New Title 1 (31 page)

Veronica winced. “Helton, please…”

“Oh, sorry. Pardon my coarse language.” But his eyes widened when he looked harder at the photo. “And that there’s his
mother,
you say?”

Veronica nodded. “Adele Vinchetti. She’s 62.”

“Looks
dang good
fer a gal her age, huh?” Helton rubbed his crotch without conscious forethought. “Bet she’s got them fancy implants too.”

“And every other kind of cosmetic surgery,” Veronica supposed of the shapely, Sophia-Lorenish-looking woman in the photo. “She’s very, very rich. Owns a brownstone in the Upper West Side according to the city tax records.”

“A brownstone? The hail’s that? Who wants brown
stones?
”

“Don’t worry about it,” she snapped. “You wanted me to locate some of Paulie’s relatives, so I did.”

Helton scratched the brush-like beard. “These pictures is fine but, hon, we need an
address.
”

Another jiggle of the keys, then Veronica pointed. “The good old AOL White Pages, Helton.”

“Huh?”

“12 West 75th Street and Dessorio Avenue.”

“The
hail?
”

“Adele Vinchetti’s address.”

Helton stared fixedly, then:

“EEEEEEEEEEEE-ha!” He leaned over and—

Veronica’s face shriveled.

—planted a big wet halitosis-tinged kiss on Veronica’s cheek.

“Git yer butts back in here, boys!” he yelled out the side door. “We’se going on a
trip!
” and when Dumar and Micky-Mack re-entered the truck, their faces were full of wonder.

“Gather ’round!” Helton trumpeted. “Veronnerka done struck gold again! She up’n got the
address
fer Paulie’s
mother!
”

In unison, Dumar and Micky-Mack railed: “EEEEEEEEEEE-ha!”

“And she lives in…” Helton looked down. “Where she live, hon?”

“In a multi-million-dollar brownstone she inherited from her late husband, Paul Vinchetti, Jr.,” she said. “It’s in Manhattan, Upper West Side.”

Micky-Mack was jumping up and down. “Manhattan? Where the hail’s that?”

“New York City.”

Micky-Mack stopped jumping up and down. He, Dumar, and Helton all traded glances that could only be called
ominous.

“New York City?” Dumar inquired. “
The
New York City?”

“The one and only.”

“Sheeeee-it,” Micky-Mack whispered. “That’s big as even Pulaski, ain’t it?”

Veronica winced. “Pulaski is hardly a big city, Micky-Mack. It’s a
town.
It’s got a population of ten thousand. New York’s got a population of ten
million.
”

More ominous glances back and forth.

Dumar stammered. “But we ain’t never…
been
to any big cities.”

“Well, we’se shore as shit goin’ ta one now!” Helton roared. “And we’re gonna git our proper revenge on
Paulie’s Maw!
”

“EEEEEEEEE-ha!”

Veronica pressed her palms to her ears. “Helton, please! You’re gonna let me go first, right? You’re not going to make me ride all the way up to New York City with you? Right?”

“Aw, don’t worry none about that, missy. We’ll make the ride comfortable for ya as possible.”

Veronica began to cry.

“Start the truck, Dumar!” Helton ordered in glee. “We’se a-goin’ to
New York City,
yessir!”

— | — | —

Chapter 11

(I)

But before they’d even gotten out of town, it occurred to Helton and his kin that they didn’t have a
clue
as to how to drive to New York City. All Veronica had told them was this: “Take West Main Street to Count Pulaski Drive, then merge onto Interstate 81. It’s about 500 miles, an 8- or 9-hour drive,” and after that, still handcuffed to the table, her despair, shock-induced exhaustion, and sheer dumbfoundment as to her predicament had shrouded her in a deep, troubled sleep. “Shit, Paw,” Dumar said at the wheel. “Where the
hail
we goin’?” And Micky-Mack: “I ain’t even been out the county ‘cept fer couple times in my life.” Helton looked back to see Veronica asleep and curled into a ball. “Well, after all Veronnerka’s done fer us, it ain’t right we wake her up, so…” He spotted something through the windshield. “Pull in there, son. We ain’t dopes. We’ll just up’n buy ourselfs a
map.
”

“Great idea, Paw!”

It was a Hess station they pulled into, one complete with the ever-present convenience store. Micky-Mack was instructed to fill the tank and check the oil, while Helton and Dumar strode into the store. A bell rang, and upon the
toll
of that bell, a bosomy, remarkably-figured woman in her mid-‘20s looked up from the register and promptly frowned. “Well, hey there, missy,” Helton greeted. “We’se fillin’ up that big piece’a crap lookin’ truck out there, but what we also need is a
map—
”

“Are you blind? Map’s up front in rack,” the registress snapped. She had dark, shiny hair, penetrating eyes, and a Russian accent. The stunning body and face, however, took second seat to the glaring frown. A name-tag read KASHA, and she wore a tight t-shirt emblazoned with the face of Vladimir Putin, not that Helton would know who the
fuck
that was. Nipples like cucumber slices printed against the shirt as the immigrant clearly wore no bra.

“Nice nips,” Dumar whispered.

