Friday (Serial) Fiction: Devils Walk Through Galveston, Ch. 11 (conclusion to first part of the book)

We’re in a new year, and with it, I started a new law practice.  It’s been busy, so I’ve been off the serial fiction for a few weeks.   Here’s the latest installment of Devils Walk Through Galveston. (Link to Amazon here).  Chapter 11, the conclusion to the first part of the book.

The prologue, Chapter 1 (which introduced the crime and criminal), Chapter 2 (which introduced the police officers), Chapter 3 (the seduction of the initial victim), Chapter 4 (which follows the fleeing killer), and Chapter 5 (police begin tracking the killers),  Chapter 6 (backstory of Eli, one of the key police officers), Chapter 7,(the killers make their way to Galveston), Chapter 8, (Searching through Houston’s underbelly), Chapter 9 (John fleeing Galveston), Chapter 10(leads to the killer) and now Chapter 11 (conclusion of the first part of the book).   

I hope you enjoy it. Please read it and share (noncommercially).  Go to Amazon and get the book for the rest.

11.  A short hunt.  A brutal shot.

John Doddy needed air.  The sun had gone down an hour ago.  The room was hot. The pitiful wall-unit air conditioner was loud and smelled like rot.  His mind was racing, wondering how he got stuck here in the ass-end of Houston.  How he’d been cornered in a single room he couldn’t leave, again. There were no guards, but there wasn’t much else different. 

He’d been in the room for three days and was running low on food.  Judas was gone again. 

John tried to turn on the TV.  It barely worked and only got Univision and a porn channel that was playing a movie with a man dressed like a baby in an oversized crib getting worked over by a nineteen year-old girl.  He lost interest quickly. 

The walls started to wilt.  His hearing started to cotton.  He saw it coming.  He didn’t like it and grabbed his wallet and left.  Judas would be pissed.  John would rather deal with Judas than the room. 

He went walking and tried to find a quiet bar.  It was hard in this neighborhood.  He walked down the sidewalk with his head down, turned left off Telephone Road when some guys started talking shit from a garage.

Half an hour walking in the stifling evening heat and John ended up half a mile from the airport, sweating a little and tired.  Cars too nice for this neighborhood drove toward the covered lots, not paying attention to anything on the street, happy to get through this part of town quickly. 

John wandered into a low-slung concrete building with an “open” sign and nothing else on the exterior.  No name or hours posted.  He buzzed at the door and was let in.  Paid cash and was told to sit down.  A receiving line of women came in and stood before him.  He chose a small, thin Thai woman who took his hand and brought him back to a room at the back of the hall.

§§

Alice on the phone with Eli, distraught, doubtful, very quiet:  “Is this the police officer I saw this afternoon?”

Eli, recognizing her voice: “Yes.  What’s happened?”

“Someone came in.  A man came in tonight.  He chose me.”

“What happened?”

Alice explained that the man looked like what Eli said, white, tall and thin.  In clothes that were worn.  He had an accent, spoke too slowly for someone from Houston or someone who’d been in Houston for a while.  He sounded more Southern.  He was comfortable to be around, easy, didn’t talk too much.  His muscles were tense and his mind wandered.  She asked what he wanted.  He said a massage with a finish.  She asked if he had a condom but he didn’t and didn’t ask if she had one.

Eli listened intently.  Mya watched him from the window, not eating, not drinking her coffee.  He nodded to her and raised a finger, asking for a minute.  She looked concerned.  He turned away and listened to Alice, waiting to see if this was anything to worry about.  Wondering if he had made her hair-trigger upset.

Alice continued, saying that the man didn’t answer when she asked where he was from.  But, he was strangely a gentleman for that place.  Strangely attractive, thanking her when she made him feel good, touching her leg gently when she moved close to him.  Until she started to massage his arms.

