STAG HEARD HARRY’S screams and instinctively bolted for the front door. He was expecting to find him fallen on the ice. Maybe a broken arm. It was unnerving to see him upright, just standing and screaming for no apparent reason. Screaming at the dirty drifts of snow edging the parking lot.
“What the fuck, man?” Stag shouted over him. “What the fuck?”
“He shot me! He shot me!” Harry screamed, his features screwed up with fear. “I’ve been shot!”
Several other tenants rushed to their balconies to assess the situation. Sliding along the ice, Stag raced to Harry. “Where?”
“Call 911!” someone shouted around them.
“Lean on me,” Stag ordered, pulling and half-carrying Harry across the parking lot to his front door. “Can you walk? Think I can get you inside?”
“I’ll get there. I can get there,” Harry stammered, his face ghost white.
Stag left the front door open and pulled Harry to the futon. He then ran for a towel.
“What the fuck happened!” he shouted, pulling open Harry’s parka.
He was braced for the sight of blood, but there was nothing. He couldn’t find anything, and yet, Harry was still whimpering like a baby.
“Where’d you get hurt, buddy?” he coaxed.
“In the chest. He got me in the chest.” Harry looked down dumbly at his polar fleece. No blood in sight.
“Where?” Stag demanded frantically.
“Right here,” Harry whimpered, patting his chest. “He took out this black handgun and shot me. I can still feel it going in!”
Stag pulled up the shirt and polar fleece. There was nothing. Just rolls of pasty belly flesh and a galaxy of freckles.
“The police are coming,” announced the old hippy that lived upstairs. He stood in the doorway like an aging Jesus, his face lined with concern. “They’re sending an ambulance. What the hell happened?”
“Checking him now,” Stag said. “Look, Harry, you saw the gun and maybe just thought—”
“He shot me, I’m telling you! I can still feel it! Right here!” He pointed to a reddish freckle. It pretty much looked like all the rest.
Stag nodded and stood. He could hear the faint beginnings of sirens. “Not long now,” he offered. “Did the guy steal your wallet?”
Harry had begun to sweat. “He said they wanted to talk to you. Ask you some questions, then he pulled out this gun! This really strange gun!” Harry looked to be panicking all over again. “He left this card. Man, if he wanted to scare me, he sure as fuck did!”
“Calm down. They’re almost here. Just hold on.” Stag ground his teeth. He didn’t know what to make of this. It was bizarre.
“I think he’s killed me somehow, man. I really do,” Harry shot out.
“You’ll be fine as soon as the paramedics check you out,” Stag said, but for some strange reason, even he wasn’t sure about that.
“I’m telling you, the black guy shot me,” Harry said once the paramedics were gone.
The police had questioned them and filed a report. Stag didn’t mention to Harry the cop who’d taken him aside and asked if his friend had been popping any hallucinogens.
“The gun must’ve misfired, thank God.” Stag stared at him, his face filled with concern. The whole episode was crazy. Wearily, he took a long pull on his Beck’s. It had been another long, long day.
“He fucking pulled out this really strange gun and just shot me.” Harry stared down at his bare chest. “You going to call?”
Stag looked down at the card. He’d given the police the information but he bet they didn’t even write it down. Harry looked like just another drug-crazed loser wasting the authorities’ time with paranoid delusions. He’d bet that the number on the card was linked by the internet to another number, this one probably overseas. A sickening feeling overtook him. The phone might even be in Berlin, where that apartment was.
Harry got up and began pacing. He rubbed his chest. “Man, they got me. Maybe I’m being poisoned. Should probably get some blood work.”
“Then let’s run you to the emergency room.”
“What do they want? You better call them first.”
“Let’s head to the emergency room first for the blood work.”
“No, call them—then they can tell you what the hell they did to me!”
Hesitantly, Stag punched the number into his phone. It took a while for the connection to be made. It only rang once before the phone was answered.
“Allo.”
“What the fuck did you do to my friend?” Stag didn’t bother to hide his animosity. Behind him, Harry paced, his face getting paler.
“What is your interest in apartment 12A?” The voice had an accent, but Stag couldn’t place it. He didn’t know if it was German, French, or Swedish.
“First you tell me my friend’s okay.”
“Your friend will die.”
Stag barely comprehended the words.
“That is not a warning. That is a fact. You will die too if you don’t tell us your interest.”
Stag felt the blood run backward in his veins. After the first wave of shock hit him, he wanted to punch something, but with nothing but a voice on the other end of the phone, he was fighting a shadow.
Slowly, he said in a low rumble to not freak out Harry anymore, “What’s this all about?”
“We need to know what is your interest?”
“We found a note.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“Reinhard Heydrich.” The silence at the end of the line didn’t surprise Stag. The shock was palpable. “So you think you can tell me what’s going on here?”
