It was past five at the end of a long slow day of paperwork and Dan was uptight.  Too long at the desk tended to do that to him; he was a man who craved action.  Right now, he needed something to break the tension before driving home.  Three days ago, he’d busted a low-level weed dealer and confiscated his pot—there were still several rolled joints in his desk drawer.  Unlocking it, he pulled it out and extracted one of them.

 

He had no qualms about lighting up in his office; no one would dare enter without knocking.  And anyway, the building was practically empty.  The first shift had left and second was out on its rounds.  Cooper was manning the duty desk on the other side of the building, and Schumacher was tending the two drunks in the basement cells.  Only other person around was Pete, and he—

 

There was a rap at the door.  “C’mon in, Pete,” Dan said.

 

The heavily-muscled deputy entered the room and sniffed.  A conspiratorial grin spread across his handsome, hirsute face, and he eagerly accepted a toke from the smoldering jay Dan handed him.

 

“You wanted to see me, Cap?” he croaked, trying not to exhale too much of the sweet-scented blue smoke.

 

“Yeah,” Dan said, taking the joint back and tossing him a manila folder full of papers instead.  “Here, before you get too high, read this an’ tell me what ya think.”

 

“What is it?” Pete asked, then answered his own question by reading the header on the first page.  “Autopsy report?  Whose?  And who’s this Dr. Herrera?”

 

“Herrera is the county medical examiner.  Corpse is some kid from Corrington.”

 

“Corrington?  That’s south of here, isn’t it?  Not far from the Quail County line?”

 

“Southwest, yeah.  Little podunk place—you ever been there?”

 

Pete, who had moved to Rigler County recently, shook his head.

 

“It was the original county seat,” Dan continued.  “The old courthouse is still down there, but there ain’t more than three or four thousand folk down in that whole southwestern corner now.  That’s what makes that report so interesting.”

 

Pete turned his attention back to the autopsy.  “Lessee, Caucasian male, late teens to early twenties…found partially submerged in moderate state of decay…proximate cause of death, traumatic dislocation of spine between first and second cervical vertebrae…”  He turned back to Dan, who was proffering the joint again.  “I don’t get it,” he said, “So we got a dead kid with a broken neck.  So what?”

 

“Keep goin’,” Dan replied complacently.

 

“Ok, Pete said resignedly, “Where was I…oh, here we are…broken fingers on left hand…shattered right patella…nose broken…what the—?”

 

“Find something interesting?” Dan asked innocently.

 

“Crushed esophagus indicative of violent manual strangulation…clear evidence of sexual assault…sperm recovered but likely too degraded for local analysis; recommend the State Bureau of Investigation be involved…”

 

Pete paused for a moment; Dan spoke up.

 

“Body was ID’d through fingerprints.  Twenty-three year old waste of human flesh called Travis Egerton.  Couple a’ rednecks out frog-giggin’ found him floatin’ in a swamp.  Thought we might take a ride out to Corrington tomorrow, yeah?  I wanna find this guy—for several reasons. I really wanna find him.”

 

There was something in Dan’s smile that made Pete’s dick stiffen until it tentpoled his tan chinos.  “Me too, Cap,” he replied, his broad grin lighting up his youthful face, “Me too.  Count me in.”

 

---

 

The county road was poorly maintained; Captain Dan’s pickup bucked and rocked on the crumbling, pitted asphalt.  Pete, grateful for the four-wheel drive, peered at the paperwork again.

 

“Where is the place—this 1805 CR 83 west?  I couldn’t find it online.  Who are we looking for?”

 

Frowning with concentration, Dan gripped the steering wheel tightly, his high glossy boots working the pedals carefully as he maneuvered the truck around the worst of the potholes.  “It’s where that Travis fucker was stayin’.  I did a little research after you left last night—turns out our dead meat was a known associate of that other dead piece a’ shit, Robbie Clebbs.”

 

As Robbie’s name was mention, an image flashed briefly through Pete’s mind—the look on the teen cunt’s face when Pete knifed him in the throat.  Instantly, the groin of his tight chinos was bulging as the erotic pleasure of the memory warmed his blood.  A quick, surreptitious glance at Cap’s crotch showed he hadn’t been immune to the power of flashback.

 

“Anyway,” Dan went on, grinning, “That gave me enough to roust Judge Wheeler outta bed early this mornin’ an’ sign a search warrant for the dude’s last known address.”

 

“Awful long—” Pete started when the truck hit a deep pothole with a resounding bang.  Dan cursed under his breath.  “Awful long way to come for this,” the deputy continued, “We coulda done what the ME suggested and called in the SBI to test the cum in the punk’s ass.”

 

“Yeah,” Dan admitted, “We coulda done that.  But I wanna keep control of the situation.  I wanna decide what to do when we find this guy…”  His voice trailed off and he seemed to grow contemplative for a moment before returning to himself.  “He clearly has certain…talents that might come in handy.  If the state’s involved, there’s nothing I can do, you got me?”

 

“Yeah, I think I do,” Pete replied thoughtfully.  “You thinkin’ about hirin’ another deputy?”

 

“We’ll see,” Dan said.  “Depends on his attitude towards Authority.”

 

Pete, who understood and shared Dan’s dedication to Authority, said nothing more until Dan swung off the road onto an even more rutted dirt track.  Several hundred yards off the road, they came to halt in front of an old single-wide trailer with a jacked-up black pickup parked in front.  They got out of their vehicle and mounted the shoddily-built wooden stairs to the front door; Pete noted how the thin wood steps gave under his Danner Tachyon boots.

 

Dan found it necessary to bang repeatedly on the hollow aluminum door before he got any kind of response.  At long last, the door was slowly—and, it seemed, grudgingly—unlocked.  It opened a crack and a bleary, scruffy face looked out.

 

“Whatcha want?”

 

Dan held the search warrant up so the dude could read the name on it.  “That you?” he asked.

 

“Yeah,” Brody said with a deep sigh as he opened the door and reluctantly let the cops in.

 

They stepped inside the dimly-lit space.  The trailer had an unhealthy, musty smell comprised equally of stale beer, manscent and the taint of formaldehyde-treated plywood.  Neither cop minded the smell, though, they were both looking intently at Brody.

 

He was a little large and a little older than Pete—and, by the same token, younger than and not quite as muscular as Captain Dan.  He was wearing nothing but cutoff jean shorts, white tube socks that covered his meaty calves, and a pair of untied Redwing construction boots.  Even in the low lighting, it was impossible to miss his ripped abs and broad, hubcap pecs with jutting erect nipples.

