Squatter.”
Trey roused to object. “I was just speakin’ figurative, Chief,” he said, pronouncing the word as
“About what?”
“About lust in the heart, and he said that since all men was born in original sin, we’re all guilty of lust—can’t help but be—‘cos it’s all in our genes. So it’s okay to eyeball a hot gal now and again, ’cos it’s a manner of appreciatin’ the beauty God gave to women.”
Sutter’s eyes narrowed. “Father Darren said it’s
Trey raised a finger to finish his point. “As long as you know in your heart that ya wouldn’t really have sex with her once it got down to brass tacks. I know you’d never cheat on yer fine wife, June, and I sure as shit’d never cheat on Marcy. Don’t matter that they both gone to fat and got tits hangin’ down to their thighs. That’s ’cos God blesses us in our love.”
Sutter sighed.
“Anyway, Chief, that’s what Father Darren means in a nutshell. It’s okay by Him that you look at other chicks every once in a while as long as ya’d never really hobnob with ‘em.”
Trey grinned. “And look at it this way, Chief. That little piece a’ eye candy got your mind off your money problems, huh?”
The recollection of those breasts, those curves, and those legs waylaid him. “It got my mind off ‘em, but I still
“Patience is a virtue, Chief. Says so in the Bible. God smiles upon a patient man. . . .”
Sutter shook off the after-imagery as he pulled into the convenience store, where a gleaming, brand-new Humvee occupied one of the parking spots, tangerine orange and ten coats of lacquer. A shifty-looking black guy in his mid-twenties, in baggy pants and gold chains, had just hung up the pay phone and was coming back to the car, giving them the eye.
“Fucker’s got more gold chains than Mr. T.,” Trey observed with a smirk. “And look at the watch on the son of a bitch. Looks like a Rolex.”
“We know where he gets that kind of money,” Sutter remarked. His own watch cost $7.95 at the drugstore. “And look at those rings on him, too. Fucker’s all decked out like a Harlem pimp.”
In the Hummer’s driver’s seat sat a long-haired white kid with scruff on his chin, and similar gold chains and watch.
“We know what these scumbags are all about, so keep on your toes,” Sutter said. “I’ll take the rapper and you take the white guy.”
“Gotcha, Chief. Thumb snap’s off.” He grinned at his boss and released the snap on his holster. “We ain’t had a tussle in a spell. I’m ready.”
“You keep your dander down unless ya need it.” Sutter hit his own thumb snap; then he added, “And it can’t hurt for us to mitt up.”
“Roger that,” Trey assented. They each slipped on their pair of Bianchi elastic-stretch sand mitts with nude trigger fingers and heavy-duty leather sand pouches reinforcing the knuckles and palms. Ideal for punching through doors or busting a scumbag’s face without consequently busting one’s own knuckles.
Sutter moved his own considerable bulk out of the car. He blocked off the black guy before he could get back to the Hummer, while Trey leaned against the driver’s door, arms crossed.
“Is there a problem, Officer?” the black guy asked a bit haughtily. His T-shirt read, RAPPIN? AND CAPPIN?, and he had a tattoo of an AK-47 inked over one apple-sized bicep.
“Oh, there’s a problem,” Sutter confirmed. “Turn around, hands flat out on the roof, and spread ’em. No sudden movements. Don’t fuck with me.”
“The fuck?” the white guy complained.
“Pipe down, Kid Rock,” Trey said, “or
The black guy glared. “I haven’t done anything wrong! You’re just shaking me down ‘cos I’m black!”
“Don’t give me that racist jive,” Sutter said back. “I don’t give a shit what color a man’s face is. The only kind of black man I call a nigger is a black man trying to sell crystal meth to kids.”
That was all the black guy needed to hear—“crystal meth”—before he realized he could either run his ass off or do three-to-five for possession and distro of Class II narcotics with another five tacked on for attempted distro to a minor. He chose to run his ass off.
He bolted off the car. Sutter, since he was not exactly dextrous nor physically fit, being obese and close to sixty, managed to get a handful of T-shirt, which sufficed only to slow the guy down around the comer of the car, whereupon the T-shirt tore away.
As for Trey, he didn’t appear to even break a single bead of sweat when in some impressive synchrony he—
—landed a solid fist right smack-dab into Kid Rock’s forehead, then—
“Holy Jesus, man, that hurts like a motherfucking motherfucker!”
—emptied half a can of GOEC-brand chemical spray into his eyes and bleeding, split-open face.
“Got ya covered, Chief,” Trey said next, sidestepping forward. He moved fast enough to cut off the black guy before he could get clear. Then—
—palm-heeled him once in the solar plexus.
Which sufficed to circumvent the attempt to flee.
“Getcha a case of beer for that one, Trey,” Sutter said approvingly, then lumbered over. “You simmer down the long-hair while I read this suspect his rights.” The black guy was sprawled out belly-down on the pavement, bug-eyed, barely able to move. He was sucking wind. Sutter promptly stepped on the back of his head, treating his face to a little dermabrasion the hard way. The guy flip-flopped on the pavement, shrieking like a little girl who’d just been scared out of a carny house of horrors.
Kid Rock had managed to stop screaming long enough to make the very unwise decision to attempt to drive off. Hair hanging in blood-drenched strings, he jerked his hand forward, touched the keys in the ignition, was about to start the car, when—
“Holy Jesus, mother of God, you gotta be fuckin’ shitting me!”
—Trey emptied the rest of the GOEC into his eyes.
Sutter dragged a dozenish bags of crystal methamphetamine, aka “ice,” out of the black guy’s pockets, not to mention a pipe, and—of all things—a 1964 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card. Sutter pocketed the card, then allowed the point of his steel-toed black oxford to come into direct proximity with the area of space that was occupied by the black guy’s scrotum. That took the rest of the zing out of him.
The cowbell on the door clanged. Pappy Halm, a well-known Agan’s Point local and the store’s proprietor, hobbled out front, aghast. He clacked toward the scene on his cane and objected in his typical loud rail, “What the hell ya doin’ Chief? I seen ya in the winder! All that fella done is make a blamed phone call! What right ya got to beat him down like that?”
Sutter showed him a handful of ice. “This walkin’ piece a’ shit here and his hippie buddy are selling these hard drugs to kids. Just tried to sell some to a fifteen-year-old not five minutes ago.”
“Oh, yeah?” Halm replied, then cracked the end of his cane hard up into the black guy’s crotch. Now the guy was gasping, screaming, and blubbering all at the same time.
“Want me to cuff Kid Rock, Chief?” Trey asked.
“Naw.” Sutter dragged the black guy up. “If we write this one up and take ‘em to county detent, I’ll miss
