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Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert Excerpt 5…. on the road to Denver with a head full of hope

The sun was up and shining now, beams angling through the motel window, but Frank was in no hurry. He felt pretty good after nearly ten solid hours of sleep.

Last night he’d seen a thick Denver phonebook in the desk drawer. He pulled it out, plopped it down on the desk and paged through to the R section. And there it was: Richards, Lawrence, atty at law.

Two listings, one for home and one for office.

Checking the clock on the bed table—just after eight, Mountain Time—Frank decided on the office number and was about to dial it up when he realized it was probably a long distance call, something you couldn’t do from a motel phone without a lot of hassle.

Unless you called collect, which wouldn’t exactly give the impression Frank wanted.

Ah, hell, he thought, tearing the page out of the phone book, might as well just motor on down to the big city and ring Richards up from somewhere close.

He fueled up at the pumps in front of the store—ten-gallon limit—and got back on the road.

The sun and the clean air got him high. He was anticipating a fun stop in Denver. Hoping, anyway. Rolling along, tires humming, he slipped into a pleasant reverie of cattle drives and wagon trains crisscrossing these broad eastern Colorado flatlands.

After about an hour, though, thoughts of Nikki started creeping in. His former girlfriend, the beautiful blond he’d once thought was the perfect girl. The one he’d had but couldn’t keep, like it said in that Velvet Underground song. Well, now her pale blue eyes were lingering on.

In his head like a strobe light.

And pushing the worm of an idea at him.

Did he deliberately drive Nikki away because of his low self-image?

Low self-image was a term Nikki, a sociology graduate working on her master’s degree, often used.

But here in the West the sun was too bright and the air too clear and clean to wallow in regret over past mistakes. And who’s to say it was even a mistake? Maybe Frank had her best interests at heart, considering what he was involved in at the time.

Sometimes fate has more wisdom than you do, Frank thought to himself.

Maybe someday he’d get some therapy. He’d heard they did a lot of that shit in California.

But for now it was on to Denver and Larry Richards.

In Kerouac’s book, Sal Paradise goes to Denver to meet up with Dean Moriarty, the son of a Denver wino and bowery denizen, who has a penchant for wild partying and driving recklessly and is seen by nearly everyone as crazy.

In a fun sort of way.

At least if you’re young and crazy yourself.

Moriarty was fond of Benzedrine. A speed freak, they’d call him today. In contrast, Richards was a high level athlete who kept himself in shape on a year-round basis. And whereas Moriarty flitted from woman to woman, wife to wife, and held low-level jobs like parking lot attendant and railroad laborer, Richards was married and a big nuts lawyer. But Larry had also committed his share of hijinks. Even had a few scrapes with the law back in the care-less days of his youth.

But Larry Richards was no Dean Moriarty.

No, he sure wasn’t. But Richards did like to party, Frank recalled, and the man—at one time, anyway—definitely enjoyed pursuing the ladies. So Frank’s old friend would likely be able to show him some fun and help him slip out from under the grinding millstone of past transgressions.

Or not.

But they’d definitely give it the old college try.

(End of Chapter 4)

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Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert Excerpt 4…. On the road and Colorado bound

By the time Frank crossed the Colorado line it was getting dark. The roadside shadows were filled with all sorts of strange things and his thoughts were bouncing and hopping like flies on a dead dog. But the self-loathing hadn’t entered the mix yet and Frank sensed the Hater was just waiting until the time was right. The demon would hang back until Frank was tired and strung out then bring on the anguish and the suffering.

The way it usually went.

A few miles into Colorado, he came upon a roadside oasis containing two motels, two gas stations closed for the night and a convenience store. An old-fashioned single-level motel sat on one side of the frontage road cul-de-sac and a fairly new, two-story Best Western with a swimming pool was on the other side. Deciding to go upscale, such as it was, Frank swung into the Best Western and got himself a room, paying cash in advance.

After checking in, he walked across the parking lot to the bright fluorescent glow of the small convenience store and bought a sixer of Coors.

When in Rome…

He took the chicken breast and the potatoes—spuds now limp and soggy and looking somewhat inedible—from his cooler in the back of the wagon and went to his room, the big fat joint from Waverly’s gift box nestled in the pocket of his blue denim shirt.

