The Seven Sequels bundle

by Orca Various

  How best to describe the city now? Here’s some of what I found out: Back in the heyday of car manufacturing, Detroit was home to two million men, women and children. Today there are maybe 700,000 souls still living there, along with 90,000 abandoned buildings—houses, factories, stores, office buildings, you name it—that account for 5,000 acres of vacant land. Try and find that in some other big city. This place tells you all you need to know about history, namely that everything changes; nothing stays the same.

  When I go back to the Forrester house and look at it in the clear light of day, I see how ramshackle it is. The doorframe has been fixed with some old wood, but so far it hasn’t been painted. There’s an old pickup truck in the driveway. Probably Gerry’s. If it is, then he’s probably home, and I’m not eager to run into him again. But the old man extended an invitation, and there’s a chance he knows something.

  I steel myself. I think about all the crazy things my cousins did because our grandfather asked them to. DJ climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Spencer ended up being chased by gangsters. What would they say if they found out I was afraid to climb a few rickety steps?

  I climb them.

  I ring the doorbell. I don’t hear anything, so I also knock.

  A young guy with a shaved head, dressed in a hoodie and jeans, with Doc Marten boots or some knockoff version, answers the door. There are two other guys behind him. Together they make a V, my clue that the first guy is the boss and the other two are his wingmen. His muscle.

  “What?” the main guy says.

  I remember Katya from the night before. I remember what she asked her uncle.

  “You’re Eric,” I say.

  That catches him off guard.

  “Do I know you?”

  “We haven’t met, if that’s what you mean. But I was here last night. I met your uncle and your sister. And your granddad.”

  He nods right away. “You’re that guy. You kicked down the door.”

  “I thought your granddad had a heart attack or something.”

  “Right.” Like he doesn’t believe me. What does he think—that I kicked down the door to rob the place? Of what? Probably the most valuable stuff in there is the old man’s collection, but what kind of burglar would go for Nazi memorabilia? You go for cash, jewelry or electronics. Stuff that you can pawn or fence.

  Come to think of it, what kind of burglar kicks in a front door?

  The three of them look like bouncers at some high-end club, standing guard against the nonglamorous.

  “Is your granddad here?” I ask. A stupid question. Where else would the old man be? “He asked me to come by.”

  Eric tilts his shaved head to one side. “He did, huh?” Again like he doesn’t believe me.

  “Tell him Rennie’s here.”

  “Rennie?”

  “Yeah.”

  Eric doesn’t move. Instead, he nods at one of his pals, a guy with a skull tattoo on one side of his neck. Skull shuffles into the interior of the house. Eric looks me up and down, like he’s a cop trying to rattle a perp. He doesn’t do a very good job of it. My experience: when a cop stares down a perp, he’s mostly got a look of disgust on his face, like he can’t believe the kind of garbage he has to deal with. Eric, though, he’s all suspicion, probably wondering why I’m here, why I want to speak to the old man, why I really kicked down the door.

  Skull is back with mild surprise on his face. “He says to send him in.”

  The surprise migrates to Eric’s face. He rakes me over with new interest before stepping aside with a sweep of his hand, like some smart-ass castle gatekeeper reluctantly making way for the servant of a duke or an earl.

  I bend to unlace my boots.

  “You can leave them on,” Eric says.

  Okay then. I head down the corridor to the old man’s room. I’m sure I feel Eric’s eyes on my back, but when I glance over my shoulder, the door is closed and Eric and his buddies are gone. I put him out of my mind. He has nothing to do with why I’m here. I knock on the old man’s door.

  “Come in.”

  Curtis is dressed in sweatpants and slippers, with a ratty old cardigan sweater over a long-sleeved T-shirt. His thin white hair is sticking out wildly, and his chin is stubbled. But he smiles a welcome as he hunts for something.

  “Aha!” He holds it up. It’s a bell with a wooden handle, like the ones you see in one-room schoolhouses in old movies. He picks it up by the handle and shakes it. A few seconds later the door opens, and Katya appears. Her eyes go straight to her grandfather.

