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  The driver of the redneck pickup truck raised a brow at the spew of gruesome information. Torturing puppies, cutting off their heads? he reflected. Man, this is one SICK world…

  Now, it just so happened that at the same moment the pickup truck was idling past the Martins Pharmacy on Main Street, a pedestrian heading down the sidewalk overheard the entire newscast. This pedestrian’s name was Menduez, late-‘20s, dark complected, and possessed of an arrogant gait. He spoke and understood English now fairly well—yet had an accent more Cuban than Venezuelan, to the degree that he was often accused of deliberately mimicking Scarface—since arriving quite illegally in the United States from his home town of Caracas, Venezuela; and, yes, he was indeed the perpetrator of these hideous crimes against local pet dogs. Hearing the newscast brought a smile to his face, and he thought, Ah, so dat fat gringo sheriff piece’a chit theenk he gonna catch me? ME? He need a fockin’ ARMY ta catch me. Gude lock, fat gringo moth-ur FOCKer piece’a CHIT.

  Down the sidewalk he cockily strode, catching some disapproving half-glances from passersby. In one hand was a Burger King bag, and in the other, a burlap sack.

  For those desirous of characterization, it should be communicated that Menduez was the only survivor of the vicious M-27 Gang that rampaged through Richmond not too long ago, raping, killing, selling black-tar heroin, and, well, raping and killing. Though, in all verity, most citizens not only didn’t care when gang members killed each other and in fact applauded it, the M-27 Gang killed just as many innocent, middle-class tax-payers, essentially just for the hell of it. Federal agents caught nearly the entire gang in a sting operation several summers ago; a shoot-out ensued, and all the gang members were introduced to the morgue. The only member fortunate enough to not be present was Menduez. (He’d been on the prowl for puppies to abduct from peoples’ yards.) But given the intensity of the heat now on for him, he wisely decided to go small-time, move to Pulaski, and hook up with several characters who shared his expertise for marketing dangerous substances.

  Small-time worked just fine.

  He bopped along, eventually turning into the part of town that was, at best, ill-regarded: a little industrial park in proximity to subsidized block apartments and shit-looking little houses. A warehouse occupied one section of the park, though; its sign read, of all things, WAREHOUSE, and the actual owner of this warehouse, via a very circuitous paper trail, was one Paul Vinchetti III, known to closer associates as “Paulie the 3rd.” The only wares to ever be housed here were kilo-sized bags of heroin. The warehouse served as the operational base for a group who were as ill-regarded as this section of town: NSG-3—heroin middle-men—and one member of this gang was none other than Menduez.

  Menduez passed the warehouse’s closed-for-the-last-ten-years garage door and knocked twice, then once, then twice on the smaller steel door aside. Eventually he was admitted, then the door was relocked.

  “There be my bro’, Menduez,” greeted the Gang’s magnate, “Case Piece,” a skinny yet apple-biceped late-‘20s African American who wore cliched “‘hood” apparel: blinking $100 sneakers and jeans hanging halfway down his fuckin’ ass. His t-shirt boasted the face and name of his favorite Rap star, REE-dik-YOU-liss. Sitting beside him, scrawling in a numbered account ledger, was this enterprise’s math whizz and financial director, a Korean illegal immigrant called Sung. He looked kind of like Fuji on McHale’s Navy, for those old enough to even be aware of that wonderful old sitcom starring Ernest Borgnine and Al Lewis. Hence: the human components of NSG-3, which stood for, quite politically incorrectly, Nigger, Spic, Gook. A fourth semi-member—who in fact had been the one to let Menduez in the door—was the Gang’s stress-reliever, a short, slim yet well-curvatured Caucasian woman with blond hair and jet-black roots known as “Highball.” Best described as an over-the-hill gang-groupie, this 35-year-old fornicatress turned tricks for the Gang, helped “baggie” the “skag” for delivery to their “street-points” and individual “hypes,” and provided the boys sexual access on demand. Her nickname had been earned at the tender age of 15 when, upon joining her very first gang—a sprawling meth troupe in Minnesota—she’d unflinchingly masturbated close to 50 men and then expertly collected their ejaculations in a highball glass. This served as her initiation to the gang; and one need not be told what she did with the contents of that glass. Perfect implants graced her bosom, these being purveyed during her better days of stripping. A quality genetic composure was easily observed: Highball’s body still looked quite sexually provocative even after decades of drugs, drink, hard knocks, and carnal abandon. An interesting character trait was thus: she tended to wear a black overcoat with Hip-Hop buttons all over it, that and flip-flops. This ploy came in handy, for instance, to quickly display “merchandise”; in fact, it was preliminary in her admission to NSG-3 only days ago. See, great body notwithstanding, Highball’s face—or “grill,” as Case Piece called it—looked a bit long in the tooth, but, however oddly, the overcoat compensated for this. She had spotted the guys loitering near the local Hess station, and she proved her assertiveness without compunction. Waltzing right up to them, she said, “Hey. I wanna be in your fuckin’ gang.”

