He found the small gym bag beside the couch and tucked it under his arm like a football. With that, Holmes made for the front door, not particularly concerned with whether a nosy neighbor or the local law was on the other side. It was getting on toward dusk and he wanted to be out on the highway, away from Wild Willie, Crider, and this s.h.i.tty town of Greenwood.

"You think this is over, Holmes? You know it's not."

McMillan pointed at Crider. "Shut up."

"Scared, McMillan? Scared I'm going to put my red magic on you?" Crider said, his sunken eyes swallowed up as if his face were caving in on itself.

"I told you to keep your mouth shut." McMillan smacked the wounded man with the plastic Circle K shopping bag he'd placed the c.o.ke bricks in. This upended Crider and he crashed to the floor, wailing as he landed on his exposed bone.

McMillan laughed and couldn't resist standing over the hurting man. "You know, Crider, I never did cotton to you."

Holmes called from the vicinity of the front door: "Stop f.u.c.king around!" McMillan grinned at him and looked back at Crider. A burst of a sparkling brown cloud engulfed his face.

"Hey," McMillan said, hitting Crider hard, twice in rapid succession, as he lay on the floor. Crider went limp but still wasn't unconscious.

McMillan put his angry face close to the still man. "Why don't I just shoot you?"

"I'm leaving, Mill." Holmes stepped through the door and into the coming darkness.

In the car, plowing across the gravel of the driveway and onto the residential street, each a.s.sessed the other's damage.

"How deep is it?" McMillan looked but didn't touch the wound atop Holmes's shoulder blade.

"I can feel the bullet grind when I move my arm." Despite this, Holmes was at the wheel. He glanced sideways. "How about that chunk Crider took off?"

McMillan blinked and felt along the top, or what had been the top, of his right ear. "Ain't that some s.h.i.t? I got so excited I forgot that motherf.u.c.ker chopped this off." He leaned so he could see his lobe in the rearview mirror as he gingerly fingered the flesh. "Can it be sewn back on?"

"Sure, want me to turn around so you can get the piece?"

McMillan gave him a lopsided look. "s.h.i.t," he finally said. "So where to, drive across the border to Arkansas? I used to know a cat there in Little Rock who can help us out." McMillan was reaching into his back pocket for his cell phone.

"Too far, and even though we ain't gushing out, I don't want to go that long without attention."

McMillan nodded, understanding his meaning. "You just lookin' to get your d.i.c.k wet."

"Ain't you? We just scored enough c.o.ke that once it's broken down to crack in the 'hood, it will keep us in dead prezs for months."

McMillan indicated the trunk where their cash kept company with the snow. "And the discount we got it at. I still can't believe after we'd already agreed to the price beforehand that Wild Willie tried to jack it up once we got there. What the f.u.c.k, huh?"

"Exactly," Holmes said, heading toward Highway 49. "Probably some static from his supplier. But that's his worry, not ours."

McMillan clucked his tongue. "Man didn't want to listen." He sneezed and coughed. "G.o.dd.a.m.n ju-ju powder Crider blew on me. What was that about, huh?" He plucked at his nose.

Holmes tried to shrug but his shoulder was already stiffening. "Some kind of Indian thing, I guess."

McMillan looked blank.

"He's part Choctaw," Holmes illuminated. "Crider was always into hoodoo s.h.i.t, casting spells and chanting and all that to protect him when we were about to do a job."

"You two used to run together?"

"Yeah," Holmes said, but didn't elaborate. He gave a number to McMillan and the other man handed the phone over when the line connected.

"Uh-huh," Holmes said, after saying hi and listening for a bit. "I know I have some nerve, Janey, but I'm hurtin', baby, and I need a safe port in the storm." He didn't dare look over at McMillan or he'd start laughing at how thick he was slathering it on and screw it up for sure. "Baby, I know, but I promise you we'll make it worth your effort."

He listened some more as Jane Corso chewed him out, but he could tell she was softening. What they had once was too strong and too real for either of them to pretend otherwise-and being able to help her with car and utility payments was certainly an added incentive. She was a practical woman, after all.

"And, uh, if it's not too much bother, maybe you could ask what's-her-face, you know, the one with the green flamingo, to help you out."

McMillan brightened and considered just where Corso's friend had that flamingo tattooed.

"Okay," Holmes said, after another minute or so of negotiating. He hung up. And even though his shoulder was starting to burn worse, he winked broadly. "We're set, man."

"Righteous." McMillan settled back, wondering how much reconstructive surgery would cost.

In less than an hour and a half the two reached Jane Corso's modest frame house, inherited from her grandmother, in Clarksdale, not too far from the Sunflower River. It was in a dead-end lush with overgrown shrubs and set down the slope from a small hill. Its location along an unpaved street gave it a semi-rural feel; the nearest house was half a block away.

Corso and her friend with the tattoo, Ella Fernandez, worked at the Diamond Stud Casino over in Tunica. Corso was a dealer and Fernandez a waitress.

