Road Carnage (Selena book 4) Read online

  Road Carnage

  Copyright © 2016, Greg Barth

  All rights reserved. No part of this electronic book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Mike Monson and Chris Rhatigan

  Edited by Rob Pierce and Chris Rhatigan

  Cover design by JT Lindroos

  This book is for

  Bianca Halstead

  1965 – 2001

  Hell on Wheels Forever

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  More from All Due Respect Books

  ONE

  WHEN PO’ GENE asked me to ride over to Covington to look at a car, I told him he could go fuck himself.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d heard me say that. I’d had every opportunity to use those words—first when he cleaned my stinking knife wounds, inserted tubes to drain the fluid, and stitched them closed; then every day after when he soaked the dressings in saline and peeled them off; and finally during the excruciating days he weaned me off the pills—and I’d taken advantage of every one of those opportunities to tell him to go fuck himself.

  “Chris Friday is going to be here tomorrow. And you done told me earlier this week you wanted to get you a car so you could get on out of here,” Po’ Gene said. “Told me you was tired of me bossing you around, and you could take care of yourself.”

  We were in his kitchen having our first coffee of the day. The kitchen was like the rest of his house, clean but piled up with books, magazines, old bills, and dentistry implements of every sort.

  “I didn’t say that. We never talked about a car.”

  Po’ Gene was a retired dentist. He had yellowed eyes, wrinkled brown skin with loose folds hanging from his arms, and a grizzled white afro. His long, brown fingers were soft and thin, with big knuckles and clean nails. He had a gentle touch as he cared for me.

  “You was drinking a good bit that day, Miss Selena, so you might not remember it. But you said you was gonna get yourself a car and head on out.”

  He’d worked in poverty-stricken Washington Parish until his eyesight failed and he gave up the practice. He still extracted the occasional tooth for locals when an abscess had someone in a bad way.

  He told everyone he didn’t keep narcotics on hand. I knew better.

  “I don’t forget things I say when drinking. I’ve never done that.”

  He chuckled. “Well you forgot saying that. And you drink more than anybody I know.”

  I didn’t believe him. He’d cut me down to half a fifth of bourbon a day. Anybody could do better than that.

  “Or maybe you just want me to leave,” I said.

  Po’ Gene shook his head. “You know it ain’t like that. But you’re going to be famous tonight. We need to get everything in order before that. Be a lot harder tomorrow than it will today.”

  “You make a good point, old man. I don’t wanna be standing around here signing autographs.”

  Enola, my girlfriend, knew Po’ Gene through her connections. Po’ Gene was somebody who could take a bullet out, sew up a knife wound, or patch up just about anything for people who had good cause to avoid the ER.

  By the time Enola got me to him, the wounds I’d sustained from fighting John Mozingo were showing signs of infection. Since then I’d ravaged the few parts of my body that hadn’t been sliced open or stabbed during the fight with the deadly combination of $200 worth of coke each day, popping pain pills like breath mints, and washing it all down with Jack Daniels.

  Enola didn’t like my version of three square meals a day and—to be fair—it’s not like people don’t die from speedballing. I’ve no idea how I survived. High tolerance, I guess. But I was the walking definition of strung out.

  I took a sip of my coffee. My wounded arm, healed but not whole, was in a sling that hung across the chest of my white bathrobe. I flexed my fingers. When relaxed, they curled back into a claw shape. There was no pain, but the hand was weak.

  Still, I could probably drive a car.

  “Some piece of shit car?” I said.

  “Miss Enola left you a lot of money to get by on. It ain’t no piece of shit car. I know this boy, Doty, up in Covington, he does fine work with cars. Got his own shop. He gets sometimes seventy-thousand for classics when he fix ’em up nice.”

  Enola left to set up our future—a little town in southern Indiana where she had some friends who’d cut us in on their business. Get us a place to stay, have everything arranged for when I was well. Then she made up some excuse about her sister’s health and having to go visit her.

  I didn’t blame her for not sticking around.

  Kicking the opiates was a bitch and Po’ Gene was relentless. The louder I shouted and cursed at him the lower he adjusted his hearing aids. I kicked, sweated, and puked for days on end. It’s like my body wanted to feel good.

  But I got past the dope sickness faster than I would’ve thought.

  Since Enola was visiting her sick sister, one of her friends I’d never met, Chris Friday, was flying down to travel back up with me.

  I picked up the cigarette pack on the table, shook one loose, and lit up.

  “Tell you what old man,” I said. “Let me get another cup of coffee in me, slip on some jeans, and we’ll go see this car you’ve got in mind.”

  Po’ Gene flashed yellow teeth as he grinned. “You’re gonna like this car. You wait and see if you don’t.”

  “I’m picturing some four-cylinder rust bucket that’ll throw a rod halfway home.”

  “Nah, girl. You’ve got that wrong. Doty only works on fast cars.”

