Header 2

Chapter 2

(I)

PULASKI, VIRGINIA

“…and now on to the local news,” issued the monotonic voice of the radio newscaster. This voice issued from the speakers of a commonplace redneck pickup truck as it clattered down the quaint and rather dull Main Street of the small town of Pulaski, Virginia, famous for the Pulaski Mariners semi-pro baseball team. The driver of the commonplace redneck pickup truck was a fugitive and former Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms agent whose long hair, scrappy attire, and unkempt beard proved his desire to appear as commonplace a redneck as one who might own such a truck. His name and details, however, are unrelated to this narrative. It was not the driver, nor the truck that bore relevance, but instead the radio news broadcast that issued from the truck.

“…another incident was reported early this morning by Pulaksi authorities, regarding the recent spate of animal mutilations. For the past several months, some sick, sick person has been kidnaping dogs—puppies, in most cases—and subjecting the harmless animals to heinous acts of torture, including evisceration, boiling and burning, and dismemberment.” Here, the newscaster croaked something like a sob. “The body parts of these animals are then left in areas that police believe to be havens and/or drug districts in the surrounding tri-city area. The dog killer’s gruesome signature seems to always involve the decapitation of the dog, the attaching of the dog’s head to a stick, and the planting of the stick on or near property thought to be occupied by random drug rivals. Deputy Chief Dood Malone, of the County Sheriff’s Department and commander of the Pulaski Regional Station, had this to say,” and then a far less monotonic voice, tinged by indigenous dialect, continued, “What we got here, in this fine, upstandin’ town of ours, is a criminal of the lowest-down sort, and I mean lower’n snake shit,” the expletive, properly assumed, was BLEEPED out by technicians in an electronic delay. “Aw, folks, now I’se sorry ’cos I reckon I cain’t say snake shit over the radio waves, but I think the seriousness of these crimes will be understood by all the good, church-goin’ folks out there listenin’. Over a dozen dogs—usually cute li’l puppy dogs—has been snatched, tortured’n murdered these past several months, and the experts have tolt me the evidence inder-kates that the levels of torture ‘fore this sick motherfu…motherfooler cut off their heads is stuff like what’d make the Devil hisself heave-ho. I’se mean, innocent little dogs! Now, since we’se always on top’a thangs here in Pulaski County, we immediately contacted none other than the FBI and the DEA to ask for a profile of this piece of shhhhhh…piece of shoot, low-down scumbag, and what they done tolt us is that more’n likely this despicable person is a heroin dealer serving the local areas and maybe—er, proberlee—a illegal immergrint from Venezuela on account of it bein’ known that Venezuela heroin dealers reg-larly mark their turf by torturin’ poor, innocent dogs and then choppin’ off their heads’n puttin’ ’em in the yards of their enemies. It’s a sad, sad day when evil stuff like this slides its way inta the midst of fine, law-abidin’ folks like us, ‘sppecially so close ta Christmas. What I gotta impress upon’ yawl, now, is that the Fido Alert we’ve had goin’ fer months is still gonna be in effect, so—please, hear me, folks. Keep yer dogs inside. Walkin’ ’em’s fine on a leash but don’t under any circumstancers let ’em out in the yard—even if ya got a fence—less’n you’re with em. If any’a ya out there know anything about this sick piece’a shhhh…er, piece’a shucks, then you call up the county sheriff’s department and you ask fer me personally, ’cos when I catch this-this-this person, it’ll be his head gettin’ cut off’n put on a stick, and I’ll be the one doin’ the cuttin’!” A brief disclaimer announcement followed, the county executive wearisomely assuring listeners that when the perpetrator was apprehended, his head would in fact not be cut off, and that he would be granted his day in court.

The driver of the redneck pickup truck raised a brow at the spew of gruesome information. Torturing puppies, cutting off their heads? he reflected. Man, this is one SICK world…

Now, it just so happened that at the same moment the pickup truck was idling past the Martins Pharmacy on Main Street, a pedestrian heading down the sidewalk overheard the entire newscast. This pedestrian’s name was Menduez, late-‘20s, dark complected, and possessed of an arrogant gait. He spoke and understood English now fairly well—yet had an accent more Cuban than Venezuelan, to the degree that he was often accused of deliberately mimicking Scarface—since arriving quite illegally in the United States from his home town of Caracas, Venezuela; and, yes, he was indeed the perpetrator of these hideous crimes against local pet dogs. Hearing the newscast brought a smile to his face, and he thought, Ah, so dat fat gringo sheriff piece’a chit theenk he gonna catch me? ME? He need a fockin’ ARMY ta catch me. Gude lock, fat gringo moth-ur FOCKer piece’a CHIT.

Down the sidewalk he cockily strode, catching some disapproving half-glances from passersby. In one hand was a Burger King bag, and in the other, a burlap sack.

For those desirous of characterization, it should be communicated that Menduez was the only survivor of the vicious M-27 Gang that rampaged through Richmond not too long ago, raping, killing, selling black-tar heroin, and, well, raping and killing. Though, in all verity, most citizens not only didn’t care when gang members killed each other and in fact applauded it, the M-27 Gang killed just as many innocent, middle-class tax-payers, essentially just for the hell of it. Federal agents caught nearly the entire gang in a sting operation several summers ago; a shoot-out ensued, and all the gang members were introduced to the morgue. The only member fortunate enough to not be present was Menduez. (He’d been on the prowl for puppies to abduct from peoples’ yards.) But given the intensity of the heat now on for him, he wisely decided to go small-time, move to Pulaski, and hook up with several characters who shared his expertise for marketing dangerous substances.

Small-time worked just fine.

He bopped along, eventually turning into the part of town that was, at best, ill-regarded: a little industrial park in proximity to subsidized block apartments and shit-looking little houses. A warehouse occupied one section of the park, though; its sign read, of all things, WAREHOUSE, and the actual owner of this warehouse, via a very circuitous paper trail, was one Paul Vinchetti III, known to closer associates as “Paulie the 3rd.” The only wares to ever be housed here were kilo-sized bags of heroin. The warehouse served as the operational base for a group who were as ill-regarded as this section of town: NSG-3—heroin middle-men—and one member of this gang was none other than Menduez.

Menduez passed the warehouse’s closed-for-the-last-ten-years garage door and knocked twice, then once, then twice on the smaller steel door aside. Eventually he was admitted, then the door was relocked.

