New Title 1

by Lee, Edward

  ««—»»

  Helton took her into the back of the truck and re-cuffed her wrist to the table. “Howdy, Miss Veronnerka!” the younger man said. He was wiping the floor with paper towels. The smile on his face couldn’t have been broader. “So’s Unc Helton tolt me you figgered some fancified way’a sendin’ our movin’ picture to Paulie.”

  “Yes,” came her glum response. “Over the internet—”

  “Dangest thing, tek-nollergy,” Helton said in stifled awe. “She had this here li’l ‘puter box that sent the movin’ picture ta Paulie, and it didn’t even have no wires on it.”

  “No wires?” Micky-Mack asked, bewildered. “How’s can that be?”

  “Just…don’t worry about it,” Veronica told them. “It’s magic.”

  “Wow!”

  When the blond one finished wiping up the floor, he exhaled some aspect of relief and—

  Oh for goodness sake!

  —rubbed his crotch.

  “I’ll tell ya, Unc. That there was fer shore the finest nut I’se ever h—”

  Helton pointed his finger. “Quiet.” Then he looked down at something, grit his teeth, and—

  SMACK!

  —laid an opened palm across Micky-Mack’s head.

  “Holy fuck, Unc Helton! What’cha keep smackin’ me fer!” the man wailed, a hand to his temple.

  “I done tolt ya to clean this place up! We cain’t have Veronnerka seein’ anythin’ that’ll be upsettin’ to her!” Helton grabbed some paper towels, then knelt before the power drill, which lay on the metal floor.

  Veronica caught one glimpse…

  One was sufficient.

  A strange hollow cylinder stuck out of the end of the drill, a cylinder rimmed with saw-teeth. Blood dripped off of it. Helton very quickly wiped it up.

  I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know… She tried to remain naive. “Where’s the other man? The dark-haired one?”

  “My son, Dumar,” Helton answered.

  “Yeah,” Micky-Mack piped up. He was still rubbing his crotch. “Dumar, he’ll be back in a sec. Hadda git rid’a the b—”

  SMACK!

  “Gawd DAMN, Unc! That fuckin’ hurt!”

  “Next time I’se just might bust my hand on that thick head’a yers, boy. Just keep yer mouth SHUT.” He pulled something from a plastic bag. “Here, Veronnerka. Have some…” He squinted at a small snack bag. “Veggie Chips, whatever the hail they is.”

  She looked aghast at the offered bag. “I don’t want Veggie Chips, Helton! I want to go home! I want to be with Mike!”

  Helton chuckled huskily. “Aw, that silly fella, ya mean. Hon, that cocky boy ain’t good enough fer you.”

  Micky-Mack cracked a smile. “Sound like she all mushy in looooove…”

  Veronica was about to wail another objection; however—

  The cellphone rang.

  Helton and Micky-Mack tensed up.

  “That’s got to be Paulie,” Veronica said.

  Helton looked uncomprehending at the tiny phone. “Shee-it! I’se fergot how ta answer it!”

  “Helton, just open the phone!” Veronica snapped.

  Clumsily, the man did so. He put it to his ear. “Hello?”

  At this distance, Veronica could decipher nothing, but she was aware of a very irate squawk coming from the cellphone. “Yeah?” Helton said, amused. “Well I just think that’s dandy, ya snake-shit-eatin’ city fuck…”

  More squawking, then Helton said, “Well then bring it on, buster ’cos you snot-nose uppity city types gots no idea who yer messin’ with…” Then he hung up.

  “Was that Paulie, Unc?”

  “Shore as shit was, and he’s more riled than a pitbull with a ball-bag full’a ticks, he is!” Helton leaned hugely over and kissed Veronica on the cheek. “Veronnerka? You’s a flat-out genius!”

  “So Paulie saw your movin’ picture,” she deduced.

  “Oh yeah he did—”

  “EEEEEEEE-ha!” Micky-Mack rejoiced, and then Dumar came in through the back, and when he was informed of the news…

  “EEEEEEEE-ha!”

