Favor For a Favor

By Timothy Williams

After nearly a decade away, John returns to Eastern North Carolina to visit Jason, his best friend from his time in the Marines. A scuffle in a nightclub earns him the attention of Jeff Davis, a small-time crime boss who is trying to legitimize his income streams. To do so, he needs to eliminate four of his associates in the criminal underworld. Using every asset at his disposal, he digs up John's past and finds the proper tool to motivate him. He gives John a choice: take care of his hit list, or one of the men on the list will be tasked with killing Stephanie Sweeney, John's crush for half of his twenties. Coming from the aviation combat support side of the Marines, John has never seen actual combat, much less directly killed anyone, but he doesn't want Stephanie's death on his conscience. Knowing that Davis has eyes and ears on the police, John knows he has no real options other than to do the job and get out of town before the first body gets cold. He has no combat experience, but what he does have is a twelve-gauge shotgun and a sense of resourcefulness that would make MacGyver jealous.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Timothy Williams
• Release date: Apr 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370347414

Timothy Williams

Tim Williams was born in Sandusky, Ohio, and lives in Falkland, North Carolina, with his six cats: Diane, Abby, Lily (Bug), Maggie, Buddy, and Sophie. In his spare time, he enjoys trips to the Outer Banks and wrenching on old 4x4 trucks.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Most of the morning dew had evaporated by the time I rolled out of bed. My house in the foothills north of the Buffalo Park area of Flagstaff was a small place, but I didn't need a lot of room. With as much time as I spent gone, the last thing I needed was a yard to maintain when I was home. Not that there was any grass to mow, but the scrubby bushes that did grow in the high desert required occasional pruning to ensure they didn’t take over.

I had bought the place two years earlier as a burned-out shell. Even in that condition, it was the most expensive house I had ever bought at the time. After I finished the renovation, I could have sold it for three times what I paid. But, despite my nomadic lifestyle, it was nice to have a place to call my own.

One of the best things about the location of the house was that I could get to I-40 in less than half an hour. I didn't fly anywhere. I wasn’t afraid of flying; I just liked to have my truck wherever I went. I could get to anywhere in the lower forty-eight states in two or three days.

My interest in Flagstaff stemmed from the time I had spent driving semi trucks. The company that I drove for was headquartered in Phoenix. Any load headed northeast, which most of mine were, had to go through Flagstaff. I liked the views there, and that it snowed most winters. To the casual traveler, it was a good place to stop for gas and grab lunch. But with each trip through, I found something else to like about the area, and eventually decided to buy a house there. I couldn't believe how much it cost, though.

I had been home almost a month when my phone rang around noon. It was my friend Jason from the Marines. I hadn't heard from him since my last day in uniform, other than the sporadic email conversation. It was the only way we really stayed in touch. He refused to have anything to do with social media, and neither one of us was that big on talking on the phone.

What's going on, stranger? I asked.

Noon for me would have been two in the afternoon for him, which seemed like an odd time for him to call.

Same shit, different day, you know? he said. How long has it been since you came to Eastern Carolina?

I had been stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point with him for more than half of my military career. Not the most exciting place, but the beaches were nice in the summer. It was where I had learned to surf.

It's been a couple of years now, I told him. Not since I picked up that load of dishwashers from the plant in New Bern when I was doing the trucker thing. But you were out of the country, I think.

Dude, you need to make another trip up here, he said. It sucks now. Everyone is either gone somewhere else, or too busy with their families to raise hell anymore. I'm bored to death.

Not much of a sales pitch you got there, I said. Why don't you take a vacation somewhere, and I'll meet you there?

Because this place will still suck when I get back, he said. I need you to come and help me jumpstart a little excitement around here. Get some new blood in the group.

'The group' referred to the dozen or so of us that used to hang out together. From the sound of it, he was the last man standing. Personally, I couldn't believe he was still in the area. I thought he would have been sent somewhere else by then.

You know I'm not the best at making new friends, I told him.

