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Chapter 16

(I)

Next morning, the morning of Christmas Eve, the day shone unusually bright. Downtown, shoppers emerged en masse, and holiday Muzak could be heard all up and down Main Street. “Silver bells, silver bells, it’s Christmas time in the city…” The season was in the air.

But not in the heart of Deputy Chief Dood Malone.

He listlessly rode shotgun as Boover drove the squad car. Before the Target, a Salvation Army Santa Claus was “Ho-ho-ho!”-ing and ringing his bell. He paused, then rubbed his crotch for no apparent reason. Traffic was rife, and even this early, the parking lots were filling up. Half-heartedly, Malone commented, “Well, looks ta me like the econner-mee’s doin’ just fine. Damn lotta folks out shoppin’, spendin’ money—”

Boover winced. “Shit, Chief! A’course they’se spendin’ money—stimulus money. Dang Obama’s given the whole country’s financial future away just so’s he can get his popularity up. Chief, all the Treasury’s doin’ is printin’ up more’n more cash and shovelin’ it out the door. It’ll kick inflation sky fuckin’ high, it will, and take decades ta bring ‘er back down. Meanwhile, Obama’s on Letterman smilin’ away’n promisin’ a college ed-jur-kation fer every punk kid who slides through high school. We gotta pay fer that, Chief. We—”

“I don’t wanna hear no more!” Malone gruffed.

They cruised out of the shopping sector and were soon headed down less gainly avenues.

Few words could describe Malone’s state of mind just then. Dolorous, perhaps. Disconsolate…

Boover sensed his superior’s tamped mood. “How’s about some music, Chief? A little livenin’ up’s what ya need,” and he switched on the radio:

“—punky, a que-unky runky—pee, que, are!—sunky, you tunky you-unky—”

“Jesus, Boover!” Malone yelled and switched it off. “I dont’s need ta hear that on Christmas Eve, ‘specially when we’se…” He never finished the sentence.

“You’se worried ’bout the mutt, huh, Chief?” Boover thumbed a cue-ball-sized wad of tobacco into his mouth. “Who knows? Maybe the dog-killer left town. Maybe he got hisself kilt in a drive-by. And maybe, just maybe, li’l Buster’s jumpin’ ’round in the yard right now…”

My God, I’se hope so…

They slowed past the house, then stopped. Malone jumped out while Boover followed more leisurely, and said, “I’ll meet ya inside.”

The chief rushed to the fence, whistling, and yelled, “Buster! Buster! You still here?”

Silence.

Buster was no longer in the yard, which could only mean…

Aw, sweet Jesus…

“Hey, Chief!” Boover called. He was already in the house. Malone shuffled in, head down, hands in pockets.

“It’s bad news for Buster, but good news for us,” Boover said at the kitchen table. He was finnicking with the stop-frame camera.

“With my luck, that dang thing didn’t even work, and Buster died fer nothin’…”

“Have faith, Chief. Look,” and Boover pointed to the tiny, auxiliary play-back screen atop the machine.

Malone squinted.

In the lit yard, in stop-motion, a shifty-looking short-haired Hispanic man was carrying Buster off. His t-shirt appeared to bear the image of Al Pacino holding an M-16. The man grinned satanically (the Hispanic, not Al Pacino). Buster wagged his tail-stump and happily licked his abductor’s face. Before the man proceeded out of frame, his angle afforded the camera a perfect front-on shot of his face.

“There he is, Chief,” Boover nodded. “Looks like we caught ourselfs the puppy-killer…”

(II)

At nine o’clock in the morning, Helton, Micky-Mack, and Dumar awoke, but they were disconcerted to see that Veronica had not. Helton, knowing the toll the last few days had taken, refrained from waking her. In the meantime, he figured that the best tactic now would be simply to devise a way of finding Paulie, and confronting him. The prospect of another trip to New York unsettled him mightily. Helton suspected that after seeing the next video, Paulie would assuredly seek some mode of extreme retaliation—therefore, Paulie would return to the area if he hadn’t remained here in the first place. “It works ta our advantage, boys ’cos, see, we know that Paulie’s drivin’ ’round in a big fancy white motor-home on account that’s what Cork McKellen’s kid tolt us. We know what Paulie drives but he don’t know what we drive.” “Yeah, Paw,” Dumar concurred. “All’s we gotta do is drive around till we see that big fancy white motor-home.” “Cain’t be many’a them around,” Micky-Mack deduced and rubbed his crotch. Hence, the current plan of action, but Helton deemed it imperative that Paulie get the next video file soon and, regrettably—and conveniently for the author—-it wasn’t till past seven in the evening that Veronica finally roused from a shock-spurred, semi-catatonic slumber. Her eyes remained wide and glassy, her mouth hung open. Helton was very concerned but he trusted that his prayers would make it so that this current state of being “all fucked up in the head on account‘a that movin’ picture I’se made her watch” would remedy itself in time. A psychiatrist would likely label her symptoms as “abulia-related indifference with evidence of facial-affect disorder, acute agnosia, and trauma-induced prosopagnosia,” but “all fucked up in the head” worked much better. The only word she seemed to ever say was the name “Mike”; all other responses were subverbal, nodding for yes, shaking her head for no. She did remain “reactively compliant,” however, and retained her ability to take transitive action via verbal commands from others. For instance, whenever Micky-Mick asked, “Hey, Veronnerka? Will you show me that there hum-dinger set of tits’a yers?” she would nod and pull her top up. When Dumar asked, “Hey, Veronnerka? How’s ’bout holdin’ my dick fer me whilse I pee?” she nodded and held it, and when Helton quietly asked, “Veronnerka? How’s ’bout sendin’ Paulie the movin’ picture we made last night? That all right with you?” she nodded, eyes staring, and in a short period of time managed to turn on her laptop and get online. Then Helton offered her the “doohickey,” and in an autonomic state, she emailed the digital video file to Paulie…

(III)

Case Piece was making the scene with Sung. They bought Grape Slushes from an inexplicably dour-faced Russian girl at the Hess station, along with two “Hess Burgers,” which were actually pretty good. Then they bopped down the street, looking for “hypes” who wanted to “cop.”

You hip to that hop?

“Shit, that Russian ‘ho in there has tits top as a crown but I wonder why she all grimacin’ and shit. Look like she had a bad taste in her mouth.”

“Shit, Clase Preece,” Sung complained, munching his Hess Burger. “I hate fruckin’ Russians.”

Case Piece wore blue and white boxer shorts up to his waist; he pulled his jeans down lower till they were halfway down his ass. “Sung, my dawg! We don’t hate people just ‘cuzza where they from, man. Like I was sayin’, we gotta accept all dudes and ‘hos and their cultures’n shit. Ain’t hip to hate Russians, or anyone.”

“Fruck Russia. They give jret pranes to evil North Ko-wee-ah during the Ko-wee-an Roar and twain their pirates to fry them! Dwop bombs on us, until Amar-wickens come and help us. God Bress Amar-wickah, and fruck Russia!”

“Whatever, man.”

The nighted downtown streets bustled with cars and Christmas shoppers. Strings and strings of Christmas lights glowed, swaying in a light breeze; at intersections, garlands of shimmering tinsel looped from phone pole to phone pole. Down the road, they heard, “You better not pout, you better not cry…”

“Shit, tomorrow’s Christmas, man,” Case Piece realized. “Been so busy slingin’ skag, I forgot.”

“Yeah, man, Kuh-wiss-muss! We need to gret some crandy cranes!”

“Fuck, I guess Menduez don’t even celebrate Christmas.”

“Rye you sray that?”

“Well, shit, man. Can’t see a dude who cuts puppys’ heads off bein’ much into Christmas.”

“Oh, yeah…”

“And I guess he back in the warehouse now. I seen him bring in a puppy last night…”

Case Piece and Sung said nothing for several grim minutes. They knew what was in store for that puppy…

Case Piece slowed, eyes opened in a sudden supervening awareness, “Yo, yo, I feel a Rap comin’ on…”

“You grow, Crase Pleece!”

