Header 2

by Edward Lee

  “Seems so,” Helton replied. “We done heard about this piece’a shit puppy-killin’ freak just the other day on the radio.”

  “Yeah, we heard about it too,” Paulie told him. “Ain’t nothin’ pisses me off more than these sick fucks who like to torture animals. When ya get right down to it, most people are just a bunch of piles of shit who don’t deserve to live, but animals? For fuck’s sake, who could kill an innocent animal?”

  “Well, Paulie, it looks like you and me finally agree on somethin’. Only the lowest’a gutter scum do things like that—”

  “Look, Paw,” Dumar said. “Here’s that surveillance thing they was talkin’ ’bout…”

  The screen changed to a grainy, low-resolution frame of a brightly-lit but unkempt back yard. In odd stops and starts, a jubilant mongrel puppy with huge ears jumped up and down as a male figure crept up. The figure seemed short-haired and wore baggy pants; the back of his t-shirt read CHIT, MANG. He leaned over and picked the puppy up. The puppy licked the man’s face, its tail-stub wagging.

  Then the man turned, and technicians froze the tape. The frame pushed in as a zoom application was engaged.

  Th perpetrator appeared to be Hispanic, late-‘20s or so. In the freeze-frame, he grinned in a manner that could only be called Luciferic.

  But Paulie’s own face twisted into a look of disbelief, and he ran toward the nearest TV screen. “Argi! Tell me I’m seein’ things! Don’t that look like—”

  “Ain’t no question about it, boss.”

  “That fuckin’ Manuel motherfucker, the kid always wearin’ the Scarface shirts!”

  “Menduez I think his name is, boss…”

  Helton looked funkily at the two mob men. “What’s that you’re sayin’, Paulie?”

  On the screen, the stop-start progress resumed. The man stalked away with the puppy in his arms…

  The deputy chief reappeared, anger wrinkling his visage. “So there ya have it, folks: the puppy-killer! If any’a yawl know anything ’bout that-that…that person, just you call me. If ya know who he is, if ya seen him in the area, if ya think ya know where he lives…you call me!”—the officer pounded his fist on his desk. “There is a reward, and I want him! So, please, help me, help me put this despicable dog-torturer behind bars where he belongs!” The chief pronounced “despicable” as dess-picker-bull. A legend appeared, scrolling the phone number of the county sheriff’s office, and then they showed the close-up of the perpetrator’s face one more time.

  Paulie pointed, outraged. “I don’t fuckin’ believe it! That fucker’s on our crew!”

  “‘Fraid so, boss,” Argi said, finally able to stand up. His swollen testicle throbbed.

  Helton scratched his head. “Paulie, you sayin’ you know that fella? You know the puppy-killer?”

  “We don’t really know him, but he works for one of our middle-men.” Paulie ground his teeth. “And I’ll bet they’re all in on it. How could they not know?”

  “Can’t imagine, boss,” Argi agreed. “Looks like they been pullin’ the wool over our eyes.”

  Paulie stomped a foot. “Well I won’t have that shit! I won’t have a guy on my payroll killin’ puppies!”

  Helton stepped up. “Just let me ask you sumpthin’, Paulie. If’n you know who this varmint is, you know how to find him?”

  “Fuck, yes! The motherfucker coops in my warehouse three blocks away!”

  Helton drew on a contemplation. “Well I cannot abide the idea of a puppy-killer bein’ that close but not doin’ nothin’ ’bout it, and I’se mean I would bend over dag backwards fer the chance ta wear him out.”

  “You ain’t the only one, Helton.”

  “So…what we gonna do ’bout this here…per-dicker-mint?”

  Silence dropped. All four men exchanged glances.

  Helton took another step. “We’se can keep on fightin’ here, or…we can have ourselfs a time out, put our feud on hold, and all of us go to this warehouse’a yers and put a world’a hurt on this fella.”

  Paulie eyed Helton.

  “What about it, boss?” Argi asked. “Might be fun.”

  Another pause, then Paulie said, “All right, Helton. Time out. We go whack these guys, then we get back to our shit. But”—he held up a finger—“no tricks. Deal?”

  “Shore, Paulie.”

  Paulie eyed the bigger man, chin stuck out. “Swear on your dead mother’s soul.”

  Helton frowned. “All right. I’se swear on my dead Maw’s soul, there’ll be no tricks out’a us.”

  “Good.”