“There be my bro’, Menduez,” greeted the Gang’s magnate, “Case Piece,” a skinny yet apple-biceped late-‘20s African American who wore cliched “‘hood” apparel: blinking $100 sneakers and jeans hanging halfway down his fuckin’ ass. His t-shirt boasted the face and name of his favorite Rap star, REE-dik-YOU-liss. Sitting beside him, scrawling in a numbered account ledger, was this enterprise’s math whizz and financial director, a Korean illegal immigrant called Sung. He looked kind of like Fuji on McHale’s Navy, for those old enough to even be aware of that wonderful old sitcom starring Ernest Borgnine and Al Lewis. Hence: the human components of NSG-3, which stood for, quite politically incorrectly, Nigger, Spic, Gook. A fourth semi-member—who in fact had been the one to let Menduez in the door—was the Gang’s stress-reliever, a short, slim yet well-curvatured Caucasian woman with blond hair and jet-black roots known as “Highball.” Best described as an over-the-hill gang-groupie, this 35-year-old fornicatress turned tricks for the Gang, helped “baggie” the “skag” for delivery to their “street-points” and individual “hypes,” and provided the boys sexual access on demand. Her nickname had been earned at the tender age of 15 when, upon joining her very first gang—a sprawling meth troupe in Minnesota—she’d unflinchingly masturbated close to 50 men and then expertly collected their ejaculations in a highball glass. This served as her initiation to the gang; and one need not be told what she did with the contents of that glass. Perfect implants graced her bosom, these being purveyed during her better days of stripping. A quality genetic composure was easily observed: Highball’s body still looked quite sexually provocative even after decades of drugs, drink, hard knocks, and carnal abandon. An interesting character trait was thus: she tended to wear a black overcoat with Hip-Hop buttons all over it, that and flip-flops. This ploy came in handy, for instance, to quickly display “merchandise”; in fact, it was preliminary in her admission to NSG-3 only days ago. See, great body notwithstanding, Highball’s face—or “grill,” as Case Piece called it—looked a bit long in the tooth, but, however oddly, the overcoat compensated for this. She had spotted the guys loitering near the local Hess station, and she proved her assertiveness without compunction. Waltzing right up to them, she said, “Hey. I wanna be in your fuckin’ gang.”

Case Piece made a comedic facial gesture. “Shit. You old, bitch. Your grill all wrinkly’n shit. We’re V.I.P’s—we don’t lay no dick on no old.”

“Well, the wrinkles are from meth, but I don’t do that shit no more, and I don’t do crack, coke, beans, eightballs—none of it. My jones is fucking, sucking, and swallowing cum. And what guy really gives a shit about the face? I gotta topper-drawer bod than anything you ever fucked, and I’ll fuck’n suck all’a ya, like, all the time. Just let me in your gang. I’m a gang girl, always been.”

Sung and Menduez stood arms crossed, appraising.

“All right,” Case Piece consented. “Let’s see you pimp your shit. Get them poo-putt bitchcovers the fuck off.”

All Highball had to do was open her overcoat, and—

All three gang guys raised big brows, grinned, and began rubbing their crotches.

Case Piece’s enthusiasm burst forth. “Shit, bitch, damn, that’s some xtralishious white-bitch up-town bags and trick-time super bubble-pie!”

“Ain’t it?” Highball said.

“Now let’s see the cash-drawer.”

Highball raised one leg, in a brazen pubic exhibit.

Menduez and Sung high-fived, hooting in their particular accents.

“Shit, ho!” Case Piece approved. “That’s the phattest, toppest, trickest, goldest food-card machine I ever peel-eyed in my whole fuckin’ thug LIFE! Make my baboon sack go all a-fuckin’ quiver!”

“And check out my clit,” she advised, then—acrobatically maintaining the pose—she V’d her fingers over her vulva’s tip, applied pressure, and bared an astonishingly large clitoris. The nerve-corpulent kernel stuck out like the end of a mini-frank.

“Damn, girl! You got a cunt-nugget!”

“Fruck!” Sung railed. “You twop dwawer, girl!”

And Menduez: “Dat’s some serious buena CHIT, mang! Keeler tits’n poosy, mang!”

Highball grinned, nodding. “Good. Now make me hip to your crib so you can peel-eye me fuckin’ ya all till you’re cryin’ like babies,” whereupon the boys escorted her to the warehouse and, with great satisfaction, sampled the goods.

And this was only days ago, yet in that short time, Highball had acclimated to the gang quite well, and she even did all of their laundry. At this very moment, though, she flip-flopped herself to the wall where a bizarre apparatus leaned. “Hey, Case Piece? What the fuck’s this?”

The device looked akin to an industrial floor buffer that sat strangely on a long metal blank, rather skateboardish, but the “blank” possessed a peculiar pivot at the center on the bottom. The machine housed a small gasoline motor with the words ALPINE on it.

Case Piece gulped. “That a stump-grinder, ‘ho.”

“The fuck?”

“You ain’t met Paulie’n his crew, bitch…”

“Fruuuuuuck,” Sung intoned. “They hawdkwore…”

“Chit, yeah,” Menduez added with a gulp.

“So don’t never be dopest enough ta piss ’em off,” Case Piece went on. “See, they be the dudes that bring us the uncut smack every month.”

Highball scratched her jet-black roots, still eyeing the machine. One end was clearly a grinding-wheel. “Yeah? So what’s that got to do with this…stump-grinder?”

“S’fore grindin’ tree stumps but, Paulie? He use it ta grind people. No jive. These dudes? Fuck. Anybody cross ’em, they fuck ’em up, and if they cross ’em bad enough…they stump-grind ’em.” Even Case Piece, as bad-ass as he may or may not have been, showed signs of unease in relating this. “Say some player or jamake start trine to sell smack on Paulie’s turf? Paulie bury the dude up to his neck—no jive—and then one’a his crew, he take that machine’n grind his head off.”

“Fuck!” Highball yelled.

“And there was one time, see, this bagman was double-dealin’ ‘tween Paulie’s smack and some jamake’s—they stake the dude’s squeeze to the ground and, see, this bitch was poppin’ she was so pregnant. So then Paulie’s guy…he stump-grinds the chick’s belly, all’s while makin’ the dude watch.”

Highball paled.

“But ya know what? That dude, he never double-deal again.”

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“Here chore BK Veggie, puta,” Menduez said, and handed her a sandwich from the Burger King bag.

Highball smirked. “You think I can eat after hearin’ that shit? Fuckin’ spic must be crazy!”

“Si, cerda, si,” Menduez uttered, smiling.

“Ya spic fuck! You dissin’ me? What’s cerda mean?”

“Eet meens beautiful woooooman.”

“Oh, well… How sweet!” said Highball, the compliment temporarily divorcing the smirk from her face. To Case Piece and Sung, two Double Whopper Value meals were dispensed. Then Case Piece asked, “What’s in the sack, jack?”

Menduez grinned and removed from the sack a cute-as-a-button Cocker Spaniel puppy. The puppy licked Menduez’s face, frantically wagging its tail.

“A puppy!” Highball wailed in delight, but there was anything but delight in the reactions of Case Piece and Sung.

Highball took the puppy in her arms and coddled it. “Menduez got us a puppy! It can be the gang mascot!”

Menduez laughed, then said to Case Piece. “I found out wheech house those new players creebing at, dah focks.”