Then we'll get along great with the enemies of our new enemies, he countered. Now get your ass packed and get going. Next time I call you, I don't want to hear anything but Eastbound and Down playing on your stereo.

That last bit was obviously meant as a trucker joke, even though I actually did have that song on my iPod. There was no way he could have known that, though. Still, I decided to humor him. I was starting to get cabin fever, anyway.

OK, what's today... Tuesday? I said, thinking out loud. I can be there by this time Thursday afternoon. But you better have a place ready for me to crash as soon as I get there.

My personal record for the I-40 run was a little over 53 hours, when I had left Twentynine Palms, returning to Cherry Point a decade prior. I only stopped for gas and a quick nap here and there. I figured that with the head start from leaving out of Flagstaff, I should be able to cut it down to inside of 48 hours.

The earlier you get here, the more sleep you can get, he said. But, you know, Thursday night is Ladies' Night at Roper's. I’m gonna need a wingman.

Roper's was a country and western nightclub a few miles out of town. I had outgrown closing down bars in my late twenties, but apparently Jason was still going strong.

Alright, man, you're the boss, I said. Let me get off this phone and throw some clothes and stuff in a bag. See you Thursday,

You got it, brother, he said. Out.

Leave it to one of the least Gung-ho Marines I had ever known to use two-way radio lingo on the phone. Jason was the guy who always seemed like the most likely to be a defendant at a court martial, without having ever actually been in trouble with the authorities, military or civilian. He was the master of the gray area. When the Marines cracked down on visible tattoos, he was the guy taking leave the week before the new policy took effect, so he could get sleeves done on both arms and get them documented so they'd be grandfathered in. When they started trying to take housing allowance away from single NCO's, he answered by marrying a stripper. So instead of collecting the housing allowance at the single rate, they had to pay him the family rate. Any time there was word of a new policy, Jason was thinking of a way to skirt around it. The brass hated him, but there was never anything they could do about it. He had always done his best to be legitimately untouchable.

I went down the hall to my bedroom and grabbed my overnight bag. Between the Marines and trucking, I had learned to fit enough clothes and hygiene gear into an overnight bag to last a week.

I had never been a flashy dresser. In fact, I tried to be as low-key as possible. I wore relaxed-fit blue jeans and plain gray t-shirts. My biggest requirement for clothes was that they had to be comfortable. I wasn’t big on jewelry or name brand logos. I didn't want anything about my appearance to stand out or be remembered. Two pairs of jeans and half a dozen T-shirts barely filled the bottom of the bag. I made a blind grab into the underwear drawer for a handful of boxer briefs and socks, then went to the bathroom for my shower kit.

After loading everything into the cab of my truck, I straightened up the few things I had out, grabbed my keys, and locked the door behind me. One of the nice things about living in the middle of nowhere was that nobody asked a lot of questions when I didn't come around for weeks or sometimes months on end. I told the few neighbors I had met that I was a traveling consultant for an internet marketing firm. It sounded generic and boring enough that nobody ever asked any questions.

Most of the neighbors were private, themselves. The first one I met introduced himself as a retired Air Force Colonel. He and his wife spent as much time gone as I did, traveling the country in their motorhome. Another one was a city official, though I didn’t pay attention when he told me which department he ran. For the most part, we all mutually ignored each other's comings and goings.

Before I started the truck, I checked my independent shipping app for any shipments going my way that would fit in my truck. I had gotten lucky doing that in the past, and it covered the cost of food and gas for the trip. Other times, I had come up completely empty.

Luck was on my side that time. There was a riding lawnmower, weed eater, and a generator that needed to get from Winslow to Knoxville, which were both on my route. I entered my bid for about a hundred dollars over what I figured gas would cost and hit the road. I hadn't even made it to town before the notification came across that my bid had won. Apparently, it was an urgent shipment.

