delivery, Briarwood, which would be routed from the nearest small town USPS office.
Mr. Conway had been referred by a longtime satisfied customer of the eastern company that specialized in clothing for very tall or very stout males. He assured the nice man that his remittance would be immediately forthcoming. Thanked him. Hung up, and went into the store.
The place with the handy machines outside was called a Mini-Mart. He waddled inside to shoplift, more out of habit and meanness than need. The beast always carried a substantial sum of money tucked away for emergency usage, and true to form, Dr. Norman had seen to it that his duffel bag's money stash had been replenished. But Chaingang shoplifted out of principle.
Had he been born with a taste for money or material goods, rather than blood and vengeance, he would have been a master burglar or armed robber. He was a superbly talented “natural” thief, and an awesome shoplifter.
“Hi-dee, Kenny hep you?” it sounded like the clerk said, eyeing this stinking giant from behind the counter.
Chaingang ignored him. No, Mr. Monkey Man, you cannot
The master of playacting and misdirection held up a can of ravioli with his left hand, swiping chili with his right.
None of this stuff looked particularly edible. Berthalou Irby had spoiled him for these lesser culinary offerings. He wanted to go back to the Irby house, bag Mrs. Irby, shag the retard, and eat the rest of the stuff in the basement. It was a very real and strong pull, the kind that sometimes went over the line and nagged him into enacting a particularly attractive fantasy.
He picked up a package of American cheese, knowing Kenny Hepyou was watching his actions very closely, enjoying himself thoroughly as he dropped a packet of smoked ham into his voluminous chain pocket.
“You got any trella crane?” he rumbled.
“Beg pardon.'
“Trella scrate. Where do you keep it?'
“Cellophane? You mean like Handi-Wrap?'
“Heinie wipe.” He opened a jelly jar and forced the top back at a tilt.
“It's over yonder. First aisle.'
“Somebody done opened this here grape jelly, ‘n’ stuck their dick innit or whatever, ‘n’ screwed the top back on against the threads.” He was moving down the aisle toward the clerk. Feeling dangerous and lucky.
“What's that now?'
“Somebody dicked in your jelly back there yonder. Top looks like it's got trella scration all over it. Thought you'd like to know.” He shrugged, ever the helpful patron.
The clerk went back and saw the jelly.
“Kids come in here. They probably done it.'
“Yids? Uh-huh.” Chaingang hadn't had this much fun in a long time. Not without actually hurting someone.
“Did you find the Handi-Wrap?'
“Why would I want to do that?” Chaingang asked, genuinely appearing to be puzzled, having just shoved two stroke books up under his jacket.
“I thought you said you was wanting some Handi-Wrap and—'
It was too much for him. He made a coughing noise and the huge tractor-strength steel snake uncoiled and put the clerk out of his misery.
Instantly, the second he saw the poor man fall into the potato chip bags, he was irritated with himself. He had forgotten, uncharacteristically, that he was driving a semilegal Delta ‘88 he'd gone to a great deal of trouble to acquire. Now he'd just put his ride, his hide, and his clean tags at risk so he could hurt Kenny. Not smart.
He hit NO SALE and cleaned out the big stuff, pulling the tray up and seeing checks and—surprisingly—a gold coin. He was always finding interesting treats. He tucked the small gold piece away as a lucky charm, went around and checked Kenny's wallet, and felt a tiny surge of pleasure seeing that it contained nearly six hundred dollars.
Moving with a burst of speed, he chugged out the door and hurled his quarter ton of weight into the poor front seat of the old car, grinding the ignition to life, and pulling out into the northbound lane. There were no witnesses. No traffic to speak of. But of course, the sky eye man would be duly recording his moves. Of no consequence.
He'd ordered, and within a few minutes, paid for, his little going-away present to himself. Later, when he'd had his fill of this community, he'd have a nice, fresh get-out-of-town ensemble all ready and waiting for him.
At the next roadside phone that presented itself, a Mr. Conway dialed—strictly by coincidence—Perkins Real Estate, calling from the Tinytown phone book chained to the wall. Asking about rental properties.
“I'm sorry,” an elderly woman's voice informed him. “This office is not presently open for business.” She referred him to a realtor in Maysburg and he called there, “hoping to rent a small trailer or farmhouse.'
“We've got something about ten miles north of here. It's a two-bedroom. But it's not in very good condition right at the moment, I'm afraid,” a man's voice told him.
“That's all right. I'm not real fussy. I could even hep fix it up before the wife and kids get here. How much is it and—” He started to use the phrase “take occupancy,” edited his choice of words, and said, “Would I be able to move in right away?'
“It's only fifty a month, sir. The owners just want to keep it rented so the house doesn't deteriorate any faster than it has. And you know, you can't get insurance on a dwelling unless it's occupied—so that's why it's available. But it's really rough, I won't kid you about that.'
“It sounds just fine.” It sounds like a fine shithole. “Could I look at it right now?'
“Yeah.” The voice paused. “Let's see—what time is it? Uh—where are you now?'
“Just over yonder a ways from your office.” Chaingang was really having fun with the monkeys. “I'm over by trella scrate's, and I could be over there in a few minutes. I could meet ya at the farmhouse or—'
“Nah, you better meet me here at the office and follow me out there. It's pretty hard to find—way out on an old gravel road in the country. I doubt if you could find it by yourself.'
“Okay. I'll be there in a few minutes.'
“Fine. And your name, sir?'
“Conway.'
“Is that first or last?'
“Uh-huh,” Chaingang said, his face contorted by the rictus of a snaggletoothed grin. “See ya in a minute.” He hung up the phone and flung himself back into the car. Kenny Hepyou had turned it into a good day after all. The fun was just starting.
Disturbed in his slumber by ever-watchful sensors, the beast shakes his bulk loose from the folds of deep sleep, belches an eight-inch naval salvo of gas, scratches, yawns expansively as he pulls himself to his feet.
Infested repose gave this gargantuan monster physical rest, but it was a restless dormancy. He is awake in two filmy eye-blinks, and as the sleeping behemoth emerges from the swamp of nocturnal hybernation, he is aware of a vague layering of intelligence and trivia.
He scans the dossier page on Virgil Watlow, and the phrase “dog buncher,” the name for the scum who act as procurers for laboratories, tears a fingernail off inside his mind. In this dormant period some part of his brain has been relishing the memory of a woman at his second murder trial, and his mindscreen catches a fragment of her courtroom shrieking, the termagant's shrill “—and then and there, Daniel Bunkowski did proceed to strangle, bludgeon, and mutilate—” He savors the verbs, trying to taste her in his head.
But the sensors override all of this pleasurable trivia with the unmistakable urgings that he has learned to interpret as warnings. They came during his steep. Mental printout lighting the lip of his pocket of slumber with opaque, filtered rays of illumination. The beast, snoring away down in the shadowy hole at the bottom of his awareness, is somehow touched by this unexplainable phenomenon. It reaches down into his mysterious inner trench, and his subconscious moves him, trailing slime and mutant poisons, as he is nudged toward the light source. He is moving, on automatic pilot. Dressing. Not bothering to curse the bad luck that refuses to let him rest for a few