Highball didn’t receive Menduez’s meaning, yet so delighted she was with the puppy, she didn’t think to ask. “What should we name it?”

“How’s ’bout Dead Meat?” Case Piece said.

“Huh?” replied the prostitute, and it might be appropriate to remind the Reader again that Highball was new to the gang. She was therefore unaware of Menduez’s abominable penchant; so when Case Piece explained that penchant, Highball shrieked and began to run with the puppy.

“What the fuck kind of sick shit is that!” she screamed. “Ain’t no way I’m lettin’ him torture this puppy!”

Menduez blocked the door.

“Shit, girl,” Case Piece said. “This be a gang, not Sesame Street. You new, so’s you can’t go actin’ all crazy’n shit. Uh-huh. The dog thing is Menduez’s thing. We don’t exactly dig it either but that’s the way it rolls. Menduez, he do a lot for our gang and you…don’t. So cut out the chick-shit and give Menduez the dog back, less you wanna cap in yo’ white ass. You underdig?”

Highball looked pre-seizural at the prospect. But she underdug, all right, especially the “cap” part, but still… Still…

“It’s a puppy, for fuck’s sake!”

WHAP!

Menduez rammed his fist into Highball’s cheek. She collapsed, unconscious even before she hit the floor, then the Venezuelan sociopath picked the puppy back up, which immediately began to lick his face. “American girls, mang, they’se loco,” he said, then took the puppy to a room that was thankfully so far back in the building that Case Piece and Sung wouldn’t be able to hear…the sounds.

Sung frowned, then bit into his Double Whopper with Cheese. “That gry, he no wight in head!”

Case Piece shrugged. “Yeah, well, I guess none of us is. We all a bunch of drug dealers. I don’t know how he can do that shit to dogs either but, shit, that’s what they do where he from. Sung, we need to be more sensitive to other cultures. Me bein’ a player from the ‘hood’n you bein’ from Japan or some shit.”

Sung hacked out a bite of his sandwich. “Ko-wee-ah, man!” he howled. “I from Ko-wee-ah, not Japan! Fruck the Jrapanese, the frucks! In Wald Waw Two, the fruckin’ Jrapanese pigs kill all our men and turn our women to whores! They take our rice and give to their soldiers and make us eat our own shit! Fruck Jrapan! Americans should’ve brombed whole cunt-twee!”

“Chill, chill, Sung. Shit. I don’t know from no Korea, man. Though it was all the same, Japanese, Chinese’n all—”

Sung hacked out another bite of sandwich. “China! Fruck! Dirty Wed Chinese, they come over our cunt-twee in the north and kill us all for the commissar! Fruck the Chinese!”

Case Piece rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Sung. Lay back, huh?”

Both men glanced up at the sound of knocks on the door. Two knocks first, then one, then two more.

Sung opened it, and in walked a tall, well-postured man with neatly trimmed gray hair. He looked rather like John Delorean, for those who remember John Delorean. Nice slacks, nice dress shoes, and, oddly, a white labcoat, like a doctor’s.

“Doc!” greeted Case Piece. “My man! How you be?”

The doctor, whose name was Dr. Winston Prouty, formerly an esteemed plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills, was currently a rather uncharacteristic errand boy for Paul Vinchetti III. Prouty considered Case Piece’s query, then answered in a rich, articulate tone. “Why, your man be…in reasonably good physical and mental repair, I’d estimate.”

“Solid. Shit, we ain’t peel-eyed you in a long-ass time.”

“I’m on a special excursion with Mr. Vinchetti and two of his affiliates. We’re, in a manner of speaking, multi-tasking. Two birds with one stone?”

Sung held out his sandwich. “You maybe rike brite of my Double Ropper, Doc?”

“Kind sir, your generosity is appreciated in the utmost, but I must respectfully decline, as…recent events have forestalled all appetite. I’m here merely to make sure—as the old saying goes—that the coast is clear.”

“It be clear, Doc, it be clear, and, man, we need a new drop off ’cos we is fresh out’a skag.”

“Well then that regrettable deficiency will be remedied posthaste,” and next Prouty made a call on his cellphone, said something, and hung up. Within moments, a refined rumbling could be heard outside.

“Damn, Doc, what you boys drivin’ ’round in?” Case Piece asked. “Sounds like a fuckin’ tank.”

“Holy shrit!” Sung said, peeping through the minuscule front window. “It look like big fruckin’ house on reels!”

Case Piece looked, too, and saw the massive motor-home parking in front of the warehouse. “Shit, we could have ourselves a party in them wheels. That’s trick.”

For some strange reason, the innocuous remark caused a moment of malaise within the doctor. “I…assure you that…no manner of partying has ever taken place in that Winnebago.”

“Well, shit. Sung, get the wheelbarrow! We got junkies out there fuckin’ cryin’ for the shit.”

“Hence, the machinations of addiction and its formidable utility in consumerism.”

Three more men entered then, all dark-haired, all wearing suits, gloves, topcoats, and sunglasses. A raucous greeting ensued. The first man was, of course, Paul Vinchetti III, aka Paulie the 3rd, lean, salon-tanned, mid-to-late-‘30s, son of Paul Vinchetti Jr., grandson of Paul Monstroni Vinchetti, aka “Vinch the Eye,” originally a district boss in the Lonna/Stello/Marconi Crime Pyramid, an armature of that mythical human machinery known as the Mafia. (It may be worth pointing out that said crime pyramid was now referred to as the Vinchetti/Stello Crime Pyramid. Lonna and Marconi had gotten greedy and both wound up stump-ground.) Paulie was told quite frequently that he was a dead-ringer for the Duke University basketball coach, but he’d never heard of the guy. Shit, Paulie was a mob boss. He didn’t watch fucking basketball.

Next in Paulie’s crew was an ox-necked, crag-faced, and broad-shouldered lieutenant, Arrigetto “Argi” Calzano. Argi was 55 years old and had caused a great deal of Vinchetti’s enemies to sleep with the fishes. Third was Paulie’s “fix-it” man, a trim, good-natured psychopath about 40 years old: Cristo Picrinni. His real first name was Cristoforro which meant “follower of Christ.” He’d blow-torch a judge’s baby, gang-rape-to-death a police chief’s adolescent daughter, or pressure-cook the head of a politician’s aged father, all without an iota of reservation.

“There’s my man on the street,” Paulie said. “What’s up?”

Case Piece replied, “‘S’all solid. I’m your Ace Boon Coon, my man. We’se just chillin’ and killin’, slingin’ and blingin’, dealin’ and stealin’, thuggin’ and muggin. Everything’s crown—uh-huh.”

Paulie blinked. “And sorry we’re late. The pickups are taking longer and getting smaller. It’s this goddamn recession.”

“Yeah, man, I get the same jibe from the hypes on the street,” Case Piece said. “They’re singin’ the blues. Shit, one junkie told me last three dudes he mugged were broke!”

