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  Next in Paulie’s crew was an ox-necked, crag-faced, and broad-shouldered lieutenant, Arrigetto “Argi” Calzano. Argi was 55 years old and had caused a great deal of Vinchetti’s enemies to sleep with the fishes. Third was Paulie’s “fix-it” man, a trim, good-natured psychopath about 40 years old: Cristo Picrinni. His real first name was Cristoforro which meant “follower of Christ.” He’d blow-torch a judge’s baby, gang-rape-to-death a police chief’s adolescent daughter, or pressure-cook the head of a politician’s aged father, all without an iota of reservation.

  “There’s my man on the street,” Paulie said. “What’s up?”

  Case Piece replied, “‘S’all solid. I’m your Ace Boon Coon, my man. We’se just chillin’ and killin’, slingin’ and blingin’, dealin’ and stealin’, thuggin’ and muggin. Everything’s crown—uh-huh.”

  Paulie blinked. “And sorry we’re late. The pickups are taking longer and getting smaller. It’s this goddamn recession.”

  “Yeah, man, I get the same jibe from the hypes on the street,” Case Piece said. “They’re singin’ the blues. Shit, one junkie told me last three dudes he mugged were broke!”

  “It’s fucked up. If Obama don’t fix this fuckin’ recession like he said, I’m gonna ask for my vote back!” Paulie blared, and then everybody laughed. Agri was the one with the suitcase, which he opened on a tattered couch. >From this he dispensed five kilo-bags of 95-percent-pure heroin—not that black tar shit from Mexico but the high-end smack from Afghanistan, compliments of our friends the Taliban.

  “Damn, Paulie,” Case Piece regretted. “You ain’t kiddin’ the pickups are gettin’ smaller. We was expectin’ seven or eight.”

  “It’s a kick in the balls, ain’t it? You’ll have to step on it a little more—fuck ’em. Drug dealers gotta make a living too, you know?” and then everyone, quite obligatorily, laughed again while all but Paulie secretly acknowledged that the remark wasn’t very funny. Then the tirade continued. “Fuckin’ sucks these days, I’m tellin’ ya. Price’a gas goin’ up again, mules chargin’ double, cops gettin’ harder’n harder to get on the pad ’cos they’re more worried about their fuckin’ health care! Top it all off, my wife’s on the rag so I couldn’t even put one in her before I took off. Now that really sucks!”

  The others rolled their eyes, then laughed again.

  Paulie sat down on an old cable spool that now sufficed for a table. The spool was covered with one-by-one-inch plastic Zip-Loc baggies. “Yeah, the world’s gettin’ fucked up, all right. Shit, you know what we heard on the radio comin’ over? We heard a news guy saying that some really fucked-up-in-the-head piece of shit—some guy in this town—is cuttin’ off the heads of puppy dogs after torturin’ the shit out of ’em. Kid you not.”

  Concealing some sullenness, Case Piece said, “Yeah, that’s some fucked up shit, aw right, Paulie.”

  “Said it’s some drug-turf thing, and I’ll bet my fuckin’ balls it’s one of these penny-ante fucks tryin’ to work our regions. I’ll tell ya, if I ever caught some low-life fuck torturin’ a puppy, man…I’d have Argi and Cristo do a job on him that would even make me puke.”

  Sung gulped. “Yeah, Prawlie. That frucked up. Towtuwing dogs…”

  “And not just dogs, the guy said. Puppies.” Paulie shook his head. “Just don’t know what’s gotten into the world.”

  “Makes me sick just thinkin’ about it,” Argi said.

  “Yeah, Paulie,” Cristo added. “I ever get my hands on the fuck? Oooo—mama mia!”

  “Shit, let’s talk about somethin’ else. All this dog-killin’ talk’s makin’ me depressed.” Paulie pointed dejectedly to the wheelbarrow full of smack. “So anyway, that’s the way it goes. Cut the shit a little more’n get it on the street. We’re just like anyone else. Tryin’ to do the best we can durin’ economic bad times.” Paulie looked around. “Say, where’s that bean-eater? He didn’t get whacked, did he?”

  “Aw, no, Paulie. Menduez—he our crownest drug-slinger—he doin’ just fine. He’s in back…fixin’ stuff.” Case Piece, repressing a minor sweat, directed to Sung, “Why’n’cha roll the smack in back and see if Menduez needs a hand?”

  “White away!” and Sung wheeled through one of the doors.

