New Title 1 (42 page)

(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 con
fess
in’! 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.