Only Killers and Thieves(96)

“It’s a shame, of course, since I’ve come to like you a great deal. A fine young man, great potential in you, particularly in a country where the young come slithering from their mothers as brainless and spineless as shits. There are not many who would have dared take their revenge in such a way. I applaud you for it. Bravo, Tommy. Bravo. But sadly your actions here have spoiled your own value, since the testimony of a murderer counts for naught in the eyes of the law. And I certainly cannot have you recanting. All our good work these past weeks would be undone.”

Noone blurred behind the revolver. Only the shape of him there. Tommy said, “If you kill me, your warrant’s gone.”

He ratcheted back the hammer. “Your testimony will suffice.”

Sullivan growling rabidly, the words strangled in his throat.

“You’ll have to account for shooting me. Say what I’ve done.”

“I’ll say the blacks got you. It’ll be grist to the mill.”

“They saw me today in Bewley, everyone, all over town.”

Noone hesitated, lowered the revolver, looked irritably around the room. As if replaying Tommy’s visit to determine whether this was true. There was movement in the doorway. All three of them turned: Mrs. Sullivan standing there in her nightgown, clutching herself with her thin bare arms.

“And what about me, Mr. Noone? Do you plan on killing me too?”

Noone shrugged and fiddled the revolver restlessly in his hands. “Truthfully, in such circumstances, I find that killing everyone usually works out for the best.”

She ghosted into the room and contemplated Sullivan across the desk. His eyes rolled toward her and stayed there. He was hardly moving now. Only his eyes and his chest when he breathed. His mouth hung open. A vacant palsied stare. His face looked jaundiced, and there were irregular pauses in the rhythm of each breath.

“Let the boys go,” she said quietly. “What harm can they do?”

Noone gestured toward her husband. “There’s the harm.”

“It sounds as though they were perfectly justified. Are you paid?”

“I am.”

“Then I’d suggest you leave too.”

She didn’t turn around. Watching Sullivan expire. Noone rolled his tongue in his mouth and glowered at them each in turn. A great frustration in him. As if weighing whether to simply shoot them all. A round in each head and it would be done with; he could walk straight out the front door. Nobody would accuse him. Nobody would dare.

“Please, Mr. Noone. Allow me this courtesy.”

“Very well. I’ll wait in the hall.”

He left without acknowledging either of the boys, ducking through the doorway and striding into the atrium, where his footsteps abruptly stopped. Mrs. Sullivan glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes found Tommy’s and she pulled her lips tight. “I’m so sorry. Truly, I knew nothing about any of it. I honestly thought we were trying to help.”

“You want me to fetch the doctor?” Billy asked her.

“No, no, there’s no need. Go on to bed, the pair of you. Tomorrow’s a new day.”

She turned to face Sullivan again, then perched on the edge of one of the chairs. Hands folded in her lap, back straight. “There now, John. Hush. It’ll all be over soon.”

The brothers left the room. Tommy eased the door closed on the latch. Noone was in the center of the atrium drinking wine from the carafe, and when he saw them he beckoned for them to come. They wouldn’t. Neither moved. Noone holstered his revolver and offered the carafe, swept his other hand through the air in something like a bow. Tommy and Billy exchanged a look. They had no choice, in truth. Timidly they walked toward him and Noone kept the carafe out-held. Billy was first to take it. He swallowed a tentative sip. Then Tommy, then Billy again, who handed it back to Noone. And for a while they simply stood there, passing the wine around, like three old comrades drinking in that vast white vaulted hall.

When they were finished Noone placed the carafe on the floor and stood regarding the two brothers for a very long time.

“She’s right, of course. Mrs. Sullivan. Whites can be so complicated to kill. Too many questions are asked, too much of a fuss made. Hence our current predicament: how to explain tonight’s events. Of course, we can always blame the natives, there must be one about. The houseboy, perhaps. He with the downcast face.”

“No,” Tommy said. “Not him. I’ll stand for what I did.”

“How very noble of you, Tommy. But you’re a fool to trade your life. Besides, as I have already told you, I cannot allow your testimony to be compromised, and so”—Noone nodded sharply, as if the solution had just crystallized in his mind—“here is my proposal. It is the only one I will make. Reject it and I’ll shoot the pair of you right here where you stand.”

He peered down at each of them. Neither could hold the stare.

“Tommy will leave the district. This very night. Ride south and never return. Billy will remain behind. Ordinarily I’d banish the pair of you, but this way I’ll have a surety: each brother the other’s keeper, as the good book says. If either of you talks, if Billy leaves, or Tommy returns, if there’s so much as a letter in the mail, I will kill the both of you and your families and anyone else you hold dear. There will be no warning. One day you will simply look upon my face and know what the other has done. Do you understand?”