§§

John lay quietly enjoying the massage, enjoying the way this woman touched him.  Thinking that he needed to come back and see her again.  Thinking he was low on cash and where he could pawn the earrings.  He could get a thousand for them and leave town.  Buy a crappy jeep for cash, something to get him up North for the summer.  Maybe to Wyoming or North Dakota to the little towns that were filling up with oil workers.  He could do roughneck work for a while if he got up there. Wondering if Judas would let them leave that way.  He had never had a license, but learned to drive a standard when he was in the group home in Little Rock. 

They could take back roads through West Texas into New Mexico, stop in campgrounds to sleep.  Trade the coke for weed a little at a time, sell some to campers.  Maybe he could trade the whole kilo for weed if he found some bikers in Nevada.  They didn’t generally fuck with white men, especially ones who were willing to take a bad deal on the drugs.  Ones with prison tattoos like he had on his shoulders.  

He could hollow out a spot in the wheel-well of a Jeep and store the drugs in tin foil.  Get some cheap pipe tobacco to wrap the drugs in to keep off any dogs if he got stopped.

She got to his shoulders and asked about his tattoos.

John heard Judas, pissed: “What the fuck are you doing?”

He looked up and saw Judas sitting in the chair in the corner of the room, shaking his head slowly.  Decidedly pissed.  John remained quiet, not wanting to scare the girl, who moved on to massage his biceps.

Judas: “You better close your fucking hands.”

John complied, worried now. 

She felt him tense, told him to relax.  Asked if she was hurting him.  He told her she wasn’t, he just didn’t like anyone touching his hands.  She leaned down and kissed him sweetly on the ear, told him it was o.k.  Told him it was time to turn over.  He looked to the chair in the corner.  Judas nodded and John turned over. 

She climbed onto his thighs and took off her bra.  She had small, perfect breasts with brown nipples.  She put lotion on her hands and started to stroke his cock, moving her hips up and down over his thighs as he moaned softly.  She got him close and pulled back, got more lotion. Started to rub circles on the tip of his cock and he moaned a little louder, not thinking about anything but her hands.  Hers.  She took his hand and moved it up to stroke her breasts right as he came.  She leaned over and let his cum hit her breasts and spread his cum on her skin.  She took his hand and massaged the cum all over her chest. 

John’s head lolled back and she got up to get wet wipes to clean herself off and clean his hands.  She asked if he wanted a shower.  He said no, and got up to put his clothes back on.  She put her top back on and helped him into his boots.  Thanked him and took the twenty dollar tip he handed her.  She kissed his cheek.  She walked him out of the room and down the hall to the front door.  Watched him walk out past the parking lot and head west.  Closed the front door and ran back to the room and picked up her cell phone.  Called the number Eli had given her.

§§

Eli in the parking lot of the Denny’s.  Eli getting worried: “What was wrong with his arms?”

Alice trying to explain: “He wouldn’t let me look at his hands.  But, when I stroked his cock, I pulled his hand up to my breasts and his fingers were smooth.  Too smooth.  Not normal.  Only men in suits have hands that smooth.”

“What did he do?”

“Nothing.  But he kept looking at a chair in the corner where his clothes were.  Nothing was there and he didn’t stay for a shower.  Paid me and walked out.  He didn’t have a car in the parking lot.  That’s really odd here.  There aren’t any houses in the area that anyone would want to walk over here from there.” 

Alice doubting herself: “You said he wasn’t from here. That he was tall and thin and white. Said he had smooth fingertips.  You said to call.”

“No.  Don’t worry.  You did good.  You did real well.  You said he was walking.  Which way was he going and what was he wearing?”

“He was heading west.  There is a motel on Telephone about six blocks from here.  Maybe he was headed that way.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Jeans, black scuffed boots.  A green and white plaid long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up.”

“What did his hair look like?”

“Black, kind of oily and just over his ears.”

“We’ll find him.  Thank you.”

Eli hung up and called Vincent, told him quickly what Alice said.  Vincent said he would send a squad car over to the motel and cars to two others in the area.  They’d see if they spotted him walking, but it was probably too late.  They’d check the front desks for a man who paid in cash with that description. 

