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  After this, he fingered a golf ball into the “pocket.”

  Clyde slipped a pre-made loop of rope around the now skin-covered golf ball, and he tightened the loop down hard and screwed a lock clamp just above the knot.

  “Start ’er up, Horace!” Gut yelled.

  A motor roared to life, chugging rhythmically. A revving sound ensued, and the rope connected to the golf ball grew taut in an instant.

  The blond woman’s eyes slowly followed the rope back to the other end of the barn, where Horace contentedly operated a stationary winch.

  The motor revved further, slowly, in increments, until no more slack existed in the rope, and a very unhappy Triple M began to sway backwards in mid-air. Arms and legs churned to no effect; the dealer’s vocal responses need not be described.

  Tucker grabbed the girl’s head and forced her to watch. “Ya don’t wanna miss this, sweetie. It’s a hoot.” He then nodded to Horace.

  The motor-noise trebled; Triple M’s body now hung at roughly a forty-five degree angle, and amid a crackly wet peeling sound, all of the young man’s skin was pulled off from the armpits down, quite like a pair of overalls. There was a bit of resistance at the groin, then more resistance as the “skin-suit” prolapsed entirely at the dealer’s feet. It might also be appropriate to add that the dealer’s screams sounded quite machine-like and seemed to dwarf the sound of the winch motor. Finally, then, those stubborn connective tissues which kept Triple M’s skin suit attached to his feet—

  —SNAPPED.

  The winch whined at the release of tension, actually catapulting the great bag of skin over Horace, rope and all, where it slapped! against the barn wall, throwing random droplets of blood hither and yon and leaving wet smears where the skin suit hit with greatest force. The motor chugged to a halt.

  The four giant-sized brothers applauded with gusto.

  “Dandy job, boys!” Tucker complimented, trading high-fives with Gut and Clyde. “Best dang golf-ball job we had in a long spell!”

  “Yeah!” Horace agreed. “Even better’n that knocked up junkie chick we skinned that one time!”

  Triple M continued to scream in lurching waves, each burst from his throat causing his dangling body to bend backward. And when Tucker said, “Gut? Why don’t you give that fella somethin’ to really scream about,” the slightly younger brother was all too happy to oblige. He produced a large jug of home-distilled 200-proof grain alcohol and began to splash it liberally all over the young drug dealer’s raw, skinless body, and the sounds that issued from his throat at that point could scarcely even be called human. The freshly exposed bloody muscles glistened under the alcohol, like an oiled body builder stripped of his bronzed flesh. Moments later, the nerve-flaying pain caused him to either pass out or die.

  The rather hackneyed term “sheer, unadulterated horror” was the most apt way to describe the look on the blond woman’s mortified face.

  “So much fer him, huh, sweetie?” Tucker remarked. “Don’t’cha worry none. What we’re gonna do ta you won’t hurt near as much as that.” He paused in what seemed an appropriate gesture of effect. “But it’s shore as hail’s gonna be a lot more fun!”

  Gut and Clyde stepped apart, and between emerged Horace, grinning as he raised a power drill fitted with a 3-inch hole-saw. By now, the “sheer, unadulterated horror” was corrupting the perceptions of the blond woman with one deflated breast. She began to hear in cosmic echoes (human chortling and the revving of the power drill which sounded more like a jet engine) and see through a warped, grainy ocular veil that shifted and prolapsed, and what she saw, or thought she saw was this: the shapes of those mammoth, chuckling identical quadruplets rubbing their crotches and then stepping out of their overalls, while the wobbling voice of one of them said, “Let ’er rip, Gut,” and another, “Open this here tramp’s coconut, ’cos I’se got me a big one ta dump in it,” and then two hands that felt large as baseball gloves clamped the sides of her head, locked her face forward, and through that veil of impending death via depravity, the 15,000 rpm hole-saw began eating a circle into her forehead…

  CHAPTER ONE

  It could’ve been a Travel Channel film clip augmenting a show about the breathtaking natural beauty of the wilds of that great country called America: an endless chisel-sharp sweep of pristine mountains, rolling hills, and forests that were shockingly green. It was the acme of summer in the Great Outdoors, and it was through this stunning vista that the shiny BMW SUV soared.

