"Purge the Evil" - a novel

by Bill Dunn

(Note: this is a work-in-progress attempt at writing a novel. Feedback, critiques, plot suggestions are more than welcomed.)
 

CHAPTER 1

Sunday, October 24th, 1:50 a.m.

“Last call!” the bartender yelled. “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

Eddie Dykes glanced up from his barstool perch and looked at the clock next to the TV. Almost 2 a.m.!, he thought to himself. Oh man, Cheryl’s gonna kill me!

Two hours earlier, when Game One of the World Series ended, the Spigot Café had been packed. But now only a handful of tipsy stragglers remained. Eddie cursed the TV set. “It’s that damn ESPN’s fault,” he muttered. “They keep running highlights of the game and I keep watching, and the next thing you know, it’s closing time.”

Eddie quickly gulped the remainder of his 14th beer, and then slowly slipped off the barstool, steadying himself for a moment before making a slow, zig-zagging journey toward the exit. Hammered again, he thought. When am I gonna stop doing this?

As he climbed behind the wheel of his pickup truck, Eddie’s thoughts turned from his sure-to-be angry girlfriend Cheryl to a more pressing concern: how to make the two mile trip from the Spigot Café to his house without being pulled over by the cops. Eddie Dykes was all too familiar with that scenario. How many times had he been arrested for D.U.I.? He wasn’t quite sure. The first two times, the charges were dropped after I went to “Drunk School,” he thought with a smile, remembering that he had been drunk at many of the “Drunk School” classes. But at least three other D.U.I.’s are on my record, he thought as his smile disappeared, including the last one only four months ago, when he somehow avoided jail time since, as his lawyer had pleaded to the judge, no one got hurt. Eddie was not eligible to have a valid driver’s license, however, for at least another three years.

Eddie slowly pulled onto Prospect Avenue, looking in all directions for any sign of a dreaded Crown Victoria. Since the time he first started mixing drinking and driving at the age of 16, almost two decades ago, Eddie could spot the official law enforcement vehicle-of-choice a mile away.

Turning right onto Boulevard, Eddie was thankful there were almost no other cars out at that late hour. He was halfway home and felt a little bit more relaxed. He prided himself on being able to drive in a fairly straight line even when he was plastered. “A lot of practice,” he always bragged to his drinking buddies. Eddie looked down and noticed his speed was about 20 mph. Ooh, too slow for a 35 mph zone. Eddie knew that driving too slow could attract a cop’s attention at 2 a.m. just as much as weaving back and forth. He gradually increased his speed to about 30 mph. OK, that’s better.

When Eddie glanced again in the mirror, he gasped. There it was: the unmistakable silhouette of a Crown Victoria, following about a block behind him. Eddie stared straight ahead, focusing every bit of inebriated concentration he could muster on the task of driving straight and smooth. He felt his hands getting clammy. Sweat began to form on his forehead. Don’t panic, don’t panic. You haven’t done anything suspicious…yet. Dreading what he might see this time, Eddie looked up at the mirror and saw that the Crown Vic remained about a block behind.

He’s not after me, he’s just on routine patrol, Eddie encouraged himself. Probably looking for a late night doughnut shop. Just drive straight and everything will be fine.

Well before the intersection of South Quaker Lane, Eddie flipped on his right-hand turn signal. I never use that when I’m sober, he noted. He took the turn smoothly, although a bit slower than he would have liked. Almost home! A left and then a quick right and I’m safe.

Eddie looked up and was horrified to see the Crown Vic also take the turn onto South Quaker. Oh no! Oh God, please help! Eddie was desperate. He knew another D.U.I. would put him in a world of trouble—maybe even prison. Again signaling long before the turn, Eddie steered his pickup left onto Kingswood. He took the first right onto his own street, Lancaster Road, and almost hit a parked car while looking frantically in the mirror. He accelerated down the center of the narrow road toward his house, one of many two-family structures in the residential neighborhood.

A common driveway separated Eddie’s house from the neighboring home, with each building having a detached garage in back. Just before turning left into his driveway, Eddie saw the Crown Victoria turn onto his street behind him, about half a block back. Eddie pulled into the driveway quickly and drove between the two houses. As he approached the garage in back, he turned off his headlights and coasted in the dark. Eddie desperately wished that he and his pickup truck somehow could become completely invisible.

