Next of Kin

by James Tucker

  Vidas pressed down on the handle and the large black door opened into the house. The alarm system began to beep.

  Vidas stepped over the threshold and into the dark foyer. He turned back to Ben and said, “Come on. Why don’t you show me around your house? I’ve never seen the inside.”

  Ben hesitated. He didn’t like the way the detective had gained access to his house. My house, he thought, but it wasn’t really his house, not anymore. Vidas hadn’t used a key but something else, something that made him uneasy. And so his trust in the detective waned a little more.

  Vidas stood in the doorway and offered his hand. “You can turn on the lights, show me the kitchen, show me your bedroom.”

  Ben didn’t like the idea of showing the detective his bedroom, but the kitchen would be all right. The ginger snap the detective’s mother had given him had made him hungry. And he knew the very kitchen cabinet where his mother had kept the Lindt chocolate bars. He could have one now, a large one of the milk-chocolate variety, or maybe one with milk chocolate and almonds. Then he could show the detective the house and they could return to Mei’s apartment at the Carlyle Residences.

  He reached out, took the detective’s hand, and stepped over the threshold and into his family’s town house.

  The hand was warm but firm—unexpectedly firm and hard. The arm pulled him past the door. He heard the door close.

  Vidas said, “Turn off the alarm, would you?”

  Ben entered the code. The beeping stopped.

  “Where’s the light?” asked the detective.

  Ben was paralyzed with sudden fear. Being in the house frightened him. And there was something about the detective that he didn’t understand, that put him on edge.

  “Turn on the light,” ordered the detective, his voice no longer so friendly. “Do it now.”

  Ben swallowed and went over to the wall in which the door was set. The switch wasn’t near the door, as in many houses, but in a recessed box a yard away. He lifted the box’s plastic panel, found the correct button, and pressed it. He looked up at the bright crystal chandelier, at the fourteen-foot ceiling and the large paintings that had greeted him upon his return home every day of his life. He looked down and saw the gray marble floors, still polished as they’d been before his mother and father had taken him and Ellen-Marie to Camp Kateri for the New Year’s holiday. The house appeared to be the same as it had always been, and yet everything had changed. At the rough sound of a zipper, he turned toward the detective.

  Who’d somehow put on black leather gloves and was withdrawing from the duffel bag a coil of thick rope.

  His eyes met Ben’s.

  And Ben took off, running across the marble floor in the direction of the grand staircase that wound upward to the second level. He held his breath and leaned forward, going as fast as he could, his legs charging and his arms swinging wildly. His back tingled with the fear and expectation that Vidas would strike him there, although at first he heard no footsteps behind him. In a few seconds he made it to the foot of the wooden staircase, leaped up to the second stair, and began climbing two steps at each stride, faster and faster. The steps were wide and high, but he kept going, two at a time, trying to go faster, but the climb became more difficult the higher he got.

  Now he heard footsteps behind him. The rustling of clothing. The heavy breath of a man rushing after him.

  At the turn of the staircase, he suddenly lost his footing. He felt something clamp around his right ankle and pull at him. Setting both hands on the wooden tread, he tried to kick his right foot loose, but then his left foot was clamped at the same time. And slowly, slowly, he was yanked downward, one step, two steps. The edge of the stairs digging into his stomach. With both feet he kicked but he couldn’t break free. He tried to crawl up to the next step, clawing with his hands. But he couldn’t escape. He was stuck. He looked over the staircase’s railing to the gray marble floor below him. It was a long way down, but maybe he could break loose, climb over the railing, and jump. Maybe he wouldn’t die if he jumped. Maybe he could jump and land, and then run or crawl out the front door. Just maybe. Because there wasn’t any other way out of the town house, except for the doors from the kitchen downstairs to the small garden behind the house. There was no other way out.

  He heard rapid movement behind him. He turned and looked back over his shoulder.

  He screamed, as loud as he could. He began to cry.

  The detective was lifting a knife over him.

