Black Collar Empire

by A. N. Latro

  He reaches a shaky hand to take the picture from Emma. She looks like him, he thinks, not for the first time, as she stands so arrogantly, her eyes daring him to deny what is so obvious.

  With her red-blonde hair and pale skin and soft lips and distrust in her eyes—she looks like Caleb.

  “What does it matter?” he asks bitterly, “If I knew him or not? He’s dead. None of it matters anymore.”

  She barely reacts. But, as attuned to her as his body is, he notices the slight tension that fills her. His eyes find hers, questioning.

  “How did you know him?” she asks in a voice that shakes just a little.

  Rama wonders what to tell this princess. Her loyalty is to Seth—he knows that as surely as he knows his should be to his own family. And yet—Caleb trusted her. “Caleb wanted an alliance with Ratchaphure,” he says abruptly.

  She sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes wide. An alliance? Caleb was forging ties without the king’s knowledge?

  “He came at Mikie’s request,” Rama adds, seeing the doubt and shock in her eyes.

  “That makes no sense,” she says faintly.

  “Do you think your king is above whoring?”

  She flinches as the question hits her like a slap, but shakes her head, her face so pale he worries for her. “No. Mikie would. But the Cubans…” Her voice trails off, and her eyes dart up to find his. “I have to go,” she says abruptly.

  Confusion swamps him, and panic. “Wait, Emma,” he pleads, and hates himself for pleading.

  “I have to, Rama.” Her shock is fading, leaving anger behind. She summons an icy smile and kisses him, hard and quick. It’s like kissing lightning, he thinks as she leaves the apartment.

  Or Caleb.

  Bethania’s Brownstone, New York City, June 17th.

  Emma ignores the worried look from her driver as she steps out onto the street she grew up on. The imposing brownstone façade is as familiar as breathing—far more so than the expensive penthouse Seth put her in. It is heavy with memories and her mother’s silent disapproval.

  She shakes off the thought and strides up the steps, unlocking the door. The air is still, and she realizes she is alone. She wanders through the dimly lit rooms, so familiar it’s painful.

  The library is empty and tempting, but she pushes past it, walks deeper into interior, up the stairs. There is a familiar closed door near the end of the hall, a door to memories.

  She had been nine when Isaac died.

  She has no clear memories of her brother. Everything she knows of him is colored by the change in her mother, the distance of her father after Isaac’s death. And the closed door. For almost nine years, she has lived with it, and the silent command to leave it alone. No one but Bethania was welcome in Isaac’s room.

  She snuck in once, when Beth had been gone, and stood in the clean room—stunned that it was not the least bit dusty. The room was a shrine to a dead son, an unknown brother. Disturbed by that morbid fascination even at twelve, she closed the door and never again challenged that particular rule.

  She should go to her mother’s office—if there is any information to be found, it will be there. Despite the anger that pushed her to her mother’s home, Emma finds herself hesitating. Instead, she turns to the carved door that has always been her retreat here. The one place that carries her imprint instead of Isaac’s or Bethania’s.

  She opens the door and her breath catches.

  The room has bare walls. An elegant four poster bed occupies one wall, a gliding rocker the other. It is very Victorian, very tranquil—very much her mother.

  All traces of Emma, herself, are gone. The tastefully hung Van Goghs and Seurat are conspicuously absent, as are the messy bookshelf, and the dresser with her small array of makeup, and the tiny box of letters she had kept through the years.

  The picture of her and Quinn that had been propped in the window.

  Even her sleigh bed and dark green spread—all of it is gone. The only traces of her presence is the blue-gray walls.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Her mother’s voice is icy, controlled anger. Emma takes a deep breath as she stares at the room, and turns, meeting her mother with her own cold fury.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Bethania’s lips curve, a hint of amusement. “A guest room, dear.”

  “This is my room, Mother,” she says, her voice is vibrating in anger.

  “You left, Emma.”

  “So you wait for the door to slam shut and throw my shit out? Isaac’s been dead almost ten years and his room is still a fucking shrine.”

