Golden could not locate his car keys. Typical Golden. Pawing at his pockets at the most critical moment. Everything went black and for several seconds he could no longer see the car or the ground itself. He was overwhelmed by an intense heat, an instant fever on the skin, and Beverly called out, "Oh G.o.d, hurry!"

They could not have been in a more unfortunate spot: inside the cloud's dense core, a cloud within a cloud thronging with billions of careening microparticles throwing off gamma and beta rays with celebratory abandon: Roy's dark, hot little heart.

Golden managed to get the door open and they tumbled together into the front seat. Inside, the car was calm, deep-cushioned, cool. Even though they were out of the cloud, Golden's skin continued to burn, and he clawed at his shirt and hair. "What is this?" he said, and they looked at each other: both covered head to toe with a pewter soot. Despite themselves, they laughed. Golden rubbed his eyes. His mouth was full of a gritty paste that caked around his teeth and heated the back of his throat. He croaked, "What the heck is it?"

"It's the bomb test," Beverly said, already removing her precious, ruined dress. "We need to clean ourselves off." Beverly knew there was some danger from the bomb fallout; she had heard rumors about dead sheep and AEC government men roaming the area with Geiger counters. What she couldn't have known was that in those few seconds it took for Golden to find his keys, she had inhaled thousands of particles of plutonium oxide, some of which had already settled into the lining of her lungs and begun their slow, steady a.s.sault, radiating the surrounding cells until one day, twenty years from now, those cells would begin to mutate and multiply, growing inside her like a secret wish.

Once she had helped Golden off with his shirt and pants, she dipped a clean portion of the picnic blanket in a jug of melted ice and went to work wiping the dust from his body. First, she went at the nooks and crannies of his face, the hollows of his eyes and his nostrils and the fine creases of his neck, and then moved down to his chest and arms. The cold water on his skin brought him out of his shocked state and it struck him that they were both in their underwear and she was touching him. He had never seen her body before, not like this, and he was pleased with what he saw: generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s and that curve of hip and the shallow dimples above her knees.

He did what he could to reciprocate, making awkward swipes at her chest and ribs with the cloth and soon she was on top of him and he couldn't distinguish the hot blush on his skin from the fever-warmth rising in his blood. She was kneeling now, facing him, and he knew there was a very good chance they might kiss, which he wanted to be prepared for: he fumbled the water jug into his hands and took a swig to wash down the grit in his mouth. What he swallowed then was not simple dust and sand, but dust and sand infused with microparticles of magnesium and cobalt and iron-the radioactive remnants of Roy's detonation tower-that would eventually be absorbed through the walls of his intestines and into the bloodstream, where they would circulate through the body and finally set up camp in the outer wall of the prostate. There they would linger for most of his life, irradiating his reproductive cells even as they were produced, splitting a chromosome here and there, warping his genes. Golden and his compromised DNA would produce twenty-six healthy children, it was true, but also seven miscarriages (the first only five months into their marriage), three stillbirths, and one broken little girl named Glory, the apple of her daddy's eye.

The damage wouldn't end there, of course; when it comes to humans, pain and suffering are pa.s.sed through the generations like that unfashionable Christmas gift n.o.body wants: disease and mutation, anger and despair, failures of intellect and character, all of it genetic damage in one way or another, all of it nothing less than the curse of the father upon the child, a curse inevitably repaid in kind.

Of course, Golden was in no condition to entertain even the most basic existential questions-he was about to have s.e.x s.e.x. Beverly was straddling him now, moving against him, her rising b.r.e.a.s.t.s giving him little chucks on the chin. He was back in a state of shock: the only b.r.e.a.s.t.s he had seen before were the overworked dugs of tribal women in National Geographic National Geographic. His back itched and he was burning up and his b.a.l.l.s ached, which he decided was probably normal in a situation like this. Though he didn't know it, he had waited his entire life for this moment: nearly two decades' worth of suppressed libido and rage, a stark loneliness made all the worse by a deficit of human touch: he was ready to explode.

