"All right, hon, let's get to it."

The screen door flapped shut. Then the girl turned abruptly, took one of the lanterns, and padded barefoot down the hall. Jake followed.

Christ, it's hot, he realized, but that's the way Jake "The Snake" Rhodes liked it: hot, humid, the air thick in its own heat. A hot night for some hot f.u.c.king. They called him the Snake because he was as mean as one, and he needed to be. Nice guys didn't last in Jake's business. When someone ripped you off, you had to get rough. And when new guys tried to move on your turf, well... You had to do what you had to do. Jake had knocked off more than his share of cowboys-that was the only way to keep the word out that he wasn't one to f.u.c.k with. Every now and then his distro people got greedy and thought they'd make a few quick extra bucks by stepping on his raw product with turpentine. Jake didn't need his customers dying, so sometimes he'd have to break a few bones or pop a few kneecaps. That got the message across loud and clear: Don't pull s.h.i.t on Jake Rhodes.

And chicks? s.h.i.t, it's easier this way. What did he need a steady squeeze for? He'd never met a woman in his life he could trust. They all turned on you eventually; they all sold you out when they thought they could get a better deal somewhere else. He remembered one splittail he kept around a few years back, f.u.c.ked him anytime he wanted and seemed straight up. Then Jake started losing some of his point distributors, and he found out it was the chick selling his points to some cowboy from Tylersville. Well, Jake had set the guy's trailer on fire-with the guy still inside, of course, conveniently gagged and handcuffed to the drainpipe under his bathroom sink. And he had a good old time cutting up his squeeze with the stainless steel Seymour machete.

He followed the Creeker girl into a cramped room off to the right. Here several more lanterns glowed, and their dancing flames made the drab wallpaper look alive with pulsing swirls of light; the room seemed to breathe. No bed, just a big old scarlet scroll couch and a highback armchair with cracked upholstery. "How about gettin' that s.h.i.t off," Jake said, and sat down in the chair. "Lemme have a look at ya."

The girl paused and blinked, then falteringly stripped herself of the veil-like robe. She just stood there, blinking stupidly out of her pale nakedness.

"Now how's about layin' down on the couch and playin' with yerself awhiles, like you were doin' at the club?"

She stared a moment, then mumbled something that sounded like "lay-ply-self? Ah." But evidently she got the gist because then she lounged back on the couch and began to run her hands up and down her sides and inside her legs, and Jake noted that her right hand was much smaller than the other, like a toddler's, while her left was as big as his own. And then he noticed something else: when her flat, thin-lipped face inclined to look at him, he saw that the color of her eyes very nearly matched the dark strawberry-red of the velvet couch.

"Thlyke thisssss?" she asked.

"Yeah, baby, just like that."

Jake pulled out a roach; he saw no harm in taking a hit of his own stuff every now and then. What he did, like most, was spray the raw dust in liquid form on mats of Old Bugler tobacco, then roll it up into joints. Just a nip. His lighter flashed, and he took a quick s.n.a.t.c.h down his throat and held it. The sharp, edgy buzz hit him quick, unpleasant at first, but then it smoothed out in his head and left him gritting his teeth in a tight grin. Jake wasn't into nice gentle lovemaking; he wanted a nasty, down and dirty f.u.c.k, and a good toke of his own product got him in the mood right quick. He tamped the roach out with his fingers and went on watching the girl through the hard, glitterish buzz.

"That's it, you little mushmouth. Rub up on them funny t.i.ts of yours awhile."

Jake had chosen this one for just that. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Small, like cupcakes, but fascinating in their imperfection. Two dark pink nipples sprouted out from the center of each breast, large as the end of Jake's thumb. I'll be biting on those big suckers real hard, he thought. But first...

Jake stood up and walked to the couch. "Get'cher face right on up here, r.e.t.a.r.d. Yer brother outside says you give some good head-or is he yer father?" Jake cut a laugh. "Guess he's probably both, huh?" Then he grabbed the girl by a rough handful of her shiny black hair-the tiniest shrill leaked out of her throat-and lifted her to a sitting position. Then he dropped his jeans.

"Go on, uglypuss. You know what to do. Bet you been sucking yer relatives' c.o.c.ks since you was in kindergarten," and then he laughed again. "'Course I guess you never went to kindergarten 'cos I don't imagine they take Creeker r.e.t.a.r.ds like you into kindergarten."

But the girl, if she understood them at all, gave no reaction to Jake's ugly remarks. Instead, she simply followed suit.