  Helton stroked his beard. “But now you gotta swear on your dead maw’s soul.”

  “Fair enough. I swear on my dead mother’s soul—no tricks out of us either.”

  Helton stared Paulie down. “And just so’s you remember, a man who ain’t worth his word ain’t worth shit.”

  “You don’t need to tell me that!”

  “All right, then. Enough’a this bickerin’. Let’s get on with this.”

  Paulie nodded. “Get in your truck and follow us…”

  (VIII)

  “Have yourselves a merry little Christmas,” someone crooned from the radio. Case Piece frowned up from the work table. Had someone changed his station? Then he frowned down at the task piled before them: a heap of raw, high-grade white heroin; and it was into innumerable one-by-one inch plastic mini-baggies that he and Sung were gingerly spooning in single-hit allotments of the potent narcotic. Case Piece shook his head. “Baggin’ skag is a pain in the ass—you hear my sass? I got too much class for this manual fuckin’ labor, man.”

  “Aw, fruck,” Sung complained, wielding a tiny spoon. “This prain in the ass, all right, Crase! Too brad Highball reft.”

  “Yeah.” Case Piece got up, struck a pose, then began to strut. “I’m stylin’ and profilin’, blood. I’m whilin’ and defilin’—shit! I’m bustin’ and I’m gustin’—‘ho!—baggin’ skag I gotta think—huh!—so I need me another grape drink!”

  “Dram good, Clase!”

  “Uh-huh.” Case piece opened the refrigerator… “Bummer, man! We all out’a grape drink!”

  “There’s mrore in the brack fridge.”

  “Cool. See, I go ape without my grape…drink.” Case Piece strode past sundry boxes and junk, then bopped down the dark hall. In one of the back rooms, he opened the fridge, reached for a soda drink, but then—

  konk!

  —fell face-first into the floor.

  He saw proverbial stars, and felt as though he were rocking back and forth like someone on a raft. The surprise blow to the back of the skull seemingly ballooned his head. A wavering state of semi-consciousness claimed him, to the extent that he knew only that something was amiss but could not frame words in thought. He heard, for instance, a heavily dialected voice say, “Dang, Paw. Lookit all the hair on this fella. We seed him a’fore, didn’t we?”

  And another voice, huskier: “That we did, son. Out yonder on the street. And that hair-do’a his, I think it’s what they used ta call a Afro.”

  Case Piece was unable to assign meaning to any of the words. His cheek rubbed the floor then, as his ankles were grabbed and he was hauled out of the room.

  “Fruck, fruck, guys!” Sung blubbered in the front room. He churned in a cocoon of ropes as Paulie stood over him. “Ree your bruds, Prawlie!” the Asian pleaded. “You our twop-dwawer dude!”

  “My ass,” replied the don. “You guys are killin’ puppies here. No one who works for me kills puppies. No one.”

  “No, no, Prawlie! It ruz Menduenz!”

  “Yeah?” Paulie tapped his foot, then looked up with a grin, when Helton dragged Case Piece into the room. “Good job, Helton.”

  Helton dropped the drug dealer’s ankles, frowned errantly at the fact that the man’s jeans were halfway down his fucking ass, leaving striped boxer shorts pulled up over his navel. Helton propped him up limp in the corner.

  “Is he dead?” Paulie asked.

  “Naw. All’s I
give him is a little knuckle shampoo. Be another minute’re two ‘fore he wakes full up.”

  Case Piece’s eyelids fluttered above a hung-open mouth. His head lolled, but he remained three-quarters unconscious.

  “Dumar’s lookin’ fer the other ‘un.” Helton said. He looked to Sung. “So what we got here?”

  “Just a bagman. Fucker’s name is Sung or some shit. Some Chinese name—”

  “Kow-EEE-ah, Prawlie!” Sung objected even his not-looking-very-good predicament.

  “Whatever.”

  “Looks more like a puppy-killer ta me—”

  No, no, mran! I srare. Crase Preece and me, ree never hurt puppies!”

  Just then, the door swung open, and in lumbered Argi, with his ruptured and now-nearly-grapefruit-sized testicle exposed, that—

  And the stump-grinder.

  “Need some help there, fella?” Helton offered.

  “Yeah, sure, if ya don’t mind,” the beefy lieutenant said. “This fucker’s heavy even for a portable. Comin’ in I bumped my sore nut on the guide bar—man, that hurt.”

