Chief Bolton ran from his office to his personal squad car. He had no driver because he liked to go on patrol by himself. This saved him the trouble of explaining his behavior and whereabouts. No one ever asked Chief Bolton about his whereabouts anyway. The only person he seemed responsible to was not the Mayor or any superior law officer, or the governor or anyone who ostensibly paid his salary, but solely and singly the richest man in the county, Victor Von Schwartz.
No one questioned Bolton's loyalty to Von Schwartz either, but Von Schwartz had his doubts. Bolton ignored the multimillionaire’s wishes regularly and was often not to be found when needed and seldom enforced any laws. There were written statutes of course and unspoken social customs and propriety but Bolton had no time to indulge do-gooder lawyers and moralists. He saw them as 'Socialists' and railed that they threatened 'our way of life', though he really meant his own network of graft and corruption. That was Chief Bolton's 'way of life'.
Bolton's car screeched to a halt along a dirt and gravel road. There was a tin shack nestled in the brush and wet rancid smoke billowed from the makeshift chimney protruding from the shack's rear wall.
Bolton got out of the car, spit on the ground and lit a cigar from his shirt pocket. "Zeb!" He yelled into the wilderness. He did not yell again, waiting for a reply. Soon enough heinous laughter rose from the rustling bushes, which parted with the snapping of twigs and breaking branches.
"Hey, Ray," said the filthy hillbilly, coming into view tweaking his oily black exposed genitals.
"Where's Zeb, Caleb?" Bolton asked the dirty retard.
Caleb Bolton picked his stuffed nostril and licked the slimy bugger from his finger.
"In the cabin—sleepin'. We had a right busy mornin', what with that—"
"Shut your goddamn filthy mouth, you ape!"
Bolton was scared. He had been made paranoid by the telephone call from the big city ADA office, even if the caller were a woman. He was afraid she would blow somebody to get a real investigation going into the Electric case. He did not want that. That was the last thing he'd ever want in this lifetime.
If the truth were told he would want the truth teller murdered like a mad dog. He was the only one who could tell the truth; then came Von Schwartz with his half-assed version of what Bolton had told him happened. Then there was the Jap shrink who might have gotten more out of Von Schwartz's little bitch than she let on. Bolton was scared and worried about going right out of his mind with fear.
Electric was loose and that made Bolton even more afraid. Electric did not know anything about the truth and that meant that Electric was not a mad dog. In fact that made Barry Electric the sanest man alive.
Bolton rapped hard on the tin shack's door. The place rattled and almost fell in on itself. "Zeb!" the fat red-faced bull shouted. After several minutes, Zeb's scraping shuffling feet could be heard across the dirt floor and the door opened, his sullied unshaven face smiling nearly toothless. Bolton was pissed already and missed the intended warmth of his cousin's greeting entirely.
"What'd you do with 'em?" the Chief fumed, stomping inside the dilapidated hovel.
"What you told me, Ray. Took care of 'em real good. You won't have no trouble outa them no more." Zeb chuckled under his breath as Bolton scanned the filthy interior looking for any sign of the two agents' presence or demise. His eye caught sight of Casper's cellphone beside the one he'd given Zeb atop a beat up television console.
"Hmmph," the chief grunted, moving his gaze to the unmade cot beneath which he spied Huang's mud stained stilettos. Stepping over and lifting the musty blanket, Bolton saw Huang's soiled lace panties atop the crusty thin bare mattress.
"Get rid of this stuff," he ordered, huffing his cigar. Zeb did not reply as his distant cousin faced him. "You done good, Zeb. I owe ya."
Bolton watched the hillbilly's face grow dark.
"Uh-uh," Zeb uttered calmly, the Agent's .32 coming from behind the hillbilly's back. "You pay me now—or the next job is free."
Bolton gasped, the burning cheroot sputtering from his lips and he reached for the bulky 1911 on his hip. Zeb began pulling the Tomcat's trigger and the bullets flew. Bolton was ticking off exploding hollow points from the .45 and the shack rocked like an earthquake was going through it. Slugs tore through the paper-thin walls and whined into the woods, ricocheting off trees and tearing off chunks of bark with the impact. Caleb dodged a few shells, tentatively reached for Huang's gun, which like he'd seen Zeb do with the Tomcat, he had tucked in his belt at the back of his drooping jeans. Deciding that there were too many slugs flying already, he ran off into the woods instead leaving his cousins to work their differences out to death.
Luna's aunt heated some leftovers and set the table. The mysterious little lady, half cragged faced hag-half sensuous teenager hadn't said a word since we arrived, making up for it with golden silence. Syn was on good behavior and served up the chow with Luna watching her like a gun sight. I looked from Tooyoung to Chulong as they scarfed the food hungrily, eating with their mouths open and slight eyes shut tightly.
"So No," I said, figuring with her mouth full, I might have a better chance of understanding her. "This son of yours—is your pimp. Or is it the other way around?" That remark got a dirty look from Luna and Syn. The two faces were mirror images of each other. True to form, sloppy and disgusting, Tooyoung stuffed her cheek with mashed potatoes and brown gravy before she spoke.
"My pimp—," she said almost with glee, jaw crammed full of food. "I love him."
I broke a piece of bread from the loaf on the table and swiped some butter across it with the bread knife.
"So where is he now?"
"I Dunno," she said absently.
Luna raised her eyes to Sin who was standing behind me now, then dropped her gaze into mine. I read the look like a headline: Tooyoung did love her pimp, not like a son, but like a pimp. She could make it real easy for me to take a bullet in the back from the boy who held her heart and her pocketbook in his fist. Chulong was another matter. She was loyal to her mother but did not hold any affection for her big brother, understandably, but I needed both mother and daughter to find the documents that would throw harsh light on Victor Von Schwartz's past.
Though I would need a lot more than that to crawl out from under the gallows hanging over my head, like the wavy gold colored mane that draped Sin’s shoulders and fell upon the prominent orbs of glowing flesh. I could feel her hot breath on the back of my neck and her long fingers stroking my hair, the fingernails scratching my temples lightly as she pushed them through my thick yellow hair and the scissors' blades took chunks of it away. Luna watched, eyes half raised as the dirty blond locks fell from around my ears and landed on the kitchen floor. I lifted the glass of beer and looked into Luna's fixed glaring eyes. She looked as if she were staring into the face of death.
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