Don't Look Twice

by Andrew Gross

  “What is it you’re going to do, Ty?” He looked back unrepentantly. “You going to take me in because I happen to have a few influential friends?”

  Hauck threw a punch to the side of Warren’s face. His head rocked back and Hauck hit him again, his knuckles finding bone, splitting open Warren’s cheek. Papers and affadavits flying off the desk. The phone clanged to the floor.

  “I’m your goddamn brother, Warren! Don’t you understand that? That man was my friend. I told him to meet me there. I called him from the street. I set off that bomb. What happened there was meant for me. Me, Warren…Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

  “I told you to get out,” Warren said, glaring back.

  Hauck threw him with everything he had against the wall. Warren fell. Framed mementos and diplomas crashed to the floor.

  “I told you to take the job!” Warren glared back at him. “I tried to warn you, Ty. I know these people. Why didn’t you just listen to me? I told you to take the fucking job!”

  Hauck lunged again and lifted him against the wall. He punched him again, this time in the hollow of the stomach. Warren let out a gasp, bent over.

  “I’m bringing you in,” Hauck said, pulling him back up. “Your life is fucking done, Warren. You’re going to tell us. One way or another, it’s coming out. What was going on?”

  “Ty, please…” His brother’s eyes stiffened between denial and tears. “Can’t you see. Can’t you fucking see? I tried to warn you. I know these people. I know what they’re capable of. I know who you’re pushing up against, Ty.”

  Hauck grabbed him by the face and reared back his fist again. He held—fingers clenched, twitching, eyes welling with burning tears. Of rage. “Who, Warren, who…? Who am I pushing against?”

  “Ty, I can’t.” Warren helplessly shook his head.

  Hauck raised back to punch him one more time. Warren didn’t make a move to resist. Hauck just stood there, the tide of anger and grief and powerlessness heating to a boil. He wanted to smash his brother’s face. His breaths churned like turbines. Then finally he just dropped his fist and shouted, “God damn it!” Let Warren sink to the floor.

  Hauck looked down at his brother, seeing him in a different way than he had ever seen him before. Not the strong, familiar lines of his father, the seductive charm, the chummy brown eyes. Something different. Something weak and unfastened and way over his head.

  Scared.

  For the first time in his life Hauck felt stronger than him. His legs grew heavy and limp. He sank to the floor himself, across from him. “God damn you, Warren.”

  “I never meant to hurt you, Ty. You have to believe that. I’m so sorry. I truly am. I wish I could undo what’s gone on. But I can’t. I tried to protect you.”

  Hauck sat there looking across at his brother. A welt had come out on his eye. “What the hell’s happened, Warren?”

  Warren closed his eyes and rested his head on his hand. “I don’t know.”

  Suddenly the trill of a cell phone rang. A Bach melody—“A Lover’s Concerto.” Warren’s.

  Both sets of their eyes went to it. It was on the floor near Hauck’s feet. When he had pulled Warren over the desk it must’ve fallen out.

  He didn’t know what made him look.

  Maybe the glimpse of fear in Warren’s face, eyes darting toward it. Maybe just the frustration of everything else. Not knowing if he was judging his brother unfairly. If he had gone insane.

  Whatever it was, Hauck reached, and as he was about to kick it across the floor, his eyes locked on the caller ID.

  “Oh, Jesus, Warren…”

  A sinking sensation fell in Hauck’s gut. His gaze froze directly on his brother. Suddenly, Hauck’s mind raced back to images of when they were kids: sharing the same room, brushing their teeth in their pajamas, trading secrets in their bunk beds before they fell asleep. A perfect spiral Hauck had once flung that landed in his brother’s arms. Warren, dancing a celebratory jig, spiking the ball on the street. Oh yeah! Oh yeah!

  That all seemed so distant now.

  The name on the caller ID was Tom Foley.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  The phone continued to ring.

  Hauck just sat there staring at Warren.

