Disintegration

by Nicholson, Scott

  Beneath that, the initial "J." Leaning to the left.

  Jacob knelt and examined the chicken head. It was a guinea, the same breed that used to run wild on the Wells farm. A ring of congealed blood circled the hatchet wound. The dull onyx of one eye showed through the crescent slit of the eyelids. The beak was parted as if in a gasp or scream.

  The cell phone on the seat beside him emitted its electronic bleat. Renee had given him a new one when he'd purchased the truck, a tacit acknowledgment that Jacob was back to normal. The children's spirits had been laid to rest in their hearts and they would move on. Happily ever after wasn't an option anymore, but neither was mutual suicide.

  Jacob flipped open the phone, looking through the windshield at the house under construction. "Hello?"

  "How was your lunch?"

  "I told you not to call me anymore. You're out of my life now. You and Carlita can head back to your Tennessee trailer park, or hang around Daddy's house until your damned skeletons collect cobwebs. But we're through."

  "Dear brother," Joshua said. "We're not even halfway through. Because you still owe me a million. And brothers always keep their promises, don't they?"

  "I'm not scared anymore. Nobody would believe you if you went to the police."

  "I don't have to go to the police. I just need to talk to your wife."

  The cords in Jacob's neck grew taut and heat rushed to his face. "Damn it. You leave her out of this."

  "No way, bro'. We're all in it together. Like one big, happy family. Ain't that right, Carlita?"

  Jacob heard a whisper of air on the phone's speaker as Carlita took the phone. "My buena, Jake," she said in her sultry, smoke-scarred voice. "Like the good old days, si?"

  Jacob hated the automatic response she aroused in him, that same blend of guilt and dread and excitement. Like something forbidden, overripe fruit that smelled sweet but was utterly corrupt inside. "I'm not playing your games anymore," he said, his chest aching.

  "Oh, but you invented this game, silly chiquito. Wish me, remember?"

  "But it's over. You've got your million."

  "And you have your life back, yes? Just the way it was."

  "It will never be like it was." Jacob wiped the sweat from his face. Even with the cab door open, the late-summer heat stifled him.

  "Well, you can't blame a girl for wishing," she said. She lowered her voice to a whisper that curled into his soul like fingers beneath his waistband. "And two Wells give twice as much water. Gets me twice as wet."

  Jacob couldn't think of a reply. That had been one of Carlita's favorite lines when they were sixteen. Joshua had probably come up with it. Carlita's creativity was never revealed in language. Hers was the cunning of the viper, one that sought out warm, camouflaged crevices and patiently waited to dispense venom.

  Joshua came back on the phone. "I never was no good at math, but the way I figure it, we always shared everything fifty-fifty, all the way back to Daddy's sick little sperm. And now you got everything back and I still got nothing. Another million ain't so much to ask, when you look at it that way."

  "No. You've got your million. I'll be lucky if I get away with it this time. My partner's already sniffing around like he smells shit on his shoes."

  "Hey, Jake, I thought you was big time now. Tall in the saddle and all that. I mean, you got this new housing development going up. Got to be some bucks coming in."

  Up at the construction site, two Mexicans were dropping shingle scraps over the side of the roof, hollering out warnings in Spanish in case any workers were on the ground below. It was the kind of careless action that made Jacob glad the safety inspectors only came around at the first of each month. He'd have to talk to the contractor. Even though he wasn't responsible for any worker's compensation claims, a few accidents would push up his liability insurance rates. "How did you know I was working again?"

  "I got wheels, remember? And I got eyes."

  "Where are you?" Jacob had assumed Joshua was staying out at the estate, waking up at noon and working up to a good drunk by four o'clock. Half the day spent in bed with Carlita, with the occasional time off for runs to the convenience store for Budweiser and Marlboro Lights. A million dollars was plenty of money for that kind of life. Even working in tandem, Joshua and Carlita would never be able to spend it all before either their livers or their lungs gave out.

  "Been keeping an eye on my investment," Joshua said.

