Disintegration Part 10

Joshua took his eyes from the highway and tapped the shrunken heads that hung from the mirror. The taut-skinned plastic skulls seemed to sway and dance in delight, clacking against one another in a noise that resembled chuckling. "Haven't you heard the old saying? Two heads are better than one, Jakie Boy?"

Now Johnny Cash was singing "I Don't Like It, But I Guess Things Happen That Way."

"How's Carlita?" Jacob asked, his gut in knots.

"Fine as ever."

"Where is she?"

"You want to see her?"

"Yeah."

Joshua reached up and squeezed one of the rubber mirror ornaments, making its face distort into a leer. "Wish me."

"We don't play that game anymore."

"Wish me."

Jacob felt the years fall away. "Wish me a kingdom and make me a king."

Joshua's crazed cackle drowned out the rumbling m.u.f.fler.

They reached White River Road and drove parallel to the water for several miles, then crossed an old wooden bridge. Jacob looked at the cold currents pa.s.sing below them. The water was up, fed by the melting snows that had seeped from the granite slopes weeks before. The banks were lush and verdant, the saplings arching toward the sun, fighting toward the canopy of the established oak, wild cherry, honey locust, and sugar maple. The land across the river was changed in a subtle way, as if its skin were somehow more vibrant, its dirt thicker, its trees more commanding and stark. The hills hinted at old secrets, a land thrust up by the pressure of h.e.l.l's forge and then worn down over the eons by heaven's rain.

This was home.

Jacob hadn't been here in years, not since the afternoon call that informed him of their father's death and then during the burial that followed. The man-made aspects of the landscape were unchanged: the long barn with its tin roof catching the sunlight, the split-rail fence running along the sweeping curve of the drive, the two-story white Colonial that perched on the hill like a military command post. It was the property itself that was different, possessed of some unseen aura of menace. Or maybe Jacob himself had changed, and the memory of his past came rushing at him like a ghost wind.

"What do you think, Jake? Daddy would be proud, wouldn't he?"

Jacob glared up at the window on the second floor, the room that he had once shared with his twin brother.

"Hey, now, don't go frowny-face on me," Joshua said. "Daddy gave me the keys to the kingdom. Since I can't sell it, it's a hundred-and-forty-acre pain in the a.s.s. A patch of h.e.l.l with back taxes."

"You've painted it the way it was when we were children."

"Bugs the h.e.l.l out of you, don't it? You'd think the old man would want us to profit from his death, judging from the way he sold out his own family. But lifelong philosophies have a way of changing when you're on your deathbed."

"There's no 'deathbed' when you suffer a sudden heart attack."

"There you go again, getting all mixed up. That was a long time ago and none of it matters now. All that matters is making up for lost time. Setting things right."

As they approached the house, the years fell away, and Jacob could see himself in shorts and sneakers, riding the tire swing beneath the apple tree in the side yard. His childhood seemed part dream, part nightmare, viewed through the gauze of old wounds. He could almost hear his father shouting from the den, demanding that someone bring his pipe and newspaper. He could almost hear the crash of gla.s.s, the dull thump of bone-filled meat tumbling down the stairs-- He closed his eyes as the Chevy came to a stop beside the front porch. The abrasive engine was an affront to the stillness of the estate. The place deserved to be allowed to rest in peace. The house was as much of a coffin as the shiniest metal-encased box down at McMasters Funeral Home, this one holding the corpse of an entire family instead of one person's moldering mound of flesh and bone.

Joshua killed the engine and Johnny Cash's train-wreck voice cut off in mid-verse. "I was tempted to move back in, you know. Figured I'd play royalty, see what being a Wells was like. But it takes money, scratch, boatloads of Franklins, and I wasn't in the mood to join the working cla.s.s just to stay in Kingsboro. A million ain't what it used to be. And it ain't nearly enough."

"I'll get you the rest, but you promised to stay away."

"You worry too much about things that ain't none of your business. Just like always. Seems like you'd be better off taking care of your own business instead of worrying about mine."

"Go to h.e.l.l."

"Short trip." Joshua opened his door and got out, took an exaggerated gasp of fresh air. "Ah, the sweet smell of Wells country. Or is that chicken s.h.i.t?"

Jacob stared at the twin shrunken heads. For the first time, he noticed that one of them had tiny cuts on its face, as if someone had slashed the rubber with a sharp knife. One ear was melted and charred, the nylon hair above it singed. Psycho voodoo, another of Joshua's mind games.

Joshua leaned forward and pressed his face against the tinted windshield, making a distorted dark mash of his nose. "Ain't you coming in? You're gonna hurt my feelings."

From the porch, Jacob couldn't resist taking in the panoramic view.

"Prime territory, half of it good bottom land," Joshua said, as if he'd sold real estate all his life. "Convenient to town yet with all the peace and quiet you can stand without going crazy. Do you know how much this would bring if you parceled it out right? Especially the way the second-home market is booming here in the mountains."

"Not interested."

