Slice

you know, like from here to there'—gesturing—'and it went off right in his face and he got burns from the, uh, gun going off and...” She laughed at the memory of it. “And you should have seen the look on Toby's face when I pointed that gun at him and pulled the trigger. He looked so surprised when it went off, and for a second I thought I'd—” And back into the long, drawn-out, ridiculous story as he turned out.

And now he looks at her as she drifts back into the boring nothingness of her past, fascinated by herself, and he lets himself enjoy the lulling effect of her soft, childish voice, the voice of a little girl, and the not unpleasant singsong delivery of the unending, muted flow of verbiage. And to illustrate her point she aims a thin finger at Chaingang and cocks her hand like a gun. SHE IS POINTING AN IMAGINARY GUN AT HIS FACE. He has to beam a horrible smile at the irony of it and he is suddenly awash in the red tide that so frequently engulfs his mind and emotions and makes him do the bad things.

His smile widens at the ease with which he could reach out and break that bony thing she points in his face, snap that finger like a pencil, holding it in the massive vise of his grip that can squeeze flashlight batteries and with no exertion simply press down and forward breaking the finger, giving him the joy of seeing her delicious agony as she suddenly screams and falls, him still holding the finger to control her movements, and then bend it back farther and snap and tear and wring it effortlessly ripping it loose. How much pleasure it would give him to hurt her right this second and thought nearly becomes deed as the feelings flood over him.

He diverts the flow, this time, and lets the scarlet roar and pressure of the blood heat rush through his loins like an infusion of liquid flame and it stiffens him and he goes over to her as she talks and spreads her legs, ripping the flimsy little bikini panties off her, wetting the head of his engorged sex and ramming in, squeezing her soft white thighs, and she is letting herself be manipulated and still valiantly trying to finish the story as her upper body goes back on the bed and he hears, “...as bad as Toby, and I'd wake up and he'd be doin’ it to me in my sleep, ya know, or I woke up, like this one time, ‘n I was so sore that—” Three, four minutes he bangs away, holding her to him in those vise grips. He ejaculates, pulls up his pants, buckles his huge belt that required the entire length of a dead cow to supply a sufficiently long piece of continuous leather. “...'n of course I suspected what he'd been doing to me'—and he pats his pockets for keys—'and like this one guy who took me home one night from this place that me and Mary Beth went to, the Triple Nickel? So we got'—and he picks up the heavy jacket—'so drunk and we were partyin’ outside after'—pats the special canvas pocket—'and this guy who I knew starts'—feels the reassuring weight—'partying with us'—she laughs at the humor of the night, all as real to her as the moment—'and man, we really got'—the weight of the heavy chain excites him anew—'fucking WASTED, you know'—and he heads for the hand pump—'and, God, I didn't even know where'—she hears him in the small, adjoining room, pumping water—'I was or what I was doing.'

Daniel Bunkowski's sperm inside her, Sissy sees her man leaving, and she tells him, “The next morning I knew he'd taken advantage of me, you know, ‘cause I was so sore.'

The door of the shack opens and she tells his huge back, “Uh, hey, you know maybe next time you ought'— but he is out the door now—'to take [SLAM]—some precautions...?” she asks, her voice trailing off into nothingness. A small tree falling in the forest.

BUCKHEAD STATION

It was unusually quiet in the squad room, but Eichord only noticed the stillness when it was shattered by a phone on Brown's desk, and the ensuing one-way conversation that Jack tuned out. Eichord, Lee, Tuny, and Brown were all doing paperwork. The clack of Tuny's typewriter and the deep sonority of Brown's resonant tones had a lulling effect on Jack, who was sleepy and bored and clock-watching at three in the afternoon.

He was doodling. Drawing a picture of the little kitten, a terrible likeness. Filling in the clearly delineated M in the middle of the cat's forehead that seemed to mark so many gray cats, a species of animal about which he knew next to nothing.

But he thought about Boy, their dog, the day it was killed. He still remembered Boy, whom he'd adopted, or who had adopted Jack, while he was working on a murder case in Dallas. He remembered that last day he was holding the dog in his lap and he told the animal, “It's hard to imagine you used to be a starved, puny mutt. Now look what we've got.” He patted the dog. “I guess I've made you what you are today,” he said as he affectionately patted the obese canine's low-slung belly. “Fat,” to which Donna had said cheerfully from the next room, “I certainly hope you're not talking to me,” and they'd laughed. That same day Boy had run out in the street in front of the wrong truck. Adios, Boy. He was glad he'd brought the kitten home. He was sitting there thinking about Tuffy when Lee said, “Jack!'

“Yo.'

“Quit that daydreamin'.'

“Right.'

“You had a weird expression on your face. What were you thinking about?'

“Pussy,” he answered truthfully, “gray pussy.'

“I ain't never had any that old yet. Peg's starting to look a little gray but it may be only a urinary infection. That's what we suspect anyway.'

“I'm beginning to suspect YOU'RE a urinary infection. I know you sure can piss a person off.'

“Hey, that's not bad. Well, that's all right. Shit. I was starting to wonder if you'd lost it. Long as you can still zing one now and then I don't have to worry. In case tub” — he gestured at the rotund cop typing at the desk next to his—'ever gets hold of a bad burrito and pulls the pin on me I at least know where I can get a partner with a sense of humor.'

“Listen to this shit,” fat Dana said. “There's a Peter Drier in Records down at Metro. Dig it, girls, we ain't even got a washcloth in the men's room and those assholes have their own Peter Drier!” He screamed, stamping his feet the way he'd seen Sammy Davis Jr. do once on TV. “Oh, damn, I'm funny.'

“Uh huh,” Eichord said, yawning loudly.

“Yeah,” his partner said as he turned, “Chunk, you really are a fucking ton of fun.'

Jack got up and stretched. Then he shoved his chair up to the desk and left for home. Shank of the afternoon. He'd had it. Fuck it. He was tired of listening to the phone ring and wondering when it would be IAD wanting to talk to Jimmie Lee.

And every week that went by without another problem Lee would say to him when they were alone—nudge, nudge, “See. I tole ya. Nobody's gonna know nothin',” and Eichord would let his shoulders droop and he'd close his eyes and just stand there, his entire body screaming. No ... WRONG ... But Lee would get all the more adamant about it. How it had been “just one of those things.” And it was all over. But they both knew it wasn't like that. Eichord had done a lot of stupid things in his time but he'd always been wise about money. And he knew and he knew that Chink knew: stolen money never spent well.

STOBAUCH

With the injection of sex into their bizarre relationship something else changed between Daniel and Sissy. He began to notice her for the first time. This, in itself, was not good. He was beginning to notice that she was THERE, a human presence where for so many years there had been nothing. He had never tolerated proximity of any kind, even slammed down tight behind bars he was the classic example of a con doing his own time. Daniel was a loner.

Now he would come “home” after his days of exhausting work and be vaguely irritated that someone was