Peckerwood (7 page)

Cocksucker
.

TERRY

He’d spent the next few days recuperating. His face looked like ground beef that had maybe been stepped on a little bit. His nose had broken, but he’d had worse, and his missing tooth added an extra wicked dimension to his smile. The swelling pulled his skin tight and the bruising turned shades of purple and high-yellow before settling into a baby-shit brown, but the truth was he looked far worse than he felt. He’d passed out chuckling while that big dyke beat on him, offering nothing but token defense. The earful he’d gotten from Beth after Wendell’d taken her car again was more unpleasant than the whuppin.

He didn’t bother checking with the plant, as he was sure his job was forfeit by Wednesday, so Thursday he went looking for Cal again. He was pretty sure his pal had the keys to his truck and for that oversight would buy at least the first round.

Before his walk, he showered, shaved and put on fresh jeans and tucked a neatly rolled t-shirt into his back pocket. When he got to town, he put the shirt on and stepped into the drug store. He nodded to Sylvi at the cash register and proceeded to the newsstand. He grabbed a girly rag then made his way to the phone. He dropped a quarter in the slot. He knew the number by heart.

“Yeah?”

“Cal Dotson there?”

“Hold on.” From the far end, he heard the clunk of a receiver hitting the counter and a far away voice call, “Dotson. Phone call.” Another voice said “Who is it?” and was answered, “Don’t be giving out this number, asshole. Gonna cut you off.”

He heard the fumbling sound of the receiver lifted and then, “Yeah?”

“It’s me.”

“Terry?”

“You got the keys to my chariot?”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah no shit, oh shit. Come get me.”

“Where are you?”

“Blaylock Drug.”

“Why aren’t you at work?” Terry didn’t answer. He let him think about it a minute. “Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah I’ll be right over.”

He hung up and leaned back against the wall, opening
Swank
. Terry thumbed over to the letters section and rolled his eyes while he read one about a guy who caught the neighbor ballin his old lady, so he goes over and fucks the neighbor’s wife and then the four of them started getting together for group gropes. He wondered if it was a true story. Probably not.

Every time he picked up a smut piece, first thing, he scoured it for signs of Ponch’s work. Ponch always signed different names, but used certain phrases and words in all of his work as a sort of signature. He found nothing resembling the Mexican scribe in
Swank
.

He felt the disapproving eyes of Sylvi on him from across the store and looked up. She was pretending to do busy work, stocking gum and dusting fixtures, but she shot him glances every few seconds to let him know he was being watched.

From the front of the store came the bell sound announcing someone entering. Sylvi spoke up, for Terry’s benefit, no doubt. “Mornin, Sheriff.”

Terry smiled, putting his tongue into the previously toothy void and licking his lips. He looked up and saw the sheriff pacing through the store, coming straight toward him, far as he could tell. Here he comes, thought Terry, King Fucker can’t quite smell the princess on me, but he knows something is different.

Mondale gave Terry a slow nod, “You look like you saw your wife recently.”

Terry’s smile was harmless, but his eyes were radioactive.

The sheriff passed him by, on his way to the refrigerated drinks, “You give Beth my best, if you see her.”

“Sure, thing, Sheriff. Likewise,” he added with a salacious wink at the sheriff’s back.

Mondale seemed tense, but he turned around and nodded with cautious geniality at Terry. “How is your family, Hickeson?”

“Oh real good, Sheriff, thanks for asking. My boy, he’s about that age now, sticks his pecker in any keyhole he can find. I try and teach him safe sex, though. Be careful of splinters, I always say.” He dropped his smile as indication of the seriousness of the subject he was about to broach. “Now, Sheriff, I ain’t pointing fingers, but if you have any complaints about molested animals, pets and such around town, you let me know. I’ll look real close at the boy. You know how they go there for a few years.”

His smile returned and he added, “How’s your family? Thought I saw your little one round here a while back.”

There was a tap of the horn from Cal’s truck outside. Terry waved him in from the front window. Cal left the car running and came in the front door, making the bells jingle. He skipped a beat when he saw the sheriff, but nodded gentleman-like at Sylvi and said, “Ma’am.”

“Give me five dollars,” said Terry. Cal didn’t ask why, just handed over the dampest, limpest Lincoln Terry’d ever handled.

