Murder on the Rails by William Palmini

Author:William Palmini [Lt. Palmini, William G. Jr.; Chalupa Tanya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780882824468
Publisher: New Horizon Press

12

Two Deadly Scorpions

“It’s a dangerous group.”

Robert Joseph Silveria, Jr.

Silveria was still in Oregon while the investigation into William Pettit’s murder was escalating. He had arrived in Eugene from Klamath Falls at nightfall. He was looking for a train to hop that eventually would take him to Montana. Walking up towards the middle bridge in the rail yard with all his gear stacked on his back, he saw in the distance three men he recognized: Doc, Shaggy and Bam Bam. The latter was a Home Guard, one of the homeless who live and work in missions. They can be feisty and overbearing, but the FTRA call them pussies behind their back. As one soft core FTRA told me, “They can talk the talk, but can’t walk the walk.” Yet Bam Bam appeared happy to see Silveria, asking him where he had been.

The fourth man in the group was a stranger to Silveria. He looked to be no more than a kid in his mid-twenties, but he was exceptionally tall, towering over all the others. His blond mohawk accentuated his slender frame. Silveria noticed that the back of the young man’s head beneath the mohawk was braided with strands of gypsy beads like Pettit’s, only with shorter strands. This guy’s hair was closely shaved on both sides above his ears and on one side, a tattoo of double lightning bolts was clearly visible. Some Elvis fans may take the tattoo to mean TCB, “Taking Care of Business,” but in prison warfare it signifies a “hit” on a minority person. It’s part of the Aryan Brotherhood pride in prison. One has to earn the double lightning bolts tattoo before it can be worn.

The blond kid’s name turned out to be Mikey. He had a ten-inch knife in a sheath strapped to his leg. Silveria later learned that Mikey also carried a machete in his backpack. When Silveria walked up to the bridge, Mikey had just finished tattooing Bam Bam’s forearm with a drawing of two crossed railroad tracks. The Home Guard was very proud and showed it off to Silveria. Silveria thought the men in the circle under the bridge appeared to have been drinking or involved in some other form of chemical recreation, but he wasn’t sure. He was still feeling the effects of heroin he took earlier himself, but while he felt high, he also felt tired.

Bam Bam soon announced he wanted Silveria to be a witness to a business transaction between him and Mikey. “Look,” Bam Bam said, “I’m going to trade a sleeping bag with Mikey.”

Silveria, with his back and shoulders finally free from the gear he had dropped next to his feet, shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Bam Bam was cautious. “Now look, I want you to witness this, because I don’t want anyone to think this wasn’t a fair deal.” Stealing is often punishable by death along the rails and he didn’t want anyone in the mission complaining to Silveria or his buddies that he cheated an FTRA member out of a good sleeping bag.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.