Loyal readers of this blog, thank
you. Thank you for reading and sharing it.
Our numbers are way up this year since my hiatus to write my new novel
is over. And now the novel has
dropped. It’s available on Amazon and
through the publisher, SNR Creative.
It’s a crime thriller that follows parallel
stories that weave together in the end.
There are four dead bodies in a mechanic shop
in southwest Houston, one witness who is shot in the back with a wild tale of
witnessing the killer, a MS-13 gangster.
The police don’t believe him. The gangsters hunt him. A drug and bullet trafficker works his way up
and down the middle of the continent, leaving bodies in his wake until his
blood-lust removes the protection of the cartels he serves and the revenge
abduction of children trafficked sets off a wild manhunt across. A young attorney wakes up in jail with no recollection
of how he got there or the waste his life has become. He seeks redemption in a
death-penalty appeal of John Doddy, the Train Car Killer who begins to talk, giving
up the secret tale of his life that draws all the violence in a fulcrum around
him until it meets its end.
Ghosts of the Mid-Country is the sequel to Devils Walk Through Galveston, and continues the story with beloved
and reviled characters, answering its questions and delivering on its promise. It has two five star reviews on Amazon already. Two weeks ago, I gave a
teaser from the beginning of the story.
Here is one from the middle.
43. Churning
Six a.m. and
Western South Dakota was quiet. The call
came in to Houston and he recognized the number. He answered without introduction, which was
his custom, “You’re two days late reporting.”
“It was a long
ride back. We didn’t stop anywhere I
could call.”
“From Chicago
to the Black Hills, there was nowhere to call?”
“I’ve got less
than five minutes. You want to talk
about my schedule?”
“Did the
bullets get to the Mara kid?”
“No. He got double crossed back. The bullets went
to the original guy. The bald buy.
Nobody says his name.”
“The guy who
comes in like a ghost.”
“And who goes
out like one.”
“How’d it go
down?”
“Red made a
call and told him the offer that was being made. He matched the price and paid
some extra if the kid was thrown in.”
“Thrown in?”
“Kid’s gone.
Kid went with the ghost. You have a
better idea where the kid is than I do.
I doubt he ends up back in Texas.”
“Where are the
bullets?”
“They got on a
train going south.”
“You get the
train number?’
He gave it
up. The DEA agent in Houston wrote it
down quick as he could and heard something stir in the background. Heard before the guy did and said, “Out” and
was off.
He was on his
computer tracking one car on Union Pacific, trying to see if he could find out where
it was, where it would go. Trying to see if they could intercept it, or track
it or see who picked it up. They’d tried
to engineer a double cross and found out where loyalties lay. Found out part of what they wanted to.
§§
The boxcar was
hot, even with the wind whistling through the slats. It was at speed and locked from the inside
with the jerry-rigged hasp he put on to make sure no one got in while he was
inside. He needed the lock to
sleep. He needed the safety of it now
that he was alone on this trip and had to let his guard down for three
hours.
Judas slid into
the slot a foot wide between the pallet and the boxcar wall and laid down,
resting his head on his arm and let himself go into nothingness for three
hours. Three hours of the sleep of the
dead and he wouldn’t need any more for two days. He could wake and sit in half sleep until
they stopped at a yard or stopped for a temporary break for track
maintenance. Trains now moving on half
the track they did when they deregulated.
More track coming on line every year since 2009 when the oil fields in
the Bakken opened with those in the Eagle Ford and the oil had to get out. Those harder to use for his purposes. Those mostly made up of tanker cars coming
out. Some box cars coming in, none
out. All the space and fuel reserved for
oil. For hundreds of thousands of barrels every day that had to find a
market. So he was still relegated to the
lesser dry freight track but it served his purposes He
knew the guys in the yards and had coopted with drugs or money or fear or all
of each. He needed a tiny bit of space and time on millions of miles of track,
on millions of miles of train cars snaking all over the country, every once in
a while, north to south. And here he
was.
Here he was
three hours later groggy, trying to make out the geography, the topography all
the same: flat. There was the must of the water roiling nearby. He stood up and peered out and by the
twilight saw the bluffs across from New Madrid, new he’d be coming into Cairo
soon. Knew there’d be a stop here or
across in Paducah. Usually a problem
with the tracks around here. Usually a break for a couple of hours and he had
an itch. He had an itch that needed a scratch.
Hadn’t had the itch in a couple of months and it itched bad. He’d find someone to scratch it.
§§
A lion in a zoo
will take raw meat thrown into his pen and eat it. He’ll taste the blood. He’ll remember he likes it and eat it
silently and it’ll fill his belly. It
won’t fill his lust to hunt.
He could taste
the blood lust in the back of his throat, the iron on his tongue.
