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get his dander up like stick-pokin' a weasel ya got cornered in the henhouse.

Grandpap's face beamed in approval as he looked on. 'Yeah, bet this whore's got enough nut up her cooze an' inner belly ta fill a pig trough.'

'She's gonna have more'n that inner head, Grandpap.' Travis celebrated. 'time we'se through humpin' her!'

He poured Grandpap an' hisself each a shot'a corn an' waited, an’ whiles they was waitin' he yanked offer top 'cos he liked ta gander a gal's tits now an' agin. Hers was kinda small, though, with nipples that looked like they'd been chewed, an' ordernarily, he would'a yanked off her shorts too, ta have a look at her bush, but he didn't dare 'cos he shore didn't want all that trucker nut sloppin' outa her hole onta Grandpap's fine worktable. Weren't long, though, 'fore Sarah Dawn Slade come to, whereupon she set out ta screainin' an' cussin' like the devil hisself. 'I knows who you are!' she wailed at Grandpap in his chair. 'Yer Jake Martin, you is! Just a dirty, booger-eatin' ?l’ cracker with no feet! An' you, you—' Her big wide redneck eyes shot right ta Travis. 'Yer Travis Tuckton. Heard they turnt you queer in prison. I heard! Heard you been suckin' cock an' gettin' butt-fucked with a big smile on yer face fer the last 10 years!'

Travis were not inna good frame'a mind ta begin with, and these low-down remarks only stirred up his piss- off all the more. He felt his face turn dark with anger, an' his eyes cross, an' he slapped his big hand right down on her haughty face, dug his fingers inta her cheeks till her yap opened wide as a wellhole, and then he coughed hisself up a dag big loogie an' dropped it right smackdab inner mouth. 'There ya go,' he said, then palmed up hard on her chin an' held it till she had no choice but ta swaller. 'There's somethin' good fer ya ta eat. Oughta go right nice with all that trucker jizz in yer gut.' But when he let go, she kinda bucked and then throwed right up.

'Aw, shee-it, girl!' Travis yelled. 'Ya done upchucked all over my grandpap's fine cherrywood table!'

An’ upchuck she did, high an' might, hoistin' it all up right out her mouth like a bilgepump, leavin' a big puddle'a bellyslime an' sperm, with Travis' big loogie floatin' right in the middle of it all.

'Don't'cha worry 'bout the mess, son.' Grandpap excused. 'We'se kin clean it up later. But fer now. let's get onta the work.' Then he passed along the drill, an' the hole-saw bit were already screwed in.

Travis kept her quakin' head steady with his right hand, an' cut the hole out her head with his left...

Ain't much point in relatin' any further details, just ta say this were the best header yet. Travis an' his grandpap humped her head four times 'tween the two of 'em, and by the time they was done, their peckers had about whipped Sarah Dawn Slade's cracker brain ta porridge. Grandpap murmured in happiness from his chair, and even Travis hisself was exhausted from such a fierce head-humpin'. Yessir, he hadda lot'a angst ta work out, an' this cracker whore were just the ticket. But his mind kept'a tickin', it did, as it had been doin' quite a bit of late, goin' over all the injustices'a the world, an' then he thought back agin ta what Grandpap had told him, 'bout how Jory Slade had not only sucker-punched his Daddy and beat his butt, but about how Slade had also peed in his Daddy's face while's he was down.

Travis stood up.

'What'cha doin', boy?' Grandpap inquired, wipin' up all that puke an’ trucker cum from the table. 'Ya just had yerself two nuts inna row. Yer bone hard agin?'

'Naw, Grandpap.' Travis answered. 'I gots ta pee, an' I cain't think of a better place to do than this gal's head. After all, Grandpap, her daddy peed on my daddy, so's this is only proper.'

'An eye fer a eye, boy!' Grandpap rallied.

Travis put his limp bone right back in that warm hole, then leaned back an' pulled a long, hard, hot corn-liquor pee. Yes sir, he whizzed away inta Sarah Dawn Slade's head fer a good long time, he did...