With a practiced motion, Beverly guided him inside her. For Golden, the feeling was of complete dislocation, the collision of pleasure and pain resulting in something close to oblivion. He went faint for a second, and then came to, his mouth open in an expression of blind awe. His body stiffened and he managed to whimper two words that would later cause him to grind his teeth with embarra.s.sment: "Oh jeez."

It lasted only a few shuddering moments: over, like their wedding ceremony, before it began. But that didn't matter, they would have their entire lives together to get things right. Roy was already moving on, lifting off the mountain and into the low jet stream, leaving the windows coated with soot and the interior of the car in grainy darkness. Golden and Beverly listened to each other breathe, to the sound of the wind rocking the car on its springs. He let his large hands roam all over her and she kissed him tenderly on the mouth. They were young and pretending to be in love. This was all a very long time ago.

23.

BIG HOUSE

In this house there is chaos. Not your everyday sort of entropy, the kind that swells and intensifies before inevitably settling back into orderliness-the warehouse fire that rages and dies, the storm that blows itself out-but chaos of the endemic variety, the kind that expresses itself not only in the full-throated shouts and erratic movement of children who refuse to be counted, in the snarls of will and purpose of the husband and wives, but in the very walls of the house itself, dented and pocked as if someone had gone after a renegade mouse with a hammer, in the finger-and face-smudged windows, the knots of hair clogging every drain, the beds in disarray, the broken clocks and temperamental doors that only the initiated can open, in the poor, swaybacked piano with the half-eaten apple secretly rotting inside its case, in the burned-out lightbulbs and hidey-holes that offer protection to the scam artists and gossipmongers who ply the halls, and in all the broken s.p.a.ces of the house, ragged and piebald and worn, littered with stacks of paper and battered toys and drifts of unidentifiable objects that speak of the vast and sometimes terrifying manyness of things.

The kind of chaos that begets itself, over and over again, until it becomes a kind of order, a way of life.

Today it is Sunday afternoon, the Summit of the Wives, and there is the Father, in the middle of it all. The wives have just gotten started arguing about something-powdered milk, by the sound of it-and at least half of the children are swooping around the racetrack like a tribe of Visigoths on the attack. Mother #2: Oh, gag. Oh, gag.

Mother #1: We can at least give it a try. We can at least give it a try.

Mother #2: You ever tried it? Horrible. You never know when you're going to get a lump, and when you do, you think you've swallowed a c.o.c.kroach. You ever tried it? Horrible. You never know when you're going to get a lump, and when you do, you think you've swallowed a c.o.c.kroach.

Mother #1 gives Mother #2 a cold stare, which Mother #2 returns, as she always does, with an aggressively cheerful smile. Mother #1: It's not that bad. You have to mix it well. It's not that bad. You have to mix it well.

Mother #3, whispering into her lap: It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad.

Mother #1: It is not that bad. It is not that bad.

Mother #4: And the kids won't like it, there'll be a revolt. And the kids won't like it, there'll be a revolt.

Mother #1: The kids will do as we tell them. The kids will do as we tell them.

The Father, in a stupor at the head of the table, has missed the last two summits and is paying dearly for it now. The wives are angry at him, which is evident in the way they have agreed, despite their innumerable differences, to ignore him. He sits forward in his chair, straining to arrange the muscles of his face into an expression that suggests attentiveness, wondering how he'll make it through the next two hours. Nodding meaningfully at nothing in particular, he sneaks a glance at the Official Summit Agenda, which informs him there are sixteen items still up for discussion, and he can't help it, he closes his eyes and whimpers a little in antic.i.p.ation of the suffering ahead.

For weeks the wives have been telling him the family has reached a crisis point, and though he has been gone enough that he doesn't know every detail, he knows things have gotten bad. In the past couple of months, especially, the houses have grown increasingly clannish, their grudges and rivalries dragged into the open for all to see. The ongoing feud between Mothers #1 and #2 has escalated into a series of almost daily skirmishes waged at meetings like this one, during Sunday dinners and Family Home Evenings, through the channels and byways of church gossip, along telephone lines. The children of the respective houses, never terribly fond of one another in the first place, have followed their mothers' leads, needling and teasing each other, closing ranks and marking off territory, even the young ones taking sides in disputes beyond their understanding.