 

Brody ran his eyes over the two men standing before him, his gaze magnetically drawn to the older cop’s trooper boots, admiring the polished brown leather.  The other one was younger, his scruffy face somehow intriguing the well-built redneck.

 

Then Dan began.  “You know a kid named Travis Egerton?”

 

“Yeah,” Brody replied with elaborate nonchalance.  “He lived here for a coupla years, but he ran off a few weeks ago.  Dunno why and don’t care; little faggot wasn’t pullin’ his weight ‘round here anyways.”

 

“So he just left?  Didn’t leave any forwarding address?  Did he have a job?”

 

Brody’s face assumed an expression of impassive reluctance; he was clearly uncomfortable speaking to them.  “Yeah, like I toldja—he just left and I don’t know where.  And yeah, he had a job—kinda.  Worked part time at the Kum ‘n Buy up the road.  But they don’t know where he is either, I already asked.”

 

Pete was learning his trade quickly.  Like Cap, he’d picked up on Brody’s discomfort.  “Thought you said you didn’t care what happened to him,” he put in.  “So why’dja go ask about him?”

 

“I wanted them to gimme his last paycheck,” Brody snapped, his eyes hooded and cautious, “Motherfucker owed me back rent, so I figgered it belonged to me.  Fuckin’ chink bastard who owns the place wouldn’t give it to me.”

 

“So he left without picking up his last paycheck,” Dan mused aloud meditatively.  “Did he ever mention or hang around with another kid called Ronnie?  Eighteen, slim, kinda curly black hair, not quite as long as yours—ring a bell?”

 

“Yeah, I heard ‘im mention the name a coupla time.  Thought it was just another one of those little pansy friends of his.  Never met the queer.  Anyway, why are ya askin’ all this shit?  What’s goin’ on here anyway?”

 

Dan paused for a moment, letting his ice-cold, ice-blue eyes roam over Brody’s physique, noting the redneck’s overdeveloped musculature.  Then he glanced up into the redneck’s deep dark eyes and told him about the discovery of Travis’s corpse and the autopsy report.  Brody not only took it in stride, he barely blinked.

 

Dan’s suspicions were confirmed.  He glanced at Pete and they locked eyes only for a second, but it was enough for the Captain to understand that his protégé had been quick enough to pick up on the same signals.  Pride flowed through his huge, powerful body—he’d make something of Pete yet.

 

But they had other fish to fry at the moment, and the first thing to do was to land the one that had already swallowed their bait.

 

“Little homo got himself fucked to death, huh?” Brody jeered.  “Can’t say I’m surprised; the bitch was a major cockwhore.”

 

The tone of his voice and the look in his face made both Dan and Pete more certain in their convictions.

 

“Yeah?” Dan said evenly, “Y’know, the Clebbs punk went out the same way.  Naw, his neck wasn’t broke, but he got it good up the ass and then he died—hard.  We’re, uh,”—and here he glanced sideways at Pete—“we’re goin’ on the theory that it’s drug-related, maybe gang work.”

 

Brody’s reaction to Dan’s words was an immediate relaxation that was so abrupt as to be almost physically tactile.  And with it came something else.  Even before another word was spoken, there was something electric in the air between the three men; something dark and primal.

 

It might have had something to do with the massive wood all three men were sporting as they discussed the rape and murder of a couple of twinks.

 

“So anyway,” Dan continued, “We’re lookin’ for any of Travis’s associates—anyone you can think of that was into the same scene and might have some info for us.”

 

Brody paused for a moment.  “You want someone like Travis…” he muttered sotto voce, as if speaking only to himself—then a broad grin spread over his ruthlessly handsome face.  “Yeah, bro, I got the dude for ya.”

 

Dan nudged Pete, who whipped out his phone and began to take an audio recording.  Brody was never asked for permission or advised of his rights; this was a strictly extralegal procedure.  Nothing that was said would be given in evidence.

 

“His name’s Eric,” Brody went on eagerly, “Eric—hell, I can’t remember his last name.  But I think he was the one helping Travis to esca—er, get high.  An’ I ain’t talkin’ just weed; I know they was doin’ meth.”

 

“Ever hear them mention the words “China white”?” Pete inquired.  Brody shook his head mutely.

 

“You know where we can find this Eric?” Dan asked.  “Can you take us to him?”

 

As Brody stood facing the two cops, a large bead of transparent fluid ran down his thigh from underneath his shorts.  Both Dan and Pete noticed it.

 

“Yeah, I can take you to him.  Thought about makin’ a visit there myself, but with you guys comin’ along…”

 

He didn’t need to finish his sentence; the huge viscous drop of precum that had leaked out of his throbbing cock onto his thigh pretty clearly showed his opinion of making an unexpected house call on that little cunt Eric in the company of two armed and heavily-muscled studs.

 

Today was gonna be epic.

 

---

 

After he’d snuffed Travis, Brody had accessed the dead kid’s email and had managed to retrieve some of his deleted texts; as a result, he had quite a lot of info on Eric.  He was able to lead the cops directly to the punk’s house.

 

The kid rented one side of a tiny duplex on a gravel road on the other side of Corrington.  He was a bartender at The Well, a little dive bar that was known to law enforcement for occasional arrests for indecency in the men’s room.  Pete didn’t have Dan’s familiarity with the place, but he’d heard of it.

 

As they all headed over in Brody’s truck—Dan’s idea; he didn’t want to spook the kid by pulling up in a police vehicle—the redneck sadist told them some of what he’d learned.  Like how Eric’s pay wasn’t enough to cover his rent, his car payment, and his drug use, so he supplemented it with some pay-for-play activities with dudes in the parking lot of the bar.  He refused to do anything inside the bar, though; he said he didn’t want to get fired.

 

“So is he into the drug scene big-time here in Corrington?” Pete asked.

 

“Well, I dunno about big-time,” Brody replied, scratching his rough, unshaven cheek, “With him, it’s more a matter of variety, y’know?  He likes coke, meth, and weed, but he’ll do whatever’s available.”

 

“Good.  If there’s a possibility that he knows anything about China white comin’ into this county, I wanna hear it,” Dan growled.  “And I ain’t takin’ no for an answer.”  The angry gleam in his eye showed his seriousness; he wasn’t kidding.  He wasn’t going to have his county become the epicenter of an outbreak of fentanyl overdoses—even if he had to kill to make sure.

 

In fact, it’d be a pleasure.

