A Density of Souls (30 page)

She scrambled out from under the Explorer and flung herself to her feet, slapping her hands against the driver’s-side door before finding the handle. Behind her she could hear a boy retching and cursing.

She slid behind the steering wheel.

A burning fuse marched across the clearing, its light reflected on the hood’s frayed metal edges.

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Elise threw the Explorer into reverse. The car coasted backward.

She gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

“Jesus . . .” She formed her panic into one word. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus

. . .”

As the dynamite exploded, the Explorer was rolling backward down the gravel road, picking up speed. The hood was ripped from the Explorer. Elise saw a folded flap of metal fly up and crack the wind shield into spiderweb formation, then tumble over the roof like a flag twirled by a gust of wind.

Elise turned to see all smoke where the charge had detonated. And then there was silence.

She yanked the steering wheel, spinning the vehicle into a sharp 180 as the Explorer veered to face total darkness. No headlights, Elise thought. Gasping, she pulled on the steering wheel. The car’s rear slammed into a tree. Elise whipped forward, her forehead banging the steering wheel, and then she bounced flat against her seat. “Jesus,”

Elise said again.

There was someone in front of the car.

As she leaned forward, her vision blurring, she saw a crumpled body where it had fallen, struck down by her first blind shot into the woods.

She thrust her foot on the accelerator.

The pine tree held to the Explorer’s tail for a moment before releasing its grip, taking the rear fender with it, but sling shotting the Explorer forward and the body crunched under the tires like rocks.

For half a minute, Elise drove blindly down the road, expecting to careen into the trees. Gradually, adrenaline cleared her mind, helping her to remember where the bends were. When she saw the blaze of the Texaco station’s mustard lights through the thinning pines, a sob escaped her chest.

Greg led Brandon into the woods, running away from the fire. Brandon heard the sound of the pep band and his rain-drenched clothes became his sweat-soaked football pads.

“Go deep!” Greg commanded.

“Don’t fuckin’ taunt me, Darby!” Brandon yelled to the rain.

“Come on, Bran, my man, you got more in you than that!” Greg called back.

Brandon didn’t hear it when the kerosene he had poured and lit The Army of God

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finally embraced the storehouse. A flash occurred at the edge of his left eye, but otherwise, there was only the dark, the rain, and the voice of Greg Darby urging him deeper into the swamp.

The Texaco station cashier dropped the phone at the sight of the middle-aged woman caked with mud.

“Phone!” Elise gasped.

He stared at her dumbly, ignoring the tinny anger of a woman’s voice from the dangling receiver.

“I found them!” Elise gasped. She stumbled into the candy rack.

“Who?”

Elise groped at the counter, grabbed it, and collapsed to the floor, an inventory of candy bars, cheap sunglasses, and magazines tumbling onto her face.

“The Army of God,” she whispered.

The candy rack crashed down onto her and at the same moment the window behind the cashier shattered as a mixture of semtex and dynamite tore a hole in the earth three miles up the road, hurling fire and pine trees toward the sky.

9

T
wo-Thirty-One Dune Alley had a single phone, in the kitchen.

Just after midnight, it rang.

Stephen was watching him silently as Jordan awoke to Stephen’s warm breath against the nape of his neck. He opened his eyes: his own naked body was entwined in Stephen’s limbs. Stephen’s hand came to life on Jordan’s chest, his fingers spreading slightly. At the phone’s third ring, Stephen cocked his head like a dog’s.

“Jordan . . .” he murmured.

Jordan separated himself and twisted off the edge of the bed. Stephen drew his knees to his chest and watched as Jordan plodded beautifully over the carpet and across the linoleum in the kitchen.

The phone’s ring ended abruptly. After a moment of silence, Stephen heard the noise of a drawer shutting. Jordan didn’t return.

Stephen moved to the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He switched on the light and was shocked by his ruddy reflection. He was surprised to see no bruises or blood on his naked body. It had begun with necessary violence, a violence that Stephen knew was not rape, but rather physical evidence that this encounter required Jordan hand over something and not Stephen.

He turned, examining himself with almost clinical detachment.

