John Hart - Iron House

“No.”

She smeared both hands across her face, shook her head.

“No.”

She got out of the car, her eyes red but dry; a bell chimed as she walked inside. The clerk behind the counter was a tall, spare man, whose face was severely lined for a man who otherwise appeared to be in his forties. He had long arms and wide, square palms. He thumbed a key on a plastic fob and his smile lingered as she placed four bills on the smudged counter. “You need anything…” He held onto the key two seconds longer than he should have. “You just call the desk.”

She sniffed, then palmed the last moisture from the skin beneath her eyes. “Thank you.”

“My name is Calvert.” He gestured at the low ceiling, the carpet worn through. “This is my place.”

“Thank you, Calvert.”

“So…” Fingers drummed the small, tight bowl of his stomach. “Anything at all.”

“Do you have a map?”

He scratched at the crown of his head. “Where are you going?”

“What’s the nearest major airport?”

“That’d be Raleigh.”

“Then that’s where I’m going.”

He showed her Raleigh on the map, and then gave her the key to a room down the hall. Elena put the map on the front seat of the car, then unloaded her few belongings and carried them through the lobby and into a small, dark room whose air was damp enough to feel on her skin. She locked the door and pulled off her clothes. The floor of the bathroom was freshly cleaned, the shower curtain white vinyl faded to gray. Collecting small bottles of shampoo and conditioner, the paper-wrapped soap, Elena climbed into the shower and let needles of hot water stitch dull, red marks on the planes of her face.

Calvert was leaning on the counter when the bell above his door chimed twice. He caught a flash of movement and color, just enough to give the sense of a narrow-shouldered, effeminate man in fancy clothes, none of which made him eager to be of help. He disliked rich people and hated queers, so did not immediately look up from the newspaper he was reading. His mind was still flush with thoughts of the hot little Mexican who’d bent low enough to show some bra when he pointed out Raleigh on the map.

The man cleared his throat.

Calvert turned the page and looked up to see a middle-aged man in black velvet pants and a burgundy coat. He wore sunglasses that let you see his eyes, and a big, gold watch that probably cost more than most cars. Calvert allowed his distaste to show when he said, “A little hot for them pants, don’t you think?”

“I find that they breathe.”

The man smiled, and Calvert realized he was too dumb to know he’d been insulted. He just stood there, calmly, and some reptile part of Calvert’s brain recognized that things were not quite right; but this was his place, and the man was wearing velvet pants. Beyond the glass was a road-stained car with New York plates. “Okay, fancy-pants. What do you want?”

“That’s clever. Fancy-pants.”

“Look, I’m busy here.”

“The lady who just came in…”

“I don’t give out room numbers.”

“I’d like you to reconsider.”

“And I’d like you to turn around and go back to whatever big city you came from. As you can see…” He flicked a yellow nail at the newspaper. “I’m busy.”

“You’re not being very helpful.”

The paper rustled as a page turned. “I suppose not.” A long moment passed, and without looking up he said, “Are you still here?”

“Actually, I’d like to show you something.”

“Show me what?”

“It’s like a trick.”

Calvert looked up, and the man in velvet pants lifted his left hand above his shoulder. He made a flourish-fingers rolling open, and then closed.

“You mean, like magic?”

“Sort of. Are you watching?”

“No.”

“It’s really quite good.”

Calvert closed his newspaper. “Okay, sure. I’m watching.”

“It happens fast.”

Calvert watched the hand. The fingers moved. The hand closed into a fist.

“Here it comes.” One finger straightened, then two. “Get ready.”

Calvert was still watching the left hand when Jimmy shot him in the heart with a silenced twenty-two. The shot pushed him back a step, and for an instant, his mouth opened; then he fell where he stood. Jimmy walked around the counter, put one more in the skull for good measure then stepped daintily over the mess and looked at the computer screen. Satisfied, he lifted the key to room twelve from the pegboard, then brushed lint from his sleeve.

“Fucking redneck,” he said, and walked down the hall to room twelve.

Steam clogged Elena’s throat, hot water crashing down. She gripped the showerhead and felt metal pitted with corrosion, a tongue of wet curtain that licked her leg and stuck. She washed herself again.

Yet the smell lingered.

The images.

She lathered her hair, digging hard with her fingers, scraping as she saw so many things that had once been good: the yellow paint on Michael’s hands, the smile that lit his face when he spoke of the baby. Seven months condensed to a single moment as she saw his hands on her stomach, her breasts, and then on the skin of that corpse. He’d been so… proficient. The body didn’t bother him. The smell. The very fact that the man was dead.

There’s a chain there…

It was real, all of it.

Elena pressed a palm on her stomach, and then prayed as she had as a girl, not just for strength or guidance, but for God to reach down and make it right. But there was no easy fix, and deep down, she was ashamed of her need. Her father taught her to be strong, to count on herself, so she pushed the weakness away. She dug deep and found the core of who she was. She felt fear and sorrow, a blinding streak of bright, sharp anger. Michael was a killer, and in that word- killer -Elena found the threads of her strength. It seemed a small thing at first, this tangle of poor threads, but she gathered them up, pulled until she felt strong in her soul. She would recover, and the pain that lingered-the memory of his hands on her skin-that, too, would wither and fade. She promised this to herself, swore it; but lies are slippery and quick-that’s how they work-and some part of Elena knew she was being faithless. She loved him. There was no other man like him.

But the things he’s done…

She turned off the water, which died to a trickle as she smoothed hair from her face.

“I’m okay.”

It felt wrong the way she said it, so she tried again.

“I will be okay.”

That was better. That was real.

She opened the curtain with a metallic scrape, and reached for a robe that was no longer where she’d left it. She saw a man, instead-parts of a man, a blur of skin and hair and eyes. They were cold eyes, and blue, a look of amusement over thin lips and pale, fine skin. He stood a foot from the shower, his forehead high and square, hair wispy thin on the crown of his head. The moment was so unreal, so utterly unexpected, that she almost laughed. It was a misunderstanding, some hotel employee at the wrong place at the wrong time. But the look was wrong. He was too calm, too amused. Her robe was in one of his hands, something black and square in the other. It was only when his smile spread that the scream gathered fully in the back of Elena’s throat.

“You’re not okay,” he said.

And, Elena knew who he was.

Her arms came up, but his hand moved in a blur. Something blue flashed, and she heard a crack of energy as fire tore through her ribs. She felt agony, white heat, and then nothing at all.

Control was part of what made Michael so good at his job: choosing the time and place of the things he did, manipulating the elements involved and then acting with calm regard for every possible consequence. Most people in the business were the exact opposite of Michael. They killed in rage and fear or got off on it for their own screwed up reasons. They let emotions run, and those guys rarely lasted. They burned out or got sloppy, became a liability for the organization that paid their freight. More than a handful ended up with a target on their backs, and Michael had taken out a few, himself. The math was simple in Michael’s world. Emotions are bad. Control is good. But there was no control now.