BOOTY AND THE BEAST

	"WHERE DO YOU KEEP THE SUGAR?" MULROY said, as he pulled open cabinet doors and scrounged about.

	"Go to hell," Standers said.

	"That's no way to talk," Mulroy said. "I'm a guest in your house. A guest isn't supposed to be treated that way. All I asked was where's the sugar?"

	"And I said go to hell. And you're not a guest."

	Mulroy, who was standing in the kitchen part of the mobile home, stopped and stared at Standers in the living room. He had tied Standers's hands together and stretched them out so he could loop the remainder of the lamp cord around a doorknob. He had removed Standers's boots and tied his feet with a sheet, wrapped them several times. The door Standers was bound to was the front door of the trailer and it was open. Standers was tied so that he was sitting with his back against the door, his arms stretched and strained above him. Mulroy thought he ought to have done it a little neater, a little less painful, then he got to thinking about what he was going to do and decided it didn't matter, and if it did, tough.

	"You got any syrup or honey?"

	This time Standers didn't answer at all.

	Mulroy neatly closed the cabinet doors and checked the refrigerator. He found a large plastic see-through bear nearly full of syrup. He squeezed the bear and shot some of the syrup on his finger and tasted it. Maple.

	"This'll do. You know, I had time, I'd fix me up some pancakes and use this. I taste this, it makes me think pancakes. They got like an I-Hop in town?"

	Standers didn't answer.

	Mulroy strolled over to Standers and set the plastic bear on the floor and took off his cowboy hat and nice Western jacket. He tossed the hat on the couch and carefully hung his jacket on the back of a chair. The pistol in the holster under his arm dangled like a malignancy.

	Mulroy took a moment to look out the open door at the sun-parched grass and the fire ant hills in the yard. Here was a bad place for a mobile home. For a house. For anything. No neighbors. No trees, just lots of land with stumps. Mulroy figured the trees had been cut down for pulp money. Mulroy knew that's what he'd have done.

	Because there were no trees, the mobile home was hot, even with the air conditioner going. And having the front door open didn't help much, way it was sucking out what cool air there was.

	Mulroy watched as a mockingbird lit in the grass. It appeared on the verge of heat stroke. It made one sad sound, then went silent. Way, way out, Mulroy could hear cars on the highway, beyond the thin line of pine trees.

	Mulroy reached down and unbuckled Standers's pants. He tugged down the pants and underwear, exposing Standers. He got hold of the bear and squeezed some of the syrup onto Standers's privates.

	Standers said, "Whatcha doin', fixin' breakfast?"

	"Oh ho," Mulroy said. "I am cut to the quick. Listen here. No use talkin' tough. This isn't personal. It's business. I'm going to do what I got to do, so you might as well not take it personal. I don't have anything against you."

	"Yeah, well, great. I feel a hell of a lot better."

	Mulroy eased down to Standers's feet, where his toes were exposed. He put the syrup on Standers's toes. He squirted some on Standers's head.

	Mulroy went outside then. The mockingbird flew away. Mulroy walked around and looked at the fire ant hills. Fire ants were a bitch. They were tenacious bastards, and when they stung you, it was some kind of sting. There were some people so allergic to the little critters, one bite would make them go toes up. And if there were enough of them, and they were biting on you, it could be Goodbye City no matter if you were allergic or not. It was nasty poison.

	Mulroy reached in his back pocket, pulled out a half-used sack of Red Man, opened it, pinched some out and put it in his mouth. He chewed a while, then spit on one of the ant hills. Agitated ants boiled out of the hill and spread in his direction. He walked off a ways and used the toe of his boot to stir up another hill, then another. He squirted syrup from the bear on one of the hills and ran a thin, dribbling stream of syrup back to the mobile home, up the steps, across the floor and directed the stream across Standers's thigh and onto his love apples. He said, "A fire ant hurts worse than a regular ant, but it isn't any different when it comes to sweets. He likes them. They like them. There're thousands of ants out there. Maybe millions. Who the hell knows. I mean, how you gonna count mad ants, way they're running around?"

	For the first time since Mulroy first surprised Standers -- pretending to be a Bible salesman, then giving him an overhand right, followed by a left uppercut to the chin -- he saw true concern on Standers's face.

