Hunting the Gemini

By Kelly Coleman

A beautiful Ozark woman’s perilous rise from addiction and prostitution to respectability hinges on the killing of a dangerous criminal (read ABSALOM: Exit Hell). Alas, the dead felon has associations in dark places. Close your eyes. Now comes the Grim Reaper, a vengeful relic from the past, hunting the Gemini.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984564955

Book preview

HUNTING

THE

GEMINI

KELLY COLEMAN

Copyright © 2018 by Kelly Coleman.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2018913277

ISBN:              Hardcover                978-1-9845-6497-9

                        Softcover                  978-1-9845-6496-2

                        eBook                       978-1-9845-6495-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/13/2018

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Epilogue

My family and friends ‘cut me a lot of slack’ when I start to write a novel . . . I’m not as available. Here’s a short list of persons particularly helpful in this endeavor:

THANK YOU ALL!

The events and characters in this book are fictitious and any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

for the girls

the past is never past

William Faulkner

God, I feel like hell tonight

Tears of rage I cannot fight

I’d be the last to help you understand

Are you strong enough to be my man, my man?

Nothing’s true and nothing’s right

So let be alone tonight

Cause you can’t change the way I am

Are you strong enough to be my man?

Sheryl Crow

CHAPTER 1

PARAGON is a mission for the homeless located in a weathered three-story stone building. It is the semi-permanent ‘hostel’ for forty unfortunates that are assigned daily duties making possible the function of same. This group might be categorized as ‘permanent party’.

Then, there is the ‘up to’ one-hundred homeless vagrants that line up every afternoon to avail themselves of the evening meal and nightly bunk. ‘Old School’ would call this place a ‘flop house’. The afore mentioned afternoon ‘line’ is composed variously of alcoholics, drug addicts, felons, the mentally ill, poverty stricken, etc. Many are accustomed to sleeping in shadowy niches on the street, often next to the same dumpsters they defecate in. It is a true Motley Crue of life’s casualties.

The PARAGON is in a dilapidated section of Kansas City, Missouri, midst abandoned warehouses and crumbling brick buildings surveilled by the pigeons. Most of the vehicular traffic is salvage vintage.

The ‘drill’ here goes like this: One waits in the odorous line to get in. Next, one is required to sit through a mandatory Bible service administered by a volunteer chaplain. Then, one receives a meal at a sit-down table. Finally, you ‘flop’ on a bunk in a very large dormitory full of bunks just a few feet apart. Mandatory departure is eight AM the following morning. The men often sleep and snore through the Bible service. Your ‘mates’ for supper exhibit decaying teeth, food encrusted beards, common garbage and alcohol odors. The meal might be goulash, stew or chili with a side-vegetable. Coffee always available . . . . The shelter, food, bunk and service is free to the unfortunates.

Ejay and The Pope flop on side-by-side bunks in the rancid dormitory. This is how they meet, and ostensibly become friends.

Ejay’s and Pope’s ‘partnership’ during the day outside PARAGON consists of ‘rummaging’ about the dingy corners of KC between the Plaza and the Missouri River. A sober observer might say it was two men, about the same height, one ‘lean and serious’ with all his fingers bandaged, and the other revealing a tattoo of a cross on his forehead, barely below his hairline, which was hidden when wearing his worn ballcap. In fact, Ejay was more muscular and Pope more frail. Both are light complected, but Pope more grimy. In fact, Pope seems more a ‘shadow’ of Ejay. In fact, Pope is a rummy-eyed, broken-down wino . . . . A more intimate knowledge of the two men would unmask Ejay as the dominant ‘partner’ and a leader, and reveal the Pope to be a paranoid alcoholic clinging to Ejay’s shirttail.

Ejay asks most the questions. Pope asks very few. One question is why Ejay has bandaged fingers and thumbs. Ejay’s answer is that he pulled a burning two-by-four off a dog at a ‘burn site’. Ejay says he had ‘adopted’ the stray . . . that the dog died in spite of his effort. What Ejay does not say is that his parole officer has made a notation in his file that Ejay’s fingerprints have most likely been destroyed by the alleged fire.

What’s really happening in this buddy-buddy relationship is that Ejay is coaxing information from Pope. It’s part of Ejay’s master plan.

He’s discovered that Pope has an old beater truck parked in the City Market area. Also, Pope is a binge drinker. He’s a binge wino, sometimes doing Everclear Grain Alcohol (about ninety-five percent alcohol). That he has no police record, and is in possession of a valid driver’s license, and has registration on his truck. Pope pays a childhood acquaintance to park the truck in a specific business parking lot . . . . Ejay converses repeatedly about Pope’s lack of family . . . ABSOLUTELY NO FAMILY OR FRIENDS. Pope emphasizes that he owns the truck outright – free and clear, and the title’s in the glove box with the registration . . . . Ejay studies the ‘cross tattoo’ on Pope’s forehead closely each time Pope removes his cap with the raccoon head logo on front.