........

It's... the motherlode, Cummings thought.

'It's 10 keys, 80 percent pure,' Dutch said matter-of-factly. He sat down in a beaten recliner, popped open a beer. Inside the shack, the humidity felt thick as broth. 'I told you our point orders would be getting bigger.'

Spaz was giggling aside. Cummings just stared. On the table lay a veritable mountain of bagged cocaine.

'You get five grand for the run,' Dutch said. 'Just do like you usually do. You and Spazzie load it up into your little police car and drop it off on our guy in Big Stone Gap, then come back here and you get five grand.'

Cummings struggled to clear his head. He had to play the game right. A swig of beer, then he turned poker- faced to Dutch. 'This is a huge run and you know it. I'll take the cash up front or it's no deal.'

'Somehow, Stew, I knew you'd say that.' Dutch tossed a wad, which Cummings caught in the air. Fifty rubber-banded $100 bills.

'See, Stew, I'm a businessman. Since I hired you to drop for me. I haven't lost a single order. And when that happens, my distro goes up and so do my long-term points. We'll be getting an order this big every week And you know what that means?'

'What?'

'You just got yourself a raise to twenty grand a month.'

Cummings was sweating. All this time he'd been waiting for his ship to come in. Well here it was: the fuckin' Queen Mary. Twenty grand a month for making one drop a week. That was serious money. That was one sweet deal.

But the universal rule came back to haunt him.

Cops on the take never last long...

Cummings wasn't stupid. He could drive point for a few more months, rake in some dough, sure. And every day was another chance to get burned. This was the moment he'd been waiting for; he'd known that all along, just hadn't really admitted it. These 10 keys were an initial drop, and Cummings knew that Dutch took half in advance. And he also knew this: there was only one way for any cop on the take to get out clean and fat.

'Okay, Spaz.' he said. 'Let's get this blow in the car and get moving.' When Spaz grabbed the first couple of bags, Cummings shucked his off-duty Webley .455. and—

BAM!

Spaz' head erupted like ripe fruit. Dutch rolled out of the chair, ducked, then sprang up with a cocked Glock 9mm. But Cummings was expecting this, and—

BAM!

—caught Dutch in the throat before he could get off a single shot.

Silence, then.

Hot fumes tickled Cummings' sinuses. The entire move was so automatic it nearly surprised him. He kicked the Glock out of Dutch's hand, squeezed off a point-blank headshot to be safe, then reholstered his piece. The Webley's irredeemably large projectile reverted Dutch's head to a plume of pink-red crap blown across the floor. I just killed two guys, the realization unfurled, and I don't care.

He checked the windows. Nothing. Then he looked back at the cocaine. Ten keys would have an astronomical street value, but there was no way he could handle that. He'd made the right move, he knew. This was his clean break. Besides, it wasn't the coke he was after.

Yeah, that fucker takes half on delivery. I know he does.

He searched the place. It didn't take much effort. It's the Queen Mary, all right. In the back room was a gym bag—full of banded hundred dollar bills.

He kept his cool, lit a Lucky, stood a moment to think. His future was set. Never again would he have to sweat Kath's pharmacy bills, and never again would they ever be in want. He'd have to be careful how he spent it, just a trickle at a time, and he knew he couldn't put it in the bank, for that would alert the IRS. Be smart, he told himself.

He couldn't leave the cocaine, either. He needed this to look like a dope hit, and hitters would never leave 10 keys of 80 percent blow on the table. So he threw the gym bag in the trunk, then loaded up the coke. He'd used his Webley to smoke Spaz and Dutch, a precaution that paid off—with the Webley there'd be no remaining ballistic evidence to tie Cummings to his service piece, his Smith 13. There'd be a few of his fingerprints in Dutch's crib, though, but the can of kerosene in the utility shed would take care of that. Way out here in the boondocks? It’d take