  And then he felt a sharpness drive into his right leg, into the side of his thigh. The sharpness was cold and hard. The pain was so great that he felt himself choking. His body tensed and he couldn’t breathe. He felt himself falling down the stairs, one by one, each time screaming, and falling onto the marble floor. The world fell with him and his mind went black.

  Chapter One Hundred

  Buddy was snarled up in rush hour traffic. Fading light, cold weather, slippery pavement, and cars and taxis and buses slowed to a steel-and-glass centipede that seemed to move no faster than that creature. As he’d rushed from the Polish Institute for Holocaust Studies in the Bronx down the Henry Hudson Parkway, he’d run the siren and the light bar. At least then he’d moved, and pretty quickly until he reached the spaghetti junction near West One Hundredth Street. He’d been tied up there, no matter how much he honked and how loud the siren. There just wasn’t anywhere for anyone to move in order to get out of his way. He’d cursed and begun sweating.

  He banged on the steering wheel, all the while counting the minutes Ben had been with his partner. He guessed he had very little time to save the boy. He feared he might already be too late. But maybe not. Maybe he had a chance.

  As he drove, he considered calling it in. Having another cop check out Ben’s family town house. But what did that cop know about the situation? Anyone else would defer to Vidas. Would be sweet-talked and then killed. And so would Ben. No, this was something he had to do himself.

  He feverishly envisioned what he’d do when he pulled up to the town house on Seventy-Fourth. How he’d burst through the door and what he’d do when he was inside. He’d never been there, but tonight, as he eventually turned east on West Seventy-Ninth Street and made his way to the Seventy-Ninth Street Transverse, he wished he’d taken the time to visit the town house and understand its layout.

  If Ben were even there. If Vidas hadn’t taken him to an abandoned building or under a bridge by the Hudson. Because if Ben weren’t at the town house, Buddy knew there was no hope. He had to be there, Buddy told himself. Just had to be. Otherwise . . .

  But he couldn’t let himself think about otherwise. He had to remain focused, relentless.

  Now he was moving. He crossed Central Park. He turned right and barreled down Fifth Avenue, the park to his right, the stately residential buildings a blur to his left. But he wasn’t looking at the buildings, he was swerving around cars. He reached to the dash and hit two buttons. He knew the light bar had switched off. The siren stopped abruptly. Except for the sound of the engine as he accelerated through openings in traffic, everything outside of him was quiet. But his heartbeat sounded in his ears like a drum.

  Seventy-Eighth Street.

  Seventy-Seventh Street.

  Closer.

  A city bus pulled out in front of him.

  Shit!

  He didn’t honk. It wouldn’t help.

  The bus moved forward, turning in a wide arc into Fifth Avenue. But the driver hadn’t gauged the turn correctly. The bus stopped. The white reverse lights came on.

  “You’re kidding me!” Buddy shouted.

  He pulled left and did a one-eighty. The right front tire hit the curb and the car bounced roughly as he brought it back onto the pavement. He headed north, against the one-way traffic, stomping on the accelerator, making a screeching turn east on Seventy-Seventh. But Seventy-Seventh was one-way going west.

  Immediately the westbound cars were honking at Buddy.

  He ignored them, weaving l
eft and right, driving on the north sidewalk. He took out the pedestrian canopy of one building, his front bumper tearing its poles out of the sidewalk. He didn’t look at it in the rearview mirror. Focused on what was coming at him. He didn’t slow, only went faster. Didn’t slow much at Madison. Executed a right turn, wheels squealing, and headed south on Madison.

  But Madison was a busier street, and it ran one-way northbound.

  Here the cars, buses, and trucks came at him at thirty miles per hour. He was going fifty.

  They didn’t honk. There wasn’t time.

  Some of them angled off to the east or west side of Madison.

  He bore down in the middle of the street, straddling two lanes, flooring the gas the entire way. The Charger’s big engine thrust the car south, the steering got looser, the buildings on either side whished past. One block. Two. Three.

  His eyes were on the intersection of Madison and Seventy-Fourth.

