Header 2

Malone shoved the gruesome consideration aside. “So what now? We ready?”

Boover turned the camera on. “It’s rollin’, Chief. Now all we gotta do is put the mutt outside and be on our way.”

The Chief sighed sourly. Second thoughts? He glanced into the living room and watched Buster romp about, yipping and yapping in sheer innocent-dog happiness.

“Well, fuck, Boover, I just got ta thinkin’… Weatherman said it was gonna be in the mid-40s tonight. That’ll be damn cold fer little Buster.”

Boover frowned, not sharing his superior’s love for canines. “Buster’s got a fuckin’ fur coat, Chief, and…” He whispered. “It ain’t like he’s gonna be a alive for long anyway.”

The Chief gulped.

“Come on, Buster. Got’cha some viddles,” and from a Wendy’s bag the Chief produced one Triple Baconator. He cut it up into chunks and put in on the floor. Poor mutt don’t know it’s his last meal…

The puppy reveled, devouring the fast food, its tail-nub wagging with vigor. But when Malone looked up…

Boover was gone.

“Boover. Where ya at?”

“In here, Chief…”

Malone piloted himself back to the living room where—

“Aw, fer fuck’s sake!”

—he found his deputy in an awkward squat, pants at ankles. He was defecating rather cacophonously on the tacky carpet.

“We’re cops, Boover. We cain’t just up’n shit on the floor!”

“Hail, Chief. We been spittin’ and pissin’. Why not shittin’? No one’s gonna buy this place—in this economy? Obama’s full’a shit with all his talk ’bout fixin’ the housing crisis. Too busy lookin’ the other way when senior house dems secretly approve giant CEO bonuses for banks that took TARP money—”

“Aw, git off’a that now…”

“‘Sides, there ain’t no toilets and the mortgage company said we can use the place all week.”

The man had a point. We’ll just tell the mortgage folks some junkies busted in an did it… , but the truth was, Chief Malone was incontrovertibly distracted. Boover had finished, and was now wiping his ass dog-style on the atrocious carpet. Meanwhile, little Buster moved his bowels as well. If humans can do it, why not dogs? Malone’s current thought resounded like the voice of some displeased deity: We’se gonna let this cute little puppy get tortured’n kilt…

“What’s wrong, Chief?” Boover asked, hoisting up his police trousers. His lips “O”-d, then ejected a blast of tobacco juice down the hall.

Buster jumped up and down, so pleased he was to be in the presence of these men.

“Fuck, Boover. I don’t think I’se can go through with it. I mean look at him. Ain’t that just the cutest little puppy you ever seen?”

“Whole thing was your idea, Chief, and you ask me, ‘twas a good ‘un. Best way ta catch the puppy-killer’s ta get a picture of him snatchin’ the puppy. Then we put the picture on the damn tv and we got him. Won’t take but five minutes ‘fore someone recognizes him and turns the sick bastard in. And knowin’ the rednecks in this town? He’ll be turnt in dead.”

I shore as shit hope so… Malone knelt to pet Buster, who immediately began to lick the Chief’s face. Malone had a tear in his eye.

“It’s for a good cause, Chief. Think’a all the other puppy lives Buster here’ll be savin’…”

Malone had a frog in his throat. “Come on, Buster. Bet’choo’d like ta go romp about outside, huh, boy?”

The dog yipped and yapped, vaulting up and down.

Malone opened the kitchen door, and Buster sprinted out.

“It’s the best way,” Boover tried to console.

“Come on, let’s git out’a here. This place is depressin’ me… And”—Malone sniffed, smirking. “What you eat, anyway?”

“Guess it’s the pig knuckles and collard greens. Must’a et three, four plate’s of the stuff.”

“Gawd DAMN, Boover!”

They left the house and got into Malone’s ’92 Seville. No one spoke as the Chief pulled away, but when he glanced in the rearview mirror, he could see Buster bobbing up and down behind the fence, yipping a happy goodbye.

“I need a dang drink.”

“Too bad we’se both on duty till midnight, Chief. Cops don’t drink on duty…unless the boss says they can.” Boover winked.

“Aw, fuck. We’ll probably get a call—”

“Shit, Chief, we ain’t gonna get a call. This close ta Christmas? In our?juris? Come on. Let’s have a few up the Crossroads. We’ll just tell ’em we’re off duty.”

Malone felt flustered. I just sentenced a puppy to death…a HORRIBLE death. “Naw. We’ll get a call—”

“All right, whatever you say. But I’ll bet’cha we don’t get no calls. Bet’cha a fifth’a Turkey.”

“You’re on—”

“Unit, 207, do you copy?” the radio crackled.

“First bet I won in a long time—fuck—maybe my whole life,” Malone said, then keyed the mike. “This is 207, Connie. We are 10-8 on Trott Street. Go ahead.”

“Respond Code 3 to confirmed Signal 47 at 610 Druckerwood Drive in Peerce Point.”

“Piss,” Boover muttered. He spat a yard-long plume of juice out the window.

Malone scratched his head. “Dang, Connie. A Signal 47? The hail’s that?”

“Arson resulting in one or more homicides,” the staticky female voice answered.

Malone moaned. “We’se 10-6,” he droned.

Boover placed the portable “cherry” on the dash and turned it on. “At least Peerce Point ain’t far,” he remarked. “But I ain’t never heard’a Druckerwood Drive.”

“Me neither.” Malone rekeyed the mike. “Connie, what is it? A house, a apartment buildin’? What?”

The radio crackled. “610, Druckerwood Drive, Peerce Point”—a pause, then: “The Daisy-Chase Nursing Home…”

(II)

The big black truck lumbered along the back roads, and at the stroke of midnight, December 22nd officially became December 23rd. The night seemed warmer, stars glittered pristinely through overhead branches. The moon glowed like a cabalistic totem.

 Forebodences of the most acerbic sort seemed to rumble in Helton’s gut as his son manned the wheel. “Pull ‘er over, Dumar. Let’s sit a spell, git some sleep.”

“Shore thing, Paw.”

Veronica was already asleep, on the truck floor with her wrist handcuffed to the header table. When Dumar parked in a secluded grove, he cut the engine; the night swallowed the truck when the headlights went off. With only a candle burning now, the three men took seats in back.

Micky-Mack rubbed his crotch. “Dang, Unc. Sumpin’ about headers…”