Butcher

make it. Should he go back? No, he decided. Quickly as he could, wedged under a steering wheel by his massive gut and Detroit's midget draftsmen, he managed to wiggle out of his combat booties and socks, which he placed on the passenger seat. His timing was unerring: within a few seconds the high water drowned out the engine. It was a good fifty yards to the other side. He wrapped the shotgun and weapons case in the huge bush tarp, jammed that and his boots into the top of the massive duffel, retrieved some duct tape from the bag as an afterthought, and taped the edge of the bush tarp as tight around the outside top of the whole container as he could, smashing the driver's side door open.

It was all he could do to muscle the door back enough to get out in the moving water and he got two shocks, first when the cold water hit groin level with an icy slap, and second when he grabbed the towering load and stepped out into the water. The force of the current nearly took him off his feet.

Tall, stout trees of various types, ages, and sizes grew nearby in the road ditches, but nothing short of the threat of drowning could have induced him to try to unwrap the taped bush tarp and balance a stolen Remington and the weapons case while he rummaged for his big blade. He decided to improvise. He worked the previously owned shotgun out, racked shells into the water, and used the empty weapon as a makeshift cane, the duffel and weapons case slung over his shoulder. With a fireplug-thick arm curled around his gear, one hand helping to steady his bulk, he began to negotiate the swift-moving water with dainty little steps, his bare feet on the pavement, an ox yoked to an elongated duffel bag.

He made it out of the water and sat on his stuff, exhausted from the effort, rubbing the muscles in his powerful legs. A lesser man would have had to swim toward the nearest down-current bank, but Chaingang's legs were used to routinely lifting and moving a quarterton load and they stood up under the challenge.

When he'd rested for a bit he dried his feet, put on socks and boots, pitched the Remington, and began humping down the road in his rather comical waddling, limping gait. An eternity later he was at the Bayou City shopping mall.

Porky's Big Fashions occupied a boxcar-like space between a video store and an empty storefront, and when he squinted his good eye, the sign looked like Porky Pig Fatshits to him. Even the signage was poking at him, conspiring to enrage the clownish bear. They would pay dearly, all of them. He spat, belched expansively, a mighty halitotic regurgitation that fouled the air around him, adjusted both his load and his package, and waddled toward Porky's, cutting wet farts.

What must the store owner and his clerk have thought when this ... thing blew into their sanctum sanctorum? The manager-owner, young Ryan Sneeden, was back in his office and Mrs. Schecter was at the cash register working on receipts. Wynton Marsalis's “The Very Thought of You” and central heat whooshed at roughly equal decibel levels. Suddenly there was a loud slam as a huge, incredibly dirty person blundered through the doors.

“May I help you?” Mrs. Schecter asked in the frosty tone she reserved for people who came in looking to use the bathroom and so on. No response. The thing was lumbering through the store, seemingly oblivious to her, touching the garments as he moved by the clothing racks, leaving his scent everywhere. He was like a steer or bull or something, an animal that had wandered in off the street. A rank stench, not of sewers, but an equally sulfurous and deadly toxicity of unthinkable body odor assaulted her patrician nose. “Are you looking for something?'

He pulled apparel off racks. Anything that looked big enough. He was trying things on before she could stop him. This monstrosity of a blubber gut in a filthy T-shirt with ... was that blood on it?

Ryan Sneeden sensed, perhaps smelled, something foul and came out blinking, a curly headed little boy of a young man in his mid twenties, a big fake stewardess smile in place. “Hi. How you doing today?” Neither he nor Mrs. Schecter had ever seen a creature such as this in the store, nor had they been ignored in so rude a manner. Sneeden found it quite distasteful and went back in his office, shutting and locking the door.

The intruder had a pair of bib overalls that looked like about a size fifty-eight. A pair of XXXXXL jeans that appeared to be about six feet across the ass. T-shirts. A belt made from the entire length of a large dead cow. He plopped them up on the counter, frightening Mrs. Schecter half to death. She didn't know whether to ask would there be anything else, would it be cash or charge, or please go away and permit me to inhale. The beastly stink was quite unbearable up close.

