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“Yeah…maybe…” But Paulie was working on something. “Or maybe what we should do is go after more of
his
relatives.”

“But how, boss?” Cristo asked. “The guy lives in the hills. We don’t know shit about the backwoods. Only reason we knew how to find Helton’s grandkid is ’cos your wife told us he caught crayfish at that lake most mornings.”

“Yeah, boss,” Argi went on. “And it ain’t like we can look up the name
Tuckton
in the phone book. Shit, these rubes don’t even have phones.”

The hum of the big motor-home’s tires droned on. Paulie looked to Prouty. “Doc. What do we do? How we get a line on this redneck’s relatives?”

Wearied but desperately trying not to show it, the good doctor struggled a moment, then offered this convoluted sentence: “Recalling that your wife’s cultural roots to some extent parallel Mr. Tuckton’s, and given that she, in fact, apprized you of information that led to the grandson’s abduction…perhaps you should ask your wife.”

Paulie stared at him and blinked. “Cristo! Turn the Winnie around and go back to Pulaski!”

“Back to Pulaski, boss?”

“That’s what I said.” Paulie looked to his lieutenant. “Argi, gimme the phone…”

— | — | —

Chapter 13

(I)

Deputy Chief Malone and Sergeant Boover had waited till nightfall to come into the vacant house on Trott Street, and they’d arrived in Malone’s personal vehicle, not their patrol cars. Why? They didn’t want anyone on the street to know that police were in the house.

But since the house was abandoned, they both spat copious plumes of tobacco juice on the floor. Big deal? The house was a foreclosure!

Boover hung curtains while Malone set up lamps in various rooms so that the house would appear tenanted. Upon having the need, Malone loped to the squalid bathroom but to his mortification found it bereft of toilet and sink. “Well, gawd-
dang,
Boover,” he complained upon returning to the “living” room. “Ain’t a toilet in the damn house or even a sink!”

“I know,” Boover said over his shoulder as he urinated quite noisily in the corner.

Malone shrugged, then did the same, and then, upon hearing the dual streams, their recent quadrupedal acquisition, an adorable German Shepherd/Jack Russell puppy they’d named Buster, raised its leg and peed right along with the men.

Buster romped about, yapping, as the officers finished their tasks.

“Well, dang, Boover. I’d say we done a
fine
job makin’ this dump look occupied.” Malone pronounced “occupied” as
ok-yer-pied.

Boover fired a stream of juice up on the white wall, producing something like a brown question mark. “Yeah, anyone walking by or driving by’ll shorely think someone just moved in.” The lamps glowed bright. Then they walked into the kitchen, whose window faced the rear of the eighth-of-an-acre lot. Boover clicked a switch, then an outside floodlamp lit up the fenced backyard.

“Yeah, I’d say this’ll work just right…” He paper-clipped an edge of the curtain, which produced a minuscule gap. Boover slid over a piece-of-shit table, placed the stop-frame camera on it, then nodded.

“Dang straight, Chief.”

The lens came into perfect alignment with the gap.

“How’s it work?” Malone asked and fired a plume of juice halfway across the room.

“Well, accordin’ to the directions, a average camera takes, like, 18 frames a second, but
this
camera don’t take but
one
frame a second. The memory in the machine’ll last
days
.”

“Sounds just peachy.”

“Peachy for us.” Boover chuckled. “Not too peachy for the dog.”

Malone shoved the gruesome consideration aside. “So what now? We ready?”

Boover turned the camera on. “It’s rollin’, Chief. Now all we gotta do is put the mutt outside and be on our way.”

The Chief sighed sourly. Second thoughts? He glanced into the living room and watched Buster romp about, yipping and yapping in sheer innocent-dog happiness.

“Well, fuck, Boover, I just got ta thinkin’… Weatherman said it was gonna be in the mid-40s tonight. That’ll be damn
cold
fer little Buster.”

Boover frowned, not sharing his superior’s love for canines. “Buster’s got a fuckin’
fur coat,
Chief, and…” He whispered. “It ain’t like he’s gonna be a alive for long anyway.”

The Chief gulped.

“Come on, Buster. Got’cha some viddles,” and from a Wendy’s bag the Chief produced one Triple Baconator. He cut it up into chunks and put in on the floor.
Poor mutt don’t know it’s his last meal…

The puppy reveled, devouring the fast food, its tail-nub wagging with vigor. But when Malone looked up…

Boover was gone.

“Boover. Where ya at?”

“In here, Chief…”

Malone piloted himself back to the living room where—

“Aw, fer fuck’s sake!”

—he found his deputy in an awkward squat, pants at ankles. He was defecating rather cacophonously on the tacky carpet.

“We’re
cops,
Boover. We cain’t just up’n
shit
on the floor!”

“Hail, Chief. We been spittin’ and pissin’. Why not shittin’? No one’s gonna buy this place—in
this
economy? Obama’s full’a shit with all his talk ’bout fixin’ the housing crisis. Too busy lookin’ the other way when senior house dems secretly
approve
giant CEO bonuses for banks that took TARP money—”

“Aw, git off’a that now…”

“‘Sides, there ain’t no toilets and the mortgage company said we can use the place all week.”

