Chapter Two

City Lady Country Killer

I drove with my hood pulled tight to my face. The one headlight struggled in the darkness. Steam leaked. The engine temp was pinned to red. Rita stayed on the floor. Her face was illuminated.

“How is there still no signal,” she whispered. “I can’t call for help.”

“The new frequencies require a tower every mile. The nearest one is two counties over.”

“How do people live?”

“Quietly.”

The lack of electronic waves passing through the skull was what drew me to the corn. There were radio waves but the heavy-duty stuff, the millions of gigabytes passing from node to node, the intense whoppers of data packets that wirelessly fed 8K displays, were kept out. When I went near the populations, I could feel the rise in pressure, the boiling of the brain.

The truck snorted. I eased off the gas.

When it seemed like the GMC go no more, a neon beacon appeared on the corner. It was the blue and pink of old love. Glass and stainless steel of progress. It was jagged and unnecessary. There was nothing like it.

Mama and Papa Pete’s Truck and Diner.

A few rigs were under the canopy. A mechanic was exchanging words with one of the drivers.

The GMC rolled to a spot in front of the large windows and gave a belch. The people inside tightened their lips at the windowless truck. I shook Rita off the floorboards. She rose her head blinking at the bright neon.

The truckers inside laughed, banging on the glass.

“There’s a phone inside,” I said.

“They’ll let me use it?”

“She might charge you a dollar if it’s a long call.”

She held her breath.

“Come on now,” I said. I opened my door and glass rained on the ground.

“Holy shit, Sam boy,” Papa Pete said. He stood in the doorway, squinting at the sky hidden beyond the glare of the diner. His gut was tied like a sausage beneath a stained apron. His neck was patchy with red irritation and black-gray bumps.

“Musta hit a deer,” I said, looking back at the truck. My back twinged at the sight. The whole face was busted.

“Maybe a pack of deers,” Pete said. “Holy shit. Get on in here. I’ll send one of the boys to clean up. Who’s she?”

“Rita,” she said, walking into the diner.

“She’s from the city,” I said, “forgive her coldness. Came out to get some air.”

“Hell of a day for it.”

“I’d say.”

“Should I call the sheriff?”

“I’ll call Ringo.”

“Alright, Sam. Will do. Come on in, you’re gunna get hit with lightning standing around like that.”

I entered and took off my coat at the door. I hung it on the back of a chair beside Rita. She had picked a table between the booths and the bar.

“Can you ask about the phone,” she whispered. She smiled and nodded at a trucker with a handlebar mustache. He stroked both sides of it and grinned. A murdered-out Ram truck came in off the highway.

“Don’t look at them,” I said, “they’ll think your selling.”

I looked over at Mama as two patties hit the grill and sizzled.

“Mama, can this lady use your phone?”

“Sure, Sam boy. Come up to the counter. It’s like church when everyone hugs the booths.”

I got up and moved to the counter, my wet boots squeaking on the linoleum. Rita followed.

“Come check out my rig!” a driver hollered.

“Pig,” Rita said, sitting down. “It’s gross how men’ll treat a woman.”

“Plenty of good comes with the bad,” Mama said. She took a phone from behind the counter and placed it in front of Rita. Rita put it to her ear. Her thin fingers reached for the buttons, and her eyes widened. She looked at me with her mouth open.

She put the phone to my head.

“…messed up. Can’t trust a McCarney with shit. Now she’s here, collecting witnesses like a dog collecting fleas.”

“Take the truck. Use the tow. Make it look like the shots came from inside.”

“Shit, Papa, I’ve handled a three-hundred-pound wop in the ring…”

“They’ll come around to see about the truck. Jr. will cap them with the iron.”

“That Samuel is a regular, Papa. Mama will know if he’s missing.”

“That woman will keep quiet if I say so.”

“Papa…”

“The Gorman and Sauk’s feller will be around tomorrow morning. We’ve got to handle this.”

I set the phone down.

I looked at the door that connected the diner to the shop. It was behind the counter, next to the grill. “Gorman and Sauk’s. You heard of it?”

“Gorman and Sauk’s?” Rita looked down.

The door behind the counter opened. Papa leaned through.

“Smells awful fresh, Mama,” Papa said.

“Thank you, Papa. You hungry?”

“Later.”

“I’ll be here all night.” She chuckled.