Chaingang's black marbles cross-haired the woman behind the counter for the first time, an old douchebag about fifty-something with dark hair bifurcated by a silver-white streak. It made her look like a cartoon skunk to him; Porky Pig's skunk woman. She was wearing an expensive red dress, weighed a fast ninety-five pounds, and was really a rather decent-looking old bitch, he decided. The glint of gold and diamonds against her out-of-season tan winked at his good eye. He was usually uninterested in such things, but he needed to resupply and his mindscreen was planning for certain contingencies that might require a hefty bit of barter material.

He went back and selected a suit, an act that in itself was something to see, as he pulled on a four- hundred-dollar banker's gray job and admired himself in one of the three-way mirrors: suitcoat over damp fatigues and slaughterhouse T-shirt. He looked like the drummer in a punk-rock house band at an institution for the criminally insane. He found a couple of shirts with broad stripes, a tie with bright stars, perhaps five feet long, and some underpants to see him through the perilous night. Deposited all of this on the counter with his other purchases and let Skunkie sack it up for him in a nice, tasteful container.

“How do you wish to pay? Cash or charge?” she intoned, trying not to breathe any more than necessary.

He eyed the street and the rest of the store in the shoplifting security mirrors, as he pulled out a disreputable hunk of moist cash.

“Do you have somewhere I could make wee-wee?” he asked, his bass voice rumbling like a Hammond organ in the enclosure. His breath was as potently malodorous as the rest of him, and she blinked in disgust.

“I beg your pardon?'

“Wee-wee. You know,” he said, having a bit of fun with her, “drain the old liz.” He cupped his package.

She didn't find off-color behavior amusing in the least, and let him know with her stare, which had withered many a man. Oh, the clientele they sometimes had to put up with. Fortunately most of the chubbies who came in were, well, gentlemen at least.

“We don't have public facilities,” she said, a stern frown drawing down the corners of her mouth.

“Do you ever wee-wee or has that old hole of yours dried up completely?” he whispered, something snaking out of his right hand and shutting off all the sights and sounds and smells in her little world.

Skunkie dropped back against some XXXL turtlenecks like a steer getting kissed with the bolt gun. Even before she quit twitching, he was waddling back to the office where the young chap had run to hide earlier.

His odd brain was working a mile a minute as he moved quickly around the leather wing chairs and dressing mirrors. A fist the size of a twenty-two-pound cannonball knocked once on the door and Ryan Sneeden jumped up.

“Yes?'

“Fellatio you look at this cranmus of mine for a sexer? The lady up front didn't fress to change, so I was hoping that you could.” He heard the fellow fumble with the lock and saw the door open. Chaingang's face was contorted into his parody of a human smile.

“Just doing my books,” Sneeden said, with bravado. “Whatcha’ need there, big guy?” He exuded polish and self-confidence. Just the kind of little asshole Bunkowski liked to hurt.

“Ah, well,” he rumbled, “for openers I need to see if you can catch up with Skunkie?'

“Pardon?'

“You'll have to hurry. She's on the way to hell,” Chaingang said, as he hammered a bottomfist into the youngster's face, hitting him right between the eyes. The blow went Thock! just like a Porky Pig cartoon sound effect. If his Bowie hadn't been under wraps, parked in the taped- up duffel, he could have partaken of the delicious opportunities, but for now he concentrated on resupply. The young man had no keys, so he would not be able to lock the store. Shame. He went through the desk rapidly, found the cashbox and took it. Took the young fellow's billfold, money clip, ring. Felt his neck, groin, spine, and ankles for surprise treasures, found none, and unzipped. He actually did have to wee-wee and did so on the lad, who'd fallen with his head at an angle that suggested he might not be rallying, unless there was an afterlife.

Chaingang checked the back door: locked, no keys in it. Went to the front and kicked Skunkie under the counter. She fit there as neatly as if she'd been designed to tuck into that available space.