Against Nature

by Casey Barrett

  “Until he tracked you down in South Florida.”

  “Two years ago, yes. It was quite a surprise when he turned up.”

  “Not every day a long-lost neo-Nazi comes knocking.”

  “Mr. Darley, I detest the way you think you can speak to me. What is it with this verbiage of yours? I’ve done everything I can. I’ve tried to be open with you and you insist on demonizing me.”

  “The thing is, Eberhard, I tend to believe in guilt by association. Your dead partner was a confirmed alt-right medicine man. Your son, or whatever he is, has a body covered in hate-filled tattoos. There’s 1488 on his knuckles, the letters NSM on his forearm—I told you, I know what that stuff means. National Socialist Movement, it’s the underground Nazi party. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.”

  “I did not,” he said. “I swear on my life, I did not know what his tattoos meant. Unlike you, and most decent people, I have never been in prison.”

  “Where you fucking deserve to be—”

  “You are an ignorant, accusatory American, and I will not stand for your language any longer.”

  “Okay, Doc, let’s say you’re as clueless as you say. I’ll help you piece it together. Here’s what I think happened. I think your boy, Oliver, drifted into some bad scenes after he was orphaned. He was a perfect recruit. No parents to set an example, adrift and angry, no future in a crumbling, failed country. He probably came under the influence of some far-right, racist groups. With his strong athletic genes, they must have found him very useful. Seduced by a time that never was, when there was order and dim white boys had the world at their feet.”

  “You are a disgrace to your race,” said Lipke.

  “From you, a high compliment,” I said. “Thanks for confirming what I already knew.”

  “I have confirmed nothing. You know nothing of me, nothing at all. When Oliver came to me in Florida, he was looking for a fresh start. I gave it to him. I got him on the medication he needed, we cared deeply for each other.”

  “How deeply, Doc?”

  “How dare you . . .”

  “No, I’m serious. Your own dead partner put the word ‘son’ in quotes when I mentioned your relationship to him.”

  “This conversation is over, I’m hanging up. . . .”

  “Then I suggest you head straight for the airport. The feds should be raiding you shortly.”

  I waited to hear him call my bluff and end the call. I listened to his breath. Then he decided to continue talking.

  “Oliver learned of his mother’s whereabouts,” he said. “Uli contacted me. She did not want the story told any more than we did. She abandoned her son, tried to forget him completely. A selfish woman determined to keep her secrets. I tried to keep him from her, but my partner, my now-deceased partner, told him. It was an awful thing to do, but James was desperate. He thought he could manipulate Oliver. The bastard, I will never forgive him for that.”

  “You don’t sound too heartbroken about his death.”

  “I am disheartened about each death, Mr. Darley, but as you see, I had nothing to do with any of them.”

  “Aside from setting it all in motion,” I said.

  “I do not see it that way.”

  “Have you heard from Oliver since he got to New York?”

  He hesitated, said, “No, not yet, but when I do, I will encourage him to turn himself in.”

  “Because you know he murdered Wingate, then Kruger, then Crowley.”

  “I don’t know that, no. All I know is that Oliver needs help. He is very confused right now. He needs me. I pray that he has not had a hand in these killings.”

  “Your gift for denial is impressive. You really don’t grasp your guilt, do you?”

  That was my last provocation. With a plaintive gasp he hung up.

  Chapter 35

  Kruger’s was closed. Lights off, locked door, no sign of movement inside. I stood out front and searched my phone for listings for a Carl or Uli Kruger, C. or U. Kruger, anything in that wheelhouse. Came up empty. Like Cass and countless New Yorkers, they were probably living on someone else’s sublease, with no landline, had all mail delivered to the bar. Home was an anonymous notion.

  Detective Miller had their address, but that information would not be forthcoming, not for a murder suspect intent on pinning the rap on a son with a mother’s alibi. I remembered Lea mentioning Henry Street and found it a block south of the bar. The street ran from the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge all the way to Grand Street, just before the East River. It reminded me of my home as a teenager on Pitt Street, after the fall. It was a graceless stretch of tenements and projects, public schools and blacktop playgrounds. The top of One World Trade could be seen across the island to the west, beaming in the night sky.