  The three whooped, jumping up and down, high-fiving. The truck rocked from the impact of their booted feet.

  Helton roared, “And ya knows what that city faggot tolt me? Tolt me he was goin’ ta all at WAR with us!”

  More high-fiving and raucous hoots.

  “He wants war, Paw! We’ll show that fucker war!”

  Helton was so happy his face was turning pink. “This calls fer a cellar-bay-shun!” and then he extracted a liquor bottle from another bag. “Whatever cheap-ass rotgut swill this is, it don’t matter ’cos we stolt if from him!” Helton passed the bottle around. The label read JOHNNY WALKER BLUE - 40-YEAR.

  But Veronica just seemed to sit and spin in this ever-increasing kaleidoscope of madness. “Helton!” she barked.

  “Yeah, hon? Oh, you wanna nip?”

  “I don’t want a nip! You said if I got the movie to Paulie, you’d let me go!”

  He looked down in all sincerity. “Aw, hon. I’se already tolt ya we’ll let ya go…” and then his brows inched up. “Just…not any time soon. We’se just started gettin’ our revenge ‘gainst Paulie, and we’se gonna need ya fer a spell, fer yer exper-teese.” He laughed. “We’se gonna need you ta send lots more movin’ pictures ta Paulie!”

  Veronica began to cry.

  “There, there, hon. Don’t be upset.” The crinkly bag was offered again. “Here. Have some…Veggie Chips. They’ll perk ya right up.”

  — | — | —

  Chapter 8

  (I)

  The three of them walked down Clag Street—Case Piece, Menduez, and Sung—Case Piece with his antiquated “boom box” on his shoulder. He was jammin’, and what he was jammin’ to was the brand-new CD by PREE-postur-ISS, which was especially appropriate since it featured Hip Hop Christmas songs. “Dig it, my dawgs,” he said, bopping along. He upped the volume:

  “Rudolf the motherfuckin’ reindeer, had a motherfuckin’ shiny nose, and if you ever motherfuckin’ saw it, you would say it motherfuckin’ glows. All of the other motherfuckin’ reindeers, used to laugh and call him motherfuckin’ names. They never let poor Rudolf join in any goddamn motherfuckin’ reindeer games…”

  “Turn that shit off!” bellowed an old woman on her doorstep. The gang turned to glare but resumed walking when they spied the 12-gauge in the woman’s hands. Case Piece turned off the music.

  “Shit. Motherfuckin’ old white bitch ain’t got no Christmas spirit,” Case Piece complained.

  “Yeah!” Sung agreed. “No Kwissmas spiwit at all!”

  “I take a giant chit in her yard tonight, mang,” Menduez promised.

  “Fuck ’em.” Case Piece thumbs-upped. “We ain’t gonna let no motherfucker crimp our motherfuckin’ joy, uh-uh.”

  The moon glazed the old street, painting cracker-box houses. Christmas lights blinked in alternate windows, and from one scrubby yard, a plastic snowman waved. Ahead, a pair of sneakers dangled on some power lines. “Chit, yeah, mang. Tying ta sell more smack,” Menduez said, observing the dilapidated shadow at the phone pole.

  “Sling it, bro.”

  “Yeah, bwo!”

  The skinny Caucasian female addict teetered forward with hollow eyes and a proffered $20 bill. Her arms looked like bones painted the color of lard, but with needle-tracks like lines of black pepper. Menduez slapped the heroin baggie into her hand, then, like a card trick, the $20 was in his own hand. “Chew only buy smack from us, right, woomahn?”

  “Oh, yeah, man,” the stick-girl affirmed. Her clothes were rotten.

  “Chew don’t never buy from no fuckin’ cowboys, right? ’cos, if chew do?” Menduez shook his head. “Chew wind up fucked.”

  “No, no, I’d never do that, man,” the addict assured, shuffling away. She picked at the ass-crack in her rotten jeans. “Thanks, man.”

  “Hey, girl!” Case Piece called out. “Merry Christmas—uh-huh!”
>
  They all high-fived when Menduez returned to the group.

