Going Greene

By Marlon Williams

Deep inside an underground control room, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power plans to satisfy the city’s unquenchable thirst for water and power. But at what expense? When a mysterious entity learns of this activity, Greene Logistical Services is quietly contracted to investigate.
Will Marco Martinez, a washed-up clandestine operative, join the fight to thwart this bizarre threat to a rural community in the Owens Valley of Eastern California? Are the often-comical misfits he encounters Greenes? Insiders? Urizens? Or simply yokels caught in the crossfire?
Amid an enthralling sweep of land, sky, and cityscapes, Greene’s startling revelations mount in urgency until their battle erupts from the page like an apocalyptic thunderclap!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marlon Williams
• Release date: Mar 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311370778

Marlon Williams

After nearly 30 years of global deployments in the U.S. military, Marlon Williams now travels the boondocks in his native state of California, sometimes making unusual observations along the way.

Book preview

GOING GREENE

GOING GREENE

Marlon Williams

Boilerplate Press

This novel is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

GOING GREENE.

Copyright © 2013 by Marlon Williams.

All rights reserved.

Published in the USA by Boilerplate Press, California at Smashwords.

ISBN 978-0-615-81654-8

Text Design by Sandra K. Williams

Cover Design by Karen Phillips

To Jackie Williams, for making this adventure possible

Special thanks to

Nathanael Williams

Lori Ford

Deanna Kennedy

CHAPTER ONE

Cold air wafted over the low roof of Marco’s hideout on the Rahway River. Heaps of foliage covered a stout framework of tree branches, making the one-person hut nearly invisible on the verdant riverbank. Normally Marco slept soundly. But tonight he was chilled and agitated while lying wide awake listening for movement outside. He clicked on a penlight and rummaged through a small cache of gear for an MRE. While eating the prepackaged meal, he remembered the backpack he’d stashed in a toolshed the previous day. After feeling an imminent threat of danger, he’d jettisoned the pack in favor of increased agility in the event of trouble on his way to the river.

Since it would be dawn soon, he decided there was no point in lying around shivering. He crawled out of the hut and forced his way through a thorny bramble, climbed over the levy, and walked west on Hillside Avenue. It wasn’t long before he reached South Hills Park Historic District, a posh neighborhood on the outskirts of Newark, New Jersey, and entered the Underwood estate where he was employed as groundskeeper. The estate was a modest affair occupied by three small but luxurious townhomes, leaving minimal space for the compact courtyard in front and the simple garden in back. Inside the estate’s musty toolshed, he found the backpack where he’d left it, still packed with a few luxuries for the road, like a toiletry kit, a clean safari shirt with matching beige pants for blending in at bus stations and airports, and a drab green field jacket and black pullover ski mask, which came in handy for bushwhacking.

Marco backed into a corner and stood waiting and listening while glimpsing the transparent image of his countenance in a windowpane. The ghostly reflection rendered his brusque mustache and thick quills of graying hair softly lubricious, stylish even, by nothing so much as poor hygiene. As he saw it, there was an advantage in being mulatto: he could pass for all kinds of ethnicities and roll with whatever identity was handed out. Most recently he was chided by licensed contractors who came into the estate to perform work beyond the scope of his duties. Although he told them his name was Mark Wilcoxen, the contractors nicknamed him Marco Martinez, and he’d gone by that name ever since. He squinted through the windowpane and out at the courtyard where, only moments earlier, he’d used a key to let himself in through the locked entrance to the estate, purposely leaving both the gate and the toolshed door wide open. Looking beyond the courtyard, he strained to see a mysterious form squatting amid tree trunks in the park across the street. The bundled figure raised a wine bottle, seemingly in salutation, before taking a hearty swig of its contents. The park wasn’t exactly an odd place for a bum, but its location in this exclusive setting, replete with well-fortified manors, accentuated the bum like a tulip garden would a patch of ragweed.

On the wall next to Marco, a 1990 calendar displayed Ms. June, a gorgeous brunette divested of her bikini top. He hefted the backpack securely onto his shoulder and used a pen dangling on a string to cross out the number twenty-nine in the Friday column. The loose accounting system tracked his entitlement to a month’s wages.

The bum’s appearance rekindled the threat Marco had felt the previous day, so after preparing for a confrontation, he dropped the backpack and strutted into the sunlight. Grace Underwood, still groggy from a night of solitary libation, fumbled with her bedroom window and then flung it open.

Good morning, Marco, she called out.

