Blood Brothers (13 page)

The house was dark, quiet. She would have
given anything at that very moment to have had a cat, or perhaps a
puppy, to greet her and let her know that that she was wanted by
someone, or at least something. But no, she never had the time for
pets before and certainly she wouldn’t now. She relaxed her grip
and her Louis Vuitton Aurelia purse fell to the floor, the contents
sloshing and crashing inside.

Carrie didn’t care. She wanted a long, hot
bath, with bubbles, a glass of wine—the good stuff, not that slop
she kept for guests. She had an arduous undertaking ahead of her
and though she’d held off on the wine for the last two weeks, ever
since she’d had the first twinges of morning sickness, she needed
the liquor to steel her nerves and hold her up.

As the bath filled upstairs, Carrie, in the
kitchen, found the corkscrew in a drawer, under a packet of
pictures. Before she could stop herself, she found her hand, almost
automatically reaching for the packet and withdrawing the photos.
They were of her and Michael. A weekend in Vail. She taught him how
to ski and how to build a snowman. She had found it a little
amusing at the time, that he had never built one. But, to be fair,
Mississippi didn’t have the best climate in which to learn such
things.

They’d made love over and over again, in
front of the fireplace, snowflakes falling, dying their tiny unique
deaths outside the cabin. The wind outdoors was chilling, deadly
even when the sun shone, but inside, oh inside, she felt she’d
never been so hot.

She put the photos away. That wasn’t what she
needed right now and she knew it. She uncorked the bottle of
Zinfandel and poured a tall glass. Instead of replacing the bottle,
she carried it in one hand, the glass in the other, out of the
kitchen, up the stairs, and into the bath.

Steam filled the room. Her tub was expansive
and as she settled in, the warm water and the soothing bubbles
began to work at her tense muscles, slowly melting the knots and
tightness away.

She sat there, half-reclined for almost an
hour. When she stepped out, Carrie had finished the entire bottle.
She did not feel lightheaded, instead her heart was heavy. She
toweled off, taking care to rub her belly gently, hoping to, but
not quite, feel the life growing inside her.

After she dressed, Carrie went out into her
bedroom and picked up the phone. Her finger started to dial the
familiar number, time and time again. Michael always kept his cell
with him. If he could bathe with it, he would. Incredibly, he
talked very little on it. He texted like a teenager, and was always
checking stock quotes and news stories. It was slightly irritating,
but mostly just amusing. It was amusing because he tried so hard to
be so businesslike. Sure, he was a very successful businessman, but
when you reached the top of the pile in Benedict, there was just so
much to keep you occupied.

She tossed the phone back onto the bed and
moved to the nightstand. She kept a small .380 hand gun there. With
it in her hand, after ensuring it was loaded, she pulled the slide
back and placed the muzzle at her temple.

A single tear brimmed and slid down her
cheek, tickling the skin as it moved.

No, she had to get this right. No
mistakes.

She pulled the gun away from her temple,
parted her lips and opened her mouth. She inserted the barrel over
her front teeth, the metal scraping as it went. It was cold, ice
cold, and tasted tangy, the oil pruning her mouth. Carrie was no
gun nut, but she’d heard once that it took a mere three pounds to
pull the trigger, to throw out a bullet that would end a life. Not
much strength, easily that of a small child. So little effort, for
so much damage.

It was better this way. It really was.
Derek—no Jerry, he’d finally admitted his real name, had shown her
what her life was worth. Within the four walls of that cheap motel
she had come to understand the value of her humanity.

Carrie had always thought herself a strong
person, a stand-up woman. Now, she knew different.

The day she’d taken the test, or more
appropriately all four of them, and had gotten a positive result
time after time, the world seemed so very full of promise, bursting
with the opportunities of the future.

Maybe Michael would surprise her. She’d been
keeping it from him on purpose. He was a nice guy, he really was.
He was kind and generous, if in his own way. She had witnessed the
most remarkable moments with him, and some of the worst
imaginable…well, at least until last night had taken everything she
ever thought was bad in the world and make it look like a cheery
circus.

