"No, no! Not watch. Of course not watch!" Mr. Jonas' sparse eyebrows wrinkled; his hair, when he had it, must have been ash blond. "I certainly wouldn't want to watch. And I don't think my friends would want to watch either. What we were thinking of had much more to do with ... well, it occurred to us that while you do your work very well, if you had some help, it might be more effective . . . psychologically effective. I mean I've always considered your work to be basically psychological in its... well, effect,

  despite the inevitable physical side; I think of you as a sort of artisan of pain, a spiritual worker whose finest points might have been honed in some cellar of the Inquisition, some—"

  Hogg's blank, dumb look got through.

  "Well, at any rate, we thought if you could have some help—that idea came from ... but you don't want to know his name, do you? You say you already have the child here...." He frowned down at me, trying to imagine what I could have done.

  "I think. . .," Hogg began, then suddenly guffawed loudly. "I think I know what you want, hey? I know this dago. He's worked with me on some jobs. He's real mean, Mr. Jonas. I've seen him stick a knife in a bitch fast as he'd stick his pecker in a pussy. Sometimes, when we work over a cunt together, I got to hold that boy back from slittin' the bitch open."

  "Well, yes, now. That's—"

  "And I got a nigger, too. Works with me a lot. Big, black, and nasty. The shit I seen that spade mother pull when he gets after a bad pussy, well, it would make a gentleman like you sick, Mr. Jonas." Hogg chuckled, shook his head. "Just sick."

  "Well, now you do seem to have the idea. A big colored man? That would really amuse—but then, there's no need to mention who. A darky? Yes, that sounds very good."

  "I can think of a couple of other guys. I know a whole bunch of rape artists, Mr. Jonas. I can get you some real scroungy types. Just plain creepy. Standin' there and watchin' those guys work over some poor bitch gets me so fuckin'—"

  "Fine. Yes, that'll be fine, Hogg. We understand each other now. And you'll charge me for this . . . ?"

  Hogg hefted his crotch. His fly was half open and you could just see inside it. He was chewing something over in the back of his mouth. "Well, I got to round up these bastards and keep 'em in line. That's gonna be more work than the shag job."

  "I'm not interested in stories either, Hogg—"

  "For something special like this I'll have to charge two hundred for each of the bitches—"

  "That's fifty more than—"

  —in cash. Plus... lemme see. I'll get four guys beside me. They

  gotta get at least seventy-five apiece. For each bitch. Now don't look

  1 funny—you pay me a hundred and fifty for one, remember. And

  why don't you throw in fifty bucks for the little cocksucker here?"

  "Now, what in the world could he possibly do? I mean, really, Hogg-"

  "He's a little freak. You should see 'im work. Besides, anything that's a little different is gonna be more effective, right? A nigger, or a kid. Like you say . . . psychologically."

  Mr. Jonas' frown was as nervous as his smile. "Are you sure I couldn't pay you with a check for this one? That's almost... let me see: two hundred plus three hundred and fifty, times three is... sixteen hundred bucksl" The bucks came pretty natural.

  "I told you, I don't got no bank account no more. And I gotta pay these guys in cash. Guys like this wouldn't know what to do with no check, Mr. Jonas. Don't you worry, you're gonna like what you hear about these three jobs—and the guys who gonna be doin' them ain't never gonna hear your name. I know just the guys you want. They'll do real fine."

  "I'm sure they will, Hogg."

  "If you do want to sit in on one or two of these, Mr. Jonas, I won't even charge you no—"

  "It will be fine just the way it is, Hogg. Sixteen hundred dollars, in cash." He took a breath through narrowed nostrils, raised his hands against his chest. "I'll have the cash for you as soon as you come back and report the job done."

  "Sure, Mr. Jonas."

  Mr. Jonas frowned at me again. Then he closed the door.

