Read Disintegration for Free Online Page B

shoulder. The bird's trainer stood nearby, holding up a snack food. The host looked nervous, as if he feared an embarrassing episode involving droppings. The bird gave a soundless squawk, warming up for a ribald wisecrack.
    Poccora picked up the food tray. "I hate parrots," he said, looking at the television. "They always get to cut you down, but you can't make a snappy comeback. They're too dumb to get it. Like talking to a ventriloquist's dummy."
    "The worst ones are the dummies who look just like the ventriloquist," Jacob said. "They let their evil side out."
    "Hey,
you
try being nice when some guy has his hand shoved up your rectum," Poccora said.
    "They call that a 'prostate exam.'"
    The nurse started to laugh, then gave up. He walked between them with the food tray, paused at the door. "You sure you don't want any of these pancakes?"
    Jacob looked around the room for the fly. "No, Steve. They're all yours."
    Steve dipped a finger into the syrup and pretended to lick it. "Hate to see good food go to waste. But this is no good. I know the infections that go through this place."
    He left, and the forced humor shifted back to unbearable tension.
    "Where do we start?" Renee asked after twenty seconds of silence.
    "Please. You're starting to sound like my old shrinks." He fumbled for the remote, wanting to punch up the volume.
    "Let's start at the beginning, then."
    "The beginning. My first big mistake."
    "Jake, don't do this."
    "You're the one who wants it to be over. Isn't that what you've wanted all along? It's just pathetic that you needed this kind of excuse to get your nerve up." The tears were hot in his eyes, burning with the memory of the fire and all the rest of it.
    His thumb pressed the volume button. Renee moved forward with angry speed and slapped the remote from his hand. He stared at the silent television as its colors blurred in his watery vision.
    "Talk to me, you bastard," she said.
    His throat was tight, rasped raw from the ventilator tube that had been stuffed into his lungs. He tried to convince himself that the fire had damaged him, taken the soft words from his tongue, leaving a handful of ash in the cavity where his heart used to beat. Part of him wished he had died in the fire. Part of him
had
died in the fire. But not the right part, the half that needed killing.
    Renee's breath was on his cheek, but he was miles away, in the dark, searching for that cool grotto that the drugs carved in the stony recesses of his skull.
    "You can't keep your eyes closed forever."
    "Long enough."
    "That won't make it go away. We've got to deal with it. You can't crawl into your shell and pretend it never happened."
    "Take the money. It doesn't matter."
    "Donald called me. He wanted to know when you'll be ready to go back to work."
"I'm through." And he was. M & W Ventures, Inc., had built ten apartment complexes, a half-dozen subdivisions, three shopping centers, the country club, and a pair of chain motels. That qualified as a life's work, didn't it? Even for the son of Warren Wells. Maybe Donald Meekins could take the oversize prop scissors they used for ceremonial ribbon cuttings and snip the
W
off the corporation's name.
    Jacob had made his mark on the world. A reputation you could take to the bank. Something you could use for collateral.
    He could lose everything, his kids, his wife, his soul, but still those buildings would stand, a testament to willpower and vision. Asphalt to pave his way to a better future. Steel bones, concrete flesh, and a blueprint for his soul. Material evidence for Judgment Day, a devil's bargain.
    "You're not through," Renee said. "I won't let you be through."
    He wondered how much of it had been for her. Where did spousal support cross the line into need, what separated encouragement from the shrewish demand for perfection and achievement? Was it his own insecurity that drove him, or was her relentless desire for his success the whip that kept him in a lather? Was she the ventriloquist