  “Is everything okay, Grandpa?” Then she sees me. “Oh.” With that one word and that fleeting look of suspicion, she is, for a moment, almost the twin of her brother. “What are you doing here?”

  “Rennie’s here to see me.” The old man crows the words with immense satisfaction. “Make us some coffee, will you, Katya?”

  “Grandpa, I don’t think it’s a good idea—”

  “Coffee, Katya,” he says.

  She smiles tightly, trying to hide her displeasure.

  “A whole year she’s been gone,” he says to me before she’s even out of the room. “Got a scholarship to some fancy school back east and never came to visit until now. The next thing I know, she’s ordering me around—this is good for you, Grandpa, this is no good for you, do this, don’t do that.” He raises his voice to make sure she hears what he says next. “A person who really cared about her grandfather wouldn’t have left in the first place. And she would have called more often. And visited!”

  Katya sighs. “Coffee it is,” she says and closes the door softly.

  Curtis putters around the small room, clearing off a couple of chairs while he leans heavily on his walker. I lift stacks of books for him and set them on the floor. Finally, he sinks onto one chair and waves me into the other.

  “I didn’t think you’d come back,” he says.

  “I wanted to ask you about Mirella.”

  He smiles. “Lovely Mirella. I thought about her all night. There are plenty of things I don’t remember, but I do remember her. She was beautiful. Long black hair, big brown eyes. Spectacular figure. I suppose she wouldn’t look anything like that now though.”

  “I really need to find her,” I say.

  Curtis’s bushy old-man eyebrows creep up his papery forehead.

  “It’s a long story,” I tell him. “But I think she might know something important. You said she came here to get a job. Do you know if she worked in one of the car factories?”

  The old man’s eyes drift into the past. “If she did,” he says, “the union would know. The UAW. I suppose you could ask them.” He goes still. “Or I could.” His eyes meet mine. “You want me to do that? I know some people. My son, Gerry, he used to work at GM before they shut the place down.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I say. My heart has sped up in my chest. He’s right: If Mirella worked at a car plant, she would have been in the union. They must have some record of her. Maybe they even know where she is.

  Curtis picks up the bell and rings it again, more vigorously this time.

  A harried Katya appears at the door.

  “Get me a phone,” Curtis tells her.

  She snaps off a salute. “Aye aye, captain.”

  “What’s so important about Mirella?” Curtis asks while we wait.

  I hesitate, thinking again how Adam warned me not to say anything about what we were doing. But this old man is ready to do me a favor.

  “If she’s the Mirella I’m looking for, she might have known someone that I’m trying to find out about.”

  “Oh?” He leans forward, waiting for me to continue.

  I glance around the room at all the stuff that’s crammed into it. At all the books and pictures and weapons and military memorabilia. I know nothing at all about Heinrich Franken besides the uniform he used to wear. Was he just an anonymous foot soldier? Or was he someone important? Someone who had something the Americans wanted?

  I remember what Katya said last ni
ght about her grandfather: He knows everything there is to know about the Germans and World War II. Well, let’s just see.

  “I think Mirella was married to a man named Heinrich Franken.”

  “Franken?” The old man looks away, frowning. “Heinrich Franken, you say?”

  “Who’s Heinrich Franken?” It’s Katya, back with a tray. On it are two mugs of coffee and a cordless phone. She sets the tray down on a spot Curtis has quickly cleared.

  “Someone Rennie here is interested in.”

  Katya looks sharply at me. “Oh? And why is that?”

  I shrug. I wish she would go away, but she doesn’t. Instead, she turns to her grandfather.

  “Do you know this person, Grandpa?”

  “It’s not a name I’m familiar with.” Curtis reaches for his coffee, takes a sip and sinks back in his chair. “Thank you, Katya. If I need anything else, I’ll ring the bell. Just like you told me to.”

