Recurrence

by Dave Norem

  Cramer lurched to his feet between them and screamed in agony, “GO, GO, GO!”

  The last of them were climbing back into the trucks when an Uzi, followed by a hand, arm, and head came up through the torn-open dock door, at floor level. Nine-millimeter fire sprayed in their direction, hitting Walter Powers as he was climbing over the side. A blast from one of their shotguns sent the Uzi flying and the body parts from sight. John and Spane maneuvered their trucks past the cars and roared out of the building on either side, a suitcase full of money in each truck.

  Both trucks stopped at the street, and they transferred one suitcase and Cramer to the station wagon, with one of the riflemen as driver. Both trucks and the wagon all disappeared in different directions. John could hear the sound of approaching sirens in the distance as they left.

  When John reached the bowling alley, after helping transfer Cramer to the car, Spane had already switched the other truck with one of the previously spotted stolen cars. They managed to move Power’s body into the trunk of one of the bowling alley cars, which was to be driven down to Florence, Kentucky by the other rifleman. They abandoned the second truck at the bowling alley too.

  John, Spane and Wimpy drove the other stolen vehicle to a secluded spot near the hospital, where they packed their gear and the money into cheap suitcases and then wiped the car down. They abandoned it there, walked through the hospital by different paths, and left in the Oldsmobile.

  Their next rendezvous was at Florence, where they split up the money. By previous agreement, the share of anyone killed would go to the family. Cramer had two broken ribs and a long cut on his scalp from his collisions with the dock post and the overhead-door track, He was partially functional again, and was the link to Powers. They left him near Florence with two shares. He had friends there who would put him up and get him medical attention with no questions asked.

  For two hundred dollars more, the same people rented a freezer booth in a nearby packing plant, to store Power’s body. They would hold it until Cramer made arrangements with the family. Later, the body would be moved to a location chosen by them, and left for police to find. It was hard-line, but isolated everyone involved from the crime. It kept the family clear as well.

  Some of the crew again went north, including John, Spane, and Ivins who crossed back over the Ohio River on a ferry at Lawrenceburg, Indiana. That night John and the others watched television reports about the robbery from one of their motel rooms in Lexington. Newscasters stated that three men were killed in an apparent drug deal-double cross on Cincinnati’s west side. Two men found in a Dodge Coronet had been killed by automatic weapons fire. Found dead inside the Coronet were John Warden and William T. Steele, both of Cincinnati.

  The third man was found outside a truck loading dock with a shotgun wound to the face. A shotgun pellet had entered the brain of Ferdinand, AKA Freddy, Coleto through his left eye. He died in the hospital without regaining consciousness.

  Approximately ten pounds of heroin, with an estimated street value exceeding a million dollars, was found in the trunk of an overturned Cadillac near Ferdinand Coleto. Two men were trapped inside the Cadillac until after police and firemen arrived. They were rescued with only minor injuries. Arrested were James (AKA Jimmy Muff) Muffaso and Alberto (AKA King Cole) Coleto, of New York City.

  Police theorized that local gangsters tried to double cross New York drug sellers and bit off more than they could chew.

  “Several men on foot and at least three vehicles left the scene moments before we arrived. We’ll soon catch up with them,” quoted Police Captain Alvin Morgan, of Cincinnati.

  When asked for descriptions of men or vehicles, Captain Morgan had no comment.

  John Luther was remorseful about the deaths and how close Cramer had come to being killed, too how close all of them had. He speculated at how much worse it could have been. If the buyers had been more wary, they would have been all over that building ahead of time, and the crew would have been exposed.

  The results would have been disastrous. They’d been extremely lucky. At least he hadn’t killed anyone, nor had Cramer. Cramer was involved in some jobs that John was not, but they’d recently had some conversation about it and he was convinced that Cramer hadn’t killed anyone either.

  He expected to have nightmares every night and definitely did not want to go back home to Julie with the mental agitation he was in. The most recent nightmare had been bad enough. He usually told her most of what went down on a job, and if she asked, about the nightmares. There was no way he could tell her about this one. He was glad to be going in a different direction.

  Two days later, he received a roundabout message to call Cramer. When he got through he asked, “What’s up Creamer?”

  “Bad news Buddy, Jones got caught with bad paper in Richmond, Indiana. It was only one bill, so he talked his way clear before they thought of checking his car. It was a close shave. Most of what we got in twenties, fifties, and hundreds is bad. If any of us is caught with it someone will put it all together,” Cramer lamented.

  “Well, I haven’t spent any of it and I don’t think the other two have either, but I can’t swear to it.”

  “Watch your step, Johnny. Those are some real bad-asses and they’re not stupid. Sooner or later someone will come looking for us. At least we didn’t leave any of our bodies for them to identify.”

  Cramer had never called him Johnny before, so John took it seriously. Now he had to break the bad news to Spane and Ivins, and he had to let Julie know that he wouldn’t be home for a while.

  “Son of a bitch,” cursed Spane. “Those peckerwoods were pulling a double cross.”

  “Yeah, but that’s to our advantage,” said Ivins.

  “Bad money sure as hell ain’t,” gritted Spane.