He paid for the magazine and on his way out the door he called to Mondale, “If you see her, tell her that I thought she looked good, Sheriff. Real good.” He winked. “I bet they make you proud.”

Some days were just beautiful.

Terry’s freedom from the oppressive bonds of employment had given the world a rosy hue. After he filed for unemployment, Cal drove them back to The Gulch to get their shit straight.

“I’m telling you bro, Branson’s full of rich faggots.” Cal did most of his best thinking after a couple of pitchers. “I’m telling you we need to find us one and squeeze him.”

Terry took the high road for once and didn’t touch that one. “How do you suggest we do that?”

“We just find one that’s well to do and got sense enough not to want his habits known and then threaten if he don’t give us a bunch of money that we’ll tell everybody he’s limber of butthole.”

“Uh-huh.” Terry turned it over for a few minutes then said, “And why would anybody believe us?”

“We’ll have pictures.”

Terry did not like this development. “Count me out. I may be pretty, but I ain’t going to seduce any pervert no matter how much money he’s got.” He killed his mug and poured some more. “And I sure as hell don’t feature taking any pictures of your hairy nuts on some dude’s chin.” Terry shuddered at the image he’d just given himself.

Cal choked on his Bud, a thin trickle escaped his nostril and lost itself in the stubble of his upper lip. “Don’t even say it, man. It ain’t even like that.” Cal wiped his mouth and nose on the shoulder of his shirt, as the sleeves had been trimmed away long ago when Cal’s upper arms had a bit more in the way of defining features. “Nah, there’s this place, this bar where they all get together and pretend it’s normal. I seen it once.”

“I believe it.”

“Listen to me, all we gotta do is get some good pictures of somebody inside.”

“What’ll that prove?”

“What country do you live in? It’ll look plenty queer and that’s all we’ll need.”

Terry leaned back in his seat. He felt himself slipping into deep thought so he took another shot to nip that in the bud. “Huh.”

CHOWDER

Hettie’d gone to fat years ago, but she still had it. When she turned over, the sheet slipped off her hip. Chowder looked at the serpent inked into her side, faded now and stretched some, it coiled round betwixt her bosoms and under the right one then down her ribs, hooking on the hip, tracing the hitch of her ass cheek, passing between her legs and up so that her inner thigh featured the head, fangs bared and ready to take your dick off. He reached out and smacked her ass hard. The cellulite jiggle might’ve lasted forever, but she sprang up out of slumber and coldcocked him instinctively.

“Ow, fucker.”

Chowder frowned and rubbed his jaw. “Who you calling fucker, cow?”

“Pencil dick.”

“Bitch.” He pulled the sheet down exposing his own inked torso and grabbed his penis. He squeezed it and wagged it at her. Hettie punched him in the stomach, then got on her knees on the bed and bent over, taking him in her mouth. Chowder let go of himself and ran his hands through her hair, kneading the back of her neck and shoulders while she worked on him.

While he watched her head bob, he straightened himself and she responded by digging her head further beneath his gut. As her head disappeared from view, he focused on that big ol’ ass of hers waving higher in the air. He clamped onto it with both hands, pushing her gently, but firmly, down. His grip tightened, then he slapped it and she grunted in response. He felt just a hint of teeth at the base of his pecker and it sent a shiver through him that ended with Hettie getting up and retreating to the bathroom to spit and gargle.

He lay back and briefly enjoyed his cleared head. Leisurely, he skimmed the edges of his consciousness for something worth fixing on. He thought about Hettie back when they’d met. That snake tattoo had just about been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen and it held a power over him from the first time he saw it. When she’d told him she was pregnant by him he’d married her the next day and when Irm had come along, it’d seemed like the most natural progression of events to quit the Bucs and make a home somewhere.

The plan hadn’t come all at once and they’d been in no rush to conceive one. Hettie told him that he was in charge and she’d go along with whatever he said. The underlying, but unspoken understanding was as long as you say the right thing. That’s the way it’d always been between them. Even when she was mad at him, and he’d given her reason to be a time or two, she never said anything but how he was in charge. He was the man. His was the responsibility to lead and hers was to follow. But damn, when she said it, it didn’t have the effect of making him free. Rather she’d bound him to her more tightly. She never busted his balls about other women long as he didn’t rub her nose in it and when he did eventually leave the Bucs, ten years later, and took her and Irm to the Missouri hills without a word of what he had in mind, she never complained.

