Iron House (44 page)

The old man stopped by the largest structure, which had been painted white once. The windows were broken out, roof caved in. “You ever heard the term, ‘company store’?” He walked around to Michael’s window, pointed at the building. “There she sits.”

Michael climbed out of the Rover. “I don’t understand.”

The old man took a round can from his back pocket, pinched a half-inch of tobacco and stuffed it under his bottom lip. “Slaughters built all of this back in the day. Wrote mortgages so we could own our own place, then paid us with a mix of cash and store credit. Half the folks here either worked for them or watched their parents get old and broke doing it.”

“Half of them?”

“Rest are hippies and homeless and Mexicans. Lady you want is at the end of that track, last one back, where the water falls off.” He pointed at a sloppy, wet scar through the trees. “House used to be yellow. Sits on the creek’s edge, with a big, flat boulder for a front yard. Kind of pretty once upon a time.”

Michael stared off down the track. “You’re not coming?”

“That’s my house, right there.” He pointed at an unpainted shack fifty yards off. A half-built barbecue pit dominated the patch of dirt off the front porch.

“Your pit looks good.”

The man shrugged. “Been telling the wife I’d do it for twenty years.” He winked. “Figure building it’s the best shot I got of dying in peace. You go on down, now. Her name’s Arabella Jax. She hears better than she sees, and has shot more than one dog what wandered onto her porch. So, let her hear you coming. Just don’t tell her I’m the one who sent you.” He squelched back toward his truck, but Michael had a few more questions.

“Why do you think she knows anything about Serena Slaughter?”

“Not sure she does, but everybody down here worked in the quarry or the mines. She’s the only one left who worked in the house.”

“Doing what?”

“Dishes. Laundry. Rubbing the old lady’s feet. Hell, I don’t know.”

“Why do you think she’s the one that burned the house?”

“They had some kind of falling out.” The man swung into his truck, spoke through the passenger window. “Mostly, she’s the only one down here mean enough to do it.” He put the truck in gear, lifted a hand. “Hang on to your wallet,” he said, and drove off laughing.

Michael watched his tires sling mud, then catch. He stepped back to his own vehicle and felt eyes watching him, caught movement in shady places behind open windows. It would be a short walk, he thought, but doubted the Rover would survive his absence. So, he drove.

The track went between two houses, then bent toward the creek and followed it deeper into the gorge. Michael had seen a lot of poverty in his time, but never as entrenched as this. This place had been here for a long time, and it had always been poor. No power. No phone. Trees chopped down for firewood.

The yellow house sat far back from the rest, and he saw how it could have looked once upon a time. The creek slid past the front of it, touched the side of a giant, flat boulder as it formed a wide, deep pool and then dropped off in a whisper of spray. There was a view down-gulley, and the river itself glinted far down in the green.

But that’s where the prettiness ended. Most of the gutters had fallen down years ago and lay rusted in the dirt. Those that remained were clogged and sprouting saplings two feet tall. A blue tarp covered part of the roof, and tarpaper showed where windowsills had rotted off the sides. Boards were missing in the porch. What paint remained was deep in the grain.

Michael turned off the car and got out.

A sickly smell wafted from an open window.

“Arabella Jax?”

He stayed well back from the porch. Didn’t have to wait long.

“Who wants to know?”

A smoker’s voice, and strong enough.

“I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“About what?”

“May I come up?”

He thought she was near a window. Right side. He couldn’t see her, though. Just a hint of furniture and mustard-yellow curtain.

“I don’t talk for nothing,” she said. “You got money?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t let grass grow under your feet.”

Michael stepped carefully onto the porch. The door was open, a torn screen hanging off-kilter. The smell was stronger this close, fetid and thick as oil. “I’m coming inside,” he said.

“Don’t need a goddamn play-by-play. I see your hand on the door.”

The screen door stuck, then swung wide enough to knock against the house. The room beyond was dim and low. Michael caught a glimpse of worn carpet and ancient furniture. Arabella Jax sat in chair by the window. She wore a housecoat that had once been white, but now looked like dirty dishwater. Gray hair clung to her skull; her face was collapsed and sallow, sockets pushing against the skin around her eyes. She had one leg up on a lime green ottoman, and it was the leg that smelled. From the foot to the knee, it was swollen and purple. Two toes were missing, and open sores showed where the skin had broken down.

