Chapter 1

LT drained the last of his bottle of Dixie and ordered another. He wore a rumpled seersucker suit and a broad red, white and purple tie. The other two men at the table were in T-shirts and jeans.

"I'd sure like to get a piece of that," LT said, as the young waitress walked away, swinging her hips. "That's the finest behind I seen in many a moon."

"Forget it," said Roddy. "She's kin to Ogilvie. Just a niece, but that's close enough so he'd take offense if anyone messed with her."

LT grimaced. "Well," he said, "I got no interest in gettin' on the wrong side of the old bastard, but I sure would like a piece of her."

"Speaking of which," said Beagle, "there's that shipment of pussy comin' in tonight. Yankee pussy."

"Yeah," said LT, "but that's strictly business. They been spoken for and paid for."

Beagle leaned forward and lowered his voice. "True, but considering what's in store for them, wouldn't hurt none if we picked out a couple for an evening of fun."

Roddy looked puzzled. "What you guys talkin' 'bout? What girls? And what, exactly, is 'in store' for them?"

Beagle grinned wickedly. "Roddy, where you been hidin'? LT here is associated with what could become a very big and profitable enterprise. Young ladies from the North, they're lured South — that's the way newspaper stories always put it, 'lured' — they're lured South with promises of exciting and lucrative careers as companions to some of the region's most powerful business executives."

"Where you come up with all this shit?" Roddy asked suspiciously.

LT, a big, baby-faced man of 40, tilted his chair back at a dangerous angle and said, "Ain't no shit, Roddy. Me and Beagle have gone into business with an entruh-pray-noor from way up in Ohio. Near Cleveland. Name of Mozzarella."

"Sounds like some kind of cheese," snorted Roddy.

"Yeah," said LT. "It also sounds like some kind of Italian gangster, which is closer to the truth." He pronounced Italian "eye-talian."

"Keep it down," whispered Beagle.

LT sat forward in his chair and lowered his voice. "You're right. Folks here in Veniss County mightn't understand doin' business with Italian gangsters. Even ol' Ogilvie, big a crook as he is, would probably disapprove. But I don't much care who puts up the money — Italians, Jews, spics, even Negroes — so long as we get some capital into this godforsaken corner of nowhere. And so long as I get a piece of the action. It's the start of a whole new decade, the '60s, and Mississippi's gonna change whether Ross Barnett likes it or not."

The waitress returned with another beer.

"Thank you, honey," LT said. "Jus' keep 'em comin'. And take care of my friends, too."

She looked at him with an expression that would have been contempt if she had put a little more energy into it.

"Sure, LT," she drawled. "We all know you're a big spender."

"You know, that's why so many men end up beatin' the shit out of women," Roddy muttered as she walked away. "Cuz they say things like that. With that kinda voice."

"Don't bother me none," said LT, with a bland smile. "Actually, I think she kinda likes me."

"Yeah, sure. But let's get back to this Yankee pussy," said Roddy.

LT frowned thoughtfully. "What you was jus' talkin' 'bout — beatin' up women — is very relevant to the subject of Yankee pussy and Yankee capital," he said. "Lotta men want to beat up women for one reason or another. Some are just pissed off at their wives or girlfriends. Or their mothers. And some just get a kick out of whippin' a girl's ass. No accountin' for taste."

"So what's that got to do with your new business?" asked Roddy.

"We gonna make good-lookin' young women available for beatin' and whippin' and general brutality," explained LT. "Now, they got such places up North, too, of course. But down here you'll be able to tie up one of our girls and beat the shit out of her, then go out and walk on the beach, or get out on the golf course, or go for a swim. In other words, we'll be runnin' a sort of S&M spa. You get a genuine Gulf Coast vacation and an afternoon abusin' a sweet young thing."

"And what happens if these sweet young things get so beat up no one wants to look at 'em no more?"

"Our clients will sign a contract," said LT. "Messin' with a girl's good looks will cost, say, $500. Cripplin' will cost $1,000. For $5,000 you get to do whatever the fuck you want."

"Including killin'?" Roddy asked, incredulously.

LT frowned. "Yeah, I guess so. We ain't thought it all the way through jus' yet."

"Jesus Christ," said Roddy, "you all are fuckin' crazy."

"Yeah, like a fox. Mr. Mozzarella, he knows what they hell he's doin'," said LT. "He's a real businessman. If he thinks he can make money at this — and that me and Beagle and my other partners can make money, too — then you can bet your bottom dollar we can."

"Who are your other partners?"

"Well, at the moment, only Mike Cass locally, but we're looking for others to invest and to help us run this operation. You interested?"

"Not a chance," said Roddy. "I don't have no interest in doin' business with Italian gangsters or taking girls across state lines for rough stuff, or even for regular fuckin'. There's federal laws on that, you know."

LT shrugged. "Don't make no difference to me, Roddy. I was just offering you an opportunity to get in on the ground floor. Well, gentlemen, if you'll excuse me, I got places to go and things to do." He pulled out ten one-dollar bills and tossed them on the table. The other two men rose and headed for the door.

