Mama Tried (Crime Fiction Inspired By Outlaw Country Music Book 1)

by J. L. Abramo

  He exhaled, and felt no further cause to stand.

  When finally Donnie Ray’s momma passed, it took nearly a week. One by one, the cars disappeared from the front lawn. They relocated across town to Bynum’s where the old man running the place agreed to set her into the ground next to their daddy.

  They did it on a sunny day.

  She’d asked for a simple box, but her family thought different. Barbara got her husband to throw in some extra money to send her out real fine. She wanted no fuss, but they reckoned her in no position to negotiate.

  There, by the graveside, Donnie Ray knelt at the box for longer than he should have. He said his goodbyes, and not for the first time that week. When he rose to his feet, he found his brother Darrell and their Uncle Branch waiting for him.

  Said Donnie Ray, “Boys...”

  “We got a couple matters to discuss,” said Uncle Branch.

  Donnie Ray wore a brand new pair of slacks. He stuffed his fists into them.

  “Momma left us the house,” said Darrell. “All her things.”

  “Way that neighborhood’s going,” said Uncle Branch, “that ought to net a pretty penny.”

  “I don’t want none of it,” said Donnie Ray. “I’ve done fine on my own thus far.”

  “Now, Donnie Ray...” If Darrell had more to say, he kept it to himself. Instead, he turned to Uncle Branch for the words.

  “It’s probably best if you sat down with us and took a look at a few things.”

  Donnie Ray looked back at his momma’s coffin. Over the hill waited two Mexican boys with shovels. They smoked cigarettes and waited for their day to end.

  Uncle Branch said, “Last thing we need is for you to get down the road and change your mind.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Because getting you on down the road is real important to us.” Uncle Branch, feeling his oats. “Last thing we want to do is get in your way of it.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  On the way out, Donnie Ray touched the box they’d put her in. He thought back to when he was a kid. The last time his daddy signed him up for Little League. How he’d struck out to end the game and every kid made sport of him. How it was the only time he’d seen his daddy cry. And he thought back as well to the look on his momma’s face after Donnie Ray’d shown the other fellas exactly what he could do with a baseball bat.

  He’d thought about that look on her face his entire life.

  He thought about it then at that fine box his brother and sister put her into, and reckoned they’d have plenty far to go in order to catch up to him.

  Donnie Ray wasn’t halfway back to his big rig when up came Darrell. He’d finally mustered the gumption, but kept a distance of ten, fifteen yards.

  “Donnie Ray...” he called. “It ain’t like you was there for her anyway.”

  Donnie Ray chewed on it some.

  “Maybe,” he said. He decided he’d stop by that neighbor lady’s on the way out of town. It wouldn’t take him longer than ten minutes. “But I’m here for her now.”

  Back to TOC

  GOD’S GONNA CUT YOU DOWN

  Jay Requard

  The burner vibrated, the blue light of its outer screen shredding the darkness as John opened his eyes and rolled over. He grabbed the phone with a desperate speed, flipping open the clamshell before he even checked the number.

  “Thresher?” called the monotone voice when he placed the receiver to his ear. Distinct with its Slavic accent—probably Ukrainian—it breathed thickly through the speaker. The caller was probably fatter than most, a common trait among the Russian gangs.

  “Speaking,” John whispered.

  “Thirty now, wired the moment we hang up if you wish. Another thirty when you’re done.”

  John arched an eyebrow. That was a lot of money for one person. “Are they hot?”

  “No idea. He’s at the Gold’s on Capital.”

  He checked the time on the burner’s screen. 12:00 AM. He brought the phone back to his ear. “Is the car on the way?”

  “Outside your door.”

  Hanging up, John swung his legs over the side of the bed and put both feet on the cold floor, the concrete’s chill caused by the lackluster heating of the old warehouse. Walking to an armoire set against the red brick wall, he clicked on the tower lamp beside it before he opened both doors. Jeans, thick socks, a white T-shirt and his old army boots—the same ones he had issued to him at Bragg before Korengal—and finally, a small box locked with a seven-digit custom combination.