  Case Piece made a comedic facial gesture. “Shit. You old, bitch. Your grill all wrinkly’n shit. We’re V.I.P’s—we don’t lay no dick on no old.”

  “Well, the wrinkles are from meth, but I don’t do that shit no more, and I don’t do crack, coke, beans, eightballs—none of it. My jones is fucking, sucking, and swallowing cum. And what guy really gives a shit about the face? I gotta topper-drawer bod than anything you ever fucked, and I’ll fuck’n suck all’a ya, like, all the time. Just let me in your gang. I’m a gang girl, always been.”

  Sung and Menduez stood arms crossed, appraising.

  “All right,” Case Piece consented. “Let’s see you pimp your shit. Get them poo-putt bitchcovers the fuck off.”

  All Highball had to do was open her overcoat, and—

  All three gang guys raised big brows, grinned, and began rubbing their crotches.

  Case Piece’s enthusiasm burst forth. “Shit, bitch, damn, that’s some xtralishious white-bitch up-town bags and trick-time super bubble-pie!”

  “Ain’t it?” Highball said.

  “Now let’s see the cash-drawer.”

  Highball raised one leg, in a brazen pubic exhibit.

  Menduez and Sung high-fived, hooting in their particular accents.

  “Shit, ho!” Case Piece approved. “That’s the phattest, toppest, trickest, goldest food-card machine I ever peel-eyed in my whole fuckin’ thug LIFE! Make my baboon sack go all a-fuckin’ quiver!”

  “And check out my clit,” she advised, then—acrobatically maintaining the pose—she V’d her fingers over her vulva’s tip, applied pressure, and bared an astonishingly large clitoris. The nerve-corpulent kernel stuck out like the end of a mini-frank.

  “Damn, girl! You got a cunt-nugget!”

  “Fruck!” Sung railed. “You twop dwawer, girl!”

  And Menduez: “Dat’s some serious buena CHIT, mang! Keeler tits’n poosy, mang!”

  Highball grinned, nodding. “Good. Now make me hip to your crib so you can peel-eye me fuckin’ ya all till you’re cryin’ like babies,” whereupon the boys escorted her to the warehouse and, with great satisfaction, sampled the goods.

  And this was only days ago, yet in that short time, Highball had acclimated to the gang quite well, and she even did all of their laundry. At this very moment, though, she flip-flopped herself to the wall where a bizarre apparatus leaned. “Hey, Case Piece? What the fuck’s this?”

  The device looked akin to an industrial floor buffer that sat strangely on a long metal blank, rather skateboardish, but the “blank” possessed a peculiar pivot at the center on the bottom. The machine housed a small gasoline motor with the words ALPINE on it.

  Case Piece gulped. “That a stump-grinder, ‘ho.”

  “The fuck?”

  “You ain’t met Paulie’n his crew,
bitch…”

  “Fruuuuuuck,” Sung intoned. “They hawdkwore…”

  “Chit, yeah,” Menduez added with a gulp.

  “So don’t never be dopest enough ta piss ’em off,” Case Piece went on. “See, they be the dudes that bring us the uncut smack every month.”