  He took a wide turn and headed west on Seventy-Fourth.

  A third time it was one-way and he was driving straight into traffic.

  But except for two black Mercedes sedans and three trucks making deliveries, the street was clear.

  He shoved his foot into the accelerator and held on.

  Passed one truck.

  One car.

  Second truck.

  Third truck.

  Second car.

  His phone rang, but it was in the breast pocket of his suit coat. He couldn’t answer and drive. And it didn’t matter who called or what they said. He was committed. More committed than he’d ever been in his life. And he’d be more lethal. He wouldn’t hesitate if he had to choose between Ben and anyone else. He’d choose Ben over his partner. He’d choose Ben over himself.

  He spotted it. His partner’s car parked in front of the town house. He parked nose-to-nose, jumped out of the car, and then all his plans vanished as he ran headlong toward the wide black door.

  He didn’t attempt to hide himself or to be quiet. He passed an older couple that glanced at him with surprise and fear.

  He leaped to the fourth step and the door, stopping long enough to grasp the stainless steel handle. He pressed down and it moved. He pushed on the door and it opened.

  A break at last.

  A mistake by his opponent who’d remained camouflaged for so long.

  For too long.

  Buddy pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster. Gripping it firmly, he crouched down, raised the gun, and stepped silently through the door.

  Chapter One Hundred One

  Ben awoke. He was on his back, staring at the ceiling. But he wasn’t on the staircase. He didn’t know where he was, at first. Softness beneath him. He figured his head was on a pillow. He was in a bed. He looked around and recognized the black lamp with the brilliant halogen bulb on a desk in the corner of the room. His desk. And he was in his room. Yet he couldn’t move. He tried to raise his arms, but they were pinned under something. He thrashed around but his right leg suddenly hurt so badly he cried out. It was as if someone were pounding a spike into his thigh until it split apart.

  In the torment he writhed uncontrollably and wept and remembered—the drive here, the way he’d fled up the staircase, his capture, and the knife raised and plunged. He remembered the rope and understood why he couldn’t move. Why he couldn’t escape. And he knew he’d die here, in his own bed, in his family’s house. Just as his mother and father and sister had died at their house upstate. Just as his aunt and uncle and cousins had died in their house not far from here. There was nothing he could do except cry and hope and wish for a miracle or at least for the agony to end.

  “Shut up, would you?”

  The voice was from behind him, and he recognized it. He cringed, expecting a blow to fall. Or another cut of the knife, but this one to his throat or his chest. He felt himself tense, but then he thought to calm himself. To consider what he could do. Searching his memory, he hit upon Buddy’s advice the night Buddy had taken him home to meet Mei, the night he’d begun to feel safe and protected. He and Buddy had carried the antique medicine cabinet in Mei’s foyer over to block the elevator door. Buddy had knelt down and told him what to do if he were ever again in danger. Ben couldn’t recall . . . yes, I can. Buddy had told him that if he could run away, he should. If he couldn’t run, he should hide. And if he couldn’t hide, there was one other way to fight. But it would only work if the danger were close to him, so close to him it would take the person by surprise. He considered his options and decided he had only one.

  So he began to talk. Very quietly. About the paintings and the little he remembered about them. He didn’t know why the detective cared, but the reason didn’t matter now. He described the painting hanging in the stairwell where he’d fallen, the portrait of the knight with the suit of silver armor, the black beard and flowing black hair, the red sash, the battle scene in the distance. He spoke about the painting, even about its frame.

  The voice behind him didn’t tell him to shut up. Instead he saw the figure move around to his side where he could see it. Vidas had removed his winter parka and now wore a black shirt, black pants, and black gloves. Ben saw the pale, angular face, the angry eyes.

  “What are you saying?” Vidas asked.

  Ben kept babbling, most of his words nonsense but not all of them. He stared at Vidas but didn’t address him or cease his description of the painting and what it meant.