Frank turned on the television. There was a baseball game on and he left it there, popped a beer and set up his dinner on the small table by the window that looked out over the parking lot and the darkness of the western plains. He was kind of excited about seeing Larry Richards again—the guy had always possessed a knack for fun—but decided to wait until the morning to do the searching.

When his belly was full (spuds weren’t half bad) and his body engulfed in a pleasant heaviness, Frank popped another beer, stuffed a bath towel across the space under the room door and fired up the joint. He smoked about half of it, blowing the smoke out the window by the table and then grabbed On the Road and stretched out on the bed, propping up two pillows behind his head.

He dissolved into the book.

And couldn’t help but notice the similarities, the parallels, between himself and the narrator of the book.

They were both on the way to California, although Frank would be looking for work there as opposed to searching out fellow conspirators for safaris into the heart of the American night. And Frank was thirty-six, no longer an arrested/perennial adolescent like Sal Paradise. But they’d both fueled their journey with amphetamine, and Frank’s stop in Denver would be another similarity.

As his eyelids got heavy and the words on the page began to blur, Frank put the book down on the night table and shut off the light.

He was drifting, halfway between waking and sleeping, when another parallel came to him.

Frank, like the characters in the book, had a burning longing inside him for a freedom he couldn’t quite define.

And that longing was pushing him down the road.

(End of Chapter 3)

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A review of Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert ….”gritty and visceral picture of life on the road….”

Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert by T.K. O’Neill

“Painting a gritty and visceral picture of life on the road, specifically the rugged west, author T.K. O’Neill crafts a haunted hero in his latest novel, Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert.

Frank is itching for a new chapter in Denver, but there aren’t enough mountains in Colorado to keep old habits and bad luck from catching up. Navigating a seedy minefield of manipulation, desperation, desire, and even hope, this wandering rogue of a protagonist finds himself in strange company, compelled to stay just a bit longer in decadence and pleasure, and delaying his California dreams one day at a time.

Love, loss, brotherhood, and purpose clash in a timeless examination of freedom through a drug-addled lens. With a clever and original flourish for simple, unexpected descriptions, the prose hums along at an even clip, occasionally taking time to wax poetic, à la Kerouac, with the urgency in Frank’s mind and movements reminiscent of Sal Paradise, if not Dean Moriarty.

Comparisons aside, this book is far from derivative; it is a refreshing homage to beatnik life, telling an accessible story with a familiar lesson – you can’t go home again, and home is wherever you make it.” – SPR Review

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Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert Excerpt 3…. Caffeine, Kerouac and the road to Denver

The characters kind of reminded Frank of the crowd he’d spent the last ten years serving drinks to at the Metropole Lounge in Zenith, Minnesota. And if that place wasn’t the heart of the American night, he didn’t know what was.

But Frank was hard pressed to find much wisdom or universal truths from his days at the Metro, unlike the characters in the book, who seemed to readily extract profundities from their own similar experiences.

Frank guessed things just looked different from the working side of the bar.

But the book made letting your wild side out sound fun and exciting. And now Frank had a craving for beer. And there were two more black beauties remaining in Waverly’s gift box.

He could swallow one down, get back in the groove and drive all night, be like those crazy, sad bastards in the book.

And damn near to California by tomorrow morning.

But shit, that wasn’t going to cut it. Along with the fuel supply problems, thoughts of being alone on the freeway in the middle of the night and having the Hater come back on center stage were turning him cold. It could really get dark at night out here in the West, even on a freeway.

His life was already dark enough without adding to the blackness, he thought. And he was just too burnt for another all-nighter, the accumulated stress of the last few months choosing now to turn him inside out and sideways.

But the book did give him an idea.

Kerouac’s protagonist, Sal Paradise, was on his own journey to California, and made his first prolonged stop in the city of Denver, with the purpose of looking up an old friend and possibly scrounging some cash for the remainder of his journey.

Frank also had a friend in Denver, an old high school buddy, former Arizona Amateur Tennis Champion Larry Richards. Who, the last Frank had heard, was now a divorce lawyer in Denver, allegedly raking in the cash hand over fist, divorce a growing concern in 1977.

Frank possessed adequate funds and could afford a place to crash if necessary, so that separated him from Sal Paradise. But he was craving rest, recreation, fun and excitement—without any fear attached—and Denver was only an inch away on the map.

