Iron House

by John Hart

  “There it is.”

  Light swelled where the drive emptied from the forest. Trees fell off and the land opened. Michael saw an old house at the edge of uncut fields. He saw vehicles. And he saw the barn.

  “So many cars.” Abigail hunched forward, her hands white on the bag of money. “He’s not alone.”

  Michael checked windows in the house, saw blackness behind empty glass. He considered the tree line, the high, brown scrub. There was deep shadow and lots of cover. Anyone with a decent rifle could take them out. He stopped the car. Everything around them was perfectly still.

  “Jesus, Michael. We’re sitting ducks.”

  “He wants his money. We control it. Try to remember that.”

  “Okay.” She nodded, swallowed. “Where are we going?”

  “There.”

  The barn was like any barn, rough and angular on a patch of dirt and weed. The wood was weathered and unpainted, the roof rusted metal. On its peak, a fox-shaped weathervane leaned at a drunken angle. There was an opening in the loft, but other than that, it looked as if Jimmy was right.

  One way in.

  One way out.

  “Don’t do anything unless I say.” Michael opened his door. “Understand?” She reached for the door handle, fumbled it. “Abigail?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  And then they were out, in the yard, with the barn tall above them. Michael had a gun in the front of his belt, and one at the back. Rounds chambered. Safeties off. He looked once more at the empty clearing, then lifted the book from the dash and walked for the barn door. Three feet from the place it gapped, he called out. “Jimmy. It’s Michael.” He waited, but got no answer. “Abigail Vane is with me. We’re coming in.”

  He put a foot through the gap and nudged the door, which scraped on dirt and old straw. He went in, hands first, Abigail close on his back.

  “Slowly.”

  That was Jimmy, deep and to the left. Out of sight.

  “Slowly,” Michael said.

  He eased around the door, came five feet into the barn and stopped, Abigail hard against him. The place was brighter than he expected, well lit by at least a dozen lanterns. He heard Abigail take in a shocked breath, but felt his own calm flow as he catalogued the barn in a few clear, brutal seconds. He saw Stevan first, but wasted no time breaking down the extent of his injuries. He was dead or not. No matter. He glimpsed Elena, but forced himself to move away from that, come back later. He located Jimmy in a shadowed place, partially concealed by a heavy post. One arm was out, gun in hand.

  That was not the hand that Michael feared …

  “Can I assume we understand each other?”

  Jimmy’s voice sounded surprisingly deep in the high, vast space. Michael watched the hand that held a small, wooden dowel that was maybe ten inches long. The dowel was tied to a length of baling twine. The twine ran through an eyehook embedded in the post, then to another hook in a second post, then to a third, and then to …

  Elena.

  She was wired to the barn’s central support structure, a thirty-inch beam that soared to the roofline. The wires that held her were twisted razor tight, so they cut into her forehead, her neck and limbs. Her arms were pulled back so fiercely that her shoulder bones jutted. Blood from her throat made a sharp V at the collar of her shirt. She stood on one foot, and Michael saw lacerations and several toes bent sideways. The other leg was broken at the ankle, bent at the knee and wired high on the post so the foot dangled at a tortured angle. Michael had no idea how long she’d been forced to stand like that, but he’d suffered enough broken bones to imagine the hurt. Yet, the pain was nothing compared to the fear he saw in her eyes. They nailed him where he stood; they begged and said so many things.

  “It’s okay, baby.”

  But it wasn’t.

  A double-barreled shotgun wedged her jaw open; it was jammed deep in her mouth and secured with bright, silver tape that twisted thickly around the barrel, her head and jaw. Michael saw teeth smeared red, a glimpse of crushed lips. She was sucking hard through her nostrils: panicked, in shock. Her skin had blued out. Tears gathered in her lashes.

  The shotgun hung from nylon straps.

  Twine ran from the trigger to the dowel in Jimmy’s hand.

  “Are we clear on the stakes?” Jimmy said.

