American Crow (5 page)

Feeling apprehensive about the quality of
the recommendation I followed him in, beginning to feel exhausted. Inside, I
picked a front-facing booth while Jed went to the counter and flirted with the
girl behind it. A few minutes later he returned with a pale-faced waitress in
an unflattering outfit.

‘What’s you want?’ she said pulling a
biro out from her hair and a notepad from her stained pocket.

‘A cup of coffee with milk, and eggs over
hard on maple pancakes,’ I replied slowly, staring cross-eyed at the gargantuan
menu.

‘You from Een-ga-land?’ she asked, trying
to look all cute but failing badly.

‘Yes I am.’

‘Whereabouts?’ she said scribbling down
my order.

‘London,’ I said flatly.

‘Hey, I’ze got a friend who lives there.
Hees name is Charlie A-bra-hams. Do you know heem at all?’

 I looked at Jed and rolled my
eyes.  

‘No, there’s over seven million people
who live there, love’ I said wearily, prompting her to turn on a dime in
disgust.

Jed leant towards me aggressively and
puffed out his chequered shirt.

‘No need to be so damn rude, man. These
are good people here. She was only being pol-iite.’

We eye-balled each other for a few
seconds and whilst Jed was noticeably wider and taller than me, with arms as
thick as my legs, I had him on the stare.

Ten minutes later I got the plate slammed
down in front of me and the coffee spilt along with it. I shook my head bemused
then tucked in as Jed ploughed his way through biscuits and gravy like he
hadn’t eaten in a month.

I watched him intermittently between
mouthfuls eyeing the parking lot, anxious for his radio buddy to make an
appearance and give him a servicing. The guy was an animal, and an animal who
probably had a wife back home looking after a cluster of kids I mused, staring
out at the heavy blizzard that was now beginning to sweep in.

As Jed mopped up his plate, a bright
neon-pink rig birthed through the white haze suddenly, like some mechanical
monster from a computer game. It was carrying what looked like agricultural
machinery.

I watched in disbelief as it parked up
and a muscular blonde jumped out with spray on jeans and a thick winter coat
half-open, revealing her beetroot bust to the elements. Jed grunted his
approval, stood up, adjusted his crutch again and looked down at me. His friend
had arrived.

‘Guna take a peess. Might be some
tiiime.’

I nodded and enjoyed the rest of my
coffee in silence as Jed followed the bubble butt of the female trucker
straight to the toilets. While they were doing whatever they were doing, I
scanned the place for trouble like I always did in new surroundings.

There were around a dozen customers in
the place I estimated. Some were sat in the booths in pairs, others just by
themselves at the counter on high chrome stools, working their way through a
variety of generous carb-heavy dishes. The only women in the joint that I could
see were the two serving and the bit of rough that Jed had ensnared on the
airwaves. 

I finished the rank coffee then waited
ten minutes more for Jed to return from the restroom in vain. When it hit twenty,
I started to fidget. When it got to the half-hour mark, I felt myself getting
mildly annoyed. I cursed under my breath and ordered another coffee, anxious to
get back on the road and get on with the case.

I wanted to get to Minneapolis before sun
up if possible, sort out a motel and recharge my batteries as much as I could.
I had a lot of legwork planned for the following day and I didn’t want to be
waiting on Jed while he nailed some pumped-up Barbie doll in the toilets… 

I worked my way through the second drink,
then stood up seriously agitated and wandered through to the men’s room where I
heard moans and grunts coming from the second cubicle along. They were still
going at it hammer and tongs. Jesus...I walked over and cleared my throat, then
heard laughter in response.

‘Jed...’

I stood there self-consciously as they
worked their way through a conveyor belt of carnal exchanges without reply,
then contemplated my options as my anger levels started creeping into the red.
A verbal confrontation wasn’t wise when I had to share a cab with the bloke for
the next few hours that was for sure. I could do without that sort of
atmosphere. Who knows how he would react too if I barged the door down...The
guy was a Neanderthal.

As the cubicle started to shake
violently, I turned and headed out of the toilet and strolled back to the table
trying to keep my frustration under control. If we had an argument in the cafe
then the cops would be called. Bad move. For now, I was just going to have to
bite my lip, stick to the plan and keep my nose out of trouble.

I shook my head in continuing annoyance,
then sat back down and stared out of the window as I thought about Laura for a
second. She would have loved a road trip across the States, I was sure of it. Who
knows, she might have even ended up in the same line of work as her father if
she’d got bored of conservation. Jackie would have loved that... 

After another ten minutes had elapsed I
decided I’d reached my limit with Jed. I stared at the table mindlessly trying
to think of a new plan then suddenly saw the solution lying right in front of
me. I put my jacket on, threw enough money on the table to cover the tab,
picked up the trucker’s keys that he’d left next to his wallet, and walked
calmly out into the parking lot.

I’d driven rigs a few times over the
years when I’d had too, so knew where everything pretty much was, but it took a
good few minutes of adjusting the seat and scanning the instrument panel,
before I sparked the meaty engine into life and crawled my way across the open
space towards the exit sign with a self-satisfied smile plastered across my
face.

Just as I pulled onto the feeder road I
glanced in the side-mirror and saw Jed come running out of the cafe too, like a
madman on fire. I stared at him and yanked the cord on the air-horn, which
sounded like an express train, then laughed my head off at his dumb expression
as he neared the rear bumper.

Seeing him about to grab hold, I
increased my speed to put some distance between us, then pulled out onto the
highway as effortlessly as if I’d been trucking all my life, gave him another
blast on the horn for luck, then glanced back a final time to see him kneeling
in the snow, now poetically freed of both of his loads. 

I’d find my way to the Twin Cities easy
enough I mused, not that I cared in that moment. Jed had said himself that we
just kept on heading south towards Duluth until we hit Route Thirty-Five, which
would then pretty much take us all the way to Minneapolis. It all sounded
reasonably straightforward.

Now that the border crossing was out of
the way, there shouldn’t be any more problems unless I got pulled up for
speeding, and that wasn’t going to happen if I took it steady. I didn’t have to
put up with Jed’s macho posturing either for the rest of the trip, which was a
bonus. And he was hardly going to blag to the authorities since he’d been
complicit in people-smuggling only a few hours before...

I switched on the radio hoping it would
clear my mind, trying to enjoy the moment of driving a big rig along a spacious
highway in the snow. As if on cue some old Stone’s track came on air, the words
‘playing with fire’ echoing out ruefully in the cab.

I hoped it wasn’t some sort of
otherworldly message warning me that I was about to get seriously burnt if I
continued, that I should just turn around while I still had the chance, because
even if I did find the girl alive and well at the end of the trail, there
wasn’t the remotest chance I’d find any personal redemption...

Chapter Seven

‘the fight’

Outskirts of Minneapolis,
Minnesota. Early hours.

T
here were four of them. Guys that was. Plus a girl sitting
on a Harley, chewing gum with her mouth open. I hated that…the way she was sat
on the bike as if she had no respect for it.

I stared at the shadowy figure in the
diner, holding the manager up by the throat as another raided the till. A third
looked to be helping himself to a burger on the hot plate, while a fourth, a
shorty dumpy guy with long hair, was standing by the door cosh in hand, in case
any late-night passers-by fancied being a hero. And it was late. Around three
in the morning by now I reckoned, a time when I should be enjoying my beauty
sleep...

I’d been woken up by their bikes circling
the truck-stop around two, then dragged out of Jed’s manky sleeping bag a short
time after, when a tirade of wild shouting sounded out close-by.

I’d lain there for quite a while fighting
the temptation to get involved, until I thought about the lone Somalian who’d
served me some much needed food upon arrival. That annoyed me too. He had
seemed a decent enough guy. He’d told me a bit about gang culture in
Minneapolis and how rival Somali groups were always shooting each other up. Not
him, he said. He was trying to raise a family, trying to raise enough cash to
bring his sister over from Africa. The way it was looking now, she would only
be coming over for his funeral...

I scrambled down into the driver’s seat
and edged closer to the icy windscreen, staring in disbelief at the unravelling
scene opposite. The Somalian was out of sight now, probably lying unconscious
in a pool of blood having taken a hit.

To make matters worse, the guy who had
been guarding the door was now circling the joint in a tight arc holding a fuel
can, as if intent on igniting some wall of fire to frighten the manager inside
half to death, or simply raise the place to the ground for kicks.

I cursed. If they set the place alight
then the cops would almost certainly be called, and I’d have to get the hell
out of there to avoid being questioned as a witness. And that meant finding
somewhere new to park up and getting very little sleep, again…I decided quickly
that it just wasn’t going to happen. I had my fill with Jed’s false fuselage
and the long flight as it was. Enough was enough.

Hurriedly I put my socks and shoes on,
then rifled around the cab for something that would prove useful in case things
kicked off. After a good few minutes of searching I found ‘something’ stuffed
inside a deep side-pocket.

And I’d learnt how to handle myself at an
early age in the back-street boxing gyms of South London and on the football
terraces with Millwall as a kid. It was all you needed to deal with most people
unless they were bloody Bruce Lee, and now these idiots needed confronting to
my way of thinking, before they burnt the whole damned joint down along with
the Somalian in it.

I finished getting dressed, then jumped
down onto the compacted snow outside, pumped up as much as anyone could, suffering
from jetlag and a two hour journey stowed underneath a damned juggernaut.

The first thing I noticed when I scanned
the frozen lot, was that the only other rig that had been there, had departed.
Either because the driver had been scared off by the bikers knowing they’d be
trouble, or he’d just made off early out of coincidence hoping to enjoy a
clearer road.

That just left mine as the only truck
currently parked up. Any potential back-up had evaporated, and the bikers would
know that. And that lack of an extra body could mean the difference between a
fist fight or a stand-off, the difference between ending the night in a cell or
returning to Jed’s sleeping bag. It could go either way...

I decided to stop worrying about it and
slammed the cab door shut loudly, prompting the girl on the bike to look
around. Instantly she shouted out a warning to the biggest guy in a blue
bandana, who then stared out through the window, while he shook the Somalian
like a rag doll inside, having picked him up again to meat out some more rough
treatment.

I walked the hundred yards towards the
group like John Wayne, showing them that I wasn’t intimidated, that I wasn’t in
a rush to deal with the situation, readying myself mentally, so that I would be
the first to react in case things kicked off.

As I neared to the last twenty yards, the
big guy threw the manager to the ground, wiped his mouth slowly as if he’d just
enjoyed a drink, then turned to face me, his machete raised in defiance. I calmly
walked past the girl on the bike thinking how drugged up she must be not to
feel the cold in her skimpy outfit then passed the freak with the petrol can
hovering by the door again.

‘Best turn around and head back to your
truck, mister,’ the main guy announced, puffing out his chest noticeably as I
entered the diner.

‘Oh really,’ I said, reckoning he weighed
at least two hundred and fifty pounds and was relatively useful with his fists.

‘Really?’ he said again with increasing
menace.

‘And when you boys have finished having
your fun, you’re just going to torch the place and ruin an innocent man’s
livelihood, are you?’

The guy stabbed the air with his machete
and gave me his best death stare.

‘And what business is it of yours, Limey?
You don’t want to be sticking your nose in where it’s not wanted, do you?’

‘Oh no?’ I said calmly.

‘Not if you want it to remain attached to
that pretty face of yours,’ he declared, nodding deftly to his accomplices at
his side.

I shook my head in disappointment and
edged a little closer, until I was only a few feet away from the counter, then
eyed him up and down like the piece of shit he was.

The biker who’d been rifling through the
till, stopped and stared at the main guy with his sunken eyes, waiting to see
what he would do first, while the other moron carried on stuffing his face like
some lobotomized chimp.

‘So what is it to be?’ the big guy
pressed.

‘I think you need to be more concerned
about keeping your own face intact, numbskull,’ I said with a fake smile, preparing
myself.

The biker clenched his jaw.

‘I think it’s you that’s gunna get a good
pasting, boy,’ he spat, looking like he was about to launch himself over the
hot plate towards me.

I glanced to my left. The pyromaniac had
now pulled out a vicious-looking knife and was standing next to the girl at the
door, who under the fluorescent lights, looked like some sort of demented
vampire. I glanced back at the counter. The other two hadn’t moved as if unsure
of what to do. I knew I had to think fast, or get swamped by all of them if
they decided to charge as one.

The machete guy turned as if to make his
way out through the swing doors. Quickly, I pulled out the rope from the back
of my belt and in one deft move launched its coiled loop over the counter at
him.

Bingo. The rope fell perfectly over his
head and lay around his neck. He froze for a second, surprised at the sudden
impediment, then more so when I tugged it hard, tightening the noose.

He spun around in shock looking
bewildered, then as his hands went to free the rope, I yanked it violently, so
that he came hurtling out over the hot plate head first and thumped down onto
the restaurant floor amongst a sea of broken crockery before me.

For a moment everyone froze as their
associate writhed around on the floor, before the pyromaniac barged through the
door knife outstretched, like he was about to offer it to me.

I put my foot on the main guy’s throat
and tightened the noose, letting them know who was boss, then looked up at the
knife guy as he inched a little closer.

‘Back off, fatso, unless you want me to
remove your friend’s fucking head. I’m serious. I do this sort of shit in my
sleep.’

The biker held back. The other two behind
the counter still hadn’t moved as if they’d soiled themselves.

‘Let my man go or I’ll kill ya,’ the girl
snarled, panic filling her glassy eyes.

‘Is that so,’ I said tugging the rope
hard again, so that the biker’s eyes bulged out of his now purple face.

‘Just let him go!’ she snapped again,
tears gathering in their ducts.

‘Let me tell
you
something,’ I
said scanning the group intently. ‘You all just get back on your crappy little
bikes and head back to the dark hell hole where you sprang from and I won’t
hurt him. Simple as that. Fuck with me just one more time though, and I’ll take
both his ears off, here and now. You want that?’

I stooped down and picked up the weapon
that had thankfully followed the biker over the counter.

‘Now you’re going to be a good boy and do
what I say, aren’t you, Blackie,’ I said in a whisper, noticing the name
stamped on the breast pocket of his denim waistcoat.

‘You’re a dead man, fucker,’ he gurgled
between bloodied teeth.

 I didn’t like what I was hearing
and lowered the blade to his throat, paring the skin open a little so that he
knew I was serious.

‘I’ll fucking do it, Blackie, if you push
me too far. I’ll fucking do it…’ I lied.

‘He’s bluffing,’ the pyro guy announced
edging closer again, his Bowie knife glinting under the flickering lights.

The girl pulled out a blade of her own
suddenly, summoning up some more courage to join her friend. She was probably
the most dangerous of them all I thought. Those eyes of hers were devoid of
soul...

‘You haven’t got the balls, mister,’ she
spat, eyeing me like I was a chunk of meat ready to be dissected.

 The two bikers behind the counter
sprung into life suddenly, smashing their bottles on the counter as if they’d
finally decided that I was bluffing too, then made for the door. I was going to
have to take the guy’s ear off to prove that I wasn’t. It was going to get
messy after all...

I placed the machete against the side of
the biker’s head then looked up in astonishment as the Somalian rose up from
behind the counter breaking the stand-off, one hand raised to his bloodied
face, the other waving a Smith and Wesson that he’d obviously had stashed
somewhere and had managed to retrieve.

‘You all go now, or I, I, shoot you up,’
he shouted in broken English.

‘Fuck you!’ the girl said dismissively.

The Somalian cocked the hammer and
pointed the revolver in her direction. Everyone froze again.

‘Do it!’ the manager shouted again, blood
running down his neck in a steady stream soaking the collar of his shirt a rich
claret. 

The toxic hyenas backed off. I let go of
the rope so Blackie could haul himself up and stagger over to the door,
coughing.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ he croaked,
clutching his throat. ‘We’ll come back to finish our business another time...’

The Somalian pointed the revolver at each
of them in turn as they scrambled out. Seconds later they’d mounted their bikes
and had started them up so that their engines chugged loudly, eager for more
throttle.

Finally, in a plume of grit and snow they
sped off in a roar, whooping and cursing as they went until they reached the
highway and rode out of sight. I lowered the machete and breathed a sigh of
relief, then looked over at the Somalian who was now holding a blood-soaked
towel to his battered face.

‘You okay?’ I said clocking his injuries,
‘or do you need taking to hospital?’

‘I’m okay,’ he murmured, ‘just a graze.’

‘You’ve got more balls than the lot of
them put together, brother. You sure you’re alright?’

‘Yes, I think so...Can I get you
something to eat or drink?’

I laughed at the absurdity of the
question.

‘No, all I need is some bloody sleep. You
close up and get yourself home now before those freaks come back, okay?’

He nodded lamely. I turned and strolled
back to the truck, hoping that that would be the end to the evening’s entertainment,
that the bikers wouldn’t return with more of their friends later to even the
score. There was a lot of footwork to do in the morning too, and if Olivia had
gone on some romantic road trip with Ethan, which it looked like she may have,
she could be anywhere in the damned States right now. Every lost hour was
crucial…

I turned again as I neared the rig, then
watched as the restaurant guy tried to bring the shutters down over the
steamed-up windows of the diner with his one free hand. The Somalian was
struggling, that much was clear. I placed my hand on the icy handle of the
truck, clicked it open then thought better of it. The guy probably needed
stitches. And he certainly wasn’t in a fit enough state to drive home, let
alone close up the joint.

I cursed, then headed back in double-time
as a flurry of snow started to come down again. I was going to have to drive
him to the nearest hospital or he was going to bleed to death in the damned
parking lot.