But, maybe, just maybe… The possibility was
like water to a man in Hell. They didn’t have to get married,
didn’t even have to live together, but Michael could still be a
good father. It happened all the time. She could tell him about the
Jerry guy and let Michael take care of him. Yes, that’s what she
would do. She’d warn him about what Jerry had in store, and when
Michael made the man go quietly away, her own fear would vanish as
well.

She pulled the gun from her mouth, repulsed
by the cold hard steel, clicked on the safety and sat it on the
bedside table. She reached for the phone, but a second before the
tips of her fingers grazed its plastic shell, it rang.

It was the most awful sound in the world.

Besides the sounds of her own screams.

“Hello.”

“Hi, darling. A little change of plans.” It
was Jerry. The mere sound of his voice repulsed her. Yet, she
didn’t dare hang up. No, if there was one thing she would not
chance, it was this man’s anger, not again. Instead, she did just
what she was supposed to do, and stood there, ready to obey.

***

Jerry stood next to a women’s clothing store.
He was across the street and down about twenty yards from the
window of Michael Cole’s office. He held a prepaid cell to his ear.
These things were traceable to an extent, but you had to be pretty
good at it to make it with your while.

For now, Jerry used the phone without concern
of its being traced. He’d bought the phone with cash, several
states away. By the time, if that time ever came, that anyone
thought to check the number and by proxy, attempt to find the
origin of the calls, he planned to be a thousand miles away from
this ass crack of the world.

“Do you understand?” he asked. He waited for
Carrie to answer. When she told him that she understood, he knew
she did. “Good. I’ll be in touch.”

Jerusalem Garret broke the connection and put
the phone away.

“Excuse me, sir.” Jerry looked down. A young
boy, no older than ten, looked back up at him.

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to buy a crate
of oranges, or maybe apples.” The boy held a brochure out to Jerry.
Glossy photographs of fruit—citrus and other—filled the cover.

“No. Don’t you have something to do? Like
play in traffic?”

The boy gave him a funny look, but Jerry was
already turning away. “No reason to be a dick about it,” the boy
muttered, already looking for his next potential customer.

Jerry had a grip on the kid’s shirt collar
before he realized it. With one hand he lifted the boy off the
ground and brought the little shit face-to-face with him. The boy’s
arms started waving wildly and he screamed, “Hey, dude, let me
down, you freak!”

Jerry did not like children, not in the
least. He considered everyone, from birth to age eighteen, a child,
and had no patience, much less use, for them. Their cocky brazen
attitudes, like they ruled the whole world, sickened him. What did
they know of the world they lived in, the life that would
eventually kill them, but cripple them much, much sooner? He hated
to remember that he had been such a person, so smug, so naive, and
so unknowing. But, of course, he had been. It was a necessary
progression, the natural order of things. Just as you couldn’t know
pleasure without pain, you couldn’t know awareness without first
being unaware.

Although there hadn’t been many pedestrians
around before, they seemed to be coming out of the woodwork now.
Jerry gently placed the kid back on the ground, made a show of
dusting off the rumpled shirt, and bent low.

“Don’t fuck with me, kid. Don’t you ever.”
His words struck a chord with the little runt more visibly than his
actions had, and the kid took in a sharp breath and jolted off like
he’d been shocked by high voltage electricity.

Before anyone could approach him to ask him
why he would treat such a sweet kid in such a despicable way, Jerry
strode across the street at a swift clip, and disappeared into the
offices of Cole Property Management.

The time had come to pay an old friend a
visit.

“Jerry.” The word hung in the air,
suspended.

“Come on, pal. You look like you’ve seen a
ghost.”

Truer words had never been spoken.

Michael stood. Reflexively, he took on a
defensive posture. His entire world was crumbling down on him, and
he felt the enormous weight of every moment.