  “I’ll bet it did, fella, I’ll bet it did,” and then Helton rendered assistance in positioning the awkward machine properly. Its pivot left the grind-wheel several inches over Sung’s face.

  Sung shrieked prayers in Korean.

  “Hey.” Paulie tapped Sung’s shoulder with a shoe-tip. “Where’s that guy think’s he’s Scarface?”

  “I dron’t know, Prawlie! Ree haven’t sreen him all day! I’m not rying!”

  Paulie contemplated the response. “Argi?”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Start ‘er up.”

  A cord was yanked, then the 5-horse-power engine came to chugging life. Argi grasped the guide bars, jiggling from the vibration. He squeezed the throttle on the handle several times, like some asshole showing off on a motorcycle.

  Sung screamed so loud he could actually be heard over the motor’s terrifying din. At high-rev, the machine sounded like a chainsaw…

  …only worse.

  Then the throttle receded.

  “Where’s the Scarface guy?” Paulie demanded. “What’s his name? Menudo?”

  “Menduez, boss,” Argi corrected.

  “Right. Where is he?”

  As the grind-wheel blurred only inches from Sung’s face, his eyes seemed larger than his sockets. “Prawlie, I srare to Grod! I don’t know! And ree never kill no puppies! It was him! Only him!”

  Paulie winced, pinching his chin. “What you guys think? You think he’s lying?”

  Helton shook his head. “I gotta tell ya, Paulie. My backwoods instinct tell me he’s tellin’ it right.”

  “Yeah, boss,” Argi said. “If he knew? He’d’ve given it up by now.”

  Paulie reflected on a long pause, then said, “Yeah, you guys are right. This kid don’t know nothin’, but ya know what?”

  “What’s that, boss?”

  “My grandfather, Vinch the Eye—God rest his soul—”

  Paulie and Argi crossed themselves.

  “—my grandfather fought the Japanese in World War Two, so I say…GRIND HIM ANYWAY!”

  “But I’m Ko-WEE-aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn!” Sung bellowed and the engine revved and the grind-wheel lowered and in half-inch increments Sung’s face, then most of his head was spectacularly milled away into near nothingness. Particulated flesh, bone, blood, and brain sprayed outward in a great plume of gore, like sloppy joe in a snow-blower. The brainy mush fired ten feet across the room.

  When the deed was done, only a rind of Sung’s head remained.

  Helton’s brow arched. “Ya know, Paulie, you’n me got some hign’n mighty differences ta settle but with alls’a that, I gotta say…there ain’t no foolin’ around with you fellas. That grinder does a dandy job.”

  “Yeah, it does, don’t it? And it does a great job on medium-width tree stumps too.”

  “Ya don’t say?”

  “Now it’s Superfly’s turn,” Paulie said. “Helton, how ’bout draggin’ him over here?” but all at once, they all looked to the corner where the barely conscious form of Case Piece had been deposited…

  “Well ain’t that a kick in the dick!” Helton exclaimed.

  Case Piece was gone, quite like a character in a novel set up to die but then the irresponsible author, at the last minute, foresaw use for that character in a future project…

  “Shit, boss,” Argi remarked. “We were havin’ such a good time grindin’ this guy, we took our eyes off of the other one.”

  “Well,” Helton stepped right up. “I’ll’se have ta assume responser-bility. Guess that knuckle shampoo weren’t as hard as I thought.”

  “Aw, forget it. He don’t count for shit,” Paulie said. “It’s that other one I want, and I want him bad—”

  “This be who you’re talkin’ ’bout?” a confident voice piped up. Dumar pushed in a wheelbarrow filled with one absolutely terrified short-haired Hispanic male wearing a t-shirt featuring Al Pacino with an M-16. His wrists and ankles were expertly tied (the Hispanic’s, not Pacino’s).

  “There he is,” Paulie chortled.

  “What diss chit, mang?” Menduez tried but failed to act like he didn’t know what was going on. “I work for chew, mang!

  “Not no more,”Paulie said. “You been torturin’ puppies, and we happen to like puppies. So we’re gonna torture you.”

  Menduez glared, tremoring amid his bonds. “I dint kill no puppies, mang! Dat was Case Piece!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” and then Paulie gestured Dumar after which the latter upended the wheelbarrow and dumped Menduez on the floor. At once, Helton and Argi walked the grinder over and positioned it above the Hispanic’s face.

  “Chew got diss all wrong, mang!” Menduez pleaded.

