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  “This is mortifying,” Brice went on about the menu. “Last night I had braised pheasant tenders in mustard-sorrel sauce at the Four Seasons, and now…this.”

  Augie took on a scolding tone. “Brice. We’re in redneck land—”

  “Keep your voice down!”

  “Nobody heard me, Mr. Paranoia, and when we’re in redneck land, we eat redneck—the finest cuisine they’ve managed to scrape off the highway. Christ, you’re still crying ’cos there’s no Starbucks. Now, I’m having the chicken-fried steak. What about you, Brice?

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “We’ll be drinking tonight, man,” Clark advised. “Get some food in your stomach first. It’ll forestall excess alcohol absorption through the lining of your duodenum.”

  “Thanks for the technical tidbit, doc,” Brice said. “Look, I’m just not hungry.”

  “Always the life of the party,” Augie sputtered, then he looked back and forth impatiently. “So who does Brice have to sue to get some service in this greasy spoon?”

  Just as the complaint left his lips, a broad shadow loomed across the table. Brice, Augie, and Clark looked up to see a large, pot-bellied man in an out-of-date white short-sleeve dress shirt, faded slacks, and suspenders. He was in his sixties, with a red nose, and a ubiquitous buzzcut. His expression was totally deadpan.

  “Howdy, fellas. Name’s Eamon Martin. Just wanna welcome yawl ta our humble town. I’se what’cha might call the mayor ‘round here.”

  Brice, Augie, and Clark rose to shake hands. “Good to meet you, sir,” Augie said. “This is my brother Brice, he’s an attorney; Clark’s a bigtime doctor, and I’m Augie, I’m in finance. We’re from—”

  The man’s drawl seemed to crackle with authority. “New York City, so’s I heard. We get city fellas come through ever so often, mostly young, sharp, squared-away fellas like you, comin’ ta have a good time.”

  “That’s what we’re here for, sir, a good time in your humble town.”

  “And we want visitors ta have a good time,” Eamon clarified. “The only thing we don’t want is no hippie pot-smokers’n druggers and what not. That shit we don’t tolerate, no sir. Dat shit’s fuckin’ ever-thang up, it is, ruinin’ the whole country. And the blammed goverment don’t do doody squat about it, lettin’ hardcore druggers out’a prison on good behavior, and it seems like ever dang day another state in this fine union makes pot legal, if that ain’t a kick in the face’a law-abidin’ citizens.”

  “We couldn’t agree with you more, major,” Clark said.

  “Eamon, son, call me Eamon. But anyways, I can tell by lookin’ at you boys, yawl ain’t inta none’a that.”

  “Oh, no, sir,” Augie assured. We’re just looking to have a few beers and maybe—”

  Eamon’s expression remained utterly deadpan. “And maybe gander some tits’n box over at Sallee’s, then drop some sap.”

  Brice, Augie, and Clark stared in astonishment.

  Do we have some gaudy neon sign like the one over at Sallee’s announcing our intentions? Brice wondered.

  Eamon didn’t miss a beat. “Our titty bar’s got a repper-tayshun, boys, and word gits ‘round. We gots gals that blow them citified chicks up north right out the blammed water. Home grown, mind ya. No fuckin’ implants, none’a this leeposuction nonsense. Our gals is real, boys, and they’se even got hair ‘tween their gams, none’a this silly shaved shit like the city or waxin’ or whatever they’se call it.”

  Brice and Clark remained slack-jawed, but Augie’s enthusiasm couldn’t be retrained. “Sir, I love your town! You’re speaking our language!”

  Eamon thumbed his suspenders. “Our gals is true Southern, boys. They don’t fuss and priss about and stick their pinkies out drinkin’ pink champagne, and I can tell ya one more thing, they don’t whine when ya put one in ’er rear. They’se say it’s good luck for citymen ta get some good Southern shit on their sticks.”

  The disquisition left Brice, Augie, and Clark speechless, as Eamon turned toward the diner counter and snapped his fingers. “Let’s git some service over here fer our New York City friends,” his voice trumpeted. Then he turned back to the table. “Have fun, boys. Thanks fer stopping by our town.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Augie replied.

  “Oh, and just one tad of advice. Don’t go over ta Backtown. Nothin’ but trouble there.”

  “Backtown? What’s Backtown, sir?” Augie asked.

  But Eamon had already moseyed away to talk to other diners in various booths farther down.