The fire at the bottom of his spine where Jordan had pressed himself into him lingered but was waning. It had burned at first. Stephen’s back had arched like a cat’s and he had buried his face into the pillow to muffle the reflex of protest. Jordan had steadied his hands on Stephen’s shoulders, and Stephen’s body relaxed beneath his, vertebra by vertebra. They seemed to fit together easily. It should have been more difficult.

Stephen emerged from the bathroom to find Jordan had grabbed a The Army of God

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beer from the fridge and was sprawled across one of the living room sofas. He stared out at the Gulf, the dome of sky flecked with stars. He set his beer on the coffee table, leaned forward, and brought his hands to his temples, and Stephen could tell he was fixing the dance of this night into his mind.

“Jordan?”

He glanced up to see Stephen, who had wrapped a bedsheet around himself. Jordan looked down at his own nudity, embarrassed, and Stephen felt pleased that for once it was the other man who was more naked and vulnerable. Neither of them spoke. But the space between them was heavy with questions. Stephen moved to the deck door, feeling vaguely disappointed. “Who called?” he asked softly.

Jordan rose from the couch and padded to the kitchen cabinets.

He took the phone from one of them and placed it on the counter between them as if it were a prize catch. He had unplugged the cord from the wall, severing their only line to the outside world.

When Stephen lifted his eyes to meet Jordan’s, he felt his face soften. He’s not going to punish me, Stephen thought.

Stephen came to him, releasing the sheet from his shoulders. Jordan bowed his head as Stephen curved both arms around his back.

Jordan gave his weight over to Stephen’s frame. “I’m tired,” he whispered.

Stephen took Jordan’s hands to lead him back to the bedroom.

He turned down the comforter and both of them eased into bed.

For several minutes they didn’t touch. Jordan lay on his stomach, face grazing the pillow, and Stephen lay flat on his back, drawing the comforter to his chin. Then Jordan traced the rim of Stephen’s navel.

Stephen gripped his hand before turning onto his side. Jordan nestled against Stephen’s back, keeping his hand curled against Stephen’s stomach.

As they fell asleep, Nanine Charbonnet’s parcel of land was still scattered with dying flame.

The Cadillac barreled down Interstate 10 through tracts of swamp pines. Jordan had already threatened to eject Stephen if he changed the dial one more time. Stephen had put the radio on scan, filling the car with maddeningly brief snippets of songs. They half-listened to a news report about the imminent hurricane season. One of the 222

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season’s first storms had just developed off the coast of western Africa, but was not yet strong enough to earn a name. Jordan finally reached into the armrest’s container and retrieved a mix tape Melanie had made for him that long-ago last spring, and inserted it into the cassette player. It was night by the time they sped past downtown New Orleans, Business 90 taking them alongside the Superdome’s mushroom swell before they saw the exit sign for St. Charles Avenue. Neither of them said anything when the Bishop Polk bell tower came into view.

They pulled up in front of the Charbonnet residence. Two NOPD

cruisers were parked against the curb. An armed police officer stepped out of the first car and approached the Cadillac. Jordan got out. Stephen remained in the passenger seat, watching as the officer greeted Jordan. He noticed the officer’s hand rested on his belt, inches from his pistol. As they exchanged words Stephen saw the officer snap the gun holster shut with a slow, innocuous motion of his right hand.

He summoned his nerve, kicked open the door, and stepped out of the car. He opened the rear passenger door and pulled his duffel bag from the backseat. He tried to ignore what Jordan was saying.

“Destin, Florida. A few miles past Fort Walton Beach,” Jordan explained.

“Uh-huh,” the officer replied in a bored tone of voice. “For the time being we’re going to have someone on watch. It’ll be an unmarked car after tomorrow.”

Stephen shut the car door and swung his duffel bag in front of him.

Jordan’s expression was unreadable, but he held Stephen’s gaze intently. Stephen shook his head slightly, waiting for Jordan to give him a sign.

“Stephen, do you need me to bring you home or can—”

“I’ll walk,” Stephen said softly. Jordan would know where to find him if he needed him. He turned and crossed Philip Street. He paused on the corner and shot a glance back at the Charbonnet residence. Jordan and the officer had not moved.

“How long has it been since you talked to your brother?” the officer was asking. Stephen turned and rounded the corner, trying to assuage fear with each step toward his house.

