White trash. Crackers. Uncensused settlements of the catastrophically poor. People who lived off the land and had never had a real job, never been to the doctor's, had never owned a television. Children who'd never been to school. The Third World of America the Beautiful. They lived in lean-tos, tarpaper shacks, and abandoned trailers with no running water and no electricity. A cliche to the average person, but all too real in these parts. But Phil knew that all states had their rural poor, and all states had their hillfolk, tiny flecks of humanity swept aside by the world. For cash they sold sc.r.a.p metal and moonshine; for food they took to the woods. It was hard to believe that in a society of computer chips, banana chips, and anti-lock brakes, of sitcoms, Home Shopping Clubs, and pay-per-view, and of surround-sound stereos and microwave ovens-it was hard to believe that such dest.i.tution could exist at all, much less under the very nose of the same society...

He'd see them all the time as a kid, picking through garbage bags dumped in the woods, or wandering down the Route in ragpatch clothes and homemade fishing rods slung over their shoulders. Sometimes the children, filthy and smudge-faced, would beg for pocket change in front of the Qwik-Stops and general stores, until the proprietors ran them off. Yes, he'd seen them many times.

And maybe that explained Phil's unease about returning to Crick City. The hand of fate often dealt from a bad deck. How close had Phil come himself to being one of these people?

Christ, he thought.

The Malibu's corroded ball-joints shimmied through the next long, winding turn. To his right, up on the hill, stood the Fletcher place, a bedraggled old antebellum house that was leaning with its own weight. There were holes in the roof, but the Fletchers still lived there-they refused to move. And to Phil's left sat a trailer on blocks at the edge of Hockley's pond; it had been there for as long as he could remember, and during heavy rains the creeks would fill and the water would rise up past the trailer's floor. Yet the inhabitants never moved.

I moved, Phil pondered. I moved out of here over a decade ago...and look where I am now.

Past the next bend, the sign appeared:

CRICK CITY TOWN LIMITS.

There was no main drag per se; the Route blew right through Crick City like a spit through a kabob. Decrepit houses pa.s.sed sporadically, as if shoved into the woods. A small trailer park here, Hull's General Store there. Every so often the woods receded, opening up into tracks of hilly, unkempt farmland, some with great barns off in the distance so rotted you could see through them and vermiculated wooden crosses on which scarecrows had once been crucified until they, like the barns, had eroded away. Phil swerved twice to avoid waddling possums at the centerline; a third possum had not been so lucky, already crushed by a previous car to a plop of meat. A crow lifted off as the Malibu swooshed past, carrying with it a string of entrails a yard long. Phil grimaced as the pink ribbon sailed away.

Didn't the Romans or someone read the future in animal guts? It was an absurd circ.u.mspection but one that fit with the image. What did the future hold for him? How could his future be a productive one, now that he was coming back here? My fortune told in possum guts...

Past the next plot of farmland, a rising plane of disheveled corn, he spied Krazy Sallee's, the town strip joint. The bulb-bordered sign promised GO-GO GIRLS AND BEER TO GO! Even this early, several pickups spotted the great gravel lot. A mile past was Bouton's Farm Supply, and another mile Crick City's sumptuous four-star hallmark of cuisine, Chuck's Diner. They didn't have terrine of duck foie gras or roasted quail with porcini mushrooms, but the hash wasn't bad. Several stragglers walked along the shoulder as Phil drove on, a couple of rednecks in overalls, and the infamous Armless Man, whom Phil remembered from early childhood. Every day the guy would walk from the Crownsville trailer park to Snoot's Liquors, pick up a bottle of Bushmills, and walk back. Every day, like clockwork. And it was a good five-mile clip each way. The guy must be a hundred by now, Phil thought, amazed. Some things never change.

And around yet another bend...

A third pedestrian ambled down the shoulder. Hillfolk, Phil deduced the instant he got a good look. The boy, in his late teens, looked tall and lanky, and he seemed to walk at an awkward pace like someone with a trick knee. Long black hair hung in greasy strings, and from afar the kid's face more resembled a smudge of dirt. I hope this hill kid's on his way to the store for some soap. And his clothes offered another vestige: they clung to his body like fetid rags, patched up with oilcloths, old towels, pieces of other garments. Yeah, he's hill folk, all right, Phil felt certain, until- Phil shuddered.