Jake moaned, leaning his head back. He watched the queer squiggles of light rove the ceiling. It was like a sea up there, a churning, stormy sea of shadows and firelight, and again he thought of the sound of the surf as the nightsounds pulsed in from the opened window. The sensation, backed by the buzz of his angel dust, brought an excruciating pleasure he'd never felt anything like before. Gawd almighty, he thought. I've had b.i.t.c.hes suck my d.i.c.k hundreds of times but never like this. That lumphead outside was right. This gal gives the best head in the county and then some...

In fact, the sensation was so remarkable that he pushed her face off a moment, and pushed her lower lip down with his thumb. Then he cracked off another laugh.

The girl had no teeth.

Don't that just beat the bushes! No wonder she sucks such a good c.o.c.k-she ain't got a single chopper in her yap!

Jake grabbed her hair again, giving it a hard twist, and urged her to get back to business. His p.e.n.i.s felt caught in a hot, wet trap which seemed omnipresent over every inch. "Where'd you learn to suck c.o.c.k so good, honey? Your daddy teach you that? Yeah, I bet he did. I bet you were suckin' d.i.c.k the same time you were suckin' milk out your mama's t.i.t." Jake gave her hair another twist, then reached down with his other hand, to her breast. At once his fingers found that remarkable, jutting dual-nipple. From then on it was instinct; he began to squeeze the gorged, pink double-knot of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, hard enough that the girl whined immediately from deep in her throat. The harder he pinched the more she whined, and this bizarre vocal sensation only added to the mounting pleasures of her mouth. "Honey," he gasped, "your c.o.c.k-sucking's so good I'm afraid I'm gonna have to blow my first squirt right down yer throat." His laughter hitched up. "You won't mind none though; in fact you'll thank me 'cos it'll probably be the best meal you had in weeks," and at that same moment everything Jake Rhodes felt converged to a pinpoint of irrevocable, demented l.u.s.t. The firelight on the ceiling swirled into chaos, the nightsounds rushed, and the girl continued to whine in her pain as the moon glowered in through the window, and Jake's climax broke like a wild ferret let out of its trap...

His eyes crossed, and all that dust-edged l.u.s.t poured out of him as he squeezed the girl's face to his groin by tight fistfuls of hair. She was gagging, but Jake didn't care. The sensation seemed impossible. As good as it was, it just didn't seem quite right- Eventually he released her hair, and she fell back gasping against the couch, her chest heaving. "That was real good, mushmouth," Jake complimented her, "but something's really f.u.c.ked up here, and I aim to find out what 'fore I f.u.c.k you so hard you'll be s.h.i.tting out your nose."

He grabbed her head, turned her face up, and jammed his fingers into her toothless mouth. "Open up, r.e.t.a.r.d. Open yer yap unless you want me to punch your lights out."

The girl's panic had nowhere to go. Tears smeared her cheeks along with the bewilderment and terror in her scarlet eyes. Then she let her mouth yawn open.

Jake squinted. The f.u.c.k? he thought. He grabbed her slender throat and squeezed.

"Stick out yer tongue, ya c.u.mbucket."

The girl resisted, whining, gagging. Her eyes seemed lidless as she stared up in total incomprehension.

Jake squeezed her throat a lot harder, till her face began to tint pink. "Stick it out, ya Creeker freak. Right now."

The pink tint began to darken. Then, tremoring, she stuck out her tongue.

Jake stared back.

It was not a tongue that stuck out of her mouth, but a pair of them, both roving like fat worms on a hotplate.

She's got...two...tongues, he marveled in the most grotesque fascination.

And that's about all Jake Rhodes had time to marvel over because at the same instant the fidgety shadow slid up behind him and- Ka-CRACK!

-brought a yard-long two-by-four straight down on top of his head.

"Where's the chief?" Phil asked brusquely when he returned to the station at the end of his shift.

"You didn't call in 10-6 for shift change," Susan smirked in reply.

Phil fumed. "Straker, Philip, ID 8, reporting 10-6 from eight-to-eight shift. Out of service," he said. "Now, where's Mullins?"

"If you mean Chief Mullins, I believe he's back in the supply building-"

Probably checking coffee filters, Phil thought, But Susan Ryder continued from her console, "And one thing I've been meaning to ask you. What kind of service ammunition are you loading...Sergeant Straker?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It seemed like a pretty cut-and-dry question to me. But just let me remind you that sabot, teflon, liquid-filled, and especially quad ammunition is illegal for all law-enforcement use in this state."