They’d tried to slake his hunger with the
girl in the trailer. He was meat thrown
into the cage. She was food to fill his
belly. She wasn’t food to fill the blackness in his soul. He had a thirst for blood. He had a need to hunt. It was still light
out, though. Twilight in Cairo as the train stopped and settled in the
screeching of steel meeting steel after the ceramic brakes burned off the outer
edge of the pads. The pottery kiln smell long since replaced the smoking stone
of asbestos melting into forsterite and falling between the ties. He missed the stone smell filling his
nose. He missed it as he rose and paced
silent in the boxcar. The leather of his boots sliding softly over the wooden
slats. Careful not to drop footfalls if a railroad bull walked by. Wondering
where she’d be. Wondering if it was a bar or nightclub or just filling up her
tank with gas at an Exxon out of the way, on the way to a farmhouse. He waited for the calls of the engineers, of
the mechanics giving a clue as to how long this would be. How long until the
train would start again. If he had time to get off and back on here, or if he’d
have to catch up outside St. Louis on a stolen motorcycle. If he could track
the train south to where he needed to be.
He shouldn’t
leave the load. He shouldn’t leave his
cargo to inspectors roaming. He needed
the blood. He had the hunger. He’d been a day since Joliet and disposing of
the kid at the junkyard and finding his way onto the boxcar. He was dusty and sweaty and smelled like
another man’s fear. He waited a few
minutes and listened with all his being.
Listened to the pulse in his ears until he could make out two men in the
distance talking, discussing timing, discussing another train broken down, down
the line to St. Louis and a track repair. They’d be less than three hours. Just enough time.
He removed the
makeshift hasp and left he bullets where they were in wooden crates in a boxcar
with a fake manifest. It wasn’t worth
the risk. He needed to go anyway. He walked by and around as twilight was
setting in over the bluffs across the river.
He wound his way around the train yard and found a hose and washed off
his head and face, no stubble, never needing to shave. He walked out of the yard and found his way
down a road and into a rough part of town.
It wasn’t dark yet. Wasn’t late
enough to go to a club and work charm. It was time to look for a place with a
fence or a place far out from the rest.
He walked to a gas station and found a bottle of water and a size medium
t-shirt that fit tight and hugged his muscles.
His jeans weren’t going to get any better. He put the old t-shirt and water bottle in
the satchel bag over his shoulder and paid the worker who looked away and knew
better than to remember details of anyone who left on his own.
He walked a
little way and found a side road with a shack a quarter mile down the road. Far
enough. A risk of dogs and shotguns and
men home. One car in the drive. He approached and heard gospel music playing
on a radio in the back and walked around.
He didn’t see any yellow spots on the lawn or holes or markings of dogs. He saw two cats run under the house, held up
on concrete to let the heat sweep under.
To let the house sway and let water flow when the river rose. He waited to see if anyone looked out. No one did.
He waited to hear children. No high pitched voices, no cartoons
playing. There was luck or dark
providence at work. There was fate
meetings its end.
He walked up
the back stairs as two cats scuttled off the warm concrete and went under the
porch and didn’t raise a hand. He tried the knob and found it turned. He entered and found her at the stove. About forty-five and ten pounds above where
she wanted to be and stirring something. Hair up in a rag. Breasts still full, ankles
still thin. He smiled like an apparition
of her romance novels. He smiled like the apex of all the evil she’d found in
her life. She found herself mute. He found the words, “You have a glass of cold
water for a tired man?”
Still not sure
he was real. Still not sure if she
wanted him to be. She saw the blued
tattoos of his forearms, snaking up his biceps under his short sleeves, the ink
dancing as he moved his fingers in his pants pockets, making the muscles dance,
making the tattoos coax her on.
She turned and
found the water in the refrigerator. He
found the curve of her hips. She found his eyes on her and liked their warmth.
He masked their fire. He took a sip as
she drew closer and handed it to him.
She watched the cords in his neck as he swallowed. She watched the
muscles of his arms. He put the glass on
the counter behind him and told her, “You better tend to the stove. Looks like
it’s boiling over.”
She turned and
saw it was. She moved and cut the flame
and felt his hands on her waist and low back, wrapping around her and let out a
gasp, cut off as his hand front hand raised up to her chest and held the breath
in. Raised further to her chin and turned it to him as he pressed his hips
against her ass, as he coiled around her and kissed her. She let herself be taken in his kiss, felt
the coils of his muscles tighten until his hand was on her chin, pulling her
chin harder around, still kissing. Now
biting her lip. Now biting through her
lip and still pulling her chin around further, harder. Coiling tighter as the breath came out of
her, as her neck drew taught and she thought her chin couldn’t go further. He knew it could. He knew it would. He knew then he’d have an
hour to do what he pleased, wash off, clean up the scene, and get back.
Which is what
he did.
No comments:
Post a Comment