So…

Larry always had his shit together, Frank was thinking. Back when they were teenagers and used to hang together, the guy was well organized and full of plans. If he were anything at all like the guy Frank remembered, Richards would definitely show him a good time in the Mile High City.

Which was just what Frank needed.

Blow off a little steam and straighten out his wounded mind. Drink beer and shoot the shit and chase women in a new place where nobody knows who you are or what you’ve done.

Studying the map, he discovered Denver was somewhere around two hundred miles or more away—nearly four hours. Far enough, that it would be dark before he hit the city limits. And coming into an unfamiliar environment after dark was never a good idea.

Frank put the paperback down on the seat, started the wagon and headed back to I-70. Slightly rejuvenated, the coffee chugging through him, he figured he had a couple more hours left before he hit bottom.

(End of Chapter 2)

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Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert Excerpt 2…. Chandler and Kerouac and a head full of guilt

Posted in Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert, Northwoods Pulp Reloaded, tagged #elmoreleonard, #pulpfiction, Amazoncrimefiction, crime, crime fiction, Crime noir, crime stories, Minnesota Noir, noir, Northwoods Pulp Reloaded, pulp, pulp fiction, T.K O'Neill on November 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Summer—1977

Coming up on Oakley, Kansas, Frank Ford’s head was scrambled eggs.

The black dex got him here nicely, fourteen hours of positive thoughts pointing straight ahead to the future like a bunch of little arrows. But now the arrows were falling to the pavement like pieces of an imploding building, and Frank was lost.

Not lost on the highway—he had his trusty Michelin Road Atlas to prevent that—but lost inside his head. The horror show of his recent past was kicking in like a garish neon sign on a dark, empty street and an ice pick of fear was growing in his solar plexus.

He’d left home confident that he’d covered his tracks. The cops hadn’t given him so much as a sniff. But he’d killed two women and shot the ear off another guy and sometimes stuff like that comes back to haunt you.

You just never know.

And the self-immolating burn of guilt for killing two murderous, psychopathic sisters?

It shouldn’t be there.

But it was, kind of.

Sometimes you think you’ve put certain things behind you, gotten past them, but then one day they come sneaking back up your brain stem and resume the grinding.

Back in Minnesota he had all his rationalizations in place. Wanting to believe that if he just kept moving, the recriminations would never catch up. But now it seemed he was getting as fearful as an old woman. Maybe just like his mother. He was walking on eggs in his mind as if one wrong thought would bring on the Hater. But hell, the accusing voice had already been in there for a while and Frank was starting to get accustomed to the internal accusations and self-condemnation.

Currently the Hater was insisting that Frank deserved to burn in hell.

Or some other form of Christian-themed punishment.

Frank knew he just needed to get comfortable with being uncomfortable; it was that simple.

He’d always considered himself an outlaw. You know, a few illegal drugs, a little cheating on the taxes, maybe a couple lies to the girlfriend or the occasional hot item purchased from some hangdown at the Metropole.

But a killer?

He hadn’t planned on it, but he most certainly was guilty of murder, no matter how justified. And the cops had a nasty habit of overlooking justifications when it came to homicide.

So he had the ice pick in the gut and a hot wire in his brain shooting sparks and making him squirm behind the steering wheel of his 1971 Ford station wagon. He was thinking maybe if he pulled over for a while and shut his eyes—if he was lucky, catch a few Zs—he might get back to that walk-and-don’t-look-back state of mind that had carried him so smoothly across the plains.

If he could just get back to the same old Frank Ford, things would be all right.

Thinking about it, he knew it would never happen. The old Frank Ford was history, gone Johnson.

He fired up a Marlboro with the car lighter. Yeah, he was smoking again, his nerves and the monotony of long-distance driving conspiring to make him buy a pack at the first place he saw after crossing into Iowa early this morning. But this latest butt tasted like burning rope, and was adding a pulsing pain behind the eyes to his already existing symptoms of disarray.

He stubbed out the cig in the ashtray and glanced at the approaching road sign.

Oakley 3.

Highway 83 3.

Highway 83 was a north-south road that would take him to the Texas panhandle and I-40, somewhere west of Oklahoma City, and from there it was a straight shot to LA. But he knew he’d struggle just to make it to Garden City, Kansas, only forty miles to the south, if he didn’t stop for a while.