I stopped for gas in Flagstaff and entered the shipper's address into my GPS. I grabbed a case of bottled water and a few bags of gummy worms from inside the truck stop and pointed the truck east. There was nothing about gummy worms that would explain why I liked them so much, but they were my favorite candy and just about my only real indulgence.

My truck was in pretty good shape for its age. It was nothing too fancy. It was a Toyota Pickup from the late eighties, before they came up with the Tacoma nameplate. The extended cab area behind the front seats didn’t even have a seat; just a shelf. Its only real advantage over the regular cab was that I could recline my seats. Mine was a four-wheel drive model, with a set of all-terrain tires that looked bigger than they actually were on such a small truck. The paint was fading on all of the horizontal surfaces, but the engine still ran like new. It wasn't much to look at, but there was nothing in the world I would have traded it for.

I took a deep breath, contemplating the journey ahead. Interstate 40, especially between Oklahoma City and the western terminus in San Bernardino, had pretty much been my home while I was a trucker. I knew where the best places to eat were, how many exits each state had, and where the weigh stations were by heart. It all seemed like useless trivia, since I wasn't driving trucks anymore, although the restaurant knowledge would always be useful.

Chapter 2

I got into Winslow in a little under an hour and found the shipper's address easily, although saying he lived in Winslow was a bit of a stretch. Apparently, anything between Flagstaff and Holbrook was considered as being 'in' Winslow.

The house was a good ten miles from the interstate, most likely a holdover from the Homestead Act days. It looked like it was built to satisfy the minimum square footage requirements and not much else. There was about three-quarters of an old clawfoot tub in the front yard, and the water cistern looked ready to fall over. I couldn't see any reason for someone who lived in a place like that to own a lawnmower and weed eater in the first place, but I made it a point not to ask questions. The last thing I needed was a reason to think I was transporting stolen property. I wasn't too worried about that in this case, as the items were all at least a decade old.

I got everything loaded and ratchet strapped down and filled out a generic bill of lading for the shipper, to make everything official. The generator was a pain in the ass to get situated with the mower in the truck. It ended up having to be loaded first, with the mower behind it and the back tires of the mower were barely on the tailgate. The weed eater was no trouble at all, though.

The guy couldn't have said more than three words the whole time. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, wearing threadbare overalls and a pair of tennis shoes that were probably my age. He had been tinkering with some old muscle car -what remained of one, anyway- when I pulled up. Maybe he was eager to get back to it. The property had a couple dozen husks of what had once been sought after collector's items collecting dust in the desert sun. They were strewn into half-assed rows, grouped by manufacturer, if I had to take a guess.

I got my copy of the bill of lading from him and got back on the road. My mind wandered a bit on the deserted two-lane road back to I-40. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe I had just seen twenty years into my own future. Even if it was, it couldn't be the worst thing in the world. The man didn't look disappointed or miserable to me. I let my imagination run wild, picturing different scenarios for a life that would wind up living alone in a ramshackle cabin on a parched stretch of desert surrounded by the remnants of other people's ruined dreams. Whatever had brought him to that place, he seemed to be OK with it.

Once I got back to the highway, I turned up the music and brought my mind back to reality. I had lost close to an hour, between driving out to the shipper's address and loading the cargo. And unfortunately, while the four-cylinder engine in my truck was fuel efficient, it wasn't going to be making any of that time back up.

Chapter 3

I got to Knoxville in the early hours of Thursday morning and caught a nap at a truck stop until around eight o'clock. The trip had been fairly uneventful, disregarding the hobo that tried to steal the weed eater out of the back of my truck in West Memphis, Arkansas. I couldn't imagine why anyone would steal anything I was hauling. None of it was in the best shape.

The temperature was in the upper sixties when I woke up. Having spent the previous month in the high eighties, it was a welcome change. I went into the bathroom at the truck stop to clean up and walked across the street to the Waffle House to get something to eat. After breakfast, I called the recipient to arrange the delivery. Luckily, they said to go ahead and bring it. This time, the address was in town, only about four miles away from where I was.

