Blood Standard: An Isaiah Coleridge Novel #1 - Hardcover

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Laird Barron was born in Alaska, where he raised huskies and worked in the construction and fishing industries for much of his youth. He is the author of several short-story collections and two novels, and his work has also appeared in many magazines and anthologies. A multiple Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Award nominee, he is also a three-time winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. Barron lives in Kingston, NY.

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PART I

KISS OFF

ONE

As a boy, I admired Humphrey Bogart in a big way. I coveted the homburg and trench coat. I wanted to pack heat and smoke unfiltered cigarettes and give them long-legged dames in mink stoles the squinty-eyed once-over. I longed to chase villains, right wrongs, and restore the peace.

Upon surviving into manhood, I discovered the black and comedic irony that is every gumshoe’s existential plight, the secret that dime novels and black-and-white movies always elide: each clue our intrepid detective deciphers, each mystery he unravels, each crime he solves, makes the world an unhappier place. I got smart and became a gangster instead. More money, more women, and better clothes. Much less in the way of mystery. As for the misery quotient? Basically a wash.

Became a gangster. There’s a mouthful. How I wound up hitting for the far north division of the Outfit is a woeful saga. The story of how I escaped that life is no less grim, but it’s a hell of a lot shorter.

The Outfit flew me first class from Anchorage to Nome on a working vacation.

Boss had wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

“Isaiah,” he said. “Do me a favor, son? Take in the frozen vistas, photograph the northern lights, maybe crack a few heads. See ya in a couple months.”

Perhaps not those exact words, but close. What he really meant was snoop around and make sure everything was copacetic behind the scenes.

The gig didn’t appeal to my sensibilities. Nome isn’t a premier post by any means. In fact, the suits in Anchorage and Chicago treat the town like a Mafia penal colony. Two types get sent to the deep freeze—guys with specialist talent and ne’er-do-wells. We’re talking malcontents, sadists, and screwups. No, I didn’t relish the -assignment, short-term or not. However, I understood my place. A polite request from the headman was no request at all.

Upon landing, I reported to Vitale Night, a local mob potentate in charge of tundra as far as the eye could see. A medium-built guy; angular, from his hawkish nose and bony hands to his sharp knees. Shiny, graying hair and tailored duds—a Sinatra wannabe.

Night had risen through the ranks in Chicago as the premier button man of the generation prior to my own. Quick on the draw as a Wild West gunfighter with a pile of bodies to his credit. I witnessed him in action at the shooting range. Fast wasn’t really an adequate description. The pistol seemed to teleport from its holster to his hand as he emptied a magazine through a bull’s-eye the diameter of a nickel.

A man without compunction was the book on Vitale Night. It’s difficult to come by a higher compliment in the mob. Why the powers that be shipped him to Alaska presented a mystery. Rumors abounded—he’d whacked somebody without permission; he’d stolen the wrong captain’s mistress; he’d looked funny at a boss. Could have been any of those trespasses, or none.

Lately, Night handled various rackets between Nome and Prudhoe Bay. Drugs, guns, gambling, prostitution; anything to improve the morale of lonely commercial fishermen and oil field roughnecks as they toiled in the Land of the Midnight Sun. The Outfit loved Alaska—wide-open shipping lanes, among the finest weed in North America, and a never-ending glut of petroleum money that eventually flowed into their pockets. Maintaining a successful Alaska operation was a matter of identifying men who could handle extremes of light and dark and perpetually savage weather.

My task? Intimidate a few of Night’s underperforming subordinates so he didn’t need to lower himself or muck around with hurt feelings. Family relationships are petty and complicated—doesn’t matter what family you’re talking about.

When you needed a whip hand, you sent Isaiah Coleridge. I’d set the gold standard. Those movies by Albert Broccoli about the world-famous spy? In every flick there’s a sinister, powerfully built dude in a nice suit lurking at the margins. He kills people who annoy his boss, the archvillian. I was that dude.

The first few weeks in Nome were smooth. The bozos I’d come to frighten took a gander at my game face and straightened their acts out in a hurry. Easy money. Mostly, we played cards and spent a sizable chunk of our evenings boozing at one of a dozen taverns. I got close to the crew, especially Night’s second fiddle, Tony Becchi (aka Tony Flowers), a potbellied old-school gangster. Old-school as in Dark Ages.

Like myself, Tony Flowers guest-starred in this particular drama. Chicago had decided Night required the talents of an older, stable gangster; not permanently, just for a year or two. Originally from Florida, Tony F hated Illinois weather. Well, he hated Alaska winter a damned sight worse. I allowed him to believe the two of us shared this sentiment. He made the assumption due to me being half Maori. We established a running gag:

What the fuck is a Maori doing in Alaska? he’d say.

Freezing my ass off, I’d reply. What’s the forecast?

Partly shitty this morning, intermittently shitty this afternoon, and mostly shitty tonight.

Funny thing, I’d come to ask myself the same question with increasing frequency: what was I doing here? Instead of heeding that instinct, which I came to acknowledge as the angel on my right shoulder, I downed another shot and waited for it to leave me in peace.

Kept right on that way until it was too late.

TWO

The universe went sideways on a skiff in the Chukchi Sea. My increasingly changeable nature had given plenty of signs. I should’ve seen it coming, should’ve been wise to the demands of my soul.

The whole charade began to fall apart the day Vitale Night decreed a handful of his crew would accompany him on a short flight to a private lodge near Kotzebue. He refused to explain the occasion and merely smirked when I inquired. You don’t ask a captain twice; you keep mum and wait to see what happens next.

What happened next is we got into a twin-prop passenger plane and zipped north to a rustic hunting lodge on an isolated shore. I found it spartan, albeit classy enough. Log construction as one would expect, and decorated with polar bear heads and photographs of various Popes and the Rat Pack.

Vitale Night threw a righteous bash. He’d brought a case of champagne and plenty of blow. Several snow bunnies entertained the company of hard cases. I brooded in a corner and drank far too much. In the morning I staggered downstairs to witness Night and Tony F unpacking rifles and an array of skinning knives. The men grinned at me and nudged each other as they laid their implements on a bunting cloth spread across the dining room table. They wore wool shirts, wool pants, and heavy-duty snow boots. Their sneers foretold impending awfulness. It remained to be seen what form that awfulness would assume.

Vitale Night checked the scope on a rifle.

“Coleridge. I hear you’re a hunter.” He centered the bore on my head and dry-fired. “Christ, don’t scowl like that. You’re scarin’ the womenfolk. I’m just yankin’ your chain.” He and Tony F shared a belly laugh.

I walked over to the bar, grabbed a bottle of Knob Creek, and poured myself a tall glass for breakfast. The bottle got dangerously low before the all-terrain vehicle arrived.

A half dozen of us bundled into the cramped compartment and were...