“Sam boy?” Papa called out. “The GM’s got a whole wad of issues. You’re gunna wanna come take a look.”

“Just make up a list for me, Papa.”

“Oh, well,” Papa took off his hat and wrung it in his hands, “this goes beyond what I can write on a paper.”

“Let me get my hamburg first.”

“It’ll be quick. You’ll be back in a minute.”

“But you can’t write it down?”

“No, Sam boy. I can’t.”

“How many years have I been coming here, Papa?”

“A few.”

“Ten years. I trust your judgement.”

Rita grabbed my arm. I shook her off.

“Look, Sam boy, either you come back or you’ll be walking home.”

“Keep it warm for me, Mama,” I said, “and keep an eye on this one. She doesn’t know a snake from a stick.”

“Sure thing, Sam.”

“You can’t go back there!” Rita shouted. “Don’t leave me here-”

“You’ll be fine,” I said.

I followed Papa to the mechanic’s shop. The GMC was up on a short lift. The lights were dark, and the garage door was open to the storm. The concrete pad was wet near the opening.

“Why don’t you close the door, old man,” I said. A figure jumped out from behind a rack, an L-shaped iron in his hand.

He grunted, bringing it down in an overhead swoop.

I sidestepped and brought my fist down on his head. He and the iron fell, smacking and ringing off the floor.

“What in the world,” Papa said, forcing a swallow through his thick neck. Lightning flashed outside, and illuminated the whole shop.

There were five dressed in farmer rags. They had rifles. They were along against the walls, in the bed of my truck, and peering in from outside the garage door.

The storm rumbled as the darkness set in again.

“What is this, Papa?”

“You should have never brought that bitch here,” Papa said. “You were a good customer, Sam.”

It sounded like a war, hundreds of bullets flying and tearing metal and flesh. I dove behind the shelf that had hidden Junior. I watched beneath the rack as Papa’s body fell beside his son’s. I could hear the truckers in the diner shouting. Mama trying to calm them down.

“Is he dead?”

“You shot Papa-”

“Shut up, Bill! Charlie, go look behind the shelf.”

“I think I clipped him,” Bill said, “he fell fast.”

“What about the girl?”

“One thing at a time! Charlie, go!”

Charlie’s boots squeaked. His gun came around the shelf. I grabbed it. He fired a shot into the roof before I took it. He fled into the rain.

“Damn it, Charlie! You there, Sam boy, come on out with your hands up!”

“Sheriff you’re a piece work!”

“You don’t know what’s at play here, Sam boy!”

“Shut the hell up! I came in for a hot meal after some dimwit fucked my truck. You know how hard it is to find parts for an ’87!?”

“You’ll be riding an ’87 in the clouds boy,” the sheriff said, “and you’ll fill her up on the Lord's golden piss.”

“Ah, Christ,” I said. The rifles went. I went deaf from the noise.

I flattened against the ground. The boxes on the shelves were shredded.

A rain of washers and screws poured down on me. I stood, peering through a gap. The four were moving as a group, clustered around Sheriff Ringo. They were cutting the distance fast. They dropped empty magazines on the ground as they swept their sights across the shelf. I lobbed Charlie’s gun over my head like a grenade. It smacked the bed of the GMC, and the heads swiveled. I shoved the tall shelving. It nailed two of the four and knocked over the rest. I turned towards the wall shared with the diner, picked a spot more bullet hole than drywall, and threw myself against it.

I burst out into the diner. I planted a foot on what turned out to be my burger, stomping it into the grill.

“My heaven’s, Samuel!” Mama shouted, holding the spatula over her heart. I jumped over the counter as the next volley rang out.

“Shit,” I said. Rita was against the ground, eyes open. Her left shoulder and arm were flayed by the tumbling shots that passed through the shelf and wall. She was lying in blood, clutching her phone to her breast.

“Samuel,” she moaned, “Steelson. Steelson! Gorman and Sauk’s…”

“Save it,” I whispered. The sheriff was shaking the door to the diner, shouting for Mama.

A semitruck’s air horn blasted, shaking the building’s foundation.

“Come on, dickhead!” the driver shouted. Rita yelped as I lifted her. I ran. The truck’s door freckled with impacts. The diner windows were blown to a million pieces, casting crystals into the parking lot. They shimmered with neon brilliance.