So that's it, Phil realized. That's why the Ice b.i.t.c.h hates me. "I get the gist of what you're saying, Ms. Ryder, and not that I'm in the habit of reporting the nomenclature of my service ammunition to radio girls, I'm loading Plus P Plus .38 wadcutters, which is what I've always loaded."

"That's not what I've heard," she said, and redirected her gaze into her textbook.

"Yeah, well, you've probably also heard that I'm a kid killer, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if you've heard that Jesus Christ is really an astronaut from another solar system and that Elvis is alive and well and has lunch regularly at Chuck's Diner, nor would I be surprised if you actually believed those things." Phil leaned over her console desk. "But let me make a suggestion, Ms. Ryder. I really think it would be prudent for you to not only get your snooty nose out of other's people's business, but you also might find life a lot more agreeable if you put a lid on that outrageous ego of yours, and-" Suddenly Phil pounded his fist-BAM!-down on her desk, whereupon Susan Ryder's derriere lifted at least an inch from her seat in complete surprise. "-and let me tell you one more thing. I've never loaded quads, and I never killed a kid. That whole Metro mess was a sham, Ms. Ryder; I was set up. And if you don't believe that, I don't give a flying f.u.c.k. But I do have one more suggestion, you rude egomanical b.i.t.c.h. Don't make judgments about people until you know all of the facts."

Then, in utter calm, Phil turned around, walked into Chief Mullins' office, and closed the door very quietly behind him.

G.o.d, I hate women so much sometimes, he told himself. Through the window, he saw Mullins coming out of the lock-up-turned-supply building and the man did not look happy.

When the back door swung open, Phil beat the chief to the punch. "Look, Chief, I'm sorry, but I forgot to pick up the coffee filters. Bust me."

"Christ, you kids," Mullins griped and sat his girth down behind his desk. "Can't trust ya to take care of your own bowel movements, huh? Looks like I'll have to waste valuable tax-dollar-time getting the friggin' filters myself."

"Guess so," Phil said. "But I suspect the world will still continue to revolve while you're gone."

"That's what I like about you, Phil. You're a smarta.s.s after my own heart." Mullins raised a paper cup and spat tobacco juice into it. "You stake out Krazy Sallee's in plainclothes last night?"

"Yeah," Phil replied. "Got some tag numbers, descriptions, stuff like that. It's a good start."

"You see that ugly f.u.c.k-Natter?"

"Yeah, Chief, I saw him."

"You see anyone else?"

Phil rubbed at minute stubble on his chin. "Yeah, Chief, I did. And right now I got a burning question for you."

"Lemme guess, hot stuff," the chief said, "You saw Vicki Steele coming out of there, and now you're p.i.s.sed at me 'cos I didn't tell you she was stripping up there."

"Bingo," Phil said.

Mullins spat again. "Well, I figure there's things a man has to learn on his own, especially when it's about a woman he's still got the hots for."

"I don't have the hots for her. But I think it would've been pretty civil for you to warn me in advance. And you expect me to believe that Vicki Steele quit the department to do a strip show at Sallee's?"

"No, I don't expect you to believe that," Mullins said very quickly. "So let's make a little bit of an amendment to what I told you beforehand. Vicki Steele didn't quit like North and Adams. I fired her."

"For what?"

Mullins let out a stout chuckle. "s.h.i.t, Phil, you're the one who dated her for five years. I gotta tell you?"

"You're losing me, Chief. And you're p.i.s.sing me off more."

"I fired her for dereliction of duty on the grounds of overt s.e.xual misconduct."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Phil said at once.

"Believe what ya want, son. But it's true. You think I wanted to tell you about the s.h.i.t she pulled?"

"Tell me," Phil asked.

"She was f.u.c.king her boyfriends on duty, Phil. And since you asked for it, she had a lot of boyfriends. Or maybe I'm using the term 'boyfriends' out of respect-"

Phil glowered. "Be disrespectful, Chief."

"She was f.u.c.king just about anything that moved," Mullins pulled no punches. "Hey, you're the one who asked. She was picking up guys at the Qwik-Stop and doing them right in the patrol car. She'd pull rednecks over at night for speeding, and she'd wind up f.u.c.king the guys. You want more?"

"Sure," Phil said.

Mullins shrugged. "One night I came in and caught her blowing a prisoner in the lock-up. I got half a dozen complaints that she was rousting patrons at Sallee's, pulling them over and threatening to DWI them, and then f.u.c.king the guys and letting them off. You want more, son?"

"Sure," Phil said, a bit less enthusiastically this time.

