Iron House

by John Hart

  “What kind of enemies?” Falls forced himself into the conversation.

  “People that don’t want to hurt Julian badly enough to risk security like this.” Michael was confident. Julian was bait, nothing more. “The risk leaves when I do.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Falls said. “What risks? What threats? If there’s a danger out there, I need to know what it is. I want specifics: names, timing, all of it.”

  But Michael was confident. Stevan had used Julian to flush Michael into the open. “Julian’s in no danger. Not here. Not with this security.”

  “How did you even find us?” Falls demanded. “Adoption records are sealed. Julian’s father is a United States senator.”

  Michael gave him a second, then said, “I’ve known for a long time how to find my brother.”

  “How?”

  A shrug. “I have resources.”

  “That give you access to private information on a senator and his family? What kind of resources?”

  What could Michael say? How could he explain that he knew Julian’s GPA from high school, that he had copies of their tax returns, photographs of the senator with two different prostitutes. Michael remembered his seventeenth birthday. Early in the morning, the sky outside still black. The old man had come to Michael’s room with a thick folder in his hand.

  A man should know his family. He’d put the file on Michael’s bed, offered a sad, knowing smile. Happy birthday, Michael.

  It was a dark gift, but extensive. Michael later learned that the old man had spent almost five hundred thousand dollars on private investigators and corrupt officials. The old man did nothing in a small way.

  So, yes.

  Michael knew the senator and his family. He squeezed Elena’s hand. “We’re leaving now. It’s better for us, better for Julian.”

  “But you saw him!” Abigail was desperate. “You can’t just leave.”

  “I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Why did you?”

  She looked desperate, and Michael answered the question in his mind: Because I had to see the security for myself; because I had to know he was protected.

  “He’s your brother, Michael. Please.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What kind of danger?” Falls demanded. “What kind of threat?”

  “Nothing you can’t handle.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “It’ll have to do.”

  Michael aimed for the far gate and started walking. Abigail took a dozen running steps and cut him off a final time. “Damn it, Michael.” She flattened her palm on his chest, and then hesitated. She threw a glance at Falls, the giant house. “Nothing is ever as it seems. Understand? Nothing. I need you to reconsider.”

  “Why?”

  Elena pulled on Michael’s hand, and even he was thinking of the places they could go. Europe. South America.

  Large cities where they could disappear.

  Long stretches of lonely beach.

  “The guard in whom you found such comfort.” Her words were clipped. “Richard Gale. In the hall outside Julian’s room.”

  “What about him?” Michael asked.

  “He’s not just there to keep people out.”

  “Are you saying Julian is a prisoner?”

  Michael felt Elena stiffen beside him. Her fingers tightened in a quiet, insistent squeeze, and he thought of what his brother had said in his moment of clarity. Then he considered the clarity, itself—the cleanness of it, the sharp, bright edges surrounded by madness. He allowed his gaze to drift down and left as he studied the long, narrow lake, the things he saw on its shores. When he looked back, Abigail was imploring with her eyes.

  “I’m saying it’s complicated, and you should stay.”

  She stood taller, one hand on his arm.

  “I’m begging you.”

  * * *

  There was a time, once, when Michael could walk away from people who slowed him down. It was the most basic rule of life on the street: survival first. It was the first thing he learned after stepping off the bus in New York: people will lie, and people will kill. That truth was wound so tightly in his core it was part of him; but that was changing. Looking at Elena, he felt the cable loosen in his chest.

  “Are you okay?” They were back in the car, following Jessup Falls to the guesthouse.

  “We shouldn’t be here.”

  “It’s just a day. Just to make sure.”

  She stared at a far, gray line in the sky. “Clouds are piling up.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “And what am I?”

  Michael took her hand. She was angry, and he understood. “Look at me, baby.”

  “No.”

  “Look at me.” She looked, and Michael said, “You’re everything else, you understand? You’re my life.”

  * * *

  At the guest house, Falls waited for them to climb from the car, then rolled down his window. Like Elena, he was unhappy. “It’s unlocked,” he said. “There’s everything you need. Call the house if something comes up.”

  “All right.” Michael stayed near the car. Elena went onto the porch and sat.

  “You won’t find the gun in your car,” Falls said.

  “I noticed.”

  “I’ll give it back to you when you leave.”

  “Do I need to count the money?” Michael dropped his duffel bag on the gravel, and watched Falls stare for long seconds before looking up.

  “There’re no thieves here, young man. And no fools, either.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Falls thought for a second, then said, “I may just be hired help, but Julian’s like a son to me. I watched him grow up. I helped raise him, and have a warm place in my heart for his mother. There’s not much I won’t do for him.”

  “Your point?”

  “My point is I’m not as forgiving as Mrs. Vane. It’s not in my nature and not in my job description. Point is you need to talk to me. There’re things I need to know and I plan to know them. You think on that. I’ll expect you to have a different attitude come morning.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “In the meantime.” Falls put the big Ford in gear. “Don’t come near the main house without permission. Dogs are out after dark, and the guards are for more than show. I can promise you that.”