“It’s fucked up. If Obama don’t fix this fuckin’ recession like he said, I’m gonna ask for my vote back!” Paulie blared, and then everybody laughed. Agri was the one with the suitcase, which he opened on a tattered couch. >From this he dispensed five kilo-bags of 95-percent-pure heroin—not that black tar shit from Mexico but the high-end smack from Afghanistan, compliments of our friends the Taliban.

“Damn, Paulie,” Case Piece regretted. “You ain’t kiddin’ the pickups are gettin’ smaller. We was expectin’ seven or eight.”

“It’s a kick in the balls, ain’t it? You’ll have to step on it a little more—fuck ’em. Drug dealers gotta make a living too, you know?” and then everyone, quite obligatorily, laughed again while all but Paulie secretly acknowledged that the remark wasn’t very funny. Then the tirade continued. “Fuckin’ sucks these days, I’m tellin’ ya. Price’a gas goin’ up again, mules chargin’ double, cops gettin’ harder’n harder to get on the pad ’cos they’re more worried about their fuckin’ health care! Top it all off, my wife’s on the rag so I couldn’t even put one in her before I took off. Now that really sucks!”

The others rolled their eyes, then laughed again.

Paulie sat down on an old cable spool that now sufficed for a table. The spool was covered with one-by-one-inch plastic Zip-Loc baggies. “Yeah, the world’s gettin’ fucked up, all right. Shit, you know what we heard on the radio comin’ over? We heard a news guy saying that some really fucked-up-in-the-head piece of shit—some guy in this town—is cuttin’ off the heads of puppy dogs after torturin’ the shit out of ’em. Kid you not.”

Concealing some sullenness, Case Piece said, “Yeah, that’s some fucked up shit, aw right, Paulie.”

“Said it’s some drug-turf thing, and I’ll bet my fuckin’ balls it’s one of these penny-ante fucks tryin’ to work our regions. I’ll tell ya, if I ever caught some low-life fuck torturin’ a puppy, man…I’d have Argi and Cristo do a job on him that would even make me puke.”

Sung gulped. “Yeah, Prawlie. That frucked up. Towtuwing dogs…”

“And not just dogs, the guy said. Puppies.” Paulie shook his head. “Just don’t know what’s gotten into the world.”

“Makes me sick just thinkin’ about it,” Argi said.

“Yeah, Paulie,” Cristo added. “I ever get my hands on the fuck? Oooo—mama mia!”

“Shit, let’s talk about somethin’ else. All this dog-killin’ talk’s makin’ me depressed.” Paulie pointed dejectedly to the wheelbarrow full of smack. “So anyway, that’s the way it goes. Cut the shit a little more’n get it on the street. We’re just like anyone else. Tryin’ to do the best we can durin’ economic bad times.” Paulie looked around. “Say, where’s that bean-eater? He didn’t get whacked, did he?”

“Aw, no, Paulie. Menduez—he our crownest drug-slinger—he doin’ just fine. He’s in back…fixin’ stuff.” Case Piece, repressing a minor sweat, directed to Sung, “Why’n’cha roll the smack in back and see if Menduez needs a hand?”

“White away!” and Sung wheeled through one of the doors.

Case Piece snapped on the boombox. “How ’bout we groove on some tunes, Paulie?” and then a cannonade of annoying sound rocketed forth: “Ya gizzle, ma mizzle, ya fizzle with my grizzle! We’re poppin’ caps, we’re poppin’ trunk, my bitch’s pussy smell like skunk! Tiggy tee, tiggy taw, we bustin’ down the law! We got the jack down jaw and we eat duh cole slaw—”

“Turn that shit off!” Paulie, Argi, and Cristo bellowed at the same time.

“Sure, dawgs,” Case Piece said and killed the boombox. “Just thought…ya might want some tunes. Chill out, ya know?”

“That shit gives me a headache almost as bad as the Caruso my mother made me listen to when I was a baby,” Paulie groaned.

Case Piece peeked again out the window. “So, Paulie? What’s with the motor-home? You don’t need a ride that big to putt-putt smack to a few points.”

“Naw, see, this was a special occasion,” Paulie began.

“Doc, he say somethin’ ’bout killin’ two birds with one stone.”

“The Doc was right.” Paulie rubbed his crotch for no apparent reason. “We needed the Winnebago for an action.”

“An…action?”

Argi’s throaty voice kicked in. “That’s goombah mob talk for a button.”

Case Piece squinted. “A button. How come I got the feelin’ you ain’t talkin’ ’bout buttons on a motherfuckin’ shirt?”

Paulie chuckled. “We had to whack someone, as in kill him. Vendetta thing. You know what vendetta means?”

Case Piece stroked his beardless chin. “Oh, like revenge’n shit.”

“Yeah. My wife, Marshie, you ain’t never seen her but—ooo, she’s a doll. Ain’t she, boys?”

“Magnifico,” complimented Argi, kissing the tips of his fingers.

“Makes Helen’a fuckin’ Troy look like a pack’a zits on a monkey’s ass,” Cristo said.

Paulie nodded. “Right. See, I only married her two-three years ago but every year this time she gets all depressed and—just like a fuckin’ woman—she never told me why. So I think it’s ’cos of the kid, even though that was, like six, eight months ago.”

“The kid?” Case Piece inquired.

“Aw, yeah, I guess you don’t know about that. See, me’n Marshie, we wanted a kid, so I knocked her up and, bam, nine months later, out pops the kid. Beautiful baby girl. But, shit, see, the kid wasn’t but three months old before it kicks off. Some…kid disease, right, doc?”

“Quite a despairing and heretofore unexplained syndrome knows as SIDS,” said the tall doctor solemnly. “The acronym for Sudden Infant Death.”

“Yeah, that shit—”

“Aw, Paulie, man,” Case Piece offered his condolences. “That be some fucked up shit. Sorry to hear it.”

Paulie flapped a hand. “So anyway, like I was sayin’, I thought that’s what the wife was all in the blues about but it turns out it was somethin’ else too. See, her fuckin’ father’s birthday is in December, and, see, her father got whacked, like, fifteen years ago. He was white trash who got rich on a land deal, so then a couple crackers jealous of his money killed the old guy. Now, Marshie wouldn’t tell me how these fuckers whacked her father but she said it was more awful than anything I could ever think of, but then I think, oh, yeah? Well, fuck, I decided that a little vendetta was in order, and it had to be a real gore-house job, ya know?”

“Oh, so you put the drop on the dudes who whacked the old man,” Case Piece assumed.

“Naw, naw, see, funny thing is, them two crackers? They wound up gettin’ capped by a cop the same day. But just ’cos they’re dead don’t mean it’s all over.” Paulie shrugged. “It was the only thing I could do. My wife wanted revenge so I thought, shit, I’ll show ’em revenge.”