	Mulroy said, "They hurt they bite you on the arm, leg, foot, something like that. But they get on your general, crawl between your toes, where it's soft, or nip your face around the lips, eyes and nose, it's some kind of painful. Or so I figure. You can tell me in a minute."

	Suddenly, Mulroy cocked his head. He heard a car coming along the long road that wound up to the trailer. He went and looked out the door, came back, sat down on the couch and chewed his tobacco.

	A few moments later the car parked behind Mulroy's car. A door slammed, a young slim woman in a short tight dress with hair the color of fire ants came through the door and looked first at Mulroy, then Standers. She pivoted on her high heels and waved her little handbag at Standers, said, "Hey, honey. What's that on your schlong?"

	"Syrup," Mulroy said, got up, pushed past the woman and spat a stream of tobacco into the yard.

	"Bitch," Standers said.

	"The biggest," she said. Then to Mulroy: "Syrup on his tallywhacker?"

	Mulroy stood in the doorway and nodded toward the yard. "The ants."

	The woman looked outside, said, "I get it. Very imaginative." She eye'd the plastic bear where Mulroy had placed it on the arm of the couch. "Oh, that little bear is the cutest."

	"You like it," Mulroy said. "Take it with you." Then to Standers he said, "You think maybe now you want to talk to us?"

	Standers considered, decided either way he was screwed. He didn't tell, he was going to suffer, then die. Maybe he told what they wanted, he'd just die. He could make that part of the deal, and hope they kept their side of the bargain. Not that there was any reason they should. Still, Mulroy, he might do it. As for Babe, he couldn't trust her any kind of way.

	Nonetheless, looking at her now, she was certainly beautiful. And his worms-eye view right up her dress was exceptional, considering Babe didn't wear panties and was a natural redhead.

	"I was you," Mulroy said, "I'd start talking. Where's the loot?"

	Standers took a deep breath. If he'd only kept his mouth shut, hadn't tried to impress Babe, he wouldn't be in this mess.

	During World War II his dad had been assigned to guard Nazi treasure in Germany. His dad had confiscated a portion of the treasure, millions of dollars worth, and shipped it home to East Texas. A number of religious icons had been included in the theft, like a decorated box that was supposed to contain a hair from the Virgin Mary's head.

	Standers's father had seen all this as spoils of war, not theft. When he returned home, much of the treasure was split up between relatives or sold. After the war the Germans had raised a stink and the U.S. government ended up making Standers's dad return what was left. The Germans offered to pay his father a price for it to keep things mellow. A flat million, a fraction of what it was worth.

	Divided among family members, that million was long gone. But there was something else. Standers's Dad hadn't given up all the treasure. There were still a few unreturned items; gold bars and the so-called hair of the Virgin Mary.

	Early last year the Germans raised yet another stink about items still missing. It had been in the papers and Standers's family had been named, and since he was the last of his family line, it was assumed he might know where this treasure was. Reporters came out. He told them he didn't know anything about any treasure. He laughed about how if he had treasure he wouldn't be living in a trailer in a cow pasture. The reporters believed him, or so it seemed from the way it read in the papers.

	A month later he met Babe, in a store parking lot. She was changing a tire and just couldn't handle it, and would he help her. He had, and while he did the work he got to look up the line of her leg and find out she wore nothing underneath the short dresses she preferred. And she knew how to talk him up and lead him on. She was a silver-tongued, long-legged slut with heaven between her legs. He should have known better.

	One night, after making love, Babe mentioned the stuff in the papers, and Standers, still high on flesh friction, feeling like a big man, admitted he had a large share of the money socked away in a foreign bank, and the rest, some gold bars, and the box containing the hair from the Virgin Mary, hidden away here in East Texas.

	The relationship continued, but Standers began to worry when Babe kept coming back to the booty. She wanted to know where it was. She didn't ask straight out; she danced around matters; he didn't talk. He'd been stupid enough, no use compounding the matter. She was after the money, and not him, and he felt like a jackass. He doubled up on the sex for a while, then sent her away.

	This morning, posing as a Bible salesman, Mulroy had shown up, clocked him, tied him up, introduced himself and tried to get him to tell the whereabouts of the loot. When Babe came through the door, it all clicked in place.

	"I got a question," Standers said.