  Brice, Augie, and Clark looked at each other in bewilderment.

  Eventually Augie whispered fiercely, “Was that priceless, or what? Holy shit!”

  “Never thought I’d hear a mayor advise tourists to ‘drop some sap,’” Clark added.

  “And I loved that ‘shit-on-his-stick’ line!

  But Brice seemed sullen. “Not exactly a typical weekend getaway for three Harvard grads with seven-figure salaries.”

  “But what was that place he mentioned?” “Augie posed. “Backtown? I wonder what the hell that is. If things get that wild at Sallee’s, Backtown must be like fucking Bangkok or something. I bet that—”

  All conversation ceased when a waitress came to the table. When she opened her mouth to speak, more than a few missing teeth were well apparent. “Hi, fellas! I’m Ida’n I’se pleased as punch ta be yer waitress!”

  “That’s great, Ida. It’s wonderful to meet you,” but then he cut to the question at hand as directly as possible. “We were hoping you could tell you something, please.”

  “Anything, sweetie. Just don’t ask me about my sex life ’cos it just might be more’n you can handle,” and then the ripped out a cackling laugh.

  Augie laughed along, however speciously. “What’s Backtown?”

  Ida’s reverie abated abruptly as an ax blade slamming into a stump. “Backtown? Never heard of it.” She cleared her throat. “Now, are you handsome boys ready to order?”

  “Yes, Ida. I think so,” Clark said, addressing his menu.

  “And since yawl are in redneck land—” Ida winked right at Augie, “—I do hope ya wanna eat redneck…”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dutch was his name, and slinging gak was his game (“slinging gak” meaning that he was involved in the esteemed enterprise of purveying crystal methamphetamine to the drug-addicted public). This synthetic controlled substance went by many street names beyond the aforementioned “gak”: ish, hillbilly crack, tinkerbell, christy, glass, ice, quartz, swogle-filler; but it was all the same to Dutch: money. He could either work like the rest of the world or sell gak. Work was hard, this was easy…or usually easy because today he hadn’t sold squat. Too deep in the sticks, he supposed, scanning the dirt-paved parking lot. He sold lots of product in the bigger towns like Waynseville, Crick City, Russellton, but most people had never even heard of Luntville. He’d heard some things too (not-cool things) that suggested this area was no safe environ in which to sell hard drugs, but this only amped up Dutch’s. He liked challenges; however, this challenge was starting to look like a loser.

  The punk tapped an ash off his 305 Menthol, not much caring where it landed and then dissipated on the hood of his car, make and model not discernible unless “Piece Of Shit On Wheels” could be thought of as a designation. He was waiting in the parking lot of some dive bar. By the time it had just started to get dark, they’d been in this ass-crack town for six hours (“they” being him and his squeeze, Beezy). It seemed odd that no one had so much as looked at them, much less shown any interest in scoring. Junkies in Crick City ran up to him like little kids chasing the ice cream truck, but Dutch’s sales total for the day so far was zero.

  Just then a redneck in a pickup truck pulled in, parked, and loped into the bar through the back door. He cast Dutch nary a glance.

  Fuck you, you redneck fuck. What the hell’s wrong with you people? It was almost as though he was being deliberately avoided, but that was ridiculous, wasn’t i
t? Ridiculous and impossible. He and Beezy had never been in this town before except for a few drive-throughs. Nobody could possibly know who they were.

  The car hood indented as Dutch sat upon it. He looked at his watch. Waste of time, he thought, frowning. Unless Beezy’s copping some decent tricks, we need to blow this Gomer Pyle shit pit.

  Then, as if in answer to his ire, advancing footsteps were crunching the gravel in a gait that told him it was Beezy. Eventually the trashy yet attractive woman emerged from sooty darkness into the annoying glare of the parking lot light.

  “Well?” Dutch queried. Please tell me you been slingin’ and suckin’ for the last two hours.”

  “Fuck,” she said, hands on hips. “Got one trick, one blowjob, and that’s it. Some farmer-looking motherfucker.”

  “How much he pay?”

  Her smirk looked as one who’d just sipped lumpy milk. “A piss-ant ten bucks.”

  “Cheap fuck! Did he want any meth?”

  “Nope. Says he don’t do that shit. Says no one does here.”