Case Piece wasn’t getting the jibe. “But if the two crackers got capped, who’s left?”

“Who’s left?” Paulie jested, then Argi and Cristo laughed.

“The family,” Argi answered.

Paulie smiled. “Like I said, vendetta. It wasn’t good enough the two guys got whacked by someone else.”

Case Piece grimly eyed the stump-grinder. “So you come here to pick up that thing’n figure on snatchin’ the family and stump-grindin’ ’em, huh?”

Paulie grinned. “Naw, naw. Somethin’ worse.”

“Shit, man, that some captown groaty shit. What could be worse than gettin’ stump-grinded?”

Paulie, Argi, and Cristo all laughed. “Somethin’ that all them crackers would never forget. To let ’em know that no one fucks with Paulie Vinchetti’s wife. No one.”

Case Piece blinked. “Oh, I dig.” He blinked again. “So…what’cha do, man? What be tricker than the grinder?”

“Somethin’ so bad, so off-the-wall gore-show,” Paulie replied, grinning, “that you don’t wanna know. What’cha think, Doc? Ya think I ought to tell Case Piece about the job?”

Prouty cleared his throat. “Actually, sir, if you happen to hold Mr. Piece in any esteem at all, you’d be doing him a service by not telling him.”

Yet, again, the mafiosos laughed.

“Man, you white guys are fucked up,”Case Piece said, “but, shit, that’s cool.” The black man paused. “Wait, Paulie, what the fuck’s any’a this got to do with you guys drivin’ ’round in something half the size of this warehouse?”

“’Cos for this job?” Paulie kept grinning. “We need somethin’ big.”

“Solid,” Case Piece muttered, and even as the narrative becomes more and more muddled, it was clear that Case Piece didn’t want to know.

Dr. Prouty looked behind the beaten couch and alerted the others. “There seems to be a..damsel in distress here.”

Case Piece chuckled. “Oh, that just Highball.”

Prouty touched his chin. “She appears to have suffered a mild contusion of the zygomatic process and upper-right maxilla region.”

“Shit, she got her grill busted for some pain-in-the-ass bitch-city yaw-yaw,” Case Piece corrected.

Paulie winced. “What’s bitch-city yaw-yaw?”

“You know. Yappin’, motor-mouthin’, jib-jabbin’ the way girls do.”

“Oh, you mean, she was whinin’ so she got her clock cleaned.”

“Yeah, Paulie, yeah.”

Paulie peeked behind the couch, where Highball lay out cold. “Christ, man. She looks fuckin’ fifty.”

“Oh, sure, she be a little wore out in the face, but, shit, Paulie, she be our top dro’”

“What?”

“You know. Real dingo, man. Get’cha a ringer in yer dinger, get some motch in yer crotch. Queen’a bitch city, you know, our crownest dawgie drop.”

“What?”

“I think he means she’s the gang whore, boss,” Argi said.

“Oh, but…man,” Paulie continued to observe. “Her face is all wrinkled! She get many johns with a face like that?”

“Shitload, Paulie, ’cos it ain’t the face, it’s the bone-covers, you know, the skin-suit. Highball, she be the boo boo head who got a pwizzle put some sizzle in yo swizzle’n make ya wanna drizzle.”

“Huh?”

“You know, got a pinktown honkie-monkey real boo-ya, uh-huh.”

Paulie frowned.

“Means she’s a good lay, I think,” Argi said.

“Well, fuck,” Paulie said. “Lemme check out the melon-stand, as they say,” and then he reached down to unbutton the girl’s overcoat.

Before the first button could be unfastened, Highball abruptly regained consciousness. She glared at Paulie, then glared at Argi and Cristo, then jumped up, fuming. “Keep your fuckin’ hands off me, you asshole! Nobody touches me unless I say they can! Fuck! Who the fuck are you! You look like a bunch of greaseball, wop, olive-oil goombas!”

All brows rose as silence fell swift as a guillotine blade over the room.

Case Piece cleared his throat. “Highball. You the dopest poo-putt bitch I ever seen. This Mr. Vinchetti and his crew.”

“Fuck them! The fucker was feelin’ me up while I was knocked out!” she yelled.

Case Piece cleared his throat again. “These the dudes I jawwed about earlier. We work for them.”

The silence thickened.

“You mean, you mean,” she stammered. “The guys who…,” and then she cast a terrified glance toward the stump-grinder.

“Yeah. Them dudes. So what you need to do and I mean, like, real split-lickety, is apologize to Mr. Vinchetti and his friends.”

Highball’s blooming eyes beseeched the mafioso. “I-I-I-I’m sorry, sir.”

Several moments ticked by, then, in visible disconcertion, Paulie walked slowly over to Case Piece, inclined his head, and whispered, “Case Piece. Your squeeze just called me an asshole, a greaseball, a wop, and an olive-oil goombah. Nobody calls me that. So you know what that means, right, pal?”

Highball was already screaming as Argi hauled out the stump-grinder. Cristo grappled her and with very little effort abated her screams by the deft application of duct tape across her mouth. Next, he had her pinned to the floor by standing on her shoulders.

Argi pulled a cord, and the stump-grinder revved up, belching exhaust.

“Aw, fuck, Paulie!” Case Piece yelled over the motor-din. “She didn’t know who you was. This a bit…harsh, ain’t it?”

Argi’s preposterously large muscles hefted the grinder’s roaring blade-head by means of the pivot and positioned it right over Highball’s face. The prostitute’s eyes couldn’t have been wider, and she bucked, kicked, and convulsed beneath Cristo in sheer fucking terror.

“Yeah, maybe is it,” Paulie considered. “Besides, the blades on these things are expensive as fuck. Gotta replace ’em every couple of jobs.” He made a cut-throat gesture to Argi who, in turn, shut off the stump-grinder.

“Thanks, Paulie,” Case Piece said, relieved. “I’ll kick her ass myself, and I’ll do a trick-time job, ’cos, serious, Highball, she may fly off at the mouth sometimes, but, shit, I’m tellin’ ya, man. She got uptown bags and a front-door backstop make the Pope shit his pants, and she give gobble-game topper that any boo boo head ever sucked your whip.”

Paulie frowned. “What?”

“I think he means she’s got great tits and pussy and sucks dynamite dick,” Argi said.

“Oh, she do, and you’n your crew can have it any time ya wants.” Case Piece looked to Highball, who remained pinned to the floor. “Right, Highball?”

She wagged her head yes faster than anyone ever had in all of human history.

Paulie sighed. “Case Piece, you don’t get it. I’m Italian. When an Italian is smote by a whore, well…that’s just…” He paused and snapped his fingers at Prouty. “Doc, what am I tryin’ to say?”

“I believe,” the doctor began, “that such a regrettable instance demands satisfaction from which there is no recourse; no manner of apology, for example, exists in any level of acceptability.”