	"So do we," Mulroy said. "Where's the spoils? We don't even want the money you got in a foreign bank. . . . Well, we want it, but that might be too much trouble. We'll settle for the other. What did you tell Babe it was? Gold bars and a cunt hair off the Virgin Mary?"

	"I just want to know," Standers continued, "were you and Babe working together from the start?"

	Mulroy laughed. "She was on her own, but when she couldn't get what she wanted from you, she needed someone to provide some muscle."

	"So you're just another one she's conned," Standers said.

	"No," Mulroy said, "you were conned. I'm a business partner. I'm not up for being conned. You wouldn't do that to me, would you, Babe?"

	Babe smiled.

	"Yeah, well, I guess you would," Mulroy said. "But I ain't gonna let you. You see, I know she's on the con. Knew it from the start. You didn't. Conning the marks is what I do for a living."

	"It was all bullshit," Standers said. "I just told her that to sound big. She gets you in bed, she makes your dick think it's the president. I was tryin' to keep that pussy comin', is all. I had money, you think I'd be living like this?"

	"If you were smart, you would," Mulroy said.

	"I'm not smart," Standers said. "I sell cars. And that's it."

	"Man," Mulroy said, "you tell that so good I almost believe it. Almost. Shit, I bet you could sell me an old Ford with a flat tire and missing transmission. Almost. . . hey, let's do it like this. You give the location of the stuff, and we let you go, and we even send you a little of the money. You know, ten thousand dollars. Isn't much, but it beats what you might get. I think that's a pretty good deal, all things considered."

	"Yeah, I'll wait at the mail box for the ten thousand," Standers said.

	"That's a pretty hard one to believe, isn't it?" Mulroy said. "But you can't blame me for tryin'. Hell, I got to go to the can. Watch him, Babe."

	When Mulroy left the room, Standers said, "Nice, deal, huh? You and him get the loot, split it fifty-fifty."

	Babe didn't say anything. She went over and sat on the couch.

	"I can do you a better deal than he can," Standers said. "Get rid of him, and I'll show you the loot and split it fifty-fifty."

	"What's better about that?" Babe said.

	"I know where it is," Standers said. "It'd go real easy."

	"I got time to go less easy, I want to take it," she said.

	"Yeah," Standers said. "But why take it? Sooner you get it, sooner we spend it."

	Mulroy came back into the room. Babe picked the plastic bear off the couch arm and went over to the refrigerator and opened it. She put the bear inside and got out a soft drink and pulled the tab on the can. "Man, I'm hungry," she said, then swigged the drink.

	"What?" Mulroy said.

	"Hungry," Babe said. "You know. I'd like to eat. You hungry?"
	
"Yeah," Mulroy said. "I was thinking about pancakes, but I kinda got other things on my mind here. We finish this, we'll eat. Besides, there's food here."

	"Yeah, you want to eat this slop?" Babe said. "Go get us a pizza."

	"A pizza?" Mulroy said. "You want I should get a pizza? We're fixin' to torture a guy with fire ants, maybe cut him up a little, set him on fire, whatever comes to mind that's fun, and you want me to drive out and get a fuckin' pizza? Honey, you need to stop lettin' men dick you in the ear. It's startin' to mess up your brain. Drink your soda pop."

	"Canadian bacon, and none of those little fishies," Babe said. "Lots of cheese, and get the thick chewy crust."

	"You got to be out of your beautiful red head."

	"It'll take a while anyway," Babe said. "I don't think a couple of ant bites'll make him cave. And I'd rather not get tacky with cuttin' and burnin', we can avoid it. Whatever we do, it'll take some time, and I don't want to do it on an empty stomach. I'm tellin' you, I'm seriously and grown-up hungry here."

	"You don't know fire ants, Baby," Mulroy said. "It ain't gonna take long at all."

	"It's like, what, fifteen minutes into town?" Babe said, sipping her drink. "I could use a pizza. That's what I want. What's the big deal?"

	Mulroy scratched the back of his neck, looked out the doorway. The ants were at the steps, following the trail of syrup.

	"They'll be on him before I get back," he said.

	"So," Babe said, "I've heard a grown man scream before. He tells me somethin', you get back, we'll go, eat the pizza on the way."

