The Crucible (Steel City Heroes Book 2)

by LE Barbant

  His legs ached as he trotted out his ten-minute miles. Soreness from the previous day’s workout quaked throughout his body. The runs were meant to increase his stamina, but they were also a time to decompress, to think. Knees screaming, he pounded downhill toward the river. Most days, Elijah enjoyed plugging into his earbuds. Depending on his mood, he’d be accompanied by Slate’s “Political Gabfest” or his favorite album of the month. But that day he resigned himself to relative silence. The sounds of the morning provided his soundtrack.

  He needed to work things out.

  A neighbor lady waved to Elijah on his way out of Homestead. The gray-haired woman in a floral muumuu watered her lawn just like every other morning. He smiled and waved, wondering if she’d still be holding the hose in October. As he passed out of sight, a grin took over his face. If she only knew who I am, what I am. Monsters were on people’s minds, and no one would ever guess that one of them lived among them, just across the street from Little Frick Park.

  Elijah’s breathing settled in as he hit the Great Allegheny Passage and turned east. Crushed limestone crunched under each footfall. He was cautious not to step in the Pittsburgh puddles, which never seemed to go away. The Passage connects with the C&O Canal trail and terminates in the nation’s capital. If he had the strength or the will he could run out of this town and away from its problems forever.

  The events of the previous day took over his consciousness. First, he played the fight with Chem over and over in his head. A rehearsal of what should have been said, first to win, then to be kind and gracious. Chem was really his only friend now. Then he thought of Tim and pictured a beast pummeling him into a bloody mess. And finally, he imagined poor Rita. She was something from the cover of a checkout line newspaper. The academic wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t seen her himself—and he still almost didn’t. His world had become otherworldly. Besides his new friends, he couldn’t talk to anyone about it. He would be a laughing stock, a lunatic. Knowledge had always granted him access: to journals, guest lectures, and other possibilities. Now, what he knew isolated him—this understanding cut him off from the world outside of this supernatural one. But it was a reality he could no longer deny.

  Trying to clear his mind, he watched the trees pass. In a few months, the leaves would change, the trail would explode into a Western Pennsylvanian kaleidoscope. He hoped he would still be running to see it. He hoped he’d still be alive.

  Doing quick math, he imagined he could trot to D.C. in just over a month.

  He laughed at the thought as he stopped and bent at the waist to stretch his hamstrings.

  Then he turned and started the run back to the life he had chosen.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Boggs mansion sat in the heart of Pittsburgh’s North Side. Russell Boggs made his fortune in upscale department stores, the railroad, and banking. Not unlike Anthony Rizzo today, Boggs had had his fingers in many baskets.

  The North Side, and most of its surrounding neighborhoods, had been ravaged by the steel industry’s desertion. However, recent decades saw a movement to gentrify these parts of the city, and old homes like the Boggs place suddenly became desirable real estate.

  The mansion briefly served as a bed and breakfast, but Anthony Rizzo considered this a travesty. So, he bought the building for himself.

  Rizzo, then in his mid-60s, decided to settle down. The life of crime had taken its toll, and he had passed the mantle of leadership off to his oldest. This information wasn’t hard for Willa to find. Or really for anybody with an Internet connection and half a brain. The Rizzos’ infamy extended well beyond the city. While the family reputation had changed over the two decades since Anthony’s retirement, it was clear that they were still connected—power players in the Pittsburgh political scene.

  After her visit to Professor Crane, Willa spent hours researching the family. She tried to understand everything she could about the man who had changed her life by ending her mother’s.

  It was knowledge that begged to be used.

  On the sidewalk in front of the Boggs mansion, Willa tightened her fists in an attempt to make the shaking stop. Until the previous winter, she had been under the assumption that her mother died in a freak accident—a burglary gone wrong. But everything changed when Edwin Weil shared the true story.

  Her mother’s murder was intentional.

  She thought back to the last conversation she and her grandfather ever had. His pragmatism still ate at her. Edwin’s revelation wasn’t prompted by sympathy or honesty. Rather it was a calculated move designed to manipulate his granddaughter into staying away from the very actions she was now undertaking.

  But he was gone, and everything was different.

  The wrought iron fence’s gate creaked as she pushed it toward the house. Sticking to the shadows, she skirted her way around to the side entrance. Taking the steps two at a time, she paused at the top of a small porch. She breathed deeply, her eyes closed. She knew Anthony lived alone, but a team of medical providers were always close by.

  Willa tried the door. Locked.

  Keeping her hand on the knob, she started to chant with confidence.

  “Let me glide noiselessly forth;

  With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,

  Set ope the doors O soul.”

  The lock clicked open and she turned the knob.