“Yeah,” Paulie said. “So… What are we gonna do about this blondie here with the black roots?”

Argi tapped Paulie’s shoulder, grinned, and pointed outside.

To the Winnebago.

“Argi! You’re a genius!” Paulie celebrated. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He slapped Case Piece on the back. “Come on, my friend. Like it or not, you’re gonna get to see that we got in the Winnie!” and with that, they all filed out of the warehouse, Argi and Cristo carrying the girl.

Dr. Prouty was visibly disturbed, as Case Piece would be in very short order. The black man “peel-eyed” the motor-home quite complimentarily. “Trick fuckin’ ride, Paulie. Fucker must be thirty feet long.” The vehicle gleamed in the December sun. A satellite dish sat on top. Case Piece took a walk around, first, noting the sound of a fan running from the rear of the vehicle, and, second, he saw the large drop-door in vicinity. “Paulie, what this big door here, bro?”

“Aw, we ain’t usin’ it—that’s the elevator.”

“Elevator. The fuck you need that for?”

“Wheelchair,” Cristo said as he and Argi managed the still-convulsant Highball.

“Wheelchair?”

Paulie grinned. “You’ll see,” and then he opened a smaller door with steps at the bottom, and showed everyone inside.

“Damn!” Case Piece said. He swept his gaze about the plush interior: leather couches, kitchenette, full liquor bar, shag carpet, giant-ass plasma TV. An impressive laptop computer and auxiliary screen occupied a small ledge opposite. “You shittin’ me, Paulie! This the toppest party-player wagon I ever see,” but then he took a moment in noticing a door in the wall of the back of the vehicle. Simple estimation told him that only twenty feet of this thirty-foot motor home was visible. The rest…

…was behind that door.

“So what gives, man?” Case Piece scratched his head. “This where you snuff folks?”

“Naw. Back there.” Paulie seemed intensely delighted, looking down at the silenced, squirming, terror-stricken form of Highball. “See, that’s where Melda is.”

“Who’s Melda?”

The mafioso’s grin kept sharpening. “Go through that door and you’ll see.”

“Uh…”

“Go on. Go in. Brace yourself, though. We got a fan runnin’ but the room still smells like a fuckin’ lion cage. See, Melda don’t wash, we don’t let her, ’cos…” Paulie looked to the even more visibly distressed Dr. Prouty. “Tell him why, Doc.”

Prouty sucked in a despairing breath. “Foregoing typical hygiene, with regard to Melda and her unique utility for Mr. Vinchetti, only compounds the sheer magnitude of the horror for the victim.”

Case Piece didn’t know what they were talking about.

“Go on,” Paulie repeated. “Go say hi to Melda…”

Case Piece opened the narrow door and stepped into the rear room. An utterly silent pause ensued, then—click!—Case Piece came back out, closed the door behind him, and leaned against the wall, the whites of his eyes set in the dark face now seemingly twice as large as they should be.

Paulie, Argi, and Cristo burst now into their most raucous round of laughter.

“What the fuck,” Case Piece whispered, “is that?”

“We told ya. It’s Melda,” Paulie was excited to explain. “Melda’s special, like you just saw. We use her for snuff-flicks and the real psycho-sicko stuff to sell to pervs.” Another slap on the back. “Come on. Let’s all go in and we’ll show ya some real action.”

Paulie, Prouty, and Case Piece entered first, while Argi and Cristo followed, bearing the girl who, in the interim, had had her ankles tied together and her wrists bound behind her back. They carried her like a roll of carpet.

Within, the dense, earthy malodor was what one first noticed: a distilled stench of urine, excrement, and soul-upheaving body odor. But what Case Piece was looking at in detail now was exponentially worse than the smell.

“Melda, meet our pal Case Piece,” Paulie announced.

“Hi, Case Piece!” came a high-spirited female voice with a Jersey accent.

Case Piece remained unable to speak.

What he viewed was, indeed, a human being, a naked human being, and one who had to weigh over 300 pounds. She—Melda—sat on a broad bench, elephantine legs parted, while beneath the bench sat a bucket for the manifest purposes of elimination. An extra-wide wheelchair had been folded up and set aside; Case Piece easily deduced that that’s what was used to wheel her in here, and the handicapped elevator was the mode by which she was actually admitted into the motor home. Rolls of pallid fat seemed stacked upon more and more rolls where her lap should be, but half-covered by two flat slabs of still more fat which were, of course, breasts. Each horrendous slab was the size of a ten-pound flour sack but with nipples akin to bologna slices; and from the nipples sprouted veins like some organic Van de Graaf Generator.

The woman was, in all, a human hulk, pale as mashed potatoes, cellulite-riddled: a female Jabba the Hut with bunned brown hair and a sprawling pubic wedge the size of a third of a pizza. The bench that this unfortunate person sat upon…bowed slightly against the mammoth weight, and the previously noted smell which wafted off the pile of flesh was, at best, becoming unspeakable. Ankles swollen by acute diabetes-related edema were connected to big, strangely curved feet whose skin seemed off-pink and pin-prick tight. Toenails, inches long, resembled corroded bamboo shoots. No navel was visible, for the fat-rolls, while her bulbous, multi-chinned face looked like a relief pressed into a massive white pile of baker’s dough.

Unnoticed when juxtaposed with this living spectacle was a digital video camera on a tripod, several lights, and sundry other equipment.

“See her legs?” Paulie said.

Case Piece looked, still speechless. Melda’s shins and thigh-bones seemed slightly curved, and there was something about her hips that appeared oddly and quite abnormally splayed.

“Melda ain’t never walked in her life,” Paulie said. “Some off-the-wall bone disease or some shit. But it’s that same disease that makes her special.”

What’s so special ’bout a giant, fat, honkie ghetto cow? Case Piece thought, queasy just looking at her.

Now Paulie’s grin seemed bright as a tensor lamp. “Ready for the cool part? Huh, Case Piece? You ready?”

“I—”

“Melda, show Case Piece what makes you special,” came the order.

“Oh, sure, Paulie!” the catastrophic woman piped. She reached under her knees and, with some effort, pulled up and spread her massive legs.

“That some fuckin’ poo-putt groaty motherfuckin’ shit, Paulie!” Case Piece wailed without conscious forethought because, see, the unruly pink seam of Melda’s vagina was, like, almost a foot long. “This scary bitch got the giantest fuckin’ pussy in the world!”

“Aw, shit, Case Piece. You ain’t seen nothin’,” and then Paulie directed, “Okay, Melda. Open wide…”

Melda released a deep, sub-octave groan while simultaneously pushing her stomach muscles out. As the gargantuan belly very slowly expanded…the gargantuan vagina very slowly opened…

It opened to an aperture the circumference of a common cereal bowl.

“Ain’t that somethin’, Case Piece?”