By increments they are approaching an agreement: to abandon the ma.s.s illusion of themselves as a happy, G.o.d-fearing family, bound together for all eternity by obligation and love.

Today, in protest against a series of slights and insults from some of the girls of Big House, Daughters #2 and #3 have refused to show up for Sunday dinner, which is precedent-setting, and made all the more remarkable by the fact that Mother #1 has allowed it. In response, Mother #2 has released a few of her oldest from Summit babysitting duty and allowed them to watch TV in the bas.e.m.e.nt (an enormous no-no on the Sabbath) with the volume cranked high, mostly because she knows how much it will annoy Mother #1.

It will only get worse, the Father knows, this is only the beginning. At the moment the wives are bickering about carpooling and the cost-to-pleasure ratio of powdered milk, but another quick glance at the Summit agenda tells him that shortly they will be moving on to more serious matters, such as how to apportion the family's dwindling finances or whether they should continue sharing weekly meals or celebrate birthdays and holidays together, which is simply another way of asking themselves if they want to go on pretending to be a single loving family or give up the charade and move on. Because the Father is in attendance (for once!) they're planning to put it all on the table: the impossible scheduling conflicts, the out-of-control sibling rivalries, the lack of leadership and example, the separate laws of engagement, the spousal fatigue. They're going to try to force him to make decisions, to take sides, which will only focus the spotlight on him more brightly, bringing them around, of course, to the same, irrefutable conclusion: that he is the one responsible for this mess they're in.

The Father, knowing he is probably already a little pale, holds his stomach and a.s.sumes the posture and stricken countenance of a sick person, looking to his wives for pity, but they pay him no mind. Some of the older children continue watching TV in the bas.e.m.e.nt, dinosaur screams and torture-chamber noises wafting up the stairs, and the younger ones, having already splintered into various bands, come whooping around the racetrack, slapping the walls and speaking in tongues. Mother #2 laughs too enthusiastically at one of her own jokes, Mother #4 presses her temples with her thumbs and Mother #1, coughing into her fist, looks around the table as if deciding who to kill first. And where is Mother #3? There she is, holding her blue earm.u.f.fs carefully in her lap, ready to clap them on at a moment's notice.

And here, at the head of the table, impossible to miss, is the Father, catalyst to an explosion he can't control.

For some time the Father has been trying to suggest to his wives that they have been exaggerating the family's problems, that they are too close to the action and with the benefit of distance and perspective they would see, as he does, that their family is no different than any other. It has its struggles, sure, its ups and downs, a rough patch here and there, but if they keep persevering there will be better times ahead. He's repeated these cliches so often he's nearly convinced himself, but he knows the truth: the family is coming apart.

The proof of which he witnessed up close last Sat.u.r.day afternoon. He had been upstairs, fiddling with the broken heat register in the Little Kids' room, when he heard a shriek he mistook for the distressed cry of a bird, possibly a wounded chicken. He went down the hall to investigate, thinking one of the kids had brought their 4-H project into the house. He paused in the doorway of the Big Girls' room, confused. What he saw, mostly, was hair. An overturned bureau, a torn lampshade, scattered notebooks, and a lot of hair. Under all the hair were two of his daughters, he wasn't sure which ones, kneeling on the bed facing each other, grunting and clutching each other's hair in great double-fistfuls. One of them-Daughter #2, it appeared-reared up, teeth flashing, and dragged the other, who appeared to be Daughter #5, backward with her off the bed. There was more breathy screeching and when they rolled toward him, limbs flying, he backed up to get out of their way. From the safety of the hall he called on them to cut it out.

Daughter #2 didn't surprise him-she had always been a bit aggressive and unpredictable, ready to mix it up with the boys or any neighbor girl who dared look at her funny or say the wrong thing. But Daughter #5, Mother #2's oldest girl, was pure sweetness, a girl who loved everyone openly, without shame, a paragon of generosity and Christ-like love, who was now attempting to ram her sister's head into the bedpost.