 

They pulled off the road and parked behind an old Ford Focus with oxidized paint by the side of small structure of gray weathered clapboard.  There was a single porch with two doors; the door on the left had a metal letter “A” nailed to it, as the one on the left had a “B.”  Brody’s Redwing boots thumped loudly on the deteriorated floorboards as he crossed the porch and knocked loudly on the left door.

 

The door swung open and revealed a young man, shirtless, in jeans and sneakers.  His hair was deep blond and fairly short, like a golden aurora around his head.  His large eyes were pale blue and ringed with long lashes; a spattering of freckles ran across the bridge of his slightly-upturned nose.  Below lush, full lips, there was a large dimple in his chin.

 

The boy’s smooth chest was broad and muscled.  His build wasn’t of the caliber of the three men who confronted him, but was more like that of a high school quarterback, in keeping with his youthful face.  His firm, flat belly, barely covered with a fine down like peach fuzz, vanished into the waistband of jeans so tight they looked as if they’d been painted on.  The denim clung with such faithfulness to the punk’s package that it was damn near possible to pick out individual veins on his dick.   The jeans left little doubt as to the musculature of Eric’s legs as they descended to the checkerboard Vans hightops the kid was sporting.

 

Dan, Pete, Brody—all three—were able to take all this in in a split second.  It was all that was allowed.  The moment Eric’s eyes landed on Brody’s face, they widened with fear and he slammed the door.  One thing Brody hadn’t counted on was that Eric knew as much about him as he did about Eric.  Travis had kept his friend informed of the escalating violence in their relationship, and while Eric didn’t know that Travis had been murdered, he suspected Brody in his disappearance.  He was terrified of the older man.

 

“Go away!  I know who you are!  I’m gonna call the cops!” he screamed through the locked door.

 

“Dude, I got the cops here with me,” Brody responded.  “They wanna talk to you.”

 

There was a pause, then the sound of the bolt sliding back.  Opening the door cautiously, Eric peered out and, for the first time, sighted the two massive alpha studs, uniformed and booted, standing beyond Brody.  In spite of his nervousness, the kid felt his dick stir; in his tight jeans, the reaction was obvious to all three men.

 

“Well, uh, okay,” Eric said hesitantly, then stepped back to let them in.  “But I, uh, I gotta leave for work in an hour or so.”

 

Dan looked at Pete with a grin on his face, then turned his icy eyes back to the blond faggot.  “That’s ok, boy,” he said, “I think we’ll be done with you by then.”

 

The front room was small and dark, with blankets nailed up over the windows.  The air was thick and nauseatingly sweet with the scent of weed, crack and incense.  It was also uncomfortably warm; the window AC unit roared like a jet engine off on one side, but made little difference in the ambient temperature.

 

With four muscled male bodies—two already half nude—crammed in a room barely ten feet by fourteen feet, the acrid odor of mansweat began to take precedence.  And Dan was determined to make Eric sweat some more.

 

“Ok, wh-whaddaya want?” the kid said defensively, his eyes darting between the three men.

 

“Siddown,” Dan ordered him, “I’m gonna ask you some questions.”

 

“Um, okay,” Eric said, sitting on the battered black leather loveseat that was the only article of furniture in the room besides the TV stand.  The three hardbodied alphas all stood in front of him, Pete kicking a game console that was sitting on the floor in front of the TV out of the way.

 

“Hey!” Eric yelped, “Dude, careful with that thing!”

 

“Shaddup!” Dan barked.  Eric’s jaw snapped shut as if he’d been slapped.  He stared silently up at Dan, his big blue eyes wide—more with anxiety than fear.

 

Dan smirked down at the little punk.  The fear would be there soon enough.

 

“You’re Eric, right?  Bartender at The Well?” he began.

 

“Uh-huh,” Eric answered quietly.

 

“You know Travis Egerton?”

 

Now fear appeared in Eric’s eyes as he shifted them quickly to Brody.

 

“Yeah, I know ‘im, but I ain’t seen ‘im around in a while,” the kid admitted.

 

“Where did he get his drugs?”

 

The blunt nature of the question startled Eric, who had no intention of admitting drug use to a cop.  “I, uh, I don’t know…” he muttered, looking away.

 

“You lie to me, you little cocksucker, and I’ll fuck you up worse than your little brain can imagine,” Dan snarled.  Eric’s face drained of all color as he stared up as Captain Dan in utter shock.  Almost mindlessly, he turned and looked at Pete.

 

“You’d best tell him, boy,” Pete grinned, “Or he ain’t gonna be the only one who gets to fuck you…up.”

 

Eric caught the slight pause at the end of Pete’s sentence.  It’s unlikely his shallow, drug-addled mind would have understood the significance of the remark if he hadn’t already been sitting at eye level with the muscle studs’ groins.  Even in his sudden fear, the randy young faggot couldn’t help to notice how each man in front of him had a visibly throbbing bulge in his crotch.

 

It was almost like a scene from one of Eric’s favorite porn flicks…so why was he so scared?

 

“C’mon, you little fuckwad,” Brody snarled suddenly, “You heard the man.  I know you and Travis were fuckin’, an’ I know he toldja all kinda shit.  So you better start tellin’ this here cop what he wants to know—an’ I mean the right stuff—or I’ll stick my dick up yer fuckhole and show yer little faggot ass what a real man feels like.”

 

Eric was a strung-out little cocksucker, but even his limited intellect picked up on the emphasis in Brody’s words.  He understood the message.  He could blab all he wanted about Travis buying drugs, but the moment he mentioned the shit Brody had done to Travis—well, his mind didn’t go any further down that path.

 

“Well, uh—” the kid faltered.  He still didn’t want to admit to anything that would get him in trouble.  “I dunno.  Seriously, bro, I dunno where he got his shit.”

 

“Not good enough,” Dan said calmly, then sighed, as if what he was about to do made him sad.  The bulge in his groin belied that.  “Guess we’re gonna have to do this the hard way.  Get him, boys.”

 

As if choreographed in advance, Pete sprang up and grabbed Eric’s left arm as Brody pinioned his right; together, they yanked him up off the couch.  Trapped in the painful grip of the two muscle studs, the kid boldly looked Dan straight in the eyes, but the paleness of his youthful face showed his fear plainly enough.

 

“You gonna tell me where Travis got his shit?” Dan asked, a note of final warning in his voice.

 

Eric gulped, his throat making a dry clicking sound.  “Well, I—uh…he bought weed from Charlie Baler and his brother Eddie…”

 

“And?”

 

“And what?”

 

“And where’d he get the rest of it—coke, meth…China white?” Dan watched the boy’s eyes closely, noting the way they darted downward, trying to avoid his gaze.

