John Hart - Iron House

Michael started the Navigator and accelerated into traffic. The cop was still there, then the road curved and he was gone. Michael turned east, away from the river. “We need to get out of the city,” he said.

“Why?”

The word was small.

“I have enemies.”

She sank lower in the seat, and Michael checked the mirror, hating truth for being so absolute. Elena wrapped her arms around her knees. At his apartment, he circled the block, then stopped. Elena leaned forward and peered up through the glass. “What is this place?”

“My apartment.”

“But you don’t have…” The words trailed away. “I want to go home,” she said.

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I need you to trust me.” Michael opened the door.

“Why are we here?”

“We need money.” He studied the street, the neighboring windows. “You should come up.”

He walked around the hood and opened her door. A lady passed, walking a small dog. Birds called from trees down the street, and Michael saw that Elena was smoothing her hands across the fabric of her dress, pulling it tight on her thighs, then balling loose folds in her hands. When she descended from the car, he led her onto a small stoop, then inside and to the third floor. Michael checked the apartment before allowing Elena to enter.

“Come in. Please.”

She stopped five feet inside the door, eyes restless on this place where Michael had lived.

“It’s just a place,” he said.

She touched a painting on the wall, a book on the shelf. “You’ve had this all along?”

“I almost never come here.”

“How long?”

Anger flashed in her eyes, the first flicker of heat he’d seen. “Five years,” he said. “Maybe six. It doesn’t matter.”

“How can you say that?”

Michael had no answer. “This will only take a second. Just… wait here.” He made his way down the hall to the smaller bedroom. In the closet, he stripped off his bloodstained clothing and put on a different suit, new shoes. He chose two handguns from the racked weapons, then pulled a duffel bag from the shelf and opened it on the floor. One of the guns, a Kimber nine millimeter, went into a carry holster and onto his belt, under his jacket; the other, a Smith & Wesson forty-five, went into the bag with five spare magazines. He turned to the cash. On the lowest shelf, next to boxed ammunition, he had $290,000 in banded hundred-dollar bills. He tossed them into the duffel as Elena appeared in the door behind him. She hesitated and Michael let her take it in-the sight of steel, the smell of gun oil, cash, and English leather. “I have more,” Michael said.

“More what?” Her eyes were on the rowed guns.

“More money.”

“You think I care about money?” The same heat, skin flushed.

“No. I-”

“You think I’ll stay for money?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Elena touched her stomach. “I’m going to be sick.”

“You’ll be okay.” Michael’s voice was colder than he’d planned, but Elena’s accusation hurt. He’d mentioned money only so she’d know he could provide for her. Hide her. Keep her safe. He moved for the door, and she followed.

“How much more?” she asked.

“Enough.”

“Please tell me there’s an explanation for all this.” She caught his arm, and he stopped. “I need something.”

They were in the hall. It was empty. Elena was on the balls of her feet, a bird ready to fly. “I have a story,” he said.

“About?”

“Beginnings. Reasons. Everything.”

“And you’ll tell me?”

“Yes, but later. Okay?”

“If you promise.”

“I do.” He turned on his heel, and they moved to the bottom of the stairs. Michael checked the sidewalk, then ducked back inside and hugged her fiercely. Her hair was warm on the bottom of his chin, and he wanted to tell her one more lie: that everything would be fine, that life would go back to normal. “We have to move quickly. Head down. Straight to the car.” He pulled her across hot concrete and into the car. She spilled loosely into the seat. From where they were, Michael had two options to get out of the city fast. He could go north to the Holland Tunnel or east to the Brooklyn Bridge. He rounded to the driver’s side, got in, and cranked the car. Beside him, Elena sat with her eyes closed. She mouthed silent words, and it took Michael a second to understand the thing she was unwilling to say out loud.

Please, God…

She made a hard knot of her fingers.

Make it a good story…

Michael drove north through the city, then out through the Holland Tunnel and south on the interstate. Beside him, Elena watched the city fall away. “I’ve never been out of New York,” she said.

“Maybe this will be good, then. A chance to see the country.”

“Is that a joke?” she asked.

“A bad one, I guess.”

Miles clicked onto the odometer, the silence painful. “You said you have a story.”

The sky outside was a summer sky, a lover’s sky. They were in Jersey, and her voice could have belonged to a stranger.

“It’s about two boys.”

“You?”

“And my brother.”

“You don’t have a brother.” Michael waited, and she nodded. “Ah. Another lie.”

“I’ve not seen him since I was ten.” Sun pushed heat through the windows. Michael showed her a photograph. Colorless and cracked, it was of two boys on a field of snow and mud. Their pants were too short, the jackets patched. “That’s me on the right.”

She took the photo and her eyes softened. “So young.”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Julian.”

She traced Julian’s face with a finger, and then touched Michael’s. Color moved into her face, the empathy that was one of her best traits. Her accent thickened as it did when she got emotional. “Do you miss him very much?”

Michael nodded, knowing that she would listen, seeing it in her face, the way it softened. “They say you don’t remember much before the age of two, but that’s not true. I was ten months old when Julian was left naked on the bank of a half-frozen creek. He was a newborn. It was snowing. I was with him.”

“Ten months old?”

“Yes.”

“And you remember this?”

“Bits and pieces.”

“Like what?”

“Black trees and snow on my face.”

Elena touched the photograph.

“The silence when Julian stopped screaming.”

Elena kept her eyes down as Michael spoke of two boys dumped like trash in the woods, of cold water and the hunters that carried them out, of long years at the orphanage and his brother’s deterioration. He spoke of crowded rooms and sickness, of conflict and boredom and the indifference of malnutrition. He explained how strong kids learned to steal and weak ones learned to run; how older kids had the power to hurt. “You can’t imagine.”

Elena listened carefully as he spoke. She listened for lies and half-truths and the tells that would reveal them. She did this because she was smart and wary and carrying a child that meant more than her own life. But there was honesty in him when he spoke: flashes of anger and regret, a fire banked long in his heart. “Hennessey died on the bathroom floor. I took the knife and I ran.”

“To protect your brother?”

“Because I was the oldest.”

“You ran and took the blame with you?” Michael said nothing, but Elena knew from his face that the statement was true. “What happened next?”

Michael shrugged. “Julian was adopted.”

“And you were not.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“It is what it is.”