Spinach is a Dish Best Served Ta Knocks You Cold
by Madison Marbury



This story made possible by a generous grant from JORGE.

It's a sequel to "Epit-tit for Epi-tath", which can be found on the
Madison Marbury shelf right here on DtV. If you want to refresh
your memory, go here:

http://www.thevalkyrie.com/stories/madison/amends.txt

If you like this story and want it to continue, let Madison know at
madisonmarbury@hotmail.com

The old man felt like a bear again, a cantankerous old grizzly bear that had
been chased, shot at, and nearly caged. And worst of all, kept away from his
favorite watering hole for far too long. He slammed the bar door out of his
way like a bad foe, and bellowed in his gruff old voice, "Any of you mincin'
landlubbers miss a retired navy man?!"

And immediately the cheers came. All the farmers in the bar knew who it was.
Old Man Bluto was finally back. After all that unpleasantness out at the farm,
somehow it had sorted itself out, and old Bluto was back at his old spot at
the old bar.

They clambored around him, shaking his hand, slapping his back, sharing his
laughter. Everyone loved Bluto, a real honest to goodness-god navy hero,
former motion picture star, man of the people from skin to bone. No one was
sure where he'd been for the last month, or what exactly happened that day, or
who, for that matter, were the three trespassers who'd caused all that trouble
and nearly put their beloved Bluto six feet under but good. They were sure it
was going to be a rousing story, and in this part of Idaho, rousing stories
were twenty times better than Showtime, Cinemax and HBO combined.

They were so eager Bluto nearly had to swipe his log-sized arm around to make
himself some room, but he didn't need to. In the next instant another local
legend appeared at the door, six-foot-eight and looking solid as ever in his
grey sheriff's uniform and impenetrable Ray-Ban sunglasses. "Hey boys," he
hollered, "this a private party or can you make room for the law?!"

Another cheer went up, even louder than the first. Sheriff Johnson had been
the law in these parts since the mountains were hills. He strode purposefully
up to Bluto, smiling slightly but distinctly. The navy man beamed at his old
friend, laughed, and gave him great, long hug.

"I owe ya one, mate," Bluto said.

"No charge," said Sherriff Johnson. "Just give us a ring before tryin' to
handle it yourself next time." He patted the gun in his holster. "The county
does pay us a salary or three for that sort of thing."

"Good to be back, boys!" Bluto shouted as he bellied his way to the bar. "Now
how's about a pitcher or two of that comple-mentry American beer?"

The bartender slid a pitcher down, and the sailor man picked it up and chugged
it straight down. "And one fer the Sheriff too, if he's, you know ...
off-duty."

The bar and the sheriff laughed. "I think I might be convinced to partake of
the local brew," he said.

"C'mon, Bluto, tell us what happened!" said a farmer.

A loud clamor ensued, as everyone shouted out the different rumors they had
heard. Bluto let them go on for a moment, then raised his hand and silenced
them.

"You wanna know what happened?" he yelled. "I'll tellz ya."

The bartender brought the second pitched. Bluto stopped a moment to swig a
deep swug from it, then he wiped his mouth and continued:

That's all he got to say before the sheriff pressed his riot baton kindly over
Bluto's lips. "Now Bluts," he drawled, "you know the doc done said for you not
to get yourself riled up in your condition. "

The fat old sailor glumly hung his head.

"Why don't you let the arrestin' officer give his official, on the record
report to these kind folks?" He tipped his hat to the bar. "Spiced up with a
few off-the-record aspects of the incident in question?"

The crowd chortled. The sheriff dropped the baton on the bar, pulled up a
stool, and sat. "What happened," the law man muttered, considering the
question. "We happened. All of us, Grady, Silus, Roger," he said, lazily
pointing at three of the older and more gristled farmers out in the mob. "Our
great Idaho community, our love of our fellow neighbors, our willingness to
let new people in." The sheriff was practically seething with betrayal. "We
were used. Manipulated. By two women with black souls and deviant lives, who
saw our great character of man as a weakness, and exploited it to settle into
our land and hatch a horrible plot to steal from our great friend Bluto here."

An awed hush came over the bar. "Fellas," said Sheriff Johnson, "this all
comes down to no more than a robbery gone wrong. Them two dykes what bought
the old Connor place behind Bluto's property last year, well, like I said at
the time. They was up to no good. They were scoping Bluto's place out,
learning where he kept his big fat Hollywood money. They tracked down that old
fool, Popeye, no doubt broke, broken and down on his luck, and probably
slipped him a sawbuck to come out here and lure Bluto out of his house while
they robbed the house."

