John Hart - Iron House

“That’s enough.” Michael stopped him two feet from the books. He could see a row of books, spine out, which bore the name Julian Vane.

“His picture is on the back…”

Flint moved another foot, reached out and Michael cocked the forty-five. Flint froze and Michael said, “A dangerous man might have a weapon behind those books.”

“No…”

“Nevertheless.” Michael wagged the muzzle at the chair.

Flint looked at the wingback.

“Sit.”

“Please, don’t kill me.”

Flint collapsed when his knees hit the back of the chair. In the sad, brown robe he looked like nothing more than a bag of old bones. Michael dragged the coffee table so that he could sit across from Flint, three feet between them. He kept the gun on Flint, one eye on the dark, empty hall. “Do you know who I am?”

“The hand of God come for vengeance…”

He sounded insane when he said it, the words a bare whisper, his eyes shocked wide and yellow-white. Michael smelled liquor on the man’s clothes, his breath. He saw a worn, leather Bible on the floor beside Flint’s chair, noticed that the man’s nails were chewed to the quick, his hands as horny as alligator skin.

Michael leaned closer into the light. “Do you know me?”

“I… don’t.” He turned his head but kept his eyes on Michael. “No.”

“But you can guess.”

Flint nodded, and light caught in pale, pink crescents at the bottoms of his eyes. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Kill me.”

“All I want at this moment is for you to say my name.”

Flint stared at the muzzle of the gun.

“Say it.”

“Michael…”

“Why do you think I’m here to kill you?”

“Because everyone else is dead. Because I knew it would come back to me. Because taking that money was a sin. Selling those boys out…” His voice broke. Michael released the hammer and shifted the barrel until it was pointed five degrees left of Flint’s gut. Flint followed the movement, then said, “I never blamed you for killing that Hennessey boy. He was a rotten child.”

“Is that right?”

“So many rotten boys back then.” Flint’s eyes darted to the open door. “So few like your brother. But this, now…” His eyes were pinned to the floor, head shaking sideways. “This now.” His gaze came back up, and his soul was tortured. “It’s been twenty-three years. Why would you kill those boys now? After all this time…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael said.

But Flint’s head was still shaking, eyes distant and damp. “Evil and vengeance and God’s chary eye…”

Michael edged the muzzle back three degrees, and it got Flint’s attention. “Why did you blow a hole in your door, Mr. Flint?”

“I put a motion sensor at the gate.”

“So, you knew someone was coming. That doesn’t tell me why you put a round through your door.” Michael waited for Flint to focus. “Did you even look to see who it was?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Just figured I was next. Been waiting. I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“Don’t pretend.” Flint’s voice thickened, his face suddenly hard. “I may be an old man and afraid, but I’m smart enough to know what’s what: you, here, with your calm voice and shark eyes, those other boys, gone and so silent they got no choice but to be dead. All that money with no price to pay…” He rolled his eyes, sucked in a sudden breath. “I know now what I’ve done. And I know what you are.”

“You don’t, actually.”

“Well, I don’t have the money, if you came to get it back.” He dragged an arm across his mouth, looking sly and angry. “It’s gone with the rest of it. Damn Indians. Damn Cherokee with their cheap booze and rigged casinos.” Flint’s eyes flicked left, and Michael saw a bottle of whiskey and a glass down to half a finger. Flint scraped a palm over white whiskers, then tore his eyes away. “It makes sense, now I think on it. You being the one.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re the only killer come through this place. Killing as a boy, killing as a man.” He nodded. “Like rain in springtime.”

Michael stood. “You know nothing about me, Mr. Flint.” He walked across the room, picked up the liquor bottle and the glass. “And I know less about you. Not your needs or weakness, not those other boys you say are gone and silent.” He sat back down and sloshed three inches of brown liquid into the glass. “But you’re going to tell me.”

“Why should I?”

The pistol barrel tracked right and settled squarely on Andrew Flint’s forehead. “There’s nothing I won’t do for my brother, Mr. Flint. If nothing else, you should remember that.”

Flint watched the glass, licked sandpaper lips. “And you won’t kill me if I tell?”

Michael kept the gun steady, and handed the glass to Flint. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I have questions.” Flint drained the glass. “And I expect you to have answers.”

Eighty miles east of Iron Mountain, the helicopter raced along at two thousand feet. To the south, the city of Charlotte looked golden and compressed, a setting sun dipped in a giant, black sea. Abigail sat behind the pilot, the senator to her left. Jessup rode up front, his face all angles and lines, with deep shadows in the creases and a hint of pale whiskers. A few times, he looked back, and when he did his face reflected a quiet agony of things unsaid. But because the senator was there, he said nothing beyond the mundane. He consulted the map, spoke to the pilot. Occasionally, he radioed the estate with updates on their position and flight path.

After twenty minutes, Abigail tuned out. The cabin was warm, the noise soothing, even through the headset. She replayed the last few hours with Michael. His face at the gates of Iron House. His determination as they parted. She closed her eyes, and flinched when the senator put a hand on her leg, sat still as he flicked a switch that would isolate their headsets.

“I thought we could use a little privacy.”

His features were heavy in the dim light, his eyes wide-set and deep. She smelled the cologne he preferred, something French, and marveled at the strength in his thick fingers. “It’s a little late to whisper sweet nothings.”

“Do you doubt that I love you?”

“I’m no longer sure.”

“Don’t confuse the occasional dalliance for anything other than what it is. It’s just sex and ego.”

“You’re a man of appetites.”

She said it flatly, but he nodded as if she were preaching. “And honesty where it matters.”

“And does honesty still matter with me?”

He squeezed her leg, a dark twinkle in his eye. “You’ve never been anything but a perfect spouse-elegant and beautiful and poised. I knew the moment I saw you-”

“That I would look good on your arm.”

Vane frowned. “That you would be discrete and loyal to your husband. That you would know the value of the things I was building, and the many ways in which you would benefit from those things.” He shifted in his seat. “That as beautiful as you were, you would also understand how the game is played. That you were a pragmatist.”

“Perhaps I’m not as mercenary as you imagine.”

“Perhaps you are more so.”

“What are you saying, Randall?”

He showed his cold, politician eyes. “I’m asking if you know anything about these bodies.”

“I would never-”

“Let’s not pretend you’re incapable.”

“Of killing a man?”

“Of keeping secrets.” The senator glanced at the pilot and at Jessup. They were cut off from the conversation, oblivious. “Of protecting Julian, even if it meant lying to me.” Abigail touched her throat, but he was unflinching. “Dead people are turning up on my property, and I’m being crucified in the media. They’re calling me obstructionist, elitist and every other thing. It’s eighteen years ago all over again, and the election is in three months! I need to know what’s happening, Abigail. This is no time for reticence or misplaced loyalty.”