  Bethania smiles, icily. “But you’ve been gone so much longer than you think, Emma.”

  She blinks, staring at her mother in shock. Bethania sighs, and for the first time, exasperation seeps out. “Emma, you may have left only a few weeks ago, but you’ve been your cousin’s creature for years. I’m not blind, you know.”

  “He’s been gone,” she protests, and even to her ears, it’s a hollow protest.

  Bethania shrugs. “And you were under Caleb’s protection almost all of that time. Do you think I don’t know that? That you would always choose your cousin over me?”

  “He is the rightful heir.”

  “Only by accident of death,” Bethania snaps furiously. “You left me and gave your loyalty to a leech. And for what? He made you an assistant!”

  Emma laughs, a low incredulous sound, and shakes her head. “You’re offended for me? Is that it, Mother?”

  “You could run this syndicate. Instead you fetch and carry.”

  Emma smiles, says softly, “Maybe it’s that I’m more than a ‘fetch and carry’ and you know it. Seth trusts me in a way your brothers never did. And in my way, I will rule the family. And you hate that.”

  Bethania is pale under her expensive makeup. “They would have told you. In time, they would have been forced to tell you.”

  Emma’s eyes are sharp, hard. “What?”

  Bethania flinches away, and Emma wonders if her mother fears her. She shakes herself, and color seeps into her cheeks. “Why are you here, Emma?”

  She gestures at the empty room. “I came for some of my stuff.”

  “It’s in storage,” Bethania says distantly. “I’ll get the address for you.”

  In the modest office, Bethania sifts through her files. Emma knows her mother has always kept a dossier on her—knows it’ll take her a moment to find the information hastily shoved there. She takes a moment to survey the room. Two pictures hang on the wall—a painting of Isaac, holding her as a baby, and a framed shot of Bethania, Gabriel, and Mikie.

  For the first time in she cannot remember how long, her gaze is drawn to the second picture rather than her dead brother. She stares at it, at the way Mikie and Bethania are close, Gabe a little distant, his dark eyes staring at something away from the camera.

  Bethania always favored Mikie.

  “What do you know about Ratchaphure?”

  The question is blunt, and she bites her lip, wondering if it was smart. Bethania stills in front of her file cabinet. Her voice, when it comes, is measured and cold. “Why?”

  “I remember Caleb mentioned it, once,” she lies easily. “No one talks about what he did. Why Uncle Mikie purged after Caleb’s death. And I’m curious—what did he know that was so dangerous Mikie killed his nephew?”

  Bethania whips around. “Mikie has nothing to fear from Caleb—he never did.”

  “Then what?” Emma asks softly, her voice a challenge. “Was it that Mikie knew Seth had been through hell in Cuba, and if the Cubans found out he was thinking about Asia, they’d kill him? Why send Seth away in the first place, Mother?”

  Hatred fills Bethania’s eyes, but she remains silent against her daughter’s questions. She wonders how Emma learned so much—and how much of it Seth knows. How had they learned of Ratchaphure?

  “Seth wanted to go,” Bethania says, pushing her doubts aside.

  Emma laughs openly at thi
s. “Seth went thinking he was going for a few months—a summer. Mikie left him there for two years!”

  “You act like Seth was the only one who left,” Bethania snaps. “Caleb left the city for the summer; you know that.”

  “A summer is not two years, Mother. And why send Caleb to Asia if we were going Cuban—and everyone knows that’s why Mikie sent Seth south.”

  “Ratchaphure approached Caleb,” Bethania protests and then stills. Emma smiles, but it is a sad smile—a smile of pity. The older woman stares in shock at the daughter she has always ignored, always discounted, always dismissed.

  Emma shifts forward and plucks her dossier from her mother’s nerveless fingers. She slides it into the Burberry purse and gives her mother a final glance. “Mikie sent his nephew to forge an alliance. He should never have responded to the Thais.”

  “Caleb…” Bethania begins.

