The Family Hightower

by Brian Francis Slattery

  It doesn’t happen to all of them, though, Peter knows, and he hasn’t let it happen to him. He hasn’t been able to afford it, because of who he’s become. The Tremont boy, the mobster, the baron, all at once. Everyone who goes from poor to rich and doesn’t let it go to their head has to become at least two people, because it’s a motherfucker, becoming the thing your parents used to mock. People like to see a man rise and fall and rise again; nobody wants to hear from a guy who rose and stayed there. Peter doesn’t even want to hear it, because the Tremont boy and the mobster won’t tolerate it. His father won’t tolerate it. Sure, Peter was clever. He played his hand well. But there was luck in there, too, luck and timing, that he was born when he was, tried his stunt when he did. The world cooperated, he knows that, but he can’t say it out loud, because it sounds too much like false modesty. The truth is that he can’t say very much at all anymore. The words twist and turn in his brain before he says them, until yes means you owe me, and no means you just haven’t offered enough yet, and I love you means I will bleed you dry. There’s still such a thing as yes and no and love like he used to understand them, but he doesn’t know where they are, hasn’t known for years. And now his luck has run out. The world isn’t cooperating anymore. The arrow that used to point up and out has bent back on itself, made a closed loop. Two of the three people that make up the man called Peter Henry Hightower are trapped inside, and they’re fighting each other to the death. And there’s Petro Garko, back on Whiskey Island with his brother Stefan, first so full of ambition—we’re going to make some real money off those bottles, boy—and then terrified when those ambitions are thwarted, and the men on the island are coming to get them. We have to get out. We have to get away. They talked about it years later, once, Stefan and him. Stefan started laughing halfway through the retelling. We were crazy, weren’t we? he said. What the hell made us do that? Peter couldn’t laugh. He knew all too well what compelled them. Still does.

  Pa was a sucker. He remembers himself saying that, way back in 1921. If he’d had any ambition at all. Then they could have left Tremont, and Mykhaylo wouldn’t have been in the way of that train. It all seemed so obvious to Peter then; he was so fucking full of himself. He thought of his ambition as an engine, purring and powerful, running on his desires, for what he thought were better places, better things. But now he understands that it’s an animal, and it’s taken him places, all right. But it’s hungry, and it’s been feasting on him for years. If he waits too much longer, there won’t be anything of him left. Then what was it all for? he thinks, and it goes off like a bomb in his head. He realizes he’s been avoiding that question for almost three decades, but here it is, now, running him down, and he doesn’t have an answer.

  And there on the shore of the lake, Peter Henry Hightower comes to his own big realization: He wants out, out of the whole thing. The graft, the rackets, the swindles, the deals. All those hustles. The crimes and the transactions. The illegal and the legal. He wants to be done with all of it. There’s a way out, he thinks to himself. It took years to put together, to make it grow, but it shouldn’t take more than a few months to leave it all behind. Building a tower, that takes time. But walking out of it only takes a minute. It’s just a matter of selling things, selling things off, being willing to take some losses. They can still keep the house, still live like they do; he has more than enough for that. His business associates will be shocked, because he’s given them no warning, no indication that he isn’t as hungry as he was when he was twenty. But it won’t take more than a few days for them to get used to the idea, and soon they’ll be picking over what he’s selling, offering to take his business interests off his hands for a reasonable price. Then it’s just a matter of paying people off. I’m out, he’ll say. I’m out of this game. They’d all understand. Everyone except the man he’s about to meet. But he has to start somewhere.

  Joe Rizzi pulls up in his car. It looks new. “Morning,” he says.

  Peter doesn’t move.

  “You got the money, right?”

  “No,” Peter says. He’s lying; it’s in his jacket pocket. But he’s made his decision.

  “Price just went up again, then,” Joe says.

  “Did it?”

  “Sure did.”

  “That’s a shame for you, Joe. Because I’m not planning on giving you any more.”

  “Your friends and neighbors will be very interested to hear about this.”

  “So you say. But I don’t know my neighbors and they don’t know me. And I’m not sure you even know who my friends are.”

  “You willing to bet on that?”

  “I am. You seemed like you knew what you were doing when we met in the Arena. But now I’m not so sure. So I’m calling your bluff and I’m getting out.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Pete.”

  “I’m calling it, Joe. We’re through here. I’m through with all of it.” He turns his back on him, starts walking back to his car.

  “You’re going to regret this,” Joe says.

  Peter keeps walking. Doesn’t look over his shoulder. “What I’m doing right now is the only thing I don’t regret about this,” he says.

