Previously on Nerve City: Lucky’s old partner is dead. Enter: Shutterfly, a bubbly pony with a nice set of kickers. Now the bossman, Chief Diddy, has hipped him to a troubling new development, one involving highly volatile energy generators called X-WEBs. Shutterfly already has the scoop on a potential lead: the historic brap brothel, Madam Le Pew’s House of Fumes. But with LePew’s being closed on Saturdays, Lucky is tasked with checking in on a petty untaxed snussy operation in the shitty part of town. Now, we return to Nerve City, where life is cheap, and death is a bargain.
3
The snake had a way with dick–truly a professional.
If you ain’t had a 130 pound boa in cheap lingerie curling her forked tongue around your carrot stick, forget about it. Just gotta keep real still, or she might just fang ya; some of em got that venom, ya know what I mean? I had this rattler back when I was just a greentail, fuck, cunt nearly pierced a hole through my nuts. Lucky for her, she was dealing with the old me, back when I thought there were consequences to my shitty behavior.
“No cop’sss ever fucked me like that,” she says, uncoiling from my achin’ fourteen incher.
“Was your pops too fat for the force?”
“Huh?”
“It’s a joke.”
“...”
“About you fucking your dad.”
I crack myself up.
“Eat a dick, pig,” she says. “You think we workin girlsss jussst exissst for you’re amusssement, like we don’t…”
She keeps yapping, but my mind is elsewhere right now, thinkin’ about Gruff, how’d he let a lil henpicker get the jump on him so easy? On the bright side, he’d finally graduated from this shithole, on to something more real…permanent.
They say all dogs go to heaven; for his sake, I hope they’re right.
“...and my kidsss living with hisss dad right now, court thinksss I’m still on the…”
And this Shutterfly situation, ponies on the force? Gimme a break. Might as well’ve partnered me with a marshmallow–it don’t feel right. Someone has it out for me.
“...so that’sss what I gotta deal with all fucking week.”
“Sounds rough. Got anything mellow? Maybe oughta loosen up a little.”
“Sure thing, Jack.”
Me and her split a Trembunox, half up her keister and half up mine. It’s the only way to ride with ‘nox. I can hear her saying right now, “You pick up that trick from the screwtails, Luck?” Yeah, maybe I learnt it from…screwin on the…your asshole…mom’s place…fuck…gettin…tired…my cock…
Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
–phone’s buzzing in my trousers.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
Snowball–the old nag–probably wondering where I was yesterday–Jack’s big triathlon thing–fuck.
I pop a few of the scale slit’s Amps without asking and hit the hardwood.
“You better pay me for thossse.” She hisses.
“Damn, I’m all outta cash. You take cum shots?”
She hurls a mean streak of slurs. What the fuck do I care? I’ve heard them all; I ain’t lettin this two bit whore make me lose my cool–Smack–I give the bitch the back of my paw. Damn cop reflexes, guess I oughta follow through. I send another one across her face; she dodges this one. Damn snake reflexes.
“You want me to turn you and your no good pimp boyfriend in?”
She wipes the blood from her snout, glares with cold blooded contempt, but she knows better than to open that mouth of hers now.
“Here,” I say, tossing a sixty cred on the bed. “Tax free, bitch.”
I check the phone–Snowballs sent a pic of Jack getting his gold medal–the kid’s a champ, there’s no denying it–then, “Call me when you can.”
I turn around, see Selena washing down whatever pills she had left with a handle of Jack Rabbit.
I hop over just in time to snatch the bottle from her jaw, take a swig for the road.
“Ssstew meat,” she hisses.
“You wan’t another one?” I say, wiping my mouth with a bedsheet.
She recoils, slithers off to her dresser.
I watch the scaleback’s tits jiggle as she squeezes them into something sexy.
“Sssixty cred won’t get you far these daysss, and I still gotta give Robby hisss cut–”
“Shut it, calling my boss. Say one more word, and I’m booking you right here, got it?”
She shuts it. I can feel her sourpuss face without even lookin. Not my problem.
I ain’t callin Diddy–he’d see me whe see me–I’m callin Snowball, the other boss.
She answers.
“Lucky?”
“Hey toots, sorry I missed Jack’s thing yesterday, got called in last minute, guess some knife-wielding maniac thought it would be fun to take a couple of pups hostage and–”
“And you shot his fingers off before he could slit their throats.”
“Wow, how’d you know?”
“Because it’s the same story you told me last week.”
“Damn, good memory. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to him. Tell him I’m taking him out for carrot shakes. I’ll buy him a Playbunny. Hell, I’ll buy him a cigar, a Cuban.”
“I’m tired, Lucky.”
“So, take a nap.”
She groans. “It’s not that kind of tired, I just can’t…”
“Just can’t what?”
“I just don’t think I can go on like this. The STDs–”
“I would never!”
“–the pills–”
“That’s the old Lucky!”