	Mulroy used a finger to clear the tobacco out of his cheek. He flipped it into the yard. He said, "All right. I guess I could eat." Mulroy put on his coat and hat and smiled at Babe and went out.

	When Mulroy's car was way out on the drive, near the highway, Babe opened her purse and took out a small .38 and pointed it at Standers. "I figure this will make you a more balanced kind of partner. You remember that. You mess with me, I'll shoot your dick off."

	"All right," Standers said.

	Babe put the revolver in her other hand, got a flick blade knife out of her purse, used it to cut the sheets around Standers's ankles. She cut the lamp cord off his wrist.

	Standers stood, and without pulling his pants up, hopped to the sink. He got the hand towel off the rack and wet it and used it to clean the syrup off his privates, his feet and head. He pulled up his pants, got his socks, sat on the couch and put his boots back on.

	"We got to hurry," Babe said. "Mulroy, he's got a temper. I seen him shoot a dog once for peeing on one of his hub caps."

	"Let me get my car keys," Standers said.

	"We'll take my car," she said. "You'll drive."

	They went outside and she gave him the keys and they drove off.

	As they drove onto the highway, Mulroy, who was parked behind a swathe of trees, poked a new wad of tobacco into his mouth and massaged it with his teeth.

	Babe had sold out immediately, like he thought she would. Doing it this way, having them lead him to the treasure was a hell of a lot better than sitting around in a hot trailer watching fire ants crawl on a man's balls. And this way he didn't have to watch his back all the time. That Babe, what a kidder. She was so greedy, she thought he'd fall for that lame pizza gag. She'd been winning too long; she wasn't thinking enough moves ahead anymore.

	Mulroy rode well back of them, putting his car behind other cars when he could. He figured his other advantage was they weren't expecting him. He thought about the treasure and what he could do with it while he drove.

	Until Babe came along, he had been a private detective, doing nickel and dime divorces out of Tyler; taking pictures of people doing the naked horizontal mambo. It wasn't a lot of fun. And the little cons he pulled on the side, clever as they were, were bullshit money, hand to mouth.

	He made the score he wanted from all this, he'd go down to Mexico, buy him a place with a pool, rent some women. One for each day of the week, and each one with a different sexual skill, and maybe a couple who could cook. He was damn sure tired of his own cooking. He wanted to eat a lot and get fat and lay around and poke the senoritas. This all fell through, he thought he might try and be an evangelist or some kind of politician or a lawman with a regular check.

	Standers drove for a couple of hours, through three or four towns, and Mulroy followed. Eventually, Standers pulled off the highway, onto a blacktop. Mulroy gave him time to get ahead, then took the road too. With no cars to put between them and himself, Mulroy cruised along careful like. Finally he saw Standers way up ahead on a straight stretch. Standers veered off the road and into the woods.

	Mulroy pulled to the side of the road and waited a minute, then followed. The road in the woods was a narrow dirt one, and Mulroy had only gone a little ways when he stopped his car and got out and started walking. He had a hunch the road was a short one, and he didn't want to surprise them too early.

	Standers drove down the road until it dead-ended at some woods and a load of trash someone had dumped. He got out and Babe got out. Babe was still holding her gun.

	"You're tellin' me it's hidden under the trash?" she said. "You better not be jackin' with me, honey."

	"It's not under the trash. Come on."

	They went into the woods and walked along awhile, came to an old white house with a bad roof. It was surrounded by vines and trees and the porch was falling down.
	"You keep a treasure here?" she said.

	Standers went up on the porch, got a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Inside, pigeons fluttered and went out holes in the windows and the roof. A snake darted into a hole in the floor. There were spiders and spider webs everywhere. The floor was dotted with rat turds.

	Standers went carefully across the floor and into a bedroom. Babe followed, holding her revolver at the ready. The room was better kept than the rest of the house. She could see where boards had been replaced in the floor. The ceiling was good here. There were no windows, just plyboard over the spots where they ought to be. There was a dust-covered desk, a bed with ratty covers, and an armchair covered in a faded flower print.

	Standers got down on his hands and knees, reached under the bed and tugged diligently at a large suitcase.

	"It's under the bed?" Babe said.

	Standers opened the suitcase. There was a crowbar in it. He got the crowbar out. Babe said, "Watch yourself. I don't want you should try and hit me. It could mess up my makeup."