  His brother just shook his head. “I told you to take the job. I tried to get you away from it, Ty. God damn it! I did everything I could.” His gaze was hollow and, maybe for the first time in his whole life, completely guileless. Sincere. “I tried to warn you. Everyone tried to warn you, Ty. Why couldn’t you just take the fucking job?”

  “What have you gotten yourself into, Warren?”

  His brother slammed his fist against the floor. “You stubborn, stupid, pigheaded shit!”

  The ringing stopped. Hauck just continued to look at him. The anger was now gone. His gaze grew glassy with tears.

  “I’m your brother.” Hauck shook his head. “What the hell have you become?”

  “What have I become?” Warren rubbed his swollen lip and glared at him. “I am what I’ve always been, Ty. You think I’m so different from every other fucking guy in this world. Just ’cause it doesn’t fit into your neat little view of the world.

  “You know what I wanted. I wanted to be in that room with the big boys. In the same boardrooms, in their clubs. You think we’re a part of that world, coming where we came from? So I did what I always wanted, Ty. I found my way in the room. My way. I rubbed my hands a little bit in the dirt.”

  “In the dirt? You got filth all over you, Warren. I’m your brother.”

  “And I tried to protect you, goddamn it! I did! Just like at the lake. Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of monster. So what are you going to do, arrest me?” He put out his wrists. “You going to arrest me for that, Ty?”

  “You think you won’t be next?” Hauck looked at him. “You think they won’t kill you just like they killed Pacello? Just like they tried to do to me? You think I can just let you walk out of here? That things are going to somehow find their way back to normal?”

  “No…” Warren sank his head back against the wall and shook it from side to side. “I know things will never go back to normal, Ty. You just have to believe me. Foley, that job, all I was trying to do was just protect you. To give you a way out. I wish I could turn back the clock. I wish I could’ve been a better brother. I wish I could’ve been a better husband to Ginny, a dad to my kids. I wish I could be a lot of things, Ty…

  “But I am who I am. There’s no big white line you cross, Ty. I’ve always been the same person who you came upon when you opened that door in the basement room. I do favors for people. I smooth things out. I get things done. And sometimes, these things…” He shrugged sullenly. “Sometimes they just get larger, Ty. That’s all. All I tried to do was get you out.”

  “They’re gonna kill you, Warren. Casey, Raines…Your friends. For whatever they’re hiding. Just like Pacello. They’re gonna tie you to all their dirty work and not let you walk away.”

  “You know me, guy. I always find a way…”

  “Not anymore,” Hauck said. “And there’s Ginny. Kyle and Sarah.”

  “You just don’t understand, Ty…” Warren stared at him. “There’s no way I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail.”

  Hauck shook his head. “You think I can just walk out of here now, Warren? And things are just going to pick up where they left off?”

  “So what are you going to do? Slap the cuffs on me? Take me in? On what grounds? Because I have ties to some influential friends? Because Tom Foley is on my speed dial? None of it ties me to shit. I’m a lawyer, Ty, remember? Go ahead, tell me the charge.”

  Hauck knew there was no charge. “They’ll kill you too, Warren.”

  “Go on, get out of here,” Warren said, “leave me alone…” His eyes regained a measure of composure. “I wasn’t lying, you know…when I said those things at your house. I did try to protect you. I want you to believe me on that. I just couldn’t get it done. You�
��re a good man, Ty. Just let me be who I am. Just know, nothing was ever supposed to happen to you. That was always a part of the deal. That was the basis for everything. I swear.”

  “What’s this all about, Warren?”

  “What is it ever about?” He sniffed. “It’s all about power, Ty.”

  Politics. Casey. “Everything’s always about power, Warren.”

  “No.” His brother smiled. “Not that kind of power…” There was a look in his eye, both fraternal and resigned. “Read the papers. It’s everywhere. It’s right in front of you. Now get out. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have dragged you into this, Ty. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “If I leave here, I can’t help you, Warren.”

