Goodbye Natalie
Chapter Six: Mississippi Mudcat Jones
Mudcat Jones came from humble beginnings. Truth be told, humble is a gross over statement. In Pittsburg, Mississippi, he was the youngest in a family of eight kids living in a two room shack with outdoor plumbing. None of the kids went to school and most days were spent picking cotton for three cents a day, or tending to wood chopping or livestock chores. When he was nine years old his grandfather hogtied a pig in the corner of the muddy pen, cut its guts open and shoved the boy’s arm up inside the squealing, horrified animal in order to wean Mudcat from any misgivings he might entertain in regards to having to do what’s necessary in order to survive. When Mudcat felt the still beating heart and the warmth of death, his own blood turned cold in that instant. What started out meant as a life lesson, turned into a life path.
Mudcat was a tough kid, you had to be in that environment. He got his name after a certain brand of particularly tough catfish that inhabited that section of the Mississippi River. In the rainy season the river would rise up and breach its banks, flooding the lowlands for miles. When the muddy waters receded, leftover pools would become the slowly evaporating deathtraps of displaced catfish. Evolution isn’t for the faint-hearted and some of the catfish adapted by burrowing deep into the soft mud and living off the tiniest bits of moisture and occasional rainfall. Months later, new families of fish would emerge in mud puddles after a shower, to the amazement of inlanders. But beware, these life hardened creatures who had known nothing but lean living would take a piece out of you if given half a chance. The same could be said for Mudcat Jones.
His first kill came at age twelve. He and a neighbor kid were playing guns in the woods. The neighbor had a BB gun , Mudcat had a .22 rifle. When he shot his playmate in the head, the boy died instantly. Mudcat ran home and told his mama, he was worried and wondering what to do. He was told very emphatically to, ...”Don’t never speak of this again.” Where Mudcat came from, a missing or dead child meant one less mouth to feed, there were no police reports, no death certificates, no investigation, no fall-out. The whole incident was a distant memory in a matter of days.
When Mudcat migrated to Los Angeles with his fleeing mother in the mid- sixties, he got caught up in neighborhood gang life quickly and readily. The Watts riots weren’t so much a civil tragedy and political statement as it was an opportunity for wild teens to run rampant and go crazy. Robbing, killing, setting fires everywhere...Mudcat had found his calling, he was a ruthless, emotionless, conscience-free killer and he thoroughly enjoyed it. You might say he took to it like a fish to water. Killing was as natural to him as it would be to a shark in the ocean or a lion in the jungle. To him, that’s exactly how it was, he was king of his own jungle. Over the next few years he tallied up an impressive kill list. His high school principal for one, not that he was trying to go to school, that was his mama’s idea. He’d been caught red-handed pulling the fire alarm in order to avoid going to class, like he did everyday. His remedy to avoid getting in trouble was to bash the principal’s head in with a rock. By luck, no one happened to see the assault, once again cold-blooded killing had paid off...there just didn’t seem to be a down side to ruthlessness. While at traffic court, Mudcat stabbed a guy to death in the bathroom for sixteen dollars, a watch and ring, then set the courthouse on fire. He followed another man from the cashier’s window at the racetrack into the bathroom and robbed and stabbed him to death. Why leave a witness when it’s just as easy to leave a body?
His first and second wives didn’t live to see their first anniversary. He beat a mother of three retarded kids senseless, bound and gagged her and dumped her in a trash bin in an alley, then set the bin ablaze for a twenty dollar debt.
His third wife had managed to survive the first years because she was nearly as cold-hearted as Mudcat. As a Licensed Vocational Nurse, she was familiar with insurance beneficiary payouts to survivors of the elderly and infirm. She’d conspire with family members of folks living in nursing homes, those standing to inherit life insurance claims. They’d hire Mudcat to hasten the inevitable demise of the insured, five to ten thousand was the usual fee. In South-Central L.A., as anywhere else, death is a part of life and somebody might as well profit from it. It was strictly business and that’s how Mudcat approached it. Life and living, death and killing, it’s all about the bottom line. If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.