  That feeling lasts for about five weeks. Early December 1947 is still warm, warmer than anyone would have expected, even if it’s still late fall. The first Tuesday of the month, Caroline is letting her kids out of the house in hats and jackets, no gloves. It’s after school, and Muriel, Sylvie, and Rufus are playing under the trees in front of the house. Caroline can hear their voices from inside, yelping and laughing, settling an argument. There’s Muriel’s high voice, complaining over some small injustice. Rufus defends himself. Sylvie brokers a deal. More yelps and laughing. Then there’s a long stretch of quiet that Caroline doesn’t think too much about, not until Rufus knocks on the door, fast and loud. Mom, Mom. We need you. We need you, Mom. Caroline feels a chill ripple across her skin—it’s panic, the panic that only a parent can feel, racing toward the ability to do violence—and before she knows what she’s doing, she’s running to the door, pulling the handle, throwing it wide. There’s a stiff breeze and she doesn’t have a jacket on, but she doesn’t feel it. Rufus is standing on the steps in front of her in his brown coat and green cap, hands at his sides. He looks scared. Sylvie’s just a few yards away, down the driveway, her back turned. Caroline can’t see her face, but she can see what her daughter’s looking at. Muriel is standing up straight in the ivy under the bare trees in her bright blue coat. There’s a man in a dark coat standing right behind her, smiling. He’s come in past the wall, the wall that was supposed to keep everyone out. He’s in the garden and he has her daughter, he has Muriel. He has black leather gloves on. His left hand is gripping Muriel’s shoulder. His right hand is covering her throat.

  “Who the hell are you?” Caroline says. The words are sharp with fear, but more with anger—more than Joe’s ready for, and he loses his smile. She’d kill me right now if her daughter wasn’t in the way, he thinks, and he’s surprised at how frightened he is. But Peter hasn’t left him with too many more moves, and he’s not quite bright enough to know what else to do.

  “Mrs. Hightower? I’m a friend of your father’s.”

  “You’re no friend of his. Muriel, say something, sweetie.” She doesn’t know if Joe’s choking her. “Please say something.”

  “Mom, come and get me,” Muriel says. She starts to cry.

  “You’re scaring her,” Caroline says. “Let her go.”

  It’s not a plea; it’s a command. There’s so much threat in her voice. It isn’t how Joe imagined things would go. He pictured them all scared, all crying. But except for the girl in his arms, none of them are. The other two kids aren’t saying a word; they’re not moving. Just looking at him, hard. What is this family? he thinks.

  “I’m not going to hurt her,” he says. “Just tell Peter I came. Remind him about the deal we have.
He’ll know what I mean.”

  “Let her go,” Caroline says.

  “Remind him about the deal,” Joe says. He loosens his hands on Muriel’s shoulder, her throat. “Tell me you’ll do it and I’ll let her go.”

  “I’ll do it,” Caroline says.

  Joe gives Muriel a push, and she falls into the ivy, scrambles up again, runs tripping and falling again into the driveway. Her bright coat’s covered in dirt. Caroline lunges forward and picks Muriel up, crushes her daughter in her arms. Muriel is bawling now, into her shoulder.

  “Don’t ever come back here,” Caroline says.

  Joe is already backing away. “Just remind your husband about our deal, and everything will be fine.”

  They stay outside, all four of the Hightowers, to watch him turn and walk down the driveway. At the very end, before he disappears around the corner of the wall, he gives a little wave with his black glove. As soon as he’s gone, Caroline grabs all her children, come inside, come inside, and that’s when Rufus starts to cry. He’s been holding it all in, being brave, but now that it’s over, he needs to let something out. Inside the house, Jackie is screaming, wondering where everyone went. It takes Caroline a good half hour to calm the three children down, and realizes only then that Sylvie hasn’t shed a tear.

  Caroline calls Peter at work, but can’t reach him. She leaves three messages with his secretary and then gives up. Henry gets home later, just before dinner, and Caroline doesn’t say anything to him. But she can hear the other kids telling him all about it upstairs as soon as the table’s been cleared. Henry’s incredulous—what happened? what?—he keeps saying. Caroline can hear him from the kitchen. He sounds more like his father than ever, she thinks. It’s the rhythm in his voice, the directness. The questions he’s asking moving toward a plan, though he’s too young still to put one together.

  Peter Henry Hightower gets home even later than usual that night. He’s expecting everyone to be asleep, is a little surprised to see Caroline waiting up for him. For a second, his thoughts are amorous, until he gets a better look at the expression on her face. She tells him everything, point-blank. The man standing in the ivy. The hand on their daughter’s throat. How they cried at the end.

  “What are you involved in, Peter?”

  “It’s business as usual.”

  “Nothing like this has ever happened before. Ever.”

  “That’s because he’s stepped outside the lines,” Peter says. “Did you call the police?”

  “No,” Caroline says, and realizes all over again how crazy that is. She didn’t even think about it. She’s gotten so used to this life of hers, even though she’s come to hate it.

