Blood & Rust

by S. A. Swiniarski

  Again, there was no answer. Stefan looked across at Nuri, and tried the door. It came open, unlocked. He felt a strange sense of déjà vu as the door opened on a darkened apartment. It was the sound of the flies, and the smell of sour meat, long gone bad.

  The light didn’t work, and Stefan was forced to walk across the room and open the shade on the window. The shade was fastened so securely that Stefan had to tear it in half to let light into the apartment.

  Behind him he heard Nuri say, “Good Lord.”

  Stefan slowly turned to face the room behind him. It was the same as he’d seen it before, peeling wallpaper, candles long ago guttered out. The threadbare couch.

  Wilma Fairfax.

  Stefan identified her because she still sat in the place where he had left her, slumped slightly against the arm of the couch. Otherwise, she was unidentifiable. She had been here long enough for the flesh to recede, for the soft tissues to shrink away. She sat, nearly mummified, just as Stefan had left her six months ago.

  Nuri shook his head as Stefan hobbled to the couch.

  “He’s not coming back here,” Nuri said.

  Stefan nodded, wondering if he’d been responsible for her death, leaving her with her husband back then.

  “You’d think someone would have called this in before,” Nuri said. “At least complain to the landlord about the smell.”

  Stefan turned to look at Nuri, “We’d better call this in.”

  “Do we bring up the connection to Mr. Dietrich?”

  Stefan shook his head, “Leave that to Mr. Ness. Right now it’s just a suspicious death, and we want Mr. Fairfax for questioning.”

  22

  Monday, May 4

  I ago stood outside the Union Terminal and stared off at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. The monument took over a quarter of Public Square, its lone eagle-topped pillar reaching toward a dark, starless sky. It was a concrete memoir of the Civil War, and Iago was drawn to it, to the bronze statues at its base, the men trapped eternally in the throes of death.

  Sometimes that was how he felt, a being trapped eternally at the precipice of death, suspended over the abyss, never to fall.

  He was waiting for a disreputable man.

  The night-life crowds had thinned, leaving the area dark and lonely. It also made Angelo’s approach all the more obvious. He tried to appear subtle, but there was no doubt where the dark hulking figure was walking, even though he didn’t make eye contact with Iago. He stopped on the sidewalk about four feet from him, facing the terminal, looking over the facade as if his stopping next to the lone figure of Iago was a coincidence.

  Iago didn’t care. It was Angelo who should be worried if their conversation was seen. Iago handed the man a fat envelope, and Angelo took it.

  “It’s like this,” Angelo said, as he slipped the envelope into his pocket. “I ain’t seen these guys so twitchy since before the last Porrello brother was hit. The guy’s racket is moving stuff into the country, moving it all over the place. But he don’t act like he knows who runs this town. You get it?”

  “What kind of stuff?” Iago asked.

  “Who the fuck knows other than he jimmied Customs to get it in? Even if you’re legit you gotta pay us respect, right? This guy ain’t legit. He’s gotten warnings. Big Al is pissed.”

  Iago nodded.

  “More pissed since his people turn up dead, and no one can get a finger on this Dietrich’s people. It’s like they’re all ghosts, no one sees them.”

  “They’ve tried to take him out?”

  “Hell, of course. Big Al sends his best guns up against this guy. They don’t come back. Worse, Carlo—like a son to him—ends up this Dietrich’s driver. Six months, five hits, all batts-up—and on top of everything there’s this Ness guy...”

  “Listen, Angelo,” Iago said. “Fire’s your only chance against Dietrich.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get the bastard. People don’t get away with this shit with us.”

  “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “Like I said, don’t worry. Big Al’s collected more hardware than Mussolini took into Ethiopia. Dietrich’s going to come down hard.” Angelo made a point of looking at the clock above the Union Terminal entrance and said, “Got go now.” He patted the breast pocket where he had stashed Iago’s envelope. “Nice talking to you.”

  He walked away, leaving Iago with a hollow feeling. How could he warn him, warn anyone, without breaking the Covenant?