  Hogg took his foot off mine. "How you like that bastard, hey?" He turned on the steps. Through his fly, I could see the top third of his cock hanging—which was more than the whole thing on a lot of guys. "I'm just glad he ain't the only motherfucker I work for, 'cause all his bullshit would just about turn me off the business. 'Mr. Jonas' my right nut! I wonder what his real name is. I used to think he was some sort of kinky faggot—that's why I got in the habit of always leaving my fly down whenever I was talkin' to 'im. Figured some day he'd wanna suck on it and I'd make myself another twenty-five bucks. But he's as straight as a bee-flight from the clover to the hive. He likes his women a little on the young side—if he gets it on with a bitch more than seventeen, all his friends are gonna start thinkin' he's turnin' into a gerontophile. He's into all sorts of gamblin' and runnin' whores all over the damn country and down to the West Indies. I wished to hell he didn't know my real name. I guess it's just as well I don't know too much about him. Safer that

  way, right, cocksucker? I just wonder what these guys I got to get lined up gonna do when they get hold of you?" He laughed as we walked back down the driveway. "You're a fuckin' whore, ain't you, now? I know your kind; you're gonna be tired of my meat in a couple of days. When these guys take a break from work, it's gonna be fun to watch them work on you, motherfucker." He put his hand on the back of my neck. "Hey, gimme that goddamn ten bucks! A fuckin' tip, huh?" He cuffed the back of my head. "I ought to bust you one."

  In the truck, as we drove away, Hogg said: "Hey, cocksucker, you know why I spit in your mouth?" He pulled the wheel around, glanced at me, and grinned. On the side, I could see the stumps of his broken teeth like bark jammed into his gum, way behind the big yellow front ones. The wheel spun back. "That's how my mom taught me to train a goddamn puppy dog. You see, when you want a puppy dog to learn who its master is, you spit in its mouth every once and awhile. And pretty soon it'd know it belonged to me forever and ever." He looked at me like he was guessing how long forever was. Or maybe how far to spit. Anyway, he said, "Shit..." again. And a little bit later: "You don't worry, cocksucker. I'm gonna take care of you, all right." That's how I got in with Hogg.

  We stopped in a diner.

  The cashier pushed the bridge of his glasses up his nose with his forefinger and said, "How you boys doing? You workin' at the c-c-c-construction site over in... ?" Then he looked down through the glass countertop and saw Hogg's bare foot. He just frowned—at Hogg, at me, at Hogg again.

  There were a few drivers there, but not many for five o'clock.

  Hogg shouted his order to the waitress, and heaved into one side of a booth. I slipped into the other. A couple of minutes later when she came by with plates for the three drivers two booths away, Hogg reached out and pinched her ass. Hard. And twisted.

  She cried out, and, with her free hand, beat at the buttocks of her blue smock, whirling—and spilled beans on our table.

  "Shit, that's all right, honey." Hogg pushed the beans into his palm with his fingers and, grinning at her, began to eat out of his hand. (Two of the drivers laughed. "I'm sorry," the waitress said to them. "I'm sorry. He made me spill...") "You know?" Hogg said to me, and I felt his feet push down on my sneakers—workshoe and bare. "There's some pussy you see walkin' around that's so nice and pretty, boy, you couldn't see stickin' a dirty old dick in it. All you can do is kneel down in front of it and give it a little stirrin' with your tongue. Maybe chew on it a little to let it know you care." He belched—it rumbled out for about eight whole seconds—then squinted around the diner. The waitress was coming back with our plates. "Too bad there ain't none of that quality pussy walkin' around here; I'd have some with my coffee." She threw the plates on the table, and jerked away.

  Hogg laughed. His bare foot left my sneaker—his knee thumped the underside of the table and the plates jounced—and settled on my seat, wedging into my crotch. I didn't look down, but I put one hand over it. The skin felt rough and hot. He held my thumb with his toes. "This looks like some good eatin'—AND A GLASS OF MILK FOR THE LITTLE SHIT HERE AND A CUPPA COFFEE FOR ME!"

  That cracked the truckers up too.

  Hogg didn't give the silverware a chance.

  Just went right in, hands first, stuffing food into his mouth, till he was pork chop grease to the eyes. The waitress came by with the milk and the coffee, and scowled like she was in pain.

  "Here you go, boy. Earn your keep." Hogg stuck his hand across the table, bits of meat, gravy, ketchup, and beans all over his fingers. I leaned forward, took it by the wrist, and began to lick. He shoved his fingers into my throat, so that once I gagged. He laughed. "Shit, I swear that gives me a hard-on, boy. I must be some sort of freak."

  While I drank my milk—it was hard to hold the glass because my hands were so greasy—Hogg said, "If you gotta take a piss, better do it now." His toes moved on my crotch. "That's what I'm doing."

