Friday Fiction: Devils Walk Through Galveston Ch. 2

This is the third installment of Devils Walk Through Galveston, my first novel.  The prologue and Chapter 1 (which introduced the crime and criminal) were posted earlier.  This chapter introduces the police officers who hunt John Doddy.  I hope you enjoy it and share.

2.  Vincent driving Eli home, evening

            Driving South in the white Crown Vic; trim level P.O.S concealing a supercharged engine and armored gas tank.  A pistol-grip shotgun in a rack hugging the door.  Pistol holster beneath each of their seats holding a .45/.410. 

Evening in June in Houston.  Seven o’clock and they drank their breath.  Sun cutting through the haze of the East Side.  Vincent and Eli sat quietly passing over the Ship Channel.  They both looked left as they passed over the crest of the massive bridge. Passing tanker trucks inching up the steep grade.  Watching the shadows cast by cat-crackers, orange flames ripping out of flare towers, dirty smoke falling over the Manchester neighborhood hugging the refinery fenceline.  The ammonia stench hit them first.  Then the butadiene, like burning tires.  Vincent turning the air conditioner off, closing the vents.  Miles of refineries and chemical plant pipes reaching up and rolling over like tendrils.  The aluminum jacketed pipes a maze of shining veins stretching low and reaching up to flare off steam and smoke and fire the forty-five miles to Galveston on both sides of the narrow, muddy channel emerging from the bayous of Houston.  Fully laden tankers creeping through the sluggish water, heading straight toward each other.  Their wakes the only thing pushing the tankers apart to pass by with inches between the hulls.  Other tankers parked right next to the refineries with six foot diameter hoses connecting the ships directly to the refinery lines, through the maze of exchangers and vessels, then a hundred miles of pipe later out to waiting tanker cars and pipelines diving underground.  The ships rising slowly up out of the water as millions of dollars of oil crept out.  Workers small as ants moving around in Nomex coveralls.  Always a haze hanging in the air.  Always motion, night or day. 

            Eli spoke first, as they descended: “I have a question.”

            “Yes, those pants make your ass look fat.”

            “That wasn’t the question.”

            “That’s the answer.  You’ve been waiting to ask me that since you bought ‘em”.

            “I bought these two years ago.  We met two weeks ago.”

            “Your ass still looks fat in them, Eli.”

Durst (o.g. who decapitated guy he shot) Case Reportedly Reopened By Feds

Robert Durst, who famously was acquitted of murder in Galveston in 2003, has reportedly had his case looked into by federal authorities for jury tampering. (full coverage; Houston Chronicle) They can’t retry him for the murder. There is no civil rights edge to the case.  Durst was the scion of a prominent and insanely wealthy rich New York family, who was accused of killing his wife, and was found years later in Galveston, Texas living as a woman, after he had shot his neighbor, chopped up his body and disposed of it in Galveston bay.  Two of the three bags (containing the torso and limbs, separately) washed ashore. The head never did.

White Supremacist Tries to Take Over North Dakota Town Quietly, Legally; Fails

I an almost crazy story out of western North Dakota, Craig Paul Cobb, a white supremacist wanted in Canada (but not badly enough for them to actually extradite him when offered the chance – they apparently were o.k. not having him back), slowly and quietly bought up parcels of land in a tiny western North Dakota town near the Bakken Shale fields.  The town had 19 people before he got there. He bought up a lot of the town’s available real estate for a few thousand dollars here and there, most of which had been on the market forever.  He then started recruiting others on white supremacy message boards with the lure of cheap land, nearby available jobs, and the promise that if they were quiet for long enough, and enough moved to town (around 20 people), they could effectively take over the town politically by doubling the population.

Things went awry when Cobb opened up his mouth when someone in town asked what he was doing.  The Southern Poverty Law Center, who monitors white supremacy message boards, also showed up in town and talked to the mayor.  The town reacted appropriately and bought up the rest of the available parcels so Cobb would have nowhere else to buy.  The town’s one black resident is unsettled by the new neighbors.

Pimping Not as Easy as His Shirt Says

A California pimp was busted in the most ridiculous shirt a pimp could be busted in. It said, “I make pimpin’ look easy.” Martell Davis was arrested by San Diego Police who answered a Back Page ad for prostitution, got an underage prostitute to come to a motel room, then engaged in a text-message negotiation with Davis for the price of anal sex.  Full article with pictures here.  

In more epic failures, Davis posted pictures of traveling across state lines to pimp underage prostitutes. Perhaps in an attempt to be ironic, put up posts on Facebook disapproving of those who turned out minors.  And in what is surely going to be on its company website soon, made a play at being a brand ambassador by posting a picture of himself wearing a Trump Hotel bathrobe, smoking a blunt, looking cool. 

Not very well played, sir.  Not well played at all.

Oklahoma Bored Kid Murder Really Gang-Related

Last week, we posted on the seemingly senseless murders of a jogger in rural Oklahoma by three teenagers, who said they did it because they were bored.  By the end of the week, it was being reported that the murder was part of a gang initiation for their offshoot of the Crips. The kids were caught when the father of another kid who was being forcibly recruited by the gang (he was resisting) saw the gangsters show up at his house and call the police.

The gang-initiation angle is being used as an explanation that is supposedly better than boredom. It isn’t.  They’re basically the same. Both senseless murders of an innocent person with no connection to them or their criminal activities.  It’s still senseless and depraved.  Anyone who thinks gangs are only an urban problem and that rural gangsters are a joke is completely wrong. Gangs are gangs, crime is crime. Drugs are a bigger problem in rural areas than urban areas and murder more prevalent there.