Only Killers and Thieves(94)

On his belly he groped the dusty floor beneath his bed, retrieved the rifle hidden there, the small stash of powder, caps and balls, then sat on the bed and cleaned the rifle meticulously with the discarded shirt. Working in darkness, only a strip of light beneath the door, feeling his way from firing pin to muzzle to trigger to stock. Absently he stared at Billy’s bed, imagined he could see his brother bundled beneath the blankets and hear the ticking in his breathing when he slept. Once that sound had made Tommy feel comforted, safe. Once Billy had crawled from that bed and climbed into this, the two of them back-to-back, as they’d always been. Once they had been brothers. Once.

Tommy tossed aside the shirt. Turned the rifle on its butt, tipped the powder into the barrel then loaded, rodded, and capped that one single shot. Briskly he stood, threw open the door, and marched away down the corridor, gripping the rifle by its forestock, shoulders rolling, a long determined stride and his eyes so fixed on the carpet runner before him that as he rounded the landing and came down the stairs he did not see Benjamin, the houseboy, crossing the atrium carrying a crystal carafe of wine; not until Tommy was on the final few steps and the two of them were only yards apart. Both paused. Benjamin cradling the carafe in his hands, his eyes on the rifle; Tommy suspended midstep. Slowly he advanced. Benjamin’s eyes darted between Tommy and the service corridor behind him, the kitchens, the back door, the yard.

“It’s okay,” Tommy whispered. “Please—put down the wine.”

Benjamin watched him warily. Tommy gestured for him to lower the carafe and finally he crouched and placed it on the floor, not once taking his eyes from Tommy’s face. Fully staring at him. Not even blinking, it seemed. Tommy faltered in his gaze, everything it said about him, everything he’d done. He swapped the rifle to his left hand and offered his right for Benjamin to shake. The houseboy glanced at the hand but otherwise didn’t move. Tommy’s hand fell. He stepped aside and motioned toward the back of the house. Still Benjamin only stared.

“Go,” Tommy begged, waving. “Go now, please.”

The old man shook his head and walked unhurried out of the atrium and along the service corridor, and Tommy heard the back door slap against the frame. He took a long breath. Unsettled by the exchange. The row of animal heads were watching him, their empty glassy eyes. He bent and took a swig of wine, then another, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. The voices in the parlor grew louder and Tommy moved toward the door. Switched the rifle to his right hand, finger tensed on the trigger guard, and with his left took hold of the doorknob. The brass cool in his grip. Standing inches from the paneled door. Noone’s voice stalled him. So close and clear through the wood. Tommy began trembling, his body suddenly inert and very weak. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t do what needed to be done. Desperately he closed his eyes and searched for his parents, their faces, Mary’s too, but there was nothing, they were lost to him, like he’d forgotten his own blood. Only a memory of how he’d found them: Father slack-jawed and ashen, that fly on his eyeball; Mother half-scalped; Mary bleeding out on the bedroom floor. And so many others, so many killings, so many dead. The memories rouletting through him and Tommy’s hand losing its grip on the doorknob and his feet shuffling backward and his face wrought with the pain of knowing that all of it, all of it, had been in some way his fault.

“Boy! Where’s my fucking wine!”

Tommy’s eyes snapped open. He flung wide the parlor door. Striding across the room, sighting Sullivan down the rifle, his aim square on the squatter’s chest, until his thighs butted the desk edge and the muzzle pinned Sullivan to his seat. Quickly Sullivan settled himself. The surprise slid from his face. Flushed in the cheeks but he allowed a smile to creep and the fingers of his right hand to drum lightly on the desk.

“Now, then, son, don’t be foolish. Whatever this is, we’ll straighten it out.”

Tommy stepped back a pace. Glanced at Noone and Billy in the two wingback chairs. Billy openmouthed, while Noone had steepled his fingers and watched like a punter at a show. On the corner of the desk before him was a small stack of crumpled banknotes and a leather money pouch, and though Sullivan looked imploringly toward him, it was Billy who rose and asked, “What the hell you doing?”

“Sit down, Billy.”

“Not until you say what this is about.”

“He knows what this is about. Sit down.”

“I would do as your brother suggests,” Noone said. “Besides myself, he’s the only one in this room who is armed.”

“Hell, Edmund,” Sullivan said. “That’s no help.”

Billy lowered himself back into his chair. Noone arched an eyebrow playfully.

“You must have expected this, John. There is always a reckoning. It just seems that yours might have come earlier than either of us thought.”

Tommy jabbed the rifle toward Sullivan. “Say it, you bastard. Say what you did.”

“Quite the day you’ve had, Tommy. First the girl, now this.”

“Just . . . fucking say it.”

“Son, you’re making a bloody big mistake here. All I’ve ever done is look out for you and your brother, your sister too, while she was alive . . .”

“You killed them. I know you did. Killed them with Joseph’s gun.”

“What’s that now?” Billy asked.