“Hey—!” Hogg jammed a thumb at the windowsill—“how you like that shit, huh? I guess Denny’s just about the most famous person we know, hey, cocksucker?” He scratched his belly again and ambled forward, like a huge blond gorilla. “I’d a’ thought the goddamn infection would a’ laid him too low for that kind of mess. But I guess there’s some spunk in the little jack-off yet.” He scratched down under his belt. “I guess tomorrow we gonna hear about how twenty or thirty big brave pigs done finally smoked him from some outhouse with mace and what-all and machine-gunned his ass down. But, shit, the cocksucker ain’t no more’n seventeen!” Hogg laughed. “I just sort of wish I’d get a chance to see him once more and maybe shake his hand ’fore they kill him. Man, you should’ve seen him in the bar, there, clubbin’ them bikeys and shootin’ old Ray in the belly—Wham! The wop and his old lady and me was just a-laughin’ and applaudin’—dangerous? My syphilitic left nut! Before he cut out of there, he give me a big grin. I gave him one right back. ‘Go on, motherfucker,’ I told him. ‘It’s all right. Go on!’” A puzzled look broke, here and there, through Hogg’s grin to pull together on top of it. “I don’t know why he’s doin’ it. Don’t expect I ever will. But it sure is something, huh?” He pulled his hand out from his belt and reached down to dig at his crotch. Down on his greens where the head of his dick would be was a wet spot the size of a waterglass bottom—from the drip his work got him, I guess.

Thinking about it in there, thick as my wrist and long as a flashlight, with an inch of foreskin swinging off it (I was still breathing hard), I felt my own dick move in my pants.

Hogg turned to close the door—the latch didn’t quite catch and it drifted open an inch as he turned back. Once more he looked around the room, at Honey-Pie, at me, at Honey-Pie. “Motherfucker,” he said. The grin was back on his face. He moved his feet apart and, at his thighs, flexed his hairy hands. “Well, looks like we got us some nigger meat here.” Hogg shook his head a little. “Hey, baby … Ain’t nothin’ like sweet young nigger meat! Maybe you didn’t land yourself in such a bad place after all, cocksucker. Come here, nigger meat.”

Honey-Pie stood up so fast the chair overturned. She stepped back, looking serious and blinking.

“Come here.…” Hogg stepped forward.

She took another step back.