The Winter Family

by Clifford Jackman

  Slowly, Johnson moved his hand down and took up the whiskey.

  Winter smiled a little. His eyes flicked to Jan.

  “Get the sergeant a drink too,” Winter said.

  “I won’t drink with you,” Jan said.

  “Oh, sure you will, Sergeant Müller,” Winter said. “You’ll go along with everyone else, like you always do. Better to have me in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. Ain’t it?”

  Someone pressed a glass into Jan’s hand.

  “I’m tired of all the talk,” Winter said. “I’m going to get down to brass tacks. Any man who sticks with me will never need to watch his back.”

  “To brass tacks, then!” Quentin said. He looked at Jan and smiled apologetically, but his eyes were dancing.

  “Brass tacks,” Charlie said, with satisfaction.

  They all drank. All of them.

  47

  The pain was like a needle behind the bridge of his nose. Noah kept seeing little winkles of light in the corners of his eyes, sparkling like gemstones. One of the terrible headaches he remembered from his childhood was coming on. He hadn’t had one in years. Not since before he had gone to Harvard with Quentin. It was the loss of control that was doing it. He had not felt this powerless even as a child.

  And so, in the tunnel between his hotel and his restaurant, he stopped walking, placed the lantern on the ground, and put his hands to his forehead, pressing his temples.

  “Just stop,” he whispered. “Just stop.”

  Eventually he gathered himself and quickly jogged up the creaking wooden stairs and emerged in the kitchen.

  Inside the dining room the men were scattered around at various tables.

  “Brother,” Quentin said. “You don’t look well.”

  Indeed he did not. Noah was pale green, almost waxen. His suit seemed particularly ill fitting and his hair was standing up in clumps.

  “They’re trying to have me arrested for hiring you,” Noah said.

  “What’s their evidence?” Quentin cried.

  “What do you think, Quentin?” Noah said. “Archibald Patterson’s affidavit.”

  That silenced them, to Noah’s satisfaction. All of them, except for one.

  “Who is this Patterson?” someone wearing an expensive white suit said.

  Noah barely glanced at the speaker.

  “He was the waiter my brother was bribing to take you out on your visits to the brothel.”

  “Is that right?” the man in the suit said. “Well, where’s he at? I’ll take care of him tonight.”

  Noah looked at the newcomer. Had he been a more sensitive man, he would have noticed the tension in the room. “Are you mad?” he said. “He’s already sworn the affidavit. You can’t kill him now.”

  The man in the suit was putting a cigarette into an ivory holder. He was quite a dandy, Noah noticed, with a boutonniere in his lapel.

  “Well, you can’t say that we can’t kill him,” the man said. “Because we could. We could do it tonight. If you don’t want to, that’s all right. It’s your dime. You can swear all the affidavits you like. Up to you.”

  The man lit a match and held it to the cigarette.

  “It would destroy us in the election if we were to do such a thing,” Noah said.

  “The election?” the man said.

  There was something about him, Noah thought. What was it about him?

  The man exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked Noah straight in the eye.

  “The election can go whichever way you like,” the man said. “Ain’t no reason to leave nothing to chance.”

  Cat’s eyes. The man had the eyes of a cat.

  Oh god, Noah thought distantly.

  “You’re acting like there’s some kind of rules after you broke the rules,” Winter said. “Well, there ain’t. They broke the rules and now you’re breaking ’em too. You best stop holding on to them rules. You’ve gotta let them go now. The one who leaves ’em farther behind will take the prize.”

  No, Noah thought. No, Quentin, no, this can’t be happening.

  Here was the terrible thing: the shuttered light of madness was in Winter’s eyes, and the deep hollow sound of a bottomless well was in his voice. But in that moment, Noah could not find the fault in Winter’s reasoning.

  Noah had confronted so many: millionaires, shopkeepers, farmers, commodity traders, unions. To all of them he had been an enfant terrible, a heretic, an antinomianist, a revolutionary. And Noah had seen himself the same way. He had always believed himself concerned with the immutable laws of economics instead of the arbitrary and changeable customs of men.

  And now he was perfectly conscious that Winter’s words were inspiring in him the feelings that he, Noah, had always inspired in others: That what he had believed to be the iron laws of the universe were merely his own prejudices, a tottering shanty built of questions, a stack of assumptions all the way down. That the marketplace was a deep, dark pool of chaos, and that this man was its true apostle.

  But then he shook himself, blinked, and remembered that Winter was just a murderous lunatic, brought here by his brother.

  “Quentin,” Noah said, his voice low and husky, and he turned back into the kitchen.

  Quentin stood up slowly, everyone’s eyes on him, and followed his brother. If Noah could see his expression he would not have been reassured. It was the way Quentin had looked as a child after he had been caught in some causeless sadistic mischief: irritated at the interruption, unafraid of consequences, and faintly amused by the squeamishness of the rest of the human race.

  48

  They were under the earth in the tunnel leading to the hotel. Noah was carrying an oil lantern in one hand, and as he gestured the light splashed and folded around them, making the shadows slide back and forth along the walls.

  Noah hissed, “What is he doing here? Was I not clear? Was I not crystal clear at every juncture? Every time we spoke?”