“You are a journalist, are you not, Mr. Maguire? You wrote quite a reputable series about corrupt politicians taking money from the NRA.”
He was stunned at hearing his name. It made the breath go tight in his chest. “I was a journalist.”
“We don’t want attention.”
“Well, you got it now, you motherfucker. I want to know what you did to my friend.”
“He has perhaps fifteen minutes to live. You may go to the authorities, but his death will be from a heart attack. He is an overweight man, is he not? You Americans and your constant desire to feed—”
“What the hell did you do?”
“We do not like inquiries. We have your cell number and your name. Now as you watch your friend die, you see we are serious. We want the information you have. How did you find out about 12A?”
“Heydrich told us, you fucktard. And I’m going to goddamn make something of this! You tell me what to do for my friend!” Stag’s anger became rage.
“Heydrich has been dead since ’42.”
“Maybe,” Stag baited. “But he sent the note anyway.”
“What did the note say?”
“It talks about diamonds.” He snorted. “And you’ll never fucking see any of them if anything happens to Harry.”
“We will pay for your information. Any amount you require.”
“Go fuck yourself.” He lowered his voice to a growl. “Now tell me what you did to my friend—”
He felt the connection terminate before he heard the click.
“Whh … what-the-fuck?” Harry stammered, paler still than a moment ago.
“Let’s get you to a hospital.” Stag stabbed through his jeans pockets for the car keys.
“What did he say? What did they do to me?” There was real fear edging Harry’s voice. Stag had a hard time meeting his eye.
“I don’t know. Let’s go get you tested. Now.”
“Yeah.” Harry’s hand shook when he ran it through his hair. His face was drained of color, but he was sweating profusely as if he was overheated. He unconsciously rubbed his chest.
“C’mon.” Stag held the door.
Harry nodded, took a step, and then paused, as if surprised. He gasped.
“I swear, I think I’m having a heart attack. “
“Look, let’s get you—”
Harry doubled over, groaning.
Stag instinctively punched 911 into his phone. “Get me an ambulance,” he barked into the phone.
The furniture shook when Harry slumped to the floor. Stag bit out the remaining information for the ambulance, then went over to him.
“They’re coming, bud. Hang in there,” he said softly.
“I think I’m having a heart—” Harry began vomiting copious amounts of beer and pizza. It ran down his chin and puddled on the front of his polar fleece. “Fuck.”
“It’s cool. It’s cool.” Stag ran for another towel. When he came back from the bathroom, Harry was nearly unconscious. The whine of a siren began in the distance like a refrain. “Hold on. Here they are,” he said, bending down to him.
“Tell Julie and the kids … love ’em …” Harry took Stag’s hand. He squeezed it weakly. “Tell them I’m sorry about being a shitty husband and father.”
“Chill, man. Relax. You weren’t.”
“Don’t tell them about the Sicherheitsdienst.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Seriously, the ambulance is almost here.”
“I don’t want them to know about Heydrich.”
“Fuck Heydrich.” The anger in Stag’s voice even surprised him.
“No, man. You don’t understand.”
“It’s okay, Harry. Don’t worry about that now.”
“I … I just figured it out. I keep thinking of all those gatherings my dad held at Gerde’s. I mean—”
“Really, don’t worry about that now, man. The ambulance is almost here. Everything’s gonna be all right.”
Harry clutched at Stag’s shirt. “No. There was always talk. You understand? Talk. I never paid much attention because when my dad died, Gerde’s fell on me, and I was too crazy trying to make a living out of it to wonder what all those meetings were about.”
“Hang on there, man. You don’t need to be worrying about this.” Stag was relieved to hear the siren get closer.
“Don’t you understand?” Harry insisted. “Don’t you see? We’re all Heydrich. That’s the problem. We’ve been Heydrich all the time.”
“You are from the best people I know, Harry. No way you’re from a bunch of Nazis.” Every nerve in Stag’s body was taut, waiting for that ambulance.
“But my grandfather … I mean, I didn’t understand at the time. My grandfather talked about it, and. my God, my father too … He and my father had these strange meetings with strange characters. Then when Dad died, a bunch of men came to get his files. And Mom just let them in and they took everything. After the war, you see? After the war—” He moaned loudly and squeezed his eyes shut. Tears streamed down his round cheeks. Gritting his teeth through the pain, he ground out the words, “That’s how they kept Gerde’s going, during the down times, see? That’s why I couldn’t make it. When the wolf came knocking, I didn’t feed it like they told me to. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anything to do with them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Stag commanded, kneeling in the vomit to support his flagging body. “That’s long over.”
“But it does. It does matter, don’t you see?” Harry whispered. He doubled over once more. “The Sicherheitsdienst, the SD. It’s still out there. It still exists. And if you don’t feed the wolf, the wolf feeds on you.”
Then he collapsed. Dead.