By now Dog #1 and several of the younger kids had crowded in the doorway to spectate, and the Father was reminded of his fatherly obligations. He pushed past the kids, grabbed Daughter #2 under the armpits, and hoisted her, bucking and kicking, onto the bed.

Cow! she screamed. she screamed. Ugly mudhole pig! Ugly mudhole pig!

Daughter #5 made a sudden, catlike lunge at her sister, screeching, WITCH! WITCH! with such ferocity that Daughters #11 and #14 began to cry and Dog #1 bolted for the bathroom. The Father cut her off, herded her toward the door while she tried clawing her way past him. There was a moment of silence, the girls glaring at each other with naked hate, their faces flushed and slick with tears, their hair wrenched into otherworldly shapes: snags and horns and gnarls. with such ferocity that Daughters #11 and #14 began to cry and Dog #1 bolted for the bathroom. The Father cut her off, herded her toward the door while she tried clawing her way past him. There was a moment of silence, the girls glaring at each other with naked hate, their faces flushed and slick with tears, their hair wrenched into otherworldly shapes: snags and horns and gnarls.

For a moment the Father believed he had everything under control, but when he tried to speak the girls started screeching in unison as if he'd cued them. Now the little ones were really crying and Dog #1, down the hall, began to howl, which made it difficult for the Father to make out what the shouting was about, something having to do with Mother #1 withholding money, about Mothers #2 and #3 spreading lies about Mother #1, about Mother #1 trying to control the children of Big House in any way she could, and the Father understood then just how bad it had gotten, that his sweet daughters, on their mothers' behalf, could be acting out the long-standing conflict between the houses in this way.

Gently, he tried to shush them. This has always been his role: peace-maker. Since the beginning he has displayed a singular talent for absorbing criticism and nagging, has even become, over the years, something of a punching bag for the wives and children alike, and now that he'd been away so much it looked as if they'd gotten used to taking out their aggression on each other. The girls kept at it, as if he were not in the room at all, and he clapped his huge hands in quick succession-the same thing he did when he caught Dog #1 in the act of urinating on a pile of clean laundry-but this only made them turn their attention his way, and they went from lobbing accusations and threats at each other to shouting rationalizations and explanations at him-who had said what to whom, who had been wronged and how badly-but he stopped them. He didn't want to hear it, didn't want to be responsible for hearing any of it. It was one of the first pieces of advice the Leader offered after he'd married Wife #2 and officially entered the covenant of plural marriage: don't get involved. Getting involved, the old man advised, means getting more involved, which inevitably leads to further involvement. Let them work out the little things, he said, your job is to keep your eye on the big picture.

At the time, the advice had meant very little to the Father, but now it makes perfect sense. Except, honestly, the part about the big picture. He has no idea what the big picture is. At the moment, the only picture that matters is the one in front of him: his children in riot, his wives preparing to roast him on a spit.

Here is the big picture: - 1. The Father has feelings for his boss's wife.

- 2. His own wives are giving up on him.

- 3. His family is falling apart.

- 4. His finances are drying up.

- 5. He has a condom in his wallet and large clump of gum in his pubic hair.

- 6. He has no idea what to do about any of it.

As the children flow past, he tries to name them as they go, a game that distracts him a little, calms his mind. In this house, naming has become something of an obsession; the naming disease, as Mother #4 calls it, this is where it began. First, there had to be a way to differentiate it from the original house, so it became Big House, which immediately created the need to designate the original; this sort of naming and setting apart, this is how languages begin. As the family grew, they required a new language to distinguish groups and territories: the First and Second Twins, the Three Stooges, the Pink Bathroom and The Black Hole of Calcutta, the Big Kitchen and the Small, the trio of Big House washing machines which, for some reason, work under the aliases of Winken, Blinken and Nod.

In a life so vast, in a family so forbidding, there must be ways to cut things down to their proper size. Such a life cannot abide individuals, only groups, and if you are not a member of a group, if you are on your own, well then, G.o.d help you.