The man had a point.
We’ll just tell the mortgage folks some junkies busted in an did it…
, but the truth was, Chief Malone was incontrovertibly distracted. Boover had finished, and was now wiping his ass dog-style on the atrocious carpet. Meanwhile, little Buster moved his bowels as well. If humans can do it, why not dogs? Malone’s current thought resounded like the voice of some displeased deity:
We’se gonna let this cute little puppy get tortured’n kilt…

“What’s wrong, Chief?” Boover asked, hoisting up his police trousers. His lips “O”-d, then ejected a blast of tobacco juice down the hall.

Buster jumped up and down, so pleased he was to be in the presence of these men.

“Fuck, Boover. I don’t think I’se can go through with it. I mean
look
at him. Ain’t that just the cutest little puppy you ever seen?”

“Whole thing was your idea, Chief, and you ask me, ‘twas a
good
‘un. Best way ta catch the puppy-killer’s ta get a
picture
of him snatchin’ the puppy. Then we put the picture on the damn tv and we got him. Won’t take but five minutes ‘fore someone recognizes him and turns the sick bastard in. And knowin’ the rednecks in
this
town? He’ll be turnt in
dead.
”

I shore as shit hope so…
Malone knelt to pet Buster, who immediately began to lick the Chief’s face. Malone had a tear in his eye.

“It’s for a good cause, Chief. Think’a all the
other
puppy lives Buster here’ll be savin’…”

Malone had a frog in his throat. “Come on, Buster. Bet’choo’d like ta go romp about outside, huh, boy?”

The dog yipped and yapped, vaulting up and down.

Malone opened the kitchen door, and Buster sprinted out.

“It’s the best way,” Boover tried to console.

“Come on, let’s git out’a here. This place is depressin’ me… And”—Malone sniffed, smirking. “What you eat, anyway?”

“Guess it’s the pig knuckles and collard greens. Must’a et three, four plate’s of the stuff.”

“Gawd
DAMN,
Boover!”

They left the house and got into Malone’s ’92 Seville. No one spoke as the Chief pulled away, but when he glanced in the rearview mirror, he could see Buster bobbing up and down behind the fence, yipping a happy goodbye.

“I need a dang
drink
.”

“Too bad we’se both on duty till midnight, Chief. Cops don’t drink on duty…unless the boss
says
they can.” Boover winked.

“Aw, fuck. We’ll probably get a call—”

“Shit, Chief, we ain’t gonna get a call. This close ta Christmas? In
our
 juris? Come on. Let’s have a few up the Crossroads. We’ll just
tell
’em we’re off duty.”

Malone felt flustered.
I just sentenced a puppy to death…a HORRIBLE death.
“Naw. We’ll get a call—”

“All right, whatever you say. But I’ll
bet’
cha we don’t get no calls. Bet’cha a fifth’a Turkey.”

“You’re on—”

“Unit, 207, do you copy?” the radio crackled.

“First bet I won in a
long
time—fuck—maybe my whole
life
,” Malone said, then keyed the mike. “This is 207, Connie. We are 10-8 on Trott Street. Go ahead.”

“Respond Code 3 to confirmed Signal 47 at 610 Druckerwood Drive in Peerce Point.”

“Piss,” Boover muttered. He spat a yard-long plume of juice out the window.

Malone scratched his head. “Dang, Connie. A Signal 47? The hail’s
that?
”

“Arson resulting in one or more homicides,” the staticky female voice answered.

Malone moaned. “We’se 10-6,” he droned.

Boover placed the portable “cherry” on the dash and turned it on. “At least Peerce Point ain’t far,” he remarked. “But I ain’t never heard’a Druckerwood Drive.”

“Me neither.” Malone rekeyed the mike. “Connie, what is it? A house, a apartment buildin’? What?”

The radio crackled. “610, Druckerwood Drive, Peerce Point”—a pause, then: “The Daisy-Chase Nursing Home…”

(II)

The big black truck lumbered along the back roads, and at the stroke of midnight, December 22nd officially became December 23rd. The night seemed warmer, stars glittered pristinely through overhead branches. The moon glowed like a cabalistic totem.

 
Forebodences of the most acerbic sort seemed to rumble in Helton’s gut as his son manned the wheel. “Pull ‘er over, Dumar. Let’s sit a spell, git some sleep.”

“Shore thing, Paw.”

Veronica was already asleep, on the truck floor with her wrist handcuffed to the header table. When Dumar parked in a secluded grove, he cut the engine; the night swallowed the truck when the headlights went off. With only a candle burning now, the three men took seats in back.

Micky-Mack rubbed his crotch. “Dang, Unc. Sumpin’ about headers…”

Dumar rubbed his crotch. “Yeah, Paw, like…”

“It’s like my dick loves headers so much, it stays half-hard, like,
all the time.
”