"Like old d.a.m.n times," Corso said, working the probe in Holmes's exposed shoulder area. She'd numbed the wound as best she could using a paste made from some of the c.o.ke and Lidoderm, a medicine for cold sores, she found in the medicine cabinet. Holmes sat rigid and gripped the sides of the chair's seat, grinding his teeth.

"You know, I-"

"Hush, Spree," she said, a suggestion of a smile on her face. She kneaded her bottom lip with her teeth while she dug for the slug fragments in him.

It wasn't merely nostalgia or a longing to see her that had brought Holmes to her abode. Jane Corso had been a nursing student at one point-before acquiring a taste for the nose candy and shady men like her current patient. "Ah," she said, removing the probe with part of the bullet. She held the tweezers to the light, examining her find.

"If you could finish up before I pee on myself, doc, I'd appreciate it," Holmes said, sweat moistening his face and chest.

Corso's sometimes pale green eyes lightened with mirth. "Best be cool or I'll really put you under and do a Lorena Bobbitt on you."

"You tell him, girl," Ella Fernandez encouraged. While Corso was in street clothes, Fernandez wore her casino uniform, given her shift had ended after the men had arrived. A short cowgirl skirt barely covered her ample rear and was complemented by a fringed leather vest with a revealing scoop. She and McMillan were sitting on the couch and he was regaling her about his real and exaggerated criminal exploits. They rested against an Afghan comforter spread against the back of the couch.

Fernandez had already snorted up three lines of blow from the gla.s.s-topped coffee table. There was a current TV Guide TV Guide, a discount-store 1.75-liter bottle of Jack Daniel's, a few plastic cups, a pack of Kools, and a Zippo on the coffee table, as well. Corso had heated the ends of her tool with the lighter.

More digging and more discomfort and Corso extracted the remaining piece from Holmes. She st.i.tched the gash closed. After that, she handed a grateful Holmes a plastic cup with a dose of Jack Daniel's sloshing in it. McMillan's b.l.o.o.d.y ear had also been st.i.tched and taped.

"You always gotta do it the hard way, don't you, Spree?" She rubbed the side of his close-cropped graying hair.

He grinned thinly at her. "Bust my b.a.l.l.s, why don't you?"

"I intend to." She took his hand and led him toward her bedroom. On the couch, McMillan was busy licking c.o.ke from around one of Fernandez's bare nipples. The green flamingo tattoo on the topside of her breast filled his vision.

Near 2:00 in the morning, Holmes and Corso lay awake in each other's arms.

"You heading for New York or L.A.?" Corso put a leg over his.

"L.A."

"Give that heartless city another go, huh?"

He didn't answer right away. "That's where we were going to make it," he finally allowed.

"We almost did, Spree. We sure gave it a good run then."

He pulled her tighter to him and kissed her, lost in what could have been. They soon started to doze off.

"Funny that song would be running through my head," Corso muttered, her head on his chest.

"'I Love the Night Life,'" Holmes remarked. "Alicia Bridges."

"How'd-" she began.

"You're not dreaming it," Holmes said, "I hear it, too."

Suddenly there was a loud blast of wood splintering and the crash of the front door being ripped from its hinges.

"Spree!" McMillan yelled over Fernandez's scream from the front room.

Holmes and Corso had already scooted out of bed. He quickly slipped on his boxers. She tossed the six-shooter to him, which had been resting on the night stand next to a rolled-up dollar bill. He tore into the living room, a.s.suming that somehow muscle sent by Crider and Wild Willie had found them. There was no way he could have antic.i.p.ated what was waiting for him.

"The f.u.c.k?" he breathed.

"Do something, Spree," McMillan pleaded. He was naked and pinned against the wall. Fernandez was clad in her panties and lying half off the couch on her back, her eyelids fluttering. A bruise welled on her jaw.

Holmes extended the gun and shot at one of the things that had invaded the home. The bullet punctured the creature's eye socket, and that should have dropped any man, but as Holmes was rapidly grasping, these were not normal beings.

"Zombies," Corso gasped from behind Holmes.

The one with its hand around McMillan's throat was dressed in tattered clothing of an unmistakable vintage. He had on a dirt-stained silk shirt with billowing sleeves, once-tight bell-bottom slacks, a belt with a huge lettered buckle, and platform shoes. The other creature was wearing what had formerly been a white suit with a matching vest and a blue super-fly collar-point shirt, open and exposing a bony chest crawling with blind earthworms. This one had a raft of gold-now moldy green-chains and medallions draped around its neck, and the remnants of a puffy Afro full of leaves and twigs. He held onto the two bricks of c.o.ke.

The feculent odor rising from the two zombies was overpowering and caused Corso to gag. Holmes was more concerned about his dope. Medallion zombie had turned toward the door and Holmes shot him in the knee. The bone popped and the creature stumbled as if it had stepped into a pothole. Holmes ran forward but bell-bottom zombie hurled McMillan, and he had to p.r.o.ne out to avoid being struck.

"Thanks for breaking my fall," McMillan groaned, after colliding with the now broken TV set.