-until he'd approached close enough to recognize the giveaway details.

Christ, his face...

One half of the kid's face swelled forward, the other half seemed collapsed. A bent nose showed one nostril tiny as a pegboard hole while the other nostril seemed flared out to the diameter of a quarter. And the ridge of the forehead was totally bereft of eyebrows.

And the eyes- A Creeker...

-showed maroon irises.

That's what they called them around here. Creek people. Creekers. The utmost extremity of the hill dwellers. Though often talked about, they were seldom actually seen. (Phil had only seen them himself a handful of times in all the years he'd lived out here.) The creek people were inbred over multiple generations, to the extent that nearly all of them displayed drastic physical deformities. Malformed heads and faces. Arms and legs all different lengths. One eye larger than the other. Phil had heard some were born with no eyes at all, and no mouths. To intensify the tragedy, mental defects were just as apparent. Some Creekers couldn't speak at all, and many of those that could were only able to mumble globs of words that made no sense. Like the hill folk, Creekers were the secret of any backwoods town-unacknowledged, as if they didn't even exist.

"Well, there he is. I was beginning to think you were gonna stiff me," Chief Mullins said from behind his huge, cluttered desk. Phil was taken aback; the Crick City Police Station seemed much smaller than he remembered it, compressed and stuffy. Through the back window he could see the tiny jailhouse, and parked next to it was Mullins' Pontiac Bonneville fitted with a siren horn and red and blue lights. Hunting trophies lined the top of the chief's banks of beaten file cabinets, along with his framed certificate of appointment as the town's head law enforcement officer. The certificate, once bright white, had yellowed from the countless years it had been propped there.

"You gonna sit down, or you got p.o.o.p in your pants?"

"Actually, Chief, I've got p.o.o.p in my pants, but I'll sit down anyway." Phil pulled up a metal folding chair, then quickly declined Mullins' offer of coffee, remembering that it generally tasted like caffeinated turpentine.

I can't believe I'm sitting here, he thought.

Mullins' corpulent face and balding head shined in the sunlight. He sipped his coffee and sighed. "Bet'cha never thought in a million years you'd ever be working for me."

"Look, Chief, you said you wanted to talk, and I'm here to listen. I haven't taken the job yet."

"'Course you'll take the job. Once a cop, always a cop. s.h.i.t, you'd rather spend the rest of your life guarding piles of fabric?"

Good point, Phil admitted.

"Besides," Mullins added, "I need ya."

"All right, so what's the scoop?"

"The scoop is I ain't got no cops, and though Crick City ain't exactly big, I ain't a one-man police force."

Mullins, as Phil remembered, always had two or three officers working for him. Phil struggled to recall their names. "North and Adams, they've been with you for years. What happened to them?"

"What happened?" Mullins chuckled in despair. "The f.u.c.kers quit, that's what happened. They turned in their notice and walked, got better paying jobs with other departments. North's driving a sector beat in Fairfax, and Adams got snagged by Montgomery County."

"They were good men, Chief. You should've given them more money."

"Yeah, and the mayor should be f.u.c.king Santa Claus. There was nothin' I could do. I can't offer the money and bennies of a county department. All I could do was watch and wave bye-bye."

Hmmm, Phil thought. North and Adams left for better departments. But I wonder what happened to- "What about Vicki?" Phil asked.

"I figured that'd be your next question. Well, she left too, years ago. You'd be more informed about things if you'd keep in touch."

"Hey, I sent you a Christmas card, didn't I?"

"Yeah, back when Reagan was in office." Mullins scratched his chin. "Or was it Carter?"

"Funny, Chief. I'm laughing hard, see? Now what were you saying about Vicki?"

"I wasn't saying nothin'. You were asking... Still got a torch burning for the old sweetheart, huh? Still got the hots for that red-haired little cutie-pie..."