The fuel situation was also troubling. Some of the gas stations were already closed and it was only seven o’clock in the evening, Central Time. The good fellows from OPEC were putting the squeeze on America’s oil supply. The petroleum titans from the Middle East conspiring to enlighten America as to who was running the gas-and-oil show.

And it seemed to be working. Big companies like Amoco, Shell and Texaco were unable to provide enough fuel to keep all their stations open. And those that did have gas were plagued by long lines, purchase limits and surly drivers—one of whom, Frank was rapidly becoming. So he made a quick decision—or something made it for him—and he wheeled the Ford wagon onto the Oakley exit.

He tried to make himself relax.

At least enough to give the impression that he was relatively normal, which, of course, was the furthest thing from the truth.

Oakley was a Norman Rockwell painting. And like most small towns Frank had visited, there was a supermarket on the main drag.

He swung into the parking lot of Bob’s Ideal Market and steered the wagon into a slot. There was plenty of room. He got out of the car, surprised how stiff he was, and went into the store. There he grabbed a large Styrofoam cup of coffee and two pieces of fried chicken and some deep-fried potato quarters from the deli, the scent of the greasy treats too tantalizing to resist.

Getting back to the car, his stomach now a little queasy from road coffee, cigarettes and no food, he put the potatoes in his cooler for later and grabbed a chicken thigh.

He sipped the coffee and took a bite of the greasy chicken and gazed out the car window at the comings and goings of the locals. Then for no apparent reason the anxiety started up again and he didn’t feel like moving quite yet so he reached into the back seat and grabbed the little going-away-gift box that hippie boy Keith Waverly had given him back in Zenith.

He lifted out the two dog-eared paperbacks.

One was an old Raymond Chandler novel, The Little Sister, which Frank suspected was Waverly’s off-handed comment on the adventures in Frank’s recent past. The other one, On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, was a famous book Frank knew about but had never read, and was probably Waverly’s comment on Frank’s current situation.

And immediate future, Frank was thinking as he put the Chandler novel back in the box and turned back the wrinkled cover of the late Jack Kerouac’s claim to fame.

He looked at the copyright.

1957.

Twenty years ago.

He started to read.

Once he adjusted to the scattershot prose it seemed to sync with his discordant mind and bring on some form of calm. Got him feeling like he was sitting placidly in a giant eggcup. A strange image, for sure, but that’s exactly what he felt like, that’s what came to him.

He read for an hour straight, looking up only occasionally to glance at the old pickups and dusty sedans going by on Main Street, USA.

Story so far was about a bunch of people under the age of thirty traveling across the country on the cheap, doing a lot of drinking and drugs. And sex, if they could get it.

Basically turning dissipation into a religion.

The Beat Generation. Predecessors to the hippies.

Story took place in 1947. Thirty years ago….

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Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert Excerpt 1…. Rescue mission or fool’s errand

Late November—1977

Lying on his stomach at the fence line of an Arizona ranch just inside the Mexican border, Frank Ford finds it hard to believe that only six months ago he was in northern Minnesota trying to stop two psychotic sisters from killing a douchebag pharmaceutical heir.

But it’s true.

Now the sky above him is a tapestry of stars and his three companions are up in the cosmos with them, each of the three men having consumed a number of peyote buttons before leaving Tempe.

Frank, being the driver, abstained. At the moment, though, he’s not sure whether that was a good decision or a bad one. He’s wired tight and the other three are loose goosey, so what the hell.

The four men are on a mission to rescue the younger brother of rising rock star Evelyn Raines, with whom Frank has a confusing and undefined relationship. It seems that Javier Raines was caught smuggling marijuana and Mexican citizens across the border—something he’s been doing for several years, according to his sister. The kicker here being that it wasn’t an official government law enforcement agency that snagged him, but a vigilante group doing unauthorized work along the border.

Unauthorized work that often includes torture, the rumors say.

Just a weird situation all around, Frank thinks, as he watches Ted Webb—the provider of the peyote buttons—crawl underneath the barbed wire, the butt of a .45 caliber Colt semi-auto sticking out the waistband of his faded jeans.

Being the most mobile of the four, Ted volunteered to sneak up to the barn, only outbuilding on the property, to see if Javier is actually in there. And, if so, come up with a plan for extracting him.

