No Going Back Read Online Free PDF Page B

of people came into the restaurant, truckers, road workers, business people, the occasional family, but none of them were giving off the vibe I was seeking. I ordered more coffee and waited.
    My second coffee had become a muddy pool in the bottom of my mug by the time I saw some likely contenders stride in. There were three of them, two men and one woman, all of them high. The two men were rednecks, while the woman looked like she might have a little Navajo blood running through her veins, though I could have been wrong. She didn’t look like one of the noble savages of myth; she was pie-faced, with spindly limbs, and she tottered on red high heels. What made me think she might be of Native American ancestry was the dusky cast of her skin and the proud hawk-like nose. Nothing else about her was proud, in fact she looked like a skank. So for that matter did her male friends.
    They sat in a booth, demanding the waitress who couldn’t get away from them fast enough. The noise of their raucous laughter was harsh and aggressive, and I noticed that some of those customers nearest to them moved away or left the establishment altogether. I ordered a fresh coffee. Then I waited a bit more.
    Some time later, the woman got up and headed for the washroom. I let her go. The two rednecks paid their bill as noisily as they did everything else and went outside. I placed dollars on my table and followed them. As I left, I caught a glimpse of the old Navajo guy with the broom. He was just finishing a cigarette which he doused under his boot heel before flicking it into a dustpan with his brush. He looked once at me, then over at the two rednecks making their way across the parking lot to a souped-up first generation Camaro that was older than I was. He shook his head slowly as he mouthed something to me. ‘Good luck,’ I believe he said. Then, true to his word, he paid me no further heed and went off to find somewhere else to sneak a cigarette.
    One of the rednecks, a tall, skinny man with short cropped dark hair and moustache, leaned on the hood of the Camaro while his shorter friend decided to relieve himself against the kerb. Across the lot, a couple of truckers moved for their big rigs and one of them hooted at the pissing guy. The redneck hollered wordlessly, then wagged his penis at the men. All three laughed loudly. Scumbags, the lot of them. I moved towards the Camaro, casting an approving eye over it as it glistened redly under sodium lamps.
    The man leaning on the hood watched me approach. He wasn’t concerned. I was a lone man, my attention definitely on the car, and it was probably something he was used to.
    ‘Is that a nineteen sixty-seven first gen?’ I asked.
    ‘Sixty-eight, buddy,’ he corrected me, like I was about a million years out.
    ‘Wow,’ I said, leaning down to inspect the front grille, ‘you don’t see too many of these beauties these days. Not in this condition. Did you renovate it yourself?’
    ‘It belongs to my bro,’ he said, with a tip of his head to the stockier man. The other was just zipping up as he walked over. I grinned at him.
    ‘Man, I’d shake your hand,’ I said, nodding down at his fly, ‘but not yet, eh?’
    ‘What do you drive, buddy?’ The tall one asked, as he plucked an insect from his moustache and flicked it away.
    ‘Nothing as beautiful as a first gen.’ I jerked a thumb across the lot to where my GMC was parked. While I did so, I checked that their lady friend was still inside the building. Yes, she was a skank, but that didn’t mean I’d changed my opinion of the way women should be treated. I didn’t want her around if things turned awkward – a real possibility if I’d misread these men. Moving around the Camaro, I peered inside, not interested in it, but in what extras I might see. ‘I think we’re guys of a like mind. We have the same kind of tastes ?’
    The men shared a glance, then studied me keenly. They were probably deciding if they’d heard right and