  23

  Sunday, May 10

  At three in the morning, a quartet of dark sedans drove down Euclid, heading west. Each sedan carried five heavily-armed men and a driver. They drove past all but one of the remaining decayed mansions of Euclid Avenue. At the last one, a sandstone structure out of the last century, the cars pulled onto the lawn and began disgorging gunmen.

  Stefan Ryzard saw the assassins approach from his station overlooking the Dietrich house. He was on the roof of a neighboring warehouse where he could watch the whole grounds of the black sandstone mansion. When he saw the first sedan drive up, he had some idea what was happening. He dropped his field glasses and began running down to his car, and the radio.

  As Stefan ran, dark-suited men ran around the house, covering every entrance. Half carried shotguns, the other half carried Thomson submachine guns. The small army coordinated their activity, all of them kicking in doors at the same time.

  There’d been lights on in the Dietrich house. When the doors splintered open, they all went out. The gunmen rushed the mansion, and shortly afterward, the gunfire began, flashing light across the narrow windows.

  Stefan reached his car and called in what was happening. As he did, he heard the first scream. It was high-pitched, more like a dog’s yelp than a human voice. The sound tore into Stefan. He dropped the microphone and drew his revolver.

  He still limped on his barely-healed leg as he ran across the street. He took the long way around, crossing far enough down Euclid that the drivers wouldn’t notice him. Fortunately for him, the drivers’ attention was riveted on the mansion.

  It sounded like a war zone inside there. The rapid fire hammer-blows of the Thomsons occasionally punctuated by the sledgehammer of a shotgun blast. In the few lulls in the gunfire, Stefan heard breaking wood and glass.

  He circled around a small neighboring office building, so he could approach the property from the rear. Even as he was doing so, he was thinking of how insane this was. He was closing on a mob of over a dozen gunmen without any backup. He was trying to get himself killed.

  As he crossed the property line, emerging into underbrush that used to be a formal garden, he heard more screams. For a moment it sounded as if, somewhere inside the dark Victorian manse, the gates of hell had been opened up and Stefan could hear the damned.

  Despite the death that certainly awaited him, Stefan was pulled forward. Something in there drew him and wouldn’t let him go. He pushed his way through the overgrown garden, toward the gunfire, toward the screams.

  As the noise reached its apex, Stefan was almost at the edge of the undergrowth. As he pushed forward the final few yards, he tripped on a small ivy-covered statue. He fell on the ground, face-to-face with a stone cherub with a broken arm. It took him a few frantic moments to catch his breath before he pushed himself upright.

  When he got to his feet, there were no more screams, no more gunfire. The dark edifice was mute.

  Stefan slowly approached the rear porch where the gunmen had kicked in the door. The only sound now was the wind through the wild garden behind him. He held his revolver before him as he climbed the stone steps before the entrance. He could see little beyond, the door had swung mostly shut behind the gunmen.

  He reached the door and pushed it in, slowly, with his foot, bracing his gun to follow the transit of the door. The air was thick with the smell of gunfire.

  Once the door was open, Stefan stood in the doorway, allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He looked beyond a sh
ort hall, into a sitting room that had served as a battlefield. An antique table had been splintered, garish nineteenth-century wallpaper was torn through with bullet holes, chairs were overturned, and broken glass glittered in the moonlight that filtered past the torn drapery.

  In the middle of the floor, on an Oriental carpet, was a Thomson amidst its scattered cartridges. The only sign of the man who had carried the weapon was a crushed fedora pinned to the ground under the remains of a Tiffany lamp.

  Stefan inched into the mansion, feeling the pull combined with a growing anxiety bordering on panic. What was he doing here? Patrol cars should be arriving any minute....

  He pushed through a doorway into a main hall dominated by a curving staircase. Like the sitting room, the walls were marred by gunfire, and the air was thick with smoke. Two more weapons lay scattered on the ground at the base of the stairs, about thirty feet from the broken front door.

  As Stefan stood in the empty hall, he heard a noise. It was the thump-thump-thump of something solid hitting the floor repeatedly. It took him a moment to realize what the sound was. When he did, he ran to the foot of the stairs and brought his gun to bear on the grand staircase.

