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by Edward Lee

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Brice held the door open for Sarah May as the three of them walked out of Sallee’s. His jaw tightened when he noticed Augie checking out her ass. Augie gave him a Hey, I’m only human shrug, which was pretty ironic considering all the inhuman shit he’d been up to tonight.

  Sarah May wiped her eyes. They were red and irritated from her tears, but she still looked beautiful to Brice.

  I was supposed to go out with her tomorrow, he thought mournfully. He assumed that was off the table now, and good thing, too. It was torture to accompany her now, knowing the identity of her cousin’s killers and having to protect them and lie to her.

  I watched that sicko Stoody fuck a dead girl’s brain! How the hell was that not the worst thing to happen tonight?

  Sarah May sniffed, dabbed her eyes with a tissue, and asked, “Where’s your other friend, the doctor fella?”

  “That’s what we were wondering,” Augie said.

  The street was quiet. They had hoped to come out and see Clark pacing outside, puffing on a cigarette, but the three of them were the only people outside at the moment. Music pulsed behind the walls of Sallee’s and a dog barked far off in the distance, but otherwise it was quiet.

  “He was supposed to meet us at Sallee’s but I think he went back to the motel,” Brice said. We hope he did, anyway. “He had a lot to drink tonight.”

  “Oh,” Sarah May said. She tucked the tissue away into her purse, a compact red thing that didn’t look like it could hold more than a wallet and lipstick.

  “So what’s this place we’re going to?” Augie asked.

  “The Crossroads, just right over there.” She pointed across the street to a tavern with its name across the top in red neon. “It’s just a quiet neighborhood bar.”

  “That’s more my speed,” Brice said. “Sallee’s was getting a bit too rowdy for me.”

  They walked across Main Street to the front of Crossroads. The muted noise of Sallee’s was a faint whisper now.

  He suspected Augie would jump at the chance to do some more drinking. Brice hoped he would have better sense than to announce the three of them had gone to Backtown earlier tonight, but then on the heels of that he wondered if it would seem suspicious if they didn’t mention it. A bunch of people saw them, and her cousin, that Loger guy, knew they’d talked to her. Word had a way of getting around here. What would he say if Sarah May asked him about it later?

  Oh, sorry, it just kind of slipped our minds to mention we chatted with your cousin—or tried to—right before she bled to death.

  Invisible hands wrung Brice’s insides as if someone were using them to rope climb. They had days of this sort of second-guessing to negotiate before they could go back home and leave behind this nightmare burg of spit-drinkers and head-fuckers.

  We can’t lose our cool about this, Augie had said during their wait for Sarah May. These hicks probably think extradition is something they do every Thanksgiving.

  Brice begrudgingly agreed, but they should deflect suspicion altogether. They couldn’t leave for that very reason. It was why Clark’s disappearing act was so troubling. They would have trusted him implicitly before tonight, but you never knew how someone would act in a crisis.

  He’s passed out back in the room, that’s all!

  Brice once again held open the door for Sarah May, and Augie once again took mental snapshots of the rear view. Brice sighed as they filed into the bar. Compared to the pounding music and sweaty carnality of Sallee’s, Crossroads was a welcome change of pace. There was music, but it was as subliminal as the pockets of idle conversations emanating from the booths and tables.

  Sarah May chose a table and Brice pulled out a chair for her, then sat down across from her. Augie went straight to the bar to get them some drinks.

  “So this is the local watering hole,” Brice said, taking in the atmosphere.

  A couple of local boys were stationed at a pool table in the corner. Balls clacked and thumped against the felt walls as one of them took a shot.

  Brice nodded his approval. “It’s a welcome change, I’ll tell you that.”

  One of the pool players cackled. “You scratched it, ya dumb fucklick!”

  “I like this bar,” Sarah May said. “Ain’t full’a creeps and whatnot.”

  Brice considered the sort of clientele she must see night after night at work. “I suppose that must get old sometimes at Sallee’s.”

  “Shore it does, sometimes,” she agreed. “It ain’t ever’ day you feel like someone offerin’ you money to have their selfs a nut in yer tailpipe.”