 

“I dunno,” Eric replied sullenly, “I dunno ‘bout that stuff, bro; I don’t use.  I mean, I did, but…I don’t anymore.”

 

“Bullshit,” Dan snorted with a contemptuous laugh that was echoed by Pete.

 

Eric’s fear momentarily spilled over, giving him a fleeting and spurious sense of courage.  He began struggling, his smooth sweat-slick skin pressing tight against Pete and Brody.  As he tried to free himself, the thick, snake-like muscles in his arms pulsed and bulged, but were utterly useless against the more massive strength of both Pete and Brody.

 

In his desperation, Eric made a mistake.

 

“Whaddaya gonna do, beat it outta me?  Fuck, bro, I’ll sue the fuckin’ county for millions—”

 

“Hey, Cap,” Pete broke in, “Y’know, we got a civilian here too.  Not like he’s a county employee.”

 

Eric stopped talking, his face ashen gray and his jaw hanging open.  Dan grinned in his face and stepped quickly to one side.

 

“C’mere,” he told Brody, “I got ‘im,” as he reached out and grabbed the punk’s wrist, keeping his arm twisted painfully behind his back as Brody stepped directly in front of Eric and peeled his shirt off.

 

“There ya go, faggot,” the sadistic redneck sneered, “Gave ya some eye candy, huh, ya worthless cocksucker?  Haw!”

 

Despite having heard tales of Brody’s capacity for violence, Eric was still unable to keep his gaze from locking onto the buff killer’s well-built torso.  His eyes slid down the broad hairy chest, following the dark trail of body fur down the washboard abs until it disappeared beneath the waistband of the shorts.  Still entranced, the kid kept going, noting the ridge in the denim and tracing it down to the thick purple tip just peeking out below the cuff of the shorts.  He watched a thick transparent bead ooze out and fall, splattering on the toe of Brody’s untied construction boot.

 

It was instinctual.  Eric had no control over the fact that he suddenly had a raging, almost painful erection.  He also had no control over being such a homo whore that he’d gotten hard fast enough for the movement in his groin to be visible.  Brody noticed it.  So did Pete, who’d been looking down over Eric’s shoulder.

 

“Hey, Captain,” Pete said eagerly, “I think we need to unzip the perp’s fly.  Looks like he may be carryin’ a weapon—or maybe just somethin’ that’s achin’ to get into the open air.”

 

Dan guffawed.  “Go ahead,” he chuckled, nodding at Brody, “Unzip ‘im and lessee if the little pansy-ass junkie likes gettin’…interrogated.”

 

“I ain’t no junkie!” Eric squawked as Brody stepped forward with a broad grin and jerked down his fly.  Reaching in with one big beefy hand, he hauled out the kid’s dick—long and thick, but nothing to impress any of the three men surrounding him at the moment.

 

“Wonder how long he can keep it up,” Pete said casually to Dan.

 

“Well, that’s what we’re here to find out,” Dan replied with a dry chuckle.  “You know what to do, I guess,” he said to Brody.  “I’m gonna ask questions.  He’s gonna give answers.  You’re gonna make sure he gives answers.”

 

“Yeah,” Brody said abruptly, staring Eric in the eyes.  The broad grin never left his face and he fondled his crotch as he spoke.

 

“All right, you worthless little fuck, where did Travis Egerton buy his coke from?  His meth?” Dan hissed viciously into Eric’s ear.  Even though his cock was hard, the boy was scared, very scared.  But he still scared of the wrong things.

 

“Tim Ventnor, ok?  Lemme go!  He got the coke from Tim Ventnor.  Meth too, when he didn’t get it from Hector Casias.  Ok?  That good enough for you?”

 

Eric wasn’t in a position to see the signal that passed between Dan’s and Brody’s eyes, but it was so quick and so subtle—an almost imperceptible flicker of that deep-seated flame of lust and rage in their eyes—that it’s unlikely Eric would have understood or even noticed it if he could have.

 

What Eric could see was the way the deltoid and bicep on Brody’s right arm bulged, swelling almost grotesquely as he pulled the arm back.  The helpless, struggling twink had a split second to notice, to appreciate the sheer force and power contained in those muscles before they released with the relentlessness of a coiled spring and drove Brody’s fist deep into Eric’s gut.

 

“HOOG!” the kid hacked out as his abdomen absorbed the blow, shoving his diaphragm up and violently expelling all the air from his lungs.  His entire body bucked and jerked, his exposed cock swinging and bobbing wildly—but staying erect.

 

“Fuck yeah,” Pete said happily, his face beaming, “That’s how you conduct an interrogation!”

 

“You lied, you useless sack of shit,” Dan said flatly.  “Ventnor’s been in jail on a weapons charge for six months.  And Casias left the state.  So since yer such a fuckin’ dumbass, I’ll start nice an’ slow, ok?  Where—did—Travis—Egerton—get—his—coke?  Think you can answer that one without too much strain on yer pathetic faggot brain?”

 

Tears streaming from his eyes, Eric gasped helplessly, trying to regain his breath.  Despite his blurred vision, he could see what effect his suffering was having on Brody’s cock—and it scared him.  The guy was oozing precum like a soaker hose—after a single gutpunch.  How far was this actually gonna go?

 

Pete, picking up on Eric’s fear, reached around and grabbed the latter’s chin, his powerful hand clamped on the punk’s jaw with the inexorably rigidity of a bear trap.  The buff young deputy forced the faggot’s head forward, bending his neck until the kid was looking directly into Brody’s face.

 

“Look at him,” he told Eric coldly.  “Look into his face, ya homo cunt.  You see what he wants to do to ya?  Only reason he can’t is cause we’d stop ‘im.  And if ya don’t quit lyin’—we ain’t gonna stop ‘im.  Ya feelin’ me, asswipe?”

 

Eric moaned, a faint pathetic sound of despair.  Dan was proud of his protégé; the boy was learning the art of first-rate questioning, and he had clearly taken his lessons to heart.

 

The older cop motioned for Pete to come back and resume restraining the perp.  Dan moved slightly to the side to get a better view of Eric’s face, his enormous cock visibly swollen in his chinos.

 

Ain’t nothing more erotic than a round of bad cop/bad cop.

 

“Ok, you worthless waste of flesh,” Dan sneered, “I gotta name.  I want you to tell me all about him.”

 

Still breathing heavily, Eric glance dully at Dan, then lowered his gaze.

 

“Robbie Clebbs.”

 

In a flash, Eric’s head was back up.  “Aw, I don’t nothin’ about that!” he wheezed out excitedly.  “I ain’t seen him in months!  Bro, I dunno jack shit about him gettin’ offed like that!”