  Highball scratched her jet-black roots, still eyeing the machine. One end was clearly a grinding-wheel. “Yeah? So what’s that got to do with this…stump-grinder?”

  “S’fore grindin’ tree stumps but, Paulie? He use it ta grind people. No jive. These dudes? Fuck. Anybody cross ’em, they fuck ’em up, and if they cross ’em bad enough…they stump-grind ’em.” Even Case Piece, as bad-ass as he may or may not have been, showed signs of unease in relating this. “Say some player or jamake start trine to sell smack on Paulie’s turf? Paulie bury the dude up to his neck—no jive—and then one’a his crew, he take that machine’n grind his head off.”

  “Fuck!” Highball yelled.

  “And there was one time, see, this bagman was double-dealin’ ‘tween Paulie’s smack and some jamake’s—they stake the dude’s squeeze to the ground and, see, this bitch was poppin’ she was so pregnant. So then Paulie’s guy…he stump-grinds the chick’s belly, all’s while makin’ the dude watch.”

  Highball paled.

  “But ya know what? That dude, he never double-deal again.”

  “Fuck,” she muttered.

  “Here chore BK Veggie, puta,” Menduez said, and handed her a sandwich from the Burger King bag.

  Highball smirked. “You think I can eat after hearin’ that shit? Fuckin’ spic must be crazy!”

  “Si, cerda, si,” Menduez uttered, smiling.

  “Ya spic fuck! You dissin’ me? What’s cerda mean?”

  “Eet meens beautiful woooooman.”

  “Oh, well… How sweet!” said Highball, the compliment temporarily divorcing the smirk from her face. To Case Piece and Sung, two Double Whopper Value meals were dispensed. Then Case Piece asked, “What’s in the sack, jack?”

  Menduez grinned and removed from the sack a cute-as-a-button Cocker Spaniel puppy. The puppy licked Menduez’s face, frantically wagging its tail.

  “A puppy!” Highball wailed in delight, but there was anything but delight in the reactions of Case Piece and Sung.

  Highball took the puppy in her arms and coddled it. “Menduez got us a puppy! It can be the gang mascot!”

  Menduez laughed, then said to Case Piece. “I found out wheech house those new players creebing at, dah focks.”

  Highball didn’t receive Menduez’s meaning, yet so delighted she was with the puppy, she didn’t think to ask. “What should we name it?”

  “How’s ’bout Dead Meat?” Case Piece said.

  “Huh?” replied the prostitute, and it might be appropriate to remind the Reader again that Highball was new to the gang. She was therefore unaware of Menduez’s abominable penchant; so when Case Piece explained that penchant, Highball shrieked and began to run with the puppy.

  “What the fuck kind of sick shit is that!” she screamed. “Ain’t no way I’m lettin’ him torture this puppy!”

  Menduez blocked the door.

  “Shit, girl,” Case Piece said. “This be a gang, not Sesame Street. You new, so’s you can’t go actin’ all crazy’n shit. Uh-huh. The dog thing is Menduez’s thing. We don’t exactly dig it either but that’s the way it rolls. Menduez, he do a lot for our gang and you…don’t. So cut out the chick-shit and give Menduez the dog back, less you wanna cap in yo’ white ass. You underdig?”

  Highball looked pre-seizural at the prospect. But she underdug, all right, especially the “cap” part, but still… Still…

  “It’s a puppy, for fuck’s sake!”

  WHAP!

  Menduez rammed his fist into Highball’s cheek. She collapsed, unconscious even before she hit the floor, then the Venezuelan sociopath picked the puppy back up, which immediately began to lick his face. “American girls, mang, they’se loco,” he said, then took the puppy to a room that was thankfully so far back in the building that Case Piece and Sung wouldn’t be able to hear…the sounds.

  Sung frowned, then bit into his Double Whopper with Cheese. “That gry, he no wight in head!”

  Case Piece shrugged. “Yeah, well, I guess none of us is. We all a bunch of drug dealers. I don’t know how he can do that shit to dogs either but, shit, that’s what they do where he from. Sung, we need to be more sensitive to other cultures. Me bein’ a player from the ‘hood’n you bein’ from Japan or some shit.”