"They're taking our powder!" Holmes yelled, launching himself and tackling the bell-bottomed one. The monster made a guttural sound and hit him so hard behind his neck that Holmes was knocked to the floor, dazed.

"c.o.ke," Afro zombie growled to his buddy.

"Ughh," the other one said, smiling. Dung and beetles spilled out of his maw.

The two shambled out the hole they'd made ripping off the door. Afro zombie walked lopsided due to its decimated kneecap.

"Spree, Spree, get up." Corso shook him.

Holmes rose to a knee like a fighter taking an eight.

"Come on," Corso said, heading out in pajama bottoms, her pump shotgun cradled in her arms. That was the other thing that Holmes liked about her-she always had his back in a sc.r.a.p.

The two zombies were moving up the hill behind her house and Holmes and Corson went after them, joined by a limping McMillan who'd tied the comforter around his waist.

"Wait a minute," Holmes said to Corso, who was taking aim with the scatter gun. "Bad enough we've been shooting off pistols, but we're not that isolated around here. You start using that sumab.i.t.c.h, somebody's bound to call the law. We've got to follow them."

"To where?" she asked.

"Where they can snort up the s.h.i.t." He trotted after the pair, clad only in his boxers. The two creatures were nearing the top of the rise.

"Greedy motherf.u.c.kin' zombies!" McMillan exclaimed. He looked around and spied a rock about the size of his fist. He picked it up and threw it, hitting the bell-bottom zombie in the back.

The thing turned around, growling and flailing his arms. He charged at them and Holmes grabbed the shotgun out of Corso's hand, swinging the stock at the thing's head. This knocked loose some gray, dry flesh, but it kept coming. Holmes made to swing again and the creature caught the weapon and s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of his hands. He broke it apart by banging it against a thick tree trunk. As this transpired, Afro zombie made it over the top and disappeared.

"Get the c.o.ke," Holmes directed McMillan. "We'll take care of this undead s.h.i.thead."

"Don't have to tell me twice." McMillan went wide when the zombie lunged for him, but as its muscles were atrophied and its joints long since dried out, it couldn't move with the attenuation and speed of a live person. McMillan got past and went up.

Holmes shot the zombie again and it turned toward him, snarling at the continuing irritation of Holmes putting bullets into it. "I need an axe or something to cut the head off or burn it," Holmes said.

"I'm with you, Spree," Corso declared.

They exchanged a quick, meaningful look, then the thing was upon them, clawing and snapping its jaw. Holmes was down on his back and he drove a fist into the creature's rib cage. Some of the brittle bones cracked, but it was taking all of Holmes's effort to keep the monster from biting into his head. He had both hands pressed under what was left of the zombie's clacking jaw, the rancid breath making his eyes water. The st.i.tches on his wound ripped and he pumped red from atop his shoulder blade.

"Get off!" Corso screamed, jumping on the zombie's back and pummeling him.

"c.o.ke," the creature intoned. It reached around and pulled Corso off by her hair and flung her away. It got its bony hands around Holmes's neck and squeezed, causing him to gag. The zombie's jaws opened and unhinged, and the thing bent down to eat the man's face off.

"Hey, s.h.i.t-breath!" Ella Fernandez hollered. She brought the Jack Daniel's bottle down on its head. The thick gla.s.s broke apart, causing a dent in the side of the creature's skull. The alcohol spilled over its upper body.

"I got something for you, dead b.i.t.c.h," Fernandez avowed as the zombie started for her. She lit the Zippo and threw it on him, catching his head on fire. The zombie wailed and stomped about.

"I guess it doesn't like fire," Holmes observed in his gra.s.s-smeared Fruit of the Looms. The zombie was running around in a circle, screaming. It b.u.mped into a tree and knocked itself down. But it didn't have enough presence of mind-or enough of a brain left-to roll and put out its now totally aflame body. It got back up and screamed some more as it clomped around, continuing to burn.

Corso helped Holmes to his feet. "Or it's the way he died," she said.

Fernandez breathed deeply, her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s rising and falling, the flamingo contracting and expanding. She was still only dressed in her panties.

"Good work, Ella," Holmes told her. He then asked Corso, "What do you mean?"

She started to run up the hill without answering. "We better get up there."

"The ya-yo," Holmes remembered, as he and Fernandez also took off. At the top it was a regular zombie jamboree. There were eight more of them that had crawled out of their graves, all dressed in disco regalia.

A female zombie milled about in what was left of a miniskirt. She wore torn fishnet stockings over charred legs, and a stretch velour top hugged a worm-infested chest. Another was clad in a spangle-studded safari suit and a broad-brimmed pimp hat. Part of his entrails hung from a gap in his silk shirt. Yet another was in hot pants, thigh-high platform boots, and her angel-sleeve blouse was being ripped off by another zombie in a poncho, gaucho pants, and dingo boots.

The zombies were growling and snarling and tearing at each other to get to the cocaine.

"Holy s.h.i.t." Holmes held his head, ignoring his freshly opened wound, and marched around in total befuddlement. "What the f.u.c.k?"

Corso gulped. "They're the ones who were killed in the fire."