Case Piece strutted his stuff in the street, pointing his fingers down in the fashion of pistols. “We come in, then we leave, I got tricks up my sleeve, you better fuckin’ believe, this the best Christmas Eve! Diggy dick, doggie daw, I got some Browntown jaw, I live to bust the law, like none you ever saw, and I clip to your clop, clean the floor, with a mop, I sell drugs, then I shop, I’m the king of Hip Hop! I teach the pig a lesson with my fuckin’ Smith and Wesson, with you I be messin’, word that rhymes be confessin’! I’m the Vee-Eye-fuckin’-Pee, I’m the dude you wanna be, I drop a buck, I pick it up, I see my boyz, I say ‘Wuz up?’ I drink a beer, I take a pee, I shag some trim, oh my, oh me! I do a dime, I do the crime, I’m gettin’ laid like all the time, and without-out even trine, I think up shit that rhymes!”

“Grawd damn, Clase! You Hip Hop jreen-nee-uss!”

“My good blood, Menduez, he do whatever I sez, and Highball be our ‘ho, her gobble-game is super-pro. After a john, fill her with cum, she go get me, a Coke and rum! She got great tits, got great can, get on the mike, my man! This who we is, this who we be, we’re the NSG-3! We’re the thugz, there ain’t no finer, my dawg Sung, he from China!”

“Aw, fruck, man!” Sung grimaced. “Ko-wee-ah, Ko-wee-ah!”

“Shit, sorry, man. I keep forgettin’…”

Just as they turned onto a residential road, they found themselves facing a smoky rumbling and two dim, misaligned headlights.

“Who this?” Sung asked.

“Junkies, I hope.”

The vehicle was an overly large and very old dented black delivery truck.

“How much skag we got, Sung?”

“Froor bags.”

“Runnin’ low. Maybe we get rid of it now…”

Smoke chugged, then gears shifted and the truck rumbled forward.

“Why, hey there, fellas!” cracked a decidedly redneck voice.

“Shit, ‘necks, them rope-a-dope kind from the hills,” Case Piece muttered beneath his breath. “These dudes ain’t gonna cop no smack, man.”

“Maybe they rill! Who knows?”

A shaggy head leaned out the driver’s side window of the truck; a bushy beard consumed most of the face.

“Hey, my dawg. I’m yo’ man on the scene, know what I mean? We’se bustin’ moves ‘cuz were phat on the grooves. You want some smack, jack?”

The shaggy redneck looked cockeyed at him. “What’s that, fella?”

“Fo’ shizzle, my mizzle. I got tizzle in my gizzle. This a drug ‘hood, man. If you coppin’ drugs, then we’se your thugs.”

The redneck looked to his long-haired passenger. “Dumar, you got any idea what he up’n means?”

“Shore don’t, Paw. Must be some new kind’a citified talk.”

“It’s Browntown yaw-yaw, Paw, the jaw and the law. The talk of the street and we the dudes you need ta meet. If it’s dope you grope, then I’m your hope!”

“You grow, Clase Preece!”

The redneck looked frustrated. “Aw, well, fella, you’s can probably tell we ain’t from ’round here, and no offense but I ain’t got no idea what that was just come out’cher mouth. See, what we’se wonderin’ is, we’se hopin’ you can tell us if’n you seen a big white fancy motor-home drivin’ ’round here?”

“Mrotor home?” Sung said very, very slowly.

“That’s right, son, a big ‘un. City fella named Paulie drivin’ it.”

“Sorry, Pop. We ain’t hip to your hop,” Case Piece lied with reasonable effect. “We don’t know no Paulie and ain’t seen no motor-home.”

The redneck stroked his beard. “Aw, well, that there’s too bad, son, but thank ya fer yer time’n you’n yer friend have a happy holiday!”

“Solid,” Case Piece said and watched the truck rumble away.

Case Piece looked gravely to Sung. “Shit, man. You know who they is? They the dudes laying some serious big-top mezzy disrespezzy on Paulie and his crew.” Indeed, how could he forget that movie on Paulie’s laptop? They drilled a HOLE in that chick’s head, and then they, then they…. “Paulie said they was rednecks. How else rednecks like them be hip to Paulie?”

“Shrit, man! We better crawl Prawlie up white now and tell him!”

Case Piece reached halfway down his fuckin’ ass for his phone but, “Shit. My cell’s back at the crib. Let’s go!”

They jogged through the cool night, blinking sneakers slapping pavement. When they turned past the warehouse front gate…

They stopped.

Just like the other night, the Winnebago sat before the warehouse, its tiny windows lit. Paulie’s two over-coated strong-armers stood outside, smoking cigarettes.

A muffled scream seemed to explode from inside the motor-home.

Highball! Case Piece realized. “Bros, man, what’s—”

“Goin’ on?” Cristo said with a smirk.

Argi looked stone-faced as he flicked an ash. “Them rednecks hit us again, harder than last time. Paulie ain’t happy.”

“On a fuckin’ rampage again so he’s ventin’ his frustrations on your whore.”

“Shit, man!” Case Piece dashed into the Winnebago, just in time to see a red-faced and insane-eyed Paulie stuffing Highball’s head once more into Melda’s vaginal morass.

“Those fuckin’ guys! GodDAMN it, Doc! They piss me off SO MUCH!”

Dr. Prouty sat hunched to the side before the open laptop. He raised his brows at Case Piece, as if to say, Things aren’t going so well today.

Highball, as usual, had been stripped naked, and now, with her head completely swallowed, her bare legs flailed, her heels drumming the floor.

“Paulie, holy shit, man! It ain’t right to keep stickin’ Highball’s head in there just ‘cuz you’re whilin’!”

Melda giggled. She was eating Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies as Highball’s terrified head churned deep in her loins.

“I’m afraid there’s no allaying Mr. Vinchetti’s rage,” Prouty said quietly. “He’s beyond consolation and reasoning…”

“What happened this time?”

Paulie glanced maniacally over his shoulder as he shoved with all his might, hands hooked under the prostitute’s armpits so to insert her head as far as it could possibly go. “What happened? I’ll tell ya what happened! Those fuckin’ rednecks, you know what they did? They dug up my dead baby, cut off its head, drilled holes in it, and were all fuckin’ the head at the same time! That’s what happened!”

Highball’s visible body shuddered like electrocution, her belly sucking in and out as she began to smother.

“I gotta find those fuckin’ guys!”

Case Piece rushed over. “Paulie, take Highball’s head out’a there! See, we just saw these dudes!”

Paulie flinched. “What?”

“Me and Sung. We just saw the rednecks down the street. They were askin’ about you, man! Couple rednecks in a big piece-of-shit black truck!”

Paulie froze, staring. “When?”

“Just now, man! Right down the street that goes to the Hess station! Paulie, you strap heat right now and go after ’em, you could catch the dudes doin’ all this head-fuckin’!”

Paulie sprang up. “Doc! Start up the Winnie!” He turned to Case Piece who’d grabbed Highball’s ankles, pulled, and—PLOP!—disengaged her head from Melda’s netherworldly vaginal barrel. “Get the whore out of here and tell Argi and Cristo to come in,” the don directed.

Paulie dragged Highball out of the Winnebago by her ankles. She convulsed; her bare buttocks slammed down the mini-steps and smacked the pavement. The instructions were communicated, and in moments, the big motor-home sped away.

“Fuck, man,” Case Piece said. “Them dudes are psycho.”

“Shrit, yeah, Crase!”

They carried the convulsant Highball into the warehouse. Margarine and vaginal slime slicked her hair down over her face as though an octopus were sitting atop her head. One blazing wide eye stared unblinking between two wet tendrils. When she regained some facsimile of her senses, she screamed at the top of her lungs and ran madly down a rear hall.

“She all fucked up,” Case Piece said. “Guess ya can only get your head stuck in a giant cunt so many times ‘fore ya go insane.”

“Shrit, man! This sure some frucked up Kuh-wiss-muss Eve!”

Case Piece got a grape drink from the fridge. He rubbed his crotch…

For no apparent reason.

“What ree do now, Clase?”

“Fuck, don’t know. Shit just don’t feel right all of a sudden”—he flinched. “You feel that chill, man?”

“Trill?”

Case Piece gazed off. “Like what my grandma always told me back in South East. Someone just bop over my grave…”

A door slammed, and flip-flops snapped aggressively down the hall. Wild-eyed, Highball stormed in, a plastic bag of her few belongings on one hand, hair wet from a much-needed shower. She buttoned up her overcoat. “Fuck this shit, man!”

“Highball, what’re you—”

“I’m out’a here. This fuckin’ place is a chamber of fuckin’ horrors!”

“Chill, babe, chill. Here, have a grape drink—”

“I don’t want no fuckin’ grape drink. I’m leaving!”