  Warren smiled at him. “Since when have you ever been able to help me, Ty?”

  Hauck got up. His brother wiped the blood and mucus off his face. Hauck left him leaning against the wall.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  Warren remained there, blood on his shirt, his eye throbbing, long after Ty had left. He knew he had made a mess of everything. A mess of whatever hope had once guided the arc of his life. He had crossed the lines of every oath he had ever taken. As a lawyer. As a husband.

  A dad.

  Over the years, that line had blurred so many times he no longer recognized it.

  He had an urge to just fly. He had to figure a way out, and up there, the world always seemed clearer to him. He knew Ty wouldn’t let up. He needed a way out. To get Ginny and the kids clear. And not to end up in the Witness Protection Program somewhere. He doubted if his family would even go along with him.

  Yeah, that needs a whole lot of work too.

  Okay, think…You’ve always landed on your feet. You hit a drive into the woods, you find the angle to the green. You fly without instruments, you find the path through the clouds.

  So where’s the path now?

  Ty was right. He suddenly realized he was the weak link now. He was the exposure. Even though Casey’s man had come to him first and explained in the vaguest way how he needed something done.

  All those deals, Warren. The fancy house, the clubs…It’s payback time now. The senator needs a little favor in return, Wachman had said.

  At first it horrified him. What they were asking. He laughed. He thought it was a joke.

  A fucking federal attorney…

  But no, it wasn’t a joke. It was serious. Serious as cancer. You set it up, Warren. You find someone to do the job. Just this once, he said. He thought where he could go. He didn’t know those types of people. Then he got the idea. First, he broached it to Turner, on the casino’s board, who was deeper into Casey than he.

  That led to Raines.

  It was just one time, he kept telling himself. One more little line to cross. Then it would be over. Ty was never supposed to be involved. That had just been a freak. He had told Raines to take care of it. The fewer details the better.

  How did he know they would choose to do it right in the middle of his brother’s goddamn town?

  His eyes filled up with hot, shameful tears. Where, Warren, where is the angle through the clouds?

  Where are the lines now?

  Warren heard a noise. From outside, the front door opening. He figured it was Ty again. He couldn’t just leave him like that! What would he say to him now? How could he explain? How could he make things right?

  Warren mashed the tears against his cheeks. “You back?”

  “Yeah, Warren, we’re back.”

  Two people stared at him in the doorway. One had a long scar running down the side of his face. The other, in a baggy sweatshirt and Mets cap, pointed a gun.

  “Jesus, hombre,” the guy said, shaking his head. “You don’t fuckin’ look so good, Mr. Hauck!”

  Warren was surprised. He always thought if this would come he would be taken with fear.

  And now he didn’t feel any. In fact, he felt lighter. Free, finally.

  Almost like he was flying.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  Hauck drove out of town, heading back toward I-84 and Greenwich.

  He had no idea what to do. He knew his brother was deeply involved. That was clear. Warren knew where the pieces led. But what could Hauck do? Arrest him? Throw him in a cell? Hand his own brother over to the FBI? With what? Warren was right, Vern would laugh in his face.

  He had nothing on him.

  Seeing Foley’s name on that phone tore a hole in Hauck’s heart. He thought of the slick, polished manner in which the executive had made his offer to him. His familiarity with Hauck’s cases and personal history. Dropping in how his old boss at the NYPD had recommended him.

  You’ve been on our radar for a while, Ty…

  All the way up here, since finding Warren’s name on those Pequot Woods documents, Hauck prayed it was all just some big coincidence. Something he was reaching for in the vacuum of no other answers.

  Now he knew. Warren had set it up.

  Set him up.

  Now he had to figure out what his brother knew.

  It all came back to Raines. He could arrest him. Put him and Warren in a room. Let the chips fall where they may.

  Hauck flicked on the radio. Desperate to clear his thoughts. The news. There had been an avalanche somewhere in the Rockies. Two off-trail skiers killed. Another suicide bomber had blown up a market outside of Baghdad.