  9:2:2:9:7:2:5.

  Cast in black steel, the Sig 228 gleamed as it lay dark in its foam square, a devil’s brand for the devil’s man. He loaded a thirteen round clip, all traces of fear and hopelessness fleeing when he heard it click into the grip. Days in dusty hills and misted valleys disappeared into the depths of memory as he pulled back the slide, loading the only bullet he planned to use. Sticking it in a small gym bag with a few clothes and a suppressor, he threw on an old red canvas coat that had belonged to his dad, the last thing the old man had bought before leaving the ’Nam and coming home.

  John hadn’t brought anything back from Afghanistan, save the damnation he carried.

  The asphalt shone bright from the cold rain as he stepped out to his porch, and as he had been told, a black Yukon sat in the driveway, idling like a lion at rest. The passenger-side door opened, and out stepped a skinny man dressed in a black hoodie and white jeans, his baseball cap studded in a multitude of glittering gemstones.

  “You the man?” the blond boy called in his thick Russian accent.

  “I am,” said John, his hands down at his side. He scanned his street, the old industrial buildings of Raleigh’s south side looming like the close-up hills of a place he fought not to think of. Loading into the backseat of the Yukon, John leaned his head to the right to get a look at the driver. A bald man with a snarling wolf tattoo inked into the flesh of his brawny neck, he wore a pair of square “shade” sunglasses, the pink kind that many kids in the techno clubs wore when they were bombed on ecstasy. He stared ahead, rubbing at the irritated flesh around his nostrils.

  The blond retook his front seat on the passenger side. “You like music, bro?”

  “I like it fine,” John said. “Why?”

  “What you want to listen to? We love all the tunes here from America.”

  “Got any Cash?”

  “We have fucking everything, bro.” The blond lightly nudged the driver with his fist. “Right, Sergei?”

  The driver said nothing as he pulled out into the streets. As the soft thrum of a guitar vibrated out of the speakers, John watched through the window as empty roads dotted in wet lamp posts and old brick warehouses passed by, quiet against the deep voice that started to speak.

  As God began to sing, his soul calmed for the business ahead.

  If tonight was an indicator, business was booming.

  The midnight riders arrived at the Gold’s Gym on Capital Boulevard, long stretch of road crammed with shopping centers, motels, and vice. Men in deep coats stood at corners, hands in their pockets, shivering in down as they kept on the lookout for potential buyers. If one wanted to find a hooker in Raleigh, they went online, and if they went online, most of the better-looking ones were usually at those motels.

  Pink and white neon lights bathed John’s face as he stepped out of the black Yukon, a dead man’s words fading from the speakers in the door. Carrying his gym bag low at his side, he entered Gold’s and glanced at the attendant manning the desk.

  Tall and eastern European, he met John’s glaze and pointed in the direction of the locker rooms. “He has tribal tattoos on his arms.”

  Straight ahead, John passed by tweaked-out junkies and jacked-up bodybuilders who worshiped their bodies into the wee hours, and entered a small hallway that led back to an exit and two doors set to the left. Checking behind him one more time, he fished out his cell.

  Sergei answered on the other side, the first time he had spo
ken at all. “Ja?”

  “Bring the car around the back to the exit on the northwest side.”

  The call ended.

  Pushing open the door to the locker room, John marched inside, taking his time to make sure his steps did not echo off the tile intersection where people dumped their used towels or weighed themselves on the scale. A shower sprayed somewhere in the back, moistening the air with a warm, clean smell.

  No voices.

  He wove through the interconnected labyrinth of showers, sinks and mirrors. Finding a bench and an empty cell of open lockers, he quickly opened his gym back to extract his pistol and screwed on the suppressor. Down a short hallway of stalls and toilets, John saw the first showers within the next passage, their glass doors clouded to a bright blue color. Edging the corner, he peered around.