“–and little Jack, it’s like he hasn’t even got a father. Have you seen his wrists? He’s all carved up! He says he got them slicing a zuccini, but I don’t believe him. He needs love in his life, Luck, a father’s love. He’s crying out for help, he’s…he’s in pain!”
“He ain’t turning gay, is he? He’s dead to me if he ever goes screwtail!”
“Fuck you, Lucky.”
She hangs up. For a fetish model turned housewife, she sure acts indignant.
I get dressed, snort an Amp in the bathroom, and blow, skippin any and all pleasantries. Don’t wanna be around when that snake realizes the cred card I left was junked.
Checkin my watch, the time’s already 6:15–shift ended fifteen minutes ago, and I got a stop to make on my way back to the precinct.
All that Amp I’d nabbed from last month’s big bust, well shit, I was down to my last little bottle. I’d been crushing up ten a day; what some might call a habit. For better or for worse, I manage it well.
There are some furs out there, all zonked out and kookoo kola; they’re seeing shit–crazy shit that ain’t there; the gey paranoid, start offin’ loved ones–wake up the next morning and they can’t remember nothin.
There was this koala last week; he was so spaced out, took ten bullets to convince him his coworkers weren’t all a bunch of pedophilic, demon worshipping space aliens. Some jokers just can’t handle themselves, ruin it for the rest of us functional types.
But what’re ya gonna do?
On my way to the station, I take a detour down Pawthorne, past the Litter King and the abandoned VFW, and to that most degenerate of territories, Scat Row. If I have to place a bet on it, that’s where I’d find who I was looking for.
I’m driving down 33rd, bobbing my head to a Whisker Dü record–an old punk band I used to catch playing at the Cat’s Paw, back when I was slinging Zoot and handing out free ass kickings. The guitar player and drummer were homos, but the fruity basst with the big handlebar mustache wasn’t. Go figure.
I turn left at the stop sign–when I see him: Smokey. The six foot seven dragon is strutting down Martin Lemur King Blvd in a tube top and fuck-me shorts, lookin’ like a hate crime waiting to happen. Unbelievable.
I roll down the window.
“Hey, fluffer, how’s the butt business?”
Up close, the guy’s a fuckin wreck–eyes dark and swollen, scales all scabbed and flaky–
“Hard at work, Mr. Policeman?” Smokey says all fruity. “Or should I say, Mr. Pain?”
Mr. Pain, huh?
“Cute nickname, Smoke. How much of the good stuff can I score for this?”
I hold up a wrinkled cred code I’d nicked from some punk’s leather Jacket. He plucks the slip gingerly from my paw, holds it up to the sun to make sure it’s legit, then stuffs it down his crotch.
I can’t believe my own eyes, the puffer sticks his hand behind his tail, squats, and pulls out a short bag of orange powder.
“You just pull that outta your fuckin ass?”
“Be careful, Mr. Pain,” he lisps, tosses the baggie into the passenger seat. “The world is dying–slow now, but faster every day!”
“Sure, puffer, whatever you say.”
I stick the goods in my pocket, trying not to think about where it’s been.
“Say, you ain’t happened to hear anything about the fox who retired Gruff the other night?”
Smoke shrugs, says, “Sounds like your old partner got an early ascension. Must be nice.”
The way that motherfucker says it–I hop out, wind up, and slug the son of an iguana in his scaly gut. A puff of smoke blows out his nostrils. He folds like a bad hand.
“Choke on a tail, ya goddamn yiffer.”
Just to drive the point home, I kick him square in the dick. He yowls, clutching his baby carrot.
Violence, the official language of Fur City.
“Process…” Smokey manages to choke out. “...You’re just the…hngh…process.”
On my way to the car, I say, “Don’t you ever talk about a dead cop like that again. Acension. Fuck off. He’s gettin processed like everyone else in this rat trap, and with this new attitude you got, you’re lookin to be next in line.” I start rolling the window up, then roll it back down. “And if this shit you sold me is kibble, I’m coming back to finish your greasy ass off.”
The bastard doesn’t even get up. Just lays there on the sidewalk like he’s making a pavement angel. I got half a mind to back up over him, but that fruitcake’d probably be grateful for it. That’s when I catch myself smiling. For the first time in months, I’m actually fuckin smiling.
Mr. Pain. Yeah, that’s me.
On the drive back to the station, Smoke’s words are weasling their way back into my brain–was that gonna be me someday? Two years ago, the puffer was riding high, every week, he was pulling in sugar daddies, yiffers with fast cars and three hundred-cred haircuts.
I got a special place in my trunk for yiffers, so naturally, I kept Smokey hot on my radar. After his seventh bust, he finally learned how to stay out of trouble. Always kept an extra bag with my name on it.
He’s cooked now, brains leaking out his double wide asshole all over Pawthorne. I swear, I could do twenty mils a day, and I’d never come out that fucked–and if I ever do get to that point, I just hope someone has the decency to sleep me fast.