  He did it just in time to see the source of the noise before it disappeared. Someone had dragged a body up the stairs, and Stefan had turned just in time to see the feet of the corpse disappear around a corner.

  Stefan ran up the stairs, but the pain in his leg delayed him long enough so that when he reached the head of the stairs, there was no sign of his quarry. He stood there, in the darkness, listening. What he heard was the faint sound of something ripping, as if something was being torn apart in some remote part of the mansion.

  He slowly walked down the corridor. His pulse was in his throat, and he felt the acid sensation of near-panic in his gut. He was too aware of his own breathing and heartbeat. Again, he asked himself what he was doing here.

  However, he continued to follow the sound. It was nearer than it first appeared. A door stood closed at the end of the hallway. From beyond it came the sounds, and a ferric smell. Eventually the tearing sound was replaced by a wet sucking.

  When Stefan reached the door, he found himself unable to move. His hand froze on the doorknob, and he couldn’t force himself to open it.

  In the distance, he heard the engines of several cars rev up and retreat, accompanied by a squeal of tires. His grip tightened on the knob, and he slowly began turning.

  In response, the sound from beyond the door ceased. Stefan sucked in a breath and began pushing the door open.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was as cold as a block of ice.

  Stefan whipped around, bringing his gun to bear on the tall pale form of Eric Dietrich. The man was unarmed, but Stefan felt such a wave of unmistakable menace that his first impulse was to fire his revolver, and continue firing. But his hand was frozen, unable to pull the trigger.

  “Detective Ryzard,” Dietrich said. He barely spoke above a whisper, but the words throbbed in Stefan’s ears. His hand still rested on his shoulder, and the touch seemed to suck all the heat, all the will, out of Stefan’s body. Dietrich’s eyes were holes of deep black, portals to something invisible and terrifying, something that wouldn’t let Stefan turn away.

  “Put down the gun, Detective. The assassins are gone.” There was a smile on Dietrich’s pale face. His expression was condescending, as if finding amusement at a crippled man.

  Stefan didn’t want to lower his gun, but his arm acted on its own, obeying Dietrich’s words.

  “They’ve escaped, Detective. I suspect your job is elsewhere now.” Dietrich released his hand, and Stefan said a silent prayer of thanks. Stefan moved his head slightly in the direction of the door behind him.

  Dietrich’s expression darkened. The change in Dietrich’s manner froze Stefan with a force as if Dietrich had reached into his chest and squeezed shut his heart.

  “You wish to see?” he said. Anger thickened Dietrich’s accent. He grabbed Stefan’s shoulder again. The force let Stefan know that Dietrich could snap his collarbone if he wanted to. Dietrich spun him around to face the massive oak door. The wood was black in the darkness, and Stefan felt as if he was about to be cast into the abyss.

  “Open the door,” Dietrich said from behind him. Stefan could feel Dietrich’s breath on his neck. It wasn’t warm. It was dry and cool and smelled of carrion. Stefan understood now, in his gut, the devil that Samson Fairfax had met on the tracks.

  Again, his arm, unbidden by him, reached for the doorknob. Stefan tried to lower his arm, pull it away. His will crashed against Dietrich’s words like the lake before a breakwater.

  Stefan’s hand, almost alien to him now, grasped the doorknob and began to turn.

  With all his will, Stefan tried to keep himself from opening the door. Sweat blurred his vision, and his pulse hammered at his temples. He pushed against his arm, but he couldn’t even slow the movement.

  The door opened.

  Dietrich pushed him forward, into an empty room. Stefan stood, dumbstruck for a few moments. There was no sign of the things he thought he had heard. The windowless room was bare of anything but a dusty, threadbare carpet. There was only the one door.

  “Here is what you wished to see,” Dietrich told him, the accent receding. “An empty room. Those rooms here I don’t yet use are equally empty.”

  Stefan asked God for the strength to speak, and somehow he found it. “Where are the others? Servants, bodyguards ...” He trailed off before he said undead.

