Doviak Lowdown Road

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-80336-412-4
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

Join a heart-racing road trip across 1970s America as two cousins make the heist of their lives and must avoid the cops and criminals hot on their tails. It's the summer of '74...Richard Nixon has resigned from office, CB radios are the hot new thing, and in the great state of Texas two cousins hatch a plan to drive $1 million worth of stolen weed to Idaho, where some lunatic is gearing up to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle. But with a vengeful sheriff on their tail and the revered and feared marijuana kingpin of Central Texas out to get his stash back, Chuck and Dean are in for the ride of their lives - if they can make it out alive... Scott Von Doviak, longtime pop-culture journalist for The A.V. Club, Film Threat, The Hollywood Reporter, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, made a splash with his debut novel, CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL, which Stephen King called 'terrific' and 'a fun machine...the white-knuckle kind.' With LOWDOWN ROAD, he cements his reputation for pedal-to-the-metal storytelling that also makes you think about just who we are and where our darker roads might lead us.

Scott Von Doviak is the author of Charlesgate Confidential and three books on film and pop culture, including the acclaimed Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema. He covers television for The Onion's AV Club and is a former film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Doviak, Scott Von

Leseproben

THREE

One thing Sheriff Edwin Giddings couldn’t stand was having a screamer in one of the cells, especially when he was trying to do his crossword. There were three jail cells in the Ivor County Sheriff’s Department, only one of which was occupied at the time. That occupant, one Randall Jennings, age twenty-two, had been caught with a baseball bat outside his ex-girlfriend’s house, where he failed to come up with a plausible explanation for all the dents and broken windows in the Buick LeSabre parked in the driveway that would dissuade the responding deputy from taking him in. Now he was hollering about a stomach ailment, which Sheriff Giddings aimed to make much worse for him once he’d puzzled out a seven-letter word meaning “dessert in a tall glass.”

It had already been a long night. Giddings would have been home in bed hours earlier if he hadn’t received an emergency call from the Twilight Ranch. Miss Mona, the madam of the aforementioned house of ill repute, had caught Giddings just as he was leaving the office for the day.

“I need you out here right away, Bud.”

“Dammit, Miss Mona. I was just heading home to get some dinner and watch the ballgame.”

“Bud, unless you want me to call your wife and tell her a couple things about a thing or two, you’d best get your ass out here pronto. I have a situation. Code Red.”

“What the hell is Code Red supposed to mean?”

“Use your imagination, Bud. Just hightail it out here, toot sweet.”

Giddings hung up, rubbed his eyelids, and cursed his heritage. There had been a Sheriff Giddings in Ivor County since the 1920s. His grandfather held the job first, and his father took over when he returned from beating the Nazis. There was never any question that the job would be his one day. He never had any say in the matter. Now he had to deal with shit like this.

To get to the Twilight Ranch, you had to know it was there. It wasn’t down on any map, and the Chamber of Commerce for sure didn’t have it listed on their pamphlet of notable attractions. Like a real ranch—the kind with cattle—it was separated from the main road by a gate and a long dirt entrance. It was just after 7:30 P.M. when Giddings arrived and stepped through the front door into the parlor.

No one was ever going to write a musical about the Twilight Ranch. The parlor housed a couple of stained, ripped couches and a ratty loveseat currently occupied by a sad-eyed redhead with runny makeup who kept checking her watch. The bar consisted of a half-empty bottle of cheap tequila and a couple of shot glasses that looked like they hadn’t been washed since Lyndon Johnson was president. The radio was broadcasting a station from San Antonio it could barely pick up; Giddings couldn’t identify the music buried in the static.

When Miss Mona entered the room, Giddings’ first thought was that she’d put on thirty pounds since he last saw her. Not that he had much room to talk, with his gut hanging low over his Texas belt buckle, but then, he wasn’t in the sex trade. Well, that wasn’t strictly true, as he took monthly payoffs from the Twilight Ranch to turn a blind eye to its illegal activities. He supposed that made him a silent partner of sorts, but at least no one was paying to see him naked. Still, if you lived in Ivor County, you couldn’t afford to be picky. The Twilight Ranch was your only option if you didn’t want to drive more than fifty miles.

“What am I doing here, Miss Mona?”