"I have good reason-doc.u.mented reason-to believe she was actually turning tricks while on duty. Threatening to write guys up for drinking behind the wheel, then f.u.c.king them for money in exchange for not writing them up. Christ, one night she even put the make on me, and I haven't had a hard-on in about fifteen years."

Phil sat back in his chair, reflecting. Vicki? A s.e.x maniac? A...wh.o.r.e? Then he reflected further. She'd always been pretty feisty-and sometimes downright kinky-in bed. But that doesn't mean she's a nympho, he thought. Mullins seemed straight up about this-at least as straight up as he could be-but Phil had a hard time seeing Vicki Steele changing so drastically that she would actually blackmail traffic offenders into a scenario of prost.i.tution.

"I just can't believe it," Phil said. "I just can't see her doing things like that."

Mullins' brow raised as he took another spit. "Neither could I, until she told me the reason. And please don't ask me to tell you what she said."

"Tell me what she said," Phil directed.

"You can't handle it, Phil."

"I can handle it. So quit f.u.c.king with me, will ya?"

Mullins set his jaw. He appeared genuinely distressed, which was something Phil had never recalled seeing. He cleared his throat, did a fidget in his seat, and said, "When I fired her, she said it was all because of you. You taking off without her. You dumping her."

Phil stared. Could this really be? I cannot believe this, he told himself very slowly. Then his words grated, "I didn't dump her."

"Bulls.h.i.t, Phil. When you leave a girl for a job, and she doesn't want to move with you, that's the same as dumping her. After you left she went nuts. She turned nympho. And when I s.h.i.tcanned her, the very next week, she was stripping up at Sallee's and turning tricks every night. Still don't believe me?"

Phil's voice turned black when he said, "No."

Mullins, with a sour look, hoisted himself up, retrieved a folder from one of his file cabinets, and turned. "Buck North, Pete Adams, before they quit for the other departments, this PCP headache was just starting up. So I had them doing the same thing you did last night. Staking out Krazy Sallee's, trying to get a read on what's going on up there. Only these guys didn't just take down tag numbers. They took pictures."

Phil gulped as if a chunk of broken gla.s.s had stuck in his throat...

"Take a peek at your own risk," Mullins warned. "But don't get p.i.s.sed at me for showin' ya, 'cos you're the one who asked."

Then Mullins dropped the folder in Phil's lap.

It was some presage, a hideous one: Phil refused to believe any implication, yet his hands. .h.i.tched toward the folder like someone about to unveil an as-yet unidentified cadaver on a morgue slab. He opened the folder- No,he thought very simply.

-and stared. His face felt as though it had fused into a mask of impa.s.sive stone. A small stack of 8x10 black and whites showed him first several nondescript women leaving Sallee's hand in hand with various rubes. All tackily dressed in tight skirts, glittery blouses, high heels. Some were clearly less-defected Creekers, like the ones he'd seen last night. Next, a few grainy telephoto shots, obviously taken with fast film through a low-light lens. The discreet snapshots depicted the same women engaged in various s.e.x acts with rough, jean-jacketed men. In pickup trucks and souped hot rods, behind the building.

One photo showed a Creeker woman-with one arm undeniably longer than the other-lying on her back on the garbage dumpster behind Sallee's, her legs wrapped around some anonymous redneck's back. Natter's Imperial was seen in several of the shots, and so was Natter himself, tall, gaunt, and crevice-faced as he leaned to speak to several patrons in the entry.

And the last four photographs showed Vicki Steele performing the act of f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o in the cabs of different pickup trucks. A final photograph showed her flashing a wicked smile as she stuffed paper cash into her bra. Something shiny splotched her blouse and hair, which could only be s.e.m.e.n...

"Told ya so, didn't I?" Mullins harped. He loaded a fresh pinch of snuff and immediately spat. "But you wouldn't listen. That's your problem, Phil. You never listen to anyone. You always gotta know more than the next guy about everything."

f.u.c.k you, Phil thought, but now, as he closed the folder, he knew the chief was right.

I asked for it, I got it, he thought. Happy now, you a.s.shole?

"Now you know the score," Mullins informed him. His desk chair creaked as he shifted his significant weight. "Sometimes the world really can be a piece of s.h.i.t, huh?"

Phil didn't say anything. He coldly placed the folder up on Mullins' desk, his face still stiff as plaster.

"Go on home. Get some sleep."

Phil rose as if climbing out of a tomb. The imagery swarmed behind his mind: Vicki's head buried in some slob's lap, s.e.m.e.n shining like diamond-points in her hair, and like jeweled studs on her blouse.