They dropped Steve fifty yards from the front drive. He walked the rest of the way, limping slightly. He noticed then that it was quieter. The choppers were gone. Part of another deal, maybe?
All he knew was that he was very much alone at the moment.
He got to the drive and walked up the gravel to the iron gate. Behind it stood one of the LaSalleites — the one named Axel, Steve thought — and he looked hyped up. He said nothing as he pressed a button on the gate box.
Slowly, the gate opened.
As Steve stepped through he noticed that Axel held a handgun. Probably a semiauto 9mm.
“Put your hands out,” Axel said.
Steve complied. Axel patted him down with his left hand, letting him know with each slap who was in control.
“Let’s go,” he said, and nodded for Steve to move ahead.
They walked up the winding road without a word, until they were almost to the clearing where the house could be seen.
At this point Axel put the gun to Steve’s head. Held it against his temple and said, “You will get this if you do anything you are not told to do. Clear?”
“Yeah,” Steve said, his throat as dry as the ground beneath his feet.
“Then keep walking.”
They approached the house. About ten men, all holding mean weapons, watched. Every face seemed to hold the hope that he could be the one to do the honors, to blow Steve away when the order came.
Axel took him into the house, down the hall, and into the library where Steve first met Eldon LaSalle. Now it was Johnny standing by the fireplace, alone.
He smiled. “Leave us,” he said.
Axel withdrew and closed the door behind him. Johnny folded his arms and faced him. “You are one crazy dude, I got to give you that.”
“Crazy?” Steve said. “Or am I anointed?”
Johnny said nothing. For once his blazing blue eyes, so secure and confident every other time Steve saw them, had a thin glaze of doubt.
“How’d you do it?” Johnny said. “How’d you get back here?”
“You really care?”
“I just want to know.”
“Like you said, a miracle.”
“Now that’s funny, because we’re going to need more of ’em. There’s going to be some shooting soon. There’s going to be a little apocalypse here.”
“Let the hostages go.”
“It’s too late,” Johnny said.
Steve went to him, within arm’s length. “Let me help get you out of this.”
“Out? You think there’s going to be an out?”
“There can be.”
“In your dreams, Brother.”
“What happened here?” Steve said. “How’d it get to this? What happened to Eldon?”
Johnny looked into the fire, smiling ruefully. “Oh, man. One never knows, huh?” He put his gaze on Steve. “Let me clue you in on a little something. Our father, our real father, didn’t kill himself. Eldon did it, set up a fake suicide.”
Steve’s blood went cold.
“Listen,” Johnny said. “You have to make it on your own in this world, and if they try to stop you, you have to stop them. The official story is that Eldon shot himself yesterday. That he was afraid of the feds. He showed weakness. And now I have stepped in to save Beth-El.”
“What do you mean the official story?”
“I think a clever lawyer like you can figure that out.”
Steve said, “You did it. You killed him.”
“Hey, you really are clever, aren’t you?” Johnny started laughing. A lost laugh. The laugh of a dead man.
Steve waited for the laughing to stop. When it did, Johnny just breathed slowly, watching flames. Watching the fire under that grotesque bas-relief of the stoning of the man. It all reminded Steve of hell.
“Johnny,” he said, “listen to me now. Do you remember Cody Messina?”
Johnny looked at Steve, frowned. “Whoa. Yeah. I haven’t thought about him in . . . where’d you come up with that?”
“Don’t you remember that day you saved me from Cody Messina? He was going to pound my head down my neck if I didn’t give him my Mountain Dew, that’s what he said, and then all of a sudden he got a Mountain Dew can to the head. You threw it at him, Robert. Then you told me to run and later I found out you jumped on him and bit him good.”
Johnny looked off, seeming to remember. “You called me Robert again,” he said.
“Do you remember that?”
“Yeah, now I do. I do remember that. And it’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“I still drink that stuff. Got cases of it.”
“You were my hero then. You were on the right side then. You were my protector. I loved you more than anything when we were kids. That’s been killed. That’s what I hate the most. I hate that it was taken away. You took it away.”
“Me?”
“You sent me off to die. Just like that.”
Johnny peered into Steve’s eyes. “Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t send you off to die?”
“You, Eldon, whoever. You didn’t stop it.”
“Would you believe me if I told you that wasn’t true?”
“No.”
“Eldon ordered it, but I got to Neal. I told him not to do it. He was going to take you a long way away. He wasn’t going to slab you.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Johnny met his eyes. “Yeah. I do. After I took over, I was going to bring you back. Steve, yeah, I used you. I tried to buy your loyalty. Then I had to guarantee it when you started getting cool feet around here.”
“So you guaranteed by having Mott plant coke in my car, just so you could pressure me into staying.”
“Then Eldon got all whacked over you.”
“You could say that.”
Johnny said, “But Steve, I want you to know something. In all of this, man, I really did want to see you again. I did want my brother back. Can you believe that much?”
“I don’t know, Johnny,” Steve said, “but I do know you need somebody to talk to the feds, be in between for you. We’ll get out of this together.”
“I’m not giving myself up.”
“Just the hostages. Give them up and I’ll stay. You made a deal to let two go. Let them all go. Show good faith. Do that much, one step at a time. And that includes Sienna.”
Johnny shook his head. “She wants to be with me. I’m sorry about that.”
“Let her go. Let them all go. We can get it back, Robert. The way we felt about each other. Don’t do this thing. I’ll stick with you. I’ll be your lawyer and your brother.”
Johnny shook his head. “I’m not going back to the joint. And you know that’s the only place I’ll be going.”
“If you do this, if the women here die, there’s something worse that’s going to happen. There’s a justice out there that’s going to rain down on you.”
“My brother, are you getting godly on me?”
“Listen to me! I don’t know what it all means, but there has got to be something like that for something like this.” Steve paused and looked hard into Johnny’s face and knew he was talking to himself now. “I don’t want to lose you again, not this way. I want to get you back. I want to make it right. I didn’t call out when they took you. I let it happen. I want to make it right . . .”
Johnny did not answer. He looked into the fireplace, the flames flickering in his eyes. He stood like that for a long time.
Then the door opened, and two men with guns drawn came in. One was Axel. The other was Bill Reagan.
“What’s up?” Johnny said.
Reagan walked up to Steve and hit him with the butt of his gun.
Steve hit the floor.