Forum Overview :: Dead Trees :: chapter two of the book

[quote name="junior allen"]Two There were three of them. One of them hit me in the stomach; I doubled over and somebody else kicked me in the ass. I sprawled onto the tile floor. “Don’t get up,” a voice told me. It coughed for a moment, then: “I’m gonna go get Munez. Watch him, you two. “Munez said he wanted to be left alone.” A younger voice, this one. Uncertain. “I know. But he’ll want to know about this.” I heard footsteps going upstairs. The light switched off and I breathed a little easier. The two of them that were left started whispering about fees, what they would do and what they wouldn’t do for them. I closed my eyes. This was turning into a very bad movie. I was remembering various movies where the lead character talked his way out of just this kind of situation when two sets of footsteps came back down the stairs. “Where’s he at?” a quiet voice asked. “Let him up.” I stood up slowly. The flashlight came back on and the beam played over my face and clothes. “He’s a cop, Munez. Found him hiding in the bathroom down here.” This was Uncertain Guy, sounding cocky now that Daddy was here. “He’s not a cop.” The voice was clear and crisp and absolutely without personality. It sounded like a TV weatherman, or the voice you hear on an elevator, telling you what floor you’re on. “Would a cop have seaweed in his hair?” I ran my fingers through my hair and pulled out a long strand of seaweed. “Would a cop have dried vomit on his shirt? Would a cop smell like a brewery?” The light clicked off again and I blinked, blind. “I don’t know who he is but he’s not a cop. Put him in the van, we’ll take him to Pruett.” “Huh?” “Let Pruett deal with him.” He was already walking back up the stairs. For a big man Munez moved very quickly. They led me upstairs, through the house and out the front door. A Fed Ex van was parked out by the curb. One of them opened up the doors in back. “Sorry about the condition of the ride, kid.” It was Three Pack’s voice. “If it’s any consolation, I think I’m going to be stuck there with you.” I turned around. He was maybe fifty. His hair looked white under the streetlights (later I would discover that it was actually a very fine, misty sort of gray) and he wore it long, with long swooping sideburns right out of the Seventies. He had the big, heavy, ponderous look of a once-strong man sliding slowly down to fat. “Any goddamn time, Felton. Unless you want to walk home.” That was Munez. He and one of the other men went up front and started the engine. I felt something jab me in the back. I looked over and it was the last guy in the party, with a very small, very serious-looking gun. He jabbed me again, this time just under my ribs. “Better step it up, kid. Unless you want Johnny there to kick you in the ass again.” Felton took a deep breath and hauled himself into the van, the springs groaning wearily in protest. Then he stuck out a big hairy paw; I grabbed it and let him pull me inside. Johnny sprang lightly in after us and pulled the doors shut. We started off. It was a long, bumpy, uncomfortable ride. Every time we hit a bump we bounced around like kernels in a popcorn popper; every time Munez hit the brake we all slammed into whatever wall was closest. The air was thick, too -- as you might expect, there’s no ventilation in the back of a FedEx van. (There was light, though -- Felton had a battery-powered Coleman lantern.) Plus, Felton started to smoke, which just made the air that much worse. He caught me staring at him. “You want a smoke?” He scrabbled in his pocket. I shook my head. “Well, that’s a good thing. It’s a fucking disgusting habit.” He took a deep drag, letting it all out in a big huff. His shoulders slumped. “Smoke isn’t bothering you, is it?” he asked happily, fanning at the cloud in front of him. I shook my head. “No,” I said. After awhile Felton told me that his first name was Charles, but I could call him “Chuck”. (“Everybody else does”), that my other guard’s name was “Johnny”(“just Johnny”) and that sitting up front was Munez and “Robby”. I told Felton my name was Peter and he immediately started calling me “Petey”, which I hate. I asked him was going on, but all I could get out of him was that we were going to see somebody named “Pruett”. I tried asking Johnny but he wouldn’t say a word, he just scowled at me from his corner of the van. After a bit he sidled over to Felton’s corner of the van, one eye and gun on me the whole time. The two of them had a long whispered conversation, with Johnny jabbing his finger in my direction and Felton shaking his head. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. “What?!” They stopped and stared at me. “What?!” I said again, weakly. After a second, Felton said: “Johnny here wants to know why we didn’t put a bullet in your head back at the house. It’s a good question.” He sounded amused. I tried to get more out of him but he wouldn’t say anything else, he just leaned back in his corner of the van and smoked cigarette after cigarette. We rode on in silence for about twenty more minutes. The air was getting very stuffy. I closed my eyes and tried to remember a Kung Fu episode where David Carradine was trapped in a mine. He ended up meditating to get through it. It sounded like a plan. I guess I ended up falling asleep, though. The next thing I knew we had stopped somewhere. I heard the driver’s door open, then shut. A few seconds later Munez opened the back doors. “Everybody out,” he said. [/quote]