She was a hell of a woman and he was a lucky man.

He was more than lucky, though. He was good. He ran a good business. Chowder’s Bait ’N More was a money-maker on its own, but Darlin’s had made it a cornerstone of the local economy. Now some shitweasel was trying to bring him down and he needed to put a name and face on that threat quick. Until he knew for sure, it remained between him and the sheriff, the only two he could be a hundred percent sure of.

He couldn’t even tell his wife or daughter. Not that he believed Irm or Hettie would ever turn on him, but he couldn’t be sure how they’d handle the knowledge that somebody was talking to the government.

There was a sound from the bathroom that he registered as the top popping off of a pill bottle and then the running faucet. The door opened and Hettie stood there, hair pulled back in a tail, breasts supported by her round gut looking angry, hungry and mean. She held a green plastic cup of tap water in one hand and a little blue pill in the other.

Chowder rolled over and pulled the sheet over his head. Hettie’s voice was full of authority. “Oh hell no. You don’t get off that easy.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

MONDALE

The stretch of 71b that led south from Neosho toward the Arkansas border was a gold mine for speeding tickets. The two lane highway wound through the hills with speed limits jumping from sixty-five to forty-five, then up to fifty-five every few minutes with a traffic signal or two thrown in to further complicate things. A cruiser placed around any bend or in the parking lot of a convenience mart was a sure fire money-maker for all of the hamlets dotting the map, including Spruce.

Mondale sat in his own prowler along the path to Pineville for hours. The sun had set on him and he’d not issued a single ticket. He’d sat in silence and now in darkness going over the situation with the ASA endlessly.

Mondale’d just about punched the little shit when he’d expressed open suspicion of him. But he hadn’t, and wondered now if he should’ve. What he’d done instead was call him an arrogant little prick and ask him to leave.

As soon as the lawyer had left the building, Jimmy told Wanda he was leaving and had blown off Bob Musil who approached him in the parking lot with a flat upraised hand. Deputy Musil swallowed whatever he had to say and let Jimmy go. He’d not answered any radio calls the rest of the day, finally switching the damn thing off when he parked.

Some things had become clear in the meantime. Dennis Jordan didn’t have anything on him. He’d never tip his hand like that if he was sitting on good information, he’d just have him arrested at the right time. It was also clear to Mondale that he had to take another look at his partner. Their fates were tied so closely that he couldn’t afford to be lax in any part of their operation. Chowder was a damn good businessman and had muscle enough that Jimmy’d been able to steer clear of his side of the business and let the big man run it how he saw fit, but something was wrong and Jimmy couldn’t feature it being on his end. Outside of Deputy Musil, whom he trusted implicitly, there wasn’t anybody with any idea what he was up to.

Lights appeared around the bend followed quickly by a familiar pickup truck. Jimmy recognized Tate Dill through the window and Tate nodded at him as he passed. He watched the truck disappear around the next bend. His fingers flexed instinctively and he blinked. Jimmy started the car.

Tate pulled over after a couple of miles when he noticed he was being followed. Mondale hadn’t hit his lights or siren and Tate didn’t look nervous sitting there, but Jimmy’s hairs had been standing since the truck had passed him. He left his headlights on and exited the vehicle.

The dark was complete now and nothing could be seen outside the cast of the prowler’s beams. They were pulled over to the gravel shoulder of the narrow highway with an incline to their left and a sharp bank on the road’s right side. The tall trees could be heard waving in the breeze, but not seen towering over them. The crunch of his boots as he stepped sounded sharply over the low purring of the vehicles’ motors.

He could see Tate’s elbow hanging out the open window and resting on the door. Inside the truck, Jimmy saw him adjust the rearview mirror. The prickly sensation on his skin moved, but didn’t go away and Jimmy fought his instincts to have a hand on his hip by his gun. He wanted to keep this casual.

Tate’s left arm moved as he drew parallel to the window and he saw Tate take a drag from the joint he held. Tate nodded at the policeman while he held his breath. As he exhaled he said, “Hey, Sheriff, how you doing tonight?”

“Evening, Tate. What’s going on?”