 

Dan smiled grimly.  “Then yer about to learn somethin’ about it.  And I ain’t yer bro, you queer-ass fuckwad.”  He turned to Brody and said, “I ain’t heard an answer to my question.  Back to you.”

 

His face alive with malevolent glee, Brody took time drawing back for the next blow, giving Eric time to anticipate the impact.  The hulking redneck watched the kid quiver in fear for a moment before driving a roundhouse blow straight from his shoulder to Eric’s sternum.

 

Eric couldn’t breathe.  At all.  It was like being hit by a car.  He wasn’t given time to fully process the situation, though; in quick succession, Brody landed three more blows, battering the boy’s flat, smooth belly and firm chest.

 

Realizing Eric wasn’t in a position to resist at the moment, Pete let him go.  The young slut slumped to the floor like a sack of dirty laundry, gagging and dry-heaving.  Dan kicked him in the ass, the worn denim of his jeans offering little protection against the steel toe of the cop’s trooper boot.

 

“Now, where were we?” Dan asked conversationally.  “Oh, yes, Mr. Clebbs.  Robbie.  I wanna know what kinda shit you got from him.  And I wanna know where he got it from—I know you know.  Start talkin’.”

 

Still gagging, Eric raised his head feebly from the floor, a stringer of drool dangling from his chin.  He tried to speak but went into a coughing fit that left him dry-heaving again.  It took him several minutes before he regained enough control to speak clearly.

 

“I-I…ain’t s-seen…R-Robbie in thr-three, three months…”

 

“See, this is what happens when these fuckin’ faggots come into my county,” Dan sighed.  “Little cumguzzlin’ pansies get all drugged up and get the gangs in.  And then they fuckin’ lie about it!”

 

These last words were said in a crescendo of rage that managed to penetrate Eric’s suffering.  He already knew what was coming—but he was unaware that his dick knew, too, and was giving an entirely different signal.

 

“N-no, p-p-please…” he begged, “Tellin’-tellin’ the truth…”

 

His plea went unheard, overridden by Pete’s raucous laughter.  “Look, Cap, lookit the faggot’s dick!” he chortled.  “I swear, the moment you yelled at ‘im, the cunt got all hard again!”

 

“God, n-no,” Eric sobbed, still drooling and wracked with fits of coughing, “S-swear ‘m tell-tellin’ the truth!”

 

“Goddam,” Dan muttered, “Pathetic little faggot crawlin’ on the ground and he still ain’t gonna tell me what I wanna hear.”  He paused for a moment and looked down at Pete, then looked over at Brody.

 

“Hey, dude,” he said to the white trash alpha, “You warned the homo perp that you’d show ‘im what a real man in his ass would feel like.  You still up to making good on that threat?”  There was no need to answer; a single quick glance at the thick tube of manmeat that hung, pulsing and oozing, out of Brody’s shorts.

 

Brody answered anyway.  “You know it man—I always back the blue.”  Grinning wildly, he kicked Eric viciously so that the moaning punk rolled onto his back.  From that position, it was easy for the hardbodied redneck to bend down, clamp one hand around Eric’s throat, and deadlift him straight into the air.

 

Both Dan and Pete were impressed with Brody’s strength—Dan could have done the same, but Pete wasn’t there yet.  The fact that Brody was almost as strong as Dan himself was a mark in his favor.

 

Still holding the choking homo aloft by his throat, Brody carried him down the dark, narrow hallway to the tiny bedroom at the back of the house. Blankets dyed jet black had been nailed up over the windows; most of the room was bathed in the vivid ultraviolet of a blacklight.  There was a bedside table that held a small lamp—off at the moment—and an enormous bong in elaborately-blown glass.

 

In the center of the room was a twin bed—a twisted pile of dirty sheets on top of an old, stained mattress.  All three men—Eric was no longer defined as such—filed into the room; then, without a word needing to be said, Brody stood aside so that Pete had enough space to quickly shove the bed linen to the floor with a single sweep of his arm.

 

Even then, Brody didn’t release Eric.  He held him up, his maniacal grin still lighting up his face, and stared the kid straight in the eyes as Eric’s checkered Vans kicked and flailed five inches above the warped wooden floorboards.

 

His heart and his head pounding in frenetic syncopation, the strangling punk clawed at Brody’s fingers.  Everything Travis had ever told him about Brody came back to him and suddenly it took every fiber of his being to fight off the cold panic that rose inside him.

 

“Chill out, bro,” Brody whispered seductively, the grin never leaving his face, “We’re jest gettin’ started.  Here, lemme make ya a little more comfortable.”

 

Reaching down with his free hand, he unbuttoned Eric’s jeans, then reached down and pulled the zipper down.  Once that was done, a single quick jerk dropped Eric’s jeans to his ankles; as they fell, Eric’s cock sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, making Dan and Pete grin and Brody  chuckle derisively.

 

Brody lowered Eric just to floor level, then placed his big Redwing boot between the kid’s legs, on the jeans.  Bearing down on Eric’s throat, Brody jerked the boy upwards, keeping his foot in place; the movement was swift and violent, but it effectively pulled Eric’s jeans off over his feet, leaving him nude with his kicks still on.

 

Brody’s grip on his windpipe left him in agony too, but no one else gave a shit.  With a satisfied grunt, the redneck tossed the flailing punk onto the bed.  As Eric writhed and gagged, Brody slowly hiked up the cuff of his shorts, exposing more and more of his massive erect dick.  He didn’t see the need to get any more undressed; he could plow his shaft into this faggot without bothering to go to that much trouble.

 

“Hang on a second there,” Dan suddenly commanded.  “Maybe you can fuck the truth outta him, but if he lies, he needs to learn to respect Authority—and that means us.  Pete, get up there and haul out yer junk and every time this little sack a’ shit gives me a bad answer, I want you to stick yer meat down his throat until he chokes on it—and not let go until I tell ya.  You got that, deputy?”

 

“Sir, yes sir!” Pete responded happily.  Scrambling up onto the bed, he got up on his knees, unzipped the fly of his chinos and extracted his huge, throbbing cock.  “Ready for duty, sir!” he cried, with a mischievous wink.

 

“Awright,” Dan barked, “Phase two of the interrogation.  Start now.”

 

Brody wasn’t used to taking orders, but he had no problems obeying this one ASAP.  He reached out and grabbed at Eric—and missed.  Eric had twisted to the side to avoid him.

