Joan Hess - Maggody And The Moonbeams

"Now listen here, you schemin' pissant bastard," Jim Bob sputtered, repeating himself for the umpteenth time and getting redder each time. "If you don't give me that videotape, I'm gonna wring your scrawny neck and bury your body in a flowerbed."

Hammet didn't bother to look away from the television set. "Won't get you the tape, though. I hid it real good, but someplace where it'll get found afore too long if it stays there. I reckon folks around here are gonna have theirselves a real belly laugh when they watch it. You was squealing like a stuck pig when you got all tangled in your shorts trying to scramble out of bed to git away from-what was their names? Sam and Tim? Sumpthin' like that. It's a good thing you chased 'em all the way out to the driveway. Otherwise, I couldn't have taken the tape."

Jim Bob's eyes narrowed. "And done what with it?"

"I don't likely recollect, but iff'n you bring me another sandwich and a glass of milk, I'll stew on it. And I was thinkin' about doughnuts with powdered sugar for dessert. Long as you're goin' to the store, get some grape sodas and a box of vanilla sandwich cookies. I've had a hankerin' all day."

"I might could tie a concrete block to your foot and throw you in Boone Creek."

"And have some 'splaining to do when ever'body gets back to town," Hammet said coolly as he switched channels to some dumbass show with men running around in short pants, whacking at a ball.

Jim Bob tried again. "Ain't you scared of going to prison, you pint-sized sumbitch?"

"Not near as scared as you are of what's gonna happen when your prissy wife gets home. You gonna stand there and goggle like a bullfrog all afternoon?"

Joan Hess is the author of both the Claire Malloy and the Maggody mystery series. She is a winner of the American Mystery Award, a member of Sisters in Crime, and a former president of the American Crime Writers League. She lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.