  “Yes,” Vidas interrupted, nodding. “The Goya over the staircase. It was bought by my great-great-grandfather in the 1890s. He was a grain merchant and then a banker. German through and through but also Jewish. Your family swindled my family out of it. You paid almost nothing. So it’s my family’s—mine, not yours. Your family stole that painting and four others, and mine got a one-way ticket east. My family worked as slaves. They got typhus and dysentery, and nearly froze and starved. Then they were gassed. Yeah, you have it easy, Ben. Your family got Camp Kateri and mine got a camp called Auschwitz. How’s that for a bargain?”

  Ben didn’t recognize the word, Auschwitz, or know what it meant. Yet he understood some fundamental unfairness must have occurred in the past that had damaged or ruined the detective’s family. He also believed that what had happened wasn’t his fault and that he shouldn’t have to answer for it. He should live and so should Detective Vidas, but he knew both of them would die and everything would end.

  Once again he began speaking of the painting of the knight with the silver armor and the red sash. But then he stopped. He waited to see if the detective had noticed what he’d noticed, but the detective only turned aside and pulled the gloves more tightly onto his large hands.

  Ben had lived in the town house all his life. He’d slept in that bed for most of his ten years. He’d learned to hear things in the kitchen when his mother was cooking and in his father’s study when his father was watching a Yankees game after Ben had gone to bed. He’d also learned to sense small changes in the house, the silent movement of air when doors opened and closed. A moment ago he’d sensed just such a small change.

  He knew that someone had entered the house.

  Chapter One Hundred Two

  Buddy stood in the foyer and listened. He heard nothing at first, only the sound of cars on the street outside. Slowly, silently, he closed the wide black door. He listened again, straining to hear something, anything that would tell him Ben’s location. The town house was silent as a tomb, yet Buddy knew he wasn’t alone. Ben and Vidas were somewhere in the vast space with high ceilings and many rooms, the hundreds of millions of dollars of paintings and their ghosts which could never be vanquished.

  Buddy moved across the foyer in combat position, relieved he didn’t have nice leather-soled shoes like his brother’s. They’d have clicked on the marble floors. His cheaper rubber-soled shoes gave him traction on the smooth stone and, more importantly, silence. He held the Glock steady, the pad of his right index finger on the trigger, and slid against the right wall of the foyer. There wa
s an opening. He bobbed his head into it, but found only an empty study.

  His heart pounded. Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Sweat formed on his forehead and his palms.

  He lifted his left forearm and wiped off his face. Brushed one hand and then the other on his pants.

  Then he had the Glock in both hands and began to move urgently, not caring about his own safety.

  Next room. Deeper in the house. On the right a living room, also vacant. Farther, a formal dining room. Next, a great room and kitchen with a large island and bar. Glass doors gave onto a small garden and backyard. There was no one. He felt out of place in such a formal house, but he wouldn’t be here long. He’d either save Ben or he’d take a bullet himself—or maybe both.

  He spun around and retraced his steps, hurrying now, almost running, realizing the house’s silence might be telling him Ben was dead and only his partner lay in wait.

  Back in the foyer he eyed the grand staircase that wound up the left wall to the second level. He charged up the stairs, raising his gun at whatever came at him from the better-positioned higher ground.

  At the turn halfway up the stairs, he saw a dark stain on the cherry wood. He glanced at the large painting to his left and saw it was smeared with blood.

  Ben’s blood.

  The Glock wavered and shook. Buddy felt the adrenaline surging through him. He took a deep breath to calm himself, and then raced up the staircase, three steps at a time, until he reached the top.

  In the near darkness he stopped. Before him was a hallway with a pair of French doors at the end and three doors on either side. All the doors were open. He crouched down, making himself a smaller target, lowering his center of gravity. He waited, expecting to be shot at.

  Yet nothing happened.

  Then something did.

  He heard whispering, very faint, almost inaudible. He couldn’t make out the words. Nor could he tell if the sound came from one of the doors on the right or the left side of the hallway. Yet from the third door on the left came a faint yellow light.