Case Piece cocked a funky glance. “Leavin’? As in skyin’ up?”

“Yeah!” and she yelled the response with such fervor that her magnificent breasts bounced behind the overcoat. “I’m skyin’ fuckin’ up, all right!”

“Why you wanna do that?”

Highball stared at him agog, thought back upon the evening’s entails, and screamed.

She stormed toward out of the warehouse and slammed the door.

Case Piece sat down on the busted couch. “There go the best piece’a trim thugs ever fuckin’ had, man.”

“Shrit, Clase!”

“Looks like we gotta baggie our skaggie ourselves now.”

“Frucked up, but…cran’t say I brame her…”

“Yeah…”

The two loser drug-dealers foundered then, much like a pair of supplemental characters in a novel that the narrative no longer had use for.

(IV)

Mike gazed through the store’s plate glass window, marveling at the shimmering Christmas lights garlanding the parking lot lamps. It was 11:30 at night. Did he tap his foot as if awaiting something? Meanwhile, the Muzak speakers crooned, “Walkin’ in a winter wonderland…”

Archie walked up to the main check-out. “Looks like Christmas rush is over.”

The store stood empty now, but they’d done good business most of the day. Recession be damned! Mike nodded slowly.

“Any word from Veronica?” Archie asked.

Mike winced. “Who?” He kept staring out the window, seemingly distracted.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Honestly? The Greeter’s cooze. When I’m putting the blocks to her real fast, it makes a noise like a window squeegee.”

Archie’s brow rose.

“I don’t like going down on her though. She takes a lot of B-Complex and ginko. Tastes…weird. Chalky on the tongue.”

“Terrific. Look, how about if I leave early?”

“Look. How about…fuck no?” Mike scowled.

“But the store’s empty!”

“It’s Christmas Eve, we’re open till midnight,” Mike reminded. “We have to assume our responsibilities. This isn’t the federal government, man; it’s free-enterprise. Ever heard of loyalty for the place that employs you?” Mike looked at his watch, then spotted something beyond the glass. A small car was pulling up. He grabbed his coat. “Gotta go.”

Archie sputtered, “Oh, that’s fair! Loyalty? You can leave early but I can’t?”

“Right, ’cos I’m the boss. Sucks, doesn’t it? Besides, my ride’s here.”

Archie smirked out the glass. It was the Greeter’s car.

Mike jabbed him in the shoulder. “I’m gonna make it so my dick’s up her butt at the stroke of midnight. Cool, huh?”

“Cool?”

“It’s symbolic, you know? When Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day..my dick’s in her butt.”

“Yeah, that’s real symbolic.”

“Have a merry Christmas, man, and if you close early even by one minute, you’re fuckin’ fired.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Archie hissed. When the doors sucked shut, he muttered, “That scumbag, egotistical, contradictory prick…” His frown encircled the empty store. I gotta stand here for another half-hour and I know fucking well no one’s coming in this late, but even before the thought finished, he looked up at a flash of lights and stout motor noise.

A great big white Winnebago was parking in the lot.

(V)

The Winnebago had cruised Pulaski for hours in search of the mysterious black truck, all to no avail. This circumstance did not improve Paulie’s disposition, which only frayed the nerves of his confederates further. “This is fucked up!” the don yelled from the passenger seat. “How can we drive around all motherfucking night and miss a big piece-of-shit black truck!”

“If they’re still in town, we’ll find ’em, boss,” Argi offered the consolation.

“They dug up my kid and fucked it in the head!”

“We’ll find ’em and make ’em pay.”

“Yeah,” Cristo said. “Enough of this sendin’ movies back and forth. I want to get my hands on those guys now. I’ll cut ’em up like pork ends—”

“Yeah,” Paulie added, “but only after we stump-grind ’em!”

Cristo had taken over the driving responsibilities. He stopped at the traffic light deeper in the residential streets. The streetlamps had all been shot out, leaving the block dark save for periodic Christmas lights blinking in windows covered by bars.

“When’s this damn light gonna change?” Cristo griped.

“Yeah,” Paulie said. “We ain’t got till Christmas,” and then he paused and everyone laughed. As they did so, however, squealing tires could be heard, and a great rattling…

“What the fuck is—”

A large black piece-of-shit-looking delivery truck had pulled out behind them, lights off, then swerved around to cut in front of the motor-home. “Eeeeeee-Haa!” they heard, then—

BAM!

—a bullet hit the windshield, and—

“Holy shit! It’s them!”

Cristo’s head exploded at the wheel.

Brain-matter fanned out in both directions, slapping Dr. Prouty and Argi.

“The rednecks just capped Cristo!” Paulie yelled. “Follow ’em!”

Argi bulled forward, popped the driver’s door, and shoved Cristo’s corpse into the street. Meanwhile, the black truck had made a mad right-hand turn onto the bisecting and even darker road.

“Go! Go!” Paulie yelled and then shoved his silenced .380 auto out the window. He squeezed off several shots.

“I think we can catch ’em, boss,” Argi said and gunned the motor-home. “The Winnie’s gotta be faster than that old piece of shit!”

“For three hundred grand it damn well better be!” Paulie looked behind him. “Doc, you all right?”

Smirking, the doctor scooped brains out of his eyes with curled index fingers. “I’ve…been better…”

Up ahead, the cumbersome black truck belched sooty smoke into their faces. The Winnebago gained quickly on the truck, engine racing.

Both Paulie and Argi leaned their pistols out the windows to release a hail of small-caliber gunfire. The bullets tinked! against the truck’s steel hide but most just bounced off.

“Get ’em, Argi!” Pauluie yelled, snapping in another magazine. “Ram ’em if ya got to!”

Agri pushed the gas all the way to the floor, but—

clank!

—just ahead of them, the rear doors of the truck flew open. One grinning long-haired redneck—

BAM!

—discharged a large revolver, and—

plup-plup-plup-plup!

—blew out a front tire, while a younger blond-headed redneck simultaneously released what appeared to be a slingshot.

clink!

Another hole appeared in the windshield. The steel bearing nicked Paulie’s ear—“OWWWWW!”— and continued into the rear of the motor-home’s interior. But as Argi tried to give further chase, the flattened tire buckled around the rim and the Winnebago was rendered undriveable.

“We gotta fix this flat!” Argi barked.

“Now we’re fucked!” Paulie yelled and jumped out. “They’re gonna get away!”

Argi followed him out; both men drew their pistols.

“Is that them?” Argi asked, squinting.

Halfway down the street a bulk shape seemed to sit there, hulk-like.

“Can’t tell. They got their lights off—”

sheeeeeeeeeeeesh…SWACK!

Argi bellowed, leaning over.

“How you like that, city boy!” a voice cracked.

Argi was on his knees, hands to groin. “The kid with the slingshot hit me in the nut!”

BAM!

Another bullet slammed into the Winnebago.

From the darkness, the voice of Helton Tuckton boomed: “Catch us if’n ya can, Paulie!” and then tiny red tail lights flicked on at the bulk-shape’s form, and an engine revved.

A thin figure darted across the street, stopped, and poised itself.

It was the blond kid, pulling back on the slingshot. “Ain’t no citified dick-lickers can fuck with us!”

sheeeeeeeeeeeesh…SWACK!

Another bearing sailed out of the dark, exploding one of the motor-home’s headlights.

Argi, gritting in his agony, managed to squeeze off a half a dozen rounds.

The blond kid fell.

“Ya got him!” Paulie celebrated.

In an instant, the kid’s silhouetted body was dragged into the truck—presumably by the pistol-wielder—then the truck sped off in a gust of smoke.

“Holy fuck, boss! Look at my nut!” Argi had extracted his scrotum, isolating a ruptured testicle. “It’s just a bunch of mush!”

“Fuck your nut, Argi. We gotta get this tire changed. “Doc! Get your ass out here!”

Helton Tuckton’s truck was long gone.

Changing a Winnebago tire entailed quite a bit more than changing a regular tire; nevertheless, the men toiled arduously, and within a half-hour, their clothes were besmirched, their palms blackened, yet the spare tire was on, and they were off.

“We gotta find those fuckin’ guys,” Paulie grated. He looked to his lieutenant. “Argi, you all right?”

“Fuck, no, boss! My nut’s popped, and it hurts like a motherfucker!”

“Yeah but at least you waxed one of the rednecks.”

“I was aimin’ for his crotch, the fuck!”