Phil frowned, but he couldn't help but think back. He and Vicki Steele had dated from high school through college-his first love...well, his only love in reality. Guess I didn't love her enough, though, he considered now. When they'd gotten their degrees, they'd had the most awful fights. Phil had been hired at once by Metro. She didn't want to leave. He did.

He left. She didn't.

End of story.

"But," Mullins rambled on, "there's one thing I never understood. How come you dumped her?"

Phil frowned again. He had a feeling he'd be frowning a lot if he did indeed take this job. "I didn't dump her. Things didn't work out so we broke up, and are you going to tell me what happened to her, or are you gonna jerk my chain for the rest of the afternoon?"

"She quit, just like the others. Walked right out on me."

"What department picked her up?"

"I never said she quit to go to another department," Mullins took the opportunity to cryptify. "She's still around, though. I'm sure you'll run into her sooner or later, so put it back in your pants and let's get down to bra.s.s tacks. It just so happens that those turncoats North and Adams boogied on me right in the middle of a crisis..."

But Phil's attention phased out; he was still musing upon Vicki. Christ... Where was she working now? Where did she live? Did she still look the same? And when- When was the last time she thought about me? he dared to wonder. Grow up! he ordered himself. She probably doesn't even remember who you are anymore, you smug, pompous a.s.s...

"What's that you were saying?" he finally got back to reality. "A crisis?"

"That's right, I got big problems here all of a sudden, and if I don't fix it, the town council might give me the boot."

Phil couldn't imagine any kind of genuine "crisis" out here, much less one severe enough to depose Mullins' seemingly endless reign. The guy had been chief here longer than Caesar had ruled Rome. "What," Phil jested, "You got stoners ripping off parking meters from the town square?"

Mullins didn't laugh, or even smile. It was hard times when this man got serious. "No, smart boy. You remember Cody Natter, the Creeker?"

"I remember Cody Natter, vaguely." Rumor had it that Natter was sort of the governor of the Creekers, the tribemaster.

"Well, the ugly f.u.c.k and his Creeker cronies are givin' me problems like to make me s.h.i.t my pants."

Phil, if only indistinctly, remembered the tall, gangly, and incredibly ugly Cody Natter. Yeah, ugly as all h.e.l.l but smart as a whip. The guy, it was claimed, was either psychic or could count cards, since he'd cleaned out many an illicit poker game in the back of Sallee's after hours, and he had this subtly twisted smile that, the few times he'd seen him, sent shivers up Phil's back. His own childhood's version of Hannibal at the Gate; Phil's aunt always told him, "If you don't go to sleep, Cody Natter'll be stopping by for a visit tonight." The guy always drove a souped, rebuilt '69 Chrysler Imperial, dark-red, and was always blowing money all over town, though no one knew how he earned it. And he was ugly, sure, the ugliest Creeker of the clan.

"Oh, so it's Cody Natter who's ripping off the parking meters from the town square. Sounds like a crisis to me."

"I thought Sam Kinnison was dead, funny man," Mullins responded. "Take my word for it, Cody Natter and his Creekers are a pain in my a.s.s."

"But the Creekers always pretty much kept to themselves," Phil said. "At least that's what I remember."

"Yeah, well, they're all over the friggin' place now. s.h.i.t, he's even got the less-f.u.c.ked-up-lookin' ones working around town."

"Christ, Chief, I lived in Crick City twenty years, and I don't think I saw more than a dozen Creekers in all that time." But then Phil paused, reflecting. I just saw one ten minutes ago, didn't I? Walking down the Route? The image remained: the swollen head, the uneven arms and legs, and- -The red eyes, he remembered.

"I don't care what you seen when you were a punk," Mullins articulated. "Things have changed in ten years. Natter's trying to take over the town, and the ugly motherf.u.c.ker's doing a great job since I ain't got no cops on my department."

Phil still couldn't quite believe this. The Creekers had always been harmless, and so seldom seen that most people didn't even believe they existed. This sounded like bulls.h.i.t to him; he stood his ground. "Okay, Chief. How's Cody Natter taking over the town? Tell me that, will you?"

Mullins' fat face turned dark, and his little eyes narrowed in puffy slits.

