He felt his crotch, nodding in satisfaction. Who needs porn? I’m ready to go without it. Yes, Ethel Hild . . . She’d been something. For some reason, making that weirdo husband of hers watch as he’d dropped the ax made it that much more of a turn-on. Junior had especially liked the way her titties jiggled as he’d chopped, and then when she’d started crawling away. . . ?
The recollection enticed him further. But soon other images entered his head. Judy, he thought next. Not a bad-lookin’dish either, and those big tits? Junior wouldn’t mind doing a similar job on her, just tear the clothes right off her and get her really screaming. And then another image . . .
Patricia.
She was about the cream of the Agan’s Point crop: one hundred percent pure-grade fox. That silky, bright red hair? And the tits on her? Jeez . . . Junior was breaking out in a sweat just thinking about that one. Maybe get her ‘n’ Judy at the same time, have me a double stack.
Then chop them both in half when he was finished.
All these delicious images challenged Junior’s power of decision. Who to think about? It got downright maddening sometimes. . . .
He sat down on the couch, was about to pull his pants down and get to it, when—
There was a knock on the door.
Junior sputtered. Jesus, a man can’t even jerk off in peace around here! Grunting, he got back up, shifted his pants a little, then opened the door.
“Howdy, Junior. You got a package.”
The mailman, Charlie Meitz. He was a big guy with a shaved head, and a mustache that made him look sort of like Hitler.
Junior frowned. “Why didn’t ya just leave it in the mailbox?”
“Too big. Plus, I wanted to say hi.”
Shit. Charlie shook the box, offering a sly smile. “What’s this? A videotape?”
“Don’t you be shakin’ my mail around,” Junior complained. God, he hated interruptions.
Now the postman looked at the return address. “Hmm, T and T Video, California. Sounds like one a’ them porn companies—”
“Gimme that!” Junior barked. He snatched the box away and closed the door. Fuckin’ nosy pain in the ass . . . He peered out the side window, looked down the driveway of the crappy little house he and his brother shared, then muttered, “Aw, shit! Cain’t even beat off in my own house!” Just after the mail truck pulled away, Ricky pulled the pickup up into the driveway.
Fuck. Business would have to wait; Ricky’d be going out late tonight to do more of the job they’d both been hired for. He opened the box that the mailman had brought him and, sure enough, out slid a brand-new copy of Barnyard Babes #4.
Cain’t wait to watch this one again. It was a real hoot what some of those dirty chicks did.
He bellied over to the kitchen table and put the tape down. That nutty postman had also given him the rest of the regular mail, which Junior flipped through now. Buncha’shit, he thought. Here was one letter from the county supervisor of elections, urging him to register to vote. Fat chance. Phone bill, power bill, water and sewage bill. Least we got the money to pay, he thought. Felps paid well, and he and Ricky both were hoping the man would want more work.
There was one more letter in the pile, but . . . Don’t look like no bill, at least. It was addressed specifically to Junior, in scratchy handwritten scrawl.
There was no return address.
(II)
It was dirty work, but that was what Ricky Caudill was cut out for. He didn’t like to be bored. His brother had done a good job last night, real down and dirty, and the effect was exactly what they’d been hired for. Junior had killed the Hilds in grand style, and Trey had flaked their room at the Stanherd house. So . . .
Tonight’s my turn.
It should be a fast, easy job. Those first dozen or so disappearances hadn’t done the trick. No dice, Ricky thought. As it turned out, only a handful of Squatters had left. So Felps had this new idea, something on a bigger scale. If the state cops thought the Squatters were running an extensive meth operation, they’d roust them big-time, and Judy would just say to hell with it, and sell the land out from under them anyway. Then . . .
Problem solved.
The moon hung low beneath reefs of clouds. Ricky slipped through the woods along a barely visible trail. He didn’t hear many cicadas tonight; their season would be ending soon. Ricky felt totally alone and totally at peace. Another hundred yards or so and he’d be at the tree line around the Point.
In one hand he carried his bag of “supplies”: two bottles of denatured alcohol, some Breathe-Free sinus medication, a smaller bottle of acetone, matchbooks, and a couple of grams of crystal meth. Most of it would be destroyed in the fire, but there’d still be enough traces left over to convince the police and fire department what had happened. The plan sounded perfectly plausible; all the time you’d hear how meth-heads would accidentally spill a little solvent on their stove elements, and next thing they knew, their trailer was burning down. That was what was going to happen tonight.
In his other hand, he carried a hubcap mallet.
Almost there, Ricky thought. At the wood line, he slowed. The only trick was getting in and out without being seen. He’d already had the place picked out; some Squatter named David Something-or-other had himself a small wooden shack at the western edge of the woods, fairly far away from most of the others.
He crept up, careful not to let the bag crinkle. Moonlight painted one side of the shack luminous white. Shit . . . He slipped by quickly, then plunged into the darkness of the shack’s front side. No lights could be detected from the makeshift windows, but he did hear snoring—a good thing.
And another good thing: out here in the quiet, peaceful boondocks, nobody ever locked their doors. Hell, most of these Squatter shacks didn’t even have doors, just curtains or hinged planks, or sheet plastic, like this guy had.
Ricky ever so quietly set the bag of incriminating supplies down on the front stoop; then he stepped through the sheet plastic.
He’d seen David Something-or-other on the docks and around town in the past. Didn’t know the guy, but then Ricky didn’t associate with Squatters, except maybe some of the trashier girls for twenty-dollar tricks, but there weren’t many who did that. This guy was in his thirties, it looked like, short like all the Squatters, but built up pretty well from working his ass off all his life hauling crab bushels. Ricky, on the other hand, was more fat than muscle, and without some backup or a knife—or, in this case, a big hard-rubber hubcap mallet—he probably wouldn’t stand a chance against this David cracker.