Murdertrain
Murdertrain is a gritty pulp crime novella that follows Bo “Murdertrain” Hoskins, a wrestler-turned-mob enforcer who’s been given a week by his employers to find his missing brother in Honolulu, Hawaii. With the mysterious Honda brothers at his side, he crawls the sleaziest nightclubs, tiki bars and roach motels, looking for a clue as to his brother’s fate and crossing every would-be gangster, hired muscle and dangerous femme fatale on the island of Oahu. Ultimately, it’s a story about a man looking for peace after nearly 20 years of violence, trying to reconnect with a brother he’s lost touch with and finding out the real brothers are the men he bled with, ending with a last-ditch effort to undo the damage he’s done.
I miss it. The pain. The blood. Hiding the blades in my wraps. The cheers and the jeers. People knew me. Even if they hated me, they knew me. People know me now, but it’s different. Once in a while, when I’m bouncing for Sammy Nosh or Jimmy Hooknose in Vegas, some bright-eyed young Turk’ll recognize me from my glory days, ask for a photo, a handshake, a playful headlock. “I saw you at Madison Square Garden, you went the fuckin’ distance, Train!” they’ll say. I’ll smile and thank them and wish them well. Tell them to get married and have beautiful kids on my behalf. Keep their kids outta trouble. Keep them away from the ring. Teach them how to love.
Continue Reading Chapter 1
I wake up to the profoundly pleasant sensation of some asshole slapping me in the face. The first thing I notice are my arms are bound up. I think I’m in a chair. And I’m partially clothed, as though the guys that did it gave up halfway through. I’m in a dark room with just one light hanging over me. In the shadows I see some faces, but I can’t quite make them out. Benny drugged me. I know that groggy feeling anywhere.
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We pull up to a rundown tiki-themed roach motel on the coast, some miles up from the Army base. It’s a local hangout, no tourists with any self-respect would be caught dead here. Eddie gets out and goes into the front office. Pick and I sit in the car for a couple of minutes, Pick smoking Pall Malls, and the two of us listening to Elvis on the 8-track. Long live the King.
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The water is getting into my nostrils, so I turn my face upward as best I can and try to prop my head up. The trunk is filling up fast. My hands feel around underwater for a crowbar, a tire iron, a bat, anything at all. Nothing doing. I close my eyes and punch the door above me. I punch it again, feeling one of my fingers crack. Both hands go up and hit it again, big gulps of sea water filling my cheeks and washing down my throat.
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We get into the home stretch, my face is busted open, he’s got some serious welts on his chest from some chops I gave him, and we pull the old “knock out the referee” trick. I pull out a pair of brass knuckles I had tucked into my trunks, hold them up to show the crowd, who boo instantly, and go to slip them on. At that moment, just like we planned, Donnie pulls them out of my hands, but “accidentally” hit’s the ref behind him in the process. The ref goes down, all according to plan. Now it’s my turn to take advantage and get in some cheap shots on Donnie, putting him down just in time for the ref to “wake up” and count the pin.
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With Eddie’s help, anybody could fool the cops and newspapers. By the time I wake up tomorrow, there’ll be an obituary for me in the morning edition, planted there by one of his buddies. They’ll probably even have a John Doe filling in for me at the morgue. I imagine you could do the opposite when you find, say, Donnie Hardy’s body on the beach and not want anybody to know about it. A cover-up.
Continue Reading Chapter 6
“Haskewicz,” I hear the voice on the other end say. The only people that call me that are my boss, Sammy, and the Feds. I’d say I could tell which one this was by the tone, but frankly, they all sound like assholes to me. I take a chance that it’s the former and not the latter.
Continue Reading Chapter 7
I slowly creep up to the door and listen for movement. I hear footsteps. One guy. Not very heavy, either. In fact, sounds pretty small. My guess is Pick figured out he didn’t finish the job and now he’s looking for me. I slip off my sandals, and, sunglasses still on, I grip the trowel in my left hand and push the door open further, stepping as slowly and lightly as possible into the living room.
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Cheese-nose and Martin look at each other and then the former gets out of the car. I see they actually listened to me and are both dressed a little more casual, or island-friendly, I guess. It dawns on me that I still don’t know cheese-nose’s name. I’ve seen both them around the casino on occasion, but we never talked to each other. Blame it on my intimidating demeanor, I suppose.
