The Minotauress

The seat creaked when McKully sat back down.

Balls didn't move. "Just tell me man to man, sir, why you let us run but twennie-five gallons'a shine per run when Dicky's ‘Mino'll hold a hunnert jugs easy?"

McKully wasn't even looking at Balls. He made a checker-move. "It's 'cos you guys ain't got the nuts."

Balls leaned forward, hands still on hips. "Uh, what's that?"

"You fellas ain't bad enough. Bad as in down'n dirty. That kind of bad. Get it?"

"No, sir, I shore as shit don't 'cos, see, me'n Dicky here? We'se the baddest motherfuckers in these here parts, and that you can take to the bank."

McKully waved a hand. "I couldn't take it to the fuckin' toilet," but he pronounced toilet as "toe-lit." "Talkin' it's one thing, boy, walkin' it's another. Shee-it, any asshole with a fast car can outrun the cops on these roads, but I need runners who can do the whole job."

"The whole job?"

"Yeah. Like when the shit hits the fan, I need boys who're willin' to do anythin' to get out of the jam and leave no witnesses."

"Aw, hail," Balls began. "Me'n Dicky, we'se can do—"

McKully's fat hand shot out to silence Balls' protest. He moved another checker. "I need fellas who'll kill." McKully grinned up with the pale green smile. "Boy? You ever kill a man?"

"Shee-it, Mr. McKully. I'se killed me plenty'a men."

"Yeah? How's about women? You ever kilt a woman?"

"Aw, a bunch of times," Balls said, but in truth, at this particular point in Tritt "Balls" Conner's existence, he'd actually killed no one. He'd raped some girls, sure—but they were all asking for it anyway—and he'd jacked out a number of fellas for their green, and he'd even mugged a few old ladies. But the act of murder was one crime not yet on his list of achievements.

Snot honked another nose-shot of snot. "I think yer fulla shit, boy. But I'll'se give ya the benner-fit of the doubt. You lay a good ruckin' on a gal, and I'll hire ya back."

Balls scratched the top of his hat. "A... ruckin'? What's that?"

McKully glared up as if offended. "Shee-it, boy! Yer from the south'n you don't know what a ruckin' is?"

Balls didn't know what to say. "I'se lived my whole life here'n did two years in the Russell County slam, and I ain't never heard'a no ruckin'."

The obese moonshiner seemed disgusted. "Kids," he muttered to himself. "All right, I'll'se tell ya. A ruckin' is when ya snatch yerself a perfectly inner-cent woman and just fuck her all up'n then kill her, fer no reason. That's what a ruckin' is, son."

"Oh," Balls said.

"So that's my deal, boy. If you kill a perfectly inner-cent splittail, without so much as battin' an eye, and real down'n dirty-like, a real hardcore job... then I'll give you'n yer fat buddy a hunnert gallons of ‘shine to run four days a week... and quadruple yer pay."

Balls shrugged nonchalance. "I'll go do it right now and you'll read about it in the paper tomorrow—"

Snot McKully belted a laugh. "Naw, naw, punk. You do it right now, wheres I can see ya do it. I needs you to show me the ruckin' so I know ya got the nuts fer it."

Balls blinked. "Uh, well, okay but... where's I gonna get a splittail?"

McKully whistled. "Pumpkin? Pull that skinny gal out the coop'n drag her over."

Like an automaton, the teenaged girl with greasy hair loped over to the chicken coop, baggy overalls flowing around her frame. She opened a wire-covered hatch, and suddenly Balls thought he heard a muffled mewling sound.

The fuck's he got in there anyways? Balls wondered. Dicky looked grimly on from the El Camino.

From the coop, out flopped an emaciated woman, nude, and with a black rat's nest for hair, wrists and ankles tied. She mewled through a gag of what appeared to be a pair of very soiled men's shorts. Her eyes were huge orbs of terror in the thin face, and she was so skinny her ribs were deep grooves in paste-white flesh. She was ankle-dragged into the center of the clearing by the young blond girl.

"There's yer splittail, son," McKully said.

"Who the fuck is it?" Balls asked.

"Just some gal—an inner-cent gal we caught walkin' through the woods. Had no choice but ta nab her. Cain't have her tellin' the ATF I got a still here, ya know?"

Balls frowned at the trembling, skin-covered skeleton. "She a creeker or somethin'? How she get so dang skinny?"

"Aw, we caught her over a week ago," McKully explained. He took a slug of his own panther piss from a clichéd glass jar. "Couldn't make my mind up what to do with her so's I stuffed her in the chicken coop. Ain't fed her nothin' 'cos I didn't want her shittin' in my coop." McKully fired yet another nose-loogie off to the side, a big one. The young blond girl was already back to filling more jugs, unconcerned by the event taking place.

"Well, boy?" McKully grinned. "Got the belly fer it, or don't'cha?"