Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7) (15 page)

I dropped the buckshot in a plastic bag, started my Jeep and headed toward Marianna.

TWENTY-SIX

I
t was another place. Another time. But
Shorty’s
was the kind of joint that Jesse Taylor used to score rent money. Half a lifetime ago, he had a custom-made cue stick and a reputation that got him banned in more than a dozen pool halls from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach. Those days, the hustling, the cons, the fights—were history. But history had taught him lessons about human nature, especially when it came to sports betting—putting folded money on the line and watching a man’s eyes change when the gambling hook was set by a challenge.

He thought about that as he slowed in front of a one-story cinderblock building washed in red and white neon. The sign read:
Shorty’s Billiards
. It hung from chains fastened to a rusted pole that was bolted to a concrete block near the roof. But it was the parking lot that Jesse scanned as he pulled off the street. And there, to the far left, was the custom yellow pickup truck. Jesse counted eleven cars in the lot and two more pickups. Three motorcycles were in a handicapped space near the front entrance.

Jesse parked, lighting a cigarette and blowing smoke out his open window. He glanced over to the yellow truck, where a diffusion of red neon gave the truck a slight rosy-pink look. Moths circled the sign, the raucous beat of a driving bass guitar coming from inside the building.
Jesse reached in his console and lifted out a .25 caliber pistol. He pulled his right pant leg up to his calf muscle, shoving the pistol into an ankle-strap holster, pulling his pant leg down.

He locked his car and walked across the lot, stepping on flattened beer cans, the smell of burning marijuana in the night air, an electrical buzzing sound coming from the neon sign. He looked up at two bikers leaning against a wrought iron railing on what would pass as a porch entrance. Both bikers wore shabby, thick beards. Lot’s of black leather. Fur on arms and chests. Ink tats covering most of their arms. One wore an American flag as a pirate’s bandana.

Jesse walked straight toward the front entrance. As he passed the bikers, the man in the bandana said, “Wanna meet Miss Chrystal? She’s cooked up all nice and fine. Guaranteed to take you places you’ll never go in that old car of yours.”

Jesse stop walking for a second, inhaling a last drag, blowing smoke from his nostrils, looking the biker in the eye. “When you bury a military veteran and you salute the American flag draped across his coffin, you won’t wear our flag on your head.” Jesse flicked his spent cigarette into the lot, sparks popping. He turned back and walked toward the door.

“Pops, you’re fuckin’ crazy. It ain’t my flag.” The biker drained the beer from a Miller can, dropping it to the lot, crushing the can under the heel of his black boot.

When Jesse opened the door to
Shorty’s
, he was met with the smells of sour beer, sweat-laced testosterone and weed. A woman shrieked and laughed at the bar. From the vintage Wurlitzer jukebox, Charlie Daniels belted out
The Devil Went Down to Georgia
. Jesse stepped inside, eyes adjusting to the semi-darkness. He counted seven pool tables. Single lampshades hanging from the ceiling bathed each table in soft cones of light, shadows and silhouettes of players moving in and out of the light.

Jesse approached the bar. Every stool except one was taken. A huge sign on the wall behind the bar read:
Jack Daniels Spoken Here
. Jesse sat on the stool, resting his arms against the timeworn wooden bar, the old knotty pine long since stained from spilled whiskey and branded by smoldering cigarettes. A twenty-something blonde bartender in short cut-off blue jeans, tank top exposing ample cleavage, pulled a draft beer, looked at Jesse and said, “Be with you in a sec.”

“No hurry.” Jesse pushed back in the stool, his eyes fully adjusted to the low light. The man sitting next to him had the look of a gym rat. Black T-shirt stretched over chest and arms thick with sculpted and steroid-enhanced muscle. He wore his hair in a military cut. Face ruddy. He stared ahead at a large-screen TV, sound muted, a NASCAR race on the screen.

“What can I get for you, hon?” The bartender blew a strand of dirty blonde hair from her shiny face and smiled. She wiped her hands on a white towel, the song on the jukebox
Bad to the Bone
.

Jesse said, “I’d like a shot of Crown and Bud in the can.”

“You got it.” She dug for the can in a metal tub partially covered in cracked ice, popped the top on the beer, poured a shot of Crown Royal and placed both in front of Jesse. Taking the twenty-dollar bill he held between his fingers, she said, “Be back in a minute with change.”

“Sure, I ain’t going nowhere.”