"Come on, Jake. You've got money now. It don't matter where it came from, neither. I'd be the last one to ever pa.s.s judgment on a thing like that."

"I don't have the money. Renee got it."

Joshua's grin froze, a speck of saliva on his lower lip glistening in the sun as he stood by the car. "What are you talking about?"

"We separated. She blames me because of the fire. And Mattie." Jacob faced the breeze so his tears would dry. He wouldn't give Joshua the pleasure of his pain.

Joshua pounded the bottom of his fist on the Chevy's hood, denting the sheet metal. "d.a.m.n. I should have known she'd try some stunt like that. Leave it to a dumb b.i.t.c.h to take ever G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing you got and still cry for more, more, more--"

"It's not her fault. I just--"

"And after you stood by her when Christine died."

Jacob turned, his fists clenched. "You don't know anything about that. Shut the h.e.l.l up."

"She was family to me, too. I meant to send a card, but how do you say you're sorry when something like that happens?"

Jacob had been asking himself that same question for nearly a year. Christine's death had been different, tragic in a quieter way. Christine meant "follower of Christ," Renee's choice. Coming from Joshua's lips, the name now sounded like a grim cosmic joke.

"So when my other child dies, you pop up out of nowhere," Jacob said.

"Misery loves company," Joshua said. "Just like the good old days."

He reached up and rattled the bra.s.s pipes of a wind chime that hung from the porch's support beam. A die-stamped metal sparrow perched atop the chime, its crevices gritty with age. The chime had been there as far back as Jacob could remember. Their mother had tapped it with her cane to summon them to dinner or bedtime, and the soft notes were a reminder of long summer nights in the forest or games in the barn.

Joshua mimicked their mother's high voice as he climbed the porch steps. "Time to come in, boys." His voice rose to a piercing shrillness. "Jake! Josh!"

Joshua took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, then stood aside. The damp, woody odor of the trapped air enveloped Jacob. Joshua gave him a gentle nudge in the back.

Jacob took a tentative step forward, on the threshold of a life he'd spent a decade burying. A long Oriental carpet led into the foyer where the dining room, sitting room, stairs, and hall intersected. The framed photographs of dead Wells ancestors hung on the walls, dim with dust. A rustic butcher-block table stood on uneven legs against the far wall, topped by a gray doily and an empty crystal vase. A wrought iron coatrack skulked in the corner like a sharp-edged stalker. A path was worn in the center of the oak stair treads. The bottom bal.u.s.ter was still splintered from their mother's fall. Except for the smell and cobwebs, everything was as it had been on Jacob's last visit. The day they'd buried Warren Wells. This house was a museum of pain, a mausoleum of bad memories.

Jacob waded forward, as if the past were a wet stack of calendars. Even Joshua's voice, coming from behind him, sounded years younger. "I haven't had the power turned on. No phone, neither. Didn't want anybody to know I was around."

Jacob finally mustered enough oxygen to speak. "How long are you staying?"

"That's up to you." Joshua lit a cigarette and the acrid smoke helped drive the stench of failure from the foyer.

Jacob reached the entrance to the sitting room. Books lined the shelves around the central fireplace, the burnt umber of the leather a complement to the bricks. Spread across the mantel was a collection of knickknacks, clay cats, gla.s.s figurines, hand-carved exotica from across the world. Their mother had been a collector and had wiped down the objects weekly, s.p.a.cing them in such a precise manner that she could tell if a piece had been shifted even so much as a centimeter. She would have slammed her cane against the floor in anguish to see the figures now, clouded by acc.u.mulated dust.

Joshua crossed the sitting room, his boots shedding dried mud. He flicked his cigarette ash into the fireplace, picked up a crystal poodle, and held it to the muted light that leaked through the drapes. He rubbed a finger across the animal's head then raised his arm as if to fling the object against the grate. Instead, he tossed his cigarette onto the brick ap.r.o.n of the hearth, mashed it out with his foot, and returned the poodle to its proper place in the menagerie.

"It's a little chilly in here," Joshua said. He pulled a couple of thin books from the nearest shelf. "Hemingway. Dad's favorite writer. I think we ought to build a fire."

Jacob sat in a Queen Anne chair, a piece of furniture not designed for comfort. If the foyer was a hallway into the past of the entire Wells family, this room was solely his mother's, stiff and formal and brutal, as severe as a prison cell. Jacob had rarely spent time here during his childhood, and he perched on the edge of the chair as if expecting his dead mother to clatter around the corner, cane-first, and shout at him not to disturb anything. He breathed shallowly, afraid even to stir the air too much.

Joshua stooped and opened one of the volumes to the front pages. "First edition, what do you know?"

He tossed the books onto the log irons, where they lay like clumsy giant moths with paper wings. He pulled out his lighter. "Welcome home, Jake."

He flicked the flint wheel and stared into the dancing flame. The flame touched the brown pages and burst into brighter life, sending shadows crawling along the curtains. Joshua grinned, his eyes sparkling with the reflected fire. He echoed familiar words, written words: "Hope you like the housewarming present."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Donald Meekins was definitely avoiding her.

