The Car Bomb (The detroit im dying Trilogy, Book 1)
Read The Car Bomb (The detroit im dying Trilogy, Book 1) Online
Authors: T.V. LoCicero
Tags: #thriller, #crime, #suspense, #murder, #corruption, #detroit, #bribery, #tv news, #car bomb
NOVELS
The Obsession (The Truth Beauty Trilogy, Book 1)
The Disappearance
(The Truth Beauty Trilogy, Book 2)
Admission of Guilt (The
detroit im dyin
Trilogy, Book 2)
NON-FICTION BOOKS
Murder in the Synagogue
Squelched: The Suppression of
Murder in the Synagogue
STORIES
A Round with J.C.
Fixed
Shrunk
The Jungle Plant
The Visit
MEMOIRS/ESSAYS
Selling the Bison
The Lessons of Sport
THE CAR BOMB
T.V. LoCicero has been writing both fiction and non-fiction across five decades. He's the author of the true crime books
Murder in the Synagogue
(Prentice-Hall), on the assassination of Rabbi Morris Adler, and
Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue
. His novels include
The Car Bomb
and
Admission of Guilt
, the first two books in The
detroit im dyin
Trilogy, and
The Obsession
and
The Disappearance
, the first two in The Truth Beauty Trilogy. Seven of his shorter works are now available as ebooks. These are among the stories and essays he has published in various periodicals, including Commentary, Ms. and The University Review, and in the hard-cover collections
Best Magazine Articles, The Norton Reader
and
The Third Coast
.
By T. V. LoCicero
The
detroit im dyin
Trilogy
Book 1
The Car Bomb
by T. V. LoCicero
Copyright 2013 by T. V. LoCicero
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information on this and other works by T.V. LoCicero please visit:
For Patrick
Table of Contents
An excerpt from Book 2 of The detroit im dyin Trilogy: Admission of Guilt
detroit im dyin
only come here on a dare
detroit im dyin
dont you even fuckin care
--Detroit Street Grafitti, early 1990s
On a clear, bright, early evening in May, 1992, in a westside Detroit neighborhood lined with weathered ‘50s colonials, squat, swarthy Arnold Russo, his eye to the Panasonic’s viewfinder, backed off a low slab porch onto his neatly kept front lawn. Out of the front door came a teenaged couple, Jeff in a white tux and pink ruffled shirt, Jill in a Portofino blue prom dress with spaghetti straps that kept falling.
Arnold said, “Okay, natural now! Walk to the right.”
Holding hands, the couple moved off the porch to their right.
“
No, no, to the right, for chrissake!” Arnold dipped the camera from his eye to function as an exasperated director, then remembered he was his own camera operator.
Jill whined, “We did go right, Daddy.”
Arnold barked, “Jesus, high school graduates!”
“
Daddy, you’re swearing on the tape!”
Arlene, tall and bony thin, and Mikey, a ten-year-old version of Arnold, came out on the porch. The wife rolled her eyes. “Oh, right, Mister Hollywood.”
“
Yeah, someday you’ll thank me.” Arnold shot the couple posing now on the cracked driveway. “Jesus, do somethin’. It’s movin’ pictures.”
Jill again with the whine: “Mom, tell him to stop.”
Arnold said, “Mikey, get in there and do something with your sister.”
Off the porch, Mikey ran to the couple and tried to stand on his head.
Jill stamped her foot. “Mom!”
“
Arnold, this is getting ridiculous.”
Behind the teen couple, two doors up the street, a young black woman emerged from a house with two small children. They headed for an old maroon Dodge on the street.
Noticing her neighbors, the woman stopped and called, “Oh, let me see, honey. Twirl that pretty dress.”
Pleased, Jill did a spin. “Hi, Mrs. Peoples. Hi, kids.”
Her mom on the porch and Juanita Peoples exchanged waves. Arnold kept the camcorder rolling.
Juanita said, “Beautiful, honey. We’re in a rush, or I’d get my camera too.”
A last wave and she hustled her little boy and girl into their car seats in the Dodge and slipped behind the wheel. Arnold was still shooting the teen couple with the Peoples’ car behind them.
Juanita turned the ignition, and with a huge percussion that Arnold felt in the chest, the Dodge became a fireball.
“
Oh, Jesus, God!” He flinched yet kept the camera in front of his eye as a kind of shield from the furious orange flames. Jill uttered a high-pitched scream, but it was nearly lost in the roar of the raging fire. Jeff held her tightly in his arms as they both turned away, and Arlene grabbed little Mikey and yanked him back toward the house.
Thick black smoke was billowing now from the burning wreckage and heading up. As it reached the top branches of the giant Dutch Elms lining the street, a breeze began moving it off above this rustbelt metropolis going about its business, oblivious to what Arnold had just recorded.
Within 10 minutes, the leading wisp of smoke was high above a red Viper convertible moving in the same direction.
At the wheel of this “Buy American” roadster was Frank DeFauw, 48, tanned, sandy-haired, and dressed expensively in a navy suit and Caribbean blue tie. Frank knew his face showed more than a little mileage, although that young gal with the local monthly wrote last week that it still owned a “charismatic edge.” A glance at it in the rear view mirror told him again that she was sweet. And full of shit.