Squeezing the stock of a cut down twelve-gauge, Frank watches in the weak glow of the lone dusk-to-dawn yard light as Ted scoots across the dirt towards the barn. Yard dog is no longer a problem, yellow-haired mutt collapsed in a heap near the front gate, after consuming a hefty serving of Henry Ruiz’s Doggy Downer Delight.

Henry Ruiz, along with Frank’s roommate in Tempe, Bill Cross, round out the rest of the not-so-fearsome foursome.

Henry is stretched out on Frank’s left, looking at the front door of the one-story ranch house through the night-vision scope of an M-16 carbine, his souvenir from Vietnam. On Henry’s left, Bill Cross cradles a .22 caliber semi-auto plinking rifle, his eyes flitting around the yard like tumbleweeds in a windstorm.

Henry and Ted are ‘Nam vets. Bill served in Korea. Frank’s damaged knee kept him out of the military. Failed his draft physical.

Not that he’d have wanted to join even if his knee was perfect, he thinks, then tenses as he sees Ted coming back fast, crouching low.

Ted scurries to the fence line and squats down in front of Henry. “There’s two guys in there,” he says. “Both of ‘em naked and bloody and tied to posts in the ground.”

“They conscious?” Henry asks.

“Maybe, couldn’t tell for sure,” Ted says in a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t go in all the way. Didn’t want them shouting or something. They might’ve been aware of me, I’m not sure. Neither one of them looked in good enough shape to walk back to the car, though, I can tell you that much.”

“Well, no mission ever goes the way you plan it, we’ll just have to improvise,” Henry says. “Brings to mind an old Mexican saying: ‘Trust in God but keep one hand on your pistola.’ So I guess that’s what we’ll do.”

Henry slithers under the barbed wire and stands up. Raising the M-16 to the ready position, he trains the carbine at the front door of the house and walks sideways toward the barn.

Frank and Bill follow Henry’s lead.

Frank’s bum knee is stiff and sore from the walk in and he can’t help wondering how the hell things came down to this…

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Always a special day when new book release arrives

Posted in Northwoods Pulp Reloaded, tagged #elmoreleonard, #pulpfiction, Amazoncrimefiction, crime, crime fiction, Crime noir, crime stories, Minnesota Noir, noir, Northwoods Pulp Reloaded, pulp, pulp fiction, T.K O'Neill on November 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Pulpy, crime, the mid-70’s, Minnesota to Arizona, misadventures abound.

It’s 1977 and Frank Ford is running from his life and for his life.

Following the suspicious suicide of his brother Ray and Frank’s own role in the death of twin sisters clearly culpable in Ray’s demise, he hits the road for the promised land, California–with a dog-eared paperback copy of Kerouac’s On the Road as his roadmap. True to its protagonist’s journey, Frank makes a stop in Denver to look up an old friend–in his case high school buddy and former Arizona Amateur Tennis Champion, Larry Richards, now a divorce attorney allegedly raking in the cash, hand over fist.

Larry’s seemingly successful life was anything but, and Frank gets caught up in Larry’s fraying web of deals and deceit, leading him farther away from California and closer to the same muck he left behind in Minnesota.

Enter the captivating and gifted songwriter Evelyn Raines, lead singer of Evie and the Desert Flowers. The righteous Bill Cross, new roommate, fellow bartender at DJ’s and former Arizona Gold Gloves light heavyweight champion. Clayton Cook and Bryce Parker–entitled, corrupt and twisted. Arturo Reynolds, Denver gangster. Javier Raines, Evie’s faithful brother and manager. A cast of characters that seems to conspire to keep Frank from his Kerouac dream.

Sequel to Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry

by T.K. O’Neill

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My Ship Comes In, Excerpt 21: …ready for the 80’s

“My Ship Comes In” is the fourth story, a novella, in T.K. O’Neill’s Northwoods Pulp Reloaded collection of three short crime stories and this longer story.

CHAPTER 10

Barry is excited by the prospects. At least, what I could cryptically explain over the phone. He agrees to drive down and pick me up. I spend the night in a parking lot in Dory’s old Chevy. He picks me up at noon the following day in front of the entrance to Palm Gardens.

