Edward Lee - Header 2

Whereupon, he suffered a massive thrombotic stroke and died on the spot.

It had taken a half-dozen more police to dispel the very-displeased crowd of local residents who’d gathered at the scene. Departing comments included, “What good’s a police force who don’t do nothin’ ’bout dog-killers?” “Whole world’s turnin’ ta shit, it seems, and the county cops’re letting our humble town turn ta shit with it,” “It’s our tax dollars payin’ their salaries! And while they’re eatin’ their fuckin’ donuts, our lovin’ pets’re gittin’ tortured by drug dealers!” and the like.

Fuck ’em, Malone had thought. He didn’t even eat donuts—a blood-sugar issue—but what irked him more than whining residents was the prospect of someone killing puppies, because, see, he liked puppies far more than he liked people…

The house had been found empty, its tenants—clearly illegal-immigrant heroin dealers—having fully comprehended the message so loudly planted in the abysmal front yard. Puppy parts, blood and fur, etc., were found in back, with much more evidence that the innocent animal had indeed been tortured and mutilated. Malone winced at the thought, acknowledging just how delighted he himself would be to turn the tables and torture the human who’d instigated this atrocity.

And it was all making Malone look quite inept.

“Smack, smack, and more smack,” he muttered, watching other officers close the scene. “Vinchetti just keeps gittin’ richer whilse we just keep lookin’ like horse’s asses.”

Chewing tobacco made a bolus of Boover’s left cheek, about the size of his adam’s apple. “So you really think it’s one of Vinchetti’s movers who’s the dog-killer?”

“Just a hunch, but…yeah. Every time some outsider comes into his territory, this happens. That’s some callin’ card.”

Malone walked droopily back with Boover to their cars. He glanced dazedly at the now-vacant tenement-house just as a gloved evidence technician removed the puppy’s head from the stick and placed it in a plastic bag.

“So what about this big plan of yours, Chief?” Boover said in a tone that possibly could’ve been sarcastic. “Your plan to catch the puppy-killer?”

“Shit takes time, Boover. You know that. I’se waitin’ on a delivery—”

“Delivery?”

“Yeah,” Malone said, choosing to keep his cards closer to the vest. He felt edgy; he snapped his fingers. “Gimme some’a yer Red Man, huh? I’se havin’ a nic fit like nobody’s business and I’m fresh out.”

Boover spat some juice, frowning. “Fuck, Chief. You make more money’n me. Obama just upped the price a buck a bag and ya know what for? To pay health care for kids whose folks’d rather spend their welfare cash-relief in bars than work! Just keeps uppin’ taxes for pork-barrel spendin’ and White House fuckin’ doll houses and plantin’ tomatoes on the South Lawn!” Naturally, Boover pronounced “tomatoes” as tum-ay-ters. “Don’t that grapehead know that every tax he ups is another dollar out’ a the economy! Best way ta fix the economy is lower taxes which’ll create more jobs and more jobs means more surplus revenue!”

“Boover, I happen ta like President Obama”—Malone pronounced “Obama” as Obe-bamma. “So’s just quit’cher yammerin’ and give me some chew.”

“Buy your own fuckin’ chew, Chief!”

Malone stared in shock.

“Or better yet, get Obama ta buy it fer ya ’cos he’s been a fuckin’ millionaire for years! He made four million durin’ his last year in the Senate. How’s a junior senator make four million when his fuckin’ salary ain’t even two hundred grand? I ain’t got the money to give you free chew!” Boover stared Malone down, blinked, then exploded laughter. “Shit, Chief! Cain’t ya take a joke!” and then he passed his superior his six-fuckin’-dollar bag of Red Man.

“You got a odd sense’a humor,” Malone replied, then thumb-packed a quarter of the bag’s contents into his cheek. Immediately thereafter, the radio squawked in his cruiser. “Get that will ya?” the chief mumbled.

Boover stalked to the cruiser, but at the same moment, local resident and disputatious pain-in-the-ass Mitzy Crooker hustled by with her yapping dachshund on a leash. “Dood Malone!” she called out and actually shook her fist. “It’s us tax-payers payin’ fer yer damned chew!”

Go soak yer head, ya old fuck, Malone thought but pretended not to hear her. He spat a plume of chew-juice just as Boover addressed him. “Shit, Chief. That was the station. Dang if you ain’t got two deliveries waitin’ on ya.”

Malone’s eyes lit up. “Was one from—”

“Some place called B&T Digital in Tennessee.”

Yeah! “Was the other one from—”

“The Pulaski Animal Shelter. You got a brand-new puppy waitin’ for ya,” Boover said.

(III)

A slight detour took Helton and his kin back toward their neck of the woods. The open back roads were indeed a gratifying sight. Helton didn’t like the unnatural look of Pulaski, or any other city for that matter, but then he shuddered at a dread thought: I’se wonder what NEW YORK City’s like?

He pushed the contemplation away, then looked aside and saw that they were passing a tract of land owned by good ole Nuce Wynchel. In fact, Helton spotted Nuce and his boy Tube out yonder diggin’ post holes for the fence he’d been wanting to put up. Helton waved, then Nuce and Tube waved back.

But it was the next tract of land that was Helton’s goal, and in a few minutes he was parking the bunglesome black truck in the middle of Fuchson’s pasture. “Here we is, boys. Micky-Mack, bring the girl,” and then the youngster dragged the barely-conscious Kasha out. The sun shined, the cool breeze blew, and Micky-Mack and Dumar rubbed their crotches with vigor. In close proximity were several cows chewing their cud. The animals couldn’t have been more disinterested in the presence of the truck or these ungainly people.

“Dang purdy body on the bitch, that’s fer shore,” Dumar said. “And I’se just love them nips stickin’ out.”

“Want me git the hole-saw, Unc? Huh? Huh?” Micky-Mack urged in anticipatory glee, but that glee was not long-lived when—

SMACK!

—Helton’s big open hand landed hard across the youngster’s face. He fell down, dangerously close to a sizable deposit of cow manure. “Gawd DANG, Unc! That plumb hurt worst’n the rest! What you do that fer?”

“To unclog yer fuckin’ ears, boy ’cos ya obviously ain’t been listenin’ to a word I been sayin’.” He wagged a finger back and forth. “Ya don’t throw a header on a gal just ’cos she bad-mouthed ya. That’s the kind’a thing Caudill used ta do.”

“Yeah, Micky-Mack,” Dumar joined in. “Like Paw been sayin’, headers is only done to revenge a horrible, horrible crime.”

“Right. So’s we ain’t havin’ a header, we ain’t killin’ her, and we ain’t even fuckin’ her,” Helton issued. “That’d make us lower down than her. You understand?”

Micky-Mack got up, rubbing his face. “Yeah, I reckon I do….”

“Now whine’choo boys wake our li’l friend Kasha here up?”

The situation’s tenor changed quickly as penises were extracted from flies and dual streams of backwoods urine began to crisscross over the girl’s face. When she started to rouse, her mouth opened in objection but, lo, was expeditiously filled with pee. Aghast and shiny-faced, she leaned up on her hands, coughing, and once her head had been drenched, the seemingly endless streams lowered with pinpoint precision to drench her tight Vladimir Putin t-shirt. The wet fabric sucked up against the ample orbs and elucidated every detail of her areolae and papillae. This was a wet t-shirt contest redneck style.