  Katya isn’t good at hiding her irritation. She doesn’t like being dismissed, especially in front of someone who kicked down her front door last night. But she leaves us alone.

  Curtis takes another sip of his coffee and reaches for the cordless phone. He frowns for a moment, then shakes his head.

  “I don’t recall Mirella mentioning the name Franken,” he says. “She had a Spanish name. I’m sure of it.”

  “I need to know if she’s the Mirella I’m looking for. If she is, I need to talk to her.”

  “Are you going to tell me why?”

  I hesitate. “It’s personal. But if I’m right and you help me, I promise to tell you everything.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Well, I guess then I’ll feel like an idiot, and I’ll probably just want to forget the whole thing.”

  The old man takes another sip of coffee.

  “There’s a book on the bedside table,” he says.

  I get up and go to the nightstand. There’s a small book on it—an address book. There’s also a clock radio and a pile of grenades. Seriously.

  “These aren’t live, are they?” I ask.

  Curtis just chuckles.

  I pick up the address book and hand it to him.

  He thumbs through it, finds what he’s looking for and punches a number into the phone. Right away he’s talking to someone, asking about Mirella, debating with whoever he’s talking to whether she might have been in the union and what her last name might be. I should have asked that woman in Buenos Aires

  “Gutierrez. Mirella Gutierrez,” he says after a few moments. He’s nodding. “Yeah, that sounds right. I’d appreciate it if you could look it up for me.” He winks at me.

  I take a sip of coffee even though my stomach is churning. What if Mirella is not only still alive, but lives right here in Detroit? What if she can tell me everything that I need to know? Could it be that easy?

  I wait. Curtis waits. We look at each other. A minute ticks by. Then another. Curtis perks up.

  “Yes? Uh-huh. Okay. Oh?” Is it my imagination, or is that disappointment I see on his face? “Sure. Talk to you later, Donnie.”

  He sets down the phone. “He’s going to see what he can find. He says he’ll get back to me later in the day.”

  Later in the day? What am I supposed to do until then?

  “This fellow Franken you think she was married to. What’s so special about him?”

  I’m not supposed to tell. But the old man is helping me out. And if you want my opinion, he’s enjoying himself or at least he’s enjoying my company. I wonder how long it’s been since he’s had visitors. There are no next-door neighbors to drop by, that’s for sure.

  “I think maybe he was a Nazi,” I say.

  Curtis leans forward.

  “When you say Nazi, do you mean those fellows who go around making a big fuss about white power? Or do you mean one of those guys?” He nods at something across the room. There’s not as much light as there could be in this cluttered room, so it takes me a second to focus. When I see what he’s looking at, I stand up.

  “Is that…?” I walk to the far end of the room. In between a couple of bookshelves, under a display case of medals half hidden by a trunk, there’s a framed black-and-white photograph. A big one, in a heavy, old frame. I can only see the top half of the face, but I recognize it for sure. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “The old man himself,” Curtis says. “Signed by him too.”

  I reach for the frame. My hand stops an inch short, and I glance over my shoulder. “Can I take a closer look?”

  “Knock yourself out.” Curtis is grinning, pleased that I’m admiring—if that’s the right word—this treasure of his.

  One of my hands grips the frame, and I start to lift it. But it and the glass are heavier than they look. I need two hands. I lift the picture until the whole face is visible, along with the scrawling signature underneath. It’s him, all right. Der Führer. Adolf Hitler. And, sure enough, he’s signed the photo: Für meinen lieben Fritz.

  “This must be worth a lot,” I say, although I wonder who in their right mind would want to hang this guy on their wall.

  “I’m sure Gerry will find out exactly how much after I’m gone,” the old man says. “He’s been eyeing it. On the one hand, he calls my stuff junk.” I can’t tell if this bothers him. “On the other, he knows that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

  I return the photo to its place so that only the eyes are visible. Now that I know whose eyes they are, it feels kind of creepy to have them on me.