  Paulie leaned over and bellowed, “We just saw you on the fuckin’ tv stealin’ a puppy! The cops got you on video!”

  “Aw, no, no, mang. Chore, I steal duh puppy but only ’cos Case Piece make me. Said he kick me out of duh fockin’ gang, mang! It was Case Piece, mang! He duh one dat kill duh puppies!”

  Paulie’s shoe continued to tap. “What do you think, guys? Helton? What’s that backwoods instinct tellin’ ya?”

  Helton chuckled. “Paulie, that fella there? He’s lyin’ like a tramp in a flop-house, yessir.”

  Argi was nodding. “Shit, boss, he just gave six of the seventeen signs sure as shit. Worst liar I ever saw.”

  “No, mang!” Menduez pleaded. “Chew got to believe me!”

  Paulie grinned. “Grind him…”

  Argi yanked the cord and revved the machine. Menduez screamed. The grind-wheel began to lower, and a wet spot appeared at the Hispanic’s crotch.

  But Helton quickly whispered something to Paulie, then the don yelled.

  “Argi, don’t grind him!”

  “Don’t grind him, boss?”

  “Don’t grind him.”

  Argi turned the grinder off.

  “Helton’s right,” Paulie averred. “Grindin’? It’s too good for this piece of shit. Too fast, ya know? So Helton suggested we do a Melda job on him.”

  “Great idea!” Argi said.

  “This fucker needs to die slow…”

  Helton, Dumar, and Argi hoisted the trussed man and carried him out.

  When the Winnebago door banged open, Dr. Prouty’s solitaire cards flew up in the air.

  “Come on, Doc. We got the dog killer,” Paulie said in an antsy anticipation. “Get Melda ready.”

  The doctor stalled. “Um, sir, perhaps you’ve forgotten in all the entails of the day but…Melda’s dead.”

  Paulie shot the former plastic surgeon a look like someone with lemon juice in their mouth. “Doc, listen to what’cher sayin’. So what if she’s dead? Dead or alive, she’s still got a giant pussy, don’t she?”

  Prouty fumbled. “Er, uh, why, yes, of course, sir.”

  “So come on! Lube this scumbag up!”

  With obvious distaste, Dr. Prouty covered the Hisp
anic’s head with more spoiling I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter; then all involved repaired to the back compartment.

  “Jiminy!” Helton said. “That there’s some powerhouse funk!”

  “Shore is,” Dumar said but then gulped when his eyes trained on the massive rice-paper-white corpse piled on the bench. By now, post-mortal lividity had purpled the gargantuan woman’s feet, hands, buttocks, and the bottoms of the depending sacks of flesh that were her breasts.

  Menduez screamed when he got his first look. “What-what..what chew do, mang?”

  “You’ll see, Pedro. Helton, how about pulling one leg up and Dumar can grab the other. Just pull her knees all the way back for a good cunt shot.”

  This done, the abyssal maw gaped, and then all the men howled when an appalling release of vaginal gas escaped.

  Helton fanned his face. “A gal cunt-fartin’s one thing, but a dead gal cunt-fartin’?”

  “Sheee-IT!” Dumar guffawed.

  “This is some party, huh, Paulie!” Helton laughed.

  “Oh, this party’s just gettin’ started. Argi?”

  Menduez screamed and screamed when the two mafiosos plugged Menduez’s shuddering head into Melda’s dead vagina. “Doc, tell us when a minute’s up.”

  “Of course, Mr. Vinchetti.”

  The doctor’s watch ticked. Helton and Dumar looked on in astonishment. Menduez convulsed.

  “A minute has expired, sir.”

  WHAP!

  Paulie rammed his fist into Menduez’s crotch; the Hispanic’s suffocating scream could be heard even with his head deep in the cadaver’s birth canal.

  “Pull him out,” Paulie directed, and they did.

  Menduez vibrated on the floor, heaving in his first breath, but then—

  WHAP!

  —Paulie rammed his fist into the young man’s solar plexus, robbing him of all air.

  “Back in!”

  Amid a nauseous schucking sound, Melda’s dead vagina re-swallowed the Hispanic’s head.

  “Gawd dang, Paw,” Dumar remarked. “This shore is some heavy-duty ruckin’!”

  “That it is, son. Hope it’s a lesson to the fella.”

  “We smotherin’ him now, boss?” Argi asked.

  The two mafiosos shoved the head up hard. “Naw, not yet. I wanna have some fun with this one.”