  Michael took his eyes off Elena; felt his cold center expand. What was the trigger pull on a Remington twelve gauge? Three and half pounds? Less? He looked at Stevan, spread on the tractor. Most of his face was gone, fingers clipped off and lying in the dirt. Hours of work, there. Lots of screaming, lots of noise. Jimmy had hung a mirror so that Stevan could watch the work on his face. That meant Jimmy had felt free to take his time, enjoy himself. Michael guessed that whoever else had come south with Stevan was dead now, too. Jimmy wouldn’t run the risk, not with Stevan alive. “I think we understand each other.”

  “Weapons on the ground, please.” Michael removed both guns, placed them on the ground. “Kick them away.” Michael did as he was told. “Lift the shirt.” Michael did it. “Pant legs.” Michael did that, too. “What’s with the book?”

  Michael lifted it. “It’s Otto’s.” Jimmy hesitated, hand tight on the dowel. “The numbers you want are inside.”

  “All of them? Accounts. Passwords. Routing numbers?”

  “Everything you need.”

  Michael watched Jimmy’s mind churn. He wanted to hold the book, check the numbers, but his hands were literally full. He gestured with the gun. “If the woman would step out where I can see her better…”

  “It’s okay,” Michael said. “Just do as he asks. Nice and slow.”

  Abigail stepped sideways, duffel bag at her side.

  Jimmy cocked his head. “That doesn’t look like ten million dollars.”

  “It’s just a start,” she said. “I can get the rest.”

  “How fast?”

  “I just need a computer.”

  “Bring it closer.”

  Abigail glanced at Michael, who nodded. She walked closer, and when Jimmy told her to stop, she did.

  “Drop it there.”

  The bag landed in soft, dry dirt.

  Jimmy took his hand off the dowel and stepped out of the shadows. His shirt was bloodstained under the left armpit, his nose swollen and split. Other than that, his eyes had the same cold, crazy light Michael had seen so many times. The man was a narcissist and a psychopath, an unpredictable, deadly son of a bitch. He pulled a second pistol from his belt, kept one trained on Michael and pointed the other at Abigail’s face. “Open it.”

  She looked scared, uncertain.

  “Get on your knees and open it.”

  Abigail felt the lump of steel at her waist. Something sharp dug into her skin, but all she cared about was the gun in her face. It had a giant, black muzzle, a circle with a silver sheen on its edge and a center that was dark and deep and smelled of burned powder. It moved, and her eyes followed it as they would a snake. Left and right, small circles. She felt the same vibration at the back of her skull. Headache. Dizziness.

  “Open it!”

  Jimmy thumbed back the hammer, leaned in so the muzzle was inches from her right eye. Abigail stared into it. She swayed once, then told her knees to bend. They were stiff; they fought. But once they bent, they broke fast. Her legs failed, and she hit the dirt, hard.

  Hair swung over her face.

  The thirty-eight fell out of her pants.

  Before Abigail could move or blink or utter a word, Jimmy kicked her in the head, sent her sprawling in the dust. He kept a gun on Michael. “Uh-uh.” Michael forced himself to stillness. Jimmy kicked Abigail in the ribs, drove her on her side, where she rolled halfway to the wall. He took quick strides; kicked her again. She came off the ground and hit a wall covered with tools. A shovel fell, the handle cracking her on the head. Metal rattled and scraped. A sledgehammer toppled on its side. A jar of nails spilled with the sound of dull, metal chimes. Jimmy waited, but Abigai
l didn’t move. She slumped, on all fours. Her head hung loosely, eyes swimming. He tapped her on the head with the barrel of his gun. “Stay there, you crazy bitch.” He looked at Michael. “Can you believe that? Jeez. People.”

  Michael risked a glance at Elena, then back at Jimmy. “I didn’t know she had that.”

  “You think?” Sarcastic. Biting. “I didn’t train you to trust a woman with a gun. Jesus. Give them anything more dangerous than a salad fork, and they’re liable to ruin somebody’s day.” He tucked one of the pistols back into his belt. “Now, where was I?” He looked at the bag of cash. “Ah.”