  “I think we understand each other.”

  Falls waited a heartbeat, then took his foot off the brake. Michael watched taillights fade in the dark beneath the trees, and then joined Elena on the porch. She was in a rocking chair, knees drawn up. Michael sat beside her. “Are you hungry?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Give me a second.” He returned to the car and triggered the release of the driver’s-side air bag. It was disengaged, hollowed out. Inside was the forty-five, wrapped in newspaper to keep it from rattling. “See, all better.”

  Yet Elena did not feel better. She went into a back bedroom, pulled the curtains and climbed into bed. “I love you, Michael, and I can handle this. Your brother. This place. I can give you your day, and you can get some answers. Just tell me you know what you’re doing.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Swear it on your soul.”

  He touched his heart. “I swear on my soul.”

  She pulled his head down and kissed him. “Do you love me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “What if you had to choose? Julian or me? Julian or the baby?”

  “That won’t happen.”

  She cupped his face with both hands, stared deep into his eyes. She kissed him hard, then rolled onto her side.

  “It just did.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jessup had a room apart from the servant’s wing. It had a small living area, a closet, a bath and its own separate entrance. He could have taken a larger room, but he valued the entrance, the privacy of his own door. Abigail knocked on it an hour after Michael was taken to the gu
esthouse.

  “Come in.” Jessup opened the door and stepped back as Abigail pushed in. They were on the north side of the mansion, the door recessed at the bottom of three shallow steps that got little sun and smelled of damp concrete. Abigail brushed past him without a word. She had an unrestrained look in her eyes, an animation she normally suppressed. He shut the door, and she paced. She traced a line of books with her fingertip, sat on the bed, then stood.

  “I’ve always liked this room,” she said. “Very masculine.” She took in the heavy furniture, the paneled walls and small stone fireplace. She picked up a hand-forged fire tool, tilted it so the hammer marks glinted. “It suits you.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She replaced the poker and it clanked hard against the metal stand. “He’s settled at the guesthouse?”

  “Yes.”

  “After all these years.” Her shoulders rose. “I can’t believe he’s here.”

  “It’s concerning.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “We have different concerns.”

  “Must you always be so paranoid?”

  “Must you always be so naive?”

  She allowed a smile, touched his arm. “Such strong shoulders to bear the weight of the world…”

  “You’re damn straight.”

  Abigail let her hand fall away, and the smile went with it. “Have you informed the senator?”

  “I’ve spoken with his security. Senator Vane is still meeting with lawyers.”

  “What do his people think?”

  “They think Michael’s a nut-job with an angle. Money, probably. If not that, then another asshole with ideas on abortion rights, gun control, the death penalty. Most threats against your husband revolve around those issues. They’re not looking any deeper than that.”

  “But you are?”

  “My interests are more personal.”

  “Do you think he’s a danger?”

  “I think we should be all over this guy.”

  “I need more than your instinct.”

  “There’s more.” Jessup moved to a small table in the corner beneath a window. He opened a file and spread out a sheaf of photographs. “These just came off the printer.”

  “From his car?”

  “The search was cursory, but still…”

  “Who did you use?”

  “Alden.”

  “Alden’s good.”

  Falls spread out a handful of photographs. The car. The license plate. Shots of the interior. “There was one weapon in the vehicle.” Jessup sifted out a close-up of a handgun. “Kimber nine millimeter, a high-quality handgun. The serial numbers have been removed. Not filed off, but burned off with acid. Very thorough. Very professional. We also found this.” Another photograph slid across the table. It showed an open duffel and bands of green.

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred and ninety thousand dollars, give or take. The bills are brand-new. Still in the sleeves.”

  “Do you still think he’s after money?”

  “Three hundred thousand is not a billion.”

  “Is that all you found?”

  “This was in the bottom of his duffel.” Falls slipped a photograph from the file folder and handed it over. The picture was of a book.

  “Hemingway? Should I worry?”

  “I’m just showing you what we found. The gun. Clothing. Cash. I saved the best two for last.” He slid out another picture. It was a close-up of another snapshot, a black and white photo of two small boys on a field of mud and snow. Time had degraded the image so that their features were washed out, their eyes specks of black.

  “Oh, my God.” Abigail lifted the photo.

  “It’s the same picture, isn’t it?”

  “The yard at Iron Mountain.” She touched the two boys. Julian had the same photograph on his desk upstairs. It came anonymously one day when Julian was fifteen. No card. Just the photograph. For years, they’d speculated about that picture. Who’d sent it, and why? She’d often found Julian asleep with it in his hands. “You know what this means?”

  “It means he’s known where to find us for a very long time.”

  “But why didn’t he reach out to us? To Julian?” Abigail could not take her eyes off the photograph. According to Julian, it had been taken less than a month before Michael ran away. “We could have had him back years ago.”

