Bags of Stone

By Mark Haugen

Bags Morton doesn’t have many friends, so he looks out for those he does have.

Johnny B. Stone is one of them. Johnny is mostly homeless, entirely harmless and relishes his friendship with Bags, the mostly-retired cop.

When two homeless people on the streets of Rapid City are found murdered, the local police suspect a serial killer. Johnny is sure of it. How does he know? Because he found a note in his rolled-up sleeping bag under the bridge. Bags is skeptical of the story, as Johnny is famous for his embellishments, and asks him what it said.

“I’m gonna kill you.”

Not a lot of wiggle room for misinterpretation.

Bags wonders if Johnny suspects anyone. Johnny pegs a six-ten, three-hundred-pound man with a shaved head and a machete.

Bags figures a man fitting that description shouldn’t be hard to find. He’s wrong and poses as a homeless man himself to try and find the killer.

On the side, Bags is also hired by the local roller derby team to find their unscrupulous manager who has absconded with their tournament entry fees.

As the paths between the two suspects cross, palms are greased, guns are fired, phones are lost, sex is had and Bags is in line to lose another appendage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Haugen
• Release date: Feb 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005909246

Mark Haugen

A fifth-generation South Dakotan, Haugen is a recovering journalist living in the Black Hills of South Dakota with his wife and two dogs: Huckleberry and Finn. Haugen is a former newspaper reporter, editor, sportswriter, publisher and award-winning columnist. He has lived throughout South Dakota - in Montrose, Canton, Sioux Falls and Valley Springs. He's worked at the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Tri-State Neighbor and owned the Tea & Harisburg Champion newspaper in Tea. In addition to several free-lance writing gigs, he also had brief forays across state lines and worked at newspapers in Windom and Luverne, Minn., and Rock Valley, Iowa. Haugen is also an avid runner and gardener.

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Bags of Stone

By Mark Haugen

Copyright 2020 Mark Haugen

Smashwords Edition

BAGS OF STONE

Chapter 1

I walked out of the Moonshine Bar at 11 with a 9. 

She might have been a 10 or possibly an 8, as I allow for the three-beer margin of error. I was damn well sure I wasn’t going to wake up the next morning and find she was a 2, as the old Johnny Paycheck song lamented. 

Some would say it is chauvinistic to rate women, and they might be right; but I figure the ladies do it too. If so, I’m guessing I came out the better on this deal, as I suppose I rough out to a 6 on the looks side, maybe a 7 with enough drinks. I raise my value though with a quick wit, dapper dress and a bad-boy aura many of the fairer sex seem to find appealing.

The first strike I have going against me physically is my eyes or, more precisely, the bags under them. They are much darker than those you see on people who got a bad night’s sleep. Mine look like I haven’t slept since I was 8. It’s a result of a kidney condition I had as a kid. Thus, the name Bags Morton. I could probably have some plastic surgery done to have them fixed, but then I’d be so damn good looking I’d be insufferable to be around.

The second strike against me is I only have one ear. Recently lost one thanks to a poor shooter who was aiming for my forehead. Fortunately, I don’t wear glasses. It does cause my fedora to sit at an angle, which is a roguish look some guys intentionally go for, but mine now comes naturally and adds a dash of debonair. So, I came out ahead on multiple fronts there.

Janet, the 9, was snuggled in tight under my arm, just the right height to make it work effortlessly. Her blonde head leaned on my shoulder and her sizeable bosom caressed my side intoxicatingly with each stride. 

Downtown Rapid City was hopping this cool August Saturday night, as college kids where back in town for the fall semester enjoying their freedom from the prying eyes of parents. Tourists still poured through, taking advantage of lower gas prices and burning off those last few vacation days from work to ogle the heads on Mount Rushmore. Even some aging Harley riders hung around from the recent Sturgis Rally.

Thus, there were plenty of heads turning to catch an inconspicuous glimpse of my beauty’s derriere as we passed on the sidewalk. My purple Miata convertible was parked a block away - the perfect car to take this angel to my home for a piece of heaven.

Then I thought I heard something. Sounded like a psst. I told myself I stepped on a locust. Then I heard it again, a bit louder. Psst. Janet heard it too and she lifted her head off my shoulder. We stopped and looked around. I used my available arm to free the little .45 I keep tucked away in a shoulder holster. We turned toward the alley we just passed and the noise got more specific.

Bags! Still quiet but more urgent. Come here.

You come out here, I said. 

After some shuffling of feet and the rattle of a bottle, out stepped Jonathan Bradford Stone, a man I knew well and who most people know as Johnny B. Stoned. It’s not just us; he even signs his emails that way.

Johnny lives on the streets most of the time. He wore a greenish camo jacket and dirty jeans. A late 40s white guy who looked late 50s, Johnny was a shade under six-foot, medium build with a beer belly and light brown hair in dreadlocks. He’d lived a hard-knock life and looked like he was staggering into the twelfth round.

Hey Johnny. What’s up? I said, not looking to start a long conversation, as was usually the case with him.

He shuffled over, looked my gal up and down, and said: Who’s the chick?

Friend of mine. Janet.

He stuck out a filthy hand and she wisely gave a tiny wave instead.

What ya need? I asked, handing him five bucks.

Ah, I don’t need that, he said, snatching it from my hand none-the-less. Some bad shit happening.

I’d heard so much of his paranoid delusional ramblings in the past to not give it as much concern as if somebody else had told me that. But I obliged him. Like what?

Somebody’s trying to kill me.

Janet put a hand over her mouth, shocked. I wasn’t.

Is it NASA again? Or still the Mormons?

No. The dude.

The Man?

No, the dude who killed the guy the other night.

I’d actually read about that in the newspaper. Three nights earlier a transient had been stabbed down by the homeless shelter. It got about two paragraphs on page 6B, as newspaper editors are the self-appointed arbiters of whose death is front-page news or not. If the guy had served two years in the state legislature forty years ago it would have been on the front page. That guy hadn’t, though probably would have been just as effective.

Are you sure, Johnny? He threaten you?

Left a note in my rolled-up sleeping bag under the bridge.

What’d it say?

I’m gonna kill you.

I guess you can’t really misinterpret that. Know what he looks like?

No. But I hear rumors. Mountain of a man, six-eight, maybe six-ten, over three-hundred pounds. Wild red eyes and a shaved head. Carries a machete.

Well, he shouldn’t be hard to find. Ever seen anyone like that around?

No. Just on TV.

My guess is somebody is just messing with you. Don’t go getting too worked up about it.

Too late. Already am.

"So why don’t you go stay with your