New Title 1 Read Free

Christmas. What I gotta impress upon’ yawl, now, is that the Fido Alert we’ve had goin’ fer months is still gonna be in effect, so—please, hear me, folks. Keep yer dogs inside. Walkin’ ’em’s fine on a leash but don’t under any circumstancers let ’em out in the yard—even if ya got a fence—less’n you’re with em. If any’a ya out there know anything about this sick piece’a shhhh …er, piece’a shucks, then you call up the county sheriff’s department and you ask fer me personally, ’cos when I catch this-this-this person , it’ll be his head gettin’ cut off’n put on a stick, and I’ll be the one doin’ the cuttin’!” A brief disclaimer announcement followed, the county executive wearisomely assuring listeners that when the perpetrator was apprehended, his head would in fact not be cut off, and that he would be granted his day in court.
    The driver of the redneck pickup truck raised a brow at the spew of gruesome information. Torturing puppies, cutting off their heads? he reflected. Man, this is one SICK world…
    Now, it just so happened that at the same moment the pickup truck was idling past the Martins Pharmacy on Main Street, a pedestrian heading down the sidewalk overheard the entire newscast. This pedestrian’s name was Menduez, late-‘20s, dark complected, and possessed of an arrogant gait. He spoke and understood English now fairly well—yet had an accent more Cuban than Venezuelan, to the degree that he was often accused of deliberately mimicking Scarface— since arriving quite illegally in the United States from his home town of Caracas, Venezuela; and, yes, he was indeed the perpetrator of these hideous crimes against local pet dogs. Hearing the newscast brought a smile to his face, and he thought, Ah, so dat fat gringo sheriff piece’a chit theenk he gonna catch me? ME? He need a fockin’ ARMY ta catch me. Gude lock, fat gringo moth-ur FOCKer piece’a CHIT.
    Down the sidewalk he cockily strode, catching some disapproving half-glances from passersby. In one hand was a Burger King bag, and in the other, a burlap sack.
    For those desirous of characterization, it should be communicated that Menduez was the only survivor of the vicious M-27 Gang that rampaged through Richmond not too long ago, raping, killing, selling black-tar heroin, and, well, raping and killing. Though, in all verity, most citizens not only didn’t care when gang members killed each other and in fact applauded it, the M-27 Gang killed just as many innocent, middle-class tax-payers, essentially just for the hell of it. Federal agents caught nearly the entire gang in a sting operation several summers ago; a shoot-out ensued, and all the gang members were introduced to the morgue. The only member fortunate enough to not be present was Menduez. (He’d been on the prowl for puppies to abduct from peoples’ yards.) But given the intensity of the heat now on for him, he wisely decided to go small-time, move to Pulaski, and hook up with several characters who shared his expertise for marketing dangerous substances.
    Small-time worked just fine.
    He bopped along, eventually turning into the part of town that was, at best, ill- regarded: a little industrial park in proximity to subsidized block apartments and shit-looking little houses. A warehouse occupied one section of the park, though; its sign read, of all things, WAREHOUSE, and the actual owner of this warehouse, via a very circuitous paper trail, was one Paul Vinchetti III, known to closer associates as “Paulie the 3rd.” The only wares to ever be housed here were kilo-sized bags of heroin. The warehouse served as the operational base for a group who were as ill-regarded as this section of town: NSG-3—heroin middle-men—and one member of this gang was none other than Menduez.
    Menduez passed the warehouse’s closed-for-the-last-ten-years garage door and knocked twice, then once, then twice on the smaller steel door aside. Eventually he was