  This was not cool. Dutch had a point crew to pay two days from now in Pulaski. The last guy who’d asked for an extension from these charming dudes had gotten one ball crushed with flat-tongs, and they stuck sewing needles in the other one, lots of sewing needles so that his remaining family jewel looked like a sci-fi porcupine. Not the sort of people you wanted to tell Sorry, but I don’t have your money today, unless you were just that curious about how many needles someone could jab in your nut before you passed out.

  Sputtering, Dutch flicked his butt and watched the fireball explode spectacularly against the bar wall.

  “Gimme a swogle, Dutch,” Beezy asked, getting a little fidgety. “I gotta fire up.”

  Dutch grimaced at her. “You shouldn’t be doing any of that shit. You see what it does to our customers. For fuck’s sake, Beezy. Before long you’ll lose your looks, then you won’t be able to do shit.”

  “I’ll never lose my looks,” she whispered, then leaned into the car, found a pipe, and started hitting it.

  Shit head… Dutch had no choice but to visually survey her rump as she was bent over. How she kept that buxom hourglass figure as a gak-head, he’d never know. Good genes, he guessed. She looked just like that brunette bombshell who got fired from that dancing show, Brooke Something-or-other, but of course Brooke Something-or-other didn’t have speed lines on her face, nor was her teeth turning gray and falling out on a regular basis. But in the not too distant future, as much as he liked having her for squeeze, he knew she’d eventually turn into a flesh-covered skeleton with implants, and he’d be slitting her throat and dumping her body just like the last couple.

  “Yeah,” she said when she sprang back up. “Fuckin’ good ice you sell!”

  He just shook his head now that she was wired. “I haven’t sold anything today, remember. We gotta split, try somewhere else.”

  “Fine with me,” Beezy acknowledged, twitching. “Something about this place gives me the creeps anyway. But I keep hearing about this place nearby, Backtown. Let’s find that. It’s a big trailer park or something. I’ll bet you sell fifty Fat Bags and I’ll suck fifty hillbilly dicks! We’ll rake in some dough.”

  But it was that one word—Backtown—that stalled Dutch’s thoughts. “I’ve heard about Backtown too, like, dealers have disappeared there.”

  “Disappeared? For real?”

  “Yeah. You know the gig. We gotta be careful who we sell to ‘round here. This ain’t Pulaski; lotta these poo-putt Gomer Pyle rednecks hate dope dealers.”

  But Beezy seemed intrigued, her reality-killing gak high making her more brainless than ever. “I like the mystery! Let’s go! You really think dealers have disappeared there?”

  “I know they have,” Dutch said. He was getting pissed. But she always did get off on an element of danger. “Remember Clint Filcher? Said he was going to sling product in Backtown and that was the last we saw him. Cops found him in his car pushed off Governor’s Bridge Road. Fucker’s pants were pulled down and his cock and balls chewed clean off. Not cut off, chewed off.”

  Beezy’s dilated eyes went wide. “Chewed off? By what, an animal?”

  “No one knows,” Dutch said. “But I don’t know many animals that close car doors.”

  Beezy shuddered, but then—

  More footsteps could be heard on the gravelly dirt, and inaudible male talk. Two hulking figures seemed to materialize in the glaring lot lights.

  “Here comes fresh meat,” Beezy whispered. “And look at the size of ’em! They’re huge!”

  Dutch squinted through disbelief. Yes, they were huge, all right, but they were also…identical twins?

  “Hey, guys. How goes it?” Dutch chuckled, trying to make a joke. “Gee, I guess you guys might be brothers.”

  “That we is, fella,” one said. “And we’se doin’ all right, I suppose.”

  Well, these guys didn’t look like druggers, but they didn’t exactly look gay, either. He lowered his voice. “Look, this here’s my girl, Beezy. She’ll suck a mean one, and for less than those rip-off bitches at Sallee’s. Only twenty bucks. Beezy, give the boys a peek uptown.”

  The twins were already eyeing Beezy, and then she struck a slutty pose and flashed her bare breasts.

  “Damn!” the brothers said simultaneously.

  “Yeah, damn,” Dutch remarked. “If there’s a better set of tits in the entire great state of West Virginia, I’ve sure as shit never seen ’em. This girl will do things to your junk you never dreamed possible. She’ll swallow your junk like a garbage disposal. And you both can even have a go at downtown, and for only thirty bucks each, or, what the hell? Fifty for the both of you,” and with this offer, Beezy cut a vulpine grin and flashed a perfectly hair-free pubis.