"See you later," LT called to them. "I gotta take a piss." He walked to the back of the café, where a sign over a door said "restrooms." But instead of going to the men's room, he looked around quickly, then slipped through the swinging doors that led into the kitchen.

She was leaning against the freezer, smoking a cigarette.

"Why you talk to me that way, Deedee?" he asked, in a hurt voice.

"Well, Mr. L. T. Moore, how'm I supposed to talk to you when you're here with your buddies? You want them to know what's goin' on between us?"

"No, not yet. But you could at least be civil. I'm crazy about you, and I thought you was crazy about me."

She snuffed out her cigarette in a cold, greasy hamburger patty in a cracked dish.

"For Christ sake, LT. You know I'm crazy about you, too. But we can't jus' announce it to the world — least ways, not til we figure out what to do about my uncle."

She moved toward LT, and he embraced her in a bearlike hug.

"This is the ugliest tie I ever did see," she said, pushing him away and unbuttoning his shirt. She pulled up his undershirt and started kissing his broad, nearly hairless chest.

"God, you do drive a man crazy," he said hoarsely.

Then she knelt, unzipped his fly and pulled out his prick.

"You ever had a blow job in the kitchen?" she asked.

"No, but I think I'm about to."

She took the head of his prick into her mouth and tickled it with her tongue. Then she slid her lips halfway down his shaft.

"Deedee, you're just too goddam good to me," he said. His eyes were closed, and he teetered like he was about to fall.

She stood suddenly, leaned across over a wooden table and pulled her dress up behind her.

"Pull my panties down and fuck me, LT. Fuck me real hard."

He fucked her. He fucked her hard.

If LT thought his romance with Deedee was a secret, he was wrong. Beagle had it figured out. Deedee's insults were a ruse. So were LT's lewd remarks. They were in love.

But he didn't confide this to Roddy, as they walked away from the café.

A red-haired man in a dark suit was walking fast to catch up with them.

"Hi, Roddy. Hi, Beagle," he said, with a broad grin. He pronounced Beagle's name "bee-oggle."

Roddy laughed, but Beagle scowled. He hated that stupid joke.

"What's up, Cass?" Roddy said.

"Nuthin' but the blue sky and gas prices. What's up with you two?"

"I heard you was in business," said Roddy, with a knowing look. "Big-time gangster business with LT and some dago..." Beagle nudged him hard with his elbow.

"You don't talk about this out on the sidewalk, asshole."

"Beagle's right," said Cass. "You could get us and yourself in a lot of trouble."

"Sorry," said Roddy.

They walked on in silence for a while. They passed Woolworth's and came to an abandoned Dairy Freeze. They sat on the concrete benches.

"So this is serious?" asked Roddy.

"Yeah, it's serious," said Cass. "We're runnin' serious risks to make serious money. Did LT ask you to come in with us?"

"Yeah, but I said no. LT's a hell of a man in a fight, but I can't see him beatin' up women."

"You're right, but he ain't the one who'll be beatin' 'em up," Cass said. Then he turned to Beagle and said, "Where's the girls?"

"They supposed to arrive around 6:30 at Toop's. You comin' with me to meet 'em?"

"No," said Cass. "I gotta go down to some little town name of Cypress Grove, near Gulfport. Seems Mozzarella ain't the only one with ideas about the coast. Some wop from New Orleans, name of Turco, is trying to move in. Me and LT's gonna make some inquiries. Might be some fightin', in which case we'll call you."

"LT's going, too?" Beagle asked. He tried to mask his disappointment.

"Yeah," said Cass. "Which leaves you all by your lonesome with a whole shipment of Yankee poontang. Some guys get all the breaks."

He got up and stretched. "Don't eat all the pussy, Beagle," he said. "Leave some for LT and me." He walked away with Beagle staring daggers at his back.

"You okay?" Roddy asked. "You look pissed off."

"I am pissed off," Beagle snapped. "That mother-fucker is turnin' into LT's right-hand man. All I hear from LT these days is 'Let Cass handle this, ' 'Check with Cass, ' 'Let's hear what Mike thinks.'"

Roddy was about to kid Beagle about being jealous but reconsidered. Beagle appeared in no mood for kidding.

The six women who climbed out of the church bus onto the gravel parking lot of Toop's Tourist Cabins were about to pay for Beagle's foul mood.

"Hello, ladies," he said quietly, as they looked around with expressions of exhaustion and disgust.

"Not another night in a flea-bag motel," said one of the women, a well built brunette in a pullover white blouse and tan shorts. "When in the hell are we going to get to that Gulf Coast resort we were promised?"

Mac, the driver, a beefy man who clearly was as tired of being with the women as they were with him, snarled, "Don't ask me. Ask him." He jerked his thumb toward Beagle.

"Okay, mister," the woman said to Beagle. "What's the deal? We've been riding this goddam bus for four days. We haven't spent the night in a clean bed since we left home. Who chooses lodgings for your outfit, the Department of Corrections?"

"Interesting you should put it that way," said Beagle. "Cuz in fact we're runnin' a sort of Department of Corrections."

Without warning, he reached out, grabbed the woman's face and shoved her backward, into the front fender of the bus. She bounced off and landed in the gravel. She tried to get up, but he kicked her hard in the side.

