Sail Cat Road, the sequel to No Good End, continues below. It is being posted tweet-by-tweet daily on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ttaylordude). I will post each chapter here on Posterous (in chronological order). For the prequel, please go to: www.nogoodend.com. Thank you for your time. Interstates and cities are separated by more guardrails and on and off ramps that carve life into two different worlds: here and there.
The highway is anonymous, living off gasoline, metal, rubber and halogen bulbs. Once you leave the city, you become a 65 mph license plate.
Gas stations and cheap hotels crowded the cloverleaf. Jolene drove up to the cafe in a sedan with Texas plates. She parked in the back.
Gus did not see her. Jimmy did. He saw every expected motion and every evasive move. Jolene was always evasive. It was her expected pattern.
“Jolene just drove up the back, working her way around here. She probably saw my truck,” said Jimmy. “Looks like she’s been healing.”
“She’ll never heal,” said Gus. “She’s meant to be in pain on this earth. So are those around her. She’s like you. Y’all are the same.”
The smell of burnt coffee blurred with burnt bacon, burnt toast and burnt cigarettes. The waitress was scorched red from sunburn as well.
“I guess if you want it well-done, we’ve come to the right place,” said Gus attempting to lighten his somber mood. Jimmy did not bite.
“See that fellow by the door, third from left, black coat, gun riding under the waist? He’s watching Jolene too,” said Jimmy. Gus turned.
Jimmy sipped his coffee and clicked his .45's safety. The aroma of the brew filled his face. “He sees something different than we do."
“He sees a meal ticket," said Gus. "She’s on the meat list down here. Hope he knows what he's dealing with." Gus flipped his safety as well.
“My money’s on Jolene,” said Jimmy. “I hope this old boy has his life insurance paid up.” He scratched his unshaven neck.
Jolene stopped outside the door and watched a car pass. She studied the door and the road. “You think he’s going to try it?” asked Gus.
“What y’all want today?” said the waitress. “Got good meatloaf. The fried chicken is nearly famous around here. Chocolate cake is bonified.”
Gus and Jimmy considered their options. Nearly famous chicken was tough to turn down.
Inside the man waited and Jolene waited outside, sizing up the situation. “I’ll have the chicken, mashed potatoes, greens," said Gus.
“How about you?” she said looking at Jimmy. “You look like a meatloaf man to me. Mac and cheese might do you right too.”
“Yeah, give me that. And some light bread. No butter,” said Jimmy. She scribbled and walked away. Jimmy adjusted his view of the door.
Utensils clattered against plates and the choppy sound of voices in conversation hummed in a dull wave interrupted by a laugh now and then.
Jimmy knew it was going to be a situation to deal with. He just did not know how it would play out. Gus focused on the man in the coat.
“Is that one of Ritko’s men? A fed? Special agent?” asked Gus. “He looks official. Like he took a test to earn a badge.”
“No. Look at his shoes. No FBI type goes sockless like that,” said Jimmy. “He’s a freelancer. He’s working for a vig on Jolene.”
“How much is riding on her?” said Gus, not surprised. “She’s bountied up to the limit by now. Maybe $50 grand. 75 tops.”
Jimmy cut his eyes over toward Gus. “She should be at Shewl’s. She ain’t. She’s here. He knows it. It's coming down here in a minute.”
“We can’t let her walk into it,” said Gus. “He’s got to have somebody working with him. He ain’t alone. Somebody’s in here or out there.”
Nothing unusual happened in the parking lot. The man in the coat looked nervous. Jolene seemed lost in thought, looking into the distance.
“Watch this guy,” said Jimmy. “It’s his game to lose. He’s waiting for her. The other one is outside watching. A double up. Quick and clean.”
That man looks nervous as a whore in church,” said Gus. “Look at Jolene out there. She’s calm as hell. You think she knows?”
“See what happens when she comes in,” said Jimmy. “Just have your gun ready to join the concert. Go ahead and move over toward the corner.”
“You setting up an angle?” said Gus. “They got their cross fire working better than both of us being in here.” He knew this could get ugly.
Jimmy surveyed the room: truckers, plumbers, construction guys, a family next to the window, a blue-collar business meeting near the door.