Without responding he continued past the three adjoining townhomes and pretended to walk around back, but instead he hid behind some shrubbery and watched the courtyard. Mrs. Underwood, the widow of Wall Street financier E. G. Underwood, was an attractive woman in her fifties given to copious amounts of champagne and caviar since her husband’s demise. Her voluptuous figure was most at home in nightgowns. She left the window and a moment later reappeared downstairs in the front doorway, propped against the doorjamb like a brothel queen. Marco watched her saunter onto the porch to get the morning newspaper; her nightie was so skimpy that her long, jet-black hair appeared to be her only apparel. She raised her hand to shade her bloodshot eyes and spied for the wine-swigging bum across the street. Marco imagined her woozily entertaining a lewd Beauty and the Beast fantasy.

Bitch! What the hell you lookin’ at? hollered the bum.

She dropped the newspaper and hurried back into her quarters. Marco went around back and got busy replacing some bricks from the archway into the garden, his sharply angled nose sniffing for hints of danger while he worked. Suddenly his eyes widened and locked in place. Now he could see more, spatially, scanning a larger area of his periphery for movement without alerting a possible adversary. Something was up. He steeled himself, ducked, and spun around.

Shit, lady! he said, relaxing his hand-to-hand combat stance. It was the odor of champagne, not wine, that had alerted him. Mrs. Underwood’s mascara-caked lashes blinked slowly, lustily. She didn’t seem to mind that his sturdy face was peppered with scars or that his eyes seemed somehow tortured, perhaps from the impact of an old injury. She flung her thick mane to one side and rubbed her chin to a bare shoulder. Marco’s expression remained quizzical, so she twisted her torso and peeked over her shoulder, offering her backside as a proposition. As she sauntered away, he considered the merits of assuming an additional duty, but when she vanished beyond the azaleas at the far side of the garden, he snapped out of it and went on pretending he was busy working. He whistled while the visual of Mrs. Underwood, wandering around the estate half naked and helpless, dominated his thoughts. What concerned him most about the enticing picture was her vulnerability. How long would the bum resist this free-for-all? But doing anything hasty would only spook his prey. He tried to remain vigilant and allow things to develop such as they would.

He’d been busy with the brickwork for some time when Mrs. Underwood’s safety finally became his primary concern. He dropped what he was doing, went on the offensive, and was rounding the corner of the building when a sound rarely heard in this straitlaced community broke his stride. A police siren! He quickly backed into some shrubbery to watch the serenity of the Underwood estate being shattered by the groaning of sirens, the skidding of car tires, and the crackling of radio transmissions coming from a fleet of emergency vehicles rapidly assembling on the street just outside the estate. Policemen and paramedics hurried out of their vehicles and dashed up to the gate. On the inside of the gate, Father Dirk McPherson, dressed in a flowing black velvet bathrobe, hurried through the courtyard and met them there.

As E. G.’s friend and confidant, Father McPherson had inherited one of the townhomes. A stocky man of sixty years, the vicar’s large balding head, rimmed monk-like with sandy hair, and thick lips gave him a sullen demeanor. In fact he’d become a curmudgeon, regretting his inheritance and subsequent retirement from the Newark Archbishopric. He nervously struggled to open the gate while clarifying how he’d been in prayer when he heard the sirens and felt moved to investigate. Obviously distraught, he babbled about the tragic irony of good and evil dwelling in the same vessel. Marco noticed Mrs. Underwood’s lingerie-clad corpse sprawled on the warm cobblestone in the courtyard; he overheard a patrolman telling an arriving sergeant how a pedestrian had spotted the corpse and then had placed an anonymous call for help from a payphone.

As Marco came forth, he was immediately subdued by the policemen without a struggle. After receiving clearance from the sergeant, who’d expressed suspicion of foul play, a patrolman sped away in his cruiser, taking Marco and Father McPherson downtown for questioning in connection with death of Mrs. Grace Underwood.

***

At the Millburn Police Department a young detective listened as Marco described his ribald encounter with Mrs. Underwood. The detective used a razor sharp hunting knife to dig a splinter from his own hand, taunting Marco rather than seriously questioning him.

I do have a question for you Morocco, said the detective. Where did an Arab-looking sumbitch like you get a name like Wilcoxen?

Marco’s mouth gaped into an eye-watering yawn. Suddenly a pair of special agents walked in showing badges and brushing the detective aside.

Mr. Wilcoxen, said one of them. Sorry for the inconvenience—you’re free to go.

The detective did a double take as the agents escorted Marco out.

At the front counter, a clerk presented Marco with his wallet, penlight, beat-up old skin-diving watch, and large ring with a strange insignia inscribed on the inside. Something was missing.