Everything goes well until the third day I’m in Orlando. That’s when I run across a story in the Orlando Sentinel about a van, registered to one Daniel Victor Bagley from Colorado, that’s been found on the beach near Homosassa Springs, with a severely injured young woman inside. A woman in possession of a gun that authorities suspect was used in the shooting death of Levi County Deputy Sheriff, John Teller. Fingerprint evidence yet to return from the state lab. Head trauma has evidently given Dory Lanigan amnesia, as she claims no knowledge or memory of anything from the previous two weeks.

I’m glad that the poor girl is alive, although why, I’m not sure. But I’m even gladder that she can’t remember anything. If, in fact, that is true. Could be a fabrication.

I cross myself, a new habit I’m picking up.

I spend the next two days destroying the newspapers and turning off TV news to keep Barry from putting two and two together. Taking Barry out would be tough. After that, things go by pretty smoothly, the only hitch coming after I’ve socked away my first hundred grand.

Giddy with greed, Barry and I start partying and don’t stop for forty-eight hours. Sunday morning, depression and loneliness hit me so bad that I’m suicidal. Wishing I could cry but unable to, I almost call Carole and ask her to join me. A voice in my head never stops harping that it’s a big mistake and for some reason I listen.

I wait out the pain and vow to stop doing cocaine. It’s a rotten, horrible drug—and far too expensive. Now that I have money, I have to learn to manage my funds wisely. It’s just not good business to consume your own product.

Sixteen days go by and I have nearly three hundred thousand dollars and some new clothes packed inside an Italian leather suitcase. I also have a deep-seated need to get far away from Florida. Go someplace unobtrusive and not too crowded.

I bid Barry adieu and board a flight at the Orlando airport. Destination: my new life. A few hours later we touch down and I realize that it’s Halloween night, October 31, 1979—two months until the new decade arrives.

I take a cab from the airport into downtown Madison, Wisconsin and get a room at a Best Western on State Street. I have steak, shrimp and vodka gimlets in the dining room and then go back up to my room for a shower.

By the time I towel off, dress and look out the window at the street, it’s full of revelers. Revelers in costume.

There’s somebody dressed as a stovepipe. There are two “Wild and Crazy Guys” ala Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd of Saturday Night Live. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman… they’re all there, along with just about every other creature one can imagine. State Street is filled with party animals and I believe I’ll fit right in.

I go into the bathroom and admire my new costume in the steamy mirror.

The short cropped, dyed blonde hair looks good; my clean-shaven face the same. The gray Armani suit looks fantastic with the white, silk shirt and the two hundred-dollar tie. The Cuban cigar, the silver-rimmed, tinted eyeglasses and the Rolex watch complete the picture quite nicely.

I feel ready for the eighties…

(End of Chapter 10)

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My Ship Comes In, Excerpt 20: floating on dreams….

“My Ship Comes In” is the fourth story, a novella, in T.K. O’Neill’s Northwoods Pulp Reloaded collection of three short crime stories and this longer story.

It isn’t long before we come to signs offering beach access. I wave and point and Dory obediently turns down the narrow shell road. After a short distance, we roll out of the mangroves and discover a beautiful little bay. There’s a good wind from the northwest, and off in the distance, whitecaps roll. But inside the long and narrow bay there is a gentle lapping of soft, blue-green water. Three cars are parked on the side of the road.

We continue along the access road, moving parallel to the water. I can’t stop thinking they’ve already found the dead cop and it’s only a matter of time before they start looking for a white VW bus with two gun-crazy drug addicts inside. This will be enough to send every firearm-owning redneck in the area into a feeding frenzy—and who can blame them?

On the southernmost spot on the bay I see a long point stretching out into the water. I can see only one car, out near the tip of the point. I drive on past the car and then around the point and now we are alone on the road as it jogs along a jagged and uninhabited shoreline. About a block down the vegetation begins to take over and the road narrows, encroached by gnarled creeping vines and spiky foliage. The surf is roaring in my ears and I can’t think straight. Then the road straightens out for a hundred yards and I zip around the VW, make her ride my bumper for a while. We bounce along while I check her out in the rearview. Looks to me like she’s getting uptight, constantly flipping her hair back with her free hand and gripping the wheel tightly with the other. The van is bouncing and bucking because she won’t shift out of second gear. I’m thinking maybe she’s in need of another blast of coke before the roof falls in on her castle of sand.