  “There is no one else here,” Dietrich said.

  There was an arrogance to the lie, as if Dietrich didn’t care if Stefan believed it or not. Standing in the empty room, Stefan believed if any others were here, he wouldn’t find them—nor would he find any bodies.

  He turned to face Dietrich. He put his free hand into his pocket and found a rosary. It comforted him more than the revolver that he still held limply in his right hand. He looked at Dietrich and tried to fathom where the sense of menace originated. Dietrich didn’t look menacing; the only truly unusual aspects of his appearance were his overlong, feminine hair and the depth of his eyes.

  The eyes ...

  That gaze was like hell staring into him. Stefan gripped the shreds of his faith together and asked, “What happened here, Mr. Dietrich?” He didn’t even expect an answer, but the questions gave him a feeling of being afloat in a situation that was out of his depth.

  Dietrich did answer him. “A number of gunmen stormed my house, destroying furniture, shooting holes in the walls. They are gone now.”

  “You survived.” Stefan squeezed the rosary. To ask anything, to act at all, took a supreme effort. He was suddenly convinced that the questioning was a test of his faith, and if he stopped his questioning he would be damned forever.

  “They never shot me.”

  “Never shot you,” Stefan repeated involuntarily. He felt his will slipping and he forced out, “What were they doing here, then?”

  “A warning,” Dietrich said, “from people whose protection my company has refused to pay.”

  “Who?” Stefan asked. The air seemed thicker, making it hard for him to breathe.

  “That is your job to find out. I have no further interest in the matter.”

  In the distance, Stefan heard sirens. The backup he called for was finally arriving. Dietrich cocked his head slightly at the sound. To Stefan, it felt like the sound of salvation. It became easier for him to think, to talk, to act.

  “Why did the gunmen drop their weapons everywhere?”

  “I think you are mistaken,” Dietrich said. “If you look again, I believe that you’ll see that they left nothing behind.”

  The missing servants probably cleaned that part up. “We’re going to have to search this house,” Stefan said.

  “Of course you are.” The assertion was followed by the same condescending smile. “And you will find nothing.”

  The sirens closed and Stefan slipped out from under
Dietrich’s hand.

  “We should meet them,” Dietrich said, motioning Stefan back down the hall. Stefan walked ahead of him, feeling as if he had just avoided damnation.

  He walked outside, down the great stone steps at the entrance of the old Victorian house. Ugly-colored police cars, their lights ablaze, were there to meet him. He walked across the lawn as if in a dream. Somewhere along the way he had holstered his gun and pulled out his badge.

  When he approached the first officer, he told him what had happened. Or, more exactly, what Eric Dietrich said had happened. He wanted to say something of the menace he felt in that house, of the things he’d heard, perhaps almost seen—but the words wouldn’t form.

  All that was left of what happened was the gunmen, attacking and then disappearing.

  With some trepidation he assigned officers to guard the site while more patrols and detectives arrived. As he waved the men toward the house, he saw Eric Dietrich standing in an elaborately arched doorway. In the doorway he seemed taller and more pale. The wind tore at his long blond hair; that and his evil smile gave him the aspect of an angel of destruction.

  After giving the officers their orders, he walked back to where his own car was parked. When he’d turned the corner, out of sight of the old house, he became aware of how his left hand ached. He pulled it out of his pocket, and found his fist still clenched around his rosary.

  He eased his hand open. When he did, a few drops of blood fell to stain the ground. The crucifix was embedded in his flesh, its bloody imprint now carved into his palm.

  Stefan repeated Our Fathers until he reached his car.

  24

  Friday, May 15

  St. John’s was a small whitewashed box of a church hidden in the midst of the working-class homes and shops in Stefan’s old neighborhood. It was wrapped inside a wrought-iron fence. Flowers grew in small plots behind the fence, taking up most of the tiny yard that served the church. The sky was overcast, and the splash of blues and yellows seemed the only color to a monochrome scene. Stefan stared at the building for a long time before he stepped through the gate.