The insurance companies were the only parties with vested interests in the outcome besides the principals anyway-who were as a matter of course considered prime suspects for insurance fraud.
Yancey would do the initial paperwork and handle the interface should any be necessary.
He hadn't passed the word of any of this operation back to Uncle LeRoy LaRue, ostensibly because Yancey did not want to jeopardize-even theoretically-the positive outcome of the waiver of Roy's prison sentence that was due to come down from the governor's office around noon.
About now, Yancey thought as he got out of his car and with a load of books and other papers under his arm picked his way from the parking lot through the university campus, Lafayette and the Rudedudes would be following the wild girls flared out along the highway on motorcycles at some distance behind them, ready to radio Ramona and Mercedes should any suspect fuzz be sighted.
Yancey left his papers in his office-no messages yet.
Traipsed to the auditorium where his lecture would begin shortly.
The part about Lafayette and the Rudedudes was especially important.
In particular-and Yancey liked this twist-if anything went awry, Yancey could maintain that he as the sole semiofficial local representative of the law in this arena of justice had taken it upon himself to call out a posse that was now in pursuit of the bitchstresses and their pilfered loot.
That act could conceivably work right up to the border crossing.
After Yancey had delivered to an amused group of students an anecdotally laced, breezily paced talk on the state of the art in psychosexual anthropology, he returned to his office and drew a cup of coffee from the decanter.
He heard her saunter in.
Knew her well enough by now to recognize her walk by sound.
Smelled her bodyheat before he turned around.
Yancey had never told her so, but she might have been his daughter in this life or another if one believed in that stuff:
He felt that close to her.
"Care for some brew?"
"After we screw."
"Any news on the great escape?"
"There was none."
"I'm surprised at you. Thought you inner circle types were so savvy and well connected that even with the cover-up-"
"I mean they captured them already. Way before the border even."
"Cassie Lou-you've got to be bullshitting."
"I always do. But that doesn't mean you didn't blow it. Just like someone else we know."
"Name of Uncle Roy-"
"Tell me another story, grandmaw," Sadie Mae sniggered as she pawed Sallie Anne's trimmed cabbage patch.
"I could tell you the one about how daddy got down on his hands and knees and turned his fanny around so that everyone could see from the rear as he gored into all kinquim."
"Not that one again."
"Load my labia into your trap and maybe it'll help me think-"
"I want you to come again, Sallie Anne. Right in my face. I want to taste it."
"Fucking sucksisters," Mercedes blistered through twisted mouthlips. "It was you two squealing as you were ftatfucking and cuking and sucking each other off in the trunk that got the tollbooth bulldyke worked up in the first place."
Mercedes could almost taste the hatred basting her bite:
"Fucking cowsucking cunts. You cornfed, inbred, under-read pinhead lizzie doxies-"
Heavy snick of metal bars sliding.
"Here's another one," the jailhouse guard cackled lewdly through her well-chewed maw. "We already fucked on her for you all-she's ready to add to your euntslime stew."
The guard pushed Little Ramona rudely into the cell. Gave her hell on the back of the head with first a whack from her billyclub and then a yank of her hair.
"There she is. Now, girls-do as Auntie Trixie says and strip this vixen."
Ramona blew a stubbly bubble with her piece of dirty gum.
Popped it with pointed tongue.
Strung out an uninterrupted line of words unsepa-rated but accentuated with nagging twists of rhythmically clipped diction:
"Algun juzgado chingado aqui, bebe. En mi casa me dice que tu amiga puta gana su dinero especial haciendole la puneta a perras."
"Fucking chitter like a spider monkey, bitch. You must want to be hit more-bad!"
"I tell you what I said only because I want Sadie Mae and Sallie Anne and Mercedes to. know I said it: Some fucking jail here, baby. Back home they tell me your whore girlfriend makes her spending money jacking off bitch mutts."
"Bimbo slut," Trixie breathed. "I do believe you just asked for it-"
"Excuse my interruption," Mercedes puled abruptly. "But listen up, you Sapphic pulp. As a student in fashion design, I have to asked you who did your uniforms-quite enticingly butch-"
Trixie blushed.
"-If," Mercedes continued, "you like pickled gorilla clits. And, by the way, who does the decorating? You or your cuntsucking colleagues?"
"Move!"
Mercedes belched out loud.
Sallie Anne farted.
Sadie Mae puked out:
"You know, this is a free country and even we have a few liberties-"
"That's right," the guard chortled. "You have a right to go right down on that dogmeat bitch right in front of me or you'll get smacked right on your ripe melonheads. Right?"
"That's extortion," Sadie Mae blew. "Illegal too. You're the criminal."
The guard pointed her cudgel at Sallie Anne and Mercedes: "You two. Beat that sack of quimoil to a fucking pulp. Then have the little spic snit suck her hide dry from the inside."
Click of high-heeled footwear.
Guard's molten stare.
Memories returning like upchucks from.a cucumber and watercress sandwich consumed hastily at a tiresome garden party long ago in the eternal childhood of us all.
Jingle of rings strung from nipples. Clink of bells dangling from links strung through inner and outer labia.
Asshole limber and lined with rubber.
Mouth so pouting that you would want to club her. Smother her.
Love her.
Never could forget that face.
Boobs done up in leather and lace.
Stiletto heels, spurs of steel, and legs so long they ran. from hell to paradise.
"Cassie Lou? Is that you?"
"I do look a little different now," Cassandra Louise Lafayette LaRue Jones Massey said, smoothing the skirt to her business suit. "You like it rough, Trixie, as I recall"
Trixie snapped her club against her palm. Drew her tongue along her teeth.
"Deed I do."
"Funny how things turn out. I own you now," Cassie Lou flashed an ID, "Not only an attorney but member of the prison pardon and parole board. In certain, jurisdictions I may serve as arresting officer, prosecutor, judge, and jury."
"Back in the military, Cassie Lou-why, you was just a pussy-"
"Now I'm a tigress. You're under arrest, I saw enough evidence long ago to convict you as a neo-Nazi butchbitch sadist and sentence you to be properly wrenched into a pretzel and girlfucked until poached brainless in overheated bodyjuices induced by escalating and sequential climaxes of clitoral, vaginal, oral, and anal orgasm."
"Gawddamn."
"Unhand the prisoners directly. Remand them to my custody and your sentence shall herewith be hereby commuted forthwith.
"I'll let them go if you say so, Cassie Lou. But can't you have them punish me first?"
"Girls-I want you to summarily subdue and screw this chewed cud till she brings tears to your leers. It's okay. She's queer."
Chapter 8
Snatchlips snicksnacked spasmically to the rhythm of the radio. Balls bounced upon bellies as another round of brew went down at Uncle Roy's Roadhouse.