  TWO

  THE DULL BLACK car was the most masculine thing I’d ever seen.

  It had a long hood with an intake sticking up from the center. The breather was divided like nostrils. The sides along the fenders and doors were angular as though veins bulged under the surface. A strip of chrome wrapped the windows, glistening like sweat. Four glass circles formed the headlights. The front grille resembled a long, open mouth.

  “Fuck me running,” I muttered.

  Doty’s garage was more like an oblong warehouse. Various classic muscle cars in neat lines took up most of the interior. Some of the cars—the ones with hoods standing open—had waist-high wraparound frames made of metal pipe encircling them. Doty used the framework to support himself while tinkering with the cars, his leg braces locked in place to help keep him standing.

  Welding gear
, tool chests, and painting equipment lined the sides of the rustic building. Oil spots covered with sprinkled sand dotted the concrete floor. The smells of grease and gasoline tinged the air inside.

  A guy was banging on a piece of sheet metal with a hammer in the far corner. Doty’s voice rose above the sound. “It was a toss-up between this one and that Barracuda over there.” He had a hoarse, raspy voice. “I trust this one more.” He reached out and patted the hood of the long black car as his wheelchair rolled alongside it.

  I touched the roof of the car. Hard. Strong. “What kind is this?”

  Doty craned his neck to look back at me. “Nineteen-seventy Dodge Challenger.” His yellow ball cap barely kept his stringy hair out of his face. One red strand hung down in front of his eyebrow.

  “That’s like fifty years old,” I said.

  “Built the same year I was born.” Doty rubbed a finger across the red stubble on his chin. “It’s not considered fully restored. It don’t have all the original stuff in it. But don’t worry. Every seal and gasket is brand new and every bolt hand-torqued. This is a car to use and enjoy. Any place you want to go, this car will get you there in a hurry.”

  I licked my lips. I felt a strange connection with the car already. “I…I can’t afford this.”

  “Already paid for,” Po’ Gene said from behind me.

  I turned to him. “You mean—”

  “Miss Enola left plenty of money to take care of you by. She wanted you to get something nice.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said.

  Doty turned his wheelchair so he faced me. “You need to keep in mind it has a hemi engine. That means the cylinder heads aren’t flat like most engines. These are hemispheres.” He cupped a hand and held it up to show me. “Concave like this. So the piston tops are rounded and go up into the head. So the heat differential is—”

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to cut you off. Car talk is probably important to you. But I have no idea what you’re saying.”

  He grinned. “Just put high octane in it, and you’ll be fine.”

  I turned to the car. “Can I…?”

  “Yeah, sure. Get in.”

  Po’ Gene stepped around and pulled the door open for me.

  I got inside. The black vinyl bucket seat was soft. The car was cavernous. I looked over my shoulder at the long bench seat in back. You could have some fun back there. I turned back and studied the dials on the dashboard. The speedometer registered up to 150 miles per hour. I noted the RPM gauge, gas gauge, and some other dial off to the right that I had no idea about. It looked like some kind of clock with extra numbers to measure seconds.

  The steering wheel was too far away. I reached down and pulled the lever under the seat until it slid forward enough for me to reach the pedal. The key was in the ignition. I turned it forward, pressed the throttle with my foot, and the engine came to life with a primal growl.

  The gas gauge needle climbed the dial to the full tank mark.

  I licked my lips and wrapped the fingers of my good hand around the hard steering wheel. A tingle climbed up my crotch as the car rumbled under and through me. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensation.

  I liked this car.

  When I opened my eyes, Doty was trying to hand me something through the window. “I put a CD player in there too.”

  I took the CD case he offered. There were some grimy, longhaired guys on the cover. Most of them wore serious expressions. One had devil horns on his head. Another guy, older than the rest, stood off to the side and seemed to be laughing at the whole thing.

  “AC/DC?” I said.

  “Sure. Highway to Hell comes standard with every car I sell.”

  I pushed the throttle again and the car rumbled. “I’ll take it.”

  THREE

  “SO YOU’RE LEAVING us, A-Cups?” Bucky said.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Enola had left a small duffel packed for me. When I looked inside, there wasn’t much. A black leather jacket. A pink vibrator complete with a smudged lipstick kiss along the side. A disposable mobile phone with a car charger. A snubnose .38 Smith and Wesson. Some of my clothes—skirts, jeans, pullovers, underwear.

  I held up the pistol. “You know how to use one like this?”

  “Let me see that,” Bucky said.

  In theory, Bucky wasn’t supposed to know I was staying with Po’ Gene. Bucky was hired for landscaping, odd jobs, light carpentry, those kinds of things. Po’ Gene and the neighbors nearby gave him whatever work was available.

  During the long days while I was kicking the pills and trying not to scratch at my healing arm, I’d sit on the edge of my bed in my t-shirt and panties and watch him at work from my window.