  Jacob's stomach clenched. He rose in his seat and scooted out of the cab, kicking the chicken's head to the dirt. What if Joshua were outside Renee's apartment right now, or watching her in the laundry? Maybe they had followed her to the grocery store or post office, and were lying in wait to pop up and introduce themselves.

  "Where, damn it?" Jacob said.

  "See, there's this funny thing about twins. No matter how far apart they are, or what gets in between them, they somehow get tugged together. Like God meant it to be."

  "Don't you dare talk about God. If God were real, my daughters would be alive and we never would have been born."

  "That don't make no sense."

  "You're watching me, aren't you?" Jacob paced around the truck, scanning the woods behind the construction site. The property above M & W's planned subdivision belonged to a Texas corporation. A few logging roads crisscrossed the mountaintop, but their entrances were gated. Joshua's behemoth Chevy would never manage those rutted roads.

  "It was Carlita's idea. She's got a thing for you, you know."

  "No. That was a long time ago. A different lifetime."

  "That same life where you killed your mom?"

  Jacob had to restrain himself from hurling the cell phone across the field. "Where are you?"

  "You'll see us when the time is right. Now, about that money you owe me."

  "Why can't you be happy with what you have? You got the property and the house, and whatever you left across the state line. That's more than you ever deserved."

  "Except Dad left you about eight million, if I remember right. Daddy didn't believe in share and share alike, and I reckon you didn't, neither."

  "Go away. Please. I've paid you back enough."

  "Damn it, Jake. You still ain't figured it out. It ain't about the money. It's about the fun."

  "Screw you."

  Carlita was back on the phone. "Hey, what's this about fun? It's been a long time, hasn't it, gringo? Is your wife taking caring of you?"

  "You don't have any business here, Carlita." Jacob was helpless against her. He felt as if he was over a bottomless pit, clinging to a thin rope with slick hands. Unbidden, that feeling from the hospital swept over him, the one of being submerged in dark, suffocating water. Down in the silent cold where they couldn't get him.

  "But we have so much more to share," Carlita said, taunting him. "I mean, the boy of fourteen didn't know what he was doing. I'll bet your wife has taught you a few tricks since then."

  Jacob heard her cigarette lighter click before she inhaled. The sound triggered flames in his head. Joshua must have whispered something to her because he heard the muted buzzing.

  "Josh said to say, 'Where there's smoke,'" she said. "I don't know what it means. You are both muy loco. Made for each other."

  "Let me talk to him." A sick feeling wended through Jacob's stomach, a fiery snake of unease.

  "Remember under the bridge?" Carlita said. "I know you do. A boy never forgets something like that."

  Jacob stabbed the 'End' button and folded the phone. He sat on the truck's bumper, not trusting his legs. The grinding of the chain saws merged with the buzzing in his ears, and every hammer blow from the roof drove nails into his skull. The phone rang again. And again.

  Six times.

  They were watching.

  He activated the signal and pressed the phone to the side of his head.

  It was Joshua. "Ain't that just like a woman? They won't let bygones be bygones."

  Then his tone changed, the clumsy rural grammar vanished. "But the p
ast does have a price, brother. Remember that."

  The signal died.

  Jacob loosened the top buttons on his flannel shirt and then breathed into his hands, hoping his hyperventilation would fade before he passed out. He worked his way back to the cab, supporting himself using the truck's frame. He had just settled into the driver's seat and closed his eyes when shouts arose from the house. The words were in Spanish, and Jacob didn't immediately grasp their meaning. Then the word "fuego" stood out.

  Fire.

  Billows of black smoke erupted from the open squares of window frames. The roofers scrambled down the ladder, their tools forgotten, the paper from the bags of shingles fluttering in the breeze. The crew leader, a muscular white man in a gray, mottled tank top, ran out of the structure's interior. The other carpenters raced to the water drums, filling five-gallon buckets and hurrying back to the house. The crew leader grabbed one of the buckets and started to enter the building, but the heat forced him back. Flames were already visible, licking around the front door that had just been installed.