"Oh yeah," Bluto said, nodding eagerly. "I was lured somethin' awful!"

Sheriff Johnson gave Bluto a look to quiet him down, then continued. "What
they didn't count on was, well, Bluto was like us. He knew people. And he
could see, the way his old friend was acting, somethin' wasn't right. 'Cuz
Popeye was taking orders from dykes. And I don't have to tell you fellas, no
man who's told what to do by a woman acts like a normal man."

The crowd hooted and laughed again. Bluto was grinning. He was coming out of
this story a lot better than he expected.

"So Bluto confronts his friend, a fight ensues. Now these are two powerful
strong mules in this fight, but they's seen better days. No offense Bluts."

The bar laughed again, as did Bluto, slightly. "From Bluto's testimony, I
figger Bluto had pretty much won the fight, knocked Popeye into a crumbled
heap, but still very much alive and likely to remain so. Bluto turned to go
back to his house, when behind his back, Popeye decides he can't stand losing
to our Bluto fair and square, so he takes some artificial stimulant he was
saving-'

"Spinach?" old man Grady asked from the crowd.

"Don't know, Grady. Wasn't there, no one saw the person in question take the
substance in question. One could infer it was methamphetamines."

A single derisive laugh came from the back of the bar.

The sheriff stopped for a moment. He frowned, he tried to peer over the crowd
but he couldn't see where the noise was coming from or who made it. He gave a
quick look to his deputies, who nodded, and quietly moved.through the crowd as
he continued.

"Now, getting into a fight when your heart is this age is not a good idea for
nobody. But adding said stimulants to the mix, well, that's just askin' for
it. Popeye got to his feet, procured a weapon of some sort- a shovel or
something, likely- and wailed on Bluto from behind."

"Liar," came the sharp, foreign feminine voice that had laughed from the back
of the bar. The sheriff saw his man quietly approaching the area of the
trouble, billy club raised, allowing Sheriff Johnson to ignore the petty
interruption. The sheriff often had to choose between the high road and the
low road; and found it paid to take both.

"From behind," he said again, louder. "Knocked him out with a single silent
blow from behind. Then just kept beating. Broke near every bone in Bluto's
body, the doc said. But all that activity, aggravated by the stimulant, was
just too much for the old man's heart. Popeye had a massive stroke right there
and then, fell down and died. Bluto didn't kill him. Popeye the sailor killed
hisself."

"You are a liar."

Now no one could ignore the voice. The bar turned as one to see a lone woman
in a broad-rimmed leather hat drinking gin in the corner booth, and the
sheriff's deputy, baton raised, who had snuck up behind her. But when the
baton came down, she was gone- quickly ducking to the seat and rolling under
the table. The deputy dashed to the front of the table, but she kicked him
sharply in the nuts. He cringed in pain, and fell forward, as the woman
grabbed the table from beneath and shot it upwards into his approaching chin.

The deputy skidded another six feet before coming to rest, out cold.

The woman stood, holding the table upside down, looking at the deputy, then
back at her booth. She was a tiny thing, barely five feet tall, with cascades
of curly red hair flowing down to her broad shoulders. Her black leather
longcoat matched her hat perfectly. Seeing her half-full bottle of gin on the
floor, she tossed the table aside and picked it up. She took a swig before
speaking.

"Who here iz friends with zee Deputy Reynolds?" she asked through a French
accent, pointing at the downed man.with her bottle.

No one stepped forward. The woman looked annoyed. "Come come, someone must
know him."

"I do!" Sheriff Johnson bellowed. "That's my man."

The woman held up her hand dismissively. "You and I, Sheriff, will have words
enough shortly. For now, I want this man tended to. Now come, just two men is
all. Not ze other Deputies, ze sheriff will be needing them."

Warily, a man raised his hand and stepped forward. The woman smiled to him.
"What iz your name, mon cheri?"

"Er ... Cliff."

"Cliff," she said, as she lifted Deputy Reynolds off the ground with one arm.
She draped the unconscious man across Cliff's back. He buckled under the
weight. "His jaw, she is broken into many pieces," she said. "But with rest
and time, he is fine, no?" She kissed Cliff gently on the cheek. "No fears,
mon ami. Off you go."

Cliff nodded shyly, and lugged the 200-lb man out the door. The woman turned
to the crowd. "Deputy Reynolds iz lucky," she told them. "I think ze next
fights we have tonight, ze loser wish he were him."

'Who are you!" Sheriff Johnson demanded. "Give me one good reason not to gun
you down right now!"

She proudly took out a wallet and tossed it to him. "Admiral Collete duMoray,"
she said. "Commander of Special Forces, NATO. My business, I fear, is most
dire, Sheriff. Zat man," she said, pointing a finger at Bluto, "he is a
murderer."

Bluto, shocked to the core, blurted out, "Why-why-why, that's absurdical!"

"And Sheriff Johnson here? Covered up ze crime. He is, how you say,
accessorizing after ze fact?"

"That's big talk, missy," the Sheriff said, narrowing his eyes. "Never been
much for talk."

Collette grinned. "Ah. Of course, my friends, ze sheriff does not like talk
which does not come from his mouth. He likes to be ze only voice heard. In his
head, he thinks zat is control, zat is power. Myself, I like to think power
comes from respect. And if you hear my story, friends, of what zis Bluto did,
and how your sheriff covered for him, you would not be respecting him so much
any more."

"Lucas!" shouted the sheriff. "Shut that bitch up right now!"

Another deputy stepped forward, scowling. Deputy Lucas was six-foot- five, 300
pounds of bad news. He was the product of a pork diet, his neck the size of a
canned ham, and his fingers as thick as sausages. He wasn't much for fighting
tactics, because he had never needed them. His strategy was, Lucas hits you,
you fall down.

He plodded toward his prey with clenched fists, looking for all the world like
a bear descending on a puppy. Except the puppy stood her ground, grinning as
if about to play. "'Allo, Lucas," she said, crouching. "Your boss, he thinks
if I fight you, I cannot talk."

Lucas charged and threw a right to her face. She ducked under it and threw a
short jab to his side. He winced. "Fortunately," she said, "I'm good at
multitasking."

"Popeye," Collette said, circling the slower man, "was more zan just ze
cartoon character you all laugh and root for on ze teevee. He worked for NATO,
going on many dangerous missions behind ze iron curtain. NATO is a very old,
very proud organization. We take care of our own."

Lucas swung his left arm like a club. The commander again ducked, throwing two
jabs to his unprotected belly before dancing back. Lucas was off-balance. He
was not used to being hit. He didn't like it. Collette watched him think of
his next move.

"Of course zat was many years ago," she said, checking to see if she broke a
nail. "But last year, we hear through sources, our Popeye, he iz very sick.
And as old men do, before he passes, he wants to sets his affairs in order.
Specifically with one Fatso Bluto the Sailor Wimp."

"Ay!" Bluto said, popping his head above the bar quickly. "Who's you to cast
sus'persions on a persion?

Lucas started to throw a right, but he barely got it moving before Collette
reached up and shot her tiny right fist into his enormous chin, snapping it
around and sending a tooth flying into the crowd. "And then, ze earthquake,"
she said, "centered in ze very town where we know ze Bluto lives. Not so
strange, to us. Many towns Popeye visits get ze seismic activity as he
delivers ze spinach-powered smackdown."

Lucas was unsteady and confused. He tried to throw an uppercut, but the woman
leaned back and dodged it, and in a single swift motion, sent her boot swiftly
across his face. A squirt of blood flew from his mouth. "But of course, soon
we find, Popeye does not return." She threw a right-left combo to his stomach,
and an uppercut to his left eye. "And your sheriff seems to blame ... how did
he say... evil lesbians? Please. We do background checks. These girls have
never been in trouble a day of their lesbian lives. Whereas fat boy," she
said, pointing the bar where Bluto was cowering, "was in and out of the brig
his whole navy career, and quite a few times after it as well. Assault,
battery, larceny ... OK, maybe Idaho likes he is sexually straight, but
morally, he is as crooked as they come."

She stopped for a moment to check out Lucas, who was teetering and tottering
but would not fall. She regarded his pot belly and gave it a gentle pat. "Mon
ami," she said gently in his ear, "I am thinking you must lay off ze fatty
foods, no? You're not getting any younger, you know."

And with that she reared back and unloaded a gut shot that doubled him over,
then grabbed his head and did a DDT, driving him straight into the hardwood
floor, knocking him cold.

The bar was stunned. Collette flipped Lucas over to check his face, then
scowled to the crowd. "Ze Lucas is going to need a few X-rays," she said. "And
a good dentist. But he will be fine. You see, I fight ze Popeye way. I kick ze
ass, I fight for right, but no one dies. No one dies. Someone, in this fine
town you seem so pleased with, where everyone is so nice and so pure, fought
with evil in their heart. Someone crooked fought to kill."

She became aware Deputy Harbaugh was behind her when he shot a taser into her
back.

It was a 700 kilowatt jolt. She grimaced and she shivered as if demons were
shaking her. Then she collapsed in a smouldering heap.

Sheriff Johnson slowly walked up to the body, looked her head-to-toe, then
reared back and kicked her in the gut.

"What the blazes took you so long Harbaugh?" the sheriff bellowed, kicking her
again. The crowd cringed. "Lucas is getting his ass kicked and you pull down
his pants for her?"

"Aw, c'mon, sheriff," the deputy whined. "She was like moving all over the
place. Damn she's strong. Did you see-?"

"I saw a crazed meth addict assault two fellow officers in a bar," the sheriff
said, turning to his people. "And so did everyone else," he commanded.

But the crowd was not looking at him with the awe they had previsouly. Some of
them were looking back at Bluto the same way. He was uncomfortable in their
glares.

"Why would the lesbians try to rob Bluto, sheriff?" old Grady said.

"Because they were thieves, ya idiot," the sheriff said. "That's what thieves
do."

"How do we know they're thieves?"

"Yeah, doesn't it make more sense he and Bluto just got in a bad fight?" said
Dan the feed store owner. "We all saw the cartoons, they fought all the time!"

The crowd started murmuring in assent. The sheriff looked at his last
remaining conscious deputy. Shit. Crowd control was going to be harder than
usual. He pulled his shotgun, cocked it, and shot it above the heads of the
crowd, who hit the floor.

"Quiet down!" he ordered. He looked at the first row of patrons and snarled.
He walked past them one by one, daring them to meet his glare. That old drunk
Hennigan, no. Farmer Jones- aha. Jones glared right back at him, defiantly.
The sheriff shot him in the foot.

"How dare you," he said, as the terrified crowd ran for the exits, and a
screaming Jones collapsed to the red-splattered floor clutching his leg.

"I've watched over all of you, kept you safe, and this is how you repay me?!"
He raised his gun to shoot old Grady in the ass. But as he pulled he trigger,
something pushed the back of his knee and made him miss.

The sheriff whirled. A wobbly Collette had crawled to him through the chaos.
"Let them go," she said, barely able to raise her head. "This is between you
and me."

Sheriff Johnson smashed the rifle butt into her skull. She fell back to the
floor.

Shortly after Bluto and Deupty Harbaugh were dragging the bleeding woman
outside to a waiting police car. Bluto did not feel good about the situation.
"She's dangerous, Sheriff," he said.

The sheriff sneered and held his rifle. "That a fact?"

"NATO ain't the UN! You mess with them, you're in serious shit."

"She ain't in no NATO."

"She knows what happened!" Bluto put down the girl by the rear of the car,
held his head and moaned. "This ain't fair, this ain't fair. All I did was
give that sailor runt what he had comin'."

"For god's sake, shut your piehole," the sheriff spat. "Look down that road
there."

The headlights shone through an open expanse of hard dirt road behind the bar.
"Nothing but sharp rocks and broken beer bottles," the sheriff said.
"Harbaugh? Strip that bitch and handcuff her to the fender."

The deputy removed Colette's coat, and cuffed her around to the rear bumper,
then slapped her until she started coming round. "Hey sunshine," the deputy
said, closing his fist and breaking her nose. Furiously she lunged for him but
was jerked back to the ground by the cuffs. Harbaugh laughed. "Now, now.
Wouldn't want you to miss your big drag race, now would we sweetie? Man, you
are so hot. When this is over? I'm gonna fuck your corpse from here to
sundown. Hoo-ey!"

The sheriff turned the ignition. Deputy Harbuagh jumped in the front seat.
Bluto gave her an uneasy look from the back. "Christ, she's standin' up," he
reported. "She pulling on the cuffs."

"Oh yeah!" said Harbaugh. "I loves it when they struggle."

Collette made a couple of quick yanks at her bonds, then a hard pull. She gave
a long, hateful glare at the persons in the car.

Bluto recognized that glare. "Sherriff?!" he said dreadingly.

"Will you calm down," the sheriff said. He grabbed the emergency brake and
disengaged it. "She can't do nothin'. We'll drag her a couple miles, then dump
the body in the ravine, just like always."

"What's that?!" Bluto said, panicking. He saw Collette dip her head down into
and under her dress. "What's she doing in her dress?" Then he knew. He
desperately grabbed at the Sheriff's shoulder. "Fuck! Fuck! We're fucked! Stop
the car!"

The sheriff calmly turned to the crazy old fat man in his car. "Will you shut
the fuck up, Bluto?!'

"Hee hee, yeah," said Harbaugh. "She can show me what's in her bra

any time."

"Look!"

The lawmen looked. Collette had grabbed something with her teeth, and was
pulling it out of her dress. It didn't make strict physical sense, but if
you'd watched enough cartoons, it made all the sense in the world. It was a
small, open can, practically overflowing with ...

"SPINACH!!!" Bluto yelled in terror.

The radio turned itself on. The Popeye theme started playing.

The three men looked at each other. The sheriff's face turned white and he
slammed his foot on the gas.

The tires spun, and the car raised a cloud of dust as it lurched from standing
still to tearing down the bumpy dirt road. The passengers were jerked
backwards, rolling around the seats, in a slight panic. All could feel and
hear the jerking and dragging of the woman they were dragging, hear her live
weight bumping and flying.

"Shut the radio off!" screamed Harbaugh.

"Did she eat it?" Bluto shouted, trying to look out the back window. It was
dark, dust was flying everywhere. They'd been driving for a few seconds. The
engine, the dragging, the music, there was so much noise. "Damn it, I can't
see!"

"Are you slowing down?"

"Did she eat it?!"

"Sheriff, don't slow down!"

"I'm not!" said the Sheriff. "The gas pedal's on the frickin' floor!"

But the car was lurching violently, and despite the increasing speedometer
there was no doubt the car was losing speed. Collete was no longer being
dragged. Spinach surging through her veins, she had gotten low, grabbed the
car, and was digging her heels into the dirt. The hundred twenty pounds of her
body were compelling the two tons of motorized steel to not just stop, but
rise off the ground.

Harbaugh was dumbstruck. The sheriff reached for his gun, but Collette quickly
yanked the car up off the ground, and shook the car like a baby's rattle. The
three men knocked about like beebees and fell face- first into the rear
window, smooshing their features. They looked down to see Collette in dirty,
tattered clothes, hanging off a five-foot frame of solid, chiseled muscle.
"What do we have here?" she cooed at them, tossing the car and catching it
like a can of peas. They wailed in terror. "Is this perhaps ze world's biggest
box of cracker jacks? Shall I find a surprise inside?"

Her deeply ridged pectoral muscles tensed, and she scowled as she thrust her
arms apart and explosively ripped the car in half lengthwise. The three men
hung in the air a moment, dangling their useless feet, before Collette
inverted the car halves and then slapped them back together like cymbals with
a hideous CRASH! She pulled the halves away, and all three men floatedt to the
ground, tissue-thin simmulcrums of their former selves.

The flat men lay limp a moment, then popped back into man shapes, beaten and
woozy. Collette regarded them all a little, considering who should be her
first victim. She saw Harbaugh. She smiled, and started walking towards the
man who had cuffed her to the car and slapped her around when she was
helpless. Deputy Harbaugh, panicked, reached for his handgun, and fired twice.
Collette punched one shot away with her left fist, and the other with her
right, as if they were no more annoying than Nerf footballs. The Deputy
reached behind him and grabbed his shotgun from the ground, and aimed straight
at her gut.

"Back off!" he panted.

"Make me," Collette replied, putting her fists to her hips.

With an explosive BOOM the deputy closed his eyes and fired. When the smoke
cleared, he did a triple take. Merely by tensing her absurdly chiseled
pectoral muscles, Collette had caught every piece of buckshot in the ridges of
her eight-pack abs. She slowly relaxed them, and the shot lazily fell to the
ground where they formed the words, "BAD CHOICE".

The smaller woman right in front of him, Harbaugh dropped to his knees,
begging. "Please don't kill me," he cried.

"You will not die, Mr. Harbaugh," Collette said gently. "Here, let me show
you."

She extended her arm above him, and flexed so he could see. An impossible
mountain of muscle rose thirteen inches up from her arm, hard as chiseled
marble. Fading into view upon it were a squadron of F-15 fighter jets in
formation, as ready and able to annihilate their enemies as her fist was. He
had no hope of standing up to its power. Harbaugh was shocked, and awed.

"Ze spinach," Collette said proudly. "It fills my body with potential. I can
bring down ze whole buildings, with a single punch. Or do this."

And she reared her fist back, and shot an uppercut straight into his chin,
sending him straight into the air like a rocket. She watched him go up, then
fussed with her hair a bit and looked at her watch. After reaching 25,000
feet, Harbaugh reached his apex, and groggily began to plummet back to earth.
He reached a speed normally reserved for supersonic jets, flailing helplessly
and catching fire as he reentered the atmosphere. Collette lazily watched him,
and when he had almost reached the ground, she reared back and kicked his
spine with a sickening crack. Harbaugh hung there limp on her leg.

"Ha!" she spat to the other two men, looking on helplessly. "Looks like ze big
bad deputy is a limp little rag doll now, eh?" Suddenly she pounced again on
the deputy, and after a violent whirlwind of torn clothes and extra bows,
Harbaugh was out of his uniform and in a pink frilly dress, with matching
bonnet, bawling like a baby. As a coup de grace, Collette produced a baby
bottle and stuck it in his mouth.

"My muscles, zey can reduce ze grown man to ze infant," Collette said,
stepping toward her next prey. "But no one dies. No no. Because ze spinach
gives me that choice. I am in control. Of your beating. Of your pain. Of your
recovery, even. But I, like ze Popeye, never-" and now she looked straight
into Bluto with a raging hatred from the bowels of hell- "NEVER! Choose to
kill. Only the vilest of ze vile choose zat way to fight. Only ze coward. And
today, ze coward, he will pay for his crime."

She turned to the sheriff. "But what of ze man who covered up zis crime?"

Sheriff Johnson almost tried to run, but like a snake, Collette's hand shot
out and grabbed his wrist. He swung a desperation blow to her jaw. She did not
flinch, and every bone in his fist shattered as he pulled it back in agony.
"Awww," Collette cooed in pity. "Was that not the result you had in mind? Were
you hoping for something like ... " She reared her other fist back and threw a
jab to his face. "THIS?!"

It should have thrown his body twelve hundred feet back, but her other hand
gripped his arm so tightly he flapped manically in the air like a flag in a
hurricane. After a few moments like this, he fluttered to the ground and
moaned. "Oh, dear," Collette said, grabbing the lolling man up by the collar
and dusting him off. "Perhaps it was beginner's luck. Let's see!" And she
slugged him with even more force than before, again holding his arm tight to
prevent him from flying off like a rocket. The sheriff's body flapped so
violently it was a miracle he didn't fly apart. When the force was spent, he
dripped like noodle to the ground. Now Collette picked up his 260 lb body with
her middle finger, and held him there. "Third time's a charm," she told him,
and gave her most colossal punch yet. This time she held him just for a moment
to tease him, then let go and watched him fly over the trees and far away.

"You don't get off that easy!" she called out, and with blinding speed dashed
through the night. With a horrific whistling, the sheriff reached his apex and
plummeted back to earth, crashing through the roof of an all- night tattoo
parlor. He slammed down into a client chair, as Collette dashed through the
door, picked up a needle and turned it on. She lept atop the sheriff and
straddled his chest, slapping him awake. His eyes fluttered open, then froze
with terror when he heard the harsh electric buzz of the needle hovering one
inch over his nose.

Collette smiled. "This may sting a bit, mon ami," she said, and ignoring his
screams, set about to work.

Bluto coughed, and lifted his head off the dusty road. His lungs were spent;
he had spent the last half-hour running blindly at top speed to get as far
away from that crazy spinached-up bitch as possible. It was wicked dark; he
had run into twelve or twenty trees, effectively starting his beating for her.
His legs wouldn't work anymore; he'd spent the last twenty yards pulling
himself with his arms. The worst part was the terrifying absolute certainty
that it wouldn't do any good. She would find him whenever she was done with
the sheriff, and after seeing what she did to the sheriff and his deputy,
Bluto couldn't even imagine what was in store for him. He rolled onto his back
and cried.

"Oh come now monsieur," he heard the inevitable voice say from the darkness.
"We already had our big baby today. I thought you might meet your end with a
little more dignity."

Bluto sniffed, resigned. There was nothing else for it. He slowly pulled out
Deputy Harbaugh's magnum, which he had grabbed in the confusion earlier. With
a sobn, he put it to his ear and fired. Smoke billowed out his other ear, and
he closed his eyes and fell back. As if he'd forgotten something, he popped
back up for a moment to pull a single white lily from his pocket, and fell
back down again, clutching it to his chest. Collette rolled her eyes and shook
her head. "Come now," she said standing over the body. "We both know zat won't
work. Zere is nothing in your head a bullet could hit."

"Then does it already!" Bluto said, defiantly. "Kills me and gets it over
with!"

Collette laughed. She reached in her hip pocket and pulled out the old bottle
of gin from the bar. "I should, you know," she said. "But you may have
something I want, something I can't get from you dead. Have a swig. You look
like you could use it."

Bluto looked at her suspiciously, but warily took the bottle. Collette sat
down next to him as he drank. He hadn't really gotten a close- up look at her.
She saw him staring at her arms. "You like, huh?" she teased. She extended her
arms and did a quick pose that Bluto recognized- it was a bicep flex where the
poser built a pretty big muscle a quarter way into the flex, then when they
continued, a second bicep head formed on top of the first one. Then they did
it a third time, and a fourth time, until she'd built a mind-boggling tower of
muscle on muscle on muscle on muscle, almost taller than her forearm.

"You've seen zat one before, eh?" she said, offering it to him to feel.

Bluto inched back a little. "Who are you?" he said at last.

Collette grinned, and pulled a pair of glasses out from her pocket. "When ze
lesbian girl finished beating you up, she and her partner dropped your
shattered little body off at ze hospital before high-tailing it out of town.
Do you remember zat?"

"Er ... yeah. I mean, a little."

"A little," she repeated. "OK. Monsieur Bluto, this one is, how you say, the
sixty-nine million dollar question. What did the girls talk about on their way
to the hospital?"

What did they talk about. God. "I don't know," he said, desperately. "I was
unconscious! I was almost dead!"

In an eyeblink, Collette picked the three-hundred pound man up with one hand
by the scruff of his collar. "No, let me be clear, Monsieur. As almost dead as
you thought you were dead? You are much more almost dead right now. You have
no idea how much self control I am mustering," she hissed.

"Whadda you care?!" wailed the terrified bully. "Who are you?!"

"I am ze wife of ze man you killed," she said. "Yes, you poor bastard, you
heard right. Your fate lies in the arms of Mrs. Popeye ze Sailor Man."

Bluto stared at her for a moment. She was completely serious. "No!" he
insisted. "That's ... I mean, what about Olive?"

"Sham marriage," she said simply. "Like every other Hollywood couple. They
were together just for ze publicity."

Bluto let that sink in. It kind of made sense. Pops and Olive were never that
lovery-dovey when the cameras weren't around, and of course they never had
children, which always struck him as weird. "But- when?"

"Oh, years ago. During ze war. I was in ze French navy, a young girl playing
rough with ze boys. He liked, how you say, ze cut of my jib? Ooh, and I like
his jib very much. Did you ever see his jib? My, when we were younger and in
love he would take his jib and-"

"Yeah, yeah, I gets the point, I gets the point," the sailor said quickly,
reddening.

"But I am not sure zat you do," she retorted. "My Popeye showed me a life I
thought impossible for one such as me. He gave me everything. He made me a
hero, a heroine. And now, mon ami, you are badly hooked on this heroine."

She stared at his ugly mug. "I have spent ze last month picturing how I would
dissemble you. Whether I would do it fast or slow. To do it off the spinach,
or on. Mostly about pain and suffering. What you inflicted, and what you
deserved in kind."

"But I am a soldier, mon ami," she said. "I have a duty, and this comes before
all else. Zis girl who beat you down, she has eaten ze spinach and changed.
You know zis is not something that happens every day. Everyday people do not
eat spinach and get ze big muscle. No. Zat kind of talent is ... special."

"You have it," Bluto said.