  “Brother,” Quentin began.

  “Are you mad? Are you mad? Quentin! For the love of God! You are a grown man now! A grown man!”

  “Brother,” Quentin said, “please.”

  “Why is he here? How could he be here?”

  “Molly Shakespeare told him we were in Chicago,” Quentin said.

  “How did he find you, though?” Noah said.

  “Jan went out to get us food!” Quentin said. “Winter must have seen him.”

  Noah’s face was screwed up with rage. Quentin waited for it to relax, but it didn’t. Instead Noah put the lantern down and sat on his heels and began to massage his temples.

  “Is it one of your headaches?” Quentin asked sympathetically.

  “You are mad,” Noah said.

  “I am not mad,” Quentin replied, and now his voice grew a little angry. “Stop calling me that. Why do you insist on calling me mad? I am not mad.”

  “Oh no?” Noah said. “Then why are you here? Hmm? Why are you here? Why are you here, in a tunnel, underground, wanted for murder, despised by your former employers and benefactors, with only me standing between you and the gallows? And why am I shouting at you? Because you have disappointed me, just as you have disappointed everyone who has ever tried to assist you!”

  Quentin’s expression was blank, as if he were hearing someone speak in a language he could not understand. But eventually a smile crept across his face.

  “The real question, dear brother,” Quentin said, “is if you are so wise, and so rational, then what are you doing down here? With me?”

  Now Noah’s face went blank.

  “You know, Noah, we haven’t had much time to talk,” Quentin said. “How was it, exactly, that you made such an enormous fortune? Trading in wheat? Legal work?”

  “Investing,” Noah said.

  “Investing in what, might I ask?”

  Noah rubbed his eyes, and said, “Are you asking me when you already know?”

  “Just tell me how you made …”

  “I shorted all
the major insurance companies in the city before the Fire.”

  “Shorted them?”

  “You know what that means.”

  Quentin shrugged. “I know it means you make money if the price declines. Why did you short insurance companies, Noah?”

  “Negligent city construction. Corrupt building-code inspection. Insufficient resources in the fire department. There were a number of smaller fires. It was clear there would be a big one.”

  “When did you assume this short position?”

  “In the spring of 1870.”

  “So you maintained that short position for a year and a half?”

  “Yes.”

  “During which the price of the securities you had sold short rose?”

  “Yes.”

  Quentin’s big round eyes locked with Noah’s.

  “Were you afraid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it expensive?”

  “Yes. I had to borrow more and more money to cover my position. I mortgaged everything I had, everything I’d inherited, and more.”

  “Did you ever doubt yourself?”

  “No, never. I knew I just had to last long enough and the fire would come.”

  “And in the summer of 1871, when there were droughts and dry winds, and the wells ran dry and the cheap pine houses turned to tinder, could you feel it? Could you feel the fire in the air?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “What did you do then, Noah? What did you do?”

  Noah was trying to look away from his brother but he could not.

  “I shorted everything,” he said.

  “How long could you have lasted?”

  “I would have been bankrupt by Christmas. I would have lost everything.”

  Quentin nodded.

  “Well then, Brother. My last question is this. When the fire started. When the wind picked up so huge balls of flame hurled across the sky like thunderbolts cast by an angry god. When the sparks and cinders fell like snow. When the fire raced through the slums like a hungry animal so fast men could scarcely outrun it. When even the river began to burn. When all of the complicated machinery of capitalism, the shopping district, the reaper works, the grain elevators, the lumberyard, when all of them yielded to the beast. When you witnessed all of this devastation. And when you knew that it had made you the richest man in Chicago. What did you feel?”

  Noah finally turned away.

  “What did you feel when you saw the city, this shrine to the power of free enterprise, burn?”

  “I felt vindicated.”

  “You were happy.”

  “I wasn’t happy. No.”

  “You were happy,” Quentin said. “You’ve embraced chaos. But it is a peculiar kind of chaos that depends upon a number of assumptions, including that men, and the world, are rational. Those assumptions are flawed. Don’t you see how little difference there is between you and me? You only need to take one more step.”

  “Quentin,” Noah said. “What does this have to do with Augustus Winter being in my restaurant?”

  “Don’t you know what the poet said?” Quentin cried. “William Blake? Reason is only the outward bound of what we know, and it shall not be the same when we know more. Noah! You think the universe is just a dull mill with complicated wheels. But it is infinite, and the infinite is in all things. I have seen things beyond what you could ever know, Brother.”

  “You are a criminal, Quentin,” Noah said. “The men you consort with are sadistic lunatics. The only reason you are a free man is because of me.”

  “But …,” Quentin began.

  “No, Quentin,” Noah said. “That’s enough. Here is the simple truth. You have already, through your actions, greatly harmed our hopes for this election. Now I find that Augustus Winter is with you. The chance of you and your men receiving pardons for what you have done is almost gone. Tell the other men that and they will send Winter on his way. And from this day forth, you must comport yourself in such a way as to be impervious to reproach. Your work in the election will be extremely delicate. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Brother,” Quentin said. He was beginning to look rather bored. “I understand.”

