Fourteen.

Phil walked into the station at five of eight, keyed up by an array of emotions: despair, perplexion, and anger...

Mostly anger.

"Hi, Phil," Susan said from the commo niche, her nose buried in a textbook.

"What?"

She vaguely smirked, looking up. "I said hi. It"s a colloquial Modem English interjection commonly used to denote a greeting."

"Oh, yeah. Hi. Where"s Mullins?"

Susan obviously sensed his disheveled mood at once. "He"s eating sushi on the Ginza in Tokyo. You know, like he does every night at eight."

"Huh?"

"He"s in his office! Where else would he be?" She closed her book somewhat testily. "What"s wrong with you? You get out on the wrong side of the bed today?"

"Sorry, Susan. I-" He didn"t know how to properly explain it, not that he would want to anyway, not to her. What? My ex-fiancee stopped by today and enlightened me to the fact that she"s married to Cody Natter. She claims Mullins tried to rape her. Oh, and she"s also a prost.i.tute and a c.o.ke addict. No, that wouldn"t wash, and it would certainly put a damper on their date tomorrow.

"Just feeling a little out of it today. Talk to you later."

Phil"s frown widened when he stepped into the chief"s office; Mullins wasn"t there, but an instinctive glance to the back window showed the chief lumbering out of the disused lockup behind the station, bearing a can of coffee.

"Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I see," the big man said when he came in.

Phil didn"t waste time. "That was real cool of you to not tell me Vicki Steele was married to Cody Natter. I guess you just forgot that minor detail, huh?"

"I can tell you"re in a great mood." Mullins started another pot of coffee, then sat down at the cluttered desk. "I figured it was best you found out on your own. Didn"t want to shake you up before I had to."

"Oh, I appreciate that, Chief. I"m not a school kid, you know. I don"t let personal stuff get in the way of my job."

"I can tell." Mullins" chair creaked like a keening hinge when he lounged back. "You haven"t even been in the office ten seconds, and you look about as happy as a mad dog. I didn"t think you could handle that information right off the bat."

"Well, fine. But next time fill me in, all right? How can I do a good job on this case if you withhold pertinent facts?"

"Sorry, dear. It won"t happen again. I take it you ran into her."

"Yeah, this afternoon before I turned in."

"Were you in uniform?"

"No, no, my cover"s intact."

"Good." Mullins hand-pinched a few choice leaves of tobacco from his bag, then stuffed them into his cheek.

"Takes the cake, don"t it? That ugly sc.u.mbag is married to the best-looking woman in town, and he"s got her doing a strip show and turning tricks."

Yeah, it takes the cake, all right. But now that he"d had time to think about it, it wasn"t terribly surprising. "Actually it"s pretty common in criminal networks. Drug kingpins frequently take a beautiful wife for status, then use them for business. The dust honchos in the city do it all the time. It"s like buying a $500 silk shirt and using it to check your oil. It"s street machismo."

Mullins chuckled grimly at the simile. "Ugly Creeker slime. I can"t wait to bust his a.s.s."

"We got a lot of very positive leads real fast, and Vicki"s the best lead yet."

"You figure you"ll run into her on a regular basis?"

"Sure. She works at Krazy Sallee"s; I"ll be hanging out there every night. And I"ll be seeing a lot of Eagle Peters, too. I should be able to infiltrate the entire scene at Sallee"s if I play my cards right."

"Yeah, but if you play "em wrong, you could wind up looking like that chump we found in the ravine this moring. So be careful."

"But," Phil went on, "a secure cover is the key, and there"s no way I can expect to maintain a secure cover by staking out Sallee"s for a few hours in plainclothes and then touring the town in uniform for the rest of my shift all night. There"s only one way to do this right, Chief."

"You want to go undercover full time, in other words?"

"There"s no other option, Chief. Say I"m hamming it up at the bar with Peters one night, and a couple hours later the guy sees me cruising around in the patrol car. Or any of the regulars at Sallee"s. Not only would that destroy my cover for good, it would tip Natter that you"re eying him. He"ll move his distro point somewhere else, and then we"re worse off than before we started."

"You"re right," Mullins grumbled and spat. "But I"ll have a hard time selling it to the town council. This ain"t Miami Vice, you know. They won"t like the idea of paying an officer for fulltime undercover and not having a uniform on duty during the nightshift."

Phil gave a smirk. "p.i.s.s on the town council, Chief. They want you to solve this PCP business, you gotta do it the right way. Those loudmouth a.s.sholes shouldn"t even know about it. And, s.h.i.t, you don"t really even need a patrol cop out here at night. All I ever get are smoochers parking out on some of the old logging roads. Anything hairy goes down, Susan can call you, or dispatch the county. If you want me to get into Natter"s s.h.i.t, I can"t be seen anywhere near this station or that cruiser. And no one, not even the town council or the mayor, can know about me being undercover. They could blab, and I wouldn"t be surprised if Natter"s greasing one of them for tip-offs. You trust those guys?"