The other women started shouting and two of them charged him. He sidestepped the first and brought down the second with a well placed punch to the jaw. The driver grabbed two others and slammed their heads together. As they fell to the ground, he tackled the last woman.

The whole fracas had lasted less than 10 seconds. Six women lay in the gravel, groaning and sobbing.

Beagle said loudly, "Well, I guess you've figured out by now that you're not going to be taking dictation and dick from big-shot business executives deep in the heart of Dixie. But if you behave yourselves, you might jus' end up in a halfway decent hotel close enough to the Gulf to hear the seagulls."

A thin, dark man in a rumpled suit and a big, red-faced woman emerged from the office of the tourist cabins and joined Beagle.

"Hi, Toop. Hi, Mealia," Beagle said. "This is the shipment: six Yankee sluts who need a bit of discipline. Think you two and Mac can handle 'em?"

Mealia grunted, a sign that Beagle, her half-brother, knew to be an assent. Mealia didn't talk much.

Toop said, "Where you goin'? I thought you was going to help us break 'em in, so to speak."

"I won't be far off. I'm going to pick me out one and take her with me. I'm in a mood, and I need to blow off a little steam."

Mealia glanced at him sharply.

"I'll take that one," Beagle said, pointing to a slender girl with big frightened eyes. "She looks like just what I need tonight."

He grabbed the girl's arm and dragged her toward his car.

"Please," she said in a trembling voice. "Please don't hurt me."

Her brown hair was in a pony tail. He grabbed it and jerked her head back. He slipped his other hand around her waist and pulled her against him.

He looked down on her, his face inches from hers.

"Oh, but I am going to hurt you, honey. I'm going to hurt you so bad you may end up being of no use at all to us. But I need to do it, and you're the prettiest, most delicate flower in this bouquet, which means you're the perfect fuckin' victim."

He pushed her against the car, then punched her in the stomach. She fell to the ground, curled up in pain.

Mealia joined him. "He'll be pissed," she said.

"Fuck LT," Beagle hissed. "We'll just say this one ran away. Besides, LT's such a big shot these days, he probably won't even notice some of the merchandise is missin'."

The girl on the ground was trying to get up. Mealia helped her to her feet and looked into her eyes.

"You're in for a real bad night, honey," she said. She stroked the girl's cheek, then she turned to Beagle and added, "Save some for me."

LT and Cass got to Cypress Grove just before a squall came in from the Gulf. They checked into the Cytherea Hotel, a ramshackle, three-story building with a veranda on three sides and balconies on the third floor facing the Gulf. A clerk, a bellman and a maid — the entire staff at the moment — were busy closing storm shutters.

"Jesus H. Christ," said LT, as he and Cass stood in the little parlor that served as a lobby. "Feels like the whole damn place is about to fall down or blow away."

He slammed a big hand down on the bell on the counter.

"Where the hell y'all gone?" he yelled.

The clerk, a frazzled looking man of 50, hurried down the stairs. "I'm comin', I'm comin'. Hold your horses."

"We need a room," LT said. "Your best room. With a view of the Gulf. And we need it for a week."

The clerk, bent over the register, glanced up at LT.

"Fifty dollars up front," he said.

LT dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a roll of twenties. He peeled off ten of them.

"Here's $200," he said. "Let me know when that runs out."

"Your luggage?" the clerk asked.

"In the car. Now, I'm gonna need a phone. Got a lot of long distance calls to make. And I want a bottle of bourbon — good bourbon, not that shit they brew back in the piney woods."

"And ladies to entertain us," Cass reminded him.

The clerk frowned. "We ain't runnin' a whorehouse here," he said. "What's more, this is a dry county."

LT gazed at him as if he were a species of insect he'd never seen before. "Like I said, we want a bottle of good bourbon. And like my friend said, we want women. If you can't provide both, we'll take our business elsewhere."

The clerk knew that, when it came to hotels, there was no "elsewhere" in Cypress Grove, but he was nervous about this big man and his big wad of bills. There were rumors about the Mob moving in.

"I'll see what I can do," he said.

That evening, LT and Cass sat in their room, listening to the wind and the rattling shutters and drinking bourbon from paper cups. At least, LT was drinking. Cass nursed a single drink long after LT had belted down three of them.

LT picked up the phone and dialed long distance.

"Veniss City," he told the operator. "Name of Deedee Brandon." He gave the operator Deedee's number, then repeated it. "Yeah, well, there's a big storm here. I can hardly hear you, either."

There was a pause, and LT gestured to Cass to put an ice cube in his cup and refill it.

"Honey," he said suddenly. "Honey, it's me. Me and Mike's in Cypress Grove, and I jus' started thinkin' 'bout you."

He was quiet for a moment, then he growled, "Son of a bitch. Did he hurt you? You sure?" His face grew red. "Okay, I'm gonna call Beagle and get him to pick you up and drive you down here." He paused, then said, "No, listen, you come down with him. And I swear when I get back to Veniss, I'm gonna beat the shit out of that uncle of yours. I don't give a fuck if he does own the goddam bank."