  More of a museum than a residence, the Boggs mansion’s austere furnishing stood out against its opulent fixtures. Willa waited in the foyer and listened. Silence. She gave herself a self-guided tour of the first floor. Sliding her hand across the mile-long dining room table, she made her way toward the kitchen. Its spotless chrome appliances looked unused. Chances were it hadn’t been truly lived in for years. An article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette chronicled Rizzo’s failing health and the ensuing bed rest. The author noted that the infamous crime lord had few precious days to live.

  Willa intended to test that hypothesis.

  She climbed the steps, careful of the sound her shoes made as they weighed down each ancient board. The stillness of the mansion threatened to eliminate the element of surprise.

  All the doors on the second floor lay open except for one; she knew precisely where Rizzo was. Pausing outside his room, poems ran through her mind. She quickly catalogued the tools at her disposal. For the past three months, committing poetry to memory consumed her every moment. Her preparation was about to be tested.

  ****

  “You the new girl?”

  Though in his early eighties, Rizzo could have been 106. He looked awful, the dialysis barely keeping up with his broken organs. Nevertheless, his satin pajamas were perfectly pressed, the sheets of the hospital bed bleached white. Tubes and wires made the crime lord look like an abductee aboard an alien craft.

  “New girl?” Willa grinned. “You could say that.”

  “Well, it’s good you’re here. My piss bag is almost full. And I’m not really sure what my shitter’s been doing.” The man’s surly face rejected any shame at his incontinence.

  “So, does that mean you might be full of shit?” Willa asked.

  “Oh, a funny one. Didn’t they tell you? I’m a pissed-off old man waiting to die. You do your thing, and then get your pretty little ass out of here.”

  Willa grabbed the chair at a writing table and dragged it over to the side of the bed. The legs left parallel scuffs in the perfectly polished oak floors—the kindest marks she would leave upon the house. Easing herself into it, she put her hand on the rail of the hospital bed, and asked, “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  His eyes searched her face as though trying to remember. Then they wandered down her body. “Should I? I’ve seen a lot of people in my life.”

  Willa pulled her phone out of her pocket, thumbed the screen, and pulled up a picture of her mother. “How about her?” she asked, holding the phone inches from the man’s face.

  “Now there’s a good-looking woman.” He squin
ted, leaning in with a grimace. “I wouldn’t forget that face. Ladies never escape this memory,” he said, tapping his temple with his index fingers; the IV bag tubes swung.

  Willa’s jaw tightened, her lips pursed. “You changed her life.”

  The man smiled, and a twinkle that seemed out of place came to his eyes. “You know, for a man like me, that’s music to my ears. I’ve spent the last fifty years being painted as a monster. But I’ve changed lives. If we allowed it, there’d be a line of people a mile long, just like her, standing in the front of my house waiting to come in and thank me. I touched this city.” The smile lingered on his face.

  Willa squeezed the phone like she was trying to crush it into a million pieces. She pulled it back from his face, never wanting him to see it again. “You changed her life. Not for the good. But for the end.”

  The man didn’t say a word; he just stared, as if trying to figure out a riddle.

  “Sarah Weil. Ring a bell?”

  “Weil…Weil…Weil…” The sound of her family name coming from his mouth turned her stomach. She had planned on making him beg for his life. She wanted to make it slow, make him grovel. But now Willa just wanted to put him down, wipe him from the face of the earth.

  But restraint was her new modus operandi. The magician not only worked her body and mind, she had also trained her will.

  “She’s my mother. And you had her killed.”

  The man’s features scrunched up, looking more like a prune than a face. “What is this?”

  Willa gripped the arms of the chair, ready to rip them from their joints. “Maybe this will jog your memory:

  “Be silent in that solitude,

  Which is not loneliness—for then

  The spirits of the dead who stood

  In life before thee are again

  In death around thee—and their will

  Shall overshadow thee: be still.”

  Rizzo’s eyes widened, his face turned blood red as a silent scream remained trapped in his throat. She held him there for only a brief moment.

  As she loosened her hold he fell into a fit of coughing. Gasping for breath he looked at her. “You’re…you’re one of them, aren’t you? I thought you were all dead.”

  “Not quite. But I’m here to finish what you started.”

  The man started to laugh. It went on and on, the laughter turning to a cough, which graveled in his chest. He scrambled around on the side table, reaching for something out of sight. Finally his hand returned with a bottle of water. He tilted it and drank, his hands shaking. “You’re a damn fool if you think what happened with your mother started with us. Your lunatic grandfather made a lot of enemies, sweetie, and ones higher up the totem than me. Your mother’s death was a pawn sacrifice in a game of chess beyond your understanding.” He paused again, taking another sip from his bottle.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, if it’s all the same to you I say we skip the narrative unfolding and get right to the killing part. I’m too old for foreplay, and I’ve been waiting awhile for something to get me out of this damn situation.” He motioned at the machines and the IV bag that sustained his failing body. “I prefer redheads, but I guess you’ll have to do.” The man laughed again.

  Willa was thrown off her game.

  She had imagined this moment for months, even before she knew of Rizzo’s connection, but it was nothing like this. She lashed out.