  “Which brings us back to timing.”

  Some inflection in his voice made Abigail look up. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  Falls pulled a final photograph from the folder. He slipped it out facedown, then turned it up and spun it across the table. It was an enlargement of yet another photograph, this one showing a teenage Michael leaning against the hood of a car. An older man had one arm around Michael’s neck. They were laughing. “He had this photograph as well. I’d guess he was sixteen when it was taken. Maybe a bit older.”

  Abigail studied the photograph: Michael and an older man, brownstones with open windows, parked cars, a fire hydrant. “It looks like a city street.”

  “New York.”

  “You sound certain.”

  “I am.”

  “This could be anywhere, Jessup. A dozen different cities.”

  “Do you recognize the man with his arm around Michael’s shoulder?”

  “No.”

  “Look again.”

  She tilted the photograph to the light. “Okay. He’s vaguely familiar. Maybe. The picture’s almost twenty years old.”

  “He’s been in the news for longer than that.” Falls dropped a newspaper on the table. It landed hard. “This is yesterday’s New York Times.” She lifted the paper, looked at the headline, the face of an old man found dead in the slaughterhouse of his own home.

  “Otto Kaitlin?”

  “Possibly the most powerful crime boss in recent memory.”

  “I know who Otto Kaitlin is. What does he have to do with Michael?”

  “It’s the same man.”

  “You’re being absurd.”

  “There’s a full spread on page five. What they know of his life. Some old photographs. The similarity is more obvious.”

  Abigail turned to page five, compared the photos. Michael and the laughing man. The dead mobster tied to forty years of murder, racketeering and extortion. There was a mug shot of Kaitlin as a young man, another of him on the courthouse steps, cuffed and lean in an expensive suit. The similarities were there: the hair and eyes, the confident smile. Otto Kaitlin was an old-school gangster, a gentleman killer tried a half-dozen times and never convicted. He was articulate and photogenic, a killer with easy grace and a Hollywood smile. Books had been based on his career. At least two movies. Abigail felt her way to a chair and sat.

  Falls opened a drawer and pulled out a handgun sealed in a plastic bag. “This came from Michael’s car.”

  “You took it?”

  “Seven dead in Otto Kaitlin’s house. Six of them shot with a nine millimeter. Then, an hour later, the explosion in Tribeca. Another nine dead. A dozen injured. Police are looking for a man and a woman who fled the scene in a car traced back to Kaitlin’s house. A man and a woman. The descriptions match.”

  Abigail shook her head. “What descriptions? A man in his thirties. A woman with dark hair. It could be anybody. A million different people.”

  “Six people were shot with a nine millimeter.”

  “You think that’s the gun?”

  “It could be.”

  “Could be. Old photos. Listen to you. This may as well be office gossip, the mindless chatter of old ladies.”

  Falls pointed to the photo of Michael and the laughing man. “We know that’s Otto Kaitlin.”

  “We know nothing of the sort.”

  Falls pushed the photograph into her hands. “You’re in denial. Look at it.”

  “Okay. There’s a similarity, but it’s a ridiculous stretch. Michael is Julian’s brother. He was almost my son.”

  “Y
ou’re being irresponsible.” Falls spread his hand on the newsprint photos of Otto Kaitlin. “These are serious people, Abigail. Mobsters. Killers.”

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “He shows up in a stolen car with a bag of cash and an untraceable weapon. This is not an average man.”

  “And yet, I believe his reasons.”

  “That he loves his brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if this danger follows him? If he is associated with Otto Kaitlin…”

  “You can protect us.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Big strong man. Ex-cop. Ex-military.”

  “Don’t be flip.”

  “We spent over a million dollars on security last year.” Abigail dropped the photo and put both palms flat on the table. “Julian is my son, and as hard as his life has been, I’ve never seen him as broken as he is now. His brother has come back to him after twenty-three years, and I think it’s happened for a reason. I think he can help. So, do what you need to do your job. Alert the senator’s people to a possible threat, but keep your reasons vague. Be cautious. Be smart. But if you scare Michael off, I’ll never forgive you.” She straightened, voice crisp. “In the meantime, you keep your theories to yourself. I don’t want to hear anything about mobsters or mass murder or old photographs.”

  Falls shook his head, disappointed. “You’re making a mistake.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You said it yourself.”

  “What?”

  Falls watched her carefully. “The man’s no dishwasher.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Some things are best done in the dark, and alone. This is what Michael told himself, and it was almost enough to wash the taste of betrayal from his throat as he slipped from the covers and swung his feet to the floor. The clock read four twenty; in the bed, Elena lay still. Michael watched her as he dressed, and as the gun came silently from the bedside table. It was loaded—full clip, one in the pipe—and he considered how quickly she had become accustomed to its presence. One day it was an unknown; the next it was merely part of the scenery. In a strange, sad way, the thought gave him hope. He would change what he could to make her happy, but knew, deep down, that violence was more than a stain on his soul.