New Title 1 (51 page)

“Hey, sorry, but I’m just telling you like it is,” he explained. “I never told you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Lousy…”

“Not just lousy, Veronica, but
terrible.
” He looked right into her eyes. “In fact, you give
the worst head in the world.
”

Veronica locked up for a moment as if encased in cement, but after this momentary self-reflection, an angst like she’d never known consumed her.

“Oh, yeah!” she snapped. “We’ll see about that!” and then she opened his pants, yanked them down, and began to fellate him. The fact that his penis still reeked from another woman’s bowel did not circumvent her resolve in any way, shape, or form.

Mike sat back, eyes wide in shock. “Oh-oh…wow, Veronica. Mmm, oh, holy
shit…
That’s-that’s-that’s…
great!
”

“Um-hmm,” she moaned as her mouth moved.

He was panting, breathing heavy, hips tensing. “Where did you…pick up this…new technique?”

Veronica didn’t answer, for two reasons. One, she didn’t know, and two, her vocal abilities were currently preoccupied.

In only moments, Mike’s face twisted up like Shemp’s (for those who even
remember
Shemp) and then he experienced—at the expense of Veronica’s mouth…

The best orgasm of his life.

“Holy motherfuckin’
shit,
Veronica,” he wheezed after the fact. He stared at her. He took her hand. Then he said, “Marry me!”

And this Veronica consented to do quite expeditiously, and to make the conclusion of a long subplot short, she and Mike
would
get married, Veronica would
indeed
inherit all that money from her uncle, she would have
children
and become the great mother she knew she was destined to be,
and,
due to a mental affliction known as “temporal-lobe retrograde amnesia,” she would never remember
anything
that had happened during the days of her disappearance.

Indubitably, she and Mike would live…happily ever after…

— | — | —

Epilogue

Chief Malone awoke in his dilapidated bed at precisely six in the morning, via his radio alarm which blared, “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Oh what fun it is to…”

Fuck,
he thought and snapped the alarm off. He rose, groaning, and into his mouth he immediately packed a good-sized wad of Red Man. He scratched his burgeoning belly through the holey t-shirt, scratched his buttocks through the just as holey boxer shorts, and lumbered muttering to the unkempt kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

No messages blinked on his answering machine.

The most fucked up Christmas of my whole dang life…

A pounding at the door caused him to scowl quite Scrooge-like. “Who the fuck’s poundin’ on my dang door on Christmas!” he grated. “It better not be no folks singing Christmas carols ’cos I just ain’t in the fuckin’
mood
fer no Christmas carols.” He considered something. “Why the hail they call ’em
carols
anyway? Some gal named
Carol
invent ’em?” He hobbled toward the front door, one-hundred-percent bereft of Christmas spirit.

His plan had failed. The puppy killer was obviously still at large. Otherwise, someone from the station most assuredly would’ve called.

Grimacing, Malone opened the front door.

“Howdy, Chief. Merry Christmas,” Boover said, standing in his crisp uniform.

But under his arm…was a cardboard box.

“Ain’t nothin’ merry about it, Boover. Ain’t no one calt me ’bout the puppy-killer. You hear anything?”

“Naw,” Boover said and came in. He walked immediately to the kitchen and released a plume of tobacco juice into the Chief’s sink.

“That dang video-clip’s been playin’ on all the local news shows all night,” Malone railed, “and their ain’t one single yokel in this dang town seen him. That’s
fucked up,
Boover.”

“Ferget it, Chief.” Boover set the box down on the ratty kitchen table. “But come git’cher Christmas present. Someone left if fer ya at the station door.”

“I don’t want no fuckin’
present.
I want the puppy killer—fuck,” and then the Chief appraised the roughly 10-inch-by-10-inch box. Haphazard writing graced one side: CHEEF MULONE, MARY CHRISSMISS!

“What the fuck is this? Probably some fuckin’
fruitcake.
”

“Aw, come on, have some Christmas spirit why don’t’cha?” Boover grinned ever so slyly. “I think you’ll
like
what’s in that there box…”

Malone opened the box, gaped, and lifted out by the ear the severed head of a short-haired late-‘20s Hispanic male.

The Chief trembled. He turned the cool head in his hands so to look right at the dead face. “It’s him!”

“Dang straight, Chief. Looks like the good folks’a this here town done took care’a everything after seein’ that surveillance video of yers.” Boover winked. “Good job.”

Malone danced around the kitchen, the head in his hands. “It’s him, it’s him! The puppy killer’s dead!”

“Cain’t get no deader,” Boover laughed. He spat more juice in the sink. “See, Chief, that little dog died fer a good cause. Ain’t no more puppies be dyin’ in
this
town, and likely as not…you got a good chance ta become the county director’a public safety fer this.”

Malone set the head down on the kitchen table and gave Boover a hard high-five.

