The Minotauress

He looked at the can some more. His mouth began to water. And then:

'Fuck it.'

Dean opened the can, and took a big dip.

««—»»

'What the damn bloody fuck?' exclaimed the first cop.

The second cop squinted. 'What's that... hangin' out of his... '

'Dick?' the third cop finished.

The third cop would be one Sergeant Alphonse Taylor Lass, the DeSmet Police Department's ranking officer. He was essentially the chief, having only to answer to the town counsel and the mayor. His asshole and cock still felt radiant from the whore's first-class butt-suck and blow job back at the station. Fine indeed. But the recollection turned to rot at what he was looking at now in the hard streams of three police Mag-Lites.

It was the security guard who lay at their feet.

Pants down.

Eyes gone.

And—

Jesus! Sergeant Lass thought.

The kid's nuts were hanging out of his dead dick, from tender threads tracing back through his peehole.

'Jesus!' Sergeant Lass said aloud.

Eventually the county coroner—who was also the county recorder of deeds, the county magistrate, and the county's official notary—would transfer the perplexing corpus delectus to the Office of the South Dakota Medical Examiner where it would be properly autopsied and found to have had the entirety of its brain aspirated through the right ocular cavity.

This unfortunate security guard would not only prove to be the most bizarre murder to ever take place in DeSmet, South Dakota.

It would be the only murder to take place in DeSmet, South Dakota.

Sergeant Lass glared at his two accompanying constables. 'For fuck's sake! Isn't anybody gonna say anything? This guy's lying here with no eyes and his fuckin' balls hanging out of his dick! '

The first officer only stared, jaw jacked open. The second officer had already fainted.

Lass scratched his head, idly glanced up at the massive wooden sign erected above the cattle coves behind them. The sign read:

WELCOME TO THE LOHAN RANCH

««—»»

'Let me ask you something?' Ajax was examining the gold-plated trophy. 'How much did you get paid to crank the horns out of bulls?'

'Steers, not bulls. And I didn't get paid anything. I worked on my father's ranch. It was just one of the chores, like taking out the garbage.'

Ajax wheezed laughter, slapping his thighs. 'Cranking horns off of magnificent spectacles of nature is the same thing as taking out the garbage?'

'You pansy city boys take out the garbage, farm boys crank horns,' Dean elaborated.

Ajax continued to wheeze as they set down the case of Tsing Tao beer, which they'd picked up at the Ballard Market on their way over. Ajax was on an oriental-beer kick. Dean didn't care. He spat tobacco juice in the sink.

'That's the spirit,' Ajax observed, then looked around the quaint split-level. 'Guess you cleaned the place up since your wife had her conniption fit.'

'Well, no,' Dean said.

'But the place is immaculate!'

'Not really. It could use a vacuuming, and a dusting.'

'Man, you are whipped. Daphne's turned you into a slave.' Ajax cracked open two Tsing Tao's, passed one to Dean. 'She should be doing that shit. I'll bet you even do the cooking.'

'Yeah, but only because I like to cook.'

'Um-hmm.' Ajax wasn't convinced as he browsed around with his beer. It was a modest but nice new house, appointed in light tones and new furniture. 'Decent crib,' he approved. But when he turned back around, Dean was walking away up the dark stairs.

Some host. Ajax followed. 'Ah, the love den,' he observed when he found Dean standing in the bedroom. 'So this is where you get it on with your beautiful wife... once a month?'

Dean wasn't listening. He rummaged for something in the opened closet, his back to Ajax. 'You got me remembering,' he murmured.

'What?'

Dean pulled out a moving box full of books, sat down on the bed with it. He swigged more beer, then began to search through the books.

'Let me ask you something,' Ajax said. 'How the hell can you chew that funky tobacco and drink beer at the same time?'

'Fifteen years of experience, that's how. Every day from age ten to twenty-five, I pinched a can a day.'

'Back in the old days, huh?' Ajax grinned. 'The horn-crankin' days.'

'Any rancher with balls eats and drinks with a lip full of Skoal. Only pussies don't.'

'I'm edified,' Ajax remarked. 'And what are you looking for?'

'Just... something... '

'You're acting weird, man. I like it.' Something in the back of the closet caught his eye, something long that reminded him of a giant pair of pliers. He walked over, pulled it out, then weighed it heavily in his hands. Parallel