Mystery Dance: Three Novels by Scott Nicholson Read Free Book Online Page B

then it pops right into your head later?”
    “No, man. I think you’ve been in here too long.”
    They reached the glass entrance and Poccora stopped the wheelchair. Jacob sat looking at the world outside, a changed world, a lesser world.
    “End of the ride,” Poccora said.
    “Yeah,” Jacob said.
    “Your wife picking you up?”
    “Yeah. She’s right outside. I phoned her from the room.”
    “Good. You two ought to work things out. Take care of each other. Maybe you can have another kid someday.”
    Jacob stood. Though he had been walking the halls for the last few days, his legs were cotton candy. He waved to Poccora and went through the exit, wondering how much of himself he’d left in the hospital. The outdoors was welcome after the stale, recycled indoor air, but it somehow left an aftertaste of smoke on his tongue.
    The mountains were thick and bright green with new growth and a late spring rain had washed the dust from the streets. Kingsboro had only two cab companies, each of those operated by solitary drivers who kept their own hours. Jacob could have called Donald, or any one of half a dozen friends and business associates, but the walk seemed a worthwhile challenge after the weeks spent in the hospital bed. Besides, a borrowed ride might corner him into conversation.
    The talk would go to banal matters such as whether the Atlanta Braves would finally do it this year or how the late snows had affected the golf course at the country club. Anything except what Renee had called “the eighty-ton elephant in the living room.” Jacob’s loss. Or plural losses , depending on how deep into personal history the friend was willing to go. He never wanted to hear the words “I’m sorry” again.
    The burns had healed better than he deserved. The skin was still a little shiny and tight, but with no permanent scarring. Dr. Masutu said he was lucky. If the house hadn’t collapsed and spat him out when it did, the carbon monoxide might have finished him off. The doctor had tried to convince him that his daughter had been doomed no matter what Jacob had done, but Jacob didn’t believe it.
    He’d originally considered going by the office, sitting behind his desk and seeing if M & W Ventures still held any appeal at all. But there were too many reminders, too many photographs. His desk was just another piece of a broken past. He headed down the sidewalk, away from downtown. He had no more destinations, only a long journey away from places he had known.
    On the eastern side of town, Kingsboro was a schizophrenic mix of land uses.  Medical offices were clustered around the hospital like brick vultures around carrion, while some old farmhouses sat back from the road behind them, their gardens showing the first green shoots of corn and potatoes. A nearby gas station had pumps that didn’t accept credit cards and its lot was a black crumble of concrete, yet a glossy sign heralded the modern British energy conglomerate that had taken over. A row of faded apartments slewed up a slight rise of earth beyond the hospital, some of the windows held together with masking tape. Soaring above those flat rooftops was a glistening, seven-story Holiday Inn.
    His father had built the Holiday Inn. It was Warren Wells’ last attempt at an Appalachian Tower of Babel before his death. Jacob averted his eyes from the inn, the tallest building on the landscape. But his father touched something on every horizon, from the community arts center along the highway to the recreation fields in the plains along the river that bore the Wells name. Warren Wells had built too much of this town, his civic stench lingering in a hundred corridors. Jacob had succumbed to the allure of following in those loud footsteps.
    Being born here was enough of a mistake, and being born who he was made it even worse. But he’d compounded it by returning. He had once thought his escape was complete. Then along came Renee with her drive for him to succeed, and she