"Wouldn"t trust "em to walk my dog, and I don"t even have a f.u.c.kin" dog." Mullins festered a moment more, then conceded. "All right, you"re the big city expert, we"ll do it your way. Work your own hours, do your own thing, but keep me posted each day. And be f.u.c.kin" careful. These people don"t f.u.c.k around; you saw that Rhodes guy this morning."

I sure did, Phil remembered. Seeing a skinned human being wasn"t easy to forget. He got up to leave, but hesitantly.

"Ain"t you even gonna stay for a cup of coffee?"

Phil raised a brow at the bubbling pot. "No thanks. But look, Chief, there"s one thing I gotta ask."

"What?"

How could he phrase the question without looking absurd? He"d wind up proving that he couldn"t keep personal feelings separate from the job.

Still, though, he had to ask.

"Vicki said-" he began.

Mullins laughed immediately. "Let me guess, supercop. She told you I fired her on bulls.h.i.t, right? What"d you expect her to say? "Phil, honey, big bad Chief Mullins fired me "cos I was f.u.c.king a bunch of stoners for twenty a bang in the back of the cruiser." Get real, Phil. Bet she also told you I tried to rape her."

"Well-"

"Check the file, lover boy. It"s all doc.u.mented. Sure, I"ll bet she also told you I fabricated the charges and the witnesses, and if you"re stupid enough to believe that, then you need to turn your brain in for a new one."

"I didn"t say I believed it," Phil stumbled. "I just-"

"How am I gonna jink affidavits and sworn testimony? It"s all filed through the county. The county investigated the whole schmear. What, they"re making it up, too? I"m buddies with the f.u.c.kin" county? Those f.u.c.kers hate munic.i.p.al departments. Go down to the county hall of records with a FOIA request, see for yourself. Christ, I showed you the pictures. She was turning tricks in the parking lot for G.o.d"s sake. She was giving b.l.o.w.j.o.bs, behind the f.u.c.king dumpster. And that was just one stack, Phil. You want to see the rest?"

Phil felt he was shrinking from embarra.s.sment. Yes, he"d made an idiot of himself even bringing it up. "No," he said. "It"s just, like-"

Mullins spat tobacco juice into one paper cup and swigged rancid coffee from another. "Look, I know it ain"t an easy thing to admit, but no matter how you look at it, there"s no way you can tell me otherwise. Vicki Steele"s a hooker now. A roadside f.u.c.kin" wh.o.r.e turning tricks for her old man, who"s the biggest angel dust supplier in the county and probably a murderer to boot. Back in the old days, sure, she was different then, she was a decent person, but that was a long while ago. People let their lives go to s.h.i.t every day, and sometimes they"re people we know, even people we used to be in love with. But as cops, we have to forget it. We can"t let that s.h.i.t get to us "cos if we do, we ain"t worth s.h.i.t ourselves. You hearing me?"

"Yeah, I"m hearing you, Chief." Phil walked out, dejected, asinine. Mullins was right. Vicki Steele was a wh.o.r.e now.

A wh.o.r.e, he told himself and let the word sink in. And nothing more.

"Go ahead, Druck," Cody Natter granted permission. No one, naturally, could touch his wife without permission, no one dared. "Just take care not to leave any marks. She must always look good on stage. Few would want to purchase her services with her lovely face all bruised, yes?"

"Please, Cody," his wife pleaded. One of the Creeker boys held her elbows behind her back, inclining her up on her tiptoes. "What is wrong?" she sobbed. "What have I done?"

Natter sat down to watch. "Hmm. Wrong. I suppose that"s for you to tell me, yes?"

Druck cracked the knuckles of his two left thumbs, then very delicately untied her tanktop. Vicki whined as the Creeker boy behind her exerted a bit more pressure against her elbows, which jutted her bosom. "You sh.o.r.e are pretty, Ms. Vicki," Druck made the compliment. His crooked eyes fixed on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Now what"cha wanna go jerkin" Cody "round fer. He"s a right fine husband to ya, seems ta me."

"I didn"t do anything!" she shrieked.

In the corner, a third Creeker boy drooled, rubbing the crotch of his overalls, while the boy behind her drooled even more profusely onto her bare shoulder. "Don"t"cha bite now," Druck suggested. "Otherwise Ise"ll have to have the boys do ya twice, and you wouldn"t want that, would ya? "Specially Scooter there. I"se sure you"se heard how big he is. Last time he a.s.sed a gal, she plumb up an" bled ta death."

