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Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert Excerpt 7….”Get Out of Denver” is more than a song

Pondering this, Frank stepped up to Jimmy’s shiny, clean, flawless bar. There were a few customers in the place. Frank could sense the waiting, the anticipation of the bartender and the waitress, as it was that slow time just before the after-work rush. A time to savor the relaxed pace and the quiet, before you were too busy running to think about anything else.

Frank ordered a Heineken from the tall rangy bartender who looked like a cowboy. To hell with Coors piss water.

Back in Minnesota, it wasn’t that long ago that Coors was like an exotic import. Anyone who went to Colorado for skiing or trout fishing or anything else, would bring cases of the stuff back to Zenith in those skinny eight-ounce cans you were supposed to hold daintily at the rim of the can with your thumb and forefinger so as not to overheat the unpasteurized brew.

And then somewhere along the line drinkers figured out it was only ordinary beer that was just a little lighter tasting than most.

These days the trend was leaning toward thicker, more flavorful, imported brews. At least in Frank’s last days at the Metropole. And the Metro was a dive, so the upscale joints were likely all the way into the import thing by now.

The bartender set the sweating green bottle on the clean, unblemished bar top and Frank put down a ten. Barkeep went to wait on some new arrivals—young guys unbuttoning collars and loosening ties—and Frank grabbed the folded newspaper on top of the bar.

Front-page story was about the twenty-five hour power blackout in New York City, a hellish scenario if there ever was one. Frank read the article and felt glad he wasn’t in New York.

Forty-five minutes and three beers later, Frank got into his car and pulled out the slip of paper with Larry Richard’s directions, slowly realizing that he’d have to retrace his path back to Colfax Avenue in order to interpret the instructions.

This proved more difficult than he’d anticipated, but he eventually got on track, and was turning slowly onto the street of Larry Richards’ office when he spotted something unusual. Halfway down the block, a large man was standing on the roof of a black BMW hammering down with an aluminum baseball bat like he was pounding in railroad spikes.

Guy must have a John Henry complex, Frank thought to himself, because the man was definitely driving some steel.

And glass, too, as Frank watched the windshield on the BMW shatter and collapse into the front seat.

Then he noticed two guys scuffling out front of a modest, relatively new-looking building to the left of the BMW. One of the guys looked to be Larry, although twenty pounds heavier and with longer hair than Frank recalled.

It was indeed Richards, and he was tussling with a large thuggish guy who appeared to be landing the bulk of the punches.

Even in his slightly numb, mildly inebriated state, Frank could tell that something here was definitely amiss. Searching anxiously for someplace to put the station wagon, Frank watched the bigger guy tackle Richards and kneel on top of him, continuing to rain down punches as Richards tried to cover up.

Frank jammed on the brakes alongside the BMW and grabbed the tire iron he kept under the driver’s seat for just such occasions, wishing for the tire chain he used to keep in his old Pontiac.

Bursting out of the Ford wagon onto the street, feeling more alive than he had in some time, Frank could see Richards was in trouble. Gripping the hunk of iron, he sprinted over to the struggling pair and was ready to engage when the big man with the five o’clock shadow stopped his punch throwing long enough to growl in a foghorn voice: “You don’t know what you’re getting into, mister. Get the fuck out of here before I have to fuck you up too.”

(To be continued)

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Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert Excerpt 6….the intersection of Larimer Street and Memory Lane

Coming into the bowl of Denver, low mountains on the horizon like a purple fence around a corral, Frank felt a bit overwhelmed.

The place was bigger and more crowded than he’d anticipated, traffic zipping and darting and roaring by him on the freeway, and his nerves were jumpy and unsettled.

He used to have nerves of steel, could piss in a Coke bottle and not miss a drop, but now he felt shaky and his flesh was like a pincushion with the pins still in it.

Haven’t been the same since that LSD excursion back in April, he thought, anxiously scanning the periphery at sixty miles an hour. And his little brother jumping off the Arrowhead Bridge and the resultant pile of shit that led to, sure as hell didn’t help much either.

And the concussion?

There was also that.

He continued along on Business 70, also known as Colfax Avenue, a street name he remembered from the book, and that felt right. Staying on Colfax, he drove by the State Capitol and the U.S. Mint and then spied one of those chain restaurants that were springing up all over the country like toadstools after a rainstorm.

He turned off the highway at the next exit and wound around to the restaurant parking lot. He went inside and found the payphone, pulled the phonebook page from his pocket and dialed up Larry Richards’ office number.

A female voice answered, Frank thinking she sounded quite young. Richards always liked the sweet young things. “Larry Richards’ law office, this is Susan, how may I help you?”

“Is Larry available?”

“Mr. Richards is busy on another line, whom should I say is calling, please?” Her voice went up an octave on the please.

“Tell him it’s an old friend from high school in Zenith, Minnesota.”

Frank heard the phone clicking and then some recorded music for a brief moment before a male voice came on the line. “Hello, Larry Richards speaking. Who’s calling, please?”

