She was always so sweet when she wanted something, knocking on the front door in that tight getup, a bottle of Jim Beam in her hand, a sly twinkle in her green, glassy eyes, a telling pout on her crooked lips—what a bitch she was, but she was his—well, until the booze ran out she was—so he rose from his recliner and let her sweet ass in.

Back in the recliner he went.

Why do I even own a bed, he thought as her long red hair fell down featherlike across his face and she climbed on for a drink.

She was the only person on earth who had ever made him smile.

"Damn, girl."

"Do you like your work, Drey?" she asked as she tipped the bottle into that pretty mouth and grabbed a handful of his chest hair and preempted his answer by filling his mouth with whiskey from her own. He tried to talk as they kissed and she pushed her tongue past his and something small went down his throat

She grinned savagely into his face as she slid down on him and began to grind, "Just something to keep your interest up, Drey-Daddy—yo ass mus' be eighty if you a day."

Her barks of laughter as she pumped whisky down his throat and rode him like a dime-store horse had him feeling his age—now she had to fists full of white chest hair and was grinding like a maniac, making him feel his age. Hell, he was older than her father, had worked for her father's old man.

The world of Drey Slavie, narrow, violent and unredeemable as it was, narrowed now to the one enjoyable aspect of his life—for Henna Lee Robinson, vicious slut daughter of Heavy Dee Robinson, son of Heavy G Robinson, who had retained the services of Drey Slavie since he saw Drey—a shoe shine boy at the Lexington Market—remove a rival shoeshine boy's a trachea with a brass shoehorn in 1971, was the only pleasure this old man knew.

And she was acting strange, even for her. As the room grew hazy, she finally wearied of her pleasure and began spitting in his face, snarling "Old-ass Cracker, your day is done."

The last thing Drey recalled before he blacked out was, Henna Lee wiping off a Sig Sauer 9mm, placing it in his hand, taking it out of his hand, laying it on the silk ottoman she had sat on some many times for him in the past, strutting toward the door, blowing him a wicked kiss over her shapely shoulder and walking out the door.

Drey was out for maybe an hour—that was simple opiate she had pushed down his neck and she had underdone the whisky, had only put a pint down his gullet, spent too much time getting her rocks off for the last time.

Knowing in his half-drunk, half-drugged stupor—more a function of his old age than anything—that some bad shit, probably in blue, maybe in black tac, was coming through that door soon, he heaved himself over in the recliner, crashing to the hardwood floor, the boards of which he liked for their warning creak and hand crawled, up the stairs.

This was it, the last dance, those pigs were coming through the door any moment. He could here the chopper overhead. He crawled to the closet and got his Samson Switchbox, crawled down the long hall, and made sure he poked his big Pollack head up between the curtains and took a nice long look.

Drey Lived in the living room and kitchen. This was his redoubt, no other reason for a trigger-puller to own a 20 room orchard house.

As he peeked outside he saw the spotter, signaling to the task force chief—the assholes had brought it all: the command post, the up-armored Hum-Vee, two fucking ambulances in case he clipped one, another to shove his body into.

They would be breaching any moment, so he crawled down into the chute that would have housed the main line to the sewer connection in the basement—but this bathroom had no toilet and he had no desire to get shredded by his own ordinance.

He heard two breaches, front and back and the scream of the poor bastard getting fried in his burglar cage, Christ, he could still smell the crispy leavings of that one hoodrat who had broke in while he was away in Chicago. What a mess that was, scarping up that bastard for three days.

The breach through the front door went well and tear gas came crashing through the upstairs windows.

Heavy Dee had given him up, for who knew what, Probably thinking they could pin who knows how many hits on him and alleviate some heat.

The backdoor breechers were swinging around to reinforce—these people did nothing quietly.

Here they came, creeping up the stairs, no doubt in their TV SWAT robot squad manner.

18 steps.

They were in the hallway.

Muscle-headed fuck-nuts think they're going home and hugging their brats!

Still half drunk out of his gourd, Drey listened intently as a file of six booted feet creaked over the floor boards, kicking in each of the three bedroom doors, finding nothing but bags of cash, relentlessly, slowly, coming down the hall to the bathroom, beneath which he hung on the 1 1/4 inch pipe ladder rungs he installed 15 years ago.

The second team—half of them were in the hallway at the base of the stairs, their heads about even with his feet, he supposed.

All was silence upstairs: the wolves at the door.

It was time.

"Fuck you, pigs!"

Drey hit both switches, igniting the 8 claymore mines imbedded in the upstairs hallway and shredding that SWAT team into pulled park in one horrendous second.

In the wake of the blast He was hustling down the ladder and felt no heat on the incendiary floor, heard nothing but the cussing of the second team and the screaming of one of them as some legs and heads rained down the stairs.

He missed a rung and fell, crashing and bouncing down the ladder chute and landing with a sickening crunch as his left leg snapped under him and the knee separating. Just as the panicking above was drowned out by the belated ignition of the kerosene tanks [which he had thoughtfully vented to the exterior, just above the block foundation] the squealing of the burning on the first floor was added to the moaning of the mangled on the second.

The Hell if Drey Slavie was going to cook in his own oven.

The tough old Pollack dragged his broken leg and old drunk ass with those neck-breaking hands that has silenced a few whores in their last pleading moments and grasped hungrily in anticipation of strangling one last BITCH before he died.

Out under the boning table, around the body bins, through the laundry room and out the back door into the yard, he made his way, a burning SWAT prick leaping out through the back window and rolling round in the fallen leaves as his clothes melted into his melting skin.

"Yesh!" he hissed savagely, as a boot stepped before his face and a muzzle lowered to his head and Drey took charge of what was left of this meat show, "Do it, pig, and you'll never find out where the bodies are!"

Off he was dragged, from the raging inferno that was his living room, workshop and redoubt, soon to be fueled by ten million in unspent currency stuffed in plastic trash bags on the second floor and the scalps stretched and oiled on their hoops on the third floor.

Drey Slavie prided himself on not being a materialist.

But, more importantly, who needs money when he is doing what he loves?

Skulker Jones is the sequel to A Hoodrat Halloween and an urban horror tale of a failed man looking for a final saving grace.