Here we have it, two men similar in appearance – one strong, one weak and dependent. Both a little over six-foot-tall and dressed ‘a la thrift shop’. Ejay carrying this Wal Mart book-bag over his shoulder and Pope, a paper-sack with his wine bottle therein in his hand.

This day, they are huddled underneath the labyrinth of overpasses separating KC proper from the City Market. It’s early spring, 2018. It’s chilly. Pope is sitting on a low concrete retaining wall hunched over a cheap bottle of wine. It’s a Cabernet. The bottle is hidden in a brown paper-sack, rolled down around the bottleneck. This sits upright on the asphalt between the Pope’s open legs. In the purple hue of passing light, the wino slumps over this, his god. The signature ball cap down over his cadaverous face. Ejay is vertically straight as an I-beam. He can hardly see Pope’s face, much less the cross-tattoo hidden by the cap.

Drawing on an unfiltered Pall Mall, a pinch of light down here in this blighted groove of waste, Ejay’s looking over the graffiti and trash.

Graffiti of deformed, fork-tongued ghouls reigning over this debris. Filthy beer cans and bottles, cigarette butts and empty packs, broken chrome and Styrofoam cups, human feces, crusty ‘slabs’ of underwear, ad nauseam.

Ejay’s telling the Pope they should get Pope’s old ‘beater’ truck and skedaddle. He’s expressing his fears about security at PARAGON, ‘things he’s heard’. According to Ejay, there’s a dangerous element there that ‘has it in for the Pope’.

Pope rasps, The truck’s parked down in the Market. Head drooping over his wine source. It’ll start. Good battery . . . . It’ll start . . . . Passed the safety inspection. Pausing. Deep phlegm-clogged cough. Spits out a thick ‘lunger’. I paid the guy to keep it there.

Ejay’s squinting down through the shifting planes of light swirling with floccule. The deformed graffiti Neanderthals, with long snaking tongues, to witness Ejay’s Janus-face. The hum and vibration of constant traffic overhead.

Let’s go Pope. I’ll drive.

My government money comes to my KC postal box whiz-bang.

You’ll get a box in St. Louis. We’ll come back and close out this one. Ejay’s voice gone to flat. Really flat . . . . Is that the key to your box, the one we went to that day? The key on the chain around your neck?

Pope nearly passed out, un huh.

Ejay and Pope are on their way east, out of KC . . . . Loan me your cap, Pope, ’til we get to St. Louis.

What for, you got ‘nuff’ charisma.

I don’t need a raccoon head logo ball cap for charisma Pope. I have to stop and get gas and more wine and whatever. I don’t want my face on the cameras.

Ejay gets the cap and pulls it down over his eyes. He stops for gas and again at a Lowe’s . . . . And then to Aldi’s. He stops at these several places. Carries his book-bag always. And has a shovel coming out of Lowe’s. Walks past a teenage girl passing the truck; she’s wearing a T-shirt, no bra, with the logo – ‘Yep, I Got The Virus’.

As they continue south on 13 Hwy, Pope asks, What the hell we going south for? Without the cap, the cross-tattoo glares out.

I’m going on backroads. Less bears.

We checked the headlights, taillights, brake lights, turn signals and every other gotdamn thing . . . . What are you up to? . . . Just so you know, I don’t like you wearing my cap.

I’ll give it back in St. Louis Pope . . . . The steering’s pretty loose.

What you expect in a truck with over one-hundred and sixty thousand miles Einstein? . . . And, WHY are we going south on 13?

I got some money hid, buried, out in the country, south of Warrensburg. We’re going to need it Pope.

Well, alright then. The truck rattling down 13. What about reporting to your parole officer?

Ejay twists his face towards Pope, holding the steering wheel with all these bandaged fingers. What parole officer Pope? Laughing out loud. He can go fuck himself.

And, what you buy a shovel for?

To dig up the money I’ve got stashed.

I gotta pee.

I’m turning back east right-there, on 2 Hwy, Ejay saying. I’ll pull over in a few minutes.

Ejay does pull over in a few minutes, onto a dark gravel road.

Pope opens his door and gets out, then reaches back into the cab under his seat.

Ejay grabs Pope’s wrist. What you doing wino? Go on now, take your pee.

The two men’s faces are lit up by the overhead dome light.

Pope’s face blank . . . analyzing Ejay’s face. Sobered. I got a gun under here for critters you know.