Tate, still exhaling with his lips, turned in and shook his head gently. “Nothin. Beautiful night though, huh?” Mondale looked into his unfocused, red-rimmed eyes, but saw no sign of nerves.

“The hell are you doing?”

Tate looked ready to repeat what he’d just said. Jimmy pointed at the joint. “I mean with that.”

“Oh, sorry.” Tate offered it to the Sheriff.

“Turn off the engine and get out the truck, Tate.” Tate blinked and did a double take. “Now.”

“What’s up, Jimmy?” He turned off his engine and opened the door and Mondale backed up to give him room to step out.

“Turn around and put your hands on the hood.”

“Sure, Jimmy.” He was confused, but still didn’t sound concerned. “What should I do with this?” He indicated the joint.

“Drop it.”

“Okay.”

Mondale took his flashlight out and ran it over the interior of the pickup while Tate leaned on the hood, staring at the fading cherry on the joint’s tip between his feet in the gravel. Finding nothing worth looking at, he returned his attention to Tate. “Turn around.”

“What’s going on, Jimmy?”

“I’m the damn police, Tate, not your friend.” This registered only an uncomprehending stare from Tate Dill. “So pot’s still illegal, shithead.”

Tate slumped. “Oh, man. C’mon, Jimmy, you weren’t flashing lights, I just figured it was a social stop.”

“Hey,” he slapped the back of Tate’s head. “We don’t have a social relationship. What are you doing out here tonight?”

Tate shrugged innocently. “Just driving, Jimmy. Going to work.”

“Uh-huh. Well, now you’re going to jail.”

“What? Why are you being such a prick, Jimmy? C’mon, I gotta go to work. Chowder’s gonna kill me if I’m late.” Jimmy looked at him hard. His eyes were more confused and scared than angry. Mondale’s hair began to lie down again. “C’mon, Jimmy, please. If I did something that pissed you off, I’m sorry, man, but I don’t know about it, really.”

“Shit.” Mondale relaxed and gestured at the joint on the ground. “Pick that up.” Tate did. It had gone out and he held it sideways, pinched between his fingers uncertainly. Mondale raised his eyebrows and Tate cocked his head.

“What?”

“It don’t work unless you burn it.” Tate got his lighter out of his pocket and placed the joint in his lips. He got it lit and offered it to the sheriff. Mondale accepted it and took a quick hit. He held it at his side then and after another moment, took a deeper hit before handing it back to Tate. “Take it easy.”

Tate took the joint and watched Mondale walk back to his vehicle. “You alright, Sheriff?”

TERRY

The inside of Terry’s truck smelled like someone had pelted it with a bottle of cologne. Between the two of them, they’d spritzed on more vapor-aids and hair treatment in one night than the rest of their lives combined. Terry insisted that they crack the windows as their hygiene fumes were threatening to overwhelm him and succeeding on at least making his head hurt.

Cal’s wisps of red hair were clumped together with gel and Terry could see freckles abounding across his shiny white scalp. His own head-top hair, too long by six weeks, was curling at the ends and separating from the upward tending mass on the back of his neck. Terry tugged at the base of his skull constantly while he drove.

“You look fine,” said Cal and smiled at his friend when Terry turned to glare at him.

“You saying I look like a queer?”

“No.”

“Well that’s too bad. Cause that’s exactly the look we’re going for, right?”

There was a moment’s pause then Cal quietly said, “No.”

“No?”

“I’m trying to look good
to
a queer, not look
like
a queer.”

Terry sneered and shook his head sadly. “Afraid I’ve got bad news on both fronts.”

The bar was a non-descript, aluminum-sided ranch-style with a gravel parking lot out front and an abandoned gas station across the road, twenty miles outside of Branson. It looked like one of the hard-rode titty bars with wood-plank walks and railings seen in old cowboy movies, that you’d find tucked away just off the interstate every ten miles or so, except for the lack of lighted signage to draw anybody’s eye. Not even a neon Budweiser to call attention to it. If not for the two vehicles out front, and the half-dozen more around the back, it looked closed.

They parked at one of the dry pumps across the two-lane and studied it. “You sure that’s it?” asked Terry.

Cal nodded. “I know. You’d expect it to look fruitier outside, but that’s the place.”