  The only thing more out of place than the $80,000 loaded-to-the-max luxury vehicle were its occupants: three 30ish men with upscale cosmopolitan good looks: Brice Parks, his older brother Augie, and Clark Silber. These men were success personified, confidence incarnate, and silver-spoon-born, and they all possessed a subtle “prickish” air that seemed to drift about them like the expensive cologne they all wore. Rolexes decorated their wrists (real ones, not knock-offs), and given the quality of their salon tans, one might peg them for Palm Springers rather than Manhattanites. Even their casual t-shirts, sneakers, and faded jeans were actually high-price designer wear from preposterous 5th Avenue clothiers because, well, they wouldn’t be caught dead in anything without a “label.” What would their peers think? When these men wanted a hamburger they did not go to McDonald’s for a $3.00 Big Mac, they went to DB Bistro Moderne for a $150 Kobe beef double truffle. Clark wore an obnoxious gold chain around his neck as though he fancied himself a major-league pitcher. Brice wore a just-as-obnoxious diamond pinkie ring.

  It was Brice behind the wheel, while all of them marveled at the spectacular scenery. He said, “I guess we’ve officially arrived at the boondocks.”

  “Yes sir!” Augie exclaimed, riding shotgun. “Exit Manhattan, enter the land of redneck hosebags, moonshine, and rube strippers!”

  “Eee-ha,” Brice muttered with a bent of the sarcastic.

  Clark, leaning up from the back seat, inquired, “Hey, Augie, why’s your brother so uncool with this road trip?”

  Augie scoffed. “Aw, he’s still boo-hooing about Marcie dumping him—”

  “I am not!” Brice insisted in a not very credible manner.

  “Brice, relax,” Clark offered. “Wanna know the truth? Augie and I envy you. At least you weren’t stupid enough to marry your gold-digging, big-tit bitch.”

  Augie slapped Brice on the back with a laugh. “Yeah, buddy bro! You’re off the hook, but me and Clark’ll be paying alimony till we fuckin’ croak.”

  Brice’s lack of enthusiasm could not have been more plain. “Oh, yeah, that makes me feel much better. And Marcie was not a gold-digger.”

  “Just keep telling yourself that, bro. She’d stop to put out an armored car before she would a burning school bus.”

  Brice frowned at Augie.

  “Come on, shake it off, Brice” Clark said. “We’ve all been burned by women—it’s part of life. All this natural beauty will get your mind off it—”

  Augie laughed, crassly as always. “Yeah, natural beauty and a piece of ass from a backwoods whore!”

  Brice maintained his sullenness but Clark, who seemed taken aback, pointed out the window. “Hey, guys. How’s that for some natural beauty?” Brice and Augie looked on with astonishment at the stunning tree-topped mountain. Such breath-taking vistas had an effect of awesome appreciation, even to rich, spoiled, wise-aching elitists as Augie, Clark, and Brice. Silence filled the BMW’s interior as more natural wonders streamed past them in the window. Sights like these really caused one to realize his or her insignificance when juxtaposed to the immeasurable splendor of the world, and it made Brice, in particular, question his own cynicism as well as his Ivy League denial of spirituality. It made him wonder where it all came from. “Wow,” he murmured. “I’ve never seen anything like that except in National Geographic.”

  It was Augie who ruined the moment of self-reflection, which was usually the case. He slapped Brice on the back hard, laughing. “The only mountains I remember from National Geographic we
re the tits of those tribal women. They had bones through their noses and about forty rings around their necks.”

  Clark chuckled at this.

  “Trust me, Augie. There was more to National Geographic than nudity.”

  “Well, buddy bro, I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like Krazy Sallee’s, either.”

  “That’s the strip joint supposedly full of all these backwoods whores, huh?” Clark asked.

  “Yeah, Clark, and there’s no supposedly about it. I have it first-hand, these chicks are all tens in looks and zeros in morality. Now that’s my kind of gal!”

  Brice’s frown returned in full force. “I think all this backwoods whore stuff is a crock. I’ll bet your Wall Street pal Gurgler was pulling your leg—”

  “Gurgler?” Clark echoed.

  “Yeah, man. Rich Gurgler, friend of mine who works the exchange floor. He told me about this place in—”

  Clark winced. “His name’s Gurgler? First name Rich, as in Richard? Shit, I hope nobody calls him Dick.”

