New Title 1 (43 page)

“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 our
selves
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.