Case Piece now had his hands over his face; he was trembling. “Paulie! That woman got a motherfuckin’ impossible fuckin’ pussy, man! That the scariest shit I ever seen! Shit, man! You could put a fuckin’ bowling ball in there!”

“Not quite. We tried. See, we don’t just make snuff flicks, we make all kinds of gross-out flicks for the underground perv market. You name it, we do it,” Paulie boasted. “Wet-flicks, nek-flicks, scat-flicks, torture-flicks, kp, farm animals, shit like that. And giant pussy flicks.”

Cristo added his two cents. ‘Believe it or not, there’s guys out there who get turned on seein’ gross-out stuff, and they pay to watch flicks of women gettin’ things stuck up their cunts.”

“We shoved all kinds of shit up there,” Argi added. “Greased coconuts, cantaloupes, jars of fuckin’ mayonnaise, loaf of pumpernickel…”

Cristo recollected, “Oh, yeah, and that head of napa, head of cabbage, head of iceberg lettuce—”

‘Fuck yeah!” Paulie’s memory kicked in. “And, like, that time Bam Bam Jr. stuck four rolls of polenta up there, oh, and then that big ball of Edam cheese. And, fuck, I swear I remember us packin’ a beef brisket in her once, too.”

“Naw,” Argi said, “I think it was a rump roast, boss.”

Paulie reflected with a nod. “Yeah, you’re right. It was a rump roast, and I also think we stuffed up a seven-pound fall squash.”

Cristo clapped and blurted, “And, shit, that time when Argi didn’t like the rotisserie chicken he got at Boston Market ’cos it wasn’t brown enough!”

The three mobsters howled laughter.

“Anyway,” Paulie calmed down. “That’s the kind of dudes there are out there; they pay to see gals with giant pussies get stuff stuffed up ’em.” He put an arm about Case Piece’s shoulder. “Now, I want you to look hard at that pussy and think about what else might fit up there.”

Case Piece, now nearly in tears, looked paralyzed at Paulie. “Not a…not a…huh-huh-huh…”

“A human head?” Paulie cracked his hands together. “Bingo!”

“But-but-but-but…that’s fuckin’ impossible!”

Paulie shrugged. “Doc, tell Case Piece why it ain’t impossible.”

Forlorn at the prospect, and fairly gagging at the smell, the good Doctor Prouty began, “Melda suffers from two regrettable maladies, one congenital and one post-surgical. We’ll start with the latter: Melda is approximately 40 years old now, and in spite of her, shall we say, uncomely physical appearance and the obvious vaginal abnormality, there have been men in the past who’ve actually had the fortitude to partake in intercourse with her—”

“Some guys’ll do anything for a nut, huh, guys?” Paulie said, then he, Argi, and Cristo laughed.

“Indeed. And just as women in ghetto-environments are wont to do, she’s had many children, all in the interest of advancing her food voucher allowance and subsidized housing credits. However, immediately after the birth of her first child, some 20 years ago, complications demanded a surgical procedure known as an episiotomy: the bottom of the vaginal fissure was cut just enough to allow the newborn head to pass. Afterward, the incision was stitched up but pressure from subsequent births caused the episiotomy to tear open again. One can only re-stitch episiotomy incisions so many times before they begin to…gape. The result is a vaginal pass considerably larger than that of women so unafflicted, a condition called enlarged aggravated introitus.” Prouty had to steady himself, deliberately averting his eyes from what Melda continued to display. “The second condition, a congenital one, is a very rare and unfortunate maladaptation of the bones known as Anberg Syndrome, identified by the famous Latvian physician and medical researcher, Dr. Nora Anberg. Anberg Syndrome affects only one in one hundred million women; hence, the rarity. A corrupt gene mechanism arrests the proper ossification process of infantile bone development—exclusively, the bones of the legs and pelvis. In other words, Melda’s legs and hips aren’t fully calcified, they’re more the consistency of cartilage and therefore flexible. This of course precludes Melda’s ability to walk but it also affords her a ‘variable pelvic spread.’” Prouty now took a wizened breath. “So, given the combination of Anberg Syndrome and the enlarged aggravated introitus, the endeavor to insert an entire human adult head into Melda’s vaginal barrel is quite easily achieved…”

Case Piece heard very little of the clinical explanation, the visual horror before him all too corrupting. “So-so-so…so that’s what you do? You stick a dude’s head in her cooch?”

“Dude, chick, whatever we want,” Paulie bragged. “Like I said, we use her for the sick-flicks, but also for hardcore vendetta. Say a judge steps hard on one of my crew. We ask him politely to lay off, and if he don’t?” Paulie chuckled. “Then we ask him not so politely. And say this judge has a 5-year-old kid. We snatch some other 5-year-old kid out of the ghetto, pack the kid’s head in Melda’s pussy and smother him to death. Then we send the video to the judge with a note that says, ‘Stop stepping on my guy or next time it’ll be your kid who gets the action.’ Works every time. One time this RICO agent killed one of my lieutenants, then bragged about it in the paper. We nabbed his 19-year-old princess daughter right off the campus at NYU. Tied her up, taped her mouth so she can’t bite, then plugged the bitch’s head right into Melda’s slot. And while she’s smotherin’ in there, Argi and Cristo are takin’ turns fuckin’ her. We’d plug her head in, fuck her some, then right before she’s about to croak, we pull her out. Did that shit for like a half-hour. In, out, in, out. Finally we left the bitch in and she suffocated, then we haul her out and Cristo fucks her dead body one more time for…what’s the word, Doc?” He snapped his fingers. “Prosperity?”

“Posterity, sir.”

“Right. Then we Priority-Mailed the video to the fed. Fuck him. But he sure as shit learned his lesson.” Paulie nodded. “Shit, I’ll bet we’ve snuffed a dozen folks in Melda’s pussy, right Melda?”

Melda—evidently possessed of some enduring vaginal muscles, more than likely through sheer practice—remained with her massive legs pulled up, still displaying the enlarged orifice of horror. “Oh, no, Paulie, more like fifteen, sixteen.”

“And, boss,” Argi urged. “Don’t forget to tell Case Piece about the Parsall job.”

Paulie gave the thumbs up. “Oh, yeah, that was beautiful. Brand-new police chief got elected in Oneida County couple of years ago, cocky fuck named Parsall, and the fucker had the balls to put all our pictures in the paper and a headline sayin’ some shit like ‘It’s All Out War Against the Mob.’ Guy starts bustin’ our numbers nets, fucks with our casinos, turns half our fuckin’ street dealers into informants, even sends DEA all our profiles, like that. Well, I didn’t dig it, so… Shit, Argi, it was your work so you get the honors.”

Argi bragged, “The chief, see, his wife just had a baby, so like a day after, me and my crew dress up like doctors and sneak into the maternity ward and we snatch the one-day-old kid.” Argi winked. “Get it?”

Case Piece stared. His mouth fell open.

