Chapter 5 - The General’s Line in the SandRichard spun around, his face twisting into an ugly mask of corporate fury.
"What the hell is that?" he hissed, lunging forward and grabbing Maya by the collar of her oversized coat, hauling her to her feet with a violence that made the child gasp. "Who let this rat into the house? Thomas, check the back door! Someone’s breaking in!"
"Let go of her, Richard," a voice rasped from the darkness of the upper landing.
The two nephews froze. They looked up into the gloom.
Arthur rolled his chair slowly out of the shadows, the black barrel of the Walther PPK resting casually across his wool-covered thighs, pointed directly at the center of Richard’s Italian-silk tie.
"Uncle Arthur," Richard stammered, his fingers loosening their grip on Maya’s collar just enough for her to drop back onto her feet with an indignant sniff. "Uncle, thank God. There’s... there’s an intruder. This street urchin somehow managed to slip through the service entrance—"
"The only urchin in this hallway is standing in a three-thousand-dollar suit and sweating through the armpits," Arthur said, his voice dropping an octave into that dry, terrifying register that had once made battalion commanders stand at rigid attention. "Take your hands off the child, Richard. And take your brother’s hand out of his jacket pocket before I blow two holes through your lumbar spine."
Thomas’s hand instantly froze where it had been creeping toward a heavy bronze paperweight on the hall table.
"Uncle, you're not well," Thomas babbled, his face draining of all color. "You're confused. This is a misunderstanding. We came by to check on you because Carmen called us—she said you were acting erratic at the park—"
"Carmen went to bed an hour ago at my specific command," Arthur interrupted. "She didn't call anyone. You hacked my home network, you tracked my movements through my medical alert bracelet’s GPS, and you broke into my house to look for a safe that doesn't contain a single penny for either of you."
Arthur wheeled a few inches closer. The light from the wall sconce hit the barrel of the pistol, making it gleam with a dull, oily menace.
"Get out," Arthur whispered.
"Uncle Arthur, you can't be serious—we're your family—"
"My family is dead," Arthur said. "And the men I served with wouldn't have pissed on either of you if you were on fire. You have sixty seconds to walk out that front door. If you leave a single briefcase, a single coat, or a single footprint behind, I will call the District Attorney’s office, play them the audio recording of your little conference down in the coal chute, and ensure that neither of you ever practices law or finance in the state of New York again."
Richard’s face mottled from pale white to a furious, apoplectic purple. He opened his mouth to argue, saw the absolute, dead-eyed certainty in Arthur’s gaze, and thought better of it.
"You're making a mistake, old man," Richard spat, adjusting his cuffs with trembling fingers. "You're senile. We'll have a conservatorship hearing by Friday morning. You won't even control your own spoon."
"Try it," Arthur replied softly. "I've killed better men than you for less."
The nephews scrambled backward down the stairs, their expensive loafers clattering against the marble foyer like falling gravel. A moment later, the heavy oak front door slammed with a concussion that rattled the crystal chandelier overhead.
Silence rushed back into the hallway, heavy and profound.
Arthur lowered the safety on the Walther, laid it across his lap, and looked down at the little girl standing in the middle of the landing.
May you like
Maya dusted off her coat sleeves with an air of profound indifference, walked over to Arthur’s wheelchair, and hopped up onto the footrest, dangling her legs off the side.
"You talk real good," she observed, picking a piece of lint off her mitten. "My name is Maya. You got any crackers? The crunchy kind with the peanut butter inside?"