Renee looked at her watch. She'd been waiting for twenty minutes in the little room with Jeffrey Snow, who sat at his desk and occasionally looked at her over his computer. Jeffrey was fresh out of college and had been hired by M & W Ventures after the previous office manager had been caught kneeling under Donald's desk by none other than Mrs. Meekins. Jeffrey was as far from blonde and bouncy as they came, with a weak chin and faded gray eyes, and his name wasn't Staci and he didn't sign his name with a little heart over the letter I I. He had just the proper amount of stern bookishness to cow tenants who were behind on the rent and enough equanimity to divert those who clamored for repairs or a new paint job.

"Can I knock?" she asked Jeffrey.

"He's on an important phone call. Long distance."

"I see. Has Jacob been by?"

"Mr. Wells?" Jeffrey looked around the office as if expecting to see him in one of the chairs by the rubber tree. "I haven't seen him, ma'am."

"This week?"

"Not since the accid--" Jeffrey pulled at his tie as if it were cutting off the oxygen to his brain. "Not since March."

"He got my message, so he must have come by at least once."

"He still has a key."

"I guess things are a mess around here. I know Jacob and Donald were in the middle of a big land deal west of town. The way the economy's going, you can't afford to sit on anything."

Jeffrey tapped at the keyboard as if randomly plugging in numbers to escape her. "I wouldn't know about that, ma'am. I only keep track of the leases."

"I like Ivy Terrace. Easy to keep clean."

"Yes, ma'am. And Donald paid you up three months ahead. That qualifies you for a five percent discount if you renew."

"We'll be building another house soon," she lied. "When we get things straightened out."

Renee stood and arched her back, stiff from the long wait. She looked at the telephone on Jeffrey's desk. There were three lines in the system, each with a red indicator light. One line each for Donald and Jacob, and one line for Jeffrey. None of them were lit.

Renee picked up her purse from the floor beside her chair. Jeffrey did a bad job of hiding his relief at her leaving. "Tell Donald I'll give him a call later," she said.

"Certainly, Mrs. Wells."

Renee waited for Jeffrey's attention to return to the computer screen, and then she marched past him, twisted the k.n.o.b to Donald's office, and flung the door open. Donald was behind the salt.w.a.ter aquarium looking at the miniature undersea world, his face distorted by water and gla.s.s. The fish moved in darting patterns of color, nervous in their narrow world.

"Bring any bait?" Donald asked.

"No. Just some dynamite."

The light in the room was soft, the furnishings heavy and dark against walls of paneled walnut. Donald had built his environment to match his personality. Aside from the fish, the only bold color in the office was the plaid upholstery in the wooden case that held a clutch of dusty golf trophies. Along the rear wall was a bookshelf that was bare except for some piles of loose papers. A filing cabinet beside the desk looked as if it had been placed there for effect instead of utility. Donald came around the aquarium and approached Renee with the slow steps of a condemned man climbing the scaffold.

Renee searched his eyes for any sign of emotion. She hadn't seen him since the funeral. She wondered if he knew about Jacob's history of mental illness or if Warren Wells had cleaned up that mess along with all the others.

Donald smiled, his face tanned to health club perfection, the several rows of deep wrinkles on his forehead giving him the appearance of concern. His hair was shoe-polish black and he resembled an overgrown ventriloquist's dummy. "How's it going?"

"Oh, you know." She didn't want to cry here. She wouldn't think of Mattie or Christine. Not this time. Not now. Not unless she had to.

"Jacob loved her so much. This must be killing him."

"You've talked to him, then?"

"No. I've been trying to reach him. He won't return my calls. I can't reach him on the cell and he didn't give me the number of your new place."

"You haven't seen him?" She watched his face. He was a businessman, a speculator, an adulterer. A proven liar, and good at it.

"Of course, I expect him to take some time to recover, get through this at his own speed. But we need a plan to tide things over until then. We've got some big deals hanging in the balance."

She couldn't reconcile her image of Donald with the man who'd nearly wrecked his own marriage through a foolish affair. He seemed as cold and pa.s.sionless as his fish. Jacob said Donald was an a.s.set to the company, though, a partner who knew which palms had to be greased to push a deal through. This metaphorical grease seemed to cling to his skin, and probably left him slick under the folds of his expensive but drab suit.

"Jacob told me to touch base for him. I thought he'd been in a couple of times." The walls seemed to close in on Renee. She had left the office door open and thought about making an escape. But this job wouldn't be finished until the final nail was driven in the coffin.

Donald glanced at the door and lowered his voice. "Do you trust your husband?"

"He's my husband."

"I don't know how much he tells you--"

"We're partners, Donald. I make deposits for him."

"Okay, then," Donald said, slipping into his smarmy business manner. "You know we'll lose our purchase option if we don't make the second payment on the Martin property. And we've got a couple of contractors breathing down our necks for some major past dues. I know this has been devastating, but I'd hate to see Jacob lose everything his father worked for."