CHAPTER FIVE:

BROTHERS

You got no right. This is a family matter!

Charles and Eddie are brothers.

Yeah, we're brothers. I warned him....hundred times I warned him.'Don't tell nobody,' I told him!

But he forgot...and he told me...and that's why you were whippinghim, right? Right!

Right. He had it comin' --- I warned him! You don't know what it'slike...growin' up...livin' with him...the way people look at you allthe time, like you're a freak too...my ole man used to make me kisshim!

He was your brother! You were supposed to take care of him!

Brothers (Written by George R.R. Martin)

John Spirko fumbled with the keys, looking for the one that wouldlock the door to his brother's apartment. Putting down the box heheld in one arm, he tried another key. He should have known betterthan to put Bernie's apartment key on his ring. After the third try,the lock slid securely into place. Impatient to be finished with thisbusiness, he slipped the key off his ring and slid it back under thedoor. Picking up the box again, he walked out to his van, now crammedwith the contents of his brother's apartment. He glanced at the junkhe had salvaged and let out a string of curses. This was the remainsof Bernie's life. There was so little to show that he had everexisted, and none of it was worth anything to anyone, except to him.Shoving in the final box, he closed the door and paused to look backat the complex where his brother had lived the last days of hislife.

"Bernie, you stupid son-of-a-bitch, what did you do to wind uplike this?"

Irritated at himself, he wiped the back of his hand across hiseyes. Not many things made John Spirko emotional, and none of hisassociates would ever consider him a sentimental man. A man in hisbusiness couldn't afford to allow sentimentality into his life. Itcould get you killed, and he was both a survivor and a killer. Thatfact was as cold and as deadly as his profession, but where hisyounger brother was concerned, it was a different matter. Bernie'sdeath had hurt him, weakened him, as nothing in his life had everdone. Even if he were inclined to let the death of his brother go -which he was not - he could never forgive the fact that whoever hadkilled Bernie had started a chain reaction in John Spirko that hadhim teetering on the brink of emotions he had long thought buriedbeneath the calculating ruthlessness of his life. That hisvulnerability was now exposed presented a very real threat to hissurvival, and he knew he had to excise the pain and the grief ofBernie's murder. Failing to do so was as good as signing his owndeath warrant. At some point he would slip, would hesitate a secondtoo long, and then it would be over. He would be as cold and as deadas Bernie.

John Spirko had no beliefs except for the here and now. He had noreality other than the life of terror and death that had been hisfriend and family for as long as he could remember. But there wasstill Bernie.....there had always been Bernie. Someone had put intomotion the wrong set of circumstances that had ended in BernieSpirko's demise, and John Spirko had sworn on his own life thatsomeone was going to pay; and in the process just maybe he'd regainhis edge.

Lighting a cigarette, John took a long drag, holding it in untilhe felt his lungs would burst. The discomfort felt good, at leastbetter than the tightness in his chest where his brother's murder wasa gaping wound. The brothers had grown up apart after the death oftheir parents. Shuffled from one relative to another, it was amiracle they'd been able to keep up with each other at all. It wasthat very shuffling, with no place ever truly being home, that hadbrought each to see the other as the only true family they had.They'd seldom communicated, and neither had much of anything to dowith the other's life, but there was always the knowledge that theywere brothers. And now Bernie was gone. John Spirko felt the ragebuilding inside him, kept in check only by the knowledge thatBernie's murder wouldn't go unavenged.

His fingers tightened around the slender cigarette and itcrumbled, dropping to the ground where he smashed it beneath hisshoe. In his profession, he was a man familiar with death. He'd sentmany men there personally, but his baby brother had only been anewspaper reporter for a two-bit tabloid at that. He should have beenthe safe one.

He lit another cigarette and slid behind the driver's seat.Heading for the expressway, he glanced at the box next to him. InsideBernie's apartment, he'd found his files, fifty or moremicro-cassettes, and several rolls of undeveloped film. Exactly whatcould his brother have been investigating that had landed him a berthin the East River? John Spirko knew that whatever it was, Bernie hadmerely been a pawn. Only pawns were found waterlogged at the bottomof the river, and he was out to get whoever had used his kid brother.There had to be an answer in all that stuff, and then for once he'ddo a hit without payment. This one was for him, and for Bernie...'cause that's what brothers were for.

Hours later John Spirko sat in his office just outside ofBrooklyn. He'd gone through all the tapes, and only three hadn't beentossed aside. He pressed the miniature earpiece to his ear andclicked on the micro-recorder. Closing his eyes, he once againlistened to his brother ask, "What does Vincent look like. Tell meanything you can about him." After some moments, an unknown voicereplied, "They have a sick relationship. He's not a man. I mean,he is not human." The conversation continued, but Spirko hadceased to listen.

Weeks after Bernie's death he'd followed lead after lead that ledto nowhere. In the first wave of his frenzy to smoke out themurderer, it hadn't occurred to him to even look at his brother'swork for a connection to his death. In John's opinion, the storiesBernie wrote for the tabloid had been too bizarre to be real and tooconcocted to warrant interest, much less danger. Then, with the lastof his leads fizzling out, he had finally turned his attention toBernie's life work. His brother's last story was centered around theexistence of some freak man-beast or whatever it was. It was a storythat John assumed had been scratched for being too far-fetched, evenfor his brother's risque newspaper. Now he was having secondthoughts. Bernie's death was somehow linked to this story. Now thathe had turned his hunter's instincts in that direction, he knew hewas on the right trail. Even as cold as the trail was, he saw thepattern immediately, a pattern of unexplained murders that Berniemust have figured out, too.
Again he looked over the short list of names he'd compiled, and thenmade a decision. Scratching out all but one, he stared at it, tappedhis pen against the name, and played it around in his mind. He feltit in the name. It was the instant recognition of one whose naturewas like his own: a predator who knew the taste of death and embracedit. This was the one he would go after, for it took a killer to knowa killer. Sitting back, he smiled, and after a moment, he spoke theword aloud: "Vincent."