  And then, "Here "He scraped up a couple more French fries from

  his plate and fed them to me. "Keep you shittin', boy." His hands a knot of dirt hiding his cup, he drank the coffee down in a swig.

  When he dropped his foot and stood up, it sounded like somebody poured a pot of water on the linoleum. He left a yellow puddle halfway to the cashier's counter. The seat of his pants was dark with the wet. His cuff dripped all over. I followed him, just as one of the drivers looked back, saw the floor, and said, "Jesus Christ . . . !"

  The cashier's frames had slipped back down his nose so that the tops of his lenses cut his pale eyes in half. With his thumb, Hogg pushed the check, soggy with coffee, across the glass. The cashier blurted: "You take your d-d-dirty talk out of here, mister! We d-don't want your money. Now get!"

  Behind us one of the drivers was saying, "Hey, you see what that big, dirty motherfucker did? He pissed all over the ... I mean he went and ..." The others were really laughing now.

  "Shit," Hogg drawled. He grinned at me (rubbing his hand in my hair, like it was a friendly gesture, but I think he was getting some of the grease off): "Hey, cocksucker, we gotta remember this place. Looks like it's good for a free meal."

  "And d-d-d-don't c-c-come back!"

  "PISS UP YOURMOTHER'S PUSSY!" Hogg bellowed, and pounded his fist on the counter. It didn't shatter, but the glass cracked side-to-side.

  The cashier jumped, grabbed for his falling glasses—and missed.

  I think I heard them break on the floor behind the counter, as the guy disappeared to go scrabbling for them.

  Outside, as we walked to the truck cab, Hogg grinned. "I don't usually pull stuff like that." On the gravel, he didn't favor his bare foot at all. "I was just showing off for you some of the funny shit it tickles me to do." Not even a little. "Them truckers sure thought it was funny."

  I looked back. Through the diner window, I could see the waitress holding her sponge real tight up near her neck and frowning down beside our table. The drivers were going up to the counter now, glancing at her, snickering. One shook his head.

  "People are funny." Hogg gave my shoulder a push forward. "We could come back here tomorrow, you and me, in a couple of different shirts, maybe some clean pants, the both of us, actin' halfway proper, and people would look at us. But that's all. And maybe after we got our food, somebody would come over and say, 'Excuse me. But you weren't in here yesterday, were you... ?' And I'd look at 'em and say, with a big grin, 'Whatcha mean? I was haulin' crates of peaches yesterday down near Chattahootchee.' And they'd go away just as happy. 'Cause people don't even wanna see shit like that. I mean, they'd be happier pretending it didn't even happen. But you're gonna see enough of the kind of stuff I usually do. Get in, boy!" Hogg reached up and pulled the handle down on the cab door; it swung open. "Get on in." He went around to the other side. "Let's get out of here while it's still fun. Bastard's trying to phone the cops now. ..."

  At the wall phone, the cashier was dialing with one hand and clutching the receiver and his broken glasses with the other.

  One of the drivers motioned the others; they started for the door. They were using the confusion to leave without paying.

  The Frontwater industrial section we drove through was deserted.

  Hogg wheeled into an alley, pulled up beside a rank of dented garbage cans, and we got out. The sky was violet and copper between buildings that looked like the rotten teeth in the side of Hogg's jaw.

  Above the door across the dirty brick was a sign in which I made out a P, an I, and a T; but there were more letters in it. Behind the window, the gray glass tubing of a neon sign (off) snaked through the letters of some beer brand.

  It was the back entrance to a bar and it looked awfully still.

  "In here." Hogg pushed at the door. The second time he shoved, it opened.

  We entered on a cracked concrete floor. A man with short gray hair and a stained apron was dragging a cardboard carton from the top of a pile of cartons. It clanked down against his belly like beer cans.

  "Hello, Ray, "Hogg said.

  "Well, hey there!" Ray hefted up the carton a little higher. "How you keepin' yourself, Hogg? Ain't seen you around for goin' on a few days, now."

  "Keepin' pretty good. Can't complain." Hogg rubbed at his pockets and more or less ignored the way Ray glanced at me, at Hogg's bare foot. "Hey, Ray, would you look in the front for me? If Nigg and Dago are there—and they ain't too drunk—send 'em on back here. I wanna talk to them in private."