No critters here Pope. I’ll hold the gun, you take your pee. Ejay letting loose of Pope’s wrist.

While Pope is peeing longside the road, Ejay pulls the pistol out from under Pope’s seat, together with the sales receipt to Allen Pope and the proper registration. It’s a legal gun.

Ejay’s countenance is . . . thoughtful . . . . Positive, as the cat that just caught a mouse . . . . The legal gun is a lot better than the mouse . . . . Ejay slips the gun and paperwork under his seat as Pope approaches.

Standing his side of the beater pickup, Pope studying Ejay carefully, I’m out of wine.

Ejay pitches Pope’s empty wine bottle into the ditch weeds. Get in Pope, I got a surprise for you in my pack. Look in the pack!

They’re back moving on 2 Hwy, and Pope pulling a bottle of wine out. There’s two bottles. One’s still in there.

Ejay, There’s a corkscrew in there somewhere.

There’s corkscrews all over this cab Lancelot, searching the glove box.

Pope’s got the cork out and looking at the label under the dash light. Winking Owl.

Got that bottle of wine Pope for less than a gallon of unleaded premium. Same on the other one. A Chardonnay and a Cabernet.

Pope is holding the bottle up in the dark, studying the label with gaumy eyes.

The Chardonnay . . . . Who’s the Cabernet for?

"We’re going off-road to some rough land just ahead. In a few . . . .

The Cabernet is for me."

What’s in your pack Jay? It’s heavy, sitting here with the Chardonnay between his legs on the bench seat. He keeps his eyes to the front, looking ‘out there’ past the pad of headlight on the pavement.

I got rolls of wire Pope.

Ejay slowing down . . . . Brakes hard and turns onto a gritty rock road.

St. Louis, huh? Pope sighs. I was a mostly successful actuary, computing probabilities . . . . My last fortune cookie was missing the fortune . . . . Fuck!

Ejay’s paying Pope little mind. Very slowly creeping ahead on the dirty grayish trail/road. Turning headlights off.

The leopard cares nothing for the goat, huh Jay?

Enjoy our wine.

Pope slumping down To what end does this bring you Jay?

I need your identity, Ejay straining to see over the steering wheel.

No. NO . . . . Why do you need a new identity. You’re not wanted.

Coughing in a fit. You did your time . . . . Why?

Ejay continuing ahead. Into the hundreds of acres of jungle foliage pocketed with brush and shrouded ponds and lakes in the abandoned open-pit coal mining property. Window rolled down and the overwhelming din of wilderness – katydids, bullfrogs and the blanket of insect sounds. Nocturnal killing and dying sounds. Coyotes and owls.

Surrounded by this mammoth network of trail/roads and side trails.

I need your identity to settle an old account . . . . With a she-wolf named JINX. She killed my brother and put me in a cage for sixteen years . . . . She wiped-out my fortune.

You going to kill her too?

Not just her.

The Pope, in nauseous agony, in desperate wariness, "Who is she? . . .

Where is SHE?"

CHAPTER 2

SHE is out here on Hattie’s farm, drinking a warm tea from a wide mouth Ball jar, watching the fire. JINX ceased to exist on the 4th of July, 2001. Now, in this year of 2018, it’s Jo Ann Riley, and has been for almost seventeen years, ever since the marriage to Catcher and subsequent killing of Erik Starr on 4 July 2001.

It’s very late, the early dark AM, and it’s coolish; smelling of smoke and the leafy smell of green foliage recent cut. The fire snaps and pops and the cicadas and distant bullfrogs are raising a din. Leaping flames of fire and drifting specks of glowing ash zigzagging away in the upward drafts. Given the remoteness of the farm and the low level of light pollution, the night sky displays a gazillion glittering stars and the occasional shooting star. A crescent moon is also ‘up there’, as yellow as rich butter. Jo Ann’s twin sister, Nicole, is sitting alongside Jo Ann in an old lawn chair.

Jo Ann is now a part-time loan officer at the bank and remains married to Catcher. There has been a thawing of her ‘winter’ heart and somewhat of a metamorphic change in her personality over the years.

She’s a charter member of the Outliers’ Book Club, as is Catcher. Nicole pretty much tags along with Jo Ann ever since the twin’s divorce. She moved here, into Jo Ann’s shanty on the Little Niangua River. The twins (Jo Ann and Nicole) were born on 21 May, 1976; coincidentally under the third sign of the Zodiac. Gemini. ‘The Twins’. Nicole, not a ‘member’ of the Outliers’ Book Club, but a guest of Jo Ann’s. Guests are welcome to the quarterly meetings, and encouraged to read the selected book for said meetings.

The Outliers’ Book Club originated in the year 2002. About a year after the killing of Erik Starr on the