 

It wasn’t as if Eric had a hope of escaping; he moved instinctively.  He’d been too busy fighting to breathe to hear every detail of Dan’s words, but he’d been able to make out the gist of it.  Earlier, the thought of getting plowed by these muscle studs had gotten him horny; now, it just got him scared.  This wouldn’t be a fun fuck.  These dudes were gonna hurt him—and if half of what Travis had told him was true, Brody was gonna like hurting him.

 

Eric had been used like a whore and slapped around, but he’d never had to deal with anyone who got off on causing prolonged human suffering.  The urge to dodge Brody’s hand was as involuntary at it was useless.

 

“Where the fuck you think yer goin’?” Pete demanded as he caught Eric’s upper arm and forcibly rolled the kid onto his stomach.  Once the punk was in that position, Brody, still standing at the side of the bed, grabbed Eric’s hips and dragged him around until the kid’s fuckhole was aligned with his thick, throbbing shaft.  At the same time, Pete maneuvered himself to Eric’s head.  Still on his knees, he snatched a handful of the boy’s short blond hair and, pulling his head up, slapped Eric’s face with his swollen cock.  Each blow landed with a wet smacking sound and left a spatter of precum on Eric’s face.

 

“Okay, ya worthless little faggot, when was the last time you saw Robbie Clebbs?” Dan snarled, bending down over Eric’s face, inches from Pete’s engorged member.

 

“Th-three months ago!” the boy wailed, his quavering voice cracked with fear.

 

Dan sighed as if upset but the gleam in his eye and the bulge in his groin said otherwise.  “Ok, boys,” he said evenly, “Motherfucker keeps on lyin’—y’all know what to do.”

 

They did.  Before Eric had time to brace himself, he was rammed so full of cock it hurt.  Badly.  In fact, it was fucking agonizing.

 

Brody’s enormous rod, thickly wreathed in veins, forced the faggot’s sphincter to open wider than it ever had before, and it didn’t happen slowly.  Eric would have screamed at the slashing, razor-like pain in his asshole as his delicate rectal lining was torn like wet newspaper—except that Pete’s long, leaking tool was jammed so far down his throat he couldn’t breathe.

 

The boy’s hands beat wildly at Pete but the buff young deputy simply swatted them away.  He laughed, a deep but boyish sound of amusement, as he watched the lean blond homo suffer and choke.

 

“Awright, deputy, stand down.  Gotta give the perp a chance to talk.”

 

Pete was having fun with his dick down Eric’s throat, but he obeyed the Captain unhesitatingly.  He pulled the punk’s head up off his shaft and shoved it aside like garbage.  As Eric coughed and gagged, the deputy unbuttoned his khaki short-sleeve shirt and, reaching to the side, tossed it onto the dresser.  His white cotton t-shirt soon followed, leaving Pete’s broad furry chest, already glistening with sweat, exposed to the open air.  The acrid scent of testosterone in the air increased.

 

Dan noted it and smiled approvingly.  “You know the drill now, asswipe.  You gonna tell me what I wanna hear?” he hissed at Eric.

 

The smooth, slender faggot was moaning and sobbing; he was too focused on the horrific pain in his rectum to be able to answer Dan, although he not only heard the words, but finally understood them.  It didn’t matter that the last time he’d seen Robbie really had been three months ago—that wasn’t what this psycho wanted to hear.

 

Dan, meanwhile, had turned his attention to Brody.  “Think you can make him talk?”

 

“Fuck yeah,” Brody grinned and began plowing his huge rod into Eric’s ass; it was as if a motor had been shifted into high gear.  Eric’s eyes widened; his expression was that of utter helpless pain as he screeched in a high falsetto.

 

Dan, standing next to where Pete was kneeling, drew his fist back, his bulging bicep stretching the cuff of his short-sleeve button-down.  “I said talk, not squeal like a little girl, you useless fuckin’ bitch!” he barked and punched Eric in the face.

 

All but unconscious, the kid went limp.  He was in a gray twilight haze, but he could still feel his asshole getting rammed with the brutal relentlessness of a steam piston.  He had to speak.  He knew it; if he didn’t speak, he’d be dead.

 

“L-l-l…” he tried.

 

“I think he’s tryin’ to say somthin’, Cap,” Pete said.  Dan lowered his head to hear better.

 

“Las-last w-w-week,” Eric groaned.  “S-saw him l-last we-week…”

 

“Well, now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” Dan said.  “All that fuckin’ trouble just to get one honest answer outta ya, you lyin’ piece a’ shit.  I gotta lot more to ask you, boy, so you either better start tellin’ the truth—or hope your little twink body has the stamina to finish the interrogation.  You feelin’ me, cocksucker?  Cause I know yer damn sure feelin’ my buddies here, ha!”

 

Then the smile vanished from his face.  “Okay, then, next question.  Who was the Clebbs fuckwad gettin’ his drugs from?  Who was helpin’ him bring the fentanyl in?”

 

Eric—who didn’t know the term “China white”—despaired.  He had no idea who Clebbs was buying from and this was the first he’d head of fentanyl.  But he also knew that if he didn’t come up with satisfactory answers, he was likely to get fucked to death.  And as much fun as that would have sounded as little as an hour ago, Eric now knew from personal experience that if he didn’t tell these hardbodied sadists what they wanted to hear, he was gonna suffer—a lot.

 

“R-Rusty Tur-Turner,” the young fag squealed, his voice forced into a staccato rhythm by the brutal repetitive force of Brody’s ass-pounding, “Rust-Rusty and J-Josh Perez, man, that’s wh-who he was buyin’ from!”

 

Eric didn’t know if either Rusty or Josh knew Robbie; they were just a couple of dudes who came into The Well from time to time and had sucked him off on occasion.  But he needed names, and he needed them fast.

 

“Yer lyin’ again, cocksucker,” Dan snapped, “I can tell.”  But he noted the names down carefully anyway; it certainly would hurt to have a few of the fag’s friends to interrogate as well.  Once you start turning over rocks, all kinda insects start scurryin’ from the light.  “Hey, Pete—make sure he’s tellin’ us everything.”

 

Pete didn’t need to be told twice.  Jerking Eric’s head back up, he looked into the boy’s frantic eyes.  The look of desperation on the youth’s face make his cock throb so hard he could barely stand it.  The deputy spat contemptuously into the homo’s face, then forced Eric’s head remorselessly into his crotch, shoving his oozing dick inch by inch down the helpless punk’s trachea.

 

As the engorged, precum-lubed head slipped slowly down his windpipe, Eric had to call on all his strength—strength no one who knew him would have supposed he possessed—to stave off panic.  The struggle was partly physical, and Brody was the one who benefitted by it.

