The Backwoods

dinner. And you know how fierce the wife bitches at me when I miss dinner. Fuckers’d be out on bail in the time it takes me to fart.”

“Roger that.”

“But we better look the vehicle over. Check that guy’s pockets and under the seat.” Sutter opened the Humvee’s back door for a quick search. Jesus . . . He found a tackle box full of more ice. “Bet there’s a thousand bucks’ worth of dope in here,” he said.

Trey peeked between the front seats. “More’n that, by the looks of it. Just think of all the kids they’d be selling it to. And look at what the hippie was carryin’.” He held up a small pistol.

“Jesus. These guys.”

Sutter shoved the dizzy black guy back into the front seat, but before he closed the door—

Crack!

—he raised his fiberglass nightstick high over his head and whacked it down across the guy’s thigh. The thighbone snapped like a stout bough.

Trey whipped out his own billy. “A limp to remember us by. The same for this one?”

“Naw. He’s gotta drive. But I think a Southern-style haircut might do him justice. Fucker must think he’s in Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

Trey twirled a finger around a lock of Kid Rock’s hair, pressed his other hand against his head, and yanked as though starting a lawn mower. The kid barked a righteous yelp when a clump of hair popped out of his head along with a square inch of scalp.

Sutter’s temples pounded in sudden disgust as he looked at the shining vehicle and the gold chains on the wheezing black man. “It ain’t fuckin’ fair, ya know? I ain’t an ungrateful man, and I ain’t greedy either. But I got my problems just like any hardworkin’ man. Them two mortgages I was telling you about are bleedin’ me dry, car insurance just gone up again and so did county property taxes, not to mention the damned Ay-rabs keep jacking the price a’ gas. Got a wife that eats more than the Redskins defensive line, God love her, and who runs my credit cards up like she’s Bill fuckin’ Gates’s wife insteada the wife of a small-town police chief, and now the blasted AC up ’n’ broke, so that’s gonna cost me out the ass . . . so I am pinched to the max. I’m so broke I can barely pay fuckin’ attention, and then look what we got here.” He glared intensely at the shuddering black guy and his accomplice. “We got two piles of walkin,’ talkin’ garbage wearing gold jewelry and drivin’ a brand-new Hummer, and how’d they get the kind of bread for all that?” He looked at the bags of crystal meth. “By sellin’ this shit. Yes, sir, these pieces a’ shit live large and got enough cash to choke a fuckin’ horse, and what do I got? Enough debt to choke a fuckin’ horse.” He slammed the Humvee door, made a fist of his right sand mitt, and said directly to the black guy, “We don’t take kindly to people sellin’ drugs in our town, so listen up.”

He pinched the guy’s cheeks together. “You ‘n’ your buddy are gonna turn this jalopy around and drive outta here, and you ain’t gonna stop till you’re plumb out of this county, and you’re never, and I mean never, gonna come back here again, and if we ever, and I mean ever, see you anywhere near Agan’s Point in the future—”

Whap!

He rammed his sand mitt right into the guy’s mouth.

“—we might have to rough ya up a little.”

The black guy was spitting out teeth. Kid Rock convulsed behind the wheel, backing the Hummer up and spinning wheels out of the lot.

Trey rubbed his hands together. “All in a day’s work, huh, Chief?”

“Damn straight. And I snagged myself one hell of a Mantle card. Pisses me off, though.”

“What’s that, Chief?”

Sutter dropped the tackle box and rest of the drugs into the garbage. “A small fortune worth of dope, and those punks probably sell that much shit to kids every damn day.”

“Sure they do.”

“Driving around in a brand-new fifty-grand Hummer—”

“That tricked-up model? Sixty, sixty-five at least.”

“Yeah, and we drive clunkers. Gold chains, too. Shit. Only thing I can afford to wear around my neck is a line of sweat. Ain’t right.”

“No, it ain’t, Chief.” Trey crossed his arms with a look of concern. “But I’d say we done a lotta good today. Ain’t no drugs gonna be sold by them fellas fer a while. And . . .” Trey paused to reflect on something. “Let me ask you somethin’, Chief.”

Sutter scratched his belly, trying to shake off the irritation. “Go ahead.”

“Is stealin’ from a thief really stealin’?”

“Huh?”

“If a fella breaks the letter of the law but the only person he victimizes is a lawbreaker himself, is that really a crime?”

Sutter didn’t get where this was coming from. “Well, you told me Father Darren said lusting after another woman ain’t really lust so long as you wouldn’t really get it on with her. So I guess . . . no, it ain’t.”

“I didn’t think so neither, ‘cos, see . . .” Trey reached in his pockets. “While you were checkin’ the backseat, I took the liberty of lightening up those boys’ wrists—”

“The Rolexes?” Sutter queried with some excitement.

“Yeah, Chief, the Rolexes.” Off of two fingers, Trey dangled two genuine Rolex Submariners. He passed one to Sutter. “No doubt it was drug money those guys used to buy these.”

Sutter inspected the watch with a gleam in his eye. “No doubt.”

“So we could sell these fine watches and give the money to the charity of our choice, or we could even —”

“We could even wear the fuckin’ things ourselves,” Sutter finished, and put the watch on. Perfect fit. “It’s legitimate for officers of the law to own accurate timepieces.”

“Roger that.” Trey put his on too, admiring it. “And one more thing. Since we agree that lustin’ after a chick you wouldn’t bone ain’t lust, and stealin’ from a criminal ain’t stealin’ . . .”

Sutter’s eyes widened.

“Look what my fingers found in Kid Rock’s pocket.” Now Trey held a wad of bills. Mostly hundreds showed when he fanned the stack. “A little more than two grand here, Chief, and tell me if I’m wrong, but this here pile of cash is pure drug profits. It ain’t money those fellas earned mowin’ lawns.”

“It’s ill-gotten gains procured during a critical police procedure, Trey,” Sutter embellished. “We’ll split it.”

Trey handed over the whole wad. “Nope. You take it, Chief. You buy you ‘n’ your wife the brand-new air conditioner you need. You asked God fer help, and He just answered your prayer. Me? I’m fine. When I need some help, I’ll ask the Lord myself.”

This shitty day just turned really fine, really fast. Sutter pocketed the money with some haste. “I’ll remember this, Trey. Thanks.”

Trey grinned. “Don’t thank me. Thank the Lord.”

I damn straight will. . . . “We’ll drop the gun off next time we go up to county. And right now?” Sutter looked at the Qwik-Mart. “Coffee and doughnuts on me.”

“Make way fer the law!” Pappy Halm celebrated behind the counter. “Our fine boys in blue! Agan’s Point is damn proud to have such brave officers protectin’ us!”

“Proud enough to slide us free coffee and doughnuts?” Trey asked.

“Hell, no! What do I look like? Fuckin’ Santa Claus?” Halm winked. “But refills are half-price.”

“You’re all class, Pappy.”

Sutter wended to the doughnut display and began to tong out a box of cream-filled and glazed. “Guess that poor black fella’ll have to sell some of his gold to cover his dental bill.”

Trey guffawed. “Yeah, and Kid Rock’ll have to comb his hair funny to cover up the permanent bald spot.”

Pappy Halm slapped his thighs. “They picked the wrong guys to fuck with today!”

“Never seen a worse pair of scumbags in my life,” Trey added, eyes cruising over the mag rack full of Hustler, Penthouse, and Playboy.