the little MP3 recorder. Cueing up the interview with Susan, he hit the play button. Electronic voices filled the quiet of the room. He heard his own flat intonation followed by Susan’s perky chirping. Quinn focused his attention on the recording.

  The discussion of Susan’s summer away from the horrors of their childhood home life served to sour his mood even further. He settled in when the recording got to the tale of Charlie Boyd. Quinn stopped the recorder and slid a control to replay Susan’s voice.

  “That’s better. So, Hanks berates Charlie over some misdeed. Unfortunately for Mr. Hanks, he does so in front of a kitchen girl that Charlie is sweet on. After his shift is over, Charlie goes over to a friend’s place and these two proceed to get good and drunk while Charlie fumes about the insult.”

  Quinn punched the pause button and set the device on the table. He picked up his coffee and cradled it in his lap. How had he missed that? It wasn’t the insult itself that set the poor kid onto a path of murder, it was that the boss insulted Charlie in front of the girl. Of course! The kid had been humiliated. Just like Quinn having to come clean about spouting off stupid shit to his neighbor, had to come clean to the damn cops no less. Okay Charlie, maybe I’m starting to understand this a little more. Quinn pushed the laptop closed and set it on the floor. He pictured Charlie at the friend’s house, saw the bottle being passed back and forth. What would it look like, that room. Dingy little place, threadbare rug, a few old wooden chairs, two young men in the light of a kerosene lantern. Would they have had electricity? Maybe, maybe not. Rural America in 1912, who knows? The kerosene lamp is a better touch anyway. Quinn could see Charlie taking a pull at the bottle, talking to his friend, anger in his voice.

  “I’m telling you, nobody talks to me like that, nobody, you h
ear me. I’m a’going to get that bastard, you mark my words.”

  “Look, forget it Charlie. It ain’t worth gettin’ into no trouble over, you hear?”

  “And I tell you I ain’t gonna forget it. I ain’t. No man is going to speak to me like that and get away with it, no sir, nobody.”

  Then what? Quinn mused on his imagined scene. Did the friend get drunk enough to loan Charlie the shotgun? Or did Charlie just swipe the thing the next morning, all hungover and ready for revenge? Both of those boys long dead and gone, no answer to that question. As if it mattered. All of the component parts of the story are there. The insult, the drinking, a handy shotgun, and a burning desire for revenge. The need to wipe out the humiliation. Whichever way it actually fell out, it ended up with one man dead on a Sunday morning and another man disappearing into ignominy. And was it just opportunity that played the fatal hand? What if Charlie had gone on home alone, not spent the night drinking, not had a shotgun close to hand? What then? Would he have found a way? Would he have bided his time, eaten the dish of revenge from a cold plate, the way it was meant to be tasted?

  Sipping at his cooling coffee, Quinn pondered the nature of revenge. In his head, there was a tall gunslinger standing in a dusty street. Another man stands in front of him, facing into the sun. Townsfolk scatter off the boardwalk seeking cover. No one speaks to me like that pardner. There’s the slap of a hand against leather, a shot, gunsmoke, and a man face down in the dirt. Yeah, High Noon. Nothing cliché about that.

  Quinn wondered if William Hanks had the briefest pause to regret his words, or even time to know what was happening. In that split second, that moment where time stood still, did Bill Hanks have a chance to understand why he was about to die? Probably not, thought Quinn. What’s the point of revenge if the victim doesn’t know why divine retribution is raining down on him? But Charlie knew why, that’s for sure. Maybe that was the only point. Quinn rolled the thing around in his head trying to make sense of it, but all he came up with were more questions.

  Thoughts of James Watson pushed back into Quinn’s head. What I wouldn’t give to have seen that bastard’s face as he stood in front of his stupid car, seeing those etched words for the first time. It was obvious that old Jimmy had pissed someone else off, and royally at that. Not too surprising given the asshat’s charming nature. But who? Whoever the vandal artist was, Quinn applauded his efforts and his craftsmanship. Not just a fuck-you, but a well executed fuck-you. Far superior to Quinn’s idle threats about meth-heads. Do I have the cojones to pull off something like that? Quinn didn’t like the answer he came up with. That rankled him.

  Quinn sighed and wrestled the laptop from the floor. He flipped open the screen and tried to immerse himself in the article.

  The sound of someone tapping on bamboo roused Quinn from his reverie. He had discarded working on the article in favor of a book he had been ignoring. He was for the most part still ignoring it when he recognized Sonya’s ringtone. He reached for his phone.

  “Hi Baby, how’s life in the world of legality?” Sonya’s silky voice was a needed distraction.

  “What? No, nothing bad this morning. Just trying to work on the article but not having much luck.”

  “Yeah, right. No, it was last night that was weird. I had to have a little chat with the local constables. Yeah, the cops. No, Paul drove and we got back here just fine. The cops were in front of the building when we pulled up. They wanted to ask me some questions.”

  “No, I’m not in any trouble, but the whole thing is pretty strange. Someone vandalized Watson’s Saab and he called the cops. When they got here, he told the cops that I did it, the old bastard. No, of course not! I was at the meeting. Jeez, S, you think I’d mess with Jimmy’s car?”

  “Uh huh. Uh huh. No, it gets a lot weirder. It wasn’t like a car prowl or anything. Someone used some kind of acid to etch a message in the hood of the damn Saab. And they did a really tidy job of it too. The cops were impressed. Yeah, a message. Not Polite. Yeah, that’s all it said, in big block letters, Not Polite. Because one of the cops walked me back there to take a look, that’s why. No, I haven’t seen Watson and I don’t want to.”

