John Norman smoked a cigarette and sat on his couch. His stomach still ached from Parker's suckerpunch. Just like the goddamn police to throw a cheapshot. He blew smoke and flipped through the PCSD's file on Howard Beggs. His one listed known associate was Jeff Silvers. Of course, if this guy was a tweaker he'd know Jeff pretty well. Jeff ran a cookhouse near the McCormick County line. He and John were cousins in some farback way, one of John's great-uncles fucked one of Jeff's grandmas or something. He couldn't remember, bloodlines in this county ran deep and ran confusing.

Bloodlines...

The Norman Family was once royal blood in this town. His great-grandaddy and his four brothers were hellacious hellraisers. They were a bunch of bad apples sired by an apple ten times as rotten as they could ever be. His name was Elijah or something. John didn't know for sure, he'd never asked and never really cared. He came to Pickett County around the turn of the twentieth century. Nobody knows where he came from. Talk over the years had him as everything from just a half-wit day laborer to a serial killer who roamed from town to town killing women. Whatever he was, he decided to put roots down in this tiny county just on the South Carolina/Georgia line. He was supposed to have been a real asshole, a drunk who beat on his wife and would start fights any chance he got. As bad as he was, though, it was the five kids he and his wife had that would put the stamp on the Norman name.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter Norman. Apostles who worshiped at the altar of violence and crime. In the twenties they ran all the liquor and 'shine through this part of the state. They partied, they fucked, they drank, and anybody who got in their way got killed. They married local women, bloodlines diffused. Subsequent generations were tough, but never as tough as the old breed. He shared his name with one of the old men. The first John Norman was a cop. He was a mean sumbitch that ran the Pickett town police with an iron fist. He killed three black men in the line of duty. He died of a massive coronary in the early seventies. It soon came out he'd sent six innocent black men to death row, those three other men he killed in the line of duty weren't so much of a threat as he made out like. Pickett town PD got shut down soon after.

Norman Family lore held that Billy Brown was the cost for their sinful ways. Divine retribution in the form of a sociopathic former millworker. In truth, it was the same story that had been told over and over since time immemorial. The Normans got sloppy and they got complacent. By the 80's, they'd been running things in Pickett County for three generations and close to sixty years. A hungry new rival challenged them and they lost, inch by inch and bit by bit. The Pickett County War, they called it. Daniel Norman was one of the casualties. John was just a baby when he died in 1987. Officially, the case remains unsolved but everybody sure as shit knows who did him.

And he was working for the son of a bitch that killed his daddy.

John sighed, stubbed his cigarette out. Those thoughts always brought him back to a bad place, a place where he just wanted to kill Billy and burn all that he had and all that he stood for. Instead of focusing on them, he went back to the file. It said Beggs had been bailed out by Carol Johnson. Of fucking course Carol would be involved in this shit. It was just too perfect.

Thoughts of Carol only made John angrier. He sighed and looked out his window. Light was beginning to peak through the trees. Overcast skies meant for a gray and rainy day. It was just after six on a Sunday. Way too damn early to start, especially on a Sunday here in Pickett. John left the file on his coffee table and padded back to his bedroom to get some sleep.


[center]*****[/center]


DJ popped a Jolly Rancher. The clock on his dash said just after nine. Jim Brown dozed in the passenger seat. Or at least he seemed to be dozing. DJ knew that at a moment's notice he'd spring awake as if he'd never been sleeping at all. That little ability was just one of the many reasons DJ thought of Jim Brown as one of the scariest white men he knew. Yeah Billy could be mean, but he at least had human emotions. He could get mad or get happy. Jim Brown was always the same, like he was bored and detached and it didn't matter if he was asking about the weather or shoving a gun in a man's face, he always acted like he'd rather be somewhere else.

A slow drizzle came down through the clouds and scattered drops of rain on the windshield of DJ's car. They were parked down a narrow street in the Norman part of Pickett. The house they were watching sat in the middle of the block. Like the rest of the homes here, it was small and block concrete on the outside. A black escalade sat parked in the driveway. DJ stifled a yawn and shook his head. He'd been up late last night. There was the basketball game in the afternoon then a few late night parties. For once everyone was talking up the basketball team instead of football and only football. That little Antwan could ball. He might have a shot. But then again, they said the exact same shit about him and here he was, doing strongarm work on a Sunday morning. 

Shitwork for Roland Spencer. Billy told both of them last night they'd be doing some collections for Spencer all day Sunday and into Monday. Fucking Roland, always talking that bullshit like he was doing the two of them a favor by letting them work collections. Like he had a choice in the matter, like he wouldn't have to start barking if Billy said speak. His business with Billy was loaning out money at insanely high interest rates, just one of the many community services they provided to the good black people of Pickett. 

"There he is," Jim Brown said very suddenly.

Like DJ had figured, he was awake and sitting upright and watching Rayray Tatum waddle out of his house in his finest Sunday suit. DJ started up the car and sped down the block, skidding to a stop in front of his driveway and blocking his car. He and Jim Brown jumped out as Rayray came off the steps.

"Shit."

"Morning," Jim Brown said. "See you headed for church."

Rayray started to back up towards his porch. Before he could get too far, DJ was on him and had his hands on the lapel of his suit. Rayray was big, but it was all mushy and soft. DJ got in close, playing the bad cop.

"I always like the story of Saul and Paul," DJ said with a smirk. "Saul, that motherfucker was greedy. Like how you is greedy, taking and taking and taking from Mr. Spencer without paying him back."

"I can get the money," Rayray stammered. "It's just my momma's sick, and Wendell's Friday night game at the club I--"

DJ slapped him in the face with an open hand. Hard, but not hard enough to draw blood. It was just hard enough to shut him up and make him worry.

"You know what happened to Saul?"

DJ shoved hard. Rayray tottered backwards and slipped on the soggy grass, falling down flat on the ground with a loud umph.

"Motherfucker fell off his ass and saw the light. You hear me, Rayray? Do you see the light?"

"I'll get him his money."

"See that you do," said Jim Brown. "If you ain't paid back what you owe plus interest, some two thousand dollars, we'll be back and we'll make sure the last fucking light you see is the flash of our guns."

DJ winked at Rayray and smiled. "God bless you, Brother Tatum. Enjoy the preaching."

They walked back to DJ's car, leaving a dirty and stammering Rayray in the dirt that was quickly becoming mud.  in the steadily increasing rain.