  Case Piece snapped on the boombox. “How ’bout we groove on some tunes, Paulie?” and then a cannonade of annoying sound rocketed forth: “Ya gizzle, ma mizzle, ya fizzle with my grizzle! We’re poppin’ caps, we’re poppin’ trunk, my bitch’s pussy smell like skunk! Tiggy tee, tiggy taw, we bustin’ down the law! We got the jack down jaw and we eat duh cole slaw—”

  “Turn that shit off!” Paulie, Argi, and Cristo bellowed at the same time.

  “Sure, dawgs,” Case Piece said and killed the boombox. “Just thought…ya might want some tunes. Chill out, ya know?”

  “That shit gives me a headache almost as bad as the Caruso my mother made me listen to when I was a baby,” Paulie groaned.

  Case Piece peeked again out the window. “So, Paulie? What’s with the motor-home? You don’t need a ride that big to putt-putt smack to a few points.”

  “Naw, see, this was a special occasion,” Paulie began.

  “Doc, he say somethin’ ’bout killin’ two birds with one stone.”

  “The Doc was right.” Paulie rubbed his crotch for no apparent reason. “We needed the Winnebago for an action.”

  “An…action?”

  Argi’s throaty voice kicked in. “That’s goombah mob talk for a button.”

  Case Piece squinted. “A button. How come I got the feelin’ you ain’t talkin’ ’bout buttons on a motherfuckin’ shirt?”

  Paulie chuckled. “We had to whack someone, as in kill him. Vendetta thing. You know what vendetta means?”

  Case Piece stroked his beardless chin. “Oh, like revenge’n shit.”

  “Yeah. My wife, Marshie, you ain’t never seen her but—ooo, she’s a doll. Ain’t she, boys?”

  “Magnifico,” complimented Argi, kissing the tips of his fingers.

  “Makes Helen’a fuckin’ Troy look like a pack’a zits on a monkey’s ass,” Cristo said.

  Paulie nodded. “Right. See, I only married her two-three years ago but every year this time she gets all depressed and—just like a fuckin’ woman—she never told me why. So I think it’s ’cos of the kid, even though that was, like six, eight months ago.”

  “The kid?” Case Piece inquired.

  “Aw, yeah, I guess you don’t know about that. See, me’n Marshie, we wanted a kid, so I knocked her up and, bam, nine months later, out pops the kid. Beautiful baby girl. But, shit, see, the kid wasn’t but three months old before it kicks off. Some…kid disease, right, doc?”

  “Quite a despairing and heretofore unexplained syndrome knows as SIDS,” said the tall doctor solemnly. “The acronym for Sudden Infant Death.”

  “Yeah, that shit—”

  “Aw, Paulie, man,” Case Piece offered his condolences. “That be some fucked up shit. Sorry to hear it.”

  Paulie flapped a hand. “So anyway, like I was sayin’, I thought that’s what the wife was all in the blues about but it turns out it was somethin’ else too. See, her fuckin’ father’s birthday is in December, and, see, her father got whacked, like, fifteen years ago. He was white trash who got rich on a land deal, so then a couple crackers jealous of his money killed the old guy. Now, Marshie wouldn’t tell me how these fuckers whacked her father but she said it was more awful than anything I could ever think of, but then I think, oh, yeah? Well, fuck, I decided that a little vendetta was in order, and it had to be a real gore-house job, ya know?”

  “Oh, so you put the drop on the dudes who whacked the old man,” Case Piece assumed.

  “Naw, naw, see, funny thing is, them two crackers? They wound up gettin’ capped by a cop the same day. But just ’cos they’re dead don’t mean it’s all over.” Paulie shrugged. “It was the only thing I could do. My wife wanted revenge so I thought, shit, I’ll show ’em revenge.”

 
Case Piece wasn’t getting the jibe. “But if the two crackers got capped, who’s left?”

  “Who’s left?” Paulie jested, then Argi and Cristo laughed.

  “The family,” Argi answered.

  Paulie smiled. “Like I said, vendetta. It wasn’t good enough the two guys got whacked by someone else.”

  Case Piece grimly eyed the stump-grinder. “So you come here to pick up that thing’n figure on snatchin’ the family and stump-grindin’ ’em, huh?”

  Paulie grinned. “Naw, naw. Somethin’ worse.”

  “Shit, man, that some captown groaty shit. What could be worse than gettin’ stump-grinded?”

  Paulie, Argi, and Cristo all laughed. “Somethin’ that all them crackers would never forget. To let ’em know that no one fucks with Paulie Vinchetti’s wife. No one.”

  Case Piece blinked. “Oh, I dig.” He blinked again. “So…what’cha do, man? What be tricker than the grinder?”

