along the window, the aged bar with small, round stools, the pies under glass and the thick, pretty woman who offered up a smile from behind the register. “Sit anywhere, sugar.”
A few people looked up, but nobody looked twice. Michael said hello to the woman as he passed, then sat in the farthest booth, a redbrick wall behind him, thirty feet of plate glass stretching halfway to his car. He caught a glimpse of a white-shirted man moving in the kitchen.
Suddenly, he was starving.
He studied the menu, a laminated sheet greasy with fingerprints and ketchup smears, then ordered a cheeseburger and a beer. “Want fries with that, sugar?”
She was in her thirties, and happy enough, a genuine twinkle in her eyes as she held her pen ready.
“That’d be great.”
“Glass with your beer?”
“Sure.”
She wrote that down, and before she could leave, Michael asked, “Do you have a phone book, by any chance?”
“Who you looking for? I know most everybody.”
“Do you know Andrew Flint?”
“Sure. ’Course. He lives out at the orphanage.”
“I was out there earlier.” Michael shook his head. “Nobody lives there.”
The waitress smiled and stuck the pen behind a tuft of soft, brown hair. “Have you been out there after dark?” Michael admitted that he had not, and she smiled more broadly. “Then you should trust old Ginger.”
She winked and walked off to the kitchen, a slow, proud swing in her hips.
The beer was good. The burger was better. At the register, he asked Ginger, “Is there a hotel in town?”
“Two miles that way.” She pointed to the south end of town. “It’s not much, but I’ve caught my ex-husband there enough to know it gets the job done. We close at nine if you’d like me to show you the way.”
Michael handed her a five-dollar tip. “Maybe some other time.”
“You sure?”
Her fingers brushed his, and they were soft.
“Only that I will curse myself in the morning for missing an opportunity such as this.”
He winked, pushed outside; and through the glass he saw her smiling.
The road out to the orphanage was nearly empty. Michael passed a few cars going the opposite way. No headlights behind him. When the tall gates drew near, he slowed and turned, the big car smooth and nearly silent. The dome light engaged when he opened the door, then went off as he stood and waited for his eyes to adjust.
The night was dark this far out, a warm blackness that collected between the mountains. There was no moon. No streetlamps. The stars seemed too high and colorless to offer much light, and even the town, four miles off, seemed to keep its glow dim and low to the ground.
Michael walked to the gate and listened to the night sounds, to crickets and wind and the slide of the river. It took a full two minutes to understand what Ginger had meant when she spoke of coming here after dark. The moment came as Michael took his gaze off the giant black ruin and let it wander the grounds. He saw buildings and dark, a hint of fallen stars where the river went smooth enough to shine. There was nothing, he thought. The place was as black and barren as the far side of the moon. Then his eyes snapped back to one of the small buildings at the rear of the grounds. Thin light shone from a ground-floor window. It was only a sliver, a blue glow through half-drawn curtains, but it was enough.
Michael went over the fence.
He landed lightly, gun in his hand. Under his feet, the drive felt cracked and loose. Small weeds scraped his shoes, and as he walked he felt the past rise up again. He pictured Andrew Flint and contemplated if he were, indeed, an evil man. He was a weak man, yes, incompetent and uncaring. In the end, it didn’t matter. Michael knew it like he knew his bones. Evil or weak, Flint had left the prison to be run by the prisoners. He’d turned his back on the smallest, failed in the most basic manner, and Michael felt an anger stir down deep, a tight fist that thumped harder as familiar shapes gathered in the dark, as old hurts rose and memory crowded close.
Ten years of hell.
Of pain and fear and want.
Michael sucked night air deep and let the emotions run as he moved light and fast over ground that he remembered with shocking clarity. He passed trees he knew, leapt a drainage ditch without seeing it. The building piled up beside him, put a taste in his mouth as he pictured Julian weeping in his narrow bed. He slid along the east wall, reached out to touch brick and found it unchanged. There was ruin here, and strength; that should mean something, but did not. He gave himself the time it took to pass the main stairs, then tightened down the valve of resentment, so that when he reached the window with the television glow, he was himself again, cold and keen and eager.
He put his back against the wall, scanned the open ground and saw nothing out of place. The building was two stories tall, redbrick with shutters that had been green when he was a boy. It had been housing then, a collection of rooms for the few staff that chose to make Iron House their home. It had always been off-limits to the boys. One more rule. One more place to avoid.
Not anymore.
Michael looked through the window and saw a small room with poor furniture. A television flickered in the corner. The TV was old and small, sitting on a trunk. There was no one in the room, but through a door Michael saw yellow light from another room. He made a slow circuit of the building. In the back, he found an old car and empty windows. The light came from a room near the front door. Michael found more curtains partly drawn, bare hints of the interior. He saw a coal-burning fireplace and a tattered wingback chair beside it, two books on the mantelpiece, wooden floors and an area rug worn threadbare on one side. He thought about the gun in his hand, then tucked it away.
He knocked on the door, knocked again and then rattled the knob as something scraped inside. He put his ear close to the wood, fingers spread. There was stillness at first, then he heard the ratchet of metal-an unmistakable sound-and jerked back as the door blew apart at chest height.
Light spilled through the hole.
Gun smoke.
Michael heard another round racked into the chamber. He saw fingers of shadow as someone moved toward the door, then rose himself, his back against the brick, forty-five heavy in his palm. He removed the safety, finger inside the trigger guard. He slipped closer to the door: two feet and then one. Breathing sounds came from beyond the hole in the door. Erratic. Forced. Footsteps dragged as the muzzle appeared in the hole. Black metal with a red bead sight, it trembled as it broke the plane of the door. Michael didn’t screw around. Moving fast, he grabbed the barrel, pushed it away and yanked hard. The weapon discharged a tongue of fire. Michael heard a small cry, and then it was his: hot metal and a walnut stock. Large bore shotgun. He pulled it through the hole and tossed it down, bringing up his own weapon and sighting on an old man inside who was loose-skinned and white. His hands were up and in front of him as if still holding the shotgun, mouth open. A bathrobe hung to his knees, bare legs beneath and worn, red slippers on his feet.
“Open the door.” Michael kept the gun steady. The old man-Andrew Flint-stared, but seemed unable to move. Patchy hair covered the dome of his skull. His cheeks were sunken, his hands liver-spotted and veined. He peered through the hole as if he had no idea what it was. “Please,” Michael said, and his voice came cool and calm as Sunday morning. It seemed to have an effect, because Flint put his hand on the dull, brass knob. The door swung open, and Michael stepped inside. When light landed fully on his face, Flint squinted, his lips pulling up.
“Julian Vane?” Something like hope moved his features. A knobby finger rose, and then the