But Boover continued, “Cain’t figure out what them holes are, though.”

Malone stooped, grinning, to make closer inspection. Yes, four perfect 3 1/4-inch holes had been cut into the perpetrator’s skull, one at the center of the forehead, one in the back, and one over each ear.

“I
love
it! They put this piece’a shit through the
wringer,
they did!” He took the head back up and held it like a prize. At one point, however, he took the faintest
sniff
at one of the holes and…

Well, he really didn’t like what he smelled, but that was neither here nor there…

“Got ta run, Chief,” Boover said and walked back to the front door. “I’se on duty, you ain’t.”

“See ya, Boover! And thanks!” Malone said, still grinning at the severed head.

Boover headed out the front door toward his patrol car in the Chief’s cracked driveway. “Oh, Chief. One more thing…”

“What’s that, Boover?”

Malone watched his subordinate open the car’s rear door. “Lookit what
I
found runnin’ the streets,” and then from the open door came a small dark blur. Yipping and yapping was immediately heard. A puppy, part German Shepherd and part Jack Russell, jumped out, took one look at Malone, and shot squealing right for him.

“Buster!”

Overcome with joy, Malone stooped and caught the excited animal in one arm. Buster immediately began to lick Malone’s face, tail-stump wagging, giant ears sticking up. In fact, so excited was the dog to be in Malone’s embrace, it peed unrestrained and in surprising volume on the Chief’s holey t-shirt.

“So’s Buster didn’t get kilt after all!” Malone shouted out.

No, Buster hadn’t, because the author
neglected to mention
that upon the feisty animal’s abduction and subsequent removal to the warehouse, Menduez had become detained with some drug-related task and had therefore
not
had the chance to do what he otherwise would have at that precise time. During that detainment, Buster had escaped by jumping out an implausibly open window…

“Merry Christmas, Chief,” Boover said with a cheek-stuffed grin and got in the car.

Malone loped to the middle of the front yard. Tears of exuberance flowed freely now, and with Buster in one arm and Menduez’s head hanging high from the hand of the other, the Chief cried at the top of his lungs, “This here is the best Christmas I ever had!”

««—»»

It was about three in the afternoon when Paulie arrived at the famed Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Straightaway, he took a stool at the lavishly Christmas-decorated bar. “Chest nuts roasting on an open fire,” someone sang. Lights blinked around the bar extensive bar mirror which was accentuated with holly branches.

“Mr. Vinchetti,” the barkeep spoke up. “Merry Christmas, sir. It’s always a pleasure to have you at the Bellagio.” The keep’s name was Jack, an amiable yet intense-eyed man in a black vest, white cuffed shirt, and bow tie. He looked remarkably like a meld between Rob Lowe and Peter O’Toole.

“Jack, great to see ya.”

“What’ll it be?”

“Johnny Black, ice.”

“Coming right up.”

“Say, has my wife been down?”

“Well, sir, she’s come into the bar the last few nights, and I do recall seeing her at the pool on occasion. Wonderful woman, sir.”

“Yeah, yeah, but she don’t know I’m here. I want it to be a surprise, ya know, so—”

Jack nodded. “Mum’s the word, sir, of course.”

“Thanks.”

Paulie looked at his watch with a tinge of anxiety, but immediately thereafter, the shadow of a bulk shape crossed his back.

“Argi, my man! Have a seat.”

Argi set down a small suitcase, paused, then said, “Naw, boss, I better stand.” He lowered his voice. “The nut, you know?”

“Aw, shit, yeah. Still hurts, huh?”

“Like a motherfucker…but it’s getting smaller.” Argi briefly opened his overcoat to display the grossly swollen organ.

“Yeah, it
is
gettin’ smaller,” Paulie said. “If the Doc says you’ll be fine, then you’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.”

For the briefest of moments, Jack, whilst pouring Paulie’s drink, was able to glimpse Argi’s bloated testicle. What must’ve gone through his mind for that second or two? What could possibly explain a muscular Mafia lieutenant with one fist-sized testicle hanging out of his fly on Christmas Day?

Jack, of course, looked away a second later, because what goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Calzano. The same for you, I trust?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

When Jack dispatched to pour the second drink, Paulie leaned and whispered, “You get it?”

Argi nodded, pointing to the small suitcase.

“Godd damn, Argi—you’re a genius! How the hell you find one on Christmas Day? There ain’t no hardware stores open.”

“Naw, boss, there ain’t, but ya know our guy on Fremont Street, Dicky M.? He runs the slots for us at the dives.”

“Oh, yeah, I know Dicky M., sure.”

“Well, see, boss. I remember him tellin’ me once that his father
owns
a hardware store nearby, so all I do is call him and tell him. Half hour later-bam—he’s handin’ it to me.”

“You rock, Argi!” A pause. “What did you tell him we needed it for?”