Iron House (3 page)

“How is my brother?” Michael masked the rage with sarcasm. Stevan drove a black Audi, and Michael knew for a fact that he kept a twenty-five in the glove compartment.

“How’s Stevan?” Jimmy mimicked the question, rolling the words on his tongue as if tasting them. “His brother’s a traitor and his father is dying. How do you think he is?”

“I think he’s making mistakes.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“Where was he at five o’clock this morning?”

Jimmy rolled his shoulders, turned his lips down. “Stevan has offered to forgive you, Michael—how many times, now? Three times? Four? All you have to do is repent. Come back to us.”

“Things have changed. I want out.”

“Then you leave him no choice.”

Michael pictured the bullet holes in the door of Chez Pascal. Two double-taps. Head height. “Nothing personal, right?”

“Exactly.”

“And the wishes of his father? The man who built this from nothing? Who built you from nothing? What about him?”

“The son is not the father.”

A moment’s irony touched his eyes. At fifteen, the old man had made Michael Jimmy’s student, and in that capacity he became a mirror to Jimmy’s vanity, something Jimmy could point to and say, “Look at this instrument I’ve made.” The old man’s business had thrived with the two of them on the street, for as effective as Jimmy had been by himself, it was nothing compared to what they’d done together. They’d killed their way from one river to the other, north to south and over into Jersey. Russian mob. Serbians. Italians. It didn’t matter. If somebody crossed the old man, they took him down. But after all these years, that’s all Michael was to Jimmy, a weapon.

Disposable.

Michael looked from Jimmy to the man he’d never met. He stood three feet behind Jimmy’s right shoulder, a spare man in linen pants and a golf shirt tight enough to show straps of lean, hard muscle. “Who’s he?” Michael asked.

“Your replacement.”

Michael felt a pang that was neither loss nor hurt, but one more broken strand. He looked the man over and noticed small things he’d missed. Fine white scars on both forearms, one finger that lacked a nail. The man stood six feet tall, and looked vaguely Slavic, with wide-spaced eyes and broad planes of cheekbone. Michael shrugged once, and then dismissed him. “I would never turn on people who trust me,” he said to Jimmy.

“No? How long have you been with this woman of yours? Three months? A year?”

“What does it matter? It’s personal.”

“It matters because you only told us about her eight days ago. You kept her a secret, and keeping secrets from us is one step away from spilling ours. It’s two sides of the same coin. Secrets. Lack of trust. Priorities.”

“I said I would never turn.”

“And yet, you made your choice.”

“So did the old man. When he let me go.”

“Maybe the old man’s gone soft.”

That was Michael’s replacement—a crisp voice with a slight accent—and Michael could not believe the disrespect, here in the man’s own house. He held the man’s Slavic gaze, then stared hard at Jimmy and waited for him to meet his eyes. “I’ve seen you kill a man for less,” Michael said.

Jimmy picked daintily at the nail of his smallest finger, then said, “Maybe I don’t disagree.”

“I want to see him.” Michael’s voice grated. Every man here owed his life to the old man. What they had. Who they were. Honor the old man and the old man honors you. That’s the way it was done, old school and proper.

In some ways, Jimmy agreed. “Nobody walks away, Michael. That’s how it’s always been. The old man was wrong to tell you that you could.”

“He’s the boss.”

“For now.”

Michael’s heart beat twice as he considered that. “You were in the car last night. With Stevan.”

“Pretty night for a drive…”

“You bastard.”

Jimmy saw the anger and rolled onto the balls of his feet. It had long been a question between them, who could take who. Michael watched the glint come into Jimmy’s eyes, the cold and narrow smile. He wanted it, was eager; and Michael knew, then, that there would be no easy out, no graceful exit from a life he no longer desired. For too many people, the matter was personal.

Fingers tightened on holstered weapons and the moment stretched; but before it broke, there was movement on the stairs, a nurse on the landing. In her forties, she looked like a smaller version of Jimmy, but vaguely female. When Jimmy turned and lifted his chin, she said, “He wants to know who’s here.”

“I’ll be right there,” Jimmy told her, and cold touched his face when he looked back at Michael. “Stay here.” He motioned to the young Slavic man. “Watch him.”

