... The music pounded over the speakers, hammering the electricity in the room to a fine edge. It was Ol’ Dirty Bastard (rest his soul), off his second solo album, and when the chorus kicked in, the colored girls said: “Jesus, I’m rollin’ wit’chu! Jesus, I’m rollin’ wit’chu!”
... Dumble smiled.
... His first shot took Iceman Dan’s head clean off, the scattershot embedding itself into Pretty Boy’s high cheekbones and rechristening One-Eyed Steve as No-Eyed Steve. Pretty Boy’s howls of pain, in Dumble’s ears, were the perfect soundtrack to the vision of Iceman Dan’s demon form as it was dragged back down to the lightless cities beneath.
... Dumble’s smile widened, but pride was a sin, so he wiped it off his face quick smart. Killing the wicked and demonic was not a task one should gloat over, lest one become a like sinner. Dumble set his jaw and went about his holy housecleaning.
... The rest of the Iceman Dan team, all ex-Army, ex-Marines, ex-cons, dropped and rolled before Dumble could pump the shotgun again, and his second shot went wide, shattering the one-way mirror to the manager’s office. Behind his desk, Billy looked up, mouth hanging open, but he kept a firm grip both on the bottle of booze in one hand and the other on Tiny Tina’s head bobbing up and down in his lap.
... Dumble dodged to his left, throwing a table on its side to cover the team’s return fire. “You sanctimonious motherfucker!” screamed the bowler named College, his shirt smeared with Iceman Dan’s brains, “I’ve got free will, and I’m not afraid to use it!”
... Dumble drew his .44 from inside his coat, and used College’s taunts to guide his aim. His mark was true, and the fruits of College’s mail-order B.A. in philosophy were splattered all over the back bar. Had Dumble known College was a Sartre man, his smile would perhaps have returned.
... What was left of the team opened fire again, Stimey’s Uzi a rapid-fire hornet’s nest of proud Israeli death-dealing. Dumble ran to the other side of the room in a crouch, racking the shotgun with one hand and popping loose shots with the Magnum. Beneath the shattered window to Billy’s office, Dumble made a quick weapons check, as across the bar, Smitty, Felcher, and Stimey slapped fresh clips into place and prepared to war with their fates.
... Billy, meanwhile, had decided that if anyone was gonna shoot up his place, it’d better be somebody he wouldn’t mind raping later. He grabbed Tina by the pony tail and pulled her off him, her mouth making a wet pop. Holding his pants up with one hand, he grabbed the machete from under his desk. Approaching Dumble on panther’s feet, Billy sized up the back of the big preacher’s neck, and his eyes made a dotted line across it: Cut Here.
... Lily could not bowl for shit, nor did she really care to. Last time she’d gone, she had barely scored in the double digits. Perhaps she just had bony girl arms, or perhaps this had been God telling her she was meant for a higher purpose than a perfect 300. Regardless, finally releasing her legs from their vise grip on the pole, she somersaulted off the stage and hit the floor at a dead run, swooping up Iceman Dan’s Brunswick bag in one well-manicured hand.
... Dumble saw her coming in hard from his left, and brought the Magnum around to aim it at her cute little forehead. But as he cocked back the hammer, the Light filled his eyes. Yes, the girl bore dangerously down on him, but even were he blind, he could see she was righteous in her fury. Her muscles lean and straining, her breasts heaving and tassels spinning—clearly, she jiggled in the name of the one true God. If she was coming for him, then so be it, he thought. Dumble decocked the pistol, pointed the barrel at the floor, and closed his eyes.
... Lily had hefted some heavy ball bags before, but this was ridiculous. Gripping the handle firmly with both hands, she swung it around in an arc that nearly took her off her feet, bony girl arms or no. As Billy raised the machete shoulder-high, Lily swung in through the busted office window, smashing every tooth in his head and driving his nose up into his right frontal lobe. He collapsed to the ground, the last fall of this particular dirty-faced angel.
... Dumble, having felt no passing to a plane any higher than this here mortal one, opened his eyes, and the Light filled them once again. The Light held out a hand to him, and he gripped it gently, fearing its holiness would sear his very flesh.
... As Dumble stood enraptured, Smitty, Felcher, and Stimey ditched their heaters and took a quick-ass powder, sensing that the getting was good so it was a good time to get.
... Dumble, thoroughly distracted, let them run. Even though the constant slaughter of the lapdogs of Satan was his holy duty, he also figured it was about time he started gunning for the lap on which they sat. That brings us, if you’ll forgive and indulge me, to a former street-fighting, Mexican Mafia-assassinating, dog fight-promoting digression by the name of La Gorda.