  “Somethin’ so bad, so off-the-wall gore-show,” Paulie replied, grinning, “that you don’t wanna know. What’cha think, Doc? Ya think I ought to tell Case Piece about the job?”

  Prouty cleared his throat. “Actually, sir, if you happen to hold Mr. Piece in any esteem at all, you’d be doing him a service by not telling him.”

  Yet, again, the mafiosos laughed.

  “Man, you white guys are fucked up,”Case Piece said, “but, shit, that’s cool.” The black man paused. “Wait, Paulie, what the fuck’s any’a this got to do with you guys drivin’ ’round in something half the size of this warehouse?”

  “’Cos for this job?” Paulie kept grinning. “We need somethin’ big.”

  “Solid,” Case Piece muttered, and even as the narrative becomes more and more muddled, it was clear that Case Piece didn’t want to know.

  Dr. Prouty looked behind the beaten couch and alerted the others. “There seems to be a..damsel in distress here.”

  Case Piece chuckled. “Oh, that just Highball.”

  Prouty touched his chin. “She appears to have suffered a mild contusion of the zygomatic process and upper-right maxilla region.”

  “Shit, she got her grill busted for some pain-in-the-ass bitch-city yaw-yaw,” Case Piece corrected.

  Paulie winced. “What’s bitch-city yaw-yaw?”

  “You know. Yappin’, motor-mouthin’, jib-jabbin’ the way girls do.”

  “Oh, you mean, she was whinin’ so she got her clock cleaned.”

  “Yeah, Paulie, yeah.”

  Paulie peeked behind the couch, where Highball lay out cold. “Christ, man. She looks fuckin’ fifty.”

  “Oh, sure, she be a little wore out in the face, but, shit, Paulie, she be our top dro’”

  “What?”

  “You know. Real dingo, man. Get’cha a ringer in yer dinger, get some motch in yer crotch. Queen’a bitch city, you know, our crownest dawgie drop.”

  “What?”

  “I think he means she’s the gang whore, boss,” Argi said.

  “Oh, but…man,” Paulie continued to observe. “Her face is all wrinkled! She get many johns with a face like that?”

  “Shitload, Paulie, ’cos it ain’t the face, it’s the bone-covers, you know, the skin-suit. Highball, she be the boo boo head who got a pwizzle put some sizzle in yo swizzle’n make ya wanna drizzle.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, got a pinktown honkie-monkey real boo-ya, uh-huh.”

  Paulie frowned.

  “Means she’s a good lay, I think,” Argi said.

  “Well, fuck,” Paulie said. “Lemme check out the melon-stand, as they say,” and then he reached down to unbutton the girl’s overcoat.

  Before the first button could be unfastened, Highball abruptly regained consciousness. She glared at Paulie, then glared at Argi and Cristo, then jumped up, fuming. “Keep your fuckin’ hands off me, you asshole! Nobody touches me unless I say they can! Fuck! Who the fuck are you! You look like a bunch of greaseball, wop, olive-oil goombas!”

  All brows rose as silence fell swift as a guillotine blade over the room.

  Case Piece cleared his throat. “Highball. You the dopest poo-putt bitch I ever seen. This Mr. Vinchetti and his crew.”

  “Fuck them! The fucker was feelin’ me up while I was knocked out!” she yelled.

  Case Piece cleared his throat again. “These the dudes I jawwed about earlier. We work for them.”

  The silence thickened.

  “You mean, you mean,” she stammered. “The guys who…,” and then she cast a terrified glance toward the stump-grinder.

  “Yeah. Them dudes. So what you need to do and I mean, like, real split-lickety, is apologize to Mr. Vinchetti and his friends.”

  Highball’s blooming eyes beseeched the mafioso. “I-I-I-I’m sorry, sir.”

  Several moments ticked by, then, in visible disconcertion, Paulie walked slowly over to Case Piece, inclined his head, and whispered, “Case Piece. Your squeeze just called me an asshole, a greaseball, a wop, and an olive-oil goombah. Nobody calls me that. So you know what that means, right, pal?”

  Highball was already screaming as Argi hauled out the stump-grinder. Cristo grappled her and with very little effort abated her screams by the deft application of duct tape across her mouth. Next, he had her pinned to the floor by standing on her shoulders.

  Argi pulled a cord, and the stump-grinder revved up, belching exhaust.

  “Aw, fuck, Paulie!” Case Piece yelled over the motor-din. “She didn’t know who you was. This a bit…harsh, ain’t it?”