	Standers carried the crowbar to the closet, opened it. The closet was sound. There was a groove in the floor. Standers fitted the end of the crowbar into the groove and lifted. The flooring came up. Standers pulled the trap door out of the closet and put it on the floor.

	Babe came over for a look, careful to keep an eye on Standers and a tight grip on the gun. Where the floor had been was a large metal-lined box. Standers opened the box so she could see what was inside.

	What she saw inside made her breath snap out. Gold bars and a shiny wooden box about the size of a box of cigars.

	"That's what's got the hair in it?" she asked.

	"That's what they say. Inside is another box with some glass in it. You can look through the glass and see the hair. Box was made by the Catholic Church to hold the hair. For all I know it's an armpit hair off one of the Popes. Who's to say? But it's worth money."

	"How much money?"

	"It depends on who you're dealing with. A million. Two to three million. Twenty-five million."

	"Let's deal with that last guy."

	"The fence won't give money like that. We could sell the gold bars, use that to finance a trip to Germany. There're people there would pay plenty for the box."

	"A goddamn hair," Babe said. "Can you picture that?"

	"Yeah, I can picture that." Babe and Standers turned as Mulroy spoke, stepped into the room cocking his revolver with one hand, pushing his hat back with the other.

	Mulroy said, "Put the gun down, Babe, or I part your hair about two inches above your nose."

	Babe smiled at him, lowered her gun. "See," she said. "I got him to take me here, no trouble. Now we can take the treasure."

	Mulroy smiled. "You are some kind of kidder. I never thought you'd let me have fifty percent anyway. I was gonna do you in from the start. Same as you were with me. Drop the gun, Babe."

	Babe dropped the revolver. "You got me all wrong," she said.

	"No I don't," Mulroy said.

	"I guess you didn't go for pizza," Standers said.

	"No, but I tell you what," Mulroy said. "I'm pretty hungry right now, so let's get this over with. I'll make it short and sweet. A bullet through the head for you, Standers. A couple more just to make sure you aren't gonna be some kind of living cabbage. As for you, Babe. There's a bed here, and I figure I might as well get all the treasure I can get. Look at it this way. It's the last nice thing you can do for anybody, so you might as well make it nice. If nothing else, be selfish and enjoy it."

	"Well," Standers said, looking down at Babe's revolver on the floor. "You might as well take the gun."

	Standers stepped out from behind Babe and kicked her gun toward Mulroy, and no sooner had he done that, than he threw the crowbar.

	Mulroy looked down at the revolver sliding his way, then looked up. As he did, the crowbar hit him directly on the bridge of the nose and dropped him. He fell unconscious with his back against the wall.

	Soon as Mulroy fell, Babe reached for her revolver. Standers kicked her legs out from under her, but she scuttled like a crab and got hold of it and shot in Standers's direction. The shot missed, but it stopped Standers.

	Babe got up, pulled her dress down and smiled. "Looks like I'm ahead."

	She turned suddenly and shot the unconscious Mulroy behind the ear. Mulroy's hat, which had maintained its position on his head, came off as he nodded forward. A wad of tobacco rolled over his lip and landed in his lap. Blood ran down his cheek and onto his nice Western coat.

	Babe smiled again, spoke to Standers. "Now I just got you. And I need you to carry those bars out of here."

	Standers said. "Why should I help?"

	"Cause I'll let you go."

	Standers snorted.

	"All right then, because I'll shoot you in the knees and leave you here if you don't. That way, you go slow. Help me, I'll make it quick."

	"Damn, that's a tough choice."

	"Let's you and me finish up in a way you don't have to suffer, babycakes."

	Standers nodded, said, "You promise to make it quick?"

	"Honey, it'll happen so fast you won't know it happened."

	"I can't take the strain," Standers said. He pointed to the room adjacent to the bedroom. "There's a wheelbarrow in there. It's the way I haul stuff out. I get that, we can make a few trips, get it over with. I don't like to think about dying for a long time. Let's just get it done."

	"Fine with me," Babe said.

	Standers started toward the other room. Babe said, "Hold on."

	She bent down and got Mulroy's gun. Now she had one in either hand. She waved Standers back against the wall and peeked in the room he had indicated. There was a wheelbarrow in there.

