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anything?”

“The…internet? Oh, yeah, that magic stuff that’s connected ta yer fancy ‘puter.” Helton passed the laptop down to her. “Please, hon. Ya gots ta help us.”

Veronica frowned and went to Google. “What’s Paulie’s last name?”

(III)

“Vinchetti,” Helton told her. “Paulie Vinchetti. It Eye-tallion I’se think,” and then the big man sat in the fold-down chair as pleas and prayers spun round his head. Please, God. Let it be so that Veronnerka can help us git a line on this devil-lovin’ Paulie…

He jolted when the cellphone rang.

Veronica looked up from her keyboard. “Who on earth could that be?” she said with more sarcasm.

Helton opened the tiny phone. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Helton, ya big redneck pile’a shit,” Paulie’s voice cracked. “I’m just calling to see how you liked our little movie,” and then laughter spilled from the tiny phone.

Helton’s soul began to boil. “Hear me, ya evil prick, and hear me good. We’se gonna git you back like you never could ‘magine!”

“Sure, Gomer, sure—”

“And stop callin’ me that! I don’t know no Gomer!”

The tinny laughter crackled. “Grow a brain, buddy. Go home…” then the laughter exploded. “But, aw, gee, now that I think of it, you can’t go home, can you? ’cos we burned that fuckin’ shit-hole you live in down!”

“Ain’t no big deal, Paulie,” Helton recovered. “I’ll just build me a new house…once I pawn all them diamonds’n gold chains’n such that I stolt out your whore wife’s jewelry boxes.”

Paulie’s laughter faded. “Lemme tell ya somethin’, Helton. Nobody fucks with Paul Vinchetti. Nobody. I never had so much fun in my life as when I was takin’ a shit in that cracker tramp’s dead mouth, but you can count on something else, too. One day, real soon, I’ll be takin’ a shit in yours.”

The line went dead.

Helton re-sat himself with a sigh. He closed the annoying phone.

“Fuck, Unc,” Micky-Mack said. “Was that him?”

“Yeah, it was.”

“What the evil bastard say?”

“Just trash talk, boy. Burns me up, though. Patience is a virtue—says so in the Good Book. Reckon I just gotta work a tad harder on that myself.”

“We’ll git him, Unc. We’ll git him.”

Helton watched Veronica fiddle with the little keys. “Havin’ any luck?”

“I think so,” she answered. “Paul Vinchetti is all over the internet. Mostly court dockets, pre-trial announcements, things like that. Shouldn’t take me long…”

“Hot damn!” Micky-Mack celebrated.

Helton clasped his hands together. Please, God. Please…

Moaning resounded from an opposite corner. It was Dumar, rousing. The stringy-haired man sat to stare, blinked, then brought his hand to his belly as if sick. “Aw, my Gawd, Paw. It weren’t a nightmare. It were real.”

“Just git’cher mind off it, son.”

“How could they do that ta my lovin’ wife? Shorely only the most devilish’a men could do what they done…”

“The more ya think about it, the worst you’ll feel. Best ta think ’bout what we’ll do ta git ’em back.”

But Dumar just kept moaning. “Awwwww, awwwww. Bad enough they fucked her but-but, aw holy Moses!” and then his voice corroded down to a dismal gurgle. “They put her back in the ground with her belly full’a their shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit…”

Distracted, Veronica shot a sharp glance up. “What?”

“Nothin’, hon. He didn’t say nothin’,” Helton urged. “Just…git back ta yer ‘puterin’.”

Veronica flinched, then resumed her key-tapping.

“My lovin’ faithful wife,” Dumar continued to moan. “How… how could they?”

“Micky-Mack,” Helton snapped. “Take Dumar outside fer a breath’a fresh air. It’ll do him good.”

“Shore, Unc,” and then the younger man escorted Dumar out.

Faithful, lovin’ wife? Helton reflected. Well, that wasn’t quite the case. He’d heard a story or two about Mary Beth. He couldn’t substantiate them but…

Dumar had likely heard some stories as well but disregarded them posthaste—love, indeed, was blind. When one was in love, one chose not to believe such gossip. Nevertheless, Mary Beth had had a reputation before her proper marriage to Dumar: a reputation of promiscuity. There’d been one time, though, after the marriage, when the corn liquor rations had worn thin, and Mary Beth—quite the toper, mind you—had implied that if Helton upped her ration slightly, she might be inclined to express her gratitude via oral avenues. (Dumar had been out on a deer hunt for several days when this occurred.) But Helton—naturally—had declined the sultry woman’s offer and had, well, punched her up a bit for stooping to such an immoral low. It stood to reason, though, that if Mary Beth had made this offer to Helton for extra liquor, there existed a high order of probability that she’d made the same offer to others; hence, cheating on Dumar. Further, Helton had heard quite a few verifications of this…

Of course, he’d never mentioned this to his son, and the whopper of a bruise on his wife’s face had been convincingly explained as the result of a clumsy fall whilst gathering firewood. But the woman, point-blank, was a high-order tramp, and Helton supposed it was even possible that the sprightly, young—and now very dead—Crory Tuckton had been in fact sired by loins other than Dumar’s.

So much, then, for faithful, lovin’ wife.

Helton looked woefully at Veronica just in time to see her glance up, smile, and say, “Got it.”

“What’cha got, hon? What’cha got?” he replied excitedly. He stooped over to look at the screen.

“I pulled up a newspaper, and—”

“Newspaper? Where?”

Veronica grew flustered. “On my computer. Online.”

“But that ain’t no newspaper! That’s a machine.”

Veronica couldn’t have sighed more wearily. “It’s the New York Times-dot-com, Helton. No, it’s not a physical newspaper, it’s the newspaper’s website.”

Helton gripped his own head. “Hon. All’a this tek-noller-gee’s givin’ me a blammed headache!”

Veronica’s own headache throbbed. “It’s a newspaper in magicland, all right?” She could’ve screamed. “Anyway, it seems that Paul Vinchetti comes from a long line of alleged criminals. He’s been arraigned a dozen times for everything from racketeering, bribery, and tax evasion to drug trafficking, contract murder, and distribution of illicit pornography.” She shrugged. “But he’s never been convicted. Dream Team lawyers and lots of money. Look. Here’s a picture of him,” and then she read the under-caption: “‘Alleged Mafioso Paul Vinchetti, aka Paulie the 3rd, seen here leaving federal court after his trial. Vinchetti was arrested in June for allegedly producing snuff films for the underground porn market. All charges were dropped when state’s witnesses failed to appear.’”

Helton squinted at the shimmering screen…

“So there he is. Paulie,” he intoned. The smartly dressed man in the digital photo smiled as he was about to get into a waiting limousine. “Rat-faced little bastard, huh? Ya can just tell, Veronnerka. Ya can tell how evil that man is by lookin’ at his face.”