“Keep talking,” Frost instructed.
“And this flyboy got the drop on us and took her!”
“You expect me to believe that? Three hardened criminals like the Tuttle Boys. Bested by some rocket jockey?”
“It’s the truth! I swear to God!”
“Yeah, tell him why he got the drop on yer sorry ass!” Gideon bawled, as blood flowed out through his fingers. “I told you God was gonna strike you down! And I’m caught up in yer iniquity. Look at me, you goddamned heathen bastard!”
“What the fuck is he babbling about?” Frost gave Rayford a puzzled look. But it was Gideon who answered.
“I warned you about going against God’s Word, boy! I warned you not to lay with an animal! You got caught with yer pants down and yer dick out, didn’t ya? An’ now look at us!”
“Whoa!” Frost’s countenance suddenly changed, as the color drained from his face. When he turned back to Rayford, the look on his face struck the thug’s heart like an icy knife. He visibly recoiled. “Am I to understand your nasty little peter tainted my client’s property?”
“I didn’t know it was gonna cause all this trouble, I swear!”
“Well, this is terribly disappointing,” Frost shook his head. He gave a sarcastic sigh. “This will do serious damage to our friendship. But, fortunately, it’s not irreparable.” He leaned down and got in Rayford’s face. “I want you to tell me everything you remember about this knight in shining armor.” He smiled cruelly, as he added, “Loverboy.”
“He was just an old spacer. Like the ones you used to see around town years ago. Those cocky pricks with their hot-rod rocket ships ...”
“And if I was one of these cocky pricks …” Frost raised a brow. “Where would I hang out when I was rockside?”
“They usually stay around the VBS … the spaceport. Several old fleabag motels around there.”
“Name?”
“I dunno. I swear! If I did I’d give it to you!”
“Don’t you worry ‘bout him!” Gideon growled. “When we find him, he’s dead meat! He shot my boy’s hand off!”
“I don’t think so,” Frost disagreed. “I need you to stay out of my way.”
“We could help you,” Rayford volunteered. “We both can handle a shootin’ iron!”
“Last thing I need is to babysit a family of incompetent low-level criminals.” Frost shook his head. He held up his index finger and twirled it, signaling to his men that it was time to wrap it up here. He turned back to Gideon. “Where’s your other boy?”
“He’s up in Tennessee,” Gideon lied. He kept harboring hope that Junior would come in blasting, catching the bastards by surprise. “Sent him to Fayetteville on business.”
“That right?” Frost asked. “Is he a virile young man? Give you any grandkids yet?”
“What concern is that of your’n?”
“No concern of mine at all.” Frost smiled. “It’s just that this one won’t be carrying on the Tuttle family line.”
He shot Rayford at point-blank range in the groin. An unearthly screamed pierced the air, like a banshee from ancient Celtic lore. Young Tuttle screamed and grabbed his bloody and ruined crotch. Gideon cursed vehemently. He started after Frost, but the mercenary’s masked henchmen knocked him savagely to the ground. He curled into a ball, as one gave him a vicious butt stroke to the ribs while the other put a boot into his kidneys as he walked past. Even so, he continued to unleash a barrage of venomous obscenities upon the whole lot, while his eldest son continued to wail horrifically.
Frost was the last one left inside the house when he heard Gideon call to him. “Why don’t ya jest kill us and be done wit’ it?”
Frost stopped and turned back to the old man still writhing on the floor, blood covering the side of his face. All the whiskey in Madison County couldn’t ease the pain he was in now.
A huge smile crossed the merc’s face. “I’m not paid to kill you. If I was, you’d been dead long before now. But the ear and the balls …” The smile grew broader. “That was on me. For my amusement. After all, we all need a little fun every now and then, don’t we?”
With that, he turned and walked back out the door.
***
Junior Tuttle had been walking back down the road with his stringer of fish when he saw the black vehicles land in his father’s yard. Dropping his rod and his catch, he hit the woods, making his way through the underbrush up to the edge of the yard. Crouching behind a large pine, he could only watch and listen helplessly as he heard the commotion inside. He heard shots and saw bright muzzle flashes through the ragged curtains. He heard his father’s angry ranting and his brother’s wails of pain. It became painfully obvious that he would find his family in a bad way, maybe dead, once the intruders left. But there was nothing he could do. There were too many of them. And the firepower they had … No, discretion was definitely the better part of valor in this instance.
Finally, the mysterious, black-masked men left, climbing aboard their menacing-looking contraptions and roaring off into the evening sky. He waited several minutes, making sure they were truly gone, before he emerged from cover. He then ran blindly for the house, almost tripping over the smoldering body of Sally.
“Paw! Ray!” he screamed, as he burst through the door. “You ok?” He froze in horror. Rayford lay on the couch, his lower body covered in blood. He was already unconscious, having gone into shock, his body succumbing to the extreme pain and loss of blood. Across from Rayford, in the old recliner, his father now sat. Blood trickled down the side of his face, oozing from the hole where his ear had once been.
“Oh, God!” Junior wasted no time in sending a
