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“Just now, man! Right down the street that goes to the Hess station! Paulie, you strap heat right now and go after ’em, you could catch the dudes doin’ all this head-fuckin’!”

Paulie sprang up. “Doc! Start up the Winnie!” He turned to Case Piece who’d grabbed Highball’s ankles, pulled, and—PLOP!—disengaged her head from Melda’s netherworldly vaginal barrel. “Get the whore out of here and tell Argi and Cristo to come in,” the don directed.

Paulie dragged Highball out of the Winnebago by her ankles. She convulsed; her bare buttocks slammed down the mini-steps and smacked the pavement. The instructions were communicated, and in moments, the big motor-home sped away.

“Fuck, man,” Case Piece said. “Them dudes are psycho.”

“Shrit, yeah, Crase!”

They carried the convulsant Highball into the warehouse. Margarine and vaginal slime slicked her hair down over her face as though an octopus were sitting atop her head. One blazing wide eye stared unblinking between two wet tendrils. When she regained some facsimile of her senses, she screamed at the top of her lungs and ran madly down a rear hall.

“She all fucked up,” Case Piece said. “Guess ya can only get your head stuck in a giant cunt so many times ‘fore ya go insane.”

“Shrit, man! This sure some frucked up Kuh-wiss-muss Eve!”

Case Piece got a grape drink from the fridge. He rubbed his crotch…

For no apparent reason.

“What ree do now, Clase?”

“Fuck, don’t know. Shit just don’t feel right all of a sudden”—he flinched. “You feel that chill, man?”

“Trill?”

Case Piece gazed off. “Like what my grandma always told me back in South East. Someone just bop over my grave…”

A door slammed, and flip-flops snapped aggressively down the hall. Wild-eyed, Highball stormed in, a plastic bag of her few belongings on one hand, hair wet from a much-needed shower. She buttoned up her overcoat. “Fuck this shit, man!”

“Highball, what’re you—”

“I’m out’a here. This fuckin’ place is a chamber of fuckin’ horrors!”

“Chill, babe, chill. Here, have a grape drink—”

“I don’t want no fuckin’ grape drink. I’m leaving!”

Case Piece cocked a funky glance. “Leavin’? As in skyin’ up?”

“Yeah!” and she yelled the response with such fervor that her magnificent breasts bounced behind the overcoat. “I’m skyin’ fuckin’ up, all right!”

“Why you wanna do that?”

Highball stared at him agog, thought back upon the evening’s entails, and screamed.

She stormed toward out of the warehouse and slammed the door.

Case Piece sat down on the busted couch. “There go the best piece’a trim thugs ever fuckin’ had, man.”

“Shrit, Clase!”

“Looks like we gotta baggie our skaggie ourselves now.”

“Frucked up, but…cran’t say I brame her…”

“Yeah…”

The two loser drug-dealers foundered then, much like a pair of supplemental characters in a novel that the narrative no longer had use for.

(IV)

Mike gazed through the store’s plate glass window, marveling at the shimmering Christmas lights garlanding the parking lot lamps. It was 11:30 at night. Did he tap his foot as if awaiting something? Meanwhile, the Muzak speakers crooned, “Walkin’ in a winter wonderland…”

Archie walked up to the main check-out. “Looks like Christmas rush is over.”

The store stood empty now, but they’d done good business most of the day. Recession be damned! Mike nodded slowly.

“Any word from Veronica?” Archie asked.

Mike winced. “Who?” He kept staring out the window, seemingly distracted.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Honestly? The Greeter’s cooze. When I’m putting the blocks to her real fast, it makes a noise like a window squeegee.”

Archie’s brow rose.

“I don’t like going down on her though. She takes a lot of B-Complex and ginko. Tastes…weird. Chalky on the tongue.”

“Terrific. Look, how about if I leave early?”

“Look. How about…fuck no?” Mike scowled.

“But the store’s empty!”

“It’s Christmas Eve, we’re open till midnight,” Mike reminded. “We have to assume our responsibilities. This isn’t the federal government, man; it’s free-enterprise. Ever heard of loyalty for the place that employs you?” Mike looked at his watch, then spotted something beyond the glass. A small car was pulling up. He grabbed his coat. “Gotta go.”

Archie sputtered, “Oh, that’s fair! Loyalty? You can leave early but I can’t?”

“Right, ’cos I’m the boss. Sucks, doesn’t it? Besides, my ride’s here.”

Archie smirked out the glass. It was the Greeter’s car.

Mike jabbed him in the shoulder. “I’m gonna make it so my dick’s up her butt at the stroke of midnight. Cool, huh?”

“Cool?”

“It’s symbolic, you know? When Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day..my dick’s in her butt.”

“Yeah, that’s real symbolic.”

“Have a merry Christmas, man, and if you close early even by one minute, you’re fuckin’ fired.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Archie hissed. When the doors sucked shut, he muttered, “That scumbag, egotistical, contradictory prick…” His frown encircled the empty store. I gotta stand here for another half-hour and I know fucking well no one’s coming in this late, but even before the thought finished, he looked up at a flash of lights and stout motor noise.

A great big white Winnebago was parking in the lot.

(V)

The Winnebago had cruised Pulaski for hours in search of the mysterious black truck, all to no avail. This circumstance did not improve Paulie’s disposition, which only frayed the nerves of his confederates further. “This is fucked up!” the don yelled from the passenger seat. “How can we drive around all motherfucking night and miss a big piece-of-shit black truck!”

“If they’re still in town, we’ll find ’em, boss,” Argi offered the consolation.

“They dug up my kid and fucked it in the head!”

“We’ll find ’em and make ’em pay.”

“Yeah,” Cristo said. “Enough of this sendin’ movies back and forth. I want to get my hands on those guys now. I’ll cut ’em up like pork ends—”

“Yeah,” Paulie added, “but only after we stump-grind ’em!”

Cristo had taken over the driving responsibilities. He stopped at the traffic light deeper in the residential