  I wandered these blocks for a while. Examined the tired faces, the weary resignation of the have-nots in a city that had everything. I tried questioning a few without success. An older Chinese man broke into a run the moment I approached. A twentysomething hipster told me to fuck off and kept walking. I caught up to three teenaged black kids leaving a playground. The only ones with the courtesy to stop and answer my questions, but they claimed never to have seen the folks I described.

  I was contemplating a drink when my phone buzzed. It was a 305 area code, Miami: Lipke, or maybe Tasha, calling back, I figured. I answered and heard inaudible background noise. The called ended. I texted the number and asked who it was. The ellipses popped up, announcing a reply being composed.

  I received an emoticon of a smiling purple devil.

  Countered with WTF?

  Again the ellipses appeared. I sat on a nearby stoop and looked at the screen. When the reply arrived, I almost collapsed. It was a video clip. I recognized the image at once—Stevie’s bedroom. I pressed PLAY. The camera scanned the boy’s darkened room until it reached the bed. There he was asleep under the covers, seemingly unharmed. I waited for the person holding the phone to turn it on himself. I heard his low laugh. The clip ended.

  I was in the street, arm waving, but it was cab-less. I almost accosted a passing Camry; I’d remove the driver with force if necessary. I maintained just enough wits to call a Lyft. Waited on the corner for three desperate minutes, scanning for lit cabs, until he rolled up. I gasped out the Cohens’ address, told him it was an emergency, offered all the money in my wallet as a tip if he ignored all traffic laws.

  The driver was a young African guy, dark as night, with bright, hard eyes. He glanced back, took my measure. “What’s the emergency?” he asked.

  “A kid’s in trouble, an eight-year-old boy. I think an abduction’s in progress.”

  He turned to face the road. “Keep your money,” he said. “I get you there.”

  I was flung back against the seat by the force of his foot on the gas. We hit seventy weaving through traffic on Grand Street. He sped through a red light, then another. I didn’t know what his visa status looked like, but he drove like a man with diplomatic immunity. We barreled up the Bowery, spun left on Houston, right on Lafayette, the city streaming by. On Fourth Avenue I tried to think it through. Where were Juliette’s bodyguards, Terrance and his soldiers from Warrior Security? Where was Juliette? How had he gained access? Stevie, what had he done to the kid? My thoughts spun out of orbit. Questions roared past like a meteor shower. One direct hit and I’d explode.

  We were approaching the Cohens’ building when I saw the sirens spinning in front of the building. Two police cars out front, commotion already in motion. I wasn’t the first one on the scene, wasn’t the only call.

  My driver plowed to a stop next to them. “Good luck,” he said. “Go.”

  I tossed four twenties over the seat on his lap. He may not have wanted them, but the man had earned it. “Thank you,” I called.

  I approached a pack of cops and the doorman speaking with alarm. They did not acknowledge me.

  “It was food delivery,” Ernie was saying. “I smelled the Thai food. Ms. Cohen approved it, her secur
ity too, how was I to know . . .”

  “What did he look like, sir? Was he Asian?” asked a cop.

  “No, he was white. He was wearing a black sweatshirt, a black Yankees hat pulled low. I didn’t get a good look at his face.”

  “White guy doing delivery for a Thai place, that didn’t arouse any suspicion?” asked another cop.

  “No, I mean yes, it does now. That’s partly why I called. It’s been twenty minutes since I let him up, too long for a delivery. I called upstairs to Ms. Cohen and there was no answer. Her security always answers. There’s been . . . Well, something must be wrong, so I called you.”

  “What’s going on out here?” asked a baritone behind us.

  The group turned together to find Terrance, Juliette’s primary guard, standing over them. The doorman started to speak; the cop talked over him.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Terrance Jones, Warrior Security,” he said. “In the employ of Juliette Cohen. Does this concern her?”

  “Terrance, your partner, Paul, approved the delivery,” the doorman burst in. “Juliette did too. How was I supposed. . .”