Just as the truck came to a stop a few feet in front of the garage door, the front bumper banged into a steel garbage can, spilling its contents onto the driveway with a resounding clang. Damn!! Eddie groaned, his whole body cringing. He put the truck into park, turned off the ignition, and lunged into the passenger seat out of view. Off in the distance, a dog started barking in response to the metallic clang echoing throughout the neighborhood.

Eddie peeked through the back window of the truck cab just in time to see the Crown Victoria glide by and continue down the street. He breathed a monumental sigh of relief. Then his thoughts turned to Cheryl, asleep—hopefully—in their second floor apartment. Eddie looked up at the bedroom window. No lights were on. I don’t think the garbage can woke her up, he thought, more wishful than certain.

Cheryl doesn’t deserve this, Eddie thought. I don’t know why she doesn’t just leave me. Eddie had a point. It was Cheryl’s steady paycheck that paid the rent and bought the groceries. Eddie’s employment history was far too sporadic and unreliable. Besides, whatever money he did earn, he spent on legal fees and beer. He shook his head, disgusted at himself. I don’t deserve her. Not at all.

While Eddie thought about Cheryl, he did not notice the Crown Victoria had pulled to a stop alongside the curb about three houses down the street. A man in a dark baseball cap and blue windbreaker jacket quietly got out of the car and walked toward Eddie’s house.

Eddie exited his pickup truck via the passenger side and gently pushed the door closed as quietly as possible. The distant dog had stopped barking and Eddie marveled at the absolute silence in his neighborhood. He took a wobbly step toward the street, heading for the side entrance door of the house, and realized that he was still very drunk.

When Eddie was a few steps away from the door, he looked up and froze in surprise. A man stood at the end of the driveway by the sidewalk. The dim glow of a faraway street light allowed Eddie to see that the man had on a dark baseball cap, pulled low over his eyes. Both of the man’s hands were in the pockets of his jacket. Eddie could not see the man’s face.

Eddie’s mind raced in confusion. This is a safe neighborhood, he thought. We don’t have any gang-bangers or muggers around here. This is West Hartford, for God’s sake. Besides, that guy isn’t dressed like a gang-banger. He’s, like, middle-aged, or something.

The man raised his head slightly, and in a low voice said, “Excuse me. I’m trying to find Trout Brook Drive. Is it this way, or that way?”

The man pointed this way and that way by nodding his head left and right. His hands remained in the jacket pockets.

A wave of relief flooded over Eddie. I’m not getting mugged. And no D.U.I. either. This is my lucky night. Eddie stepped toward the man and whispered, “OK, this is what you wanna do.” Even while whispering, his words were slurred. “You head straight out here to the end of the street.” He gestured with his left hand as he spoke. The man walked a couple of steps toward Eddie, listening intently.

“That brings you to Farmington Avenue. Then take a left on Farmington,” Eddie continued to whisper. “And you just follow it down about half a mile and you’ll reach Trout Brook.”

When he said, “…follow it down…” Eddie waved his left arm in a wide sweeping motion, turning his whole body to the side. As he gazed off into the darkness, envisioning Trout Brook Drive a half mile away, the man slid his right hand out of the windbreaker’s pocket, and in a smooth, quick motion, raised a silver .32 caliber revolver to arm’s length and fired one shot, point blank, into Eddie’s head just above the right ear.

Eddie Dykes was dead even before his face hit the driveway with a thud. The firecracker-like pop echoed through the still night sky. In the distance, the same dog barked at this new noise.

The man in the windbreaker crouched down beside Eddie’s body and listened for any other sounds. He glanced around to see if any bedroom lights turned on. Within seconds he was satisfied that nothing, beside the dog, had stirred.

With the gun safely tucked back into the windbreaker, the man reached under Eddie’s body and with his left hand, clad in a tight leather glove, shoved two glass vials of cocaine and a $100 bill into the front pocket of Eddie’s jeans. Then the man stood up, looked around once again, and walked quickly and silently down the sidewalk. He slipped into the Crown Victoria and slowly pulled away from the curb. The car reached the end of the block and turned right. Only then did the driver finally turn on the car’s headlights.

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©2009