  Jacob tried to move, but it was as if cement had been poured into his veins and solidified there, creating a dense and immovable weight. He finally was able to move his lips, completing the phrase Carlita had suggested.

  Where there's smoke, there's fire.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Renee ran the vacuum cleaner over the rug, lost in the hum of tidiness. The windows were open and the breeze caused the curtains to lift and swell. Renee preferred the fresh air and the scent of the pines that grew along the creek outside. The sunlight gave the room a soft, feathery aspect that she found pleasing.

  They wouldn't be in the apartment much longer. She had enjoyed their time together here. It had reminded her of the days in Jacob's college apartment, cluttered and crowded and close. Back before Mattie and Christine and--

  She would not think of those things. The future mattered, not the past. They were already planning on building a new home. Jacob wanted a larger house than the one that had burned, but Renee wasn't sure she wanted something so big and empty. However, the nest wouldn't be empty forever. After all the pain and sacrifice in their lives, they were due some happiness.

  She flipped the vacuum cleaner switch then stooped to check the floor. When Jacob came home after visiting a job site, he often tracked mud across the carpet. She had asked him to take off his boots at the door, but the apartment had no foyer and she was just as bothered by the dirty boots sitting out in the open as she was by the footprints. She tucked the vacuum cleaner in the closet. In the new house, she promised herself, the closets would be deep enough to keep everything out of sight.

  She checked her watch. Twenty minutes to get to the office by the end of lunch break. She'd been unsure about working for M & W, but Jacob's enthusiasm had won her over. Now she was glad she'd taken the job, because she saw her husband several times during the day and they often ate lunch together. Twice they'd even sneaked away to the apartment and had daytime sex just like in the early years of their relationship. A suffused glow had been born inside her, a feeling that she was rebuilding him. She now had a noble purpose, one that would help heal the wounds caused by the loss of her children. The saving of one man might make up for her failure to save two children. Maybe that counted in God's eyes.

  As the last act of her daily ritual, she placed a fresh flower on the mantel by Mattie's urn. A laurel, because the species had just broken into seasonal bloom and grew from black mountain soil. Rich and full of life, the opposite of the gray ashes inside the ceramic shell.

  "Wish me, Mattie," she whispered. "Wish me that you're in a better place."

  She bowed her head slightly and crossed herself, then went out into the Thursday sunshine. As she unlocked her car, she noticed an out-of-date, rusty Chevrolet beside hers, one of the wide gas guzzlers popular when her parents were young. It was an ugly green, with faded gray primer on one fender and bald tires. The windows were tinted to a shade much darker than was allowed by law. She'd never seen the car in the parking lot before, and new tenants were required to register their vehicles with the M & W office. Perhaps the car belonged to a visitor.

  She was backing out of her space when the green car's engine rumbled to life, accompanied by a belch of black smoke from its rear. She waited, giving the car room to exit in front of her, but the car didn't move.

  So much for random acts of kindness. She waved to indicate that she was going ahead then eased forward. The Chevy lurched, cutting her off. Renee slammed the brakes, her restraint harness digging into her shoulder, stopping her car inches from the Chevy. She frowned toward the tinted windshield, uneasy because she couldn't see the driver's face.

  Irritated, she motioned the Chevy forward again. The Chevy idled unevenly.

  Renee rolled down her window and leaned her head out. "Please," she shouted. "I'm in a hurry."

  She looked around the apartment complex and considered hitting her horn. That would disturb the tenants' peace, though. Rudeness was out of place at Ivy Terrace. Instead of waiting, she backed up and steered around the Chevy.

  It shot a few feet forward, the engine rasping with mechanical emphysema. Renee accelerated past, veering in a wider circuit toward the parking lot entrance. Once she was clear, she slowed then looked in her rearview mirror to see the Chevy rumbling up behind her. She cut onto the highway without stopping and the Chevy followed suit, its tires squealing from the inertia of the heavy steel chassis. Renee gripped the steering wheel with all her strength and glanced down at the speedometer. She was already ten miles over the speed limit in the residential zone, but the Chevy was weaving close behind her, its approach steady.