  “How many skag-bags we got left, my man?” Case Piece asked.

  “All gron, man!” Sung informed.

  Case Piece got back to his bop. “Our gig? Shit. It’s trick as a crown. It’s tip as a top—we drip to that drop.”

  “Yeah, mang. Last week, chit took us all fockin’ week to sell what we sold in one fockin’ day, mang.”

  “Shit, all’s a sudden it seem like this recession be over,” Case Piece regarded hopefully. “Guess my top-dawg Obama, he must’ve fixed the economy. We movin’ skag.”

  Menduez, “Yeah, mang, and we still got three kilos left, I tink.”

  “Yeah! Twee,” Sung verified. “Our gig twop-dwawer, boyz!”

  The three idiots continued walking. Case Piece…well, he rubbed his crotch. “And now we gots our own ‘ho with the trickin’-est bod.”

  Menduez squeezed his crotch, too. “Where dat puta tonight, mang?”

  “Turnin’ twicks?”

  “Naw, she back the crib, baggin’ the next kilo. See what I mean, me’n my dawgs? We got it made in the shade. Paulie and his boyz, they bring it, we sling it, and Highball, she bag the skag and we slag the skag. Right on.”

  Menduez frowned. “Slag? What chew mean by dat chit, mang?”

  “Yeah, Clase Pleece. Rut does slag mean?”

  Case Piece slumped. “Shit. It don’t mean nothin’. I just make it up cos it rhyme.”

  Their laughter crackled down the dark street.

  When they turned the corner, the next road extended in worse repair than the previous. Lots of old triplex tenements and drab apartments with dingy laundry flapping from high rails in the cold breeze. But on the porch of one triplex, several young Hispanic men sat.

  “Dare day is, dah poo-putt piece’s a chit,” Menduez guttered sinisterly.

  Case Piece grinned at them and pointed his finger like a gun.

  The sullen faces on the Hispanics observed the NSG-3 through indirect glances, then they got up and went inside.

  “More new cowboys, chit. Mexicans, sellin’ dat black tar chit in our town. Fuck, I bury doze cockroaches.”

  “Competition, man,” Case Piece said. “It part’a business, like my top dawg Paulie say.” He slapped Menduez on the shoulder. “Look like you’ll be busy tonight, Menduez. You need to do that doggie thing you do and send those chumps a message. And if it don’t work, fuck, we’ll just pop trunk on the motherfuckers.”

  “Hey, I see a new puppy dog today just down the stweet!”

  “Yeah, mang, I see it too. At house dat asshole Giller lives.” Meduenz prounced Giller as “Geeler.”

  “Aw, that honkie dick? Shit. I ‘member one time, I’se just jammin’ to my tunes walkin’ down the street with my Grape Slush, and that honkie dick, you know what he say? He say, ‘Negroes ain’t allowed on this street.’ Shit. That white fuck. I’m duh Ace Boon Coonest player dare is, I’m a motherfuckin’ thug-king, I ain’t no Negro. Yeah, Menduez, whine’choo snatch that honkie piece’a shit’s puppy and do that dog thing you do?”

  “Chore, mang. No prob-leng.”

  “Time to sky up, dawgs. Let’s bop our butts back to the warehouse. I need my dick deep in Highball’s cash drawer, don’t’cha know. And that bitch better’a done our laundry and washed the fuck-rust out’a our sheets like I tole her, or I’se bust her up!”

  “Shrit, yeah, man!” Sung enthused and rubbed his crotch. “Ret’s get back to the kwib!”

  Menduez kept rubbing his crotch. “Chew guys go on ahead, mang. First eyeing gotta snatch me dat piece’a chit Giller’s puppy,” and then he turned and went down another street.

  “Come on, Sung. Shit.” Case Piece was about to head back to the warehouse but he suddenly stopped and brought a hand to his forehead. He seemed to be experiencing a mental flash. “Wait, wait! I just got me some creative inspiration!” and he looked up at the crisp winter sky, closed his eyes, and began to sing: “Hickory dickery DOCK! In her mouth she suck my SLOP and swallow every DROP! The clock strike five, I’m slappin’ jive! Hickory dickery motherfuckin’ DOCK!”