  The second brother shook his head, impressed. “That’s a cooter like ta make me do a Rebel Yell but, see, we just done drained our peckers already in a right cute li’l blondie.”

  “Yeah,” the other one agreed, snorting. “Yeah! Just the cutest thang!”

  “What we’se lookin’ fer, see,” the first one said, leaning over to keep his voice down, “is some kick, ya know?”

  “Some kick, huh?” Dutch said.

  “Yeah, man. And we gotta horse-choke wad’a cash too. You got any coke, any meth?”

  Cha-CHING! Dutch thought. Looks like I read these goobers wrong. I LOVE IT when I’m wrong. He curled his index finger, inviting the dude in between his car and another. “I got Fat Bags, Little Boys, shit, I got mongo meth. Shit keep ya flyin’ fer two days, and it’s only twenty a pop.”

  “Shee-it, yeah! We’ll take all you got, brother,” and then the gigantic redneck reached for his wallet. Dutch was smiling like a ten-year-old having his first gander at a Hustler, but when he glanced over the guy’s shoulder, the smile vanished and his eyes went wide. Fuck! A shakedown!

  The other brother had already slapped duct tape over Beezy’s mouth, and was mauling her breasts and lifting her off her feet at the same time. Dutch reached for his shank but in the space of a second, a loop of rope came around his neck from behind and then he too was being held aloft. In his consternation, he was able to see that a third man had been the one who’d roped his neck—a third man who looked identical to the other two.

  This was as well-synchronized as a Brazilian mob abduction. Dutch’s vision dimmed as a van pulled up from nowhere, stopped, and the side door slid open. Grinning over his shoulder from the driver’s seat was a fourth man who looked just like the others.

  Tape was mechanically slapped across Dutch’s mouth too. He and Beezy were tossed into the van. The door slammed shut, and the van pulled off.

  The last thing Dutch heard before losing conscious was this: four identical voices simultaneously hollering the same thing…

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee-HA!”

  ««—»»

  “Partyin’ heaven at quarter of seven!” Augie’s voice trumpeted when the next round of drinks arrived, for that’s wh
at the time was now, and after only opening its doors forty-five minutes ago, Krazy Sallee’s was more than living up to the first half of its name. “Pandemonium” might be the best word to accurately describe the interior environment of the establishment, for this was indeed one loud, rowdy, redneck strip joint. Flashing lights throbbed ceaselessly about the stage and seating area; music was pounding; and then there were the patrons…

  This was a class of society that, to the likes of Brice, Augie, and Clark, would seem as far removed from their own class as the Third World. Rednecks, rednecks, and more rednecks, all guffawing, rebel yelling, slamming beers, and raising blue collar, unrefined, hard-drinking Hell in general.

  But this is not an assessment of southern demographics.

  The establishment’s most salient features were, of course, the dancers, and here they cavorted in grand (and predatory) style. Those who were not showing off their wares on the multiple dance floors were sashaying next to nude amongst the customers; each and every woman easily ranked at least an eight on the Male Sexist Pig ratings chart. At least a dozen such women were apparent, teasing the unruly audience before their own times came to hit the dance floor.

  Pole dancers, entirely naked, spun with expertise or climbed upside-down up said poles. One curvaceous blonde stood butt-to-crown with legs widely parted, then slowly leaned forward, bowed her spine, and with not much effort successfully brought the tip of her tongue to the bottom of her vagina. This achievement incited applause akin to when Colonel Edward White became the first American to walk in space. Other such demonstrations of dexterity were performed as well, involving lit cigars, tennis balls, and balloons, which would hardly be necessary to describe.

  Clark, the esteemed Upper West Side physician, sat up front and currently had the back of his head resting against the edge of the dance floor, while yet another nimble gentlewoman plucked five-dollar bills from his mouth—mind you, without using her hands. Along the back wall were a row of eager, slovenly rednecks sitting in fold-down chairs, each with still more topless and g-stringed strippers doing their lap-dance thing (evidently, this was the “budget” section), while higher rollers arm-in-arm with the cream of the dancing crop disappeared through beaded curtains: the “V.I.P.” section. Augie, however (likely the highest roller now in attendance), remained quite content at the table with Brice, “motor-boating” the prodigiously breasted blonde who sat facing him in his lap. “Let’s see how long ya kin hold yer breath, sugar!” she shrilled and closed her massive bosom around his face.