"He's dealing drugs now," he said. "Right here in town. Right now."

"Drugs, huh?" Phil jeered. "Cody Natter? In Crick City? So what kind of drugs is he dealing? Laughing gas out of empty whipped cream cans?"

"No, funny man," Mullins said. "He's dealing PCP."

Four.

When darkness fell, Scott and Gut's spirits rose. Well, at least Scott-Boy's did. All of a sudden, Gut wasn't feelin' too good...

A little later, they had a big dust drop to make; they'd be making a big pick up of product-in this case, pure, distilled PCP to later be turned into "flake"-and drop it off at one of the primary points just out past Lockwood. It would be their biggest run yet and, hence, their biggest payoff.

Gut ordinarily would've been pretty keyed-up at the prospect of making such a fine grab of money for so little effort. But...

He drove the big pickup with authority, down the Route and out of town. It was feigned authority, actually, though he tried hard not to show it. Somethin' bad in the air tonight, his thoughts swayed. And he felt sure it didn't have anything to do with their dope run later.

They weren't due to make the pickup for another couple of hours; they had time to kill, in other words, and Gut knew too well how Scott liked to kill time.

"Hey, Scott-Boy? What say we do somethin' different tonight 'fore we make the pick up."

Scott Tuckton was lounged-back in the big bench seat, swigging his can of Red, White & Blue. It was a warm, balmy night, and everything was perfect. A high, bright moon. Cold beer. Crickets makin' a ruckus. Warm air rushed in through the open windows while Elvis crooned "Blue Moon" on the radio.

A perfect night, in other words, for killing.

"What'choo mean different?" Scott-Boy inquired, stroking his sideburns. "We'se goin' on a razz first, ain't we?"

"Uh-" Gut replied. He steered through the Route's next bend. "How 'bout we go to Sallee's instead? Gander us some knockers and tail."

"Sheeeeee-it," Scott came back. "Why's look at it-at a t.i.ttie bar-when we'se can have it fer real in our face?"

"All rights, then how 'bout we go there and buy us some wh.o.r.es? They gots wh.o.r.es at Sallee's. Or maybe stop by Crossroads fer some. We'se can afford it, 'specially with the green we'se be makin' later after the drop. We'se can afford a bunch of girls."

Scott-Boy gaped. "Sheeeeee-it," he repeated with typical verbal eloquence. "Bein' able ta afford it ain't the point, Gutter. We'se razzers, man. We never pay fer it. We'se gonna have a nut tonight, fer sure, and if you wants ta razz some bar wh.o.r.es 'fore the run, well, that's just dandy. We'll pick 'em up, lay some peter on 'em, then bust 'em up and take their green likes we always do. I don't know abouts you, but I needs ta get my dog in some bush in a big way, but they'll be sellin' snowcones in Satan's place before I pay fer it. 'Fact, I could go fer some serious razzin' too, like ta crack me up some b.i.t.c.h's head with my hickory pick handle, or maybe like that time out near Nalesville. 'Member that, Gut? When we snagged us that pixie with that real purdy long dark hair hangin' all the way down past her a.s.s?"

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 w.a.n.ked hisself off in her face while Scott-Boy p.o.o.ped 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 a.s.s, so's they tied her hair to the trailer hitch on the back b.u.mper 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 wh.o.r.es 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 f.u.c.k with. Plus they didn't want ta bust up no wh.o.r.es 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 f.u.c.k 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 w.a.n.ked 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 p.u.s.s.er knot the size of a walnut on a fella's k.n.o.b, 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 f.u.d.g.e.p.a.c.k.e.rs 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-s.e.xshools 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 s.h.i.t-stupidest fella to ever walk, but Gut kept quiet. Gut hisself was sh.o.r.e 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 w.a.n.k 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 s.h.i.t, 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, sh.o.r.e. One night they might be jacking a drunk with the bra.s.s knucks, and the fella might pull a knife, or next time they set to razzin' a bar wh.o.r.e, well, what's ta keep her from shucking one of them Sat.u.r.day Night Specials from a purse and pumping him and Scott-Boy up with .25s? Gut sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 ha.s.sle; 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.