When he noticed Joanie Kwan at Dragon Lady Bar, he was simply thinking in those terms. He immediately saw that she would be a serious money maker, with those looks and that body, he could put her on the street and expect nothing but green. She however, was cold to his advances. He knew he’d have to put some time into this project in order to catch his prey. He also knew that one way or the other, Kwan would be working for him soon enough. Even if he had to kidnap and drug her, get her strung out on heroin or pcp, she was gonna be his.
He’d seen Frankie Valentine working on her too, but in his mind Frankie was no competition. He weren’t no real pimp, he’d seen him work. Frankie was a sucker, he was the kind that would get emotionally attached, feelings involved. That’s the first and last rule of pimping or killing, do not let emotions get in the way, and no attachments. Once you got soft, or let em in, you’re the one getting pimped, or played, or dead. Mudcat had to tend business in Compton for a couple of days. The wife had set up an insurance claim with a co-worker whose elderly mother was leaving her a house and a big fat insurance check. The problem was, how to get the old lady out of the nursing home and make it look like an accident with no tie-in’s to the daughter. A problem easily enough solved. He’d arrange for the daughter to take the woman from the nursing home for a day trip. Then he’d meet them at a pre-determined location and make it look like a car-jacking or robbery. Shoot the old lady and bust up the daughter to make it look good. When they drove up to the spot though, the daughter apparently had gotten cold feet and tried to call the hit off. Mudcat didn’t like complications and ended up killing both women, unfortunate for them and fiscally tragic for Mudcat. He managed to cut his losses by selling the car to the salvage yard but time spent and profits minimized left him in a foul mood. When he returned to Dragon Lady and saw that Frankie had moved in on Joanie Kwan, he saw red.
Now, Kwan was always sitting with Frankie, he wasn’t paying for drinks, when they left it was together. Well, old Mudcat knew how to deal with side- busters, quick and easy. He found out where Frankie holed up in the daytime and when he burst through the door of the cardiac nurse’s apartment, he was more than willing to leave no witnesses. The naked, screaming nurse was no obstacle, but by the time he got to the bedroom, Frankie had jumped through the window for a narrow escape. By the time Mudcat got down the apartment building stairs, Frankie had a good half block lead on him, but Mudcat had a bead on his route and was in hot pursuit. It reminded him of the old days back in the Mississippi woods, tracking coon or rabbit, only this kind of tracking was more interesting and rewarding for him. He liked the idea that his quarry was a thinking man, had enough gumption to make a hasty retreat, not just be lying there like a coward sheep.
About three minutes into the chase, Mudcat wasn’t so optimistic. Years of drinking and smoking had taken their toll and his breathing was heavy and labored. He’d nicked his arm on some loose debris in a trash bin and the wound had only intensified his bloodlust and determination to catch Frankie. Across Western, down to Wilshire, into the business district. This was a whole new kind of tracking for Mudcat. He guessed Frankie thought getting into a busy area with lots of people around was gonna save him. Mudcat knew it wouldn’t. He didn’t give a damn who was around, Frankie Valentine was through with money, his time had come. Mudcat knew through experience that most folks weren’t about to get involved, and as long as there weren’t no policemen around, he’d take care of business and hop on a bus headed down Normandie. Fifty or so blocks south and he’d be on his home turf and ain’t nobody gonna be able to find him there. They’d be looking for a tall Black man in non-descript clothes with a mean look on his face, good luck.
As he entered the office building and scanned the heavily waxed floor therein, he easily noticed the few blood droplets that gave away Frankie’s route. He slid behind the elevators and calmly descended the stairs to the corridor beneath the buildings. The blood trail led to a set of doors at the far end of the hallway. This one wasn’t going to be for the money, this one was for respect, and revenge. He had Frankie trapped like a field mouse in the corner of an old barn. He’d seen how the big barn owls would swoop and confuse the little critters till their hearts nearly pounded out of their chests, jumping and running in circles, always ending up getting themselves cornered. Mudcat shook his head, shame, they always thought hiding was the best way out when he knew you kept running, you always kept running and don’t look back. You gotta look forward and not back. Looking back’s what gets you caught. He eyed the blood drops leading directly into the locked gym. He quickly looked around to make sure they were alone. He was gonna enjoy this.