She moved down the bar, filling another drink order, working her way to the cash register. Jesse took a deep breath, feeling the beat of his heart pulsating under the holster strap
near his ankle. He reached for the shot of Crown, downing it, then taking a long pull from the beer. The man looked at Jesse’s hand and then slowly raised his eyes back to the TV screen.

Jesse glanced around the room. The crowd appeared to be mostly working-class folks—people who earned a living with their hands and skills handed down from fathers and grandfathers. Bricklayers. Plumbers. Construction workers. Somewhere in the bunch of leather and denim was a fella who may have learned an awful vocation from his grandfather—the call of the devil. Handed down in the bloodline. Taught by example. Somewhere in here was Cooter Johnson.

The man sitting next to Jesse reached for a sweating bottle of beer. When he did, Jesse could see a tattoo on the man’s upper arm. It was the insignia of the Army Rangers. Jesse sipped his beer for a second. He looked at the man and asked, “Were you in the Army?”

The man slowly turned his head toward Jesse, his face impassive. Jesse said, “Spotted your tat. You may have trained the same place I did.”

“Where’s that?”

“Fort Benning.”

The man nodded. “Don’t see a lot of guys your age having gone through the program.”

Jesse grinned. “We’re a rare breed, I suppose. Not too many of us left. I was in the 75
^th
. Sent to Nam. It wasn’t long after Hamburger Hill. The enemy had a hell of an ax to grind after that shit. I stayed through something called the Easter Offensive, and I can tell you it was offensive, on a lot of levels.”

The man studied Jesse a few seconds. His face softer. He extended his hand. “Name’s Ace Anders.”

“Jesse Taylor. Pleased to meet you, Ace. What are the odds of a couple of Rangers sitting together in this dive bar? Is Ace your real name?”

“Yeah, my old man named me that.”

Jesse smiled. “He must have been a card.”

Ace grinned, lifting his beer in a toast. “To us…Rangers lead the way.”

“I’ll drink to that.” They toasted, Jesse draining a final swallow from his can. “That was good. Think I’ll have another.”

“You ain’t payin’. When you guys came back from Vietnam you got shit on. Too many Fonda types gave you a lotta crap. Brother, I want you to know I salute you. And ya’ll should have gotten the recognition you deserved surviving that jungle warfare.” He got the bartender’s attention. “Lucille, another round for my new friend, Jesse.” He slapped Jesse on the back.

The bartender brought the drinks and set them in front of Jesse. She took another order and Jesse turned toward Ace. “Much obliged.” He drained the Crown, his face flushing, the pulse beat under the ankle holster slow and steady. “Ace, how long you lived here?”

“All my life. That’s why I joined. I was glad to go to Iraq just to get the hell outta here.”

“I hear you, brother. I couldn’t help but notice the custom ‘57 model truck in the lot. You know if that bad boy might be for sale?”

“Don’t know. Guy that owns it is shootin’ pool at the last table before the johns. Name’s Cooter Johnson. He’s the tallest one at the table. Wears that damn Mohawk haircut. Dresses like a Viking. Got a bunch of piercings in his face, God knows where else.”

“Is he a bettin’ man?”

“He can work a table, why?”

“Because I wanna see how good he can work a table.” Jesse stepped off the stool, and made his way though the crowd.

Two women, both in tight jeans and T-shirts, danced with each other near one table, the jukebox playing the Door’s
Midnight Special
. Jesse approached the pool table and watched the final shots. Cooter Johnson, hair spiked in a five-inch Mohawk, open leather vest, large hands, long arms, gestured to a right corner pocket before lining up the cue ball and tapping the eight-ball into the pocket. He stood and grinned. Long, narrow face. Reddish whiskers like weeds. Silver piercings in his lips. Gold ring through one nostril.

A lumpy man in ragged shorts and a white T-shirt shook his head. “Damn, Cooter. You might as well be playin’ by yourself.”

Jesse stepped under the wash of light, looked at Cooter Johnson and then set down a hundred-dollar bill on the side of the pool table. Jesse said, “No reason to play by yourself. Now you got my ol’ pal Ben Franklin and me. Maybe he can become your BFF. Maybe not.”