  Renee wasn't an aggressive driver, but fear caused her foot to nudge down on the gas pedal. Houses blurred by on each side of her, the tall oaks along the street forming a tunnel, and cars in the oncoming lane gave her a wide berth. She checked the mirror again. The Chevy was within twenty feet, its dented grill like the grin of a chrome cannibal. A signal light was just ahead, changing to yellow. Renee measured the distance, held her breath, and floored it, shooting through the intersection under the red.

  The Chevy ignored the stop signal, bouncing as it came after her. A car horn blared, and a man emptying cans into a garbage truck jumped back onto the curb. An Amoco gas station was just ahead on the right. Renee slowed as if to pull in. The Chevy crossed the double yellow stripes into the oncoming lane and edged alongside her flank.

  Renee's window was still down, and her hair whipped about her face, briefly blinding her. Over the busted muffler of the Chevy, she heard music, and it was like a scene out of those old Smokey and the Bandit movies with Burt Reynolds as the lead-footed moonshine runner. The bass line thumped and the guitars jangled, and a half-familiar male voice wailed something about blisters, great big blisters on his heart.

  Renee figured the Chevy would pull in beside the gas pumps and trap her there, or maybe run her down if she dashed for the inside of the convenience store. But that notion was just as crazy as the idea that she was in a car chase. She eased off the pedal and took the right turn just before the gas station. The Chevy braked, its wheels smoking, and cut around a pickup and a caved-in telephone booth in the gas station parking lot. Her pursuer made up the lost ground in less than thirty seconds. Renee was afraid to push the Subaru past 70 on the narrow two-lane, though she was now in a rural area and therefore less likely to be blindsided from a driveway. But a remote stretch of road also offered fewer witnesses if the Chevy's driver forced her off the pavement.

  She glanced in the mirror again, desperate to see the face of her tormentor. The black glaze of windshield gave away nothing. But if the Chevy were chasing her, what would it do if it caught her?

  She might finally see Joshua's face.

  And she might get some answers.

  The best way to conquer fear was to face it, even if it killed you in the process.

  The terrain swept steeply upward to her right, the slope covered wi
th second-growth forest. To her left was a spread of pasture, the grass almost blue with summer ripeness. A herd of Black Angus steers dotted the field, heads all pointed toward the shade of the trees. Renee saw a place to pull over, a dirt driveway that led to a wobbly-looking feed shed. She slowed and made the turn, checking the Chevy in the mirror, bracing in case Joshua decided to ram her from behind. She killed the engine and waited, her window open. A farmhouse sat in the notch of a valley, and the roofs of a few houses were visible in the hills across the road.

  The Chevy slowed and pulled alongside her, and again she heard the country-tinged beat and the sweet whiskey smoke of the vocals. The lyrics soared into a chorus about a ring of fire, and then Renee identified the singer. Johnny Cash. She hadn't known much about him, but had seen a television special on his career shortly after his death. "The Man in Black," the narrator had called him.

  Renee didn't wait for the Chevy's engine to die. She got out and rounded the front of the car, knowing she was vulnerable, almost daring the car to leap forward. She glared straight at where the driver would be sitting. She would get her answers now, with no more secrets or games. She was about to pound on the tinted driver's-side window when the door opened.

  A plume of gray smoke issued from the vehicle's interior, accompanied by Johnny Cash's repetitive ring of fire fade-out. Then the Chevy's engine gave a couple of thunderous, dying coughs and fell silent. Renee heard the wind in the trees and a metallic squeak from the driver's seat. Her muscles tensed, half of her coiling to pounce while the other half wanted to flee across the field.

  Come on, Joshua. You can't be any worse than I've imagined.

  A woman stepped out of the car, tall and dark-skinned, pretty, but hard around the eyes. She looked Hispanic, with thick, black eyelashes and flat raven hair. Her yellow cotton blouse was tied in a knot beneath her breasts, her brown stomach flat with a tiny dark cave at her navel. She wore cut-off blue jean shorts and a cheap pair of pink flip-flops. She tapped her cigarette and smirked.