Disintegration Read Online Free Page B

the red light at Ashland, and I’m going to make it. Slowing down I glance down the street toward my apartment, and two white cop cars are sitting out front. Nobody is looking this way, nobody on the street.
    The bus eases up to me, hissing like a long white snake, its belly filled with mice and lizards, hot air whooshing out as the doors spread open. I stare at the driver and start to giggle. He’s a huge guy, oozing over the seat, his tan uniform bursting at the seams. For a moment when he opens his mouth, I think he’s Jabba the Hutt.
    “There will be no bargain, young Jedi. I shall enjoy watching you die.”
    “What?”
    “Before I die? Come on, son.”
    I step on board and slide my pass into the slot. These show up too. Different-colored envelope. Definitely not yellow.
    I head to the back, the way back, and sit down in the middle of the very last row. We cruise south on Milwaukee, right past my building. Just in time to see Vlad walk outside, shrugging his shoulders, his hands in the air. I can’t look away, though I know that I should. The two cops stand there, with their thumbs in their belt loops, looking around with long, sour faces. I catch Vlad’s eyes for a second, and a smile creeps across his face. He sees me. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy. For a gunrunning, drug-dealing, slave-trading Russkie.

Chapter 16
    The streetlights are too much for me, a black hole imploding, a sunspot on my brain. Every long black coat is a nest of vipers, squirming under their woolen topcoats, alligator faces under tight knit caps.
    “Damn.”
    I close my eyes for a second. I have fourteen stops until I get to Fulton. At ten seconds per stop that’s almost two minutes. I’m hedging my bets on the conservative side, so I can find some peace for the count to 140. I close my eyes knowing I won’t miss it. I start counting.
    One Mississippi…two Mississippi…three Mississippi…

Chapter 17
    “…he wants macaroni and cheese, so we’re going to hit the grocery store real quick. I’ll get you some Ben & Jerry’s, sweetheart…”

Chapter 18
    I have my suspicions, what these clients have done, but I never ask. Let God sort them out. They creep into my head at every quiet moment, clawing their way into my skull whenever I let down my guard. The brakes hiss and I am gently jostled, but I keep my eyes closed tight, gripping my knees as if dangling off the edge of a bridge. In many ways, I am.
    Eighteen Mississippi…nineteen Mississippi…twenty Mississippi…
    Wherever I find them, they reveal themselves. At home, sitting in a dark kitchen, a solitary glow from over the brushed metal sink. A glass of clear liquid in their hands with a lime wedge floating listlessly amongst fractured cubes of ice. The hangdog face and dark circles under the eyes. The tie loosened, alone in the night, welcoming me as I come to take them away.
    Thirty-five Mississippi…thirty -six Mississippi…thirty -seven Mississippi…
    Sometimes they run. Those are the ones I find out in the dive bars, the sex clubs, the dark reflections in the night. They are always looking over their shoulders, because the evil of their acts is like a black halo ringing their heads, neon flashing VACANCY , broken burnt-out letters, incomplete. They feel exposed at all times so they try to hide in plain sight, hoping that when the lightning strikes they are not the tallest mangled oak, not the only fence post standing in a field of broken cornstalks. Amidst other sinners and pederasts they pray they are not the worst.
    Fifty-four Mississippi…fifty -five Mississippi…fifty -six Mississippi…
    A bump at my shoulder and mumbled apologies, but I still wallow in the chase, the hunt, the capture, and the swift retribution that I dole out without pause. Every client has been a man so far, and for that I am grateful. But the day will come when my assignment is a woman. It already scratches on the windowpane, its claws extended, this beast I run with, that I cannot tame or