  “Tell your men they have to act with scrupulous care,” Noah said. “Tell them to imagine that they are continuously being watched. If they do not, I can do nothing for them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, yes,” Quentin said impatiently. “Do you think I am stupid, Brother? I know! I know!”

  Noah shook his head.

  “You must arrive at city hall a few hours before dawn tomorrow. You’ll receive your instructions there. It will be a rough day, Quentin. Please, just this once. Do as I say. When you’re a free man I’ll never trouble you again.”

  “Of course, Brother,” Quentin said, but he seemed not to be paying attention. “Of course.”

  49

  When Quentin reentered the restaurant, Jan was the first to speak. The anxiety in his voice was painful to hear.

  “What happened?” Jan said. “What did he say?”

  “Well,” Quentin said, “he was surprised to see Mister Winter of course. Augustus, I’m sorry to say, there will be no pardon for you.”

  Everyone looked at Winter, but he only shrugged.

  “I told him that I didn’t bring Winter here and he seemed to believe me,” Quentin said. “Otherwise, he came to reassure us that everything is going well. The deal still stands firm. At the election tomorrow we must do everything in our power to ensure victory.”

  “We’ve had promises before,” Charlie said. “How do we know he’ll come through?”

  “This is my brother, remember,” Quentin said.

  “I don’t care who he is,” Charlie said. “If he’s fucking lying to us like all the rest, he’s going to pay.”

  “Now now, Charlie,” Quentin said. “No need for talk like that.”

  “Did he say anything about what we’re supposed to do?” Dusty asked.

  “Well, we’re to meet at city hall tomorrow morning,” Quentin said. “We’re to stop repeat voters, protect Republicans, make sure that the populace can vote freely at the polls. We’re also to keep an eye out for fraud and protect election officials.”

  And now Quentin hesitated, for the briefest moment. Most of the men assembled did not notice it. Jan certainly would not have if he had not, at some level, known that it would be there.

  “He also made it perfectly clear,” Quentin said, “that we are to do whatever it takes to ensure this election is free and fair. ‘Whatever it takes, Quentin.’ Those were his words to me. We must be willing to go as far, if not farther, than the other side, if we are to prevail.”

  “Hell,” Charlie said, “that ain’t a problem. He’s just got to come through for us at the end.”

  “Oh,” Quentin said. “He will. Don’t worry. He will.”

  Suddenly Jan could not bear to look at them. All these fugitives, with nowhere to run, with Quentin Ross their only hope of redemption, and with something wrong, deeply wrong, hanging in the air.

  Bill’s eyes: so tired. You know there is never going to be a pardon, Bill had said.

  “Sit back down, Charlie,” Johnny said. “I’m dealing you in.”

  “Hey,” Lukas shrilled. “Where’s my hand?”

  Charlie straddled his chair and drank bourbon from the bottle. He said something and Johnny laughed and Lukas shrieked in protest. Dusty returned to the kitchen. Quentin was smiling benevolently, although no one was paying attention to him any longer.

  Jan found himself turning to Winter, almost against his will. Their eyes met. Jan stood up and walked over. The others stopped and looked at them. But Jan simply sat down across from Winter without saying anything, and everyone returned to what they were doing.

  “What good’s it do to worry, Sergeant?” Winter said. “Either do something or quit worrying.”

  “If I don’t get my pardon,” Jan said, “I will have nothing to live for.”
r />   “If you say so,” Winter said. “What you live for is up to you.”

  “I’m not threatening you, but …”

  “Sure you are,” Winter said. “But you heard the lieutenant. Gloves are off tomorrow. If you disagree, you’d better talk to him. He’s running the show.”

  Jan looked at Quentin, who was hovering over the card game, smiling, not saying anything. Could he contact Noah directly? But they were only here because Quentin was Noah’s brother. If Noah lost confidence in Quentin, he would cut ties. Without Quentin, there would be no pardon.

  “You think there’s such a big difference between you and me,” Winter said. “But there’s no difference that matters. No difference at all.”

  50

  As always, Burns was up early on Election Day. He rose before the sun and kissed his sleeping wife, descended the stairs, and went out into the empty streets. But not quite empty. Already gangs of men were hurrying back and forth, carrying boxes and bundles of papers, riding horses. You could feel the battle coming in the air.

  In his youth he had been one of those young men, rushing from one crisis to the next, wielding an iron pipe or short jagged knife. Now that he was the boss he had to stay in one place so men could come to him for directions. But in the early morning, that blackest time that still did not feel like night, he was free to prowl around a little.

  His first stop was the church, a tall stone building composed of hard dark angles. The side door was locked but Burns had a key. Inside he dipped his fingers in the font and made the sign of the cross before making his way to a pew. There he knelt facing the altar and pressed his face into the polished wood and whispered a few words, for support, for guidance.

  “You’re here early, my son,” the priest said.

  Burns’s head jerked up. He had been so focused he had not heard the priest approach.

  “Sorry, Father,” Burns said.

  “Come to ask for the Lord’s assistance today?” the priest said. “I wouldn’t have thought that would be necessary. The Lord helps those who help themselves, after all.”