  “Good,” Peter says. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “No details,” Peter says, and then uses the line he’s been using for decades. “It’s better that way.”

  “Better for who?” It’s the first time she’s ever asked, but Peter’s ready.

  “Everyone except the man who thought it’d be a good idea to threaten our children,” he says.

  Caroline’s on edge for the next three weeks. She holds her kids tighter when she hugs them, watches them every minute they’re at home, worries about them every minute they’re at school. Her husband isn’t home at all, won’t talk when he shows up. He’s exhausted. She makes Peter take her and the kids to spend Christmas with her own family in Cleveland Heights. It’s cold by then, at last. A little snow in the air, frost on the windows. The Anderson house is decorated as much as a house can be, with branches of holly, strings of lights, a sprig of mistletoe in the kitchen doorway. Peter’s there just long enough to not be considered rude. He and William exchange the pleasantries you see between people who’ve given up on each other, and then Peter’s gone again. Caroline spends the evening with a glass of eggnog in her hand that she doesn’t drink. She’s lost in envy. For her children, who are overcome by the holiday and chasing each other around the house. For the rest of the Andersons, who’ve slipped into good cheer; today, they don’t have a care in the world. She keeps the kids there as late as she can, then calls Peter to pick them up. When they get home, she looks over her shoulder down the driveway, hustles them inside, and not just because it’s cold enough to freeze their breath in their noses. The next day, while Peter is out, she calls Stefan.

  “Merry Christmas, Caroline,” Stefan says.

  “Merry Christmas. I’m sorry we didn’t get to see you yesterday.”

  “That’s all right. We still have plans for New Year’s Eve, yes?”

  “Yes. Though I’m not sure Peter will be able to join us.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Everything’s always all right with Stefan, Caroline thinks. I married the wrong brother. She envies the honesty of his life, his ties to his neighborhood, to his church; he still goes every Sunday and prays for his mother, or to her, because his Christianity is shot through with some of that serious Old World superstition, the one that took the order the merciful God offered and embedded it in a darker, more chaotic universe, where those big concepts of sin and redemption work only inside the village walls, and only at the sufferance of the forces in the ancient woods, who can intercede and disrupt whenever they feel like it. So that, for the people who believe in it, if forbearance doesn’t work, there’s always hostility; if justice fails, there’s always vengeance, and without consequences, if you’re clever enough.

  “Listen, I have a favor to ask you. It’s about the children.”

  “Name it.”

  “Do you think you could take them for a little while?”

  “Of course.”

  “Henry can help you with the younger ones.”

  “I said of course, Caroline. I will be happy to take them.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Of course. But I have to ask if you’re all right, Caroline.”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “You and Peter? You’re all right?”

  “I think we will be.”

  Stefan doesn’t ask whether the problem is between them, or with Peter. He used to, when she called and wanted to talk. He used to think that Caroline and Peter had all the usual problems of marriage, the friction you get when two people have to deal with each other for a long time, and that the person Peter had become, the life he had made for himself, was apart from that. He used to think that if only Peter could find a way out, they both would be happier, and their children with them. He hasn’t seen that much of his brother, hasn’t talked to him in a long time. But he’s talked to Caroline a lot, he’s heard the way she speaks, about him, his work, their kids. And he sees something Caroline doesn’t: that the years have taken everything—Peter’s past, his work, his marriage, his family, his crimes—and made it one living thing. But that thing is a monster. When they slaughter it, there will be blood everywhere. It’s only a question of how much time they have left, and what the children will do then.

  Chapter 14

  It’s January 8, 1948. Peter comes home early in the afternoon, before the kids are back from school. He almost never does that, and it startles Caroline, who’s on the second floor. Who’s there? Who is it? she calls down. It’s me, Caroline, Peter says. Come down, I have something to tell you. He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, watches her descend. She stops.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’m out, Caroline.”

  “Out of what?”

  “The business. All of it. Everything. We still have the money, but’s it’s all just investments now. Passive. I’m out.”

  At first she shakes her head; it’s too hard to believe. But then it makes sense, how quiet he’s been, how far away. He’s always been that way a little, not revealing anything until the work is done. It was like that when he proposed, showing her the house for the first time. It
was like that when he broke his business connections with her brother, and when he told her his mother had died. But this is beyond that: It’s the dismantling of his own life, and though the past few months have felt a lot longer, when she gets her head around the scope of what he must have done, it seems to her that he must have moved fast, with complete determination. The phone calls, the drinks, the dinners, the cigarettes. Making sure the businessmen never saw him with the criminals, that the criminals never got close to the businessmen, even though Peter’s joked that he has trouble telling them apart now.

  “And that man who came to the house?” she says.

  “We’ll never see him again.”