Then I see an opportunity up ahead: a small, offshoot trail going down toward the sand. I veer onto it and Dory follows, the VW’s headlights bouncing behind me like the eyes of an insane clown. I get to the beach and come to a stop. The wind howls and whines through the open window. White-capped waves slam against the shore. The sound is fierce, like Neptune himself is roaring his frustration with the state of the world.

I pull out a cigarette—a Kool—punch in the lighter on the cheesy maroon dashboard of the Chevy and watch her in the mirror. She has a cigarette going, too. She’s puffing on it and looking around nervously. Then I watch her climb out the driver’s door and come around to the front of the van, turning her eyes toward me as I put the lighter back in its hole. I swing my right arm onto the seat back and look at her, smiling my best fake smile. She waves at me then turns her eyes to the ocean and stretches her arms up to the sky.

I’m still facing her, and still smiling, when I slip the shifter into reverse with my left hand and floor the gas pedal.

I see her eyes widen and her body go rigid.

The rear bumper of the Chev hits her at the knees, her body jackknifes and her head smashes violently down on the trunk lid. There’s one hell of a thunk and she goes limp like a rag doll, her last gasps and gurgles signaling the end of another wasted life. I shift into drive and pull forward until she rolls off onto the sand. I get out and drag her body to the side door of the VW.

Sometime soon, somebody will discover an abandoned hippie van with links to three dead people: Schmidt, Bagley and now Dory. Traces of drugs and semen and god knows what all will be found among the carpet fibers of this four-wheeled wagon of sin. SATANISTS INVADE FLORIDA! might be the headline in the Baptist Weekly.

I stick poor Dory inside Bagley’s sleeping bag and clean out the van. I leave behind Bagley’s wallet and Elton Kirby’s wallet, keep Keith Waverly’s wallet. I stuff all forty-five kilos of coke and some clothes into Bagley’s two military duffels and throw them in the trunk of the Chevy.

Just before I drive away I remember to go back and close the curtains on the van and say my farewells and regrets to Dory.

I mean, what was I supposed to do? I really had to kill her. I could never have become partners with the heinous likes of her. And I couldn’t accept the responsibility of loosing Dory on an unsuspecting world, with her in possession of massive quantities of cocaine and a loaded handgun. So I see it as a public service. Born to serve—that’s me.

Dan Bagley and Dory, I figure, were like two peas in the pod, except Bagley had the good fortune to be born into wealth while Dory had to learn to lie and cheat out of necessity.

Now I’m beginning to see a new path. The seventies are fast approaching a horrible end and I can see an inkling of the new way, the new sensibility. It is time to be done with spiritual angst and uncertainty. Now the time is right for worshipping a new god, the god the successful people are already bowing and scraping to. Money. Some refer to it as Mammon—covetousness dressed up as enterprise. With cash as your guide, there is no guilt or agonizing soul searching. No wailing or gnashing of teeth. Unless the stock market crashes. One simply accumulates—always going forward—come hell or federal investigation. After accumulating, you consume. Then discard. It’s as easy as one, two, three.

Feeling the giddy rush of my new spirituality, I anoint my new Holy Trinity.

Money, Sex and Drugs form the new Godhead.

These are things that you can feel and experience, not pie in the sky and self-denial. This time around I will not get caught short. I’ll be riding high on the crest and running the shoot, hanging five on a golden surfboard.

First thing, though, I have to get back to St. Pete without getting caught by the cops. Then I need some cash, a new mode of transportation and an outlet large enough to handle mucho kilos of Peruvian Marching Powder. Talk about your millstones.

If I think about it too much my head starts to spin. I have no choice but to take it one step at a time. I decide to wait on the beach for a while. In a couple hours it will be dark.

After five minutes of vacant staring at the pounding surf, my stomach is flopping so bad I have to leave. I cannot look at the VW as I drive away. I continue down the frontage road until it winds its way back to Highway 19, where I turn right and head south through Homossa Springs until I hit State Highway 98. There, I turn east, roll through Brooksville and then all the way to the freeway. It’s a soft evening with no wind. Sun is sinking, red as blood.

As the roadside lights start popping on, the sky turns gray and then black and I’m swallowed up in the swarm of traffic. Just another white-trash night for the guy in the maroon Chevy. I’m strangely relaxed; emotion seems to have left me for the time being, and the drive is surreal, like I’m floating on air and the only sound is the hiss of the tires.

(End of Chapter 9)

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