  John said, “Well, we’ve got to check it out thoroughly and burn the bad stuff. Have you guys spent any of it yet?

  Ivins shook his head, no.

  Spane cursed again, “Shit, on the first effen day, I bought gas on I-75.”

  John laughed, “They won’t be able to trace that now unless you gave them a lot of bills or more than one big one.”

  “No, I just gave them a twenty to pay for the gas.”

  “Well you’re twenty dollars ahead then because the only way to do this is to split whatever good money is left three ways between us.”

  They headed back to their Hotel in Lexington to re-count their money. When they were all done, they knew the job hadn’t been worth even a portion of the risk for the good money they’d gotten. All three of them would have to find something else soon to make up for their losses.

  After agreeing to join forces, they decided to cut across the mountains to Greensboro, North Carolina. Ivins knew of a Go Mart there that sounded like a sweet-and-easy setup.

  CHAPTER 17

  Spane, who was driving, had fallen in love with the Oldsmobile long before they reached Manchester, Kentucky. The three of them were talking about the mountains and he decided he wanted to buy some moonshine. They had tried to buy some package liquor in a couple of smaller towns after leaving Lexington, but weren’t able to do so.

  “One fucking dry county right after another,” he moaned.

  John and Wimpy just laughed. They could take it or leave it.

  After a short silence Wimpy said, “This is shine country. You don’t want to upset the local economy do you?”

  “Damn,” Spane exploded. “I’ve lived in the mountains in Pennsylvania most of my life and I’ve never had any moonshine, or even seen it. Now we’ve got to get some for sure.”

  John said, “Shit, you’ll never get anyone to sell it to us around here, we’re strangers.”

  Spane looked over his shoulder at John in the back seat. “These dumb fucking hillbillies like money just as much as anybody. We’ll get some shine.”

  Wimpy shook his head, “I
doubt it, I can talk-the-talk here, and I doubt if I could get it, even if I was by myself.”

  Spane turned back to the front. “By yourself you’re just a fucking pipsqueak Wimpy, we’ll get it.”

  John raised his voice. “Forget it, we don’t need it and we don’t need any more trouble.”

  Spane only shook his head no and continued to drive. They continued past Manchester for several miles and then turned off onto a state road in a southerly direction. After thirty minutes of slow twisting curves, they came to a ramshackle building with a half-circle gravel drive, and a single gas pump that might have been from the forties or fifties.

  The building had a faded dinosaur Sinclair sign mounted on the false front and a hand-lettered “bulk oil 50¢” sign propped against the front of the building. The bulk oil was in stacked-up glass bottles in wire racks. The quart-sized bottles looked like canning jars, with galvanized metal funnels soldered onto the screw-on lids.

  The building itself was single-story and mostly covered with green roll roofing. The parts not covered looked as if the paper had been peeled away long before, and the weathered gray boards showing through had been exposed for too many long years. The two small windows in front were too dirty to see through and looked as if they hadn’t been washed in decades. The whole atmosphere of the place was tired and sinking.

  Spane slid to a stop in the gravel beside the pump, raising a cloud of dust. “See any sign of life?” he asked.

  The others waited for the dust to clear before answering.

  “You never know,” said Wimpy.

  A man walked from around the corner of the building and then stopped and looked at their car. He had on black, or dark-blue, grease-stained work pants and a holey sweatshirt with the sleeve cuffs torn or rotted off. As he surveyed them, he wiped his hands on a greasy rag and then stuffed it partway down into his hip pocket. His clodhopper shoes looked like they were two sizes too large and only had laces in the top three holes on each side. When he walked forward they seemed to flop around on his feet.

  “Jesus, look at that,” Spane commented.

  The man walked on around to the driver’s side and peered into the window that Spane was cranking down. His face was so dirty that it was difficult to tell grime from stubble.

  “How you doing, partner?” Spane asked.

  “Whatchee needin?” the man asked; exposing a mouth full of rotting teeth.

  “Well, what we’re looking for is to buy us a little shine, uh moonshine.” Spane explained.

  The man stepped back half-a-step, as if Spane had spoken ill of the dead. “I wouldn’t be knowin about none athat,” he commented before turning his head slightly to spit into the dirt.

  Spane opened his wallet and held up a fifty-dollar bill. “Look here man; we ain’t no lawmen or nothing like that. We’re just a couple of old boys wanting a drink, and we’ve got the money to pay for it. We’ll just go right on down the road after we’ve got it too.”

  The man walked to the front of the car, stepping closer to it as he did so. He continued on around, peering in each window with his forehead only inches from the glass, staring right at each of them in turn, until he reached the doorpost behind Spane.

  “There’s three a you-uns,” he said.

  Spane laughed aloud. “Two, three, what hell’s the difference?”

  “You done said couple, that’s two.”

  “Oh, hell man, we just want some shine. We ain’t looking for anything else.”

  “Quit chur cursin and go on about yer business,” He said, while stepping away from the car.

  Spane started the car and shifted into gear. “Ignorant fuck,” he muttered.

  As the car started to roll forward the man held up his hand. “Awright, I’ll tell you-uns where ta go.”

  Spane stopped.