The officer led Jordan into the kitchen where Roger sat at the table nursing a glass of straight scotch. The policeman nodded and then The Army of God

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left. Roger did not look up as Jordan slouched against the table, studying The Times-Picayune’s headline:

SUICIDE BLAST DESTROYS ARMY OF GOD’S

NORTH SHORE HEADQUARTERS

“Did you turn the phone off?” Roger asked, his voice thin. He took a sip of scotch. Jordan didn’t answer. He sat down opposite Roger and scanned the paper. The subheadline read: THREE BODIES FOUND, FOURTH MEMBER BELIEVED MISSING. Brandon’s face, a Cannon varsity football team photo, filled a square beneath a photo of Nanine Charbonnet’s blackened lot.

“Why did you turn off the goddamn phone?” Roger barked. “I called you seven times, Jordan. Do you know they sent the highway patrol to look for you this morning? You must have missed them by minutes.”

Jordan tossed the paper to the table. “Where’s Mom?”

Roger shook his head and again gulped the liquor.

“Where’s Mom?” Jordan asked again, his voice edged with anger.

“Upstairs,” Roger said to his scotch.

When Jordan nudged open the bedroom door, the light that fell across the bed did not stir or rouse her. Elise had wrapped herself in a cocoon of blankets. Her hair, usually styled, had clearly not been washed in three days since an ATF helicopter had ferried her across Lake Pontchartrain. A red scrape stretched across her forehead. Jordan held the edge of the door.

“Seventy-one people are dead because you couldn’t handle it when your son threw a chair,” he said.

“Get out,” Elise said, eyes on the ceiling.

Jordan’s knuckles whitened on the knob. His mother lay still, as distant as she had been when he had returned home from college. “I did what I was supposed to do,” she said, her voice low and disarmingly even. She didn’t look at him. “I went there and I did what I was—”

“He could have killed Stephen!” Jordan shouted.

He slammed the bedroom door behind him, went downstairs, brushed past Roger, and out the front door.

Elise sat up in bed. “Stephen,” she whispered as she heard Jordan clatter down the front steps. “Oh Jesus . . .” She shut her eyes again and sank back onto the pillow. She remembered a summer day, her 224

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bare back warm upon a wooden floor, a framed quotation looming on the wall above her head as the strains of Mahler’s Second Symphony drowned the sounds of her desire. “For passion, like diseases, does not sit well with the sure and even course of everyday life . . .”

Meredith was sitting beside Stephen’s bed when the doorbell rang.

Stephen did not flinch. Monica was downstairs but apparently didn’t want to answer it.

Meredith had gone to the Conlin residence every day since the story hit the news, half-expecting she would find the house in flames, with the devilish figure of Brandon Charbonnet dancing on the sidewalk.

Stephen had not been there, which had only made the nightmare vision more acute. Earlier that afternoon, Monica had invited her to come in and “wait” with her. They’d said very little to each other.

Monica had offered Meredith a drink, which she had declined. When Stephen opened the front door, hoisting his duffel bag, he had halted at the sight of them in the parlor. Meredith had studied Stephen’s face.

He had not cried as Monica explained what had happened. His knees had not buckled. They had not been forced to carry him up the stairs. When Monica finished, Stephen just looked at her, jaw slack.

“Brandon killed Jeff,” he said, as if it were a fact he had forgotten.

He had turned and with one arm knocked the foyer console table to the floor, shattering a porcelain vase. He’d mounted the stairs and shut the bedroom door. “Sit with him,” Monica had urged her.

Now she stood in his half-open doorway, listening to a muted argument downstairs. She recognized the male voice and Monica’s furious

“Please!” Meredith heard Jordan protest, followed by the slam of the front door. Jordan was climbing the stairs toward her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Jordan pushed her gently out of the way and walked into the bedroom. Jordan rounded the bed and sprawled on it, reaching out for Stephen’s clasped hands.

Monica appeared in the doorway behind Meredith. They watched Jordan pry Stephen’s hands apart and guide one to his own mouth, kissing it gently. Stephen made no sound to interrupt the shocked silence.

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“I have a gun,” Monica said. “If your brother decides to pay us a visit, I’ll use it.” She withdrew toward her bedroom.