The following is an excerpt from my current work in progress, the sequel to my novel 24 Hours With Spencer Field. This is part of my effort this year in National Novel Writing Month. I would set up the scene for you, but you're just going to have to wait for the whole book to get that. Enjoy...
Ike, who wasn't normally one to stay put for very long, found himself hours later in an abandoned building in the Plainfield Warehouse District, about fifteen minutes west of the speedway. He had no recollection of how he had gotten there or why, or what he had done since arriving. He assumed that he had been sleeping for several hours, and that he had gone there to hide out after killing the police officer who had found him nosing around in Junior's truck.
"Junior," he hissed, for the first time realizing that it had been Junior's face he had stared into when their cars had collided on Tenth Street. "That little coward backed out on me!"
He stood from the cold concrete floor where he had been laying, his body stiff and sore from lying on the cold hard surface for so long. He stretched, and paced. "Why would he back out on me?" he asked himself.
"Little coward just didn't have the guts to go through with it, that's why," he answered.
"But why not?"
"Should have known he'd chicken out when you had to stop and give him a pep talk on the highway."
"Yeah, maybe you're right," he said, pacing left, and right, and left, and right, carrying on one end of the conversation or the other as he paced.
"He was always too much of a patriot, anyway, to actually believe that he could be turned on his own country."
"Maybe I should have offered him some of the money."
"Nonsense! That's our money!" he said.
"You mean my money," he corrected.
"Yours, mine, ours -- what's the difference? But now we got us a problem."
"I don't know, you really think so?"
"Of course I think so. He knows you didn't die in the explosions. He knows you weren't there. And since he built the bombs, he knows better than anybody just how the whole thing went down. He's probably running to the police right now and squealing like a stuck pig."
"No, not Junior," he said. "What's he gonna tell them, that he built the bombs for us, but because he chickened out and ran he isn't guilty?"
"If he can point the finger at you, that'll be worth quite a bit to the cops. They get the mastermind behind the whole thing, they'll be willing to deal a little."
"No, I don't think so. He ran. He ran for his life, and he knows that if he goes to the police, well, he would have been better off being blown to bits in that truck."
"So what then?" he asked. "He saw you, you know."
"He saw you, too."
"Good point."
He was silent for several minutes -- both of him -- while he continued to pace the floor of the warehouse.
"He'll be back, you know," he said finally, breaking the silence.
"Who, Junior?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, I know."
"So whatcha gonna do?"
"I'm gonna do what he should have done in the first place," he answered. "I'm going to wipe him from the face of the earth."
"Good plan."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Send me your comments. Joe
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