Vincent asked where he was.  Eli told him. Vincent told him to drop the girl off right away and get to the Waffle House parking lot on the north side of I-45 and Airport Boulevard.

Eli went in and put a twenty on the table and told Mya he had to go right now.  He’d pay for a cab to get her home, or take her right now.  She looked worried and said she’d take the cab.  He gave her a twenty and apologized.  She told him to be safe and watched him run out to the car and get down the highway.

§§

Eli pulled into the parking lot and saw Vincent standing outside his car.  Wearing his vest, talking to two uniforms.  Eli pulled up next to them and got his vest out of the trunk, put a fresh clip in his forty-five on the walk to Vincent’s car. 

It had been five minutes since Alice called.  The patrols had called in.  No one  walking the street matched the description.  The patrols came in silently to the motels along Telephone.  One found a manager who said a guy had checked in three days ago and paid cash for a week.  He didn’t have a car and had one small bag.  He matched the description and had had no guests.  No one had seen him leave until a couple hours ago.  No maid was let in the whole time.

They were going in strong.

Eli asked if they had a warrant.

Vincent looked at him, incredulous.  “You fucking kidding?”

Eli brooked no shit.  “I want it to stick, if it’s the guy.”

Vincent: “You’re really not fucking with me?”

The patrol men looked at Eli like he was insane or slow.  They were jacked.  They wanted action.

Eli silent, eyes intense.

Vincent: “You said he was at a whorehouse.  We have a prostitution probable.  That gets us in the door.”

The uniforms were satisfied, wanting to fuck someone up.  They moved to their car.  Vincent told them to keep it silent, park around the corner.  Meet them on the second floor walkway.  The patrols had said he was in 2F.

They got to the motel.  Eli and Vincent parked next to a room on the first floor.  They’d put button-up shirts over their vests and guns.  The walked up to the door on the first floor in front of the car.  A man looked out the window.  Vincent pointed down and mouthed, “fuck off.”  The drapes closed.  Four uniforms walked up.  Vincent pointed to one to stay there and watch that door. 

The other three followed.  One carrying a battering ram.  They climbed the stairs silent.  Didn’t wait by 2F.  

As soon as they approached, Vincent grabbed one side of the battering ram and with the uniformed officer drove it into the door. 

Eli charged past Vincent through the door.  Saw a white man lying in the bed with black hair and a green shirt and dropped to a knee, gun pointed forward.

John sprang his torso up and threw a  knife at Eli’s head. 

Eli slipped his head six inches to the left and fired. 

Creosote filled the air.  John’s right shoulder exploded back to the wall.  They heard the gun’s report after.  Heard Vincent say, “fuck.”

The uniforms jumped John.  One drove a knee into his head and lay on the shattered shoulder.  Vincent pulled the knife from the bullet-proof vest, lodged in at his sternum.

Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer. 

The uniforms flipped John on his belly and cuffed his hands behind his back.  John started to cry silently.  No one said shit.

Vincent walked the room silent, deafened.  Eli stayed on a knee, gun still pointed at John.  The closet had double glass doors.  One was pulled over behind the other.  No one had come out. 

Vincent pointed to the glass closet door.  One officer stayed perched on John’s back, a knee on his spine.  The other took the battering ram and slammed through the closet door.  Glass exploded.

Empty. 

Another uniform walked into the room and looked under the bed.  Saw nothing.  One officer dropped the battering ram, walked in the closet.  Found the bag in the corner. 

John finished.  John with his eyes closed.  John hoping his shoulder would bleed him dead.

The uniform opened the backpack, pulled out two handkerchiefs.  One small, opened to two diamond earrings.  The other had folded cash.  Below them was a ziplock holding a kilo of white powder.

Vincent walked up to John and gently opened up his clenched fist.  Saw the smooth prints.  Said: “Boy, you fucked up.”

Eli stood, pulled the card from his back pocket.  Read the Miranda rights as the sirens got closer and closer.