Continue Reading Chapter 9
My right fist plows through the first guy’s face, turning his nose into a busted tomato. The second guy jumps at me while pulling out his gun, but my left hand clutches at his fancy silk tie and I toss him through the glass door behind me. Within seconds, more men come pouring out of the hallway ahead, brandishing revolvers, knives, and tough-guy looks, but Garfield is already unloading lead into anybody and everybody he looks at. I run at the mob full speed, sending fists through faces and carving a path to the hallway. A knife grazes my cheek as I claw a chunk of some guy’s trachea out of his throat with my bare hand. I grab a hold of the hand attached to the knife and snap the wrist with ease. The owner of both the knife and the wrist cries out and runs off, probably pissing his shorts.
Continue Reading Chapter 10
I’m woken up by a loud pounding at the front door. Half awake, I stumble out in my boxers and a too-small robe and open the door. The sun nearly blinds me. Eddie and Mitchell are there. Eddie is holding up a big yellow envelope.
Continue Reading Chapter 11
“Or she’s part of it. It’s the most basic mistake a guy like me can make right now, trusting a gorgeous broad. You’d think I’d have read enough dime novels as a kid to learn that shit.”
Continue Reading Chapter 12
Mitchell sets up a boat for us and tells us it’ll be ready at dusk. We’ll go over in the cover of night. Him, me, Eddie. We decide to go back to Alison’s so I can grab a few last minute items, and because I have a feeling Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum from the home office will be waiting for me. More loose ends that need tying up. Since Pick didn’t kill me, now it’s their job.
Continue Reading Chapter 13
“Yeah. You mind if I…?” I gesture to another barstool off to the side. He nods and I pull it over and sit down. “I’m gonna tell you a story, Kim-ssi. Something not a lot of people know, because I don’t like talking about it.”
Continue Reading Chapter 14
I get back to the house for some relaxation before I’m supposed to meet Eddie and Mitchell at the harbor. Once inside, I kick off my shoes and begin the slow process of undressing myself. My collar unbuttoned, I pour myself some scotch on the rocks and take a long sip at the kitchen counter. I amble to the record player and pick out a Roy Orbison record. I never got much into country, but Roy always helped me unwind.
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Eddie turns off the motor and eases the boat around a cove, letting momentum and the tide land us on beach under the cover of palm trees. We each grab a duffel and slink out, running into the trees. Mitchell hands Eddie the second shotgun while I grab my kitchen tools and a couple of hand grenades, which I clip onto a bundle of rope I have slung over my shoulder. We’re all dressed in black, like a bunch of spies or some shit, with knit caps and thin sweaters. The cap itches my scalp, and while I scratch around my fingers notice how thick my beard has grown already. I’m like a goddamned G.I. Joe doll.
Continue Reading Chapter 16
My ears ring and I feel warm blood start to trickle down my neck and parts of my back. I lift my face and look in Eddie’s direction, and he’s already up on the corner of the deck unloading shells through the big window into the guy that was aiming his gun at Alison, but it doesn’t quite register. My head is just a big, empty cavity, and nothing makes any sense. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment.
Continue Reading Chapter 17
I throw one sword like a javelin at Donnie, grazing his right ear and cheek. He sees me, and his face contorts into an ugly mix of rage and confusion. He swings the gun on its mount and begins firing at me, but by now I’m too close to him. I grab a ninja and throw the guy at the gun, knocking Donnie over and stopping the gunfire. For the brief moment I have, I leap up onto the railing and climb over, onto the deck. As my feet hit the wooden boards below them, Donnie is already back up with his Magnum ready. The remaining Yakuza suits are already making their getaway out the back of the house. I don’t care about them.
Continue Reading Chapter 18
I swing one hand and knock him off my chest and into the damp sand next to me, closer to the rising tide. I take a long breath and feel my chest pound. My knees snap and crackle as slowly I get back on my feet. I feel clumps of sand sticking to all of my wounds. I feel the cleaver in my back pocket, but I can’t use it. Not on him.
Continue Reading Chapter 19
I’m driving up the coast on Maui. It’s been a week or so after getting out of the hospital. I’m driving a pretty nice Dart Swinger I bought used on the big island with some money from Kim. He’s been pretty gracious about how I set him up. Everything moves pretty smoothly on his end. The Japs are off licking their wounds and rethinking their Hawaii strategy, and Kim’s pretty much taken over everything Chin used to run. Now it’s just Koreans instead of Chinamen. He’s sitting pretty now. He even put me on the payroll to do pretty much whatever I want, which, right now, is nothing. I’ve been beating people senseless for most of my life, it’s time to take a vacation. After that, I’m not totally sure.
Continue Reading Chapter 20
