Free Cheese Wrestling: A Lt. Jack Daniels/Chief Cole Clayton Thriller by J.A. Konrath, Bernard Schaffer Page A

worth it, cause just like that, she was mine.”
    Clayton grunted but caught the smile in time and said, “You paid five thousand dollars to another biker named Pig Hide for her?”
    “Most amount any Sin Serpent ever paid for someone’s woman,” she added proudly.
    “No kidding,” Clayton said. He bowed his head, showing admiration for her morphine-thin arms and straw hair and said, “Well, who couldn’t see why.”
    “It was worth it,” Poop said.
    She turned and looked at her old man, her skeletal face gentle toward him as she said, “And it was worth it for me too, cause he treats me good. He don’t whoop me or make me screw nobody else.”
    “No?” Clayton said. “Well, that’s good. And nobody ever tried to buy her off you, Poop?”
    “Oh, they tried,” Poop laughed. “All the time. I only sold her once though. Mushroom was busting my balls all night about being whipped an’ all that. I told him I wasn’t and to prove it I sold her to him for a few hundred dollars and a case of Busch.”
    Property of Poop gave her man a sideways look that could melt glass.
    Apparently it was a sore subject.
    “A good girl like this? I bet you regretted it.”
    Poop nodded and said, “It didn’t last long. By the end of the night I told Mushroom I wanted her back and he told me to go to hell, cause he ain’t porked her yet. So I told him, go ahead and take her in the bathroom and get it over with and I’ll take her back after that.”
    Clayton leaned forward, finding himself fully invested in the story now. “So what happened then?”
    “He took her in the bathroom and she was putting up a fuss. Cussin’ us both out cause she didn’t like Mushroom and he was getting rough on her. He started pulling her by the hair and all and as soon as that bathroom door closed, she commenced to hollerin’. I decided enough was enough and I went in to go get her.”
    “And then?”
    “I shot him.”
    “Sorry?”
    “I shot him. He had her bent over a sink and his pants were down and he couldn’t do nothing but stand there looking at me with his pecker hanging out. It looked just like a mushroom too, didn’t it?”
    “It sure did,” the woman said, nodding. “Especially on the top part, all flat and smooshed up, like.”
    Clayton sat there, straight-faced, not moving, and said, “When you shot him, did you kill him?”
    “Nah. I just winged him in the shoulder and then put one in his ass as he ran out.”
    Clayton let out a long, slow breath. “So what happened then? Aren’t there rules in your club about trying to kill one of your fellow members?”
    “Uh,” Property of Poop said, leaning forward and raising her hand like she was in third grade. “He didn’t try to kill him. He just shot him.”
    “Right,” Clayton said, nodding. “Does that happen a lot? You guys often shoot each other and trade women and such?”
    “Not anymore,” Poop said sadly. “Things changed at the club. Now it’s a bunch of wannabe’s and yuppies. Geeks that watch TV shows and think they know what the life is really all about. It ain’t like it was back in the day.”
    Property of Poop leaned forward and winked. “Back then it was fun.”
    Clayton glanced up once more at the gold F.B.I. brick. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the brick was smirking at him. He’d gotten into this line of work to do some good in the world, to help people. But sometimes he wondered if there was any good left, or anyone worth helping.
    “Mushroom used to be an okay cat, too. We cheese wrestled lots of times.”
    Clayton wasn’t sure he wanted to ask, but he understood it was part of his job.
    “What is cheese wrestling?”
    Poop explained it, in excruciating detail, beaming as he did.
    Clayton used up enough self-control for several lifetimes in order not to wince.
    “And why, exactly, did you cheese wrestle?” he asked, his tone even.
    “Sometimes for money. Sometimes for women. Sometimes for fun.”
    “For fun?”
    “It’s