I dropped the load off and got back on the road. The stretch of I-40 that crossed the Appalachian Mountains into North Carolina was one of my favorite drives. Unloaded, my truck seemed a lot livelier. The mountain pass wasn't much fun in a semi truck, because ignorant car drivers liked to think it was a good idea to pass on the inside of a left turn, or pull around and immediately slow down, as if a 40-ton truck could instantly stop whenever it needed to. But in a small, nimble vehicle, it was a blast.

I stopped for gas one last time between Burlington and Durham just before noon. After grabbing a quick snack and throwing away the trash that had accumulated in the cab of my truck, I texted Jason to let him know I was about three hours out.

Almost immediately, a reply came back from his number. 707 EGRET FEATHER LN NEWPORT HURRY UR ASS UP.

It would have been easy to think Jason was born an asshole, but I cut him some slack because we came up through our MOS school pretty close to the same time. I was two classes ahead of him. He had gone to boot camp and MCT on the West Coast, having grown up in Colorado somewhere. I had joined the Marines from Southeast Alabama, so I trained at Parris Island and Camp Geiger.

One of the worst things about the Cherry Point area was that the Interstate was so far away. Just east of Raleigh, I-40 dropped from running pretty much east and west to almost a north and south direction to the end of it in Wilmington. The way I usually took to get to Cherry Point went up through Goldsboro and connected with US Hwy 70. From there it was about an hour and a half to Cherry Point.

Highway 70 was the main artery into Eastern North Carolina. It was largely freeway driving, until New Bern. Then it was eighteen miles of bumper-to-bumper commuter hell to the piss-ant town of Havelock and a left turn to get to the Air Station.

Newport was the next town past Havelock. I had split rent on an apartment with a friend of mine there before I went to Iraq. I thought I knew it fairly well, but I had never heard of Egret Feather Lane. It must have been a new development. I entered the address into my GPS to find it. The route came up, but the map showed an open field. It must have been a really new development.

After what seemed like forever, the GPS voice informed me that I had arrived at my destination. It looked like a flattened forest to me. I texted Jason, I'M HERE. I THINK...

A minute later, my phone buzzed. DON'T GO ANYWHERE. I could hear an engine running, and it was getting closer, but I couldn't pin down the location. Then an old red Jeep with no top or doors came bouncing around the tree line, headed for me.

I leaned back against my truck and watched the Jeep plow through mud puddles and over waist-high weeds. I realized that there was a trail somewhere; I just hadn't seen it when I pulled up.

The Jeep braked hard and skidded to a stop a few feet from my truck. After the cloud of dust that had been following it cleared, a seatbelt release clicked and a figure I didn’t immediately recognize stepped out. Dark, stringy hair hung over a pair of wraparound sunglasses and pretty much the rest of the face, too. What wasn't hidden by hair was covered in stubble. A hand came up to brush the hair away and I caught a glimpse of a Green Bay Packers logo tattoo hidden among countless others on his forearm. That was Jason's favorite team.

Holy shit, this caveman IS Jason, I thought.

Chapter 4

Shit, brother, don't you ever age? Jason asked me.

He had a point. I had looked pretty much the same since I was fifteen. I barely had to shave until I was old enough to drink.

I told you my secret a long time ago, I replied, shaking his hand. Don't smoke and don't have kids. You'll stay young forever.

Shit, I don't smoke or have any kids, and I'm still going gray in the beard in my thirties, he said. I guess it works better for some than others. But damn, man, you haven't changed a bit.

While you, on the other hand... I began. I thought you were still in the Corps. I remember when you were selected for Staff Sergeant.

Oh, yeah. That, he said. You're looking at a free man; medically retired.

They'll do that for hemorrhoids? I joked.

Ha-ha-ha, fuck you, brother. I got my back broken in two places. Docs weren’t sure if I'd walk again, he said, pointing to his back.

My humor faded. I couldn't believe what I had heard. How was it that I didn't find out about this sooner?