Pex and Chips were stunned. With all the mental exercise, they had almost forgotten about the little man in the hole. Plus, they were unaccustomed to prospective victims saying anything besides, “Oh no, please God, no.”
Pex leaned over the grave’s lip. “What do you mean drivel?”
“I mean that whole ‘Chips Pex’ thing.”
Pex shook his head. “No, I mean what does the word drivel mean?”
Mulch was delighted to explain. “It means rubbish, garbage, claptrap, twaddle, baloney. Is that clear enough for you?”
Chips recognized the last one. “Baloney? Hey, that’s an insult! Are you insulting us, little man?”
Mulch clasped his hands in mock prayer. “Finally, a breakthrough!”
The musclemen were uncertain how to react to actual abuse. There were only two people alive who insulted them regularly, Arno Blunt and Jon Spiro. But that was part of the job; you just ignored that by turning up the music in your head.
“Do we have to listen to his smart mouth?” Pex asked is partner. “I don’t think so. Maybe I should phone Mr. Blunt.” Mulch groaned. If stupidity were a crime, these two ould be public enemies one and two. “What you should do is kill me. That was the idea, asn’t it? Just kill me and get it over with.” “What do you think, Chips? Should we just kill him?” Chips chewed on a handful of BBQ Blast Ruffles. “Yeah.
Course. Orders is orders.” “But I wouldn’t just kill me,” interjected Mulch. “You wouldn’t?” “Oh no. After the way I just insulted your intelligence?
No, I deserve something special.” You could almost see the steam coming out of Pex’s ears as his brain overheated. “That’s right, little man. We’re gonna do something pecial to you. We don’t take no insults from anybody!” Mulch did not bother pointing out the double negative. “You’re right. I’ve got a smart mouth, and I deserve verything I’ve got coming to me.”
There followed a short silence, as Pex and Chips tried to come up with something worse than the usual straight shooting. Mulch gave them a minute, then made a polite suggestion.
“If it was me, I’d bury me alive.”
Chips was horrified. “Bury you alive! That’s terrible. You’d be screaming and clawing the dirt. I could get nightmares.”
“I promise to lie still. Anyway, I deserve it. I did call you a pair of overdeveloped, single-cell Cro-Magnons.”
“Did you?”
“Well, I have now.”
Pex was the more impulsive of the duo. “Okay, Mr. Digence. You know what we’re gonna do? We’re going to bury you alive.”
Mulch clapped two hands to his cheeks. “Oh, the horror!”
“You asked for it, buddy.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
Pex grabbed a spare shovel from the trunk. “Nobody calls me an overdeveloped, signal-bell crow magnet.”
Mulch lay down obligingly in his grave. “No. I bet nobody does.”
Pex shoveled furiously, his gym-sculpted muscles stretching his suit jacket. In minutes, Mulch’s form was completely covered.
Chips was feeling a bit squeamish. “That was horrible. Horrible. That poor little guy.”
Pex was unrepentant. “Yeah, well, he asked for it. Calling us . . . all those things.”
“But—buried alive! That’s like in that horror movie. Y’know—the one with all the horror.”
“I think I saw that one. With all the words going up on the screen at the end?”
“Yeah, that was it. Tell you the truth, those words kinda ruined it for me.”
Pex stamped on the loose earth. “Don’t worry, buddy. There are no words in this movie.”
They climbed back into their Chevrolet automobile. Chips was still a bit upset.
“You know, it’s much more real than a movie when it’s real.”
Pex ignored a no-access sign, pulling onto the motorway. “It’s the smell. You can’t smell stuff in a movie.”
Chips sniffed emotionally. “Digence musta been upset right there at the end.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“’Cause I could see him cryin’. His shoulders were shaking, like he was laughing. But he must have been crying. I mean what sort of crazy wacko would laugh when he’s getting buried alive.”
“He musta been crying.”
Chips opened a bag of smoky bacon curls. “Yeah. He musta been crying.”
Mulch was laughing so much that he nearly choked on the first mouthful of soil. What a pair of clowns. Then again, it was lucky for them that they had been clowns, otherwise they might have chosen their own method of execution.