 

“Oh fuck yeah,” the muscle-bound redneck alpha grunted as his hips pumped his swollen member rapidly and rhythmically up Eric’s ass, “Little cunt’s startin’ to get into it now.  Toldja I’d fuck the right info outta the cum-guzzlin’ pansy!”  The huge purple head of his dick ground relentlessly over the slut’s prostate, keeping Eric in an involuntary and excruciatingly constant state of erection.

 

Dan, standing next to Pete, slowly unbuttoned and peeled his own shirt off.  Like Pete, he tossed it and his cotton undershirt onto the dresser.  The next time Eric looked up, his entire field of view was taken up by the Captain’s massive chest, his dark blond chest hair glinting with beads of sweat.  “Hold ‘im there,” Dan ordered, and Pete, his thick tool so completely blocking the lean punk’s airway as to choke the kid, obeyed immediately.

 

As Eric flailed, thick gagging sounds erupting from his closed-off throat and large tears rolling down his darkening cheeks, he heard the sound of a zipper.  It was another couple of seconds before he felt the blow across his face; it was like he’d been hit with an iron bar.

 

His bulging eyes were too blurred by tears to see that Dan had hauled his monstrously large cock out of his chinos and had dickslapped Eric with it.  But the sheer weight and size of Dan’s member left a bruise on Eric’s blackening face.

 

“Ok, pull it up and let it talk,” Dan said in a tone of derisory amusement.  His change of pronoun was noted by the others, but not by Eric—which was probably for the best, since he would have shit himself in terror if he’d known what it signaled.

 

Dan had what he wanted.  He’d milk the cunt for any more information he could get, but it was just about time to dispose of the disgusting little pervert.  Dan had plans for this one, though.  He’d done some research and wanted to fine-tune this snuff.

 

Or, rather, he wanted Pete to fine-tune it.  It was time to break the boy in, pop his snuff cherry. Dan hadn’t planned on a civvie being present for this, though; he was still concerned about Brody’s presence.  Sure, the hyper-masculine hick knew how to handle faggots, but did he respect Authority?

 

The question was, did he have the discipline that Dan was looking for?  It was a very rare, quality, this discipline; Pete was the only one he’d met so far who understood it—except for may Pete’s uncle.  But there it was; it was hereditary in his deputy.

 

But that all passed through his mind in a fraction of a second.  Pete had pulled Eric’s head back up; once again, the kid was coughing and gagging, long streamers of drool running down his chin and drizzling onto Pete massive, glistening cock.

 

“J-J-Jo-Joey B-Bes-Bessemer, Wa-Wade Pl-Pl-Plymouth…” the faggot managed to retch up between the wracking coughing fits that caused his whole body to clench and give such obvious physical pleasure to the muscle-bound cracker alpha whose cock was buried in his ass.

 

Dan smiled—a cold, sharp, mirthless smile that Eric could barely make out but which still chilled him to the bone.

 

“Yer sayin’ Robbie got shit from Joey and Wade?” he asked sneeringly.

 

“Oh God,” Eric suddenly sobbed, “Pl-please stop this…I-I can’t…no-no more…c-can’t…”

 

“Answer me, motherfucker, or I’m gonna jam my own cock down yer faggot throat and shoot so fuckin’ hard you drown in my cum, you hear me, you pansy asswipe?

 

“R-Robbie got h-his outta t-town sh-sh-shit from-from Wade,” Eric wailed helplessly, “T-Travis tol’ me he g-got his co-coke an’ shit like-like that from Jo-Jo-Joey…”

 

Dan stood straight, a satisfied smile playing across his features.  He had four good leads.  “So tell me about Joey,” he said.  “Think he was the one who killed Travis?”

 

Despite everything he’d already endured, Eric’s reaction to this statement was extreme.

 

“Travis is dead?” he gasped in horror.

 

“We hauled him outta a swamp a few days ago.  He’d been beaten, raped, strangled and his neck was broken.”

 

Suddenly Brody’s pumping intensified; Eric’s was being rammed so hard he felt like he was literally being fucked in half.  Despite the nightmarish agony in his reamed-out colon, he struggled to speak.

 

“N-n-no!  Th-they…no…n-not AHHH MY ASS not them…” he sputtered.

 

Brody tensed, his huge muscular body on high alert.  This was one of his hottest fantasies; snuffing a helpless faggot.  The fact that there were a couple of cops helping him intensified the eroticism more than he could have imagined—but as hot as it was, he had no intention of being revealed as an already-experienced murderer before two members of the sheriff’s department.  His next movement was a deliberate as it was cum-inducing.

 

Jerking Eric’s head up, Brody slammed his fist into the back of the faggot’s neck—a donkey-punch with the power of hate- and contempt-driven muscles behind it; Eric never had a chance.  His cervical vertebrae shattered like glass, bone shards shearing mercilessly through the twink’s spinal column.

 

Dan realized what was happening.  “NO!” he shouted, but it was too late.  Eric had gone rigid in his death agony; the searing chemical-electric bolt that overwhelmed his nervous system locking his lean, hard young body into the perfect position to receive Brody’s manmeat.

 

No one was in a position to see the twink spew his deathload but the intense pain of his boysperm being violently and involuntarily expelled was one of the last sensations Eric experienced in his short, useless life.

 

As the corpse convulsed and flailed, Brody’s face twisted into a grimace of pain and pleasure.  “FUCK!  AW YEAH, FUCK!” he screamed as his huge tube of manmeat pulsed and pumped more than a quart of steaming hot manseed up the dead kid’s ass.

 

Pete had been too close to unloading to stop once Brody took over; as Eric’s head was jerked up off his cock, Pete began to squirt uncontrollably, his swollen shaft spurting gush after gush of thick, milky cum over the dying punk’s head, the pearly geysers of manspunk jetting upwards, only to fall back in thick ropy strands on Eric’s congested head.   Under the deep ultraviolet hue of the blacklight, the huge creamy spurts of hot sperm were illuminate with a surreal glow.

 

“FUCK!!” Dan cried, partly in orgasm induced by watching the worthless faggot die, partly in frustration, as his enormous rod spewed his steaming, potent manseed over everyone involved.  The reactions were telling; Pete gloried in wearing his Captain’s spunk—Brody shuddered and quickly looked for something with which to wipe it off.

 

The three alphas laid back, an unspoken mutual agreement to catch their individual breaths.  It had been an intense—and as far as Dan was concerned, fruitful—interrogation.  The dead fag had provided useful info.