  “Plenty of people do,” Augie laughed. “He came here last year to go fishing with some SEC analysts. Said it was the best time of his life.”

  Brice doubted it. “Right now, he’s having the best laugh of his life, Augie. It’s a wild goose chase. We’re 10 hours out of New York looking for some hick burg that’s not even on Google Maps.”

  “So many negative vibes, man! Buddy bro, out in the boonies a lot of the towns aren’t even incorporated. They’re, like, fuckin’ redneck tribal villages or some shit. It’s America’s third world.”

  “Yeah,” Clark added, “and a lot of the ‘residents aren’t even in the census; their families have been here for hundreds of years. They’re one step up from squatters. They probably still have one-room schoolhouses, though I bet half those kids never go to them.”

  “Listen to the good doctor. And trust me, if Gurgler says it’s here, it’s here.”

  “Yeah. Gurgler,” Brice said with no confidence whatsoever. “We’re driving hundreds of miles on the say-so of a guy named Dick Gurgler. You know”—Brice paused—”I wouldn’t be surprised if you made the whole thing up. No one is named Dick Gurgler. Did you happen to get some restaurant recommendations from Jack Hoff?”

  Augie laughed. “You’re all fucked up, Brice, and that’s why I’m proud to have you for a brother. And quit worrying. Gurgler said this place is between Luntville and Crick City—”

  Now Brice laughed. “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of those towns!”

  “—and they are on the map.”

  Brice just kept shaking his head. “Augie, we’re never gonna get to this strip joint ’cos it doesn’t exist, for shit’s sake. I’ll bet a c-note it doesn’t…”

  ««—»»

  Brice sighed as he opened his Balenciaga wallet and transferred a $100 bill from it to Augie’s hand.

  “I love taking money from you,” Augie chided. “It’s better than taking candy from a welfare baby! And now maybe you’ve learned your lesson: doubteth not the wisdom of thy elder brother.”

  “Yeah, and the sage prophet known as Dick Gurgler,” Brice said and put his wallet away. “Go blow yourself.”

  “Spoken like a true sport!” Augie turned to the two-story pile of an edifice before them; he extended his hand in a gesture of revelation. “And I say unto thee: behold! Krazy Sallee’s!”

  The three men stood before the dilapidated wood-plank building, and it was not awe with which they appraised the place so much as astonishment. “I guess they don’t have safety codes and building inspectors in West Virginia,” Clark said.

  “Or anyone who knows how to draw up a fucking blueprint,” Brice added. “This dump can’t be operational.”

  Even Augie, in his forced enthusiasm, had some doubts that such a rickety old tavern could be allowed to serve the public. “Come on, guys, this is the boonies, not the Avenue of the Americas. Things are different down here, it’s a different way of life. People aren’t so fussy about how a place looks.”

  Brice laughed. “Augie, the place looks like it’s about to fall down. It can’t possibly be open.”

  Augie indicated the gaudy sign just under the peaked roof, which read: KRAZY SALLEES! GIRLS! COLD BEER! GIRLS! NO COVER, OPEN SIX TIL? surrounded by a neon border that buzzed a tacky flickering orange even in the broad daylight. “The sign’s on, which means they got electricity. If a place was shut down, that light wouldn’t be on.”

  Brice added a pedantic criticism, “And they didn’t even spell Sallee’s right. The second S should have an apostrophe ’cos it’s possessive.”

  “You are a nerd and a half, man.”

  Clark chimed in, “It’s not exactly Scores, Augie. I mean, I’ve never seen a strip joint so…dumpy. It doesn’t even look safe. Remember when all those people burned to death at that concert because the club couldn’t handle all the pyrotechnics? I bet those guys wouldn’t even play here.”

  Just then, a beer truck pulled up on the side, and in a few moments, a fat guy in coveralls wheeled a hand truck full of beer toward the front door. He paused to arm some sweat off his brow, shot the three New Yorkers a frown, then trundled his wares into the bar.

  “There’s your answer, men,” Augie said with some relief. “Sure, the place looks like shit but they wouldn’t be getting a beer delivery if they weren’t in operation. Besides, I like the whole idea.”

  “The whole what idea?” Brice asked him.