  Southern Louisiana is fucking hot. I had an old window unit air conditioner in my room, but I sweated nonetheless. Bucky on the other hand, that kid practically dripped while he was working. He’d pull his shirt off, and I’d watch his glistening, tattooed muscles flex and pulse under his skin as he completed his odd jobs. His dark hair got so wet with sweat, you’d think he’d just climbed out of a swimming pool.

  He didn’t look like a smart young man, but he was strong. He had a tattoo of a hooded Klansman holding a swastika in both hands, standing in front of a flaming cross on one of his biceps. He had “88” tattooed in black on the back of one hand.

  It seemed odd, a KKK guy working for Po’ Gene, but I was glad to have the distraction.

  I fantasized about him doing me standing up, me up against a brick wall in the dark, my fingers sliding over his strong arm muscles, smelling his sweat. He was big and throbbing, and I was slick…

  Kept my mind off of not being high.

  Over time he grew aware of me watching him and finally one morning he came over to my window to talk. I don’t remember what we talked about. Probably just me sitting there watching him work. That went on day after day and became a regular thing. We became friends. Po’ Gene frowned on it, so I never told Bucky my name or anything about me. He just called me A-Cups.

  Bucky held the pistol in his strong hand. “It’s just an old double-action revolver. Nothing fancy.”

  “Well, be careful,” I said.

  “A thirty-eight Smith. You don’t got to cock it, because it’s double action. You can just hold it out, point it, snap the trigger back hard. Works okay if you’re up close.” He pressed a thumb slide on the side. The cylinder swung open. “This is where you put the bullets in. You use this rod on the back to push out the empty brass like so.” He demonstrated.

  “Is there a safety?”

  “No, it’s a revolver, so it don’t need one. Best way is to leave it on half cock. Or you can leave one chamber empty and rest the hammer on it.”

  He walked me through the process several times until I was comfortable with it.

  “Ever use a pistol before?” he said.

  “No. Never. Just…shotguns.”

  “Pistol’s a lot different. For one thing, it ain’t near as long. You gotta watch a pistol. It’s short, so it’s a whole lot easier to point at something you don’t mean to. Like yourself.”

  “You learn that in the Marines?” I said.

  “That and some other things.” He pointed to the pink vibrator in the duffel bag. “You want me to show you how to use that too?”

  Bucky and I had been friends, but we’d never been intimate. He was cute in a rough kind of way, but I was keeping it in my pants. “I don’t need any help in that department.”

  “Let me charge this phone up at least.” He removed it from the bag, connected the cord, and plugged it into the wall. “Looks like somebody sent you a message.” He tapped the screen, frowned.

  “Well don’t read it. It’s probably personal. From my girlfriend.”

  “Sorry. Too late.” He turned it so I could read the display. It was from Enola. She left me our new address. She also listed her sister’s contact information in case I needed it. “Not cool, asshole,” I said.

  He loo
ked back at the display. “What does ‘LU2P’ mean?”

  “Love you to pieces.”

  He sat the phone on the dresser. “That’s pretty sweet.”

  It bothered me that Bucky had seen the information, but I didn’t say anything more about it. Didn’t want to draw attention and make him suspicious.

  I put the pistol back in the bag and zipped it closed.

  “Going to miss seeing you,” he said.

  “You never know.”

  “Nah, I get it. Somebody comes in here to see ol’ Po’ Gene, and they’re all cut up. They don’t tell nobody their name. He doctors ’em up. They don’t ever come back.”

  “You’re not tied down though. We could cross paths somewhere else. Someday.”

  “Honey, I’m a lot like you. I don’t know who you are or what you done, but I know you’re lying low. I got warrants out on me just about everywhere. I burned up ever second chance I ever got. Used to work for a man up in Nashville. A good man. He was nicer to me than my own daddy. He took a bunch of us former convicts in, gave us a job while he fixed the property up that his wife just bought. Got it nice and cleaned up for her to use as a summer home. He was high up in the courts. Got to know each of us boys personally. Tried to help us out. I robbed that old man blind.

  “And I’ll use this place up soon, too. How I know about them pistols? Odd jobs ain’t all I do. People come to me wanting work done, I do it. I know some boys down in Slidell, a crew there, they give me lots of work. And not the kind of work you can spend a life doing neither.”

  “You have people helping you?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Just Po’ Gene. Not even my family…they’re worse’n me, but they ain’t no help. My little sister in Jacksonville. Lilly Bett. She won’t even talk to me no more. I try calling her. No use. My daddy’s the same way. If they call me today, I won’t fuckin’ answer. I’ll never make my family proud.”

  I nodded. He was a friend, but I had no illusions about Bucky. He wasn’t a good man. He was in a mess like me with no way out. In a desperate situation, he’d be capable of doing anything.