Dr. Prouty, still winded from the exertion of changing a huge tire, leaned forward to examine Argi’s exposed scrotal sack. “Hmm, yes—oh, dear, that’s an acute testicular rupture, all right, definite impact-related orchitis and sequent inflammation coinciding with a complete breech of the tunica albuginea…”

“That don’t sound so good, Doc!”

“And I’m afraid you’ll experience some troublesome yet temporary edema.”

“Edema?” Paulie asked. “The fuck’s that, Doc?”

“Swelling. But there’s good news, Mr. Argi. Your testicle will heal in time, and you may even continue to produce motile and quite normal sperm cells with it.”

“Ya hear that, Argi?” Paulie said. “You’ll still be able to knock chicks up!”

Argi rolled his eyes, struggling to drive and manage the undeterminable pain at the same time. They cruised the town, hunting for Helton’s conspicuous vehicle.

Meanwhile, Dr. Prouty repaired momentarily to the back of the vehicle, but when he returned…

“Mr. Vinchetti, sir, I’m afraid I have bad news…”

“What?” Paulie snapped.

“It’s…Melda—”

“What about her? She croak on that last box of donuts?”

Prouty cleared his throat. “It seems one of the gunshots that struck the vehicle…hit Melda in the head…”

Paulie jumped out of the passenger seat, rushed to the rear room—

And stared.

The massive formation of pallid flesh that was Melda sat half-sidled over on the bench. Her horrendous, rubber-boned legs lolled, her unspeakable bare feet curled inward. Her head hung back as her mouth gawped; her tongue jutted. The bullethole in her forehead was more than apparent.

“Poor Melda,” the doctor mourned.

“Poor Melda? Fuck that,” Paulie griped. “Poor me. Where else am I gonna find a woman with a pussy as big as hers?” He stalked back toward the front of the vehicle. “Shit on this! This just keeps gettin’ worse—these rednecks are ruining my vibe! They fuck my step-kid in the head, they fuck my mother in the head, they fuck my dead baby in the head, then they kill Cristo and now this! Fuck it! We ain’t playin’ hide’n seek no more.” He whipped out his cellphone.

“You callin’ Jersey for reinforcements, boss?” Argi asked.

“Fuck, no, I’m callin’ them. I’m gonna challenge ’em.”

“Challenge ’em, boss?”

“It’s them two against us two. I’ll dare ’em to meet us someplace, neutral ground. Then we’ll fight it out between the four of us.”

“A good ole-fashioned brawl, huh?”

“Fuck, yeah,” Paulie said, but then grimaced at the cellphone. “You gotta be shitting me! The battery’s drained!”

“Use mine,” Argi offered.

“The number for the phone we sent Tuckton is only on this phone!” Paulie percolated in more rage. He gave the cellphone to Dr. Prouty. “Doc! Plug it into the charger!”

“Of course, sir,” and the doctor went to do just that. In only moments, though, more bad news was related. “How utterly inconceivable,” Prouty muttered.

Paulie jerked his gaze back. “What’s that, Doc?”

Prouty held up pieces of the charger in one hand and a ball bearing in the other. “It seems, Mr. Vinchetti, that the slingshot projectile which penetrated the windshield collided with the phone charger itself.”

Paulie howled. “That’s fuckin’ impossible!”

Impossible? Or merely convenient for the author?

Paulie gestured to pull his own hair out. “This is just so fucked up! Where are we gonna find a phone charger at 11:30 at night on Christmas Eve?”

Just down the road, a great yellow and black sign glowed.

“Hey, boss?” Argi chuckled even in the midst of his discomfort. “Check it out.”

The sign read BEST BUY, and a banner on the store’s front window told them: OPEN TILL MIDNIGHT ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

(VI)

Once Helton found a wooded clearing to hide in, he rushed to the back. Dumar had Micky-Mack up on the table, and it was a solemn glance indeed that he relayed to his father.

Helton began, “Is he—”

Dumar nodded.

Micky-Mack had taken one bullet directly in the navel.

And five or six more directly in the groin.

“Damn fool kid,” Helton said. He closed Micky-Mack’s eyelids. “But he died fightin’ for the family…”

“That he did, Paw, and at least I’se avenged him by bustin’ that one fella’s coconut with the Webley,” Dumar commiserated.

“They got one’a us, and we got one’a them. Still even odds, son.” Helton unbuckled the boy’s blood-saturated jeans and pulled them down. “But I gots me a hunch…”

“A hunch, Paw?”

“It’s called proverdence, Dumar”—he pointed to the gory mess of Micky-Mack’s bullet-perforated genitals—“and, see? I was right.”

The tight group of bullets had completely severed Micky-Mack’s oversized penis. “That’s payin’ fer yer sins the hard way. I done tolt Micky-Mack not ta be braggin’ ’bout that big dick’a his, and look what happens. God saw to it that his peter get shot clean off.” Helton picked it up and shook it like a raw sausage.

“Dang,” Dumar muttered.

“But that weren’t his only sin, son.”

“What’cha mean, Paw?”

“See, Micky-Mack committered a even worse sin than the sin’a pride.” Helton eyed his son gravely. “He stole, too. He stole from the family…”

“Huh?”

Helton nodded. “When we’se first started out on this feud, Micky-Mack offered me some money for food, money he said Nuce Wynchel paid him fer helpin’ him and his son Tube finish up the post-holes on that lot’a land he got right next ta Charlie Fuchson’s pasture. But, see, Micky-Mack lied. ’cos we saw Nuce the other day just startin’ them post-holes.”

Dumar scratched his head. “Then…how’d Micky-Mack earn that money?”

“It pains me ta say this, but there ain’t no other way: Micky-Mack got hisself that cash-roll from none other than Hall Sladder—”

“No!”

“Yessir. That’s why Micky-Mack was out in the woods that day, tippin’ Sladder off ’bout where my ‘shine stash was hid, and probably even helpin’ him load the jugs. Then he kilt some hill-tramp’n made up some malarky ’bout it bein’ one’a Sladder’s cornmash whores.”

“Gawd dang, Paw! That sucks!”

“That it does. Greed’s a terrible sin, too, and I guess ever family’s got a touch of it. Pains me just as much ta say that your boy Crory—may the Lord take him—had a touch of it hisself. I caught the little tyke stealin’ more’n once.”

Dumar nodded, dejected. “Yeah, Paw, I know. Little bugger was always rippin’ off change from me’n denyin’ it. Half the time I’se pretend I didn’t notice…”

“But it ain’t fer us ta judge others, son. Only God do that. We’se all born in original sin and are subject to temptation.” His eyes readdressed his dead nephew. “Far as I’se concerned, Micky-Mack done atoned hisself fer his sins against the family by dyin’ fer the family.”

“Amen.”

They buried the boy summarily in the woods, and threw his severed penis into the grave too, before they covered him over.

“So’s what we do now, ’bout Paulie I mean?” Dumar queried.

Helton rested his chin on dirty fingertips. “We’ll drive ’round like before, look for him, try and sneak up on the evil bastard. If’n we cain’t find him right off”—he shrugged—“then we wait till we do. We got time but a fella like Paulie don’t. He ain’t patient, and those who ain’t patient always make mistakes.”

Back in the truck, they ate more of their pilferage from Marshie Caudill’s kitchen, this time bluecorn tortilla chips and mojo-flavored plantain crisps.

“Shore is some funny snacks she buy,” Dumar said, crunching chips.

“This here fussy stuff’s rich-people food, Dumar. I’se think foo-foo is the word. God prefer it when a person’s humble ’bout their roots, but Marshie? Shee-it. That jizz-can was born poor in the backwoods like us, but since she inherit all that money? It get to her head, get her thinkin’ she’s better’n other folks, like eatin’ these fussy blue ‘tater chips mean she got class. Same reason she still drives around in that Rolls Royce, but in the end, it don’t matter what she eats, what she drives, or what she wears. She still ain’t nothin’ but a low-down, lyin’, thievin’, prideful money-grubbin’ backwoods whore.”

Dumar nodded. “Wouldn’t mind suckin’ on them big hooters’a hers though, and jackin’ me off a big dick-snot on ’em.”

“Any natural man’d want to do that, son.”

“But…speakin’ of hooters…”

Both men looked into the forward corner…to Veronica.

She lay there asleep, and not even handcuffed anymore.