  Argi’s preposterously large muscles hefted the grinder’s roaring blade-head by means of the pivot and positioned it right over Highball’s face. The prostitute’s eyes couldn’t have been wider, and she bucked, kicked, and convulsed beneath Cristo in sheer fucking terror.

  “Yeah, maybe is it,” Paulie considered. “Besides, the blades on these things are expensive as fuck. Gotta replace ’em every couple of jobs.” He made a cut-throat gesture to Argi who, in turn, shut off the stump-grinder.

  “Thanks, Paulie,” Case Piece said, relieved. “I’ll kick her ass myself, and I’ll do a trick-time job, ’cos, serious, Highball, she may fly off at the mouth sometimes, but, shit, I’m tellin’ ya, man. She got uptown bags and a front-door backstop make the Pope shit his pants, and she give gobble-game topper that any boo boo head ever sucked your whip.”

  Paulie frowned. “What?”

  “I think he means she’s got great tits and pussy and sucks dynamite dick,” Argi said.

  “Oh, she do, and you’n your crew can have it any time ya wants.” Case Piece looked to Highball, who remained pinned to the floor. “Right, Highball?”

  She wagged her head yes faster than anyone ever had in all of human history.

  Paulie sighed. “Case Piece, you don’t get it. I’m Italian. When an Italian is smote by a whore, well…that’s just…” He paused and snapped his fingers at Prouty. “Doc, what am I tryin’ to say?”

  “I believe,” the doctor began, “that such a regrettable instance demands satisfaction from which there is no recourse; no manner of apology, for example, exists in any level of acceptability.”

  “Yeah,” Paulie said. “So… What are we gonna do about this blondie here with the black roots?”

  Argi tapped Paulie’s shoulder, grinned, and pointed outside.

  To the Winnebago.

  “Argi! You’re a genius!” Paulie celebrated. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He slapped Case Piece on the back. “Come on, my friend. Like it or not, you’re gonna get to see that we got in the Winnie!” and with that, they all filed out of the warehouse, Argi and Cristo carrying the girl.

  Dr. Prouty was visibly disturbed, as Case Piece would be in very short order. The black man “peel-eyed” the motor-home quite complimentarily. “Trick fuckin’ ride, Paulie. Fucker must be thirty feet long.” The vehicle gleamed in the December sun. A satellite dish sat on top. Case Piece took a walk around, first, noting the sound of a fan running from the rear of the vehi
cle, and, second, he saw the large drop-door in vicinity. “Paulie, what this big door here, bro?”

  “Aw, we ain’t usin’ it—that’s the elevator.”

  “Elevator. The fuck you need that for?”

  “Wheelchair,” Cristo said as he and Argi managed the still-convulsant Highball.

  “Wheelchair?”

  Paulie grinned. “You’ll see,” and then he opened a smaller door with steps at the bottom, and showed everyone inside.

  “Damn!” Case Piece said. He swept his gaze about the plush interior: leather couches, kitchenette, full liquor bar, shag carpet, giant-ass plasma TV. An impressive laptop computer and auxiliary screen occupied a small ledge opposite. “You shittin’ me, Paulie! This the toppest party-player wagon I ever see,” but then he took a moment in noticing a door in the wall of the back of the vehicle. Simple estimation told him that only twenty feet of this thirty-foot motor home was visible. The rest…

  …was behind that door.

  “So what gives, man?” Case Piece scratched his head. “This where you snuff folks?”

  “Naw. Back there.” Paulie seemed intensely delighted, looking down at the silenced, squirming, terror-stricken form of Highball. “See, that’s where Melda is.”

  “Who’s Melda?”

  The mafioso’s grin kept sharpening. “Go through that door and you’ll see.”

  “Uh…”

  “Go on. Go in. Brace yourself, though. We got a fan runnin’ but the room still smells like a fuckin’ lion cage. See, Melda don’t wash, we don’t let her, ’cos…” Paulie looked to the even more visibly distressed Dr. Prouty. “Tell him why, Doc.”

  Prouty sucked in a despairing breath. “Foregoing typical hygiene, with regard to Melda and her unique utility for Mr. Vinchetti, only compounds the sheer magnitude of the horror for the victim.”

  Case Piece didn’t know what they were talking about.

  “Go on,” Paulie repeated. “Go say hi to Melda…”

  Case Piece opened the narrow door and stepped into the rear room. An utterly silent pause ensued, then—click!—Case Piece came back out, closed the door behind him, and leaned against the wall, the whites of his eyes set in the dark face now seemingly twice as large as they should be.