  Steam rose from only one of the shower stalls, the tile beneath flooded with water and a shadow to accompany its mirror.

  He waited a few more minutes for the man to exit, his tanned body dripping wet. Heavily muscled and dark haired, jagged streaks of black ink covered his arms in geometric curves and spikes. Paying no attention, he sauntered toward the nearest alcove of lockers, out of John’s sight.

  Gun in both hands and crouched low, John breached the shower hall and crept, his boots quiet against the plastic floor. Reaching the next corner, he found the target sitting on a bench before an open locker, busying about with a pack of cigarettes.

  John held his breath, pivoted, and fired two rounds. Blood flowered from a well-formed chest and smooth forehead, followed by an explosion of brain matter, the thud of a body and the smell of gun smoke.

  Dawn tinted the sky pink as John leaned against the window of the Waffle House outside Apex, North Carolina, a little town that had somehow lasted in a place bereft of the rustic soul he had grown up with. The tobacco fields were replaced with suburbs and schools, the old forests curated for little more than the supposed happiness of well-off America.

  Shit like that didn’t matter to him as Veronica came by, an angel’s smile on her face and a pot of black coffee in her hand. Dressed in the requisite diner uniform, the pale blue button-up and stained brown smock did little to hide her beauty. Her mane of dirty blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, she leaned close as she refilled his cup.

  “Morning,” she said in the chilly quiet of the diner. The old cook worked over his flat iron behind her, sizzling the hash browns, eggs, and bacon that John had ordered with his waffle. “Up late?”

  “Had issues with some permits in the new buildings. Found an inspector friend of mine who was up,” he replied, his throat warmed from the first sip he took. Their eyes met, and sneaking his hand across the speckled black laminate, he touched his fingers to hers.

  Veronica’s smile widened. “I’m off at two today. Will you be busy?”

  “Probably not.”

  “I was thinking we could go to your place,” she said. “My roommates think we’re starting to get too noisy.”

  He chuckled at the assessment, letting it provide cover while he considered the situation. He lived in an empty warehouse, with only a bed, a couch, a table to eat and work on, and a kitchen that took up an eighth of the space. Everything else, left bare, bore the silent anguish of the years in the desert. With only that cold bed to offer her, he preferred the warmth and safety of someplace else, swaddled in welcome darkness of someone else.

  At some point she would push.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Let me see if I can get it cleaned up. I have to warn you, there isn’t a lot in it.”

  “Well, of course not,” Veronica replied, shaking her shoulders. “It hasn’t had a woman’s touch yet.”

  John simply closed his eyes and smiled as she laughed.

  He flipped open the burner as he stepped into his truck, checking to see if any messages had arrived. The blue screen glowed empty. Slipping it back into the pocket of his coat, John drove down US-1, back toward Raleigh. First to the bank, then off to some furniture store to find a coffee table to place between the TV and his couch.

  Did he even have clean sheets?

  He went to one of those ridiculous shops at Crabtree to buy new linens and a coffee table, something the sales girl promised would be very attractive. So, with fresh bed sheets and a red-painted coffee table, fourteen hundred rolled to his front door. A goddess in a white daffodil sun dress, leather knee boots and a smile that would draw a sniper’s eye appeared.

  Out the door, through the streets, lips brushed and fingers tangled in gentle twines over local brews and simple dishes, until curious conversation and glances led them back to John’s home. Gunshots and bloodstained lockers were replaced with the smell of cold night, the char of an ineffective heater and the silence broken by the tap of Veronica’s boots on the bare floor.

  John watched her the first half hour after she walked in, saying nothing as she surveyed the sparse condo. Barefoot on the cold concrete between the kitchen and his couch, Veronica asked the simple questions civilians always asked:

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Well, what do you want to do?”

  He gave her everything she asked for, answered every question, until at some point they sat on the couch at midnight, held close beneath the afghans John had—maybe his mother had bought them before she died. A bottle of beer rested on his thigh as he set his naked feet on the new coffee table, he relaxed, content as Veronica’s warmth eased the old pains carbines and IED’s had pounded into the joints.