“Is this the same Larry Richards that once tried to put a Chevy engine into a 1954 Ford?”

“Yes it is,” Richards said, a chuckle coming into his voice.

“Well this is the guy whose garage you used to lift the engine out of that Impala you stole.”

Frank recalled that after failing to adapt the Chevy motor to the Ford, Richards was eventually arrested for trying to sell the stolen engine to an undercover cop.

“Frank Ford, you old cocksucker. What the hell are you doing in Denver?”

“On my way to California, Larry. Gonna look for work out there.”

“Minnesota climate finally get to you, Frank?”

“That and a few other things. But yeah, I finally decided to relocate. And being that I was in the area, I thought maybe I’d pay you a visit and have you show me a good time. For old time’s sake, you know.”

“Just great Frank, sounds super. It’s really great to hear your voice again, my friend. Let’s get together this afternoon. Once I’ve finished with this consultation, we can hit one of the many great happy hours in the area and catch up. Shit, it’s been years, I can’t believe you’re actually here.”

“It’s true, Larry, I’m actually here. Should I call you back later?”

“Why don’t you just come by my office around four-thirty? Where you at?”

“I’m on Colfax Ave, just past the Mint.”

“That’s not too far from here. If you go back the way you came for a few blocks there’s a nice park at the Civic Center I think you’ll like. Plenty of things to see. Keep you occupied until four-thirty or so, no problem. This is gonna be great, man. But, um, please be careful not to mention any of the uh—shall we say—low points of my history, around my secretary. Nobody here knows about my checkered past.”

“My lips are sealed, Larry, see you at four-thirty.”

Richards gave directions and Frank wrote them down on a scrap of paper he’d had the foresight to bring to the phone with him, Frank going all in on the travel-discipline thing.

Frank took a seat in a booth by the window. Ordered a California burger basket with fries and a Coke and wolfed the whole thing down, even though it was mediocre at best.

Seemed he had a lot of holes to fill.

After lunch Frank got in the station wagon and went to the park Richards recommended. The air was warm—on its way to eighty degrees, the sun shining and a slight breeze—and Frank felt the solace of summer slowly washing over him.

His jeans and long-sleeved chamois shirt being a little too much clothing for the weather, he took off the heavy green shirt and sat in his t-shirt on a park bench, feeling like a vagrant. He read his book and let the warmth work its magic on the tension in his neck and shoulders. But the relaxation didn’t last long. That rogue nervous energy kicked in and made it hard to stay put, so he got up and sauntered around the bustling park.

Found it quite scenic.

Plenty of pretty girls.

But the time passed more slowly than he was comfortable with and around three-thirty he decided to rumble on down towards Larry Richard’s office with the intent of stopping at a bar along the way, if any place caught his eye.

He motored his way around the city. Seeing the sign for Larimer Street, another familiar name from the book, he made the turn and was soon swinging into what seemed to be a rare parking space near an establishment called Jimmy’s Saloon and Eatery.

Jimmy’s was a few steps above the old Metropole on the cleanliness scale. Definitely lacked the embedded stink of Frank’s former place of work. Shit, there were still times when Frank swore he could smell the old bar on him, like the stench had burrowed under his skin and stayed there.

Ten years he’d spent in that hole. And a clean bar with new furnishings and walls that didn’t have years of caked-on grime was a pleasant experience.

Instead of dirt on the walls, there were framed black and white photos of the early days of Denver—rodeos and miners and railroad scenes—but Jimmy’s definitely lacked the character of the bars of Larimer Street Kerouac wrote about.

But that was all right withFrank.

He was remembering the teenage Larry Richards, the guy a real piece of work. Probably the only miscreant in the history of Zenith, Minnesota, who served a jail term under the Huber Law (work release for employed prisoners) and got out every afternoon to practice tennis.

And weekends to play in tournaments.

Richards, then a recent high school graduate, had accepted a tennis scholarship to Arizona State University, and the judge allowed this unusual Huber Law arrangement so as not to ruin the young man’s opportunity because of one youthful mistake.

At least the only one the cops knew about.

Ah, the leniency that was the past, Frank thought. And it sure helped that Larry’s parents were well-off professionals from the prosperous East End of Zenith.

Frank knew he’d never have received that kind of break.

But Richards never put on any airs; he just accepted his good fortune and went off to ASU in the fall like a good little car thief.

And that thought brought to mind another parallel from the book.

Dean Moriarty had spent a part of his juvenile years incarcerated for stealing cars, and was quite infamous in the Denver area for this trait. So maybe there were more similarities between Larry Richards and Moriarty than Frank had originally thought.

(To be continued)

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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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https://bluestonesblog.com/2022/11/23/dive-bartender-flowers-in-the-desert-excerpt-3-caffeine-kerouac-and-the-road-to-denver/

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…

Bookshop.org: https://bit.ly/3XG682t

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See all T.K. O’Neill’s books here: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B09HPBWMJF

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

Bookshop.org: https://bit.ly/3XG682t

Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/3sBA5SZ

See all T.K. O’Neill’s books here: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B09HPBWMJF