Where’s my pocketknife? said Marco.

"You mean illegal contraband, don’t you?" the muscular clerk replied.

And where’s my money? Marco tossed his wallet back with the other things and propped his six-foot-two, one-hundred-ninety-pound frame directly across the counter from the clerk; Marco’s heavily knuckled hands were an intimidating sight on the counter. The agents stepped briskly away as the clerk drew a billy club from his service belt. Just as Marco snatched his hands clear—wham—the club slammed onto the counter. Nobody moved. At the point of impact was a dead fly; the clerk set the club aside and matter-of-factly stuffed Marco’s belongings into a manila envelope.

Look, buddy, he said while casually sealing the envelope, we don’t keep track of chump change either; now take your Cracker Jack prizes and bounce before you get whacked too.

Marco snatched the envelope from the clerk and swung toward an exit sign pointing down a cinderblock hallway with enameled walls and an immaculately polished tile floor. Before entering the hallway, he stood pondering its length and whether he’d seriously be permitted to get to the foyer at the other end. The hallway’s eerie luminance was a reflection of daylight entering through plate-glass doors in the foyer, the only barrier to the street outside. He took the first steps into the morgue-like chamber, its coolness reminding him of the time hobos ambushed him in a train tunnel on one of his cross-country jaunts. Progressing along but gaining no assurance from the echo of his solitary footsteps, he decided to get it over with and strutted down the hall with confidence, going through the foyer and right up to the glass doors, pausing and listening as a huge clock above the doors ticked away the seconds. His eyes darted and then locked to check his periphery. As he reached for the door’s crossbar, a thundering voice called out.

Mr. Wilcoxen!

He steeled himself, ducked, and spun around. But there was no one there. He looked down the hallway and saw the same people at the counter, their postures suggesting the anticipation of something. They had eager smiles, and the clerk held a microphone, his lips moving in sync with the voice that again reverberated, Have a nice day!

Marco stood erect and rammed his fist into the air. Up yours! he said, and then shoved the door open and casually went on his way.

Walking back to the Underwood estate gave him a chance to try to piece things together. Was evasion really called for or should he just have a nice day, like the clerk suggested? Were the special agents in fact an indication of an assignment coming down the pike? It’d been months since there’d been any indication to lean forward in anticipation of an assignment, let alone an inquiry as to his readiness. He was assigned to a secret intelligence element under the direction of the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command. JSOC, pronounced jay-sock, had arranged his employment at the Underwood estate, but the long hang time had led him to believe he’d been demobilized.

As rumor had it, the new KH-12 spy satellites were making dramatic strides in overhead reconnaissance because of the computerized interface terminals being deployed at ground level. For this reason, or so his speculating went, the old guard was being shelved in favor of younger, and consequently more cyber-savvy, operatives. He’d been tasked to train the youngsters on the fundamentals of infiltration and privately loathed their pedigree. They were well educated and enjoyed connections that sped them meteorically ahead of him for promotion. Further, they represented his own ambitions unfulfilled, his youth derailed by a bizarre turn of events that always gnawed at his subconscious. And now this bullshit at the Underwood estate was making him even more frustrated with command, so he was thinking, The hell with them fuckers. I’ll just go after my backpack and skip town. As he approached the Underwood estate through the park, a well-dressed pedestrian came toward him. He steeled himself while brushing past, but the man just kept walking. When he crossed the street, he found the estate’s gate decked in yellow tape and decided the backpack would have to wait. He continued east on Hillside Avenue, heading for the river.

***

At his hideout in the moonlit river basin, Marco lay quietly on a cozy bed of cattail stalks while listening to a locomotive engine wailing in the distance. He tried to sleep, but the train of his thoughts rode only one track. For starters he thought about the bum. Suspecting him as a surveillance plant, or perhaps an old adversary, he’d intended to take him out by luring him in through the open gate. But his plan somehow backfired, maybe costing Mrs. Underwood her life. Next there were the details Father McPherson had given him regarding E. G.’s so-called accidental death; they were sketchy and smacked of payback. Was Mrs. Underwood the next installment due against E. G.’s outstanding debt to the power elite? Had Marco falsely concluded that the special agents were sent by JSOC? It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps it was wise to get busy on something simpler, like a raft, instead of resting in this shallow grave of a hovel. But as the stillness seeped into his bones, Marco found it easier to just close his eyes and doze off.

CHAPTER TWO

Marco had left his hideout the following morning and was walking on Hillside Avenue when a car sped past, hit the brakes, and stopped a few yards ahead of