	"All right, let's do it," she said.

	Standers stepped quickly inside, and as Babe started to enter the room, he said sharply, "Don't step there!"

	Babe held her foot in mid-air, and Standers slapped her closest gun arm down and grabbed it, slid behind her and pinned her other arm. He slid his hands down and took the guns from her. He used his knee to shove her forward. She stumbled and the floor cracked and she went through and spun and there was another crack, but it wasn't the floor. She screamed and moaned something awful. After a moment, she stopped bellowing and turned to Standers, she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

	Standers said, "What's the matter? Kind of run out of lies? There ain't nothing you can say would interest me. It's just a shame to have to kill a good-lookin' piece like you."

	"Please," she said, but Standers shot her in the face with Mulroy's gun and she fell backwards, her broken leg still in the gap in the floor. Her other leg flew up and came down and her heel hit the floor with a slap. Her dress hiked up and exposed her privates.

	"Not a bad way to remember you," Standers said. "It's the only part of you that wasn't a cheat."

	Standers took the box containing the hair out of the closet, put the closet back in shape, got the wheelbarrow and used it to haul Babe, her purse, and the guns out of there and through the woods to a pond his relatives had built fifty years ago.

	He dumped Babe beside the pond, went back for Mulroy and dumped him beside her. He got Mulroy's car keys out of his pocket and Babe's keys out of her purse.

	Standers walked back to Babe's car and drove it to the edge of the pond, rolled down the windows a little, put her and Mulroy in the back seat with her purse and the guns, then he put the car in neutral. He pushed it off in the water. It was a deep, dirty pond. The car went down quick.

	Standers waited at the shack until almost dark, then took the box containing the hair, walked back, found Mulroy's car and drove it out of there. He stopped the car beside a dirt road about a mile from his house and wiped it clean with a handkerchief he found in the front seat. He got the box out of the car and walked back to his trailer.

	It was dark when he got there. The door was still open. He went inside, locked up and set the box with the hair on the counter beside the sink. He opened the box and took out the smaller box and studied the hair through the smeary glass.

	He thought to himself: What if this is the Virgin Mary's hair? It could even be an ass hair, but if it's the Virgin Mary's . . . well, it's the Virgin Mary's. And what if it's a dog hair? It'll still sell for the same. It was time to get rid of it. He would book a flight to Germany tomorrow, search out the right people, sell it, sock what he got from it away in his foreign bank account, come back and fence the gold bars and sell all his land, except for the chunk with the house and pond on it. He'd fill the pond in himself with a rented back hole and dozer, plant some trees on top of it, let it set while he lived abroad.

	Simple, but a good plan, he thought.

	Standers drank a glass of water and took the box and lay down on the couch snuggling it. He was exhausted. Fear of death did that to a fella. He closed his eyes and went to sleep immediately.

	A short time later he awoke in pain. His whole body ached. He leaped up, dropping the box. He began to slap at his legs and chest, tear at his clothes.

	Jesus. The fire ants! His entire body was covered with the bastards.

	Standers felt queezy. My God, he thought. I'm having a reaction. I'm allergic to the little shits.

	He got his pants and underwear peeled down to his ankles, but he couldn't get them over his boots. He began to hop about the room. He hit the light switch and saw the ants all over the place. They had followed the stream of syrup, and then they had found him on the couch and gone after him.

	Standers screamed and slapped, hopped over and grabbed the box from the floor and jerked open the front door. He held the box in one hand and tugged at his pants with the other, but as he was going down the steps, he tripped, fell forward and landed on his head and lay there with his head and knees holding him up. He tried to stand, but couldn't. He realized he had broken his neck, and from the waist down he was paralyzed.

	Oh God, he thought. The ants. Then he thought. Well, at least I can't feel them, but he found he could feel them on his face. His face still had sensation.

	It's temporary, the paralysis will pass, he told himself, but it didn't. The ants began to climb into his hair and swarm over his lips. He batted at them with his eyelashes and blew at them with his mouth, but it didn't do any good. They swarmed him. He tried to scream, but with his neck bent the way it was, his throat constricted somewhat, he couldn't make a good noise. And when he opened his mouth the furious little ants swarmed in and bit his tongue, which swelled instantly.