 

“Awright,” Brody said, grabbing one of Eric’s soiled t-shirt from off the floor and using it to first swab the sweat off his hard muscled body, then ground it into his crotch to soak up his cum, “So who’ve we got?  Joey Bessemer…”

 

“He’s dead,” Dan responded quickly, “OD’d a month and a half ago.  Cunt was lyin’ about him.”

 

“So we got Wade Plymouth and Josh Perez, yeah?  I know where Josh hangs; I can go question him for ya…”

 

Dan had some deep concerns about Brody, but he decided to let the situation play out on its own.  “Ok,” he said, quickly shoving his thick cock back into his chinos, “Lemme know what he tells ya—remember, dude, I need names, yeah?”

 

“I gotcha,” Brody said confidently, stuffing his massive, cum-smeared cock back down inside his jeans.  “I’ll letcha know anythin’ I find out, yeah?”

 

“Um, yeah,” Dan said hesitantly.  He knew the score; he knew he was dealing with a faggot serial killer.  He also knew that if he let Brody realize he knew, his own life might be forfeit.  He thought he could take Brody in a fight to the death if he had to, but this was neither the time nor the place.

 

“Awright, then,” the Captain said, turning to Pete, “We’ll head out later this week and, er, “talk” to Wade.  C’mon, deputy, get yerself cleaned up; you’re a disgrace to the department.”

 

Although this last was said tongue-in-cheek as Dan ran his eyes over Pete’s muscled torso, glistening with sweat and carpeted with dark body fur, Brody took the words literally and smirked as the buff young cop selected another cast-off item of Eric’s wardrobe and used it to swab his chest and abdomen.  Dan had already done so; by the time Pete tossed the rank, cum-smeared pair of jeans to the floor, the Captain had already slipped his undershirt back on and was buttoning his khaki shirt.  He nodded Brody out of the room as Pete completed dressing.

 

When the deputy had finished, he took one look back at Eric’s splayed-out corpse.  The blond’s body was face down with a thick milky trail of cum leaking out of its asshole.  It was still jerking, random nerves firing through the remains of its shredded spinal column.  As Pete watched, one of the dead twink’s feet twitched violently, the sole of its checkered Vans hightop scraping audibly against the mattress as a muscle in the firm smooth calf spasmed visibly and frenetically.

 

The image and the sound were enough, if not to get Pete hard (he still was that), to keep him erect and further, to make him stiff in the crotch every time he recalled the scene later.

 

When he got back to the tiny living room—which, thanks to the lackluster AC, was approximately two degrees cooler than the bedroom—Brody was leaning against the door with his eyes closed and a beatific smile on his face.  Dan had one foot up on the couch and was polishing the high shank of his trooper boot with a handkerchief.  His expression seemed grimmer than merely focusing on his task would require.

 

“Ready to go?” Brody asked, opening his eyes at the sound of Pete’s boots crossing the wood floor.

 

“I am,” Pete said, looking at Dan.  Silently, the Captain stood up and nodded, then all three left.  Dan was the last one out; he knew he’d have to leave the deadbolt undone but he turned the latch on the doorknob itself to leave the door locked behind him.

 

When he got out, the others were already in Brody’s truck.  The drive back to the trailer was quiet.  Brody was relaxing in his “freshly fucked” after-sex glow, Dan was tense and worried, and Pete, sensing his superior’s mood, kept his peace.

 

Dan finally spoke once they arrived back at Brody’s.  “Remember,” he told the buff redneck, “Don’t go back there.  Let someone else find the body.  And remember this—you contact me before you go out to Perez’s place, you hear me?  It’s possible I may have some new information and I may have some specific questions for him.  You got that?”

 

“Sure, I got it,” Brody said nonchalantly as he swaggered towards the trailer.  Dan and Pete watched him, his heavy Redwing boots thumping as he climbed the set of wood steps up to the front door.

 

“Get into the truck,” Dan said quietly.  Pete didn’t need to look at the Captain; the tone of his voice alone was enough to command obedience.

 

It took another ten minutes—by which time they were speeding back down the county road toward town—for Pete to work up the courage to question his superior.  “What’s goin’ on, Cap?” he asked shyly.  “I thought you were gonna offer him a job.  He was the one, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Dan replied stonily, “He was the one, all right.  Snuffed this faggot just like the other one.  I had…I had plans for this one, but that don’t matter; I’ll make sure that gets taken care of.  The problem here, deputy, is that this psycho fucker don’t respect Authority.”

 

“He sure seemed like he wanted to help.”

 

“Lemme ask you this—if he thought he could make a quick buck by squealin’ about our interrogation method, do you think he would?”

 

Pete sat in silence, unable to answer.

 

“Ok, lemme put it this way—do you trust that he wouldn’t?”

 

This time Pete shook his head, silently but decisively.

 

“Ok then, we’re gonna need to keep an eye on this motherfucker.  Let’s see what happens with the Perez cunt.  Tell ya what the first clue is gonna be—he ain’t gonna gimme a heads-up before he goes out to question him, like I told him too.  Now reach into the glove compartment and fire up that thick jay I brought.”

 

Pete lit the huge joint, inhaling deeply, and handed it to Dan.  As he exhaled the cloud of fragrant blue smoke out the window, he turned back to the Captain.

 

“So what’re we gonna do if he does that?  If he goes out there and gets ahold of Perez without letting you know?”

 

“Well, we ain’t gonna lose any info–Perez was in county lockup for three weeks, remember?  He ain’t got nothing to do with Clebbs or his China white.  Joey Bessemer might, though.”

 

“I thought you said he was dead!” Pete protested.

 

“Naw, he’s alive, but I don’t want this Brody dude goin’ near ‘im.  I wanna find out what he knows myself.”  Dan took a deep hit from the joint.

 

“Ok, I get it,” Pete said, “But how are we gonna handle this Brody dude?”

 

Holding his smoke, Dan waited a few moments before exhaling and replying.  “I don’t know,” he said flatly.  “A lot is gonna depend on the situation.  It may be dangerous; this guy is strong.  He ain’t a match for us together, but we’d have a hard time with him physically on an individual basis.”

 

Pete nodded but said nothing.

 

“I’ll be honest,” Dan said in a quiet tone, “This guy is a serial killer and a loose cannon.  We’re gonna hafta do somethin’ about him—but I damn sure don’t know what.”

 

As the harsh sunset faded into indigo, the big truck headed back to the sheriff’s department, its cab redolent with weed and echoing with the silence of the two men lost in their own thoughts, wondering what it would take to bring down the hulking, hardbodied redneck.