After ten minutes of pre-game 40s in the truck, they approached the building. Indoors it wasn’t any fruitier. It was dark and cleanish, but still a saloon. Juke in one corner next to a Mortal Kombat machine, video-poker on the bar and a couple pool tables in the back. They took seats at the bar and ordered more beers, then looked around at the other clientele. “I dunno if this is gonna work,” said Terry. “A photo of this place’ll look like a picture of any other bar. We need something really really like super-gay if we’re gonna blackmail anybody with it.”

Cal nodded then pointed out. “Notice there aren’t any women around, though.” Cal re-checked, then continued. “Speaks loud and clear.” He raised his eyebrows in support of this point.

Terry counted the entire female population of the place up to zero, then asked, “How many women you ever seen back home at The Gulch?”

Cal dismissed the thought. “That’s different.”

Shaking his head, Terry said, “Not in a photograph, it’s not. C’mon, let’s go.”

“No way, I’ma finish my beer and have another.” Cal’s pride was hurt. “Since this place is so much like our place, I don’t see why not.”

“Don’t get pouty. It was a good plan, but let’s stick to liquor stores and bait shops for now.” The bartender eyed them warily and Terry signaled for another pitcher. “’Sides, who am I kidding? Like we’re really gonna drive all the way out here and not see Yakoff? I don’t think so.”

After the second pitcher, Cal needed to take a leak. “Come with me.”

“Why?”

“Think I’m gonna let myself get cruised in a queer piss shack? Uh-uh, I need back up.” They found the restroom and Cal put his ear to the door before opening it. Hearing nothing untoward, he went through, but asked Terry to stay back and stand sentry. “Changed my mind. It’d look bad, both of us going in together.” Terry nodded and slumped against the wall.

He’d never been to a gay bar before. Heard of them, but never been. Not that he’d spent much time thinking about it, but this really wasn’t what he’d imagined. Buncha blue collar types mostly, letting their wrists dangle a bit, but otherwise pretty conservative. There were a couple of grease monkeys just coming in, headed for the corner to shoot pool. There was a businessman, fat and bald, but dressed sharp and letting his money talk to the young blonde on the far side of the bar. Dynamics seemed familiar. Still, he figured if he were a queer he’d probably just stay at home and jerk off looking at himself in the mirror.

When he returned from the bathroom Cal was more than a little befuddled to see Terry talking up the mechanics shooting pool on the far side of the room. Terry seemed not at all put at odds with his surroundings which Cal found unsettling, but his curiosity won out and he put on his easiest smile as he approached.

Terry and the one mechanic were talking about trucks and transmissions, one and then the other pantomiming shifting from reverse to first and on up. Unless it was code of some sort. Homo-jackoff sign language. That would be like Terry to learn the vulgar bits first. Only.

“Hoah, Terry, you ready to go?”

“Nah, c’mon, let’s stay awhile, this here faggot is my cousin Stuart. We knocked over one of my first grocery stores together with his dad’s squirrel gun.” Stuart mimed aiming the gun awkwardly at Terry who opened a mock cash register and began pulling out bills.

Cal looked uneasy.

“Don’t worry, they know we’re not into sex with each other. It’s cool.”

Terry and Stuart shot pool for a half-hour, and, after failing to find conversational common ground with Cal, the other mechanic relocated to the bar, leaving Cal sitting alone on a stool along the wall, when Terry’s laugh rang out loud and familiar. He was responding to something Stuart had said.

“The fuck out.”

Stuart’s fingers made the Scout’s Honor sign. “Swear.”

“No. ”

“Yeah.”

“How many of our cousins did you blow?”

“I ain’t telling you.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause it’s maybe a private thing, or don’t you know anything about those?” Terry, well into his drinks, doubled over giggling and Stuart looked as if he were enjoying the reunion as much as his cousin was. “Hey, played your cards right, could’ve happened for you too.”

Terry choked on his drink and spit it on the floor. “How about now?” he barely managed.

Stuart stood straighter. “No chance, cousin. I’ve got standards.”

“Hey, Cal, take a picture of me and Stu.” Terry put his arm around his cousin and they straightened up and grinned for Cal who framed them quickly in the camera he’d brought for extortion purposes. The flash brought some nervous glances their way, but they were ignored.