  “No, I…I would imagine not,” Brice said.

  “Ya can hear yourself think in here.” She sniffled and folded her hands on the table.

  Brice slid a hand over hers. “How you holding up?

  “Oh, I’m all right,” she said. “Just takes a while for the reality ta sink in, that someone could do that ta such an innocent like her.”

  “Sure,” Brice said, patting her hand.

  “It just don’t make no sense ta me. Who could do somethin’ so awful?”

  Augie appeared right on cue, clopping down three glasses in the middle of their table. He served a fake French accent with them. “Mademoiselle, monsieur? Your apéritifs are served.” He slid into the chair beside his brother.

  Brice wasn’t sure where to take the conversation now, but he was spared the dilemma momentarily when Eamon suddenly appeared at their side. He’d somehow missed the mayor when they walked in.

  Eamon gave Sarah May a doleful look.

  He already knows? Damn, news travels fast in this town.

  “Oh, Uncle Eamon,” Sarah May said. She pushed back her chair and stood up to hug him. “This is all so horrible. I just don’t know how ta deal with it.”

  Brice caught Augie looking at him. Augie mouthed the word Uncle? Then fuck!

  “I know, hon.” Uncle Eamon sighed wistfully. “But it’s true that God works in mysterious ways, so’s even when a innocent person dies bad, it ain’t really bad ’cos we all lives forever in the House’a the Lord.”

  Sarah May began sobbing again. The hands which had been squeezing Brice’s insides moved up to clamp around his heart. He’d spent the past few weeks moping over Marcie, and here was someone going through a real tragedy.

  “Aw, jiminy, Uncle Eamon,” she said, “I shore hope you’re right.”

  Eamon released her from his embrace, sliding his hands down her arms until he took hold of her hands. “A’course I am, so that’s why when folks die, we don’t get all sad and feelin’ low. Babba’s in a far better place now, so’s we should honor her by celebratin’ the great lives God up’n give us.”

  Sarah May nodded glumly and wiped her eyes.

  The mayor seemed to finally notice Brice and Augie seated at the table. “Howdy, boys. Guess you heard we had us a tragedy tonight.”

  Augie nodded. “Yes, sir, we did.”

  “We’re very sorry to hear it,” Brice said. “Such a terrible thing.”

  “I ’preciate yer consolin’ words, fellas, but like I were sayin’, there ain’t no call fer grief, no sir. Ain’t what Babba would want.”

  Brice assumed he meant a theoretical Babba in possession of greater faculties of cognitive awareness.

  “Oh, and I’se glad you’re here!” Eamon said, as if he’d just thought of it. “I just run into yer doctor pal at the convenience store.”

  Brice raised a brow. “Clark?” He shared a glance with Augie, who looked hopeful.

  “Yeah. Told him ’bout our poker game in back, so’s that’s where he is now. Some card player, that boy is.”

  Augie laughed. “Well, we both got cleaned out in—” He realized he was about to say Backtown and held up. “—in Atlantic City the last time we gave it a go. But Clark’s here, now?”

  “Yup. Come on back if you’ve a mind for some cards. Ante’s five bucks.”

  “We will, Mayor,” Brice said.

  “Yeah, thanks, sir,”
Augie added.

  Brice held out his hand from force of habit. It seemed like Eamon looked at it distastefully for a second before he extended his own for a handshake.

  Nonsense. I’m being paranoid, like with Clark, and look how that turned out.

  If he truly was back there then it was aggravating the way Clark no-showed on them, but maybe helpful in the long run if he’d been with the mayor. It didn’t seem like the actions of a guilty man, although this bothered Brice a little bit too for that same reason—How could he be back there playing poker like nothing happened? For that matter, why would Eamon?

  Eamon turned back to Sarah May and they exchanged another hug. She appeared to have taken some consolation from her uncle’s sermon, and even managed a little smile for him before he wandered off.

  Brice and Augie traded mystified looks again.

  “How do you like that?” Augie asked.

  “Seems kind of strange, doesn’t it? He blew us off for a card game without letting us know?”