  “John?” she whispered, sleepy.

  He buried his nose into the soft tresses of her honey hair. “Yeah?”

  “I like your place,” she said. “Maybe we could come here a bit more?”

  John stilled, the scattered noise of his flat screen faraway.

  He had known she would push.

  He knew better than to let her.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Lips met, clothes slipped off in the push and pull to the cold bed, and there in a lightless world, Veronica swaddled John in warmth and safety.

  It was the first time he felt at home.

  The burner buzzed.

  Groggy, John blinked a few times before the pre-paid phone rang a second time, its alert expanding past the first vibration into a grating melody. Snatching it up, he flipped open the clamshell and checked on Veronica to make sure she had not awaken. Still in the moonlight cutting through the large windows on the eastern wall, she lay like a statue of some forgotten goddess, the kind he had seen shattered in the ruins of old valley temples by the hammers of the devout, acts made for a failed god who had replaced the failed gods that came before him.

  He placed his ear to the receiver.

  “Go to Vitali’s stall at the fish mart. Eight o’clock,” Sergei’s thick Russian voice said. The line died.

  His breath caught in the air, chilled to visibility as he knocked a cigarette loose from the pack he had drawn from his pocket. Leaned against the white wall near the entrance to Raleigh’s fish mart at the Farmers Market, Vitali’s stony expression remained as impassive as John had always known it to be as the old man’s faded blue eyes slid up to look at him, the orbs bulging in his skull like his stomach did over the band of his sweatpants. Clad in a white apron stained with fish guts, he fished inside one of the pockets, his heavy brow pinched in confusion.

  “Shit, you always forget,” John said, pulling a red lighter out of his jean’s pocket. “Here.”

  Vitali smiled at him as he flicked alive a flame, lighting the end of his bit. Taking a deep draw, he blew rancid smoke through his nose. “But you always remember, Ivanovich.”

  John grunted. Standing between the white brick building that held the fish mart and the next one that held the produce and meat sellers, they watched as farmers from all over North Carolina unloaded their pickup trucks and trailers beneath a clear winter sun.

  Vitali finished his cigarette and threw the butt on the asphal
t, grinding it beneath his shoe. “You’re work recently was good. Very good. But there’s a new problem.”

  John pulled his hands from the pockets of his jacket, blowing heat into his cupped hands. “Not for me. I did what I was told and you gave me my money. Beyond that I know nothing.”

  “It is not that simple.” Vitali rubbed his fingers in his sunken eyes. “At least not now.”

  The weight of his Sig felt heavy stuck in its holder, and hands on his hips, he leaned back. “Who was he then?”

  “A client’s son. Some Raleigh corporate pimp. We pressed him to pay his dues for the protection we provided and he reneged.” Waving John to follow, Vitali led them back into the fish mart, going to his stall where salmon and halibut lay frozen in their ice boxes, their scales gleaming under the fluorescent lights. Grabbing a cleaver from his cutting block, Vitali retrieved one of the halibuts and hacked its head off. “We’ve not received his surrender yet.”

  “So?” John asked, watching as his old mentor dressed the fish of its bones.

  “You know how our business is, Ivanovich,” said Vitali. “Money talks, and if he has not started to talk with us, then who is he talking to?”

  “There’s no one left in this city besides the Bratva with enough sway to make any of it matter.”

  “This client is a New Yorker.”

  John paused at the information. Few of the cartels and old families paid little attention to North Carolina beyond its banking and business-friendly atmosphere, and the attention of a northern contingent coming south would cause often deterred those from wars with the Ukrainians. Killing a snot-nosed son of some local businessman who failed to pay his debts offered even less of an incentive.

  But New York was New York. Those folks thought they played by a different set of rules.

  “Where are those two kids you had pick me up?”

  “Sergei and Antoni?” Vitali rolled his eyes and coughed. “Probably in one of those ugly little clubs in the city. Those boys spend money like its water.”