“We packed the whole baby right up Melda’s cunt and smothered it to death—”

“—then sent the video to the chief,” Paulie finished. “Melda makes for the best vendetta ever, I’m tellin’ ya. We found her in the Newark slums, had a brother-in-law who ran markers for us. What a find, huh, Case Piece?”

Case Piece could make no response.

“All right,” Paulie announced. “It’s party time.”

The muffled screams that exploded within Highball’s taped-shut mouth sounded more like bad brakes. Cristo, in the meantime, opened up a tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, scooped out a handful, and slathered it all over Highball’s head, after which he and his confederate picked the ill-fortuned woman up, held her parallel to the floor in the fashion of a battering ram, then—

The muffled screams shot round and round the room.

—eased her head into the gaping abysm of flesh that was Melda’s vagina.

Highball’s restrained body, quite reasonably, vibrated. Her screams were now barely audible yet the sound was somehow more disturbing. She shuddered and quaked, flipped and flopped, quivered and shivered.

Case Piece just stared.

“Shit, this is fun!” Paulie enthused. “Can you imagine that? Havin’ your head crammed in a box like that? And the stink? See, that’s why we don’t let her wash, Case Piece. The grosser the pussy, the harder the party, huh?”

Hmmm…

After a minute, Argi and Cristo pulled Highball’s head out, and from that head the most wicked stench fumed. “It’s your call, boss?” Agri pointed out. “We give her a break, or we stick her back in?”

Paulie made a studied expression as he contemplated Highball’s fate.

Even Cristo, the most sociopathic of the lot, lent these words of leniency. “You know, boss, sure—she gave us some hard lip but like Case Piece said, she didn’t know who we were. I mean, fuck. You wanna smother her to death in a giant pussy just ’cos of that?”

“Not sure,” Paulie said, still thinking. “What about you, Doc?”

Dr. Prouty took a handkerchief away from his mouth. “I think, sir, that this is perhaps one of those instances when forgiveness and compassion are in order.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Paulie considered. He looked at Highball’s terror-twisted faced.

Beneath the duct tape, the muted plea could be heard: “Please! Please don’t kill me!”

Paulie tapped a foot, winced, then said “Fuck it. I just don’t like the bitch’s face. Put her back in, guys.”

“Back in?” Argi asked.

“Back in. Kill her.”

Now the muted screams sounded anything but human as—

“One…two…three…”

—Higball’s head was reinserted into Melda’s vagina, the blond prostitute’s face slowly but surely swallowed.

“Aw right, Melda. Batten down the hatch. I want the bitch smothered.”

“Oh, right away, Paulie,” the hideous woman complied, and the preposterous rim of her vulva constricted.

“See, Case Piece,” Paulie explained. “Just ’cos Melda’s got the biggest, sloppiest cunt in the world, she’s done this so many times that her pussy muscles are…are—” Paulie snapped his fingers. “Doc, what am I tryin’ to say?”

“Perhaps…gymnastically adroit, sir?”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant. Melda, she can lock that cooch down. Like a kid suckin’ a jawbreaker, I ain’t kiddin’ ya.”

The near-death-throes of Highball reached up into Melda’s body like some heinous form of conduction, to the point that the obese woman began to quiver as well, mounds of cellulite-stricken fat oscillating rather spectacularly. But it was Case Piece who finally snapped out of his utter incogitation and made this final plea to Paulie: “Shit, man! This is fuckin’ awful, Paulie! She really deserve ta die like this? I mean,” and he leaned over. “You ain’t even had time to peel-eye her bone-covers, man.” Case Piece quickly unbuttoned Highball’s overcoat, revealing all of the girl’s sexual attributes at once: the desirous curves, the unflawed implants, the trim stomach and sleek white-trash legs.

Paulie took one look and gulped. “Holy shit! That’s a brick-shit-house body if I ever seen one—Argi, Cristo! Pull her out!”

‘Pull her out?” Argi questioned. “But you just said kill her.”

“Don’t kill her! Pull her out!”

The sound of the withdrawal was akin to a booted foot lifting up from ankle-deep mud. Highball was pulled out, and she was dropped to the floor. Argi peeled off the tape.

“Today’s your lucky day, bitch,” he said.

Highball heaved upward, cock-eyed and gasping for breath. Her eyes looked fit to jettison.

Argi nudged her with his foot. “The boss decided to let your sorry ass live. So what do ya say?”

Highball’s lower jaw chattered like someone in sub-zero weather. “Thuh-thuh-thuh…thuh-thuh-thuh…thank you…”

“Yeah. Thank you is right.”

Next, Paulie nudged her with his foot. “Your face looks like fuckin’ dried fruit but your body rocks.”

“Told ya, bro,” Case Piece augmented. “Highball, she got what players call a booty-tooty thunder cunt, clit like a fuckin’ olive, man, real phat-ass blunky monkey, don’t’cha know? And tits like ta bring the roof down, uh-huh.”

Paulie remained stifled by the perfect physique. “It’d be a crime to whack a bod like yours, bitch, so don’t forget who gave ya a second chance. Now get inside and wash all that pussy slime and butter off your face. Me and the boys’ll be in in a few, to fuck the livin’ daylights out of ya.”

Highball just sat there, kind of rocking. It should be pointed out, too, that her jet-black roots beneath the blond hair had, in the grueling interim, turned snow-white.

Case Piece yanked her up and—

WHAP!

—kicked her in the ass. “You heard the man, ‘ho! Get yo stupid beezy boo boo head self inside and wash! You the one wanted to be in a fuckin’ gang.”

Highball, whose eyes perhaps still hadn’t closed, staggered out of the Winnebago.

Case Piece addressed Paulie. ‘Damn, man. You dudes are rough fuckin’ customers.” Then he took another nauseous glance at Melda, who—after two very tonerous thuds! had put her morbid bare feet back on the floor. At once, she tore into a box of Little Debbie Chocolate Swiss Rolls, which still tasted as good as they did 40 years ago.

“Paulie, can we get the fuck out’a here? This rollin’ crib’a yours a fuckin’ horror-house on fuckin’ wheels, man. The shit I see go on here today gonna keep my dick down for, like, a hundred motherfuckin’ years.”

Paulie and his crew laughed hard, then led him back outside.

“So let me get this straight. You use Melda for fucked-up flicks and for this vendetta shit you was rappin’ about, right?”

“Yeah. Pretty nifty, huh?”

Case Piece’s facial reaction suggested that “nifty” was probably not the word he’d use to describe the process. “Uh…and you brought her all the way down here to…what? Whack some dude related to the dudes who offed your wife’s father? I got that right?”

“Not a dude.” Paulie grinned, then Argi and Cristo grinned as well, all quite sinisterly. “It was a 9-year-old kid.”

“And speakin’ of that…” Argi looked at his Rolex (a real Rolex, not one of those knock-offs). “I think our package has probably been delivered by now…”

— | — | —