  Quinn listened to Sonya’s now not so silky voice, waiting for the multiple questions to die down.

  “The cops asked me all about that and I was straight up with them. I told them about the argument and everything. The thing is, that prick James also told the cops that the vandalism happened between seven and nine. Once the cops figured out that I had been across town, the whole thing lightened up a bit. Funny thing is, it seemed to lighten up as soon as I told them I was at a meeting.”

  “Yeah, it was after that. One cop went back to the car and the other one, the biggest cop I’ve ever seen, he walked me back to the parking lot. I’m telling you S, it was so strange. The big cop, Officer Perkins, he was talking about how whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing and planned it out ahead of time. It looked like professional lettering, you know? Like something a sign painter would do. Big block letters all neatly spaced across the hood, nice straight lines.”

  “What, no I’m not saying that. I don’t mean to sound happy about it. I’m just saying it’s pretty odd. James must have done something, well, something pretty damned impolite.”

  “Okay, no, I understand. Duty calls. Of course we’re not done talking about this, it’s sort of a long story. Right, I know it’s girls’ night. No, don’t cancel, everything is fine. Can I call you before you head out? Okay, I love you too. No, there’s nothing to worry about. Of course I’m going to stay away from that bastard. Alright. Yes Baby. Okay, bye.”

  Quinn was not sorry when the conversation ended.

  It was a cool evening up on the roof, but Quinn was determined to enjoy a good cigar. Bundled up in his finest fleece, he sat himself down in the old camp chair. Across the rooftop, the lights of the northwest district were gleaming against the darkness. This was what he needed, some quiet time, a good cigar, and his trusty thermal mug of coffee.

  Quinn completed the ritual of cutting and lighting his cigar, leaning back into the creaking chair. He propped his feet up on an old plastic bucket. From beyond the eastern end of the rooftop, he could hear the drone of traffic on the interstate. Poor bastards, he thought. Yeah, add that to the list of gratitude. Not having to fight the horrors of rush hour traffic in the City of the Roses.

  Try as he might, gratitude was not the first thing on his mind. Quinn tried his best tricks to shut down his brain, but his brain wasn’t having it. Giving up, he tried to ignore the mental monkeys playing on the monkey bars in his head. Stupid monkeys, can’t you see I’m trying to smoke here?

  The lights of the Pearl District shone in the near distance. Quinn had grown up down there, before all the small houses of the working folks were inundated by condo towers. On that side of the freeway, back in the day, the alphabet ended with ’S’. Heading north from little Ankeny street, which no one counted, the street names marched in alphabetical order. Risk your life crossing Burnside, and from there to the Willamette River, the streets adhered to the strict naming pattern of the Portland founding fathers, from A to Z. Back then it had been Couch’s Addition. The name was pronounced ‘Cooch’ as was the street after Burnside. You could always tell a newcomer when they said ‘couch,’ like the article of furniture. It was a blue-collar neighborhood, clapboard houses mixed in with warehouses and rail yards. The old family house was long gone now, the ghost of it buried and forgotten under a tower of concrete and glass. And good riddance.

  The Old Man had died before Quinn got clean, but not before he spent a lifetime trying to beat some sense into the kid. That is, if he wasn’t busy beating some sense into Quinn’s mother. The abuse followed bouts of drinking, which were followed by promises heaped on bouts of remorse. The cycle didn’t stop until Quinn started hitting back. The Old Man had lost his edge, but Quinn lost his room and board. Yeah, thanks Warren. Got to know the streets at a young age thanks to you. Well, screw
the Old Man and screw the Pearl. It was a section of Portland that he avoided at all costs. Way too many good neighborhoods in this city. Why mess with one filled with ghosts?

  He let his mind wander back to the article, back to the new pieces of family history. What about this character Jebidiah? That was a different story than the shotgun toting Charlie Boyd. Wasn’t Jebidiah defending his land, defending his family? That was what a father was supposed to do. And then asking forgiveness for his deeds. That detail stuck in Quinn’s brain. He kept keying on these bare facts. The shotgun killer versus the defender of the homestead. Two sides of a killer’s coin. Grist for the mill, Bucko, grist for the mill. But try to let it go for the duration, okay?

  Quinn shifted in his chair and tried to settle into the rhythm of the cigar. Smoke, savor, pause. Nothing else matters here, right? He watched the smoke rolling off the roof, rolling to the east towards the Pearl. With a trick of the gentle evening breeze, the smoke seemed to vanish over the eastern edge of the building. Yeah, right over our fine neighbor’s apartment. The thought gave Quinn some quiet satisfaction, making the cigar taste that much better. Maybe the bastard has a window open. The idea brought a smile to Quinn’s face, but it faded as quickly as it appeared. He tried to relax into the evening and failed.

  As he smoked, Quinn sank into a black reverie, as if the rest of the night world had fallen away. The full darkness of the night had rolled over the city. Time seemed to stop altogether and then reverse itself, pulling Quinn back into the shadows of the past. He felt himself sink under their weight. Images passed in the night, images of his father laughing, drunk and hurting and laughing. Charlie Boyd shouting, maniacal, spinning in a circle. Two bright brass circles shining from the broken breech of his shotgun as he claws at them with his shaking hand. Jebidiah Stoneking, not shaking, crouched amongst the new green corn. Reciting a prayer to calm his breathing, gauging the distance, he adjusts the rear sight of the Sharps to match the range. Actions based on anger, actions based on fear, actions based on resolve, they all swirled around in Quinn’s head.