  Pointing south he said, “Stay right on this here highway til you get to the third paved road to the left. Then go to the second paved road to the right. Foller that fer several miles, bearin right where Curry’s barn used ta be; to the second dirt road to the left. Foller that til you get to a lightnin-blasted pine. Wait there til someone shows up.”

  “How we supposed to know where the barn was if it ain’t there?” Spane asked incredulously. The man only looked at him as if he was an idiot.

  “Stupid fucking hillbilly,” Spane said while rolling up his window, as he roared away.

  “You’ve sure got a way with people,” John commented dryly.

  Wimpy said, “It’ll be just like he said. Wait and see.”

  They followed the directions, with John still in the back seat. With the exception of many curves, hills, and valleys, the turns were as predicted. At the split in the road, the remains of a burned down barn were evident. John and Wimpy both laughed at the perplexed expression on Spane’s face. They continued down the road leading to the pine tree, nothing more than a gravel-covered lane. They followed this for more than half-a-mile and then stopped just past a fire-blackened pine tree, on a slight incline. Both sides were overgrown with scrub brush and bushes, and the uneven ground was pock-marked with golf-ball sized holes.

  After they waited for nearly half-an-hour, and were ready to leave, a tall thin man wearing bib overalls, a railroad cap and a dirty white dress shirt stepped from the bushes near the right front fender of their car. He carried a pump-action shotgun across his chest with both hands. He walked along the passenger side of the car, then all the way around, peering into the windows on both sides. John saw him quickly lift three fingers of his left hand from the fore-piece as he passed the left rear window.

  Signal, he thought to himself. He looked through the glass to his left and saw a second man coming through the bushes at an angle from the rear. This one was dressed similarly to the first except for the shirt, which was blue, and the cap, which was a solid dark-blue. It had turned-up earflaps with rounded ends that laced together in front. Both men’s shirts were buttoned at collar and cuff.

  The second man carried a lever-action 30-30 rifle across his thighs, with both of his arms hanging straight down. John saw that the rifle was cocked, and drew his Colt from its shoulder holster, not sure if either of his partners was aware of the second man. Spane was idling the car in neutral, with the air conditioner still running, even though he and Wimpy had opened both front windows when the first man appeared.

  The first man continued around to the front of the car, just ahead of the right front fender, and stopped. His attention appeared to be on Ivins in the right front seat. The second man was now even with the driver’s side door, about five feet away. A silent signal seemed to pass between the two men. John sensed extreme danger and started to speak—.

  Without warning, the man on the left raised the rifle and shot Spane above the ear. The heavy jacketed bullet passed clear through, hitting Ivins in the head too. Spane flopped over to his right as Wimpy’s head twisted and bounced off the dashboard as he fell forward. Blood and brains splattered John’s face and the inside of the windshield, filling the front of the car with a gray-pink mist, as the heavy-boom and concussion reverberated through it.

  John, having already raised his gun above the seat back, fired two shots through the open driver’s window into the still-advancing man: who was already swinging the barrel his way. The sound of the thirty-eight was almost a continuation of the rifle shot.

  John leaned to his left and swung back toward the man at the right front, and heard the shotgun blast over the ringing in his ears. The bloody windshield took most of the blast and the slumping body of Ivins took the rest. Despite the pellets and imploding glass, John was not hit, and was able to see through the new opening in the windshield. He shot past the slumped-over head of Wimpy Ivins in front of him, again firing twice, and saw his man go down from at least one of the shots.

  The car began rolling backwards down the hill and John shifted in the seat, looking f
or the man with the rifle. He spotted him lying in the gravel on the left.

  Satisfied that the man was out of it, he dropped his gun on the floor and dived over the seat, on top of the dead Joe Spane. There was no time to move him, and not enough room to sit on top of him. The car was now on a steeper grade and veering toward a precipice on the right.

  The engine was still running. John grabbed the shift lever and yanked it toward him and down, from neutral to low. The car shuddered briefly and halted as the engine died, but then it resumed rolling slowly, in a jerky motion. John managed to swing a leg over the seat-back and get his right foot on the brake. Without power assistance, it took a lot of effort to bring the car to a stop and apply the emergency brake.

  He slumped back from exhaustion, and a third man appeared in the road ahead of him. This one too, was carrying a long gun, but it was too far away for John to tell what kind. He was occupied with scrambling out of the car on the driver’s side.

  Using the open door for both shield and leverage, he pushed the dead Spane over to the right with his foot. As he jumped back into the car, he noticed that the man in the road ahead was aiming his way. John scrambled back out past the rear door he had just opened, and heard a bullet whine off car-metal simultaneous with the shot. The sound was the flat crack from a small-caliber high-velocity rifle.

  He fumbled around on the floor with his right hand until he found his revolver; then eased back out behind the rear door. A second round tore through the car, exploding the rear window.

  Knowing he had over fifty yards to shoot, uphill, and with only two rounds left, John braced his forearms between the opened door and the doorframe, and lined up on the shooter. He aimed high and centered just above the man’s head, hoping for a body shot. As he squeezed off his shot, another rifle bullet smacked into, and through, one of bodies in the front seat.