  Sung applauded. “That gwate, Clase Pleece! You a wegular wapper!”

  “Shit, yeah,” Case Piece agreed. “Keep them words in that genius brain of yours, Sung. I gotta find some way to get it to my man Ice-T. Shit, he make a hit out of it!”

  Indeed.

  The two drug dealers eventually returned to the warehouse, but the first sight that greeted them stopped them both in their tracks.

  “Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo,” Case Piece said, holding out his hand.

  In the darkened parking lot sat—

  “Prawlie’s Rinnebago!” Sung exclaimed.

  Case Piece scratched his Afro. “Shit. What Paulie doin’ back? He and his dudes split hours ago.”

  “We better trek it out!”

  Bright yellow lights could be seen in the Winnebago’s windows, but when they were closer, the forms of three men could be seen: two in dark overcoats, their arms crossed as they smoked, and taller man who wasn’t smoking. Additionally, Case Piece thought he heard something.

  The sounds of muffled shouts?

  The three forms glanced over as the footsteps approached. The two smokers turned out to be Argi and Cristo, the third man, Dr. Prouty.

  They all looked…dismal.

  “Hey, bros?” Case Piece greeted. “How you be?”

  The doctor spoke up, “I regret to reply that we don’t be very well at all.”

  “Yeah,” Cristo said, his eyes grim. “Some fucked up shit happened tonight.”

  “Oh no!” Sung remorsed.

  “What, cops?” Case Piece dreaded to ask.

  “Naw—”

  “But…where’s Paulie?”

  Argi jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, at the motor home, while at the same moment, that muffled shouting rose again.

  The shouting, unmistakably, belonged to Paulie.

  “Those motherFUCKers! You see what they did! I’m PAULIE FUCKIN’ VINCHETTI, and nobody does a job like that on me! Nobody!” Was there a pause, then a strange, regular slopping sound? “Back in ya go, bitch—yeah, back in! You like that? Huh? Fuck! Those fuckin’ guys! Who do they think they are?” Another pause, another slopping sound. “Fuck it! Back in ya go! What the fuck, huh? So help me God I’m gonna GET those guys!”

  “Man, bloods. Paulie, he sound like he’s whilin’ out. Who he yellin’ at?” Case Piece asked.

  “The broad,” Argi answered.

  “The…” Case Piece’s eyes bulged. “You mean Highball?”

  “Yeah,” Cristo said. “See, Paulie’s real pissed off. You know them guys we pulled some vendetta on?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, tonight they hit us back.”

  “They hit us back hard,” Argi augmented.

  “Yeah! You like that, bitch? I’ll bet you do!” more of Paulie’s muted shouting could be heard. “Back in ya go! Baaaaaaaaack in!”

  “Is he…?” Case Piece began. “He’s not…”

  Argi and Cristo nodded.

  “Shit!” Case Piece broke, turned toward the Winnebago’s side door. “I gotta go in there and find out why he’s whilin’ on Highball!”

  It was Dr. Prouty who took Case Piece’s arm with a hesitant look. “That would be most inadvisable, Mr. Piece. You see, Mr. Vinchetti, at this particular moment, is rather inconsolable.”

  “When shit don’t go his way,” Cristo added. “Paulie, well, see…”

  “Avoiding proximity is the most sound advice,” the doctor said.

  “He’s like a fuckin’ rabid dog when he’s pissed,” Argi finished.

  Thumping could be heard now, like someone’s heels thudding the floor in sheer horror. “I’ll just go…rap with him,” Case Piece found some courage.

  “Go at your own risk,” Argi said.

  Case Piece, in stops and starts, opened the vehicle’s narrow metal door and immediately heard mewling and more thumping
. He stepped in, his nose twitching at the awful body odor generated by that obese woman, Melda. The living area was a shambles; more of Paulie’s shouts rocketed forward.