Mother #2 gives the Father a smart slap on the shoulder, which startles him out of his trance. The wives are all looking at him, wanting his input. He lets his attention wander for a few seconds and suddenly they are terribly interested in him, in what he has to say. He rubs his eyes and asks them to repeat the question, he didn't hear it clearly as he would have liked. Mother #4 gives him a look and Mother #2 puts her two index fingers behind her head like donkey ears, a secret sign the Mothers have been using for years to indicate when the Father is being a Jacka.s.s.

Mother #1 asks the Father what's wrong and he shrugs, and when Mother #2 asks him why he is moping he says he is not moping, which is what people who are moping tend to say. He glances down at the agenda, hoping to come up with a pertinent comment, when, in answer to a prayer he had not yet found the courage to offer, the phone rings. It is Sister Barbara, bless her soul, informing him there is a problem with one of his rental houses, a real emergency.

An emergency? the Father prompts, loud enough that the wives can hear.

Sister Barbara tells him it's the old Victorian in Mexican Town, and the renter said the house was collapsing and if someone doesn't show up right away he is going to call the fire department.

Collapsing? the Father says. the Father says. Oh dear. Oh dear.

He thanks Sister Barbara a little more effusively than the situation may warrant, then hangs up the phone, which he holds out to his wives as if to say, What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do?

Mother #1 tells him that he can't go, no way, that they have to finish this, that it can wait until they're done, but the father keeps repeating the word emergency emergency as he searches the mantel for his keys. as he searches the mantel for his keys.

Mother #1 orders him to sit down and the Father says, But it's collapsing! But it's collapsing!

Our house is collapsing! house is collapsing! shouts Mother #1, and though everyone knows she's speaking metaphorically, a couple of the wives and a few of the children glance nervously toward the ceiling. Mother #1 stands up as if to block the door, and the father has his keys now and is edging toward the foyer, saying he'll just go check things out real quick, he'll be right back, they should go on without him. He steps into his loafers and scoops up Dog #1, who from somewhere in the bas.e.m.e.nt heard the jingle of keys and has arrived at the Father's side as if by teleportation. All the wives are standing now and the Father turns quickly, almost in a panic, and fumbles with the doork.n.o.b. Outside he bounds down the porch steps, a weird little laugh rising in his throat, and hustles across the gravel driveway to his pickup. shouts Mother #1, and though everyone knows she's speaking metaphorically, a couple of the wives and a few of the children glance nervously toward the ceiling. Mother #1 stands up as if to block the door, and the father has his keys now and is edging toward the foyer, saying he'll just go check things out real quick, he'll be right back, they should go on without him. He steps into his loafers and scoops up Dog #1, who from somewhere in the bas.e.m.e.nt heard the jingle of keys and has arrived at the Father's side as if by teleportation. All the wives are standing now and the Father turns quickly, almost in a panic, and fumbles with the doork.n.o.b. Outside he bounds down the porch steps, a weird little laugh rising in his throat, and hustles across the gravel driveway to his pickup.

24.

NESTOR AND THE OLD LADY

GOLDEN'S RENTALS CONSISTED OF SIX HOUSES, A COUPLE OF DUPLEXES and an old gla.s.sworks that at any one time housed between three and eleven illegal immigrant families. His father's real estate empire, bought with the last of his uranium money, had once been vast, at least three times as big as what he had now, but one by one Golden had sold off a house or commercial building when things got a little tight, such as the year when four babies were born, Josephine had to be flown to Los Angeles to have surgery on her fused spine, and Rose-of-Sharon totaled the family van. Over the past year and a half he had been tempted to sell any or all of his remaining units, but the real estate market was so bad he would have been throwing money away. These days rent money was all that kept his family fed. and an old gla.s.sworks that at any one time housed between three and eleven illegal immigrant families. His father's real estate empire, bought with the last of his uranium money, had once been vast, at least three times as big as what he had now, but one by one Golden had sold off a house or commercial building when things got a little tight, such as the year when four babies were born, Josephine had to be flown to Los Angeles to have surgery on her fused spine, and Rose-of-Sharon totaled the family van. Over the past year and a half he had been tempted to sell any or all of his remaining units, but the real estate market was so bad he would have been throwing money away. These days rent money was all that kept his family fed.

