Gut remembered that one, all right. They’d been killin’ time before a run that night too, and there was this hot brunette they picked up thumbing it down the Old Governor’s Bridge Road. Gut wanked hisself off in her face while Scott-Boy pooped her dog style in the dirt and took a whizz up her tail after he blew his nut. She had a right purdy body on her though, but she weren’t purdy fer long. See, she had real long hair on her too, just like Scott said, long straight dark hair hangin’ to her ass, so’s they tied her hair to the trailer hitch on the back bumper of the truck and then lead-footed it down St. Stephen’s Church Road at about a hunnert miles an hour. Weren’t much left of her time they was done. ’Course, that didn’t stop Scott-Boy from havin’ another roll-around with her ‘fore they dumped her off at the big stinky Millersville landfill…
Razzin’ could be had just about anywheres that had hitchhikin’ gals and bar whores and the like. But Gut and Scott-Boy never razzed in Crick City, their home town, on account of Crick City, unlike most of the burgs along the Route, had theirselfs their own police department and a ball-breaker chief the likes of which Gut and Scott preferred not to fuck with. Plus they didn’t want ta bust up no whores at Krazy Sallee’s ’cos Krazy Sallee’s, they’d heard, was owned by some big ugly fella named Natter. Now, Gut had never hisself seen this dude Natter, but the word was he weren’t no one ta fuck with eithers.
But that were not the problem Gut was a’contemplatin’ as he drove the big pickup onward. There was many, and one were the critters. Gut hisself wanked at least once a day, an’ several times durin’ a fine razz. It wasn’t that Gut preferred the feel of his own hand to the feel of girly works—he just didn’t want to catch no critters an’ such, what with the crabs that were now as big as the crabs the watermen hauled out the bay, and the penicillin-resistant gonorrhea, and this new syph they was talkin’ ’bout that’d put a pusser knot the size of a walnut on a fella’s knob, and a’corse the AIDS. It seemed a prudent concern in these times, but Scott-Boy didn’t seem ta give a tiddly. “Aw, all this AIDS ballyhoo, a bunch of hype, it is. Everbody knows ya only catch it if yer a queerboy or a drugshooter. ‘Fact, I was just readin’ ’bout it the other day in The Enquirer, says the Army invented AIDS to take care of the fudgepackers and druggies ’cos they’se don’t gen’rally amount ta nothin’ noways, or work jobs or pay taxes an’ contribit ta society.”
“But, Scott-Boy,” Gut interjected, “just ’cos we’se ain’t queerboys or drug-shooters don’t mean we couldn’t get it from some gal who’s been with one. Lots of these by-sexshools runnin’ about these days.”
“Aw, Gut, that’s just a load of the horseflop,” Scott came right back. “Sorry day when a natural man can git a killer bug just by makin’ proper love ta a woman.”
Sometimes Scott-Boy could be the shit-stupidest fella to ever walk, but Gut kept quiet. Gut hisself was shore no model of morality or Christian goodwill. He’d cut a fella’s throat for a tenspot anyday. He’d crack a splittail upside the head and wank on her milkers without a second’s reservation. And drivin’ for flake dealers weren’t no problem with him either; if they didn’t move the shit, someone else would. But he did possess one sensibility that Scott “Scott-Boy” Tuckton didn’t, and that was somethin’ called common sense.
Scott-Boy didn’t give a pig’s wink about much of anything. It was like he thought he was invincible. He didn’t care about the herpes or the AIDS. He didn’t care that someday someone might see ’em on a razz and tell the cops, nor were he afraid that someday the cops might nab ’em on a dust run. And he didn’t seem to give an outhouse grunt that if they kept going like they been going, somethin’ even worse might befall ’em…
Sooner or later we’se gonna pick the wrong folks ta razz, Gut thought fairly grimly.
It could happen, shore. One night they might be jacking a drunk with the brass knucks, and the fella might pull a knife, or next time they set to razzin’ a bar whore, well, what’s ta keep her from shucking one of them Saturday Night Specials from a purse and pumping him and Scott-Boy up with .25s? Gut shore didn’t want to do life up in the state slam, no sir, not where a fella couldn’t even take a shower without a bunch of bigger fellas givin’ it to him up the tail or making him get down and do the mouthjob on five or ten guys. Likewise, Gut shore didn’t want to wind up screamin’ like a stuck pig in some parking lot some night with a belly full of Stingers or hollowpoints. Just one mistake and that could be the end of some fine times indeed…
And it was just then, just that very minute whiles he was steerin’ the big pickup down the Old Dunwich Road that Gut’s ponderins socked home, and all of a sudden he had this really low, sicklike feeling way down deep in his breadbasket, and this was either ironic or terribly portentous considering what was about to happen to the both of them.
««—»»
Phil’s boss at the security job cut him loose without demanding any notice, which was quite considerate; Phil had guarded enough fabric shanks and spools of yarn. He spent the rest of the evening unpacking his things in his new room at Old Lady Crane’s boardinghouse. Moving hadn’t been too much of a hassle; he’d rented a U-Haul trailer for his furniture, and stuffed everything else into boxes. Then he was on the road, out of the bustling metropolis he’d lived in for the last decade.
And back to Crick City.
The room was no Buckingham Palace, but it would do for now. The rest of his conversation with Mullins earlier in the day had been pretty cut-and-dry, mostly tying up loose ends:
“Cody Natter’s dealing PCP?” he asked in disbelief. “Here in Crick City?”
“That’s right,” Mullins said. “And that’s why I need you, ’cos you got experience. Besides, I ain’t got no one else.”
This comment didn’t exactly make Phil feel like Cop of the Year, but he could see Mullins’ point. “So what about my rep with Metro?” he asked.
“You resigned, you were never charged. I don’t give a shit what’s on your record there. Just don’t pop any more kids with quads.”
“Wait a minute, Chief,” Phil felt obliged. “Let’s get one thing clear: I never shot anyone with quads or any other illegal ammo. It was a frame. Some guy named Dignazio set me up because he wanted my job. Hell, the only caps I popped were over the kid’s head. It was Dignazio who shot the kid with quads, then he made it look like it was me.”
“Yeah, right,” Mullins rushed. “Whatever.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“’Course I believe ya,” the chief said, smiling. “And even if you did it, I don’t care. What, I’m supposed to give a rat’s ass that you snuffed some pissant ghetto kid who was spotting for a PCP lab? You ask me, they should’ve given you a medal. Only thing I know is I got Cody Natter pushing the same shit in my town, and if I don’t take care of it, you and me’ll both be punching the night clock at the bedsheet factory. So do you want the job or not?”
“Yes,” Phil said without even thinking. But he didn’t really even need to think. The peanuts pay here was still more than he made as a guard, and at least he’d be a cop again.
But it wasn’t so much the job as the issue. Phil had a big problem with drugs. In the city, he’d seen what the stuff did to people, to their bodies, their minds, their whole lives. It was the most integral evil he’d ever imagined. They sold the shit to 6-year-olds on the playground, for God’s sake. The younger they got them hooked, the better, then they’d have the kids robbing liquor stores or turning tricks on the street. It was an industry that perpetuated slavery, and the goddamn courts seemed more concerned with the rights of the dealers than the innocent lives they destroyed. Crack, heroin, PCP—take your pick. They were all different but all the same, all part of the same machine that preyed on people’s weaknesses and used them up until there was nothing left. PCP in particular. They cut the shit with industrial solvents to make it cheaper; each drag caused brain damage, made you crazy. Phil thought if he could ever do anything useful in his life, it would be sending these evil motherfuckers to the joint for life. And here was Mullins, offering him another chance…