	Oh Jesus, he thought. Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

	But Jesus wasn't listening. Neither was the Virgin Mary.

	The night grew darker and the ants grew more intense, but Standers was dead long before morning.

	About ten A.M. a car drove up in Standers's drive and a fat man in a cheap blue suit with a suitcase full of bibles got out; a real bible salesman with a craving for drink.

	The bible salesman, whose name was Bill Longstreet, had his mind on business. He needed to sell a couple of moderate-priced bibles so he could get a drink. He'd spent his last money in Beaumont, Texas on a double, and now he needed another.

	Longstreet strolled around his car, whistling, trying to put up a happy Christian front. Then he saw Standers in the front yard supported by his head and knees, his ass exposed, his entire body swarming with ants. The corpse was swollen up and spotted with bites. Standers's neck was twisted so that Longstreet could see the right side of his face, and his right eye was nothing more than an ant cavern, and the lips were eaten away and the nostrils were a tunnel for the ants. They were coming in one side, and going out the other.

	Longstreet dropped his sample case, staggered back to his car, climbed on the hood and just sat there and looked for a long time.

	Finally, he got over it. He looked about and saw no one other than the dead man. The door to the trailer was open. Longstreet got off the car. Watching for ants, he went as close as he had courage and yelled toward the open door a few times.

	No one came out.

	Longstreet licked his lips, eased over to Standers and moving quickly, stomping his feet, he reached in Standers's back pocket and pulled out his wallet.

	Longstreet rushed back to his car and got up on the hood. He looked in the wallet. There were two ten dollar bills and a couple of ones. He took the money, folded it neatly and put it in his coat pocket. He tossed the wallet back at Standers, got down off the car and got his case and put it on the back seat. He got behind the wheel, was about to drive off, when he saw the little box near Standers's swollen hand.

	Longstreet sat for a moment, then got out, ran over, grabbed the box, and ran back to the car, beating the ants off as he went. He got behind the wheel, opened the box and found another box with a little crude glass window fashioned into it. There was something small and dark and squiggly behind the glass. He wondered what it was.

	He knew a junk store bought stuff like this. He might get a couple bucks from the lady who ran it. He tossed it in the back seat, cranked up the car and drove into town and had a drink.

	He had two drinks. Then three. It was nearly dark by the time he came out of the bar and wobbled out to his car. He started it up and drove out onto the highway right in front of a speeding semi.

	The truck hit Longstreet's car and turned it into a horseshoe and sent it spinning across the road, into a telephone pole. The car ricocheted off the pole, back onto the road and the semi, which was slamming hard on its brakes, clipped it again. This time Longstreet and his car went through a barbed wire fence and spun about in a pasture and stopped near a startled bull.

	The bull looked in the open car window and sniffed and went away. The semi driver parked and got out and ran over and looked in the window himself.

	Longstreet's brains were all over the car and his face had lost a lot of definition. His mouth was dripping bloody teeth. He had fallen with his head against an open bible. Later, when he was hauled off, the bible had to go with him. Blood had plastered it to the side of his head, and when the ambulance arrived, the blood had clotted and the bible was even better attached; way it was on there, you would have thought it was some kind of bizarre growth Longstreet had been born with. Doctors at the hospital wouldn't mess with it. What was the point. Fucker was dead and they didn't know him.

	At the funeral home they hosed his head down with warm water and yanked the bible off his face and threw it away.

	Later on, well after the funeral, Longstreet's widow inherited what was left of Longstreet's car, which she gave to the junkyard. She burned the bibles and all of Longstreet's clothes. The box with the little box in it she opened and examined. She couldn't figure what was behind the glass. She used a screw driver to get the glass off, tweezers to pinch out the hair.

	She held the hair in the light, twisted it this way and that. She couldn't make out what it was. A bug leg, maybe. She tossed the hair in the commode and flushed it. She put the little box in the big box and threw it in the trash.

	Later yet, she collected quite a bit of insurance money from Longstreet's death. She bought herself a new car and some see-through panties and used the rest to finance her lover's plans to open a used car lot in downtown Beaumont, but it didn't work out. He used the money to finance himself and she never saw him again.

From High Cotton a collection of Stories by Joe R. Lansdale.