  “The night, tho’ clear, shall frown—

  And the stars shall look not down

  From their high thrones in the heaven,

  With light like Hope to mortals given—

  But their red orbs, without beam,

  To thy weariness shall seem

  As a burning and a fever

  Which would cling to thee forever.”

  Rizzo’s water bottle dropped to the floor.

  Veins popped in his forehead.

  He clawed at his neck.

  Finally, she stopped her chanting and released him from the agony.

  Willa’s eyes danced with joy as she watched him suffer. “Talk, Rizzo, or I’ll make this last all night. Why did you kill my mother?”

  Rizzo spat off to the side of the bed, the saliva pink with blood. A smile spread across his lips. “Why don’t you take a guess, little wizard?”

  Willa took a breath, trying to suppress her anger. Despite her boasts she didn’t know how long she could keep this up. And she had to know if there were traces of truth in his story.

  “Dollars and cents. My grandfather and his friends were messing with your business. You’re a greedy little man, you always have been. A young mother’s life meant nothing to you.”

  Willa was ready to explode.

  Tears ran down her cheeks as poems ran through her mind.

  But the man just sat there, as if he were at a Sunday brunch.

  “You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. Money means nothing. My father left me more money than I could ever spend. I could have bought an island. It’s not money.” Rizzo paused, gasping. “It’s power.”

  “Power?”

  “Your grandfather and his little friends were like gnats buzzing around my ears. They kept taking out my men, but we couldn’t figure out who they were or how they were doing it. Sure, I was annoyed by them, but in the grand scheme of things, they made no difference. They were such a tiny piece of a much, much larger puzzle.”

  “Why then?”

  “Like I said: power. When your mother was, um, extinguished, we were making moves all around the city. Her death was a part of that deal.”

  Willa’s face was drawn. Rizzo’s words rattled around in her head.

  “What was the deal?”

  “I figured my family wouldn’t survive the 90s unless we could bring some legitimacy to our businesses. There was a man on the rise who could help us on that front. In return for his protection, he needed us to create mayhem in the city. It was part of his plan. The man was on the way up, and he needed some rocket fuel. Your mom was just a piece of that. He gave us your grandfather’s name and told us to make trouble. But Weil and his friends didn’t quite react the way we wanted.”

  “What?”

  “My colleague wanted a war. He assumed that taking out your mother would provoke one. But instead your grandfather took the coward’s way out and the plan fell apart.” Rizzo’s lips spread, showing yellow, decayed teeth. His breath smelled of rotten cabbage.

  Willa stood and hovered over the man. She grabbed him by the shirt. “Who was it? Who ordered the hit?”

  Rizzo leaned in close and whispered a name just as the bedroom doors flew open.

  Willa spun, finding three men in dark suits, high-powered guns at their sides.

  “Oh, just in time. I guess my meeting with the Maker will have to wait.” He let out a hideous laugh. “But yours won’t. Say hi to your mother for me.”

  The men raised the guns.

  Willa chanted, holding her hand in front of her:

  “Thus rose

  A mighty barrier which no ram could burst

  Nor any ponderous machine of war.”

  Gunfire rang through the room.

  Glimmering blazes of blue erupted as bullets struck the magician’s shield.

  The men lowered the guns to reload.

  She chanted again:

  “Of all the causes which conspire to blind

  Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,

  What the weak head with strongest bias rules,

  Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.”

  An unnatural darkness covered the room. Willa bolted for the door with the sounds of gunfire and the name of her mother’s murderer still ringing in her ears.

  PART TWO

  When Mazarvan the Magician

  Journeyed westward through Cathay,

  Nothing heard he but the praises

  Of Badoura on his way.

  But the lessening rumor ended

  When he came to Khaled
an,

  There the folk were talking only

  Of Prince Camaralzaman,

  So it happens with the poets:

  Every province hath its own;

  Camaralzaman is famous

  Where Badoura is unkown.

  “Vox Populi,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A quarter-ton chandelier hung gracefully in the oversized ballroom. Its crystals reflected the dim lighting, casting a dignified glow over the hundred or so well-dressed guests milling around beneath it.

  Rhett imagined the fixture dropping on top of all of them.

  He grinned.

  The lighting was the only impressive thing, in Rhett’s opinion, about the University Club’s ballroom. Any young Western PA bride would revel in it, but to Rhett, the space was rather lurid.

  A more regal locale would have been fitting for the gala, and he had spared no words expressing his frustration to the Cabinet. Mayor Dobbs was about to deliver the speech of his career and it deserved a better setting.

  Rhett’s perspective indicated more about his D.C. snobbery than it did about the characteristics of the actual room—one of the more august venues in the Steel City.

  Applause drew his attention toward the stage. Rhett surveyed the scene from a distance. Rather than accepting a more honorable place near the action, he stood in the back of the room.

  He always did. Sitting during the delivery of one of his masterpieces was not an option.