Diabetes, Michael guessed. Bad, too.

She acted as if unaware of the smell or sight. An ancient shotgun lay across her lap: double barreled with big, scrolled hammers. “Come closer,” she ordered.

Michael did as she asked, and she leaned forward. “Pretty one, aren’t you?” She leaned back, held out a hand. “Money first.”

“How much?”

“All of it.” He didn’t argue. He had three hundred dollars in his pocket, and handed it over. She thumbed it professionally, then shook an unfiltered cigarette from a rumpled pack and struck a match against the table. Smoke gathered in her open mouth. “Now, tell me sweetness…” She narrowed her eyes. “What can I tell you that’s worth three hundred American dollars?”

Michael thought of the many ways he could approach this. He could finesse, give the backstory, tell lies. In the end, he said what was most on his mind. “What can you tell me about Salina Slaughter?”

She froze, smoke around her face. “Salina Slaughter?”

“Yes.”

“Salina…” Her hands went white on the gun. “Motherfucker.”

She got a thumb on one of the big hammers, cocked it as the barrel came up and her bad leg thumped once on the floor. There was fear in her face, and anger, too. But fast as she was, she was not that fast. Michael kicked the ottoman aside, stepped forward and snatched the gun out of her hands. She pressed back in the chair, hands up and teeth bared. “God damn it,” she said. “No-good motherfuckin’ jumped-up city-boy…”

Michael pointed the gun at her, let the hammer stay up and cocked. She stopped talking. “Are you finished?” he asked.

She eyed him steadily. “Nobody gets that fast doing God’s work.”

“Maybe not.”

“You planning to pull that trigger?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, think fast, boy, ’cause I dropped my cigarette and it’s burning my ass.”

“Go ahead.”

She dug the cigarette out from between her leg and the cushion. Stuck it in her mouth. “Do you mind?” She gestured at the ottoman. “My leg ain’t what it was.” Michael nudged the ottoman with his foot. She propped her leg, then leaned back and studied him like she didn’t care if he pulled the trigger or not. “That flatland ball-licker send you up here to kill me?”

“Which flatland ball-licker are we talking about?”

“There ain’t but one.”

“What’s his name?”

“Hell, boy, I don’t remember his name. It’s been nigh on fifteen years, and he put a gun in my face, too. A lady of my refinement don’t think so clear under such circumstances.”

Michael stepped closer and put the barrel against her forehead. “I’m not the kind to ask twice.”

“Okay, okay. No need for that. I’ve got his name in here somewhere. Let me think, Let me think…”

“Tick tock, lady.”

“I don’t—”

Michael cocked the second hammer.

“Falls.”

Michael backed the gun off an inch. “Jessup Falls?”

“That’s the one. No patience for the suffering of regular folk. Black-souled and unforgiving. No value put on family.”

“Family?”

A sly look came into her face. “You think you’re the first one come up here asking after Salina Slaughter?”

“She’s your family?”

Her mouth opened wide, eyes crinkling as she laughed in his face. “You don’t know fuck-all, do you, boy? There ain’t no Salina Slaughter. Never has been and never was. Who you’re really asking after is Abigail Jax.”

“Abigail?”

“My daughter.” She spun her cigarette through the open window. “How is the heartless, thieving, no-good ingrate?”

Michael spent the next forty minutes with Arabella Jax, and it felt like an eternity. It was more than the sight of her, more than the smells or the slow, certain crumble of everything around him. There was black poetry to her unpleasantness, a rhythm of lies and pride and cunning that Michael had rarely seen, even on the street. She pushed when she could, drew back when she felt threatened and then pushed again. She wanted everything she could get, dollars and knowledge and insight, the key to Michael’s soul if she could find a way to trick it out of him. She’d say horrible things, then preen like an insane teenager and look at him sideways. Michael couldn’t tell how much was act and how much was real, but his skin crawled at the way she watched him, the way she sunk her barbs then opened her mouth and let smoke linger.

“You sleeping with my Abigail? She’d be pretty enough for a fine, young buck like you. That’s a trait we share.” Arabella smoothed limp hair behind her ear. “Is it hot where she’s living?”