“Yeah, son, that may be, but I can tell at a glance she’s about as friendly as a mad dog.” Helton examined the Rand McNally map rack while Dumar deputed himself to procure several sodas.

After some minutes of squinting, it was discerned that no maps of New York City existed on the rack.

“Hon?” Helton inquired. “These here look like just county maps’n such. What we need is a map that’ll show us how ta git ta
New York City.
”

Kasha’s frown smoldered. “New York City! How stupid can you be?” the richly accented voice cracked. “Why would gas station in little shit Virginia town have
New York City
map?”

Helton stood, taken aback. “Well, I don’t rightly know but I thunk ya might have some, say, in the back.”

“You
thunk
wrong! Now why not you just pay for gas and leave? I don’t like you redneck types in store!”

Helton stilled himself. “Ain’t no call ta be nasty, missy. We’se just tryin’ ta get directions.”

The woman’s face turned pink with aggravation or even hatred. “This
shit
place and
shit
country! I should have stayed on potato farm near Magnitagorsk—”

“Well, then just you go
back
ta Mag-neeter-gorsh, missy, ’cos if’n ya don’t
like
America, then ya can pack yer blammed ‘taters up yer butt!” Helton could not refrain from objecting.

A hostile laugh and a jiggle of her outstanding breasts, and Kasha asserted, “You big dirty rednecks—oh yes!” and she pronounced “big dirty rednecks” as
beeg darty redneeks.
“This country full of nothing but
shit
people! That all I see all day! If it not you rednecks, it the welfare people or the farking
old
people or the drug add-eeks or the—” and she used the plural form of the N-Word.

Helton steeled himself against the desire to open up a can of whup-ass, but instantaneously, a better idea surfaced. “Well, gal, you certainly got’cher dander up ’bout somethin’ but I’se guess we all have our days like that. How ’bout we just pay up’n git?” He extracted a 1966 $100-bill just as Dumar approached and set several sodas down.

“Oh! Oh!” Kasha raged next. “Here come
another
redneck now! My
God,
I
hate
rednecks. You big
fat
redneck, and you-you little skinny
scrawny
redneck!”

“Well, hold on there, gal,” Dumar responded. “We ain’t said nothin’ ‘gainst you.”

“Oh,
fark
you! Fark
both
of you! In my country, Mother Russia, shit people like you get put in forced-labor camp! All you useless,
shit
people!” and it needs to be mentioned belatedly that she pronounced the word
shit
as “sheet.” She leaned forward—awesome mammarian-carriage swaying in the tight shirt—and exaggeratedly sniffed the air. “Oh! Oh! And you
smell!
” She mimicked coughing. “You smell like
shit!
”

Dumar began, “Paw? Are we gonna—” but Helton smiled and staid his son’s remark, then whispered very lightly, “Pull the truck ’round back.”

A knowing glint came into Dumar’s eyes, then he departed the store.

“Here ya go, hon,” Helton went along and gave her the hundred. “And since yer havin’ such a bad day, wine-cha keep the change?”

She grimaced at the bill. “Oh, fark! Even your dirty redneck
money
smell like shit!”

“But first ring me up fer one’a these here
Cherry Ice Slush
drinks,” Helton quickly added and lumbered to the machine at the rear of the store. He dawdled there, holding an empty cup, then cast a cruxed glance back. “Missy? Sorry, but—shee-it—I cain’t make out how ta work this fancy machine. Seein’ how’se I just left you some sizeable change, how’s ’bout you showin’ me?”

“Oh! Oh!” Her hands visibly shook. “How stupid can fat dirty redneck be to not know how even to pour ice-slush drink!” Her face was now past pink as she shot from around the counter and stalked to the machine.

As she did so—it needs to be mentioned—her breasts bobbed
spectacularly
up and down.

She
snapped
the cup out of Helton’s hand. “You just put farking cup under spigot and—”

No more words escaped the hostile woman’s mouth after Helton clacked a big
redneck
knuckle against her temple. She fell limp as a stuffed doll (mind you, a stuffed doll with
great
breasts) and Helton dragged her out the back of the store.

(II)

 
“Fuck,” Deputy Chief Malone said, and then, again, with emphasis. “And I’se mean
fuck.
”

The stoop-shouldered and large-adam’s-appled Sergeant Boover nodded. The ambulance had just pulled away, and among its contents was the dead body of resident Clifford Giller, an old VFW-type cantankerous prick nonetheless well-known in the community. When Mr. Giller had noticed his adorable, week’s-old puppy missing from his yard, he’d immediately spied the crowd forming at one of the more decrepit slum-houses down the street. He’d investigated, of course, only to discover, to his incontemplatable horror, the severed head of his beloved pet mounted barbarously on a stick in the front yard.

Whereupon, he suffered a massive thrombotic stroke and died on the spot.

It had taken a half-dozen more police to dispel the very-displeased crowd of local residents who’d gathered at the scene. Departing comments included, “What good’s a police force who don’t do nothin’ ’bout dog-killers?” “Whole world’s turnin’ ta shit, it seems, and the county cops’re letting our humble town turn ta shit with it,” “It’s our tax dollars payin’ their salaries! And while they’re eatin’ their fuckin’
donuts,
our lovin’ pets’re gittin’ tortured by drug dealers!” and the like.