  I caught his eye. “Darley,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “Get us up there,” I said. “Where the fuck were you?”

  “Dinner.”

  I handed him my phone, played the video, and watched his face. “When did you get that?” he asked, moving fast.

  “About ten minutes ago,” I said. “Got here as fast as I could, cops were already here.”

  “It’s a 305 area code, Miami. Know who sent it?”

  “Name’s Oliver Lipke, pretty sure he’s behind all the murders. His father wrote the note,” I added.

  We were in the lobby now, the cops calling after us, Ernie the doorman still babbling uselessly at the door. Terrance waved his entry pass and took a back stairwell, taking the steps three at a time. I followed. Behind us cops shouted to freeze. We ignored them. His weapon was drawn as he positioned himself in front of the Cohens’ door. “Stay down,” he growled at me.

  Then we were inside the apartment, searching and shouting for Stevie and Juliette. We found his partner, Paul, first. Shot through the chest in the entry foyer. The bag of Thai food sat at his feet. On the living-room floor Juliette lay in a splash of blood. Terrance knelt and felt for a pulse.

  “Alive,” he said. “Help her.”

  He was off down the hall toward the kid’s room.

  Juliette was unconscious, her face smashed and bloody. It looked like she’d taken the butt of a gun to the nose. I shook her; she started to stir.

  “Kid’s gone!” shouted Terrance. “Fuck!”

  I heard him searching every room, each door opening and slamming shut. Knew he wouldn’t find anything. My mind raced with doom. My blood boiled with impotent rage. The cops charged in. They got me down on the floor, found Terrance and forced him into submission. We tried to explain. Juliette was beginning to regain consciousness when the doorman came rushing into the room.

  “He’s getting away!” Ernie cried. “He’s taken the car, he’s driving away with Stevie!”

  Everyone reacted at once, but I got away first. I was up on my feet and moving for the stairs before anyone could stop me. I made it down the three flights and out the lobby doors in time to see Juliette’s Benz turn left at the end of the block onto Fifth Avenue. I chased after it, turned the corner in time to see it turn left again onto 10th Street. By the time I raced those three blocks down, the car was gone. I kept running, searching in four directions at the intersection. It was a calm night without disruption. The car that sped past moments before hadn’t even been noticed.

  Stevie was gone.

  I took out my phone, started to dial Terrance’s number. A message popped up—the 305 number.

  You or the boy, it read. 4 Henry Street. Now.

  I was back waving for empty cabs in the street. This time I found one idling in front of a deli on the corner of 9th and University. I dove into the back, called out the address. A bored Pakistani glanced back, his face full of falafel. “On break,” he said through a mouthful.

  “Not anymore,” I said. “Drive!”

  Such rudeness to city cabdrivers does not fly, but this time he seemed to grasp the urgency. Maybe it was the mania in my eyes, maybe I was just riding some good luck with drivers, or maybe he was another decent New Yorker who knew when it was time to lend a hand. For the second time that hour I was thrown back against the backseat as my driver sped through the city’s streets.

  “A kid’s been abducted,” I panted between the seats. “Sooner I get there, the better chance we have to save him.”

  “I get you there,” said my driver.

  His name was Ali and he drove like a champ. Ten minutes later, in a blur of Broadway, through the maze of lower Manhattan streets, and I was approaching the same spot I’d just left. The same block where I’d received that video of Stevie’s bedroom—the stoop where I watched it was just a few doors down from 4 Henry Street.

  Uli Kruger’s apartment: the son was returning to the womb for his final reckoning. I looked up at the crumbling building. Same as all the others, same as the one that Cass hid from me for so long; same as my old apartment on Pitt Street, where my mother drowned drunk in the bathtub; same as ones that housed countless miseries in this miserable city without memory.

  The smell of rotting fish filled the air. Graffiti covered the sides of a Chinese corner market. As I approached the red front door, my phone lit again. I glanced down at the text. Apt 2, it read. He was watching me, as he’d been doing all along. I pressed the buzzer, waited for admission, and up I went.