“We got to spread out some,” said Jimmy. “Get some separation between us so we ain't sitting here like a grouped target. That's too easy.”
“And the odds of him getting us is?” Gus chewed on his straw and looked between the cars and trucks carefully. “I don’t see him out there.”
“May not be a him,” said Jimmy. “Could be a her. And the odds of them getting us?” He paused. “None at all if we pull it off right.”
“And how do you know this?" said Gus as he got up from the booth and looked toward the corner. "You been in a situation like this before?"
“I have,” said Jimmy. His eyes squinted into slits. His brain was evaluating equations. His hands were cold steady.
“They have cafes like this in Nam?” said Gus with a grunt. He did not like the layout of the place. He did not share Jimmy’s optimism.
“I just like to play the odds now and then to make sure there still are odds," said Jimmy. "I live inside a series of careful calculations.”
“And people die outside your equations,” said Gus. His heartbeat made his ears hurt. “I feel thickness in the air. Pressure, like a storm.”
The man at the door of the café rubbed the top of his head with his palm and leaned from side to side impatiently. Jolene did not move.
“He’s watching us. You in particular,” said Jimmy. “He aint’ stupid. But he ain’t smart either. Just dumb enough to be dangerous.”
“He ain’t looking at us,” said Gus. “He don’t even know who we are. He’s watching Jolene out there. It’s coming down. I smell it.”
“That’s blood,” said Jimmy. “You can smell it even before it starts pouring out of people. I’ve smelled my share.” Jimmy planted his feet.
A woman in the next booth stopped talking and started sliding under the table. She pulled her child under with her. A fork hit the floor.
The door opened. Jolene stayed in the parking lot. Another couple came in. It shielded her move. Confusion stirred at the cash register.
“That man has a gun!” yelled a woman, pointing at the sockless man. People jumped and dropped and did what people do when caught and scared.
Jolene was behind the man before he saw her. She held her 9 mm under his ribs. “You won't be collecting that contract money today.”
He instinctively reached for his gun. Jimmy leaped from the booth. The man stopped his hand as Jolene's trigger finger tightened.
“It’s all good,” said Jimmy calmly. “I’m a police officer.” He held up a badge. It was Gus’s old badge from Alabama. “Settle down ma’am.”
He walked straight to the sockless man. “We got it under control,” He looked at Jolene. Her eyes were wide. Gus was already raising his .45.
“Let these folks eat,” said Jimmy. He pulled the man’s .45 from under his coat and nodded to the cashier. “Call the police."
The manager had already called 911. Jimmy pressed the man past Jolene. “Get the car.” He whispered. “We’ll handle this down the road.”
Gus saw the short man out the window first. He knew they would not get the opportunity to handle this anywhere but here.
Door glass splintered the entrance. Gus ducked. Jolene rolled out and slammed against the bumper of a truck, her gun raised and searching.
Another bullet caromed off a metal pole beside the bent awning. Jimmy held the sockless man straight, shoving him into the parking lot.
One side of the man’s head vaporized from the third shot – the right side. This told Jimmy the shooter’s location. He dropped the body.
Two gray sneakers slid behind a Buick in the position of a crouching shooter. Jimmy yelled for Gus to stay low. Jolene watched Jimmy’s eyes.
Jimmy raked a shot under the car and grazed the left ankle on the other side. A woman’s scream rose into the eave of the small building.
The sockless man lay dead, face down in front of Jolene. She lay down behind his body, seeing a torso on the ground behind the Buick.
A hand tipped with red nail polish curled over the hood and fired aimlessly. One round hit the side of a bread truck. The rest hit nothing.
Eight shots. 9mm. The shooter had four more shots. It didn’t matter. Jimmy saw how it would end; two dead shooters – like always.
Jolene lay flat on the ground, her ear on the asphalt. She stretched her arms and pumped five rounds into the tire. The car collapsed.
Jimmy saw the woman's head hit the pavement. He finished her with one shot in the ear from 30 feet. Sirens droned down the road.
Gus could see from the inside that it was over, unless there was a third shooter. There was. He ran from the left and fired toward the café.
Glass dropped onto tables and people screamed. Jolene rolled over the corpse of the first man. Headlights exploded. Metal dinged.