  "Sure, Hogg," Ray said. "They're inside. Both of 'em was walkin' last time I looked." Ray started to turn, but got another thought. "That young guy you was talkin' to last time—Denny—he's here too." The new thought became a frown, but maybe that was because a corner of the crate was slipping. "You know, Hogg—" Ray raised his knee to prop up the carton and staggered a little on one foot— "that feller is strangel I let him sweep up a few times, you know? He's a nice kid, even if he is a little dim. But five times I've come in the back here to get something—and found him in here, jerkin' off!"

  Hogg laughed. "Now that don't sound so strange. You gonna tell me you never get to pullin' on your own?"

  "Sure. Sometimes I do," Ray said. "But when I come in, he didn't even try to hide it or nothing—just give me this big, funny-toothed grin he got, and goes on workin' on it like that was the most normal thing in the world; and goes on working on it, too. That ain't normal."

  Hogg laughed again. "I'll tell you, Ray. I usually wait a little while

  before I call any man normal or not. And even with the waitin', I still ain't sure, when I get around to it, if it's a compliment. You know somethin'?"

  "What?" Ray raised his knee and staggered again.

  "You say he was jerkin' off back here when you come in to get something? Well you know why I started talkin' to him in the first place—?"

  "Yeah, I heard what you was sayin' to him." Ray's chin went up and the carton slipped a little lower down. "Talkin' to him about the kind of crap you're doin'. Now, I don't hold with interferin' in a man's job, don't care what side of the law it's on. But tellin' a half dim kid who jerks off all the time that—"

  "Ray," Hogg said, "the first time I see him standin' at the back end of the bar, he had it out and was jerkin' on it right under the edge of the counter. I admit, I thought it was unusual. But that's why I went over and struck up the conversation you heard the last of."

  I thought Ray was going to drop his carton. "You mean that son-of-a-bitch was out there, beatin' his meat in front of all the goddamn customers?"

  "The kind of customers you get, that ain't gonna make no never mind. He ain't pretty, but he got a piece of meat on him. Half the toothless bums who come in here is faggots anyway. He's more likely to bring 'em in than drive 'em off."

  "Jesus Christ," Ray said. "Sneakin' back here to do it is one thing, but doin' it right up in the front there—"

  "When you go out to get Nigg and Dago, you see if Denny's at the back end of the bar. And if he's sort of leanin' forward on the counter with this very serious expression, you just take a peak on down where he's—"

  "Jesus Christ," Ray said again. "I mean, if I'd known—"

  Hogg laughed once more. "I seen that boy with his dick outside his pants more times than I seen him with it in. Hey, when you send Nigg and Dago back here, whyn't you send old Denny in too. That is, if he ain't too busy."

  "Jesus...," Ray repeated, but he had to prop the crate up again, so he didn't get out the "Christ." He frowned at Hogg, then at me, then at Hogg again. "Okay, I'll send 'em back here, if just to get 'em out of the front." He started off between the cartons. "Shit, if I'd of known the crazy cocksucker was beatin' his meat right out in the goddamn bar—" and disappeared between the cartons.

  Hogg shook his head, chuckling. "Hey, boy. Get down, take it out, and suck it. I swear, if watchin' a bastard like old Ray get all upset don't come near to givin' me a goddamn hard-on too. Besides—" Hogg leaned on one of those gray, screw-out metal columns that supported a low ceiling beam— "I want to see what them bastards do when they come in here and find you swingin' on it." He glanced up where evening blue mottled a grimy window high on the side wall. "Now that's what I should've got you doin' when Ray was in here. Would've probably taught the motherfucker somethin' useful, 'stead of wastin' my time jawin' to him. He done learned half of it from Denny. I'm probably shirkin' my duty not teachin' him the other half. I got a real strong sense of duty. You got to have one when you doin' work like I do. Come on, get down." He planted his shoe over here and his foot over there, and cupped his hand under his crotch. "Hey, what's that look— get on down there and suck it, boy! Get down."

  I knelt.

  "This gonna tickle them somethin' fierce." Hogg shouted: "Hey, you black bastard, come on in here! Where are you, you dumb wop?" His belly jerked in front of my face between the swinging green cloth, hanging open out of his pants.

  The echo of his shout rolled through the storeroom.

  Hogg fingered his red meat out of his fly; it was hard, like the yell had pumped it up. "Shit, cocksucker," he drawled. "You know you