  Jimmy stooped for the bag. Michael surveyed the room. His pistols were seven feet away, which may as well be the moon, fast as Jimmy was. A collection of knives and other edged instruments sat on a table by Stevan, but again, too far. He looked at Abigail. She was breathing, eyes open, but barely. Near her were axes and scythes and sickles. He’d never get his hands on them.

  Across the room, Elena was crying.

  Jimmy lifted the duffel, and kicked the thirty-eight into the far corner of the barn. A smile lit his face. Account numbers were great and all, but there was something about cash—and he could see large, green bundles of it. “You never cared enough about money.” He stood with the bag, waved the pistol. “That was always your problem, Michael. Priorities. The scale of your ambition. I could never get you to see past Otto Kaitlin, to see the things you could be.”

  “We had the same job, Jimmy, did the same things.”

  “But I was never content. That’s the difference between big men and small. You’d have been Otto’s whipping boy for the rest of your life.”

  “Otto was a great man.”

  “Otto fed you scraps.” He shook his head, disgusted. “But you took it, didn’t you? You were all about family this and family that. Otto never loved you like you think he did.”

  “And yet he left his money to me.”

  “But it’s not all about money, is it? It’s about being more. About seeing and taking and making the world feel you. That’s where my true disappointment lies.” He stabbed the gun at Michael. “We could have run the city, you and me, done things Otto never dreamed in all his years. Jesus, Michael. I’d have made you a fucking prince.”

  “With you as king?”

  “Who’s more your father than me? Otto may have found you, but I made you.” He gestured at Elena. “She understands. She gets it. That’s why this is such a disappointment. You used to care about family.”

  “Family? Are you serious?”

  “It’s not too late. You can have the girl. We can still do great things.”

  “Don’t screw with me, Jimmy. I know you better than that.”

  “Well, okay. She’d have to die. But you and me…” He grinned. “No one would stand against us.”

  “I just want us all to walk out of here alive.”

  “That’s your answer?” His voice hardened. “That’s your sole ambition?”

  “Take the money, Jimmy.”

  “You really think that’s all I care about, don’t you?” He stepped toward Stevan, spread on the tractor. “You’re the one who made this personal. You’re the one who left. And for what? A woman?”

  “It’s a lot of money.” Michael spread his fingers. “Just let us go.”

  “You never change, do you? Always in control.”

  “Just like you taught me.”

  “Always chilly.” Jimmy kept the gun trained on Michael as he heaved the bag up and dropped it squarely on Stevan’s bloody stomach. “This guy, though…” Jimmy patted Stevan’s ruined face, smiled. “Finally good for something.”

  He looked back at the cash, and Stevan—tortured, skinless and half-dead—turned his head and sank perfect, white teeth into the meat of Jimmy’s hand.

  * * *

  Abigail watched it all as if she was falling down a smooth, dark shaft. She saw Jimmy’s back arch, and then his scream grew faint as light constricted.

  Her fingers closed on something sharp.

  Pain behind her eyes.

  * * *

  Michael moved as Jimmy howled, as Jimmy’s gun came around to meet the curve of Stevan’s skull. A shot crashed out and Jimmy’s hand came free, a ragged chunk missing between the thumb and first finger. Another step and Michael dove for the forty-five, right hand on the grip, shoulder rolling to take the fall. He felt dust in his teeth, movement as he came up on one knee and slid in the dirt. Jimmy fired first, two rounds that should not have missed, but did. Michael snapped off a shot, hit Jimmy high in the chest. Staggered him. But Jimmy’s finger was still on the trigger, still pulling as shots crashed through the barn, and Michael took one in the leg. The shot knocked him down, pain enough to star his vision, but not nearly enough to take him out. Michael fired half-blind, buying seconds. He got a hand down, steadied himself as Jimmy lunged left, going for the dowel that hung four feet away. Maybe he knew he was done; maybe he thought he’d use it to get Michael under control. Michael fired again, took a piece out of Jimmy’s neck. He stumbled, hand out and grasping. Michael fired another round, hit an inch right of the spine. It drove Jimmy forward, all but dead on his feet. But his hand was out and close.

  Inches.