“Where’s Stevan?” Michael demanded.

Jimmy offered a second slit of a smile, but otherwise ignored the question. He mounted the stairs on light feet, and when he came back down, he said, “He wants to see you.” Michael moved for the stairs, but Jimmy stopped him. “Not yet.” He twisted a finger like he was stirring tea, so Michael lifted his arms, and let the man pat him down. He checked Michael’s legs to the groin, his arms to the wrist. He smoothed fabric over Michael’s chest and back, then fingered the collars of his jacket and shirt.

“None of this is necessary,” Michael said.

Jimmy’s gaze moved from low to high, and the gaze lingered. “I don’t know you anymore.”

“Maybe you never did.”

A hand flapped on his wrist. “Enough. Go. Up.”

On the second floor Michael saw a nursing station filled with monitors tinted green. Cables snaked down the stairs and under the table that held the equipment. The nurse sat with her feet flat on the floor, eyes glued to the monitors. In a small room behind her, an iron-haired priest sat in a comfortable chair, eyes slightly closed, fingers crossed in his lap. He wore shined shoes and black clothing with a white collar at the throat. When the nurse looked up, Michael asked, “Are we that close?”

She glanced at Jimmy, who nodded in permission. “We’ve resuscitated him twice,” she said.

“What?” Michael’s anger flared. The old man
wanted
to die. Resuscitating him was a cruelty. “Why?” Michael demanded. “Why would you put him through that?”

She glanced at Jimmy. “The son—”

“It’s not up to the son! He made his wishes plain. He’s ready.”

The nurse raised her hands and looked horrified. “I can only—”

Michael cut her off. “How bad is the pain?”

“The morphine can barely touch it.”

“Can you give him more?”

“More would kill him.”

“Is he lucid?”

“In and out.”

Michael stared at the priest, who stared back, terrified. “How long does he have?”

“Hours. Weeks. Father William has been here for five days.”

“I want to see him.” Without waiting for a response, Michael moved to the next landing and stopped beside broad, double doors. Jimmy leaned a shoulder against the frame and flicked a piece of lint from his velvet jacket. Michael said, “It’s wrong, Jimmy. He wants to die.”

“It’s Stevan’s choice. Let it go.”

“And if I can’t?”

Jimmy shrugged.

“I’m not your enemy,” Michael said. “I just want out.”

Jimmy examined his other sleeve. “There’s only one way out, and you know it. When the old man dies, so do you. Either that or you convince us to trust you again.”

“That’s two ways.”

He shook his head. “One is a way out, one is a way back in. Different animals.”

“Convince you, how?”

He blinked a lizard’s blink. “Kill the woman.”

“Elena’s pregnant.”

“Listen.” Jimmy leaned closer. “I understand you have this misplaced sense of responsibility, but the old man won’t live much longer.” He gestured, taking in the house, the men below, then lowered his voice. “Stevan can’t hold this together. He’s weak, sentimental. He doesn’t have what we have.” He let that sink in, then said, “You can be my number two. I’ll give you a percentage, free reign on the street.”

Michael shook his head, but Jimmy didn’t stop.

“People might challenge me alone, but no one would risk the two of us—”

“I don’t want it.”

“We all know how the old man feels about you. The street would accept it. The men. We could do this together.”

“She’s pregnant, Jimmy.”

Jimmy’s eyes drooped. “That’s not my problem.”

“I just want out.”

“There is no
out
.”

“I don’t want to kill you.”

Jimmy put his hand on the knob. “You think you can?”

He pushed the door wide, grinned.

And Michael went in to see the old man.

CHAPTER
THREE

Michael stepped in and Jimmy left him alone with the dying man who’d all but saved his life. A Persian rug stretched to far windows and a coffered ceiling rose fifteen feet above the floor. No lamps burned, and all the curtains but one were drawn, so that pale light ghosted in to touch a chair, the bed, and the wasted man in it. The space was long, narrow, and the gloom made it feel hollow. Michael had spent countless hours in the room—long months as the old man failed—but eight days had passed since his last visit, and change lay like a pall. Airless and overly warm, the room smelled of cancer and pain, of an old man dying.