The house in question was the one his father used to call, with a certain smirk in his voice, the Old Lady: an 1896 Victorian built by a criminally optimistic Mormon businessman who intended to turn southern Utah into the citrus and cotton capital of the world. In its time it was as opulent as any house in these parts, with a steeply pitched roof, gingerbread bracketing and high mullioned windows. Along with a few other houses, an old gla.s.sworks and a quaint but useless gristmill, it made up a pleasant little settlement once known as Jericho, but which now was known to the imaginative locals as Mexican Town.

Golden drove slowly down Mexican Town's single dirt road, hitting the brakes whenever he saw a child, even if the child happened to be sitting on the front step or looking out a window. To the mangy dogs, and there were a lot of them, he paid no attention.

He pa.s.sed several tarpaper shacks, long featureless houses that had once served as turkey coops, a couple of old red sandstone bungalows, a scattering of travel trailers in a barren cornfield, the brick gla.s.sworks surrounded by broken plastic toys and defunct vehicles, and at the very end on a small rise the Old Lady, who, thankfully, was still standing. At one time this had been a lush spot at a bend in the river, but after the floods of 1938, the river jumped its banks and began to carve a new channel nearly half a mile away, leaving the cottonwoods and Navajo willows to wither and the inhabitants to abandon the settlement for the comforts of St. George.

Golden pulled up into the front yard next to an old Wonder Bread truck with the words LOS JODIDOS! LOS JODIDOS! painted bright and violent red on one side. There was no one out on the lawn wringing their hands, no smoke rising, nothing to indicate a catastrophe of any sort. He felt the distinct twinge of pleasure at having gotten away with something. painted bright and violent red on one side. There was no one out on the lawn wringing their hands, no smoke rising, nothing to indicate a catastrophe of any sort. He felt the distinct twinge of pleasure at having gotten away with something.

He turned to Cooter, who had regressed with his obsessive licking, and was back in his Swingin' Baby Timmy underwear. "You stay here," he said. "If you're good maybe I'll come back and let you out."

A pack of frisky renegade dogs, which had followed the truck down the road, circled and yipped at him as he made his way up to the house. He was about to knock on the side door when he heard a noise out back, where Nestor and several of his cohorts-mostly Mexican men with long hair and colorful clothing-were lounging on creaky antique chairs and an old bleached-out horsehair divan. To Golden's eye they looked like a scaled-down Mexican version of the h.e.l.l's Angels, with a Caucasian hippie and a chubby Ute thrown in for good measure. Across the yard, another group of men with their T-shirts rolled up to their chests stood smoking and affectionately patting their own bellies.

"Jefe!" Nestor called. "El Jefe has arrived, just as we knew he would." Nestor stood and received Golden with a formal stiff-armed hug and a firm handshake. For as long as Golden had known him, Nestor had been this way: polite as an Englishman.

"Jefe and his many disciples," Nestor said, gesturing to the dogs. Golden made a little kick at one of the dogs, which ducked out of the way with a nonchalant expertise. He said, "I got a call."

"Yes, certainly," Nestor said, sitting back down, and taking a sip of something from a jelly jar. "Yes, I see."

Nestor was short and stocky, the only one of the lot with his hair oiled back in the traditional style. He had a handsome, dour face that shone like a full moon when he smiled. Nestor was a musician, and an intermittently successful one, apparently. He was on the road much of the time, with his own band or sitting in with other musicians, and when asked what kind of music he played, he would say, "Every kind. All kinds. The people ask for it? Nestor will play it." Along with being a vocalist of some range and power, Nestor played the drums, the steel guitar, and, on special occasions, to the delight of certain drunken crowds, the chain saw.

"A drink?" He gestured with his jelly jar. "Sit down and enjoy a nice day in the out-of-doors?"

