Chapter 8

On Sunday Johnny Malum believed that he had rid the world of one Trent Mason. The next night Johnny found out from the completely white clad Damon that the attempt had not been successful. Tuesday morning broke from the darkness and the previous night's rain without a cloud in the sky and yet someone was unhappy to be watching the sun come up. Johnny's large black sedan surged forth and the needle held steady at a brisk eighty-two miles an hour. After passing a police car headed in the opposite direction he checked his review mirror to see if the cruiser was turning around. What he saw in the mirror was not what he was expecting. "Don't worry about getting stopped. That's officer McDaniel and he is on the boss's payroll now. All he wanted in exchange for his soul was to be named police chief. Geeze....people will give their souls away for anything now-a-days. Boss was happy too. He needed somebody there since old what's-his-face died a couple of years ago. Anyway, I was riding with him when I spotted you," said Damon as if it were completely normal to show up in the back of someone's car out of no where. "What are you up to?" he added. "You know perfectly well what I'm up to," responded Johnny with as little feeling as he could muster. Johnny managed to keep his mouth shut for the remainder of the trip while Damon rattled on about how Johnny's grandfather had cheated someone "fair-and-square" out of the spacious property otherwise known as "The Old Malum Place." There was one part of the that story that Johnny always liked and it had to do with the children having to leave their beloved animals. "Children are pathetic," thought Johnny and admitted that Damon's particular retelling of that part was exceptionally enjoyable. "There is never time to do things right the first time, but there is always time to do things over," Johnny told himself as he pulled into the long drive that led to the property.