He crossed the room, steps loud on wood, then soft when he hit the rug. The room looked the same except for a six-foot-tall cross that hung on the wall. It was made of smooth, dark wood and looked very old. Michael had never seen it before, but put it out of his mind as he stopped by the narrow bed and looked down at the only man he’d ever loved. Fluids ran into the old man’s veins through needles slipped under his skin. The robe he wore was one Michael had given him eight years ago, and in it he looked as light and weak as a starved child. His head was a death’s-head, with bones that were too prominent and veins that showed like thread through wax. Blue-black skin circled his eyes. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, and Michael wondered if the pain, ever-present, had become insidious enough to find him even as he slept.

He stood for long seconds, bereft, then took the man’s hand, sat in the chair, and studied the cross on the wall. The old man did not have a religious bone in his body, but his son professed to believe. In spite of his sins, and there were many, Stevan attended mass every week, a conflicted man twined in self-deception. He feared God, yet was too weak to sacrifice the things violence brought, the money and power, the pleasures of pale-faced models and society widows who found his name and good looks too compelling to resist. Stevan loved the notoriety, yet agonized over his father’s lack of contrition; it was for this reason, Michael suspected, that the old man had been resuscitated twice. Stevan feared that his father, unrepentant, would go to hell. Michael marveled at the depth of such hypocrisy. Actions had consequence; choice came with cost. The old man knew exactly who he was, and so did Michael.

He lifted a framed photograph from the table near the bed. Taken a decade and half earlier, it showed him with the old man. Michael was sixteen, broad-shouldered but skinny in a suit that could not hide the fact. He leaned against the hood of a car, laughing, the old man’s arm around his neck. He was laughing, too. The car against which they leaned had been a birthday present: a 1965 Ford
GTO
, a classic.

Michael put the photo where the old man could find it, then stood and walked to the wall of books on the north side. The shelves ran the length of the room and held a collection the man had been working on for over thirty years. They shared a love of the classics, and many of the books were first editions, including several by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald. Michael removed
The Old Man and the Sea
, then sat back down.

Through the window, he saw the river and then Queens. The old man had been born there to a prostitute with no interest beyond folding money and the next bottle it could buy. Shut up for years in a basement tenement, he’d been left alone for days at a time, unwashed and half-starved until he was orphaned at age seven. He told Michael once that he’d never known a childhood harder than his until their paths crossed. That fact made them family, he said. Because no one else could understand the loneliness they’d known, the fear. He said it gave them clarity, made them strong. And Stevan hated Michael for that, for having that bond with his father.

But Michael cherished it, not just because he was so otherwise alone in the world, but because the similarities
did
make a difference; because not even Stevan grasped the scope of deprivation that defined his father’s early days. He did not know that the scars on the old man’s feet came from rat bites in the crib, or that his missing fingers came from frostbite in the days before his mother died. The old man spoke of those things only to Michael, because only Michael could understand. He was the only one who knew the full story, the only person aware that the old man had chosen this room for the view, so that his last earthly sight would be the place from which he’d dragged himself one brutal day at a time. Michael found an undeniable elegance in this. The tenement house that almost killed the man was a river’s breadth away, and a lifetime apart.

The sun moved higher and light slipped from the old man’s face. So sunken were his eyes that Michael missed the moment they opened. One instant they were hidden, and the next they were simply there, pinched and deep and shot with red. “Stevan?”

“It’s Michael.”

The frail chest rose and fell in small, desperate pants and Michael saw pain bite deeper. Skin gathered at the corners of the old man’s eyes and his brows compressed at the center. “Michael…” His mouth worked. Something glinted in the sun that still touched his neck, and Michael realized that he was crying. “Please…”

Michael turned his face away from the thing he was being asked to do. For months, now, the old man had begged to die, so eager was the pain. But Stevan had refused. Stevan. His son. So the old man had suffered as Michael watched the illness take him down. Weeks stretched to months, and the old man had begged.

God, how he had begged.

Then, eight days ago, Michael had told him about Elena. He explained that life had become more than the job, that he wanted out, a normal life. And listening, his pain-filled eyes so very intent, the old man had nodded as hard as such a sick man could. He said he understood just how precious life should be.
Precious.
Fingers clawed into Michael’s arm.
Short!
And with those words still in the air above his lips, he’d told Michael that he loved him.