  But his mind wouldn’t clear.

  Instead, he was brought back to how the road growing up had made them so entirely different. The reckless, self-destructive choices Warren had made.

  The sight of leaving him there. Broken. In tears. Why couldn’t you just take the lucking job? Ty…

  His entire life had always been on a collision course with ruin.

  It’s all about power, Ty…

  Hauck was about to switch stations when another story came on.

  “In local news, Richard Scayne, the Greenwich industrialist accused of making improper payments to secure no-bid contracts for Iraq, is set to go on trial in federal court in Hartford in February. Scayne’s power generator unit, SRC, has been implicated in payments to Republican figures to obtain a two-billion-dollar contract for Nova 91 power generators in Iraq. The September suicide of Lieutenant Colonel Mark Shafton, a member of the U.S. Army’s General Purchasing Office, has been linked to the scandal. Scayne, in deteriorating health, has maintained he cannot stand up to the rigors of a protracted trial…”

  Hauck went to turn it off when a thought suddenly wormed into his mind.

  Power, Warren had said. Not that kind of power, Ty…

  Generators.

  He almost swerved off the road.

  Scayne. Richard Scayne was going on trial for illicit payoffs related to his generator unit.

  Nova 91s.

  Hauck’s head throbbed.

  Scayne and Casey were tied at the hip. Scayne had an interest in the Pequot Woods. Casey was on the board there as well.

  Hauck’s pulse began to race with the beat of something he did not fully understand but was slowly fitting together.

  Generators.

  Warren had done work for each of them. Scayne’s trial was set to proceed out of the federal offices in Hartford. Where Sanger had worked out of. Hauck had never fully followed that through. Why would he? Josephina Ruiz had diverted his attention. Then the trail to the casino. The motives all seemed so clear at first.

  Look twice.

  Scayne had made payments to Republican coffers to gain a two-billion-dollar contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority. Everything was for sale over there. The purchasing officer in the Pentagon had taken his own life. All connected to Scayne’s case. He was doing whatever he could not to go to trial. Hauck’s brain ached—who would handle such a thing for him? And Casey? Someone who owed them. For licenses granted, maybe. Favorable tax arrangements. Someone who could handle that sort of thing.

  The Pequot Woods.

  You have no idea what kind of forces are at work here.
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  The casino owed them. Raines was just the guy who was paying them back.

  And who would someone like Scayne have come to? So as not to get his own hands dirty? Someone to act as the intermediary. Someone who owed him. The person to put it all together.

  You don’t know how many ways I’ve sold myself, Ty…

  The entrance to the highway was just ahead.

  Hauck stopped at a light, his whole body pulsating.

  He spun the Explorer around.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  He threw a top hat on the roof of the Explorer and sped back to Warren’s office.

  Weaving through traffic, Hauck suddenly felt something different toward him—no longer the swell of anger or disgust, but pity. Pity at how his brother’s own misdirected actions had overtaken him. He’d lost his footing, his family. The shame on his face was clear.

  Still, Hauck couldn’t help but think about how he had known this person every day of his life.

  Honking his way through the lights, Hauck made it back into the center of town, cut the sharp right onto High Street. Warren’s Range Rover was still in the lot. He was about to pull up behind it when his eyes fixed on the black Jeep parked on the street.

  It sent a jolt of caution running through him.

  Not just because of the darkened windows and jacked-up wheelbase, or that it hadn’t been there minutes before.

  It was what he saw on the rear bumper—the cross of red and dark blue. He had seen it before.

  On the rust-colored Jetta Annie had spotted next to her Dumpster.

  Dominican colors. DR-17.

  God damn you, Warren, I told you they wouldn’t let you walk away…

  Hauck drove past Warren’s office. He pulled up down the street, in front of a sleepy colonial, two houses away. He reached inside the glove compartment and took out his gun. The ammo clip on the Sig was full. He jammed it back in. No time to call for backup.