“Come with me.” She led him up the stairs, past one bedroom, from which a variety of unpleasant grunts and moans echoed through the thin walls, to another at the end of the hall. Once they were inside the room, she closed the door behind them and gestured to the bed. The man lying there was naked except for the nylon stocking wrapped tightly around his neck.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” said Giddings. “Is that Freddy McElroy?”

“It is.”

“Is he dead?”

“He looks dead to me, but I ain’t touching him. That’s why I called you.”

“What exactly happened here?”

“He had a date with Marie tonight. His usual.”

“Marie is the sad clown downstairs?”

“She is. Freddy likes her because she’ll indulge in the kind of horseplay he enjoys.”

“Horseplay? You mean strangling him with her stocking?”

“That’s part of it. He likes spankings too. And some other stuff with his rear end, but you probably don’t want to hear about that.”

Giddings winced. Freddy McElroy was a county commissioner and a bank president. If Ivor County had any upstanding citizens, he was one. Or so Giddings had always thought.

“So…this was an accident?”

“Well, that’s what Marie says. But she’s had dozens of dates with Freddy where they’ve done this exact same thing, and somehow it never went wrong before.”

“What are you telling me? You think she killed him?”

“I don’t know. But I do know he liked filthy talk in addition to the horseplay, and sometimes Marie didn’t appreciate that as much. Especially when he was the one doing the talking.”

Giddings nodded and started formulating a plan. His thought process was derailed when Freddy launched into a coughing fit.

“Oh, shit!” said Miss Mona. “He’s alive!”

Giddings walked over to the bed and loosened the stocking around Freddy’s neck. “You all right, Freddy?”

Freddy coughed some more.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” said Giddings. “Run and get this man a glass of water!”

Miss Mona hurried out of the room. Giddings helped Freddy sit up.

“Sheriff,” Freddy managed once the coughing subsided. “I want you to arrest that crazy bitch who tried to kill me. I want you to arrest Miss Mona too, and I want you to close this place down forever. I want you to burn it to the ground!”

“Now, Freddy, you’re a little excited. It’s understandable. Why don’t you just relax a moment and—”

“I am not going to relax until that bitch is in jail and this place is gone for good!”

“You don’t mean that, Freddy. The Twilight Ranch is an Ivor County institution.”

“A mental institution, more like. Listen to me, Sheriff. I know you’re on the take here and a dozen other places besides. You better do as I say or there’s going to be big trouble coming your way.”

“I tell you what, Freddy. I’m getting just a little bit tired of people threatening me this evening.” Giddings picked up a pillow from the bed and pressed it down over Freddy’s face. Freddy struggled, but he was no match for the iron strength of the county sheriff. Giddings held the pillow in place until Freddy stopped moving and kept holding it until Miss Mona returned with the glass of water, which promptly fell from her hand and shattered on the floor.

“What have you done, Bud?”

“I didn’t do anything. He was dead when I got here, remember? Now who else knows about this besides you and Marie?”

“Nobody.”

“Who is that carrying on in the other bedroom?”

“That’s Jerry Hunsicker with Charlene. But he got here before Freddy, so they don’t know he’s here.”

“All right.” Giddings wrapped the naked corpse up in the bedclothes. “Go through his pants and find his keys. He and I are gonna take a ride, and you’re gonna follow in my cruiser.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out.”

*   *   *

In the morning, an accident scene would be discovered, and an upstanding citizen of the county would be mourned. Giddings would never lose any sleep over it. The only thing that bothered him was that a pervert like Freddy had been a county commissioner in the first place. Once he’d set it all up, he drove Miss Mona back to the Twilight Ranch in his cruiser. She asked if he wanted a bubble bath in her clawfoot tub, and he thought that sounded like a fine idea. She scrubbed his back and offered to do more, but he had an ugly rash on his scrotum he didn’t want her to see, so he declined. Besides, Miss Mona didn’t really do it for him anymore. He got his kicks elsewhere these days.

Afterward he was too wired to go home, so he headed back to the office. He poured himself some bourbon and got to work on the crossword, but that’s when Randall Jennings started hollering in his cell. Giddings tried to block out the sound, but eventually he gave up and walked to the back room.

“Maybe you can help me,” he said to Randall, who was flummoxed enough to stop howling for a moment. “I’m looking for a seven-letter word for a dessert served in a tall glass. The fourth letter is F, and the last letter is T.”

“Please,” said Randall. “It’s my stomach. I need a doctor. Please, call a doctor. The pain, it’s more than I can...