“Poor gal,” Helton sympathized. ‘S’my fault. Since showin’ her the movin’-picture, Veronnerka been in shock. I’se even tolt her she could leave after she send Paulie our last movie but instead she dozed off again and been that way all day…”

“Dang shame…”

“Might take her a spell ta git back ta normal, or maybe…” Helton thought of something. “Maybe if’n she see somethin’ familiar, she’ll snap out of it.”

“What’cha mean, Paw?”

“Like maybe…that place she work! The Best Buy where she solt us the fancy camera!” Helton stared the big truck. “Try to roust her up, son. Won’t be but a few minutes ‘fore we’re there.”

Helton pulled the truck out, made the proper cumbersome turns, and was soon heading down the proper gayly-decorated thoroughfare. There’s the place, he thought, spying the well-lit sign. However, even at the intersection before the store, he could see…

God on High, I cain’t thank Ya enough!

Paulie’s Winnebago was parking in the Best Buy lot, right before the OPEN TILL MIDNIGHT sign.

It was only twenty of.

“Change’a plans, son!” he yelled back and pulled around the block. “Look around back…and see if ya can find the crowbar…”

(VII)

Paulie and Argi walked briskly toward the store. Argi had an overcoat on but hadn’t yet fastened it. Paulie frowned.

“Argi. What’d’ya think you’re doin’? We’re going into a store, you know? A public place. Ya got your ball hangin’ out of your pants.”

Argi stopped, wincing at the persistent pain. “I know, boss, but shit, if I put it back in my pants, it even hurts more.”

Paulie leaned over to look. “Fuck, man. It’s swollen up the size of a fuckin’ avocado!”

Argi daintily dabbed at the distended scrotal sack. Indeed, the afflicted testicle had inflamed to several times its normal size. “Big as it is now, I probably couldn’t get it back in my pants if I tried. I’ll just have to leave it out and keep the coat over it. Wouldn’t want to offend any Christmas shoppers.”

“Naw, you’re right. We wouldn’t wanna do that…”

The doors yawned open; they strolled into the brightly lit store. Immediately a spiked-haired young man greeted, “Welcome to Bust Buy, and happy holidays. How can I help you?”

Paulie wagged the cellphone and broken charger. “I need a phone charger. Now.”

“Right over here, sir.”

The clerk took them to the phone section. In the background, at the television department, dozens of super-bright flat-screen TV’s showed a local male newscaster with a crooked red- and green-striped tie pointing to a weather map of North America. “And, folks, this just in! NORAD has just reported Santa’s official entry into U.S. airspace!” He chuckled. “Let’s just hope the Air Force doesn’t shoot him down!”

The clerk produced the necessary charger. “Here you go, anything else?”

Paulie busted the charger out of its box. “Yeah, I need to charge my phone here, I’ll pay extra. I gotta make a real important call.”

The clerk’s brow rose. “It’ll take a while to charge up a totally dead cell, but I’d be happy to loan you my phone.”

“Naw, naw, the number I gotta call is on this phone…”

The clerk squinted at Paulie’s cell. “That’s the same Blackberry I have, sir. Here”—he took the battery out of his phone and put it in Paulie’s. “Go ahead and make your call.”

“Argi, give him a C-note,” Paulie said and started dialing.

“Sure, boss,” Argi said.

“Why, thanks very much, sir!” the clerk beamed.

Paulie ambled off, phone to ear. The line was ringing, then—

“Hello?” came the voice of Helton Tuckton.

“You Gomer Pyle redneck fuck! Nobody fucks my kid in the head! Nobody!”

“Yeah? Well we’se just did.”

“How can ya fuck a dead baby in the head!”

The clerk gulped, and asked Argi, “Uhhhh…what did he say?”

“Nothin’, kid, nothin’.”

“Easy. ’cos it was your baby,” Helton’s voice replied over the line. It was strange, though. He seemed to be whispering. Why would he do that? “And lemme tell you this, Paulie—I’se never had such a good cum in my life.”

“So fuck all this movie shit! We’re havin’ it out! Tonight! You name the place, we’ll be there. And we’re gonna grind your hillbilly faggot asses into ground chuck!”

Helton chuckled over the line. “I’se name the place, huh?”

“Yeah! Then we go head to head!” Paulie yelled. “Tell us where to meet ya!”

“All right. How’s about we meet…right here?”

“What the fuck you talkin’ about! I’m in a goddamn Best—”

The clerk began to object, “Uh, sir? What’s going on?”

sheeeeeeeeeeeesh…SWACK!

The clerk hit the floor like a metal duck in a shooting gallery.

“Holy fuck, boss!” Argi yelled and drew his gun.

Paulie gaped at the clerk, who now had a red hole right in his forehead.

“Aw, sheee-it. I up’n hit the wrong fella,” Helton’s voice echoed, but not over the phone.

From somewhere in the store.

Paulie and Argi ducked behind the phone counter.

“They’re in the fuckin’ store, boss,” Argi stated the obvious.

“How the fuck they get in without us seein’ ’em?”

“Must’ve busted in through the back.”

“Helton, you fuck!” Paulie bellowed. “Where are ya?”

Helton’s voice boomed like a megaphone now. “Why, I’se right here…”

Paulie and Argi peeked over the top. Beside a dump-stand of Microsoft Office Home And Student stood Helton, shielding most of his hulking frame. He held a slingshot.

Argi nudged Paulie. “And over there, boss.”

Dumar knelt beside a row of compact disk bins. Only half of his face could be seen, but held out before that face was a big pistol.

Helton extended his arm, the slingshot dangling from his hand. “All right. Let’s see just what kind’a man you really is. No weapons, just bare hands. Right here. Us against you…”

“You’re on, Jed Clampett!”

Helton smirked. “Who? I don’t know no…,” but he just shrugged and dropped his slingshot. Then he stepped fully out into the aisle.

Dumar—

CLACK!

—dropped the big pistol.

“I’ll take the long-hair,” Paulie said. “You take Helton.”

“It’d be a pleasure, boss.”

Both mobsters threw their guns over the counter, then stood up—

“EEEEEEEEE-Haaa!” Dumar yelled and was already somersaulting through the air. His body smacked across Paulie’s chest and toppled him. Helton charged as well, clotheslining Argi as the beefy lieutenant was trying to take off his overcoat. And from this point on, sheer pandemonium ensued.

Dumar pummeled Paulie on the tile floor, then—

THUD!

—several teeth flew out when Paulie hoisted a lucky knee to the redneck’s chin. Helton and Argi duked it out in fisticuffs, big knuckles colliding into faces. But when Argi rammed his head into Helton’s belly, Helton went down. This gave the lieutenant time to finally divorce himself of the cumbersome overcoat.

Helton sprang back up but paused, gaping. “What’s that there hangin’ out’cher pants, fella? That ain’t a ball, is it?”

“It sure as fuck is, hill-trash!” By now inflammation had swelled the injured testicle to something almost as large as a mango. “That blond-haired hillbilly punk busted it with his slingshot!”

Helton chuckled at the ludicrous sight. “Well, I’ll be bustin’ the other one fer ya, and then I’m gonna fuck ya in yer head!”

“Go ahead and try, Gomer!”

Helton scratched his head. “Why the hail yawl keep callin’ me Gomer?”

Glass shattered. Fists rammed into ribs. When Paulie kicked Dumar’s feet out from under him, the backwoods man had an entire revolving rack of MP-3 players hauled down on his back. Paulie climbed onto a counter, poised himself, and jumped, knees heading for Dumar’s chest, but—

Dumar rolled out of the way at the last second.

“Fooled you, city boy!”

Paulie rocked on the floor in agony, and as he did so—

whisssssssssssssssssss…

Dumar urinated in his face.

Meanwhile, Helton and Argi had rough-and-tumbled their way toward the kitchen appliance section. When Helton heaved a Galantz 0.6 cubic-foot microwave at Argi, the latter man ducked and heaved back a Haier-brand mini-refrigerator. The fridge struck Helton right in the head—

“Have a headache on me, Gomer!”

Helton merely blinked, shrugged, then laughed.

They shambled down the aisle, heaving every conceivable appliance at one another: blenders, toaster ovens, knife-sharpeners, can-openers, even a rotisserie hot-dog cooker. Helton took a Brellville Fountain Elite Juicer right across the sternum, he fell over, sprang back up, and—

WHAM!

—hit Argi right in the exposed testicle with a George Foreman Grill. Argi’s eyes crossed, his cheeks billowed, and he collapsed in incalculable agony.

“Now there’s the ticket!” Helton rejoiced.