  “Loved this family. He would kill to protect Seth and me. Yes, he was misguided,” Emma snaps. She jerks her sunglasses into place, more to hide her tears of anger than anything. Pain is beginning to replace the anger, and she wants solitude so she can fall apart. “But misguided or not, he loved this family—if he didn’t trust us, it was Mikie’s fault. And you allowed it.”

  Her mother flinches at the anger in Emma’s voice. At the door, her back to her mother, she says softly, “My loyalty is given, Mother. And yes—it has been for a long time. But I, at least, gave it wisely. Did you?”

  She doesn’t wait for her answer, her defense, or excuses. She all but bolts from the icy tomb, with all its reminders of her brother and her childhood. Her car is waiting patiently, and her driver looks alarmed as he holds the door for her. She is sobbing as he shuts it and drives them away from her family home.

  Astoria, New York City. June 16th.

  The building is smallish, even for the area, a mere five stories. The front of it is dirty brick, and the stair well smells like piss. A woman in a sequined mini-skirt, who must be a hooker, sizes him up just outside of the exit to the fourth floor.

  She seems interested for a moment, shifting the tiniest bit as his eyes pass her by, but just as quickly she stops. He is obviously out of place here in his rich-textured button-up tucked into his low-rise business slacks, definitely not worth the trouble of trying to tangle up with him. She resigns to obvious visual appreciation.

  He gives her just a passing glance, one warning not to approach him, that he isn't her dinner ticket. Then he leaves her behind for the off-putting endless green tunnel of apartments, like drawers in a filing cabinet. His destination leads him most of the way down, past smudged and unkempt white doors that represent the squalid lives of the street.

  Caleb took shelter in the slum? Of course, where better to avoid the radar of court life?

  The hesitation that plagued him the first time he opened his brother's door never comes. He'd rather face harsh reality than waste to nothing in this wretched hallway.

  The smell inside the place might be worse than the rank, piss-scented hallway. He takes a deep breath and crinkles his nose in errant disgust. He uses his phone to give him enough washed-out light to find the switch to a standing lamp. The bulb blows when he turns it on.

  From the faint illumination, he can gather that the door opens directly into the living space. He creeps past a coffee table to the kitchen, which is definitely the source of the smell, he decides as he flips on the light.

  Two bulbs come to life above him, the third most likely long dead, the fixture at some point lost. This is more like it.

  His eyes sweep a sink full of dishes; a grease spot on the stove, the open trash can reeking. An empty wine bottle sits on the counter, glass beside it complete with finger smudges and cracked, dried remnants of purple in the bottom. He slams the lid down on the trash, which blocks the odor somewhat.

  He wanders back into the living room, letting his eyes roam over the coffee table. His resolve shakes violently, threatens to dismantle stone by stone. Maybe an eternity of nothing is better than this. A sheathed katana leans against the side of the couch and the wall, its handle wrapped in dark blue. A chrome .40 caliber gleams from the table top, resting next to a black butterfly knife and a pack of cigarettes, probably empty. A 24 karat-rimmed ashtray overflows in the middle of the table. Ash rests in peace on every available surface.

  This setting screams of Caleb Morgan, the older, messy brother with a dark fascination with most types of weaponry, a smoking habit, and no maid. The cost of the sword would pay this apartment's rent for several months, the price tag on the gun several more. The drab, once-white paint is peeling off the ceiling in places, and a light blue dress shirt hangs haphazardly across the back of the couch, tag boasting the mark of Dolce & Gabbana.

  Seth's chest contracts as he collapses onto the couch, staring at the orchestrated mess for a long time. These are the tiny details that created the map of Caleb's inner chambers: a blue deck of Bicycle playing cards, a Maxim magazine, another empty wine bottle, this one Chardonnay. A girl’s sweater, sedate and modest. His eyes narrow—did Caleb really bring Emma here? Or did the sweater somehow follow him home, left in his care by a relaxed and forgetful cousin?

  He picks up the cigarette pack:—Marlboro Reds, always. It's not empty, he finds, shaking it like he has seen Caleb do so many times to gauge his supply. Four, he guesses, then flips the top to see. There are two cigarettes and a folded piece of blue paper.