  “Must be one’a them fellas who’s got a hard hankerin’ ta gamble,” Sarah May offered.

  Brice rubbed his chin. “Well, he is, but still…it’s kind of…weird.”

  Augie shrugged and picked up his drink. “Not really. He happened to run into the mayor in the store, heard about the game, and came to check it out. Probably figured he’d play a few hands, then come over to meet us at Sallee’s. But you know Clark. Once he gets rolling, he doesn’t stop.” He knocked back his drink.

  Brice gave him a doubtful look, but didn’t say anything. It was just a hell of a time for Clark to go AWOL. Maybe he thought it would look suspicious to turn the mayor down, but strange that he didn’t at least take a rain check until he went to Sallee’s to get his accomplice and accessory after the fucking fact.

  “Well, why don’t we go in the back now?” Sarah May asked. The color she lost from the shock of tonight’s news had begun to return to her face. “You fellas can play some cards, and I can see how Loger’s doin’. That’s Babba’s brother. Poor guy’s probably all shook up.”

  “Might as well,” Brice replied indifferently, but inside he was thinking, Christ, is the whole town related to that girl?

  The hands went back to work squeezing his guts as he eased his chair back from the table. Loger talked to all of them in Backtown earlier. Brice had been too pissed off to discuss this with Augie back at Sallee’s, thinking they had plenty of time to hash it out before it became critical. He looked for some sign on Augie’s face that he’d realized what a bombshell Loger’s involvement was, but far as his brother was concerned, their troubles ended with the revelation of Clark’s whereabouts. He probably didn’t remember Loger at all and thought of him as Yokel #47.

  Too late now. Loger can’t actually be in the back anyway, can he? What’d he do, get the news from the hospital and then tear ass over here for a card game?

  Of course not. He’d misunderstood her, obviously.

  Brice pointedly inserted himself between Sarah May and Augie as she led them to a hallway between the bar and the pool table, spoiling Augie’s view of her ass at least once tonight. One of the pool players nodded curtly at Brice, cue stick held at port arms. He returned the nod, and they went single file down the corridor. It amused him to see a payphone hung on the wall.

  Yeah, they haven’t been swept up in the cell phone revolution down here.

  They passed a door to the kitchen on the right, another door beyond that, bathrooms on the left, and then Sarah May brought them to a door at the end of the hall marked PRIVATE.

  Unbeknownst to Brice, back in the main area all of the locals began to grin, and normal conversation gave way to animated whispering and muted snickering. They shushed one another so as not to spoil the surprise.

  “Here we is, fellas,” Sarah May announced. She gripped the doorknob.

  “Sarah May, I hope the mayor and his friends are good sports,” Augie said.

  “They are, but why’d ya ask that?”

  Augie laughed. “’Cos I’ll clean out every chip in the room. Feel a lucky streak coming on.”

  Brice frowned. The “lucky” thing would be for Augie and Clark to lose their asses and not single themselves out any more, although something still seemed shady to him, a little bit off—

  Sarah May pushed open the door and stood against it to let Brice and Augie walk past. They both paused, brows furrowing. Augie’s smile froze and evaporated.

  “What’s going on?” Brice asked.

  “Yeah, where’s the card game?”

  There were enough people back here for a solid game of poker, but whatever they had going on, it didn’t involve a deck of cards. Three men stood with their backs to Brice and Augie and didn’t turn to acknowledge them, as if too engrossed by what they were watching before them.

  Brice heard the sound then. PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP!

  Oh, God, not again…

  As one, he and Augie looked back at Sarah May. She still stood by the door, but it wasn’t her now. Not the face of the sweet, warm, and gorgeous woman they came here with, but a morbid leer of madness.

  Before either of them could take a step toward the doorway, they cried out in surprise as strong hands seized their arms and chicken-winged with nonchalant ease.

  “Well, hey there, city boys!” greeted the one who subdued Brice.

  The one who grabbed Augie giggled. “Glad ya could drop in!”

  Brice and Augie squirmed, to zero avail. Their arms were locked in place, invisible spears of pain poking into their spines.

  Brice craned his head over at Augie. “I knew something was fishy!”