Quite bemused, he watched the convulsions of his adversary. The ox-like Argi cringed in a series of caterwauls, shrieks, bellows, and outright baby-bawling, hands clasped to the vandalized organ.

That fella won’t be gettin’ up soon, Helton reasoned. He loped back to check on his son, noticing that the entire phone department was trashed now, every glass counter blown out. Then, like someone at a tennis match, Helton looked left but his gaze swerved right watching Paulie fly through the air and crash headlong into a DVD display that boasted: HORROR MOVIE BLOWOUT SALE! BUY NINE LIVES STARRING PARIS HILTON FOR $1.99 AND GET PINATA: SURVIVOR ISLAND, THE DEVIL’S CURSE, VENOM, THE EMPTY ACRE, THE SANDMAN, JUST BURIED, DEMONESS, BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD, THE HOUSE WHERE HELL FROZE OVER, AND BLOOD SHACK FREE!

Lousy DVD’s flew everywhere.

“Well, hey there, Dumar!” Helton complimented, “That there’s some’a the finest man-throwin’ I’se ever seed!”

“Thanks, Paw,” Dumar said, dusting himself off. “T’was easy.”

They both grinned as a pummeled Paulie crawled dazedly away on hands and knees.

Argi remained shuddering on the floor between the washers and dryers when his boss caromed around the corner.

“Goddamn, Argi! Those rednecks are kickin’ our asses!”

Argi’s teeth chattered when he replied, “You ain’t kiddin’, boss…”

“That skinny kid was throwin’ me around like a frisbee!”

Agri nodded through persistent agony. “And that big one? Fuck, I must’ve punched him in the head ten times—hard—but it was like bangin’ my fist into a rock. I even hit him in the head with a fuckin’ refrigerator and nothin’ happened. Then he got me in the nut with a Foreman Grill—”

”Ouch!” Paulie wiped blood off his face. “We gotta get our guns back—”

“Yeah, but they’re all they way over the in phone section.”

“We don’t stand a chance…”

Chuckling could be heard, then Helton boomed, “You citified fellas cain’t hack a tussle with real backwoods men.”

“Guess they’se need a breather, Paw. We up’n tuckered ’em out.”

“S’fine with me. Go ahead, Paulie, take a breather, then we’ll have another go and finish this. Been dickin’ ’round with you low-lifes fer too long. Yeah, we’ll finish it, all right, and then we’ll fuck both yer heads.”

“I wanna fuck that Paulie in the head fierce, Paw!”

“Yeah, son, we’ll have ourselfs a dandy header with him, and we’ll make a movin’ picture of it and get it to his wife, and then we’ll find her too, and fuck her head.”

“EEEE-doggie!”

Paulie shot his lieutenant a look of total dread. “Fuck, Argi, what we get ourselves into?”

“It’s fucked up, boss. I don’t think we’re gonna get out of this one.”

Paulie sighed. “Well, then we’ll fuckin’ die tryin’…”

“We’se ready when you all is, Paulie,” Helton’s voice echoed.

Paulie and Argi dragged themselves up…

But Helton and Dumar were strangely looking off. They were looking at a row of big-screen, high-def TV’s.

“What gives here?” Paulie muttered.

The weather forecast on the TV abruptly snapped off, and a stolid newscaster was saying: “We interrupt this broadcast for some late-breaking news. Just minutes ago the Pulaksi County Sheriff’s Department reported a break in what local residents have come to know as the ‘Puppy Killer Case,’” and then the screen flashed to a close up of a jowly police officer under which a legend read DEPUTY CHIEF DOOD MALONE. The man seemed to be chewing tobacco as he spoke. “Folks, I’m happy as all get-out to report that we’se finally got ourselves a solid lead in this horrifyin’ case that has just been up’n ruinin’ the holiday season for so many of us. See, what we got is a police surveillance video of this low-down, dog-torturin’ psychopath.” Malone pointed into the camera. “Now I want yawl to watch…”

“What the hell’s this?” Paulie asked. “They caught that guy who was cuttin’ off puppies’ heads?”

“Seems so,” Helton replied. “We done heard about this piece’a shit puppy-killin’ freak just the other day on the radio.”

“Yeah, we heard about it too,” Paulie told him. “Ain’t nothin’ pisses me off more than these sick fucks who like to torture animals. When ya get right down to it, most people are just a bunch of piles of shit who don’t deserve to live, but animals? For fuck’s sake, who could kill an innocent animal?”

“Well, Paulie, it looks like you and me finally agree on somethin’. Only the lowest’a gutter scum do things like that—”

“Look, Paw,” Dumar said. “Here’s that surveillance thing they was talkin’ ’bout…”

The screen changed to a grainy, low-resolution frame of a brightly-lit but unkempt back yard. In odd stops and starts, a jubilant mongrel puppy with huge ears jumped up and down as a male figure crept up. The figure seemed short-haired and wore baggy pants; the back of his t-shirt read CHIT, MANG. He leaned over and picked the puppy up. The puppy licked the man’s face, its tail-stub wagging.

Then the man turned, and technicians froze the tape. The frame pushed in as a zoom application was engaged.

Th perpetrator appeared to be Hispanic, late-‘20s or so. In the freeze-frame, he grinned in a manner that could only be called Luciferic.

But Paulie’s own face twisted into a look of disbelief, and he ran toward the nearest TV screen. “Argi! Tell me I’m seein’ things! Don’t that look like—”

“Ain’t no question about it, boss.”

“That fuckin’ Manuel motherfucker, the kid always wearin’ the Scarface shirts!”

“Menduez I think his name is, boss…”

Helton looked funkily at the two mob men. “What’s that you’re sayin’, Paulie?”

On the screen, the stop-start progress resumed. The man stalked away with the puppy in his arms…

The deputy chief reappeared, anger wrinkling his visage. “So there ya have it, folks: the puppy-killer! If any’a yawl know anything ’bout that-that…that person, just you call me. If ya know who he is, if ya seen him in the area, if ya think ya know where he lives…you call me!”—the officer pounded his fist on his desk. “There is a reward, and I want him! So, please, help me, help me put this despicable dog-torturer behind bars where he belongs!” The chief pronounced “despicable” as dess-picker-bull. A legend appeared, scrolling the phone number of the county sheriff’s office, and then they showed the close-up of the perpetrator’s face one more time.

Paulie pointed, outraged. “I don’t fuckin’ believe it! That fucker’s on our crew!”

“‘Fraid so, boss,” Argi said, finally able to stand up. His swollen testicle throbbed.

Helton scratched his head. “Paulie, you sayin’ you know that fella? You know the puppy-killer?”

“We don’t really know him, but he works for one of our middle-men.” Paulie ground his teeth. “And I’ll bet they’re all in on it. How could they not know?”

“Can’t imagine, boss,” Argi agreed. “Looks like they been pullin’ the wool over our eyes.”

Paulie stomped a foot. “Well I won’t have that shit! I won’t have a guy on my payroll killin’ puppies!”

Helton stepped up. “Just let me ask you sumpthin’, Paulie. If’n you know who this varmint is, you know how to find him?”

“Fuck, yes! The motherfucker coops in my warehouse three blocks away!”

Helton drew on a contemplation. “Well I cannot abide the idea of a puppy-killer bein’ that close but not doin’ nothin’ ’bout it, and I’se mean I would bend over dag backwards fer the chance ta wear him out.”

“You ain’t the only one, Helton.”

“So…what we gonna do ’bout this here…per-dicker-mint?”

Silence dropped. All four men exchanged glances.

Helton took another step. “We’se can keep on fightin’ here, or…we can have ourselfs a time out, put our feud on hold, and all of us go to this warehouse’a yers and put a world’a hurt on this fella.”

Paulie eyed Helton.

“What about it, boss?” Argi asked. “Might be fun.”

Another pause, then Paulie said, “All right, Helton. Time out. We go whack these guys, then we get back to our shit. But”—he held up a finger—“no tricks. Deal?”

“Shore, Paulie.”

Paulie eyed the bigger man, chin stuck out. “Swear on your dead mother’s soul.”

Helton frowned. “All right. I’se swear on my dead Maw’s soul, there’ll be no tricks out’a us.”

“Good.”

Helton stroked his beard. “But now you gotta swear on your dead maw’s soul.”

“Fair enough. I swear on my dead mother’s soul—no tricks out of us either.”

Helton stared Paulie down. “And just so’s you remember, a man who ain’t worth his word ain’t worth shit.”

“You don’t need to tell me that!”

“All right, then. Enough’a this bickerin’. Let’s get on with this.”

Paulie nodded. “Get in your truck and follow us…”

(VIII)

“Have yourselves a merry little Christmas,” someone crooned from the radio. Case Piece frowned up from the work table. Had someone changed his station? Then he frowned down at the task piled before them: a heap of raw, high-grade white heroin; and it was into innumerable one-by-one inch plastic mini-baggies that he and Sung were gingerly spooning in single-hit allotments of the potent narcotic. Case Piece shook his head. “Baggin’ skag is a pain in the ass—you hear my sass? I got too much class for this manual fuckin’ labor, man.”

“Aw, fruck,” Sung complained, wielding a tiny spoon. “This prain in the ass, all right, Crase! Too brad Highball reft.”

“Yeah.” Case Piece got up, struck a pose, then began to strut. “I’m stylin’ and profilin’, blood. I’m whilin’ and defilin’—shit! I’m bustin’ and I’m gustin’—‘ho!—baggin’ skag I gotta think—huh!—so I need me another grape drink!”

“Dram good, Clase!”

“Uh-huh.” Case piece opened the refrigerator… “Bummer, man! We all out’a grape drink!”

“There’s mrore in the brack fridge.”

“Cool. See, I go ape without my grape…drink.” Case Piece strode past sundry boxes and junk, then bopped down the dark hall. In one of the back rooms, he opened the fridge, reached for a soda drink, but then—

konk!

—fell face-first into the floor.

He saw proverbial stars, and felt as though he were rocking back and forth like someone on a raft. The surprise blow to the back of the skull seemingly ballooned his head. A wavering state of semi-consciousness claimed him, to the extent that he knew only that something was amiss but could not frame words in thought. He heard, for instance, a heavily dialected voice say, “Dang, Paw. Lookit all the hair on this fella. We seed him a’fore, didn’t we?”

And another voice, huskier: “That we did, son. Out yonder on the street. And that hair-do’a his, I think it’s what they used ta call a Afro.”

Case Piece was unable to assign meaning to any of the words. His cheek rubbed the floor then, as his ankles were grabbed and he was hauled out of the room.

“Fruck, fruck, guys!” Sung blubbered in the front room. He churned in a cocoon of ropes as Paulie stood over him. “Ree your bruds, Prawlie!” the Asian pleaded. “You our twop-dwawer dude!”

“My ass,” replied the don. “You guys are killin’ puppies here. No one who works for me kills puppies. No one.”

“No, no, Prawlie! It ruz Menduenz!”

“Yeah?” Paulie tapped his foot, then looked up with a grin, when Helton dragged Case Piece into the room. “Good job, Helton.”

Helton dropped the drug dealer’s ankles, frowned errantly at the fact that the man’s jeans were halfway down his fucking ass, leaving striped boxer shorts pulled up over his navel. Helton propped him up limp in the corner.

“Is he dead?” Paulie asked.

“Naw. All’s I give him is a little knuckle shampoo. Be another minute’re two ‘fore he wakes full up.”

Case Piece’s eyelids fluttered above a hung-open mouth. His head lolled, but he remained three-quarters unconscious.

“Dumar’s lookin’ fer the other ‘un.” Helton said. He looked to Sung. “So what we got here?”

“Just a bagman. Fucker’s name is Sung or some shit. Some Chinese name—”

“Kow-EEE-ah, Prawlie!” Sung objected even his not-looking-very-good predicament.

“Whatever.”

“Looks more like a puppy-killer ta me—”

No, no, mran! I srare. Crase Preece and me, ree never hurt puppies!”

Just then, the door swung open, and in lumbered Argi, with his ruptured and now-nearly-grapefruit-sized testicle exposed, that—

And the stump-grinder.

“Need some help there, fella?” Helton offered.

“Yeah, sure, if ya don’t mind,” the beefy lieutenant said. “This fucker’s heavy even for a portable. Comin’ in I bumped my sore nut on the guide bar—man, that hurt.”

“I’ll bet it did, fella, I’ll bet it did,” and then Helton rendered assistance in positioning the awkward machine properly. Its pivot left the grind-wheel several inches over Sung’s face.

Sung shrieked prayers in Korean.

“Hey.” Paulie tapped Sung’s shoulder with a shoe-tip. “Where’s that guy think’s he’s Scarface?”

“I dron’t know, Prawlie! Ree haven’t sreen him all day! I’m not rying!”

Paulie contemplated the response. “Argi?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Start ‘er up.”

A cord was yanked, then the 5-horse-power engine came to chugging life. Argi grasped the guide bars, jiggling from the vibration. He squeezed the throttle on the handle several times, like some asshole showing off on a motorcycle.

Sung screamed so loud he could actually be heard over the motor’s terrifying din. At high-rev, the machine sounded like a chainsaw…

…only worse.

Then the throttle receded.

“Where’s the Scarface guy?” Paulie demanded. “What’s his name? Menudo?”

“Menduez, boss,” Argi corrected.

“Right. Where is he?”

As the grind-wheel blurred only inches from Sung’s face, his eyes seemed larger than his sockets. “Prawlie, I srare to Grod! I don’t know! And ree never kill no puppies! It was him! Only him!”

Paulie winced, pinching his chin. “What you guys think? You think he’s lying?”

Helton shook his head. “I gotta tell ya, Paulie. My backwoods instinct tell me he’s tellin’ it right.”

“Yeah, boss,” Argi said. “If he knew? He’d’ve given it up by now.”

Paulie reflected on a long pause, then said, “Yeah, you guys are right. This kid don’t know nothin’, but ya know what?”

“What’s that, boss?”

“My grandfather, Vinch the Eye—God rest his soul—”

Paulie and Argi crossed themselves.

“—my grandfather fought the Japanese in World War Two, so I say…GRIND HIM ANYWAY!”

“But I’m Ko-WEE-aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn!” Sung bellowed and the engine revved and the grind-wheel lowered and in half-inch increments Sung’s face, then most of his head was spectacularly milled away into near nothingness. Particulated flesh, bone, blood, and brain sprayed outward in a great plume of gore, like sloppy joe in a snow-blower. The brainy mush fired ten feet across the room.

When the deed was done, only a rind of Sung’s head remained.

Helton’s brow arched. “Ya know, Paulie, you’n me got some hign’n mighty differences ta settle but with alls’a that, I gotta say…there ain’t no foolin’ around with you fellas. That grinder does a dandy job.”

“Yeah, it does, don’t it? And it does a great job on medium-width tree stumps too.”

“Ya don’t say?”

“Now it’s Superfly’s turn,” Paulie said. “Helton, how ’bout draggin’ him over here?” but all at once, they all looked to the corner where the barely conscious form of Case Piece had been deposited…

“Well ain’t that a kick in the dick!” Helton exclaimed.

Case Piece was gone, quite like a character in a novel set up to die but then the irresponsible author, at the last minute, foresaw use for that character in a future project…

“Shit, boss,” Argi remarked. “We were havin’ such a good time grindin’ this guy, we took our eyes off of the other one.”

“Well,” Helton stepped right up. “I’ll’se have ta assume responser-bility. Guess that knuckle shampoo weren’t as hard as I thought.”

“Aw, forget it. He don’t count for shit,” Paulie said. “It’s that other one I want, and I want him bad—”

“This be who you’re talkin’ ’bout?” a confident voice piped up. Dumar pushed in a wheelbarrow filled with one absolutely terrified short-haired Hispanic male wearing a t-shirt featuring Al Pacino with an M-16. His wrists and ankles were expertly tied (the Hispanic’s, not Pacino’s).

“There he is,” Paulie chortled.

“What diss chit, mang?” Menduez tried but failed to act like he didn’t know what was going on. “I work for chew, mang!

“Not no more,”Paulie said. “You been torturin’ puppies, and we happen to like puppies. So we’re gonna torture you.”

Menduez glared, tremoring amid his bonds. “I dint kill no puppies, mang! Dat was Case Piece!”

“Yeah, yeah,” and then Paulie gestured Dumar after which the latter upended the wheelbarrow and dumped Menduez on the floor. At once, Helton and Argi walked the grinder over and positioned it above the Hispanic’s face.

“Chew got diss all wrong, mang!” Menduez pleaded.

Paulie leaned over and bellowed, “We just saw you on the fuckin’ tv stealin’ a puppy! The cops got you on video!”

“Aw, no, no, mang. Chore, I steal duh puppy but only ’cos Case Piece make me. Said he kick me out of duh fockin’ gang, mang! It was Case Piece, mang! He duh one dat kill duh puppies!”

Paulie’s shoe continued to tap. “What do you think, guys? Helton? What’s that backwoods instinct tellin’ ya?”

Helton chuckled. “Paulie, that fella there? He’s lyin’ like a tramp in a flop-house, yessir.”

Argi was nodding. “Shit, boss, he just gave six of the seventeen signs sure as shit. Worst liar I ever saw.”

“No, mang!” Menduez pleaded. “Chew got to believe me!”

Paulie grinned. “Grind him…”

Argi yanked the cord and revved the machine. Menduez screamed. The grind-wheel began to lower, and a wet spot appeared at the Hispanic’s crotch.

But Helton quickly whispered something to Paulie, then the don yelled.

“Argi, don’t grind him!”

“Don’t grind him, boss?”

“Don’t grind him.”

Argi turned the grinder off.

“Helton’s right,” Paulie averred. “Grindin’? It’s too good for this piece of shit. Too fast, ya know? So Helton suggested we do a Melda job on him.”

“Great idea!” Argi said.

“This fucker needs to die slow…”

Helton, Dumar, and Argi hoisted the trussed man and carried him out.

When the Winnebago door banged open, Dr. Prouty’s solitaire cards flew up in the air.

“Come on, Doc. We got the dog killer,” Paulie said in an antsy anticipation. “Get Melda ready.”

The doctor stalled. “Um, sir, perhaps you’ve forgotten in all the entails of the day but…Melda’s dead.”

Paulie shot the former plastic surgeon a look like someone with lemon juice in their mouth. “Doc, listen to what’cher sayin’. So what if she’s dead? Dead or alive, she’s still got a giant pussy, don’t she?”

Prouty fumbled. “Er, uh, why, yes, of course, sir.”

“So come on! Lube this scumbag up!”

With obvious distaste, Dr. Prouty covered the Hispanic’s head with more spoiling I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter; then all involved repaired to the back compartment.

“Jiminy!” Helton said. “That there’s some powerhouse funk!”

“Shore is,” Dumar said but then gulped when his eyes trained on the massive rice-paper-white corpse piled on the bench. By now, post-mortal lividity had purpled the gargantuan woman’s feet, hands, buttocks, and the bottoms of the depending sacks of flesh that were her breasts.

Menduez screamed when he got his first look. “What-what..what chew do, mang?”

“You’ll see, Pedro. Helton, how about pulling one leg up and Dumar can grab the other. Just pull her knees all the way back for a good cunt shot.”

This done, the abyssal maw gaped, and then all the men howled when an appalling release of vaginal gas escaped.

Helton fanned his face. “A gal cunt-fartin’s one thing, but a dead gal cunt-fartin’?”

“Sheee-IT!” Dumar guffawed.

“This is some party, huh, Paulie!” Helton laughed.

“Oh, this party’s just gettin’ started. Argi?”

Menduez screamed and screamed when the two mafiosos plugged Menduez’s shuddering head into Melda’s dead vagina. “Doc, tell us when a minute’s up.”

“Of course, Mr. Vinchetti.”

The doctor’s watch ticked. Helton and Dumar looked on in astonishment. Menduez convulsed.

“A minute has expired, sir.”

WHAP!

Paulie rammed his fist into Menduez’s crotch; the Hispanic’s suffocating scream could be heard even with his head deep in the cadaver’s birth canal.

“Pull him out,” Paulie directed, and they did.

Menduez vibrated on the floor, heaving in his first breath, but then—

WHAP!

—Paulie rammed his fist into the young man’s solar plexus, robbing him of all air.

“Back in!”

Amid a nauseous schucking sound, Melda’s dead vagina re-swallowed the Hispanic’s head.

“Gawd dang, Paw,” Dumar remarked. “This shore is some heavy-duty ruckin’!”

“That it is, son. Hope it’s a lesson to the fella.”

“We smotherin’ him now, boss?” Argi asked.

The two mafiosos shoved the head up hard. “Naw, not yet. I wanna have some fun with this one.”

They pulled the head out, then pushed it in, pulled it out, pushed it in…several times in a row.

“Longer this time,” and—schhhhhluck!—the head was re-admitted as the most horrendous odors were pumped from the vagina.

“Don’t know what she smells worse than, Paw,” Dumar laughed. “The gut-can at Hack Doobler’s butcher shop or the pit Charlie Fuchson’s uses to git rid’a his cows that die.”

“This gal’s pussy, son, I’d say smells worse that both them things.”

More muffled screams could be heard from the corpulent mass. Menduez began to enter death-throes.

“Look’s like he’s kickin’, boss.”

“Yeah, and I hope all them puppies he killed are waitin’ for him in hell.”

But, again, Helton whispered something in Paulie’s ear.

“Shit! Yeah!” the don exclaimed. “Argi, pull him out!”

“Pull him out, boss?”

“Pull him out! I want him alive!”

schhhhhhhhhhhhluck-THUMP…

Menduez’s head was extracted. The young man lay motionless now, eyes seared open by unmitigated, unutterable, and indefatigable organic horror.

“Aw, shit, he ain’t dead, is he?” Paulie complained.

Dr. Prouty’s finger touched the man’s jugular. “I’m afraid he’s no longer among the living, sir.”

“Well, fuck that, Doc! Get down there and do that doctor shit you do!”

Dr. Prouty made an aghast face. “Umm, pardon me, sir?”

“Come on! That CRP shit or whatever, like they’d do on that old show with the bimbos in the red swimsuits? Shit, those girls were packing some camletoe—Baywatch, that’s it.” He snapped his fingers. “What’s the word I’m lookin’ for, Doc?”

Prouty’s lower lip trembled. “You want me to…resuscitate him, sir?”

Paulie beamed. “Yeah, yeah! That’s it!”

The doctor paled, already wobbling at the spirit-upheaving odor and the mere sight of the Hispanic’s rotten-margarine-and-dead-vaginal-slime slathered head. “Really, sir, that would be a very trepidacious undertaking…”

Paulie stared. “Doc. If you don’t bring that puppy-killin’ scumbag back to life, you know whose head’s goin’ in Melda’s pussy next.”

Prouty was on his knees in half a second, first opening Menduez’s airway, aspirating air into the lungs, then administering expert cardiac compressions.

Helton, Dumar, Paulie, and Argi all watched quite raptly.

Thirty seconds. Forty. Fifty.

A minute.

“Oh, dear!” the doctor wailed. “It appears that—”

—but at a minute ten seconds, Menduez lurched, hacked, threw up in a volcano-like plume, and screamed.

“The Doc did it!” Paulie yelled.

“Well ain’t that sumpthin’!” Dumar declared.

“The doctor done reached down inta the valley’a death itself and pulled this evil fella right out!” Helton celebrated.

“Good job, Doc,” Argi commended, but then winced when he gingerly touched his swollen testicle.

Dr. Prouty—vomit-bespattered now—sighed, walked over to the portable bar, and poured himself a drink. Without thinking, he rubbed his crotch.

Paulie gaped. “Doc!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you just rub your crotch?”

Confusion bloomed on Prouty’s face. “Why…I believe I did, Mr. Vinchetti”—suddenly he looked lost—“and…for no apparent reason…”

“You’re finally gettin’ it, Doc!” and then Paulie and Argi laughed aloud.

“The Doc saved your life, kid,” Paulie returned his attention to the captive. “Ain’t ya even gonna say thank you?”

“Chit, mang!”Menduez wailed. “I’m beggin’ chew! Don’t put my head back in dare! Choot me instead! Knife me! Anyting! But not dat!”

“No, no, kid, you really gotta leave this to us…”

“So what now, boss?” Argi asked.

“Helton got a terrific idea!” Paulie alighted. “Come on, guys!” and then the men piled out—save for Dr. Prouty—and with them they dragged the convulsant form of Menduez.

They dragged him from the Winnebago, across the pavement, and into the back of Helton’s truck.

When the door closed behind them, Helton’s enthused voice could be heard, “What we’se gonna do with this here puppy-killer is something’ that ain’t never been done is all’a history! We’se gonna have ourselfs…a quadruple-header!” and from within, it became difficult to discern as to what screamed louder, Menduez or the hole-saw…

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