Druck then inserted his two long thumbs into Vicki"s mouth. He wriggled them gently, smiling his warped, broken-toothed smile as the Creeker boy holding her began to jibber in enthusiasm, spittle bubbling at his lips. Vicki"s own lips squirmed in revulsion. Tears smeared the fine-lined mascara down her cheeks like trails of black blood.

Cody Natter made a single, resolute nod.

"Time ta listen up, Ms. Vicki, and ya"s best listen good-" Druck slid his double thumbs all the way to the back of her throat and pressed down. He pressed down hard.

Instantly, Vicki was gagging, her green eyes widening, her body in tremors. "Don"t"cha bite," Druck kindly repeated, "an" don"t"cha dare puke. Just listen." Beads of sweat welled on Druck"s protuberant forehead; his scarlet eyes focused intently. "You tell Cody here what"cha were doin" today. You tell Cody where ya been."

He pressed down hard one more time until she nearly retched. Then he removed his thumbs.

"Go on."

After a violent coughing fit, she managed to catch her breath. Tears and sweat pasted shocks of her red hair to her paling face. "I just-went-for a drive," she croaked, then whined when the boy behind her resumed the clenching pressure on her elbows.

Cody Natter blinked. His own eyes, though keen and clear, were uneven, one lower than the other and noticeably larger. His ears, too-each the size of a pastry-pressed the sides of his head so unevenly they scarcely appeared real. And in spite of the monstrously malformed face-long, bony, runneled-a sane and even considerate sense of deliberation seemed suffused through his twisted features.

"A drive," he said. "That"s all? And where did this drive take you?"

"Nowhere, Cody, I swear!" she exclaimed, her teeth gritting against the pain of being chicken-winged. "I just went for a drive "cos I was bored!"

"Hmm. Well." Natter steepled his triple-jointed fingers in his lap. "What do you think, Druck? Is my fair wife telling the truth, or is she lying?"

"Well, jeez, Cody, I don"t rightly know, ya know?"

"How about you, Scooter? Is there a liar in our midst?"

The third Creeker boy babbled excitedly, tossing his squashed head and rubbing briskly at the obvious erection in his trousers. A foot-long line of drool depended off his bulbed chin.

Natter sighed. "Perhaps a trifle more convincing is in order. Yes, I think so."

"No, please!" Vicki shrieked. "I didn"t do anything, I swear to G.o.d!"

"You needn"t swear to G.o.d, my dear. Not here."

Natter nodded then to the third boy, who quickly appeared and returned a moment later, dragging along a gagged and blindfolded Creeker girl. Immediately, he clutched her by strings of jet-black hair and threw her to the floor.

"Lovely wife, please. Come sit with me."

Vicki was released and shoved forward. Natter"s queerly long arms and hands shot out, grabbed her about the waist, and pulled her in, forcing her to sit in his lap.

His grip tightened, and his big grouper lips whispered in her ear: "So many choose to stray from our fold. Shanny tried to run away again last night. Such a pity. The poor thing doesn"t realize."

Scooter, the third boy, stepped clumsily out of his overalls, clucking like a psychotic chicken. The second boy pinned the girl"s shoulders with his knees while Druck, drooling himself now, opened a buck knife and cut off her gag and blindfold. Then Scooter-sporting an erection so large and genetically malformed it more resembled a loaf of French bread-climbed atop the girl and began to rape her.

The girl"s screams were dizzying.

Each time Vicki tried to turn her face away, Natter"s claw-hand vised the back of her head and forced her to return her attention to the madness on the floor. "You must watch, my love," came his shredded whisper. "You must see. Everything that we see makes us more real in the face of our faith. Do you understand? Some sights aren"t so pretty, but they"re real just the same..."

Vicki looked on from her husband"s lap, paralyzed, nauseous. Druck and his two dutiful attendants took turns raping the screaming girl. Her shrieks rattled the windows and pierced Vicki"s ears. All manner of molestation and sodomy ensued until the sheer gravity of shock robbed what was left of her senses, leaving her silent, bug-eyed, and convulsant on the wood floor. Blood poured freely as if dumped from a bucket.

"All things serve a higher purpose, wife. Even terrible things. One day you"ll see that as clearly as I do."

Again, Natter nodded.

Druck slit the girl"s throat to the bone. She twitched feebly once or twice, then died. The two boys jabbered on, their bulbous heads bobbing in glee. Druck"s knife flashed, cutting an expert seam from the girl"s pubis to her chest.

"Soup"s on, boys!" he exclaimed.

The three of them, then, sloppily disemboweled the girl where she lay, reveling in a wet, noisy festival of gore. Hands dipped down and came away red. Jabbers of enthusiasm rose above the sounds of evisceration. Organs were promptly scooped up and consumed...

Natter"s hand released the back of Vicki"s head; her eyes fled away.

"Oh, my love," creaked the monstrous man"s voice. "Never lie to me, or else they"ll do the same to you."

Fifteen.