An Excerpt:
The death and supernatural disorder that plagued Desmond Luca throughout his years could be traced back to a single event in his life…
The shiny-blue sport utility vehicle rocketed past Desmond Luca at well over the speed limit.
Desmond knew this, because he was ten miles over the limit himself.
He glanced over to see a middle finger from the suit and tie that whizzed passed.
The SUV cut back into Desmond’s lane scolding him with its horn and Desmond hit the brakes.
He saw the suit glance into his rear view mirror and shake his fist.
Desmond shook his head; the guy’s got to be driving with his knees since he's yappin’ on his cell phone too.
The SUV waved from side to side on the interstate, edging over the center broken paint and then returning to kiss the shoulder. Its brake lights pop on.
Desmond hit his brakes. “Come on man, what’d you want from me?”
He steered his decade and a half, two door station wagon into the passing lane feeling the shimmy as the speed strained the front-end alignment. He pushed on the accelerator, edging up on the rear quarter panel of the SUV. Desmond’s grill reached the driver’s door and he noticed the suit still gripping the phone.
Desmond winced at the cold air, like a brain freeze from an old Dairy Queen Mister Misty drink. He glanced at his windows, shut tight. He peeked back at his speedometer; the needle throttled to reach 85.
The suit hit the gas and the SUV belching a puff of charcoal gray smoke and sped away.
Desmond watched it grow smaller on the desolate, Nebraska highway.
—
“No, you know that’s not what we discussed!” Paul Trimble guided the SUV back onto the road as his voice rose into the mobile phone.
“That contract has to be couriered by five o’clock today or we’re all screwed.”
Paul reached in the passenger seat and thumbed through the contracts.
“Hang on, let me find it,” he held the phone away from his ear, steering with his forearm. He pulled a stapled copy out of a manila folder and held it against the steering wheel and brought the phone back to his ear.
“No, Ann, I have the paragraph right in front of me and that’s not what I told Stewart.”
He thumbed the pages.
Paul noted the eighteen-wheeler in his driver’s side mirror but his mind only registered the rat faced smile of Stewart Blankenship.
The blast from the giant’s air horn brought him back.
“Shut up!” Paul held his phone up and corrected back into his own lane.
“Not you, Ann—if that little creep thinks he’s going to stiff me on this deal, he’s sadly mistaken.” Paul paused, looking at the cornfields swishing passed.
“He what? No, no, no. He knows that we settled on 2.5 million and he’s not going to renegotiate now. I’m late back to Omaha as it is and I’m not going to—”
Another pause.
“What?”
Pause again.
“Hang on let me check—”
Paul took the phone away from his ear and steered with his forearm again while rifling through the folders on the passenger seat. He snatched several pages of notes.
“I, Uh…” He flipped pages and then felt the vibration of the warning track on the road’s shoulder.
Paul swerved back into the lane and glanced at the speedometer, 78, he pushed harder on the accelerator.
“No. Wait. Here’s my originals. It’s as plain as his pointy nose.”
“Huh?” he paused again.
“No Ann, I don’t—” Paul hesitated.
“No, Ann! With that sort of change we’ll be losing more than— hold on again—”
He laid the pages on his lap and positioned his knee against the wheel. He caught the latch on the glove compartment and reached in. Coming up with a small calculator Paul punched the buttons with his thumb.
“We’ll stand to lose $256,000.00 and change. We can’t afford to take a hit like that.”
He threw the calculator back on the seat and it slid off the edge in-between the passenger door and the seat.
“Oh Crap!”
He took hold of the wheel again, balancing the sheets in his lap.
“No. It’s the calculator, it— never mind.”
Returning to steering with his knee, Paul reached into his breast pocket and produced a pack of cigarettes. He shook the pack until he could mouth a stick and pull it from the pack.
He punched the lighter on the console and after a few seconds touched it to the end.
The paper caught fire and crackled.
Paul took a drag and exhaled, short puffy bursts spitting from his lips.
“Alls’ I’m saying, Ann is that I don’t want to give up my commission on the deal and I don’t think you want to either?”
He sucked in and blew again.
“You kidding? I don’t think that’s feasible.” He looked at his speedometer bringing the needle back up to 92.
“Really? If we give concessions on that, then—” He paused again.
“Okay, Okay, hold on—” He went back into forearm steering position and threw the pages back on the seat, pawing through another folder.
“Okay, I’ve got the revised version here. Now what’s he want to change?”
Paul listened.
“Alright. Yeah, let me find a pen— I’m trying to drive here—no, I don’t have my head set—”
He hesitated.
“Because I left it at home, that okay with you? Hang on again—”
He rested his phone on the steering wheel, guiding the midnight blue bullet down the road. Paul opened the padded lid of the armrest console and rooted around for a pen. He glanced to the side window, the corn fields still whizzed past. He looked down the road, then into the rear view mirror, back to the console and then back through the windshield.
Paul felt it and finally produced a Sharpie, fine point marker.
He took the cigarette out of his mouth and pushed the electric window button on the door snipping the half smoked cylinder out the slit.
He then slid the pen into his mouth and popped the body loose, holding the cap between his teeth.
“Okay, give me the changes,” he mumbled.
Paul glanced in his rear view mirror and screamed.
—
Desmond Luca could see the smoke down the interstate.
After a mile he finally slowed near the flames.
He looked down the highway, no vehicles.
He glanced in his rear view mirror, nothing behind him.
He pulled into the weeds of the median and rolled toward the maimed SUV.
Desmond saw the bridge supports, barely scared. That’s some tough concrete.
He stopped and got out of the car.
A small calculator lay smashed in the weeds.
Flecks of dark blue paint fluttered to the dirt while tongues of fire licked the engine visible through what had once been a fender.
The suit lay face up in the gravel. His mangled leg lay partially on the asphalt and partially in the weeds, folded like a hinge in the middle of the shin.
The suit’s Gabardine trousers were torn from knee to crotch and his once white underwear, now embedded with gravel and grass were soaking with blood.
Half of the man’s face, almost exactly down the middle of his nose, was black like a hot dog dropped into a fire.
It reminded Desmond of the character that Tommy Lee Jones had played in the movie: Batman Forever, Two Face.
The suit’s eyes were fixed, dim, staring through the weeds at what was left of his showroom vehicle.
Desmond squatted and peered into the charred face.
“You?” Paul Trimble’s word gurgled from his lips. “How did you—”
“I told you not to drive so fast.” Desmond said.