A bullet wiggled through the window, divoting Gus’ left ear. It sounded like a zipper. Blood ran down his neck and stained his shirt.
Jimmy leaned into the left side of the door and opened the man’s head with a squeeze. The sirens were too close now. “Go,” he said. “Now.”
Gus ran into the parking lot, pulled Jolene up, and they ran to the back. She had the keys out, ready to crank her stolen car. She did not.
Panic poured from the small building in awkward stumbling. Jimmy and Gus ran across waist-deep grass into the pines. Jolene waited.
Three deputies slid to a stop, spraying gravel as their cruisers lurched into the parking lot. Nothing happened for at least two minutes.
Radios crackled. The officers assessed the situation. Three bodies. Bullet holes all over the place. People inside and outside yelling.
A woman with a weapon stood beside the dumpster. A 9 mm hung loosely in her hand; her face so calm, so detached.
Jolene was tired of running. She was tired of being shot at. She looked almost asleep. Deputies’ voices echoed. She only heard the shots
One shot. Then another. Three more. Five. These deputies were not the top of their class at target practice. Jolene did not move.
At the edge of the woods, Jimmy turned to go back for her. Gus called her name over and over. The deputies fired again and again.
Cinderblock fell in chunks on the asphalt with each round the deputies fired. They had no regard for the customers safety. They just shot.
That was the clue for Jimmy. Jolene was way ahead of him. Gus knew things were not as they seemed and stepped from behind the vehicle.
Jolene jerked the 9 mm up and sighted past her wrists. The mechanics of her weapon jerked over and over, shells bouncing end over end.
Jimmy worked around the back of the building. Shots raked above him. Some caught in the peeling roof splashing gray bits onto his head.
Dropping to one knee, Jolene put two rounds into one deputy. His chest opened onto the ground with a slush like a box of cheap wine.
Both of his knees crunched into cracked asphalt. When violent men die, the sudden peacefulness pools in their eyes. This one almost smiled.
A millisecond after Gus pulled the trigger, the second deputy’s arm exploded, knocking the gun into a perfect arc across the hood of a Ford.
A grimace puckered the man’s face into the horrid realization that death was coming with the next shot. He clinched his teeth.
The next round from Gus’ .45 caught the shooter in the groin and doubled him over with a yelp. The third took off the back of his head.
Jolene crippled the third deputy with a grazing knee wound, then laid him flat on his back with another hit in the shoulder. A truck passed.
The driver sped up as he realized the nature of the events unfolding in front of the restaurant. His cell was pressed hard against his ear.
Silence. Jimmy looked around the corner to see if there was a fourth shooter. There was not. He paused, gun leveled.
Acrid plumes of cordite wafted downwind. Jolene squinted into the sunlight. The last deputy was still pulling at a breath. She smiled down.
“The cops looking for extra money?” she said. His head broke into three pieces as Jimmy’s .45 ended the man’s pain.
“No reason to talk to dead men,” he said. “Let’s go before the real cops show up.” Jimmy watched the patrons inside the café.
Gus motioned toward the cruisers. “The real cops are long dead. The road ain't a good exit either. We got a lot of tails on this one.”
Jolene wiped the sweat from her bruised face. Gus nodded toward the woods. The river was close. They could tell by the slant of the terrain.
Jimmy walked back into the café. A woman wailed in Pentecostal revival earnestness. A child cried. The manager crouched behind the counter.
“Mister, I didn’t know –” said the manager before the bullet ripped out his larynx, taking his last sentence with it. The waitress gasped.
Jimmy leaned over the counter into wide eyes of pain and realization of death. The copper smell of blood mixed with bacon and burned toast.
“You do know,” said Jimmy to the man who needed money and was willing to sell out strangers to get it. They both understood the feeling.
But only one was holding the .45. Jimmy was too efficient to waste time on blame or regret. He hated to waste a bullet, but he did.
The woman in the booth bellowed louder. He walked past her; then he turned. “Cry for your family, not for him. They’ll appreciate it more.”
Outside, the air had cleared. Bodies lay in crimson puddles. Jimmy’s age began to affect his coldness. He wished it had not come to this.
He spent little time on his wish. He followed Gus and Jolene into the woods towards the river. One day, he thought, we’ll stop running and just fish.