  Augie continued to thrash. “Let me go, you big redneck fuck!”

  The big redneck fuck yanked him back until his mouth was inches from Augie’s ear. “Oh, we’ll let ya go…when we’re are good and done with ya! Ain’t that right, Clyde?”

  “Shore is, Horace. These boys’ll be shittin’ their big city paynties ‘fore it’s all over!”

  This prompted general laughter, Sarah May included. The door creaked as she slammed it shut behind them.

  “Brice, this is fucked up!” Augie grunted.

  “Tell me about it.” He stopped fighting his captor. His shoulder blades felt like they were about to poke through his skin.

  Throughout all of this, the line of bodies in the middle of the room continued to watch something they concealed from Brice and Augie’s sight. They still had not taken their eyes from it, not during the arrival of their visitors or the struggle to subdue them. On the other side of them, that moist refrain: PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP!

  “Ease up on my arms, you yokel son of a bitch!” Augie snapped. “What’s that noise? And what the fuck is this?”

  Brice’s answer came out as a croak. “I think I know…”

  Behind him, Clyde said, “Hey, Mayor? Why don’t’cha step aside there with Gut and Tucker so’s our friends can see?”

  Eamon, Gut, and Tucker at last turned to greet the new arrivals.

  Shit, how many of these freaks are there? Brice wondered. Both the guys holding him and Augie and two of the watchers were identical.

  Eamon looked somber, but the ones called Gut and Tucker were all smiles, toothy cheer plastered across their faces. The sight of quadruplets in the room failed to hold Augie’s attention for long as he was finally able to see what the group had blocked.

  “Brice. My God. He’s…he’s…” Augie’s mouth hung open as he struggled to find the words.

  Having witnessed a variation of this barely over an hour ago, Brice understood the failure of speech to adequately articulate what they were seeing. Clark was back here after all, cinched to a table with his pants down. A viscous substance coated his genital area like tar, but it could not completely obscure the stomach-churning mutilation performed on him.

  His fucking balls are on the table!

  What was left of them, anyway. They looked melted, connected to his scrotum with a liquefied strand like stretche
d caramel. Clark almost looked like he was still alive, too, with his head tilted up, shaking as if one of the guys from Scanners was about to detonate his skull, and his face a rictus of anguish. The gold chain bounced on his chest, crinkling and straightening. His eyes were still open, sightlessly staring in the direction of Brice and Augie, but far beyond them. The illusion of life was spoiled by Loger’s hands clamped to Clark’s ears to hold him up as his pelvis thrust into the top of Clark’s head in a way that could not have been possible had the cranium not been hollowed out for several inches. Noticing his new audience, he pulled back enough for them to see the blood-smeared shaft of his dick, like the arm of a baby freshly pulled from a mother’s womb. Then he sank back into the drilled cavern with a sigh of pleasure and soon found his rhythm again, a look of intense concentration on his face that bizarrely mirrored Clark’s expression of pain. And once again, that awful sound of moist acceptance within the skull: PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP!

  “It’s called a header,” Brice said, swallowing bile. “It’s how these people get their revenge.”

  Eamon nodded at this assessment, his arms folded like he was surveying manual labor. “And you boys know what we’se getting’ revenge for. Don’t even act like ya don’t.” He turned to Sarah May and added, “Good job gettin’ ’em here.”

  Sarah May grinned, her face flushing with the praise. “’Twas easy, Uncle Eamon.”

  She caught Brice looking at her and winked, her smile no longer seductive but sadistic. She returned her attention to Loger’s display as he pounded at Clark like a piston of flesh. Her lower lip quivered and she moaned, sliding her hands up to caress both of her breasts, tweaking her nipples between thumbs and fingers. She licked her lips.

  But isn’t Loger her…her cousin? Brice thought sickly. Something about that disturbed him almost as much as the header. His throat burned from another gulp of bile.

  “Oooo-EEE!” Loger shouted. “This here’s the best brain puss I ever did have me! This boy’s head feels good, it does!” With that exuberant hosanna, the thrust of his pelvis kicked into an even higher gear. PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP!