Slob

'Still, I'd like to kick his ass,' one of the Flames called Retard said.

'Cocksucker. He'll crook you into the fucking ground if you turn your back on the lying sonofabitch dickeye.'

'That motherfucker come over to Billy's and he loads up twenty-three of Billy's cars. He puts them little ones in between the big ones. And when the cocksuck pulls out, he tells the ignorant motherfucker he only has eighteen cars. I never seen anything like the sonofabitchin' crooked piece of dog shit, why I'd like to—'

'An' you know if you got a little compact crushed in there between two big boats, shit, you can't tell what the hell you got on the stack. And Christ, even the dumb bitch pussy works for Billy said that's the tallest fuckin' stack of eighteen cars I've ever seen.' Raucous laughter drowned out the knocking on the door.

But two Flames working on their bikes saw the two strange figures over by the shack and walked up to them saying, 'You guys need somethin'?'

'Yes, sir.' Woody spoke before Dr. G. could talk. 'I'm Woody Woodpecker.'

'No shit,' said one called Mingus, 'an' I'm Donald fuckin' Duck. You got business here?'

'Right,' said the cannonball-shaped doctor of herbology and occult sciences, 'we're here to see Mr. Younger on an important matter.'

'Uh-huh,' Mingus told him, 'you wanna' haul fucking ass, darkie, and take this old bum with ya, we got enough junk around here.' Both the men really broke up at that one, guffawing and slapping each other as if it had been the bon mot of the century.

'Sir,' Woody Woodpecker said, looking at the wooden door of the shack, 'I hope you're aware of the problems posed by a door such as this one. You have what appear to be smiling faces but'—he moved closer to the door—'there are two evil ones right there. And look at this'—he pointed at a swirl of grain in the beat-up wood—'a pair of real ogres, a skull profile with huge fangs, and a frowning and eyeless head that I think you'll find is— '

'Get the fuck outta here you crazy old freak and take this fat little spade with your raggedy ass before we kick your goofy ole' booty!' the wild-eyed biker screamed, his fellow club member trying unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter.

'Let me handle this, please,' Dr. Geronimo told Woody. 'Now, sir, we do have an appointment with Mr. Younger, and if you gentlemen want to find out the location of the man who did that awful thing to Mr. Tree, I suggest you tell him Dr. Geronimo is here to see him.' The giggles stopped.

'What'd you say about Tree?'

'I was trying to tell you we're the ones that are here to help Mr. Deuce in his efforts to obtain justice in the recent tragedy.'

Inside the shack the business of the salvage company had taken a discursive turn as they discussed the problems of enforced incarceration. Retard was addressing the conference room:

'D'jew all hear bout Greasy?' It was rhetorical, as he continued to address his rapt audience. 'Fucker sent his brother back a letter telling him he's getting married.'

'Where is that crazy motherfucker anyway—down in Jeff City or some damn where?'

'Leavenworth, ain't he?' someone else said.

'Naw. He's just a kid. He was doing juvey time when he busted outta' Booneville or some kiddy jail and they put him in Algoa. He was on the run from fuckin' Algoa when he was up here.' They laughed.

'You shittin' us, man?'

'Fucker was in the middle of a six-year bit. Had three years left and this asshole talks him into makin' a move. Three years. He boogies. That's why we never saw the cocksuck. They nailed him up here runnin' around.' The board members thought this was quite humorous.

'Anyway, his brother gets a letter from Algoa. He says he's getting married. Brother writes back that's cool, let's see a picture of the bitch.' A knock at the door interrupted the story.

'We're in the middle of a meeting,' Deuce hollered out at them through the door. 'Yeah?'

'So he says, send a picture of the bitch.' Laughter. 'And his brother sends him one. It's Greasy's bitch awright. He's got him an eighteen-year-old faggot named Ronnie.' Hysterics in the room. A moment of gay abandon in the workaday drudgery of a busy corporate staff.

'Believe this shit? Said he looked like a wife awright. Looked like a pussy'd bend over 'for you could get its pants off.' Screaming in the room. 'Any fucker'd boogie in the middle of a fucking six-pack in fuckin' Algoa! Shit!'

'What a fuckin' dummy.' Roars of laughter finally recede to the point they can hear the loud, insistent pounding.

'What the fuck is it, goddammit,' Deuce asked.

'Yo, Deuce.' Door opens and they can see a lot of faces. Mingus' goes, 'Think you'd better check this shit out.' He comes in and shuts the door on the others. 'Jigaboo calls hisself Geronimo or some fucking shit. Got some old wino with him. Claim they heard you put three bills on the street for anybody give us something that would get the one did Tree. They swear they can give the fucker to us.' Very quiet in the shack and all eyes on the door as Deuce nods to let them in.

'You two get y'r butts in here,' Mingus commanded as Dr. Geronimo and Woody strode through the door with as much dignity and poise as the occasion allowed.

'Mr. Younger,' the cannonball-like man said, 'this gentleman knows where the man you want lives. He can show him to you, take you right there.'

'Yes, sir,' Woody Woodpecker said. 'I know where the man who kills people stays.'

'You do, eh,' Deuce said softly.

'Yes, sir. If I show you, do I get the three hundred dollars like they say?'

'Where is he?'

'In the sewers. He stays in the sewers.'

'Get these fuckin' bums outta here f'r chrissakes,' one of the corporate vice-presidents suggested gently.

'No. Hold it.' Deuce smiled. 'I go with my vibes. My vibes never lie. I feel good about these two.' He looked at the Wood Man with a pair of eyes like the business end of a double-barrel shotgun and smiled after a few moments. 'I say hold the calls. I think we got us a winner.'

Chaingang

Daniel Bunkowski is asleep. RY-7/INLET 20 is a rectangular storage tank approximately twelve and a half feet below the city streets, and situated at the intersection of pipes that lead to a system of storm drains that connect to a main catch basin. If you could see the pipes from the air, they would look like a large letter Y with the bottom stem connecting to the O of the storage facility. The larger facility is very deep, and it is into this area that the overflow ultimately goes from those rainstorms that would otherwise fill the low-lying areas with the spillage from rains, melts, or flood backwater. Bunkowski is asleep in the smaller storage tank that feeds the water into a channel that opens at the center of the letter Y.

He is asleep in the trap he has constructed in the neck of the storage tank, but that is only his physical bulk. Danny boy is far away, dreaming, of another time and place. A place known as Echo Sector, in the lowlands of Quang Tri province, Republic of South Vietnam, where a kamikaze truck full of men roars along a very dangerous stretch of road. The truck, by coincidence called a deuce-and-a-half, is driven by a sullen, acned, sneering youth with bad teeth who drives at one speed, accelerator to the floorboard, and stops by running into things.

'Stop,' Chaingang yells around the side. Nothing. A fist the size and solidity of a solid steel pineapple begins pounding huge dents in the truck. 'Pull over!' Chaingang has seen something. The truck slows marginally, the sullen kid looking for something to drive into to get the wreck to quit moving, but Chain is already limping back toward his