  Once, when Seth was fourteen, he found one of Caleb's first packs of cigarettes while snooping in his room. He had stolen them just for spite, since Caleb couldn't tell on him for something he wasn't supposed to have, but he had also tried one in some attempt to relate to his cool and mean older brother. Caleb had kicked his ass for taking them. He kicked it again when he realized one was gone.

  He hasn't smoked one since that day, yet his fingers choose a brown filter instead of the mysterious paper. He can smell the rich tobacco as he puts it to his lips. He scans the tabletop with innate faith in his kin until he finds a green Bic lighter beside a tray with a shriveled bud of marijuana on it. His eyes drop closed as he lights the thing and inhales.

  The smoke is harsh and earthy. It burns his throat and lungs, but he takes it anyway. He watches his breath swirl as he exhales, long and slow. There's no television here, he notices. Not surprising, he thinks. Caleb never took much from the fictional worlds of shows, and he never put much stock in the evening news.

  He takes another hit, and with resignation, slips the paper out of the pack. When unfolded, it reveals only a phone number, scrawled thickly in black with stylish dots where most people put dashes. It could have been any number, some girl from a bar, a business contact, except that it's so familiar it makes Seth choke. Not so very long ago he stared at this sequence of numbers written in the same hand. Vera Rohan’s.

  Why is her name the only thing that keeps coming into play as he digs through Caleb's life? He takes a hard hit and thinks of the newspapers in the other apartment, all her stories about other organized crime rings. His stomach flips, and he forces himself not to imagine the ways in which Caleb and Vera could have been connected.

  His head buzzes, so he stabs the cigarette into the pile in the ashtray. Relating to Caleb is proving much easier than he could have prepared himself to handle.

  At what point, he wonders, did Caleb stop tasting the cigarettes? When did it just become a part of him? When did it stop being cool and become just another burden? He tosses the pack onto the table and pockets the number as he stands. Just as before, he knows the bedroom will tell far more secrets. Unlike before, those secrets may be heavy enough to suffocate him for good.

  The door to the room is beside the couch, mostly closed. The switch inside brings to life a glass fixture hanging on a grimy chain. It is a sad ghost of the gleaming, modern lighting of his other place. A twin bed runs along the right wall, covered by a mess of blankets and silk sheets. A closet takes up most of the other wall, and there's just enough room to walk between
them. A nightstand takes up most of the rest of the space, filled with papers and folders, another full ashtray beside two Trojan Magnum, and a dusty clock radio. There's a pile of clothes in the corner and some more hanging from the end of the bed.

  He couldn't ignore the files if he wanted to. Ash scatters as he picks up the top one and opens it. The low wattage bulb above him and meticulous chaos around him make him feel like he's in a movie filmed sometime before he was born. He quickly recognizes the lists of numbers in neat columns as accounting figures. Simultaneously, he realizes that nothing is labelled. Every column and row is carefully lacking what it represents. He drops himself onto the bed with a frown. None of these numbers match anything within the Morgan Estates or the syndicate's operations, and these numbers are massive. His hands have begun to shake.

  Uncle Mikie isn't so sure about that little plan you two had anymore, Caleb had said. Seth hadn't believed him. But here seems to be proof of a very solid change in direction. He releases the file to flutter and scatter to the floor and picks up the next one. It is full of Morgan Estates’ financial information. A pack of papers at the end show different projections for the company based on some sort of major restructuring, the information in the other file, Seth can only guess. He throws it beside the other in the floor.

  Beneath the manila folder is a wrinkled, yellow carbon copy, some sort of receipt, Seth thinks from first glance. It is folded around a neon-colorful brochure. He picks it up as if it might explode at any moment, unfolding the thin paper. The top is all in a language he doesn't recognize, something Asian. He thinks we should go Asian instead, Caleb had said. Those words meant so little then.

  Seth flips open the brochure. It has pictures of small, bare, yet very stylish rooms with big empty beds, and beautiful, young, barely clothed women. They are smiling and posing around happy-looking men of different nationalities. His stomach turns as he thinks of Emma's seemingly innocent question to him, her inquiry about whores.