“I’m the one asking questions,” Michael said.

“You have eyelashes like a girl. You like boys, maybe?”

“Let’s talk about Abigail and Salina Slaughter.”

“Bet that Jessup Falls is sleeping with her. She’d know how to work a man, all right. I think he may have been from Raleigh. You from Raleigh?”

“I’m not telling you where she is.”

“I don’t care where she is.”

That was a lie; her eye twitched every time she brought up her daughter. She wanted to know where Abigail was, what she was doing. She was hungry for it, and she was afraid. It went like that for a long time. Michael asked a question, and she tried to turn it around. She wanted to know who he was, why he was really there. She tried to find the angles, but Michael was holding the gun, and he knew all about angles. “Let’s talk about Jessup Falls.”

“What happened to your leg?” She sucked on a cigarette.

“Jessup Falls. Salina Slaughter.”

“You want I should rub it?”

She played bold like that, but Michael played in a different league. He leaned forward, took her hand in his. She tried to pull it back, but Michael squeezed hard and let her see enough of his soul to know it could get worse. “Now…” He loosened his grip, patted her hand. “I’m going to ask you again…”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’d rather not.” He squeezed harder, pressure building.

“Oh, Jesus…”

The joints creaked.

“He sent you!” Her eyes flared wide, mouth suddenly slack. “Oh, sweet Lord. He really did.” There was a new fear in her, a specific, urgent terror. She licked her lips, eyes darting frantically as her body locked rigid. The posturing fell away, the slyness and the rough edge. “There’s no need to do like he done. I’ll talk. Watch me. What do you want to know? I’ll tell you. Watch, now. Just you watch me.”

She was so eager that Michael understood. “You’re talking about Jessup Falls.”

She nodded fiercely, shut her eyes tight, and Michael released her hand. Whatever happened between her and Jessup Falls, it wasn’t pretty. She was scared to death. “Let’s talk about Abigail,” he said.

And they did. She started weak and broken, but the spirit came back into her as minutes passed and Michael didn’t touch her again. He watched it build, the slyness and calculation, the belief that maybe he wouldn’t hurt her the way Falls had. In the end, though, Michael had what he needed. He understood some things, and none of them were very pretty. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll come back.”

Her face crinkled as color returned. “Come or don’t. I’ll be dead in six months anyway.”

She flicked a cigarette butt at his right eye.

Spit on the floor.

Michael took one last look at everything—the leg, the house and the loose, brown teeth—then left, and took the gun with him. There was a lot he didn’t understand, and a lot that he did. Abigail was raised poor. Fine. Happens all the time. The most loathsome woman ever born brought her into the world, then did her best to screw her up. That happens, too. Life’s a bitch.

But there was no one ever born named Salina Slaughter. Michael could still feel the hate in Arabella Jax when she’d laid it out for him.

“Dumb shit of a girl wanted to be rich so bad, she made it up. Didn’t like that her momma scrubbed taters and washed dishes and did every other fucking thing just to put food in her face. Know how I heard about it? People down to the store were laughing at me! Said little Abigail was telling everybody her name was Salina Slaughter and she would own the mountain one day when her mother died. Not me, mind you, but that queen bitch Serena Slaughter, who was low and cruel and treated me worse than her dog. That’s who Abigail wanted for her momma! That was the game she liked to play, and everybody in this hollow knew it! Salina Slaughter. Shit. Even after I beat that child bloody…”

That child had been ten years old at the time. Four years later, she stole every dollar her mother had, ran away in the middle of the night and hadn’t been back since. But Jessup Falls had. He’d hurt Arabella Jax so badly that even now she was terrified of him. What had pushed Falls to such an extreme? Was it love of Abigail or some other thing? Just how hard was the man, and what did any of it have to do with Julian and the dead boys from Iron House? Pieces were still missing—big ones—and Michael felt them out there like spinning blades.

Money. Parties. Politicians ...

The line twisted through Michael’s thoughts like a bright, sudden banner.

Was the senator connected to Slaughter Mountain? When and where did he and Abigail meet? Did he know her humble roots, and where did he get his money? Michael kept coming back to that, but Arabella Jax knew nothing about her daughter’s relationship with Randall Vane, knew nothing about her daughter at all.