  “This is a slice-of-life bumpkin whore bar, the real thing. No phony New York veneer, no cosmetic surgery queens with fuck-you faces. These girls will do anything for a few bucks, they’re down and dirty rednecks. Shit, their fuckin’ fathers taught ’em how to fuck. They were probably doing three-holers before they hung up their training bras!”

  “Keep your voice down, man!” Brice whispered.

  Across the street, several rustic old men sat in chairs in front of a general store. They were scowling.

  Augie flapped a dismissive hand. “Aw, those old fucks didn’t hear me; they got potatoes in their ears ’cos they can’t afford Q-Tips. I’ll bet every one of ’em has a fucking food card and are on SSDI, haven’t worked jobs in fifty goddamn years. It’s zeros like that who suck the tax-payer’s tit flat, and when they can’t walk anymore they’ll be in Medicaid nursing homes, and we gotta pay for that too.”

  Brice was shocked by his brother’s rather heartless exposition. “Jesus, Augie!”

  Clark added, “And why are they looking at us like we’re the Taliban?”

  “Territorialism, Clark,” Brice speculated. “To them, we’re the evils of the Big City tainting their honest, down-home town. Folk like that don’t take kindly to outsiders—especially outsiders in a brand-new 80k BMW.”

  Augie smirked. “Listen to you with your folk. Shit, Brice, this town is dying. These people are so poor they shit in a hole in the ground and gotta use the corncob twice. By the time we’re finished dropping cash in this piss-pot, your folk’ll be kissing our rich, successful, seven-figure-per-year asses.”

  An odd, drifting pause followed Augie’s rant—a pause which somehow seemed eerie. Above them, high atop the strip joint’s peaked roof, an exceedingly large crow fluttered its wings and squawked once.

  All three men looked up.

  “Hope that’s not an omen,” Clark said.

  Brice fidgeted in place. “Come on, let get moving. Sallee’s doesn’t open for hours. We need to find a motel.”

  “Hell yeah!” Augie said a bit loudly.

  They got in the SUV but as Brice steered away, his eyes held momentarily on the group of old men across the street. Their crevice-faced grimaces looked like carved masks, but then one of them suddenly grinned and winked, right at Brice.

  Brice drove off as quickly as he could.

  ««—»»

  Krazy Sallee’s was an indefensible dump, but the motel a block away made it look like the Taj Mahal. It was a three-story mansion circa 1910, whose roof actually sagged inward, and a fe
w higher-level windows were boarded over with plywood. Of exterior paint that may have once covered the ancient edifice, there was now no vestige. A sign out front read: DUE DROP IN: ROOMS - $29

  “Jeez! They spelled ‘inn’ wrong!” Brice observed. “Wrong ‘due,’ too.”

  “Turn off your Nerd Mode, will ya?” Augie said.

  “What a shit-hole,” Clark put in his two cents. “It looks like the fuckin’ Munsters’ place.”

  “It’s in worse repair than the strip joint,” Brice added. “This has got to violate every building code on the books. Another special from their own personal Frank Lloyd Wright, I’d be willing to bet.”

  Augie just shook his head. “Listen to you snobs. What, you can’t stay in a place that’s not the Helmsly Suites?” His footsteps creaked over the porch planking as they approached the entrance. “We’re trying something new, what’s wrong with that? And besides, I’ll bet there’s a hot-as-shit chick working the front desk.”

  “Bet you my hundred bucks back that you’re wrong.”

  Augie pointed at him. “You’re on, buddy bro. You know, I’ll almost feel bad putting you two hundred in the hole before you even nail your piece at Sallee’s. Maybe I’ll put a fuck on the desk chick to cheer myself up, ’cos she’s going to be F, I, N, E, fine.”

  She wasn’t. The woman working the front desk was late ’60s, fat, and all of five feet tall. She had her hair up in a bun, and her b.o. was made even worse by the cheap perfume she attempted to cover it with. She sported a top cut low enough to show off a depressingly modest cleavage, which looked to be smeared with some kind of black grime.

  “You’re in luck, Augie,” Brice murmured as they approached the desk. “I don’t see a wedding ring.”

  “Goddamn!” He slapped the hundred-dollar bill in Brice’s outstretched palm. “Choke on it.”