Cooter Johnson stared hard at Jesse and said, “Rack ‘em.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

C
ooter Johnson spotted the cue ball off-center on the lower portion of the pool table. He leaned over with a customized, engraved cue stick in his hands, lining up the shot. Jesse looked at the big man’s left hand, the letters
e-v-i-l
tattooed on the tops of four fingers, just below walnut-sized knuckles. A dozen people sat in chairs, leaned against the bar, or stood in a buffer around the perimeter of the table, sipping beers, watching the opening break. The smell of sweat mixed with perfume, a tinge of smoke drifting through the light over the table.

Jesse overheard one man in the shadows say to another, “I bet Coot takes him down fast. I’ll wager the old man will leave at least five on the felt.”

“You’re on, Lofton. I’m bettin’ the graybeard will do better.”

Johnson glanced up at Jesse before breaking the rack; the
whack
sounding as if a firecracker popped, balls zipping around the table. The striped thirteen-ball recoiled from the far railing and rolled slowly back toward Johnson, falling into the right-side pocket. Johnson cut his eyes up to Jesse. “Thirteen’s my lucky number. One down seven to go.” He lined up another shot, calling it with the point of the cue stick, quickly taking it, the nine-ball dropping.

Jesse could hear laughter, low conversations, the crackle of money. Johnson had an opening, easily sinking the four-ball. Someone in the crowd made a catcall. A shapely brunette in
hip-hugging short shorts, a tight T-shirt that read,
Shorty’s Good Eats
, brought a shot glass filled with Jack Daniels. Johnson paused, took the drink and knocked it back, Creedence Clearwater Revival on the jukebox singing
Bad Moon Rising
.

Johnson motioned toward the twelve-ball and a corner pocket. He leaned down, lining it up, looking at shot probabilities after dropping the ball. He tapped the cue ball. It hit the twelve too hard, causing the ball to drift to the center of the table. Jesse looked at the layout, figuring angles and where the next shot might lead. He chalked his cue stick, walking around the table, doing the geometry in his head.

Johnson snorted. “C’mon, man. You got nothin.’ Left you nothin’. So go on and take your nothin’ shot, and I’ll close this down. You’ll feel the pain in your wallet.”

Jesse found the angle. He said, “Six in left corner.”

Johnson grinned. “No fuckin’ way. Take that shot and game’s over for you old man.”

Jesse lowered himself against the table railing, his body loose, his eyes cutting from the cue ball to the six. He tapped it, the cue ball kissing the right side of the six and sending it into the left corner pocket.”

A woman applauded from a table. Someone hooted.
Bad Moon Rising
sounded louder from the jukebox. Cooter Johnson seemed amused, stroking his copper beard, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Jesse met his eyes, stepped around the table, motioning to the side pocket next to him. “Let’s send number three home.” He bent down, sighted the shot looking at the tip of the stick, striking the cue ball. It recoiled from the opposite railing, the three dropping into the pocket.

“WooHoo!” shouted a woman standing by the biker wearing the American flag bandana.

Jesse stepped to the end of the table, tapped the left pocket with his hand. “Let’s bring four back to here.” He lined up the shot, taking it quickly, the four ball traveling almost the entire length of the table and falling in the pocket. He cut his eyes up to Johnson. A vein pulsed on Johnson’s forehead, close to his temple, as if a larva was wriggling, trying to escape through a pore. Johnson used the back of his left hand to wipe sweat from his brow.

Jesse aligned another shot. “Seven in the side.” He struck the left side of the cue ball, putting spin on it, the ball recoiling from the rail and tapping the seven into the pocket. Jesse looked up at Johnson. “Four solids in the hole. Four to go.”

Ace Anders watched the game from the bar. More than that, he watched the people watching the game. The bartender looked at him and said, “Looks like your new pal is kicking Cooter’s ass. It’s about time somebody did.”

“I don’t know what Cooter hates most, losing or the embarrassment of losing.”

Jesse could feel Johnson’s anger growing.
It’s how you play the game
, he thought. “Five in the right corner.” He tapped the cue ball, banking off the railing to sink the shot.

“I’m smellin’ blood,” said a potbellied man, grinning, wearing a Tampa Bay Rays hat, holding a can of beer and eating a piece of beef jerky.

Jesse pointed toward a side pocket. “Number two is gonna be retired.” He popped the cue ball, sinking the shot in a blur of moving colors.

Johnson licked his dry lips, pacing half way around the table. He gripped his cue stick, knuckles white. He said, “You miss the next one, I’ll clear the fuckin’ table. I like comin’ in
strong from behind. The world loves a winner.” He looked at an attractive woman sitting at a table with two other women. “Ain’t that right, Sarah?”