  Sung hacked out a bite of his sandwich. “Ko-wee-ah, man!” he howled. “I from Ko-wee-ah, not Japan! Fruck the Jrapanese, the frucks! In Wald Waw Two, the fruckin’ Jrapanese pigs kill all our men and turn our women to whores! They take our rice and give to their soldiers and make us eat our own shit! Fruck Jrapan! Americans should’ve brombed whole cunt-twee!”

  “Chill, chill, Sung. Shit. I don’t know from no Korea, man. Though it was all the same, Japanese, Chinese’n all—”

  Sung hacked out another bite of sandwich. “China! Fruck! Dirty Wed Chinese, they come over our cunt-twee in the north and kill us all for the commissar! Fruck the Chinese!”

  Case Piece rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Sung. Lay back, huh?”

  Both men glanced up at the sound of knocks on the door. Two knocks first, then one, then two more.

  Sung opened it, and in walked a tall, well-postured man with neatly trimmed gray hair. He looked rather like John Delorean, for those who remember John Delorean. Nice slacks, nice dress shoes, and, oddly, a white labcoat, like a doctor’s.

  “Doc!” greeted Case Piece. “My man! How you be?”

  The doctor, whose name was Dr. Winston Prouty, formerly an esteemed plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills, was currently a rather uncharacteristic errand boy for Paul Vinchetti III. Prouty considered Case Piece’s query, then answered in a rich, articulate tone. “Why, your man be…in reasonably good physical and mental repair, I’d estimate.”

  “Solid. Shit, we ain’t peel-eyed you in a long-ass time.”

  “I’m on a special excursion with Mr. Vinchetti and two of his affiliates. We’re, in a manner of speaking, multi-tasking. Two birds with one stone?”

  Sung held out his sandwich. “You maybe rike brite of my Double Ropper, Doc?”

  “Kind sir, your generosity is appreciated in the utmost, but I must respectfully decline, as…recent events have forestalled all appetite. I’m here merely to make sure—as the old saying goes—that the coast is clear.”

  “It be clear, Doc, it be clear, and, man, we need a new drop off ’cos we is fresh out’a skag.”

  “Well then that regrettable deficiency will be remedied posthaste,” and next Prouty made a call on his cellphone, said something, and hung up. Within moments, a refined rumbling could be heard outside.

  “Damn, Doc, what you boys drivin’ ’round in?” Case Piece asked. “Sounds like a fuckin’ tank.”

  “Holy shrit!” Sung said, peeping through the minuscule front window. “It look like big fruckin’ house on reels!”

  Case Piece looked, too, and saw the massive motor-home parking in front of the warehouse. “Shit, we could have ourselves a party in them wheels. That’s trick.”

  For some strange reason, the innocuous remark caused a moment of malaise within the doctor. “I…assure you that…no manner of partying has ever taken place in that Winnebago.”

  “Well, shit. Sung, get the wheelbarrow! We got junkies out there fuckin’ cryin’ for the shit.”

  “Hence, the machinations of addiction and its formidable utility in consumerism.”

  Three more men entered then, all dark-haired, all wearing suits, gloves, topcoats, and sunglasses. A raucous greeting ensued. The first man was, of course, Paul Vinchetti III, aka Paulie the 3rd, lean, salon-tanned, mid-to-late-‘30s, son of Paul Vinchetti Jr., grandson of Paul Monstroni Vinchetti, aka “Vinch the Eye,” originally a district boss in the Lonna/Stello/Marconi Crime Pyramid, an armatu
re of that mythical human machinery known as the Mafia. (It may be worth pointing out that said crime pyramid was now referred to as the Vinchetti/Stello Crime Pyramid. Lonna and Marconi had gotten greedy and both wound up stump-ground.) Paulie was told quite frequently that he was a dead-ringer for the Duke University basketball coach, but he’d never heard of the guy. Shit, Paulie was a mob boss. He didn’t watch fucking basketball.