From somewhere in the house came m.u.f.fled shouting, followed by a sustained banging.

"There's nothing wrong with the house?" Golden said.

Nestor looked back at the house as if he had forgotten it was there. "Oh yes," he said, giving one of the dogs a rub on the head. "Hmm. Yes." He drew back his hand and looked at it. "I believe this dog has fleas."

"Digalo!" cried the blind keyboard player, who went by the name of Blind Emilio. "No tenemos todo el dia!"

"Joda a tu madre, Emilio!" Nestor called back, and they all commenced to curse each other in Spanish. Nestor sidled up and spoke to Golden in a hushed, confidential way. "These are bad men. These are very stupid men with small p.e.n.i.ses. You know their kind."

The men went from shouting to laughing in an instant and Nestor shouted back at them, "Mujeres sin nalgas!" and they all laughed some more.

"I don't want you to be angry," Nestor said to Golden.

"Angry?" Golden said. "Have you ever seen me angry?"

Nestor thought about it. "There is always a first time."

He led Golden into the kitchen and down the stairs into the dim, windowless bas.e.m.e.nt, where there was a pool table and a collection of dinged aluminum kegs turned over for use as chairs. From above came the shouting and banging he had heard earlier.

"So you see," Nestor said.

At first Golden didn't see much of anything. Possibly he was distracted by the hundreds of beer cans and bottles stacked on every horizontal surface, or maybe it was the posters and calendars, dozens of them, of women in bikinis and tube tops, oiled up and smudged with grease and clutching wrenches or blowtorches, ready to go to work. It took him a moment to notice the way the entire ceiling sagged low over the pool table, as if some great weight were pressing down from above. Then he saw that the ten-by-ten wood beam that was supposed to bear the weight of much of the house had been cut in two, half still bolted to the floor, the other on the floor in a thin bed of sawdust.

"It's bad?" Nestor ventured a glance at Golden, his hand on his chin. "Maybe?"

Golden put his arm across Nestor's chest and backed them slowly toward the stairs. The house creaked and shifted slightly, releasing a small shower of dust.

"Who?" Golden said, the word itself a plaintive, confused sound. "Who would cut the beam?"

"Oh, those putos putos outside, of course," Nestor said. "They are playing pool, and you know, the beam is in the way, it has been in the way for some years and sometimes you have a shot in your brain, a beautiful shot that is prevented by that beam, it has happened to me on many occasions, but today it happened to that f.u.c.king outside, of course," Nestor said. "They are playing pool, and you know, the beam is in the way, it has been in the way for some years and sometimes you have a shot in your brain, a beautiful shot that is prevented by that beam, it has happened to me on many occasions, but today it happened to that f.u.c.king culero culero Richard, he wanted to make the most beautiful shot of his life, the shot of all time, so he cut the beam. With my performance chain saw, no less. I think he was probably, you know, a little drunk." Richard, he wanted to make the most beautiful shot of his life, the shot of all time, so he cut the beam. With my performance chain saw, no less. I think he was probably, you know, a little drunk."

Carefully, they made their way back up the stairs. "We have to get everybody out of the house," Golden said. "Is there anybody in here?"

"Maybe that is a small problem," Nestor said. "Please follow me."

Just off the kitchen was a narrow hallway, down which they carefully tiptoed. They stopped in front of a closed door. Nestor put his lips to the door and inquired, "Lardo?" and suddenly there was a pounding, and somebody shouted, "Sacarme de aqui pinche idiotas malditos!" Which, translated loosely, means, "Get me the f.u.c.k out of here, you motherf.u.c.king idiots!" Which, translated loosely, means, "Get me the f.u.c.k out of here, you motherf.u.c.king idiots!"

"Lardo." Nestor offered Golden a thin smile. "He is not happy."

Golden tried the doork.n.o.b but the door wouldn't budge.

"You see the problem," said Nestor. "All the rooms on this side, all the doors are stuck."

Golden stood back. "The house has shifted a little, I think, pushed the doorframes out of plumb. Can't he get out the window?"