  Chapter 36

  He was waiting with the door open, Carl’s Luger pointed at me, a look on his face that was pure mad-eyed meth. Oliver was shirtless now, with exposed scalp sweating, his hat and sweatshirt shed. His torso was scarred with more racist ink. There was a swastika tattooed across the left side of his chest, SS lightning bolts on his ripped stomach. His body was a monument to hatred and ignorance. I raised my hands, thought of Stevie in there.

  “Inside,” he said. “If you’re not alone, I kill everyone right away.”

  “I’m alone.”

  “We’ll see.”

  As I crossed the threshold, I saw the kid sitting terrified in the chair by the window. Uli sat across from him on the couch, her eyes down and her hands in her lap. She did not look up at my entrance. I felt the gun touch the back of my head. I took in the surroundings. It was a narrow railroad apartment, with the kitchen in the middle, the bedroom in back. On a small dining table there was a mound of white crystals, a razor, and a cut straw.

  “Don’t worry, buddy,” I said to Stevie. “I’m here.”

  “You hear that,” said Oliver. “He’s here. Aren’t you happy? Now you can watch him die.”

  “Hello, Uli,” I said.

  She pretended not to hear. Oliver shoved my back, pushed me over to the sofa. “Down,” he said, “next to her.”

  Uli couldn’t bring herself to look up as I lowered myself onto the cushion next to her. She looked lost in an abyss of regret; perhaps accounting for all the ways she might have prevented this moment. Had there been a point when she could have stopped her abandoned son? When had she learned the truth? Did she know it was her boy behind the murder of her husband right away? I found that unlikely. But by the time she had her way with me in Cass’s dungeon, she’d made her decision. She was going to protect her son, even if it meant sacrificing the lives of innocent friends. I remembered her words that afternoon at the bar: “We are all atoning for something, I think.”

  She looked up for the first time and regarded her shirtless, pacing son. “Oliver, please,” she said.

  He stopped in the center of the room, swung around to face her, the Luger dangling loose at this side. “Please what, mother? Please don’t speak to me like a parent? How about that?”

  “No one else needs to get hurt.”

  “I’ll de
cide that,” he said. “You lost the right long ago to tell me what to do.”

  “It’s gone far enough,” said Uli. “Please, not the boy. It’s not too late.”

  Oliver strode to his mother and whacked her atop the head with the barrel of the gun. She winced, grabbed at her hair. Tears welled in her tired eyes.

  “It’s too late for you, I’ll grant you that,” he said. “Too late for your freak husband. And too late for this prick too.” He looked over at me on the couch and raised the gun. “I’ve been waiting for this,” he said. “I told you I was a fan.”

  “Fan of what?” I asked.

  “Of insanity, of suffering, of fear—our specialties, right, Duck?”

  “Why the kid, Oliver? Why didn’t you kill me quick, like the others?”

  He seemed to brighten at the question, eager to offer explanation for his madness. “Excuse me a moment,” he said. “I’ll be right with you.”

  He went to the two-seat table with his mound of drugs. He faced us, kept one hand around the Luger, as he bent and cut thin white lines with the other. He set the razor aside and reached for the straw. I thought about lunging for him in his moment of meth distraction, but Oliver raised the gun at me as he leaned down and snorted.

  “Ahh!” he said. “That’s bet-ter. Now where were we?”

  He rubbed at his nose and went to Stevie in the chair by the window. “Don’t do drugs,” he said to him. “Anyone ever tell you that? No one told me. My mother abandoned me. My father was a user himself. How was I supposed to know?”

  He reached out his tattooed fingers and rubbed his knuckles over Stevie’s face. He crouched down to meet his eyes. “Are you scared?” he asked.

  Stevie, God bless him, shook his head.

  “No? Impressive, most little boys would have pissed themselves by now, but not this rich punk.” He swung back around. “You teach him that, Duck? To be a little badass?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Ah, yes, why not kill you quick? Why get this boy involved? That part, the letter, was Eberhard’s idea. He thought it would be enough.”