  Spread fingers coming down.

  Michael moved for a head shot, but knew he’d be too late. Three and half pounds of pressure. Jimmy’s fingers almost there.

  Then Abigail Vane came out of nowhere, small and fast and lightning sure. Michael hadn’t even seen her get up, but there she was, a crescent of rusty metal in her hand—a twenty-inch sickle that rose in a blurred, brown arc and took Jimmy’s hand off at the wrist. The stump of his arm hit the dowel, made it swing.

  Michael put the next one in his skull.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Abigail drove them out. She looked small behind the wheel of the Mercedes, shoulders rolled, head tucked down as if to dodge a blow. In the back, fingers twined, wet and slick. Blood pooled in the seats as Michael cradled Elena and fought the pain in his leg. They kept their heads down, and no one spoke until Abigail pulled into the lot of a dump motel two towns over. She found an empty spot under the limbs of a tree. Traffic flickered beyond a chain-link fence. “You alive back there?”

  “We’re still here.”

  “Stay in the car.”

  She didn’t look at them as she got out.

  Air blew warm from the vents. A coppery smell. Gun smoke and clean leather. Michael kissed Elena’s hair, and her hand tightened on his arm. She was in shock, he thought, her skin cold to the touch, lips dusted blue. He gentled bits of tape from her skin, her hair. An acorn hit the roof, and she jerked in his arms. “It’s okay, baby.”

  There was silence and breath and dark eyes staring.

  “You keep saying that.”

  It came as a whisper, her first words since he’d carried her out. Michael kissed her forehead, and when she turned her cheek into his chest, she said, “You came for me.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “You came…”

  Her fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt. Her voice fell off, and Michael smeared tears from his face with the back of his hand.

  When Abigail returned, she said, “I got you a room in the back.”

  “We need a doctor.”

  “Is it bad?”

  Michael ground his teeth. “Pretty bad.”

  She moved the car, opened the room and got them out when no one was around. They were a pitiful sight, all broken and cut and gunshot. Michael’s leg worked, but barely. No bones broken, no arteries hit.

  Elena cried out when he put her on the bed.

  Michael got her water, while Abigail brought things in from the car. She put a first-aid kit on the table. “From the trunk,” she said, then laid out Michael’s pistols and Jessup’s thirty-eight. She brought in the duffel bag, which held the Hemingway and the cash. She looked at Elena, at the sodden cloth tied around Michael’s leg. “I should hurry.”

 
Michael caught her at the door. His face was ashen, the pain a devil in his leg. “I need to thank you.” She stammered something, and for the first time since it went down, Michael really looked at her face. She was shell-shocked, her eyes bruised-looking and scared.

  She shook her head, seemed for the first time to be doubt-filled and old. “Don’t—”

  “I would have lost her without you.” He took her hand, felt bones that were light and small. “Do you understand what that means to me?”

  “I mean it, Michael. Don’t.”

  “Look at me, Abigail.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  That stopped him. “What do you mean?”

  Her eyes darted to Elena, the guns, the door: everywhere but Michael’s face. “I remember being kicked and being hurt.” She touched her temple, which was wine-dark and swollen. “I remember the feel of sharp metal in my fingers.”

  “The sickle—”

  “I remember rage, and I remember driving.”

  Michael took her head gently in his hands and tilted it so light touched on the place she’d been kicked. Jimmy had struck her in the right temple. The swelling was considerable, skin dark and stretched. “Painful?”

  “Extremely.”

  “Is your vision blurred?”

  “No.”

  “Nausea?”

  “No.”

  “Can you drive?”

  “I feel okay to drive.”

  He released her, but put one hand on the door. “You saved Elena’s life,” he said. “That means you saved mine. Things like that matter to me. I won’t forget it.”

  “That’s funny.”

  “What?”

  She managed a decent smile. “It seems I already have.”

  The mood lightened as much as it could, but Michael kept his hand on the door. “Listen, I know a thing or two about situations like this. Don’t let people see blood in the car. Don’t tell anyone what happened.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Not Jessup or the senator.”

  “Okay.”