  “This Franken. Are you saying he was one of those Nazis?” Curtis asks.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”

  “What else do you know about him?”

  “Not much. Just the name. And that he lived in Argentina for a while.”

  “Argentina, huh? Well, he wasn’t the only one, I guess. A lot of Nazis fled to South America—Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile.” He shakes his head. “Franken. It’s not much to go on.”

  He peers around the room. So do I. That’s when I see the window at the back of the room. I didn’t notice it last night, but the sun is doing its best to filter through layers of grime, and I can make out the backyard. It isn’t much. An expanse of snow. A sagging chicken-wire fence. A garage at the end of an uncleared driveway, with a shed to one side.

  “If this Franken fellow has a story to tell, then I’ll probably have it here somewhere,” Curtis says. “Come back later. Come for supper. If nothing else, Donnie will have got back to me by then.”

  I think of Katya and the way she looks at me, like I’m dog dirt she just stepped in. I doubt she’ll welcome me at the family dinner table.

  “Are you sure? Your family—”

  “It’s my house. I’m sure. Come by around six. I’ll see what I have by then.”

  I say okay. How can I refuse? Curtis is the best lead I have.

  I’m on the porch, having miraculously avoided both Katya—she must be out or somewhere else in the house—and Eric. I shut the front door behind me, stride down the walk and am heading past the driveway when I see someone skulking at the end of the driveway. A big guy, in jeans and boots and a puffy parka, a tuque on his head. He’s peeking through the window in the small side door to the garage, his hands cupped around his eyes so that he can see inside. He tries the knob. It doesn’t give. He glances around. I keep walking but double back quickly. There’s something furtive about the guy. When I see him again, he’s jimmying the door with something. He’s breaking into the garage—in broad daylight. Geez, this is some town.

  I tell myself it’s none of my business. But I’m witnessing a crime. I should do something—go back to the house, maybe, and tell someone. At the very least, I should check out the situation. Maybe that will scare off the guy.

  I stroll down the driveway to the garage. The small side door is closed now, but just barely. I see light dancing around inside. The guy must have a flashlight. I nudge the door open. The guy in the puffy parka is there. He
’s caught something in the beam of a small pocket flashlight. Something up in a storage space below the roof. He reaches up. He’s trying to get his hands around it. A wooden box.

  “Hey!” I say.

  The guy whirls around. His whole body is tense. He’s gone into a fighter’s crouch, and it hits me—I’m not back home in Canada, I’m here in Detroit, Michigan, home of the concealed weapon. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.

  But the guy doesn’t do what I’m all of a sudden afraid he’s going to do. He doesn’t pull a gun on me. He doesn’t fly at me, either, fists ready to do damage. Instead, he says, “Get out of here if you know what’s good for you.”

  “As far as I know, this isn’t your garage,” I say.

  “It isn’t yours either.” His head is cocked to one side, and his eyes are searching me all over. “You’re not even from around here. You’re from north of the border, right? Does your mama know you’re down here?”

  Right. The old best-defense-is-a-good-offense defense. And while he’s using it on me, he’s pushed the box back away from the edge of the storage space, and he’s reaching for something else.

  “Maybe I should call the cops,” I say, mostly to see what reaction I get. From what I’ve heard, the cops are about as likely to show up for a reported prowler in a garage as the fire department is for a lit cigarette.

  I watch the guy’s hand close around something. He pulls it down; it’s a snow shovel. He hefts it and pushes by me. I follow him outside, and we both stop short. Eric is standing there, minus his jacket. He’s scowling.

  “What’s going on?” he wants to know.

  Puffy Jacket holds up the shovel. “I went to get the shovel so I could clear the driveway, and I found him inside.” He jerks his head in my direction.

  Eric’s eyes light on me. His mouth is a hard, straight, lipless line. He’s waiting for an explanation, which tells me he’s more than willing to believe Puffy Jacket. The two of them clearly know each other.