Jerusalem “Jerry” Garrett strutted into the
room. It was like the last fifteen years never happened. His hair
was a little thinner, but besides that small detail, he looked like
he could be walking out of class on a high school campus. Always
lean, he now looked a little less wiry, a little more solid. He was
dressed well, but not too well. He wore a chenille pullover and
corduroy pants. He had a healthy tan, but wasn’t too dark. He would
have been completely nondescript if not for the tight set of his
jaw, his penetrating blue eyes that looked as cold, as icy as the
artic wind, and his wide, powerful shoulders that could have
belonged to Hercules himself. No, now that Michael thought about
it, there was nothing nondescript about this man at all.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your
conversation. Sounds like there’s trouble in paradise. Nothing too
bad, I trust.”

Jerry had that smug look, the look that made
you think he knew more than he let on, much more.

“No, not too bad.” Michael cleared his
throat. It was suddenly too warm in his office.

“Aren’t you going to invite me to sit
down?”

“Yeah. Yes, of course. Have a seat.” But
before Jerry could place his bottom into a seat, “Jerry, what are
you doing here?”

Jerry looked up. If there had been any humor
in him, even mock humor, it had disappeared. “Is that any way to
talk to such a dear friend, Mike? I thought I’d get a warmer
reception than this.”

“I’m serious, Jerry. What are you doing
here?”

“In your office? Or in Benedict?”

“Both.”

“Well, I have some unfinished business.
Something I really need to take care of.”

Michael was still on his feet, behind his
desk. Slowly, he was recovering from the shock of seeing this man
after all these years. The sight of his former friend threw him for
a loop. And that was putting it mildly. All of a sudden his office,
his sanctuary from the world, was no longer safe, as witnessed by
this intrusion from his past. A past he didn’t want to
remember.

Willing himself to be the man he was now, not
the child he was way back then, Michael cleared his throat and
eased out from behind the desk where he felt a little cornered—odd
because he wasn’t in a corner—and strolled to the bar, as if he
didn’t have a care in the world. A long, highly polished obsidian
slab held countless bottles of fine liquor.

Pouring himself a finger of scotch, he asked,
“Would you care for a drink?”

“It’s a little early in the day, but what the
hell. Got any Jack?”

“Sure. Green label, all right?”

“It’ll do.”

Playing the good host, Michael tossed a few
cubes of ice into a glass and dashed in a little Jack Daniels.
“Straight?”

“Only way to have it.”

Michael poured a bit more. Jerry still sat,
looking as comfortable as if he were in his own den. Michael took
the drink to him.

“So…”

“You know, Michael. I just can’t get over
that you seem less than thrilled to see me.”

“No. It’s not that.” He took a pull from the
scotch. It burned, but it was a good burn. “Just surprised. That’s
all.”

Jerry drained the Jack in one gulp, placed
the tumbler on Michael’s desk without benefit of a coaster. “Looks
like you’ve done really well for yourself.”

“I manage,” he said, realizing it came out as
mock modesty.

“Oh, come on, pal. You do more than manage.
Cole Property Management is quite the gold mine. One hundred thirty
seven properties. Commercial, residential, leases, rentals. A man,
in this economy, that has a house for every season of the year is
doing more than just getting by, more than just managing.”

“I do all right.” There was something
defensive in Michael’s voice. That bothered him a little. Why
should his prosperity be an embarrassment?

“Yeah, pal, you do all right. Nice big home,
gated community, fancy sports car, beautiful daughter, supermodel
wife, and yes…congratulations on the deal last night. That’ll be
plenty of nuts for the winter, won’t it?”

“Seems like you know an awful lot about me,
old friend.”

“More than you know,” Jerry said.

Okay. That was quite enough of this. He
really didn’t need this. And certainly not after waking up a state
away, feeling like he’d been run over by a Mack truck, and after
his girlfriend told him she was having his baby. No, no, he didn’t
need this, this…forgotten man, sitting here speaking about his
life’s work as if it were an oozing open sore.

“Listen, Jerry, I don’t want to come off as
rude or anything, but I just stopped in to check on a few things. I
really need to be getting home. Perhaps we can get together for
lunch sometime next week.”