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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…”

— | — | —

Chapter 3

(I)

“Well, gawd durn!” Helton exclaimed with some ire once he and Micky-Mack had returned to the shack. His son, Dumar, still tamped down hard by fears regarding the disappearance of his young son, made a startled expression.

“Dang, paw. What’cha riled about?”

“Riled? Fuck. That low-down ear-wax-eatin’ cracker Hall Sladder done stolt my whole stash’a ‘shine.”

“He shore as shit did, Cousin Dumar,” piped in Micky-Mack.

“Fuck!” Dumar shared in his father’s displeasure. “Ain’t that a kick in the tail..but, shee-it, Paw, maybe this’ll cheer ya up ’cos, like I just done calt out to ya”—Dumar’s voice lowered to an enthused whisper—“we gots ourselves a
package.
”

“Well, aw right, so what’n tarnations
is
it?”

“Don’t rightly know yet, Paw, on account it’s got
your name
wrote on it. Come on!”

Dumar led them into what served in this ramshackle abode as the “living room,” where in the middle of the wood-plank floor sat…a package. It was a box the size of a briefcase, plain cardboard, and the words FOR HELTON TUCKTON written on it in tight script. Next to the box, in a hand-made chair, sat a tow-headed adolescent boy in jeans, boots, and a ratty jacket. He smelled, oddly, of old cooking grease.

“Well, hey there, son,” Helton greeted. “Ain’t you one’a Cork McKellen’s kids?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Tuckton,” the boy said with pride. “I’se
Trucker
McKellen, and, see, I brung ya this package.”

Helton squinted. “Well that’s dang nice’a yer Paw to send me a package, but—”

“Oh, no sir, it’s weren’t my daddy sent it. I was just asked to bring it to ya.”

The prospect of a package was, indeed, interesting, especially in this time of low-spirits. But Helton for the life of him couldn’t understand.

“So if’n it ain’t from your daddy,” Micky-Mack posed to the boy, “who’s it from?”

The young lad of 12 or so explained, quite long-windedly, “Well, see, I got me this job in Luntville, working how they call ‘under the table’ at the Wendy’s. What I do, see, is I clean the toilets”—which he pronounced as
toe-lits
—“and pump out the grease-pit ever-day”—which now explained the boy’s curious redolence—“and, see, they’se pay me three dollars a hour, like I said, ‘under the table,’ so’s I don’t have to pay taxes to the gover-mitt. See, it saves ’em money in this thing goin’ on that we’se all hearin’ ’bout called the Repression, and I think that ain’t bad ’cos ain’t many folks round here got a proper job, and the money I make I can give my daddy—”

”Well, that’s mighty enterprisin’ of ya, Trucker,” Helton complimented, but it was difficult to stay his frustration ’cos he couldn’t see what cleanin’ a grease-pit at a hamburger restaurant had to do with this
package.
“And I’m sure your daddy’s a right proud’a ya, but hail, how is it you come to bring me this package?”

The boy continued, seemingly vibrant in some inexplicable nervous excitement. “That’s what I’se fixin’ ta say, sir, ’cos, see, after I finished cleanin’ the pit, my shift is over so’s I go outside to start a-walkin’ home when, when…”

“When
what?
” Dumar asked with his patience wearing thin.

The boy seemed in a dreamy fog, “…when I look up at this great rumblin’ sound, and what it is, see, is the biggest, fanciest white motor-home I ever seed comin’ rollin’ down the road past the Pip Boys Cleaners and the Qwik-Mart and that place with the sign that say Relax At June’s which I heared is what they call a ‘jack shack’ on account men go in there and pay ladies to play with their willies whilst they stuck a finger up their butts I guess ’cos—”

“Son, son,” Helton interrupted. “You shore have a roundabout way’a tellin’ us ’bout this package. Who done give it to ya?”

“Yes, sir, I was gettin’ to that—”

“Well try gettin’ to it a little faster,” Dumar said because he, like the others, was
very curious
about this box.

Trucker McKellen nodded, “Yes, sir, I’se will. But…dang…” The lad scratched his head. “I’se cain’t seem to remember what I were sayin’!”

“A motor-home!” Helton nearly yelled.

“Oh, yeah, yes sir, it were that motor-home I tolt ya about, all shiny white’n
fancy
it was. See, while I’se were walkin’, the motor-home—and I’se mean it were a really big one, all shiny and gleamin’, like I think it were brand-new—but anyway, that motor-home stopped right in front of June’s and then these three men get out, and they’re shorely citified men ’cos they’se wearin’ hats’n sunglasses and these real nice pants’n shoes’n jackets, and each of ’em even had these fancy things ’round their necks that I’m pretty shore folks call
ties.
And anyways, I think for shore that these city fellas are goin’ into June’s to pay ladies to play with their willies while’se they gots a finger up their butts ’cos that what I heard them ladies in there do, and, see, I’se even heard that some’a them ladies’ll
suck
on a fella’s willy till that white stuff come out and—”