"Yes," Collette said, grinning. "Some secrets are meant to stay between a wife
and her man, no? In any case, zis girl is special in a dangerous way to be
special. Dangerous not just for her. Have you considered she may not be
finished with you?"

Bluto shuddered at the thought. No, it hadn't occurred to him. But that lezzo
took great pleasure in beating him within an inch of his life, and clearly if
the mood struck her to do so again, he couldn't stop her. "My affairs are no
concern of yours." Collette said, "but I don't relish another spinach-powered
girl dispensing beatdowns in this country. I need to talk to her, maybe give
her some advice about the advantages of keeping a lower profile."

"So this is my deal I make with you," she said. "Tell me right now what you
heard in that car, and on my honor as a soldier, I will not hurt you."

Bluto was not sure what choice he had. "On your honor?"

"On my honor," she said, lifting him higher and rearing back her hammerlike
fist. "But don't tempt me. This offer expires in five seconds."

Bluto started blabbering. "They were in the front seat," he stammered. "Sort
of ... debating-like. The skinny blonde one, her girlfriend, wanted her to
keep boxing- did you know she was a boxer? She wanted Red to fight for the
women's championship. Red wasn't sure if it was a good idea, 'cuz she
figgered, with the spinach, it was like cheatin'.

"Cheating?" Collette prompted. "So the red one figured she would need to eat
spinach to beat ze women's champion?"

"No ma'am," Bluto said, still shaking. "Just the oppo-crite. Red thought even
without the spinach, she'd beat the women's champ so bad she'd really hurt
her, and she didn't want to do that to a female fellow boxer woman."

Collette lowered Bluto slightly. This was not good. She'd been hoping this was
what Popeye used called a "one-shot"- when the sailor's mere presence could
cause a person to react temporarily to spinach. It happened on occasion, and
would subside once Popeye left. Clearly something more was at work here. "She
is that strong?" she said, lifting him again with a threat in her eye. "How
strong?"

"I ... I don't know!" Bluto said, exasperated. "But ... but I kinda think Red
liked it when the skinny one brought up the possibility of maybe going after
the men's championship."

And with that, Collette knew there would be no nice neat way to rap this story
up. There was a new Popeye in town, she was female, she wasn't blood kin, and
she wasn't going to quietly live a life of anonymous obscurity. Ugh. This was
going to cause serious, serious problems, ones she would have to get to work
on immediately. But first, a chapter had to close.

"Thank you, monsieur," she said, lowering Bluto to the ground. "You have done
everything I asked of you." She put her fingers to her lips a let loose a
whistle. "Oh. Would you do me one last favor?"

Bluto didn't entirely like the sound of that.

"Would you hold this please?" she said, placing a large item in his hand.
"That's ze spirit."

It was dark, he was slow, he was stupid. He was startled by another, younger
woman in bulky army green khakis and a green beret suddenly walking up to him
and ...

"It's a spinach can," he stammered, finally processing what was in his hand.
"No! No fair! You- you said you wouldn't hurt me!"

"She won't, you worthless piece of shit" said the new girl, grabbing an
overflowing handful of sopping leaves, stuffing the mass in her mouth, chewing
three times and gulping it down. "I will."

Bluto barely had time to hear the music play, and see her body explode out of
her uniform, revealing a thick mini-army of muscles flexing biceps the size of
bulging cantaloupes, clad only in camouflage shorts and matching sports bra.
She had pert lips and piercing green eyes. The green beret popped up to reveal
a cascade of radiantly blonde shoulder-length hair. He had a second to cognate
her beauty and perfection, before she was a blur, pummeling him from all sides
with such force it felt like he was surrounded by six piston engines popping
him with solid steel. Her bare fists shattered his bones into powder. He began
to ooze down to the ground, but the girl grabbed him by the collar, hauled him
up and hissed in his face. "No fucking way," she spat. "You do not deserve the
luxury of unconsciousness. Mom's got four more cans of spinach back there, and
for the next thirty minutes, I'm got nothin' to do but open, swallow and
punch. I'm gonna fuck you up spinach style, bitch. And when my time is up, I'm
gonna eat my last can, show you a bicep the size of the empire state building,
and throw one last punch- punch that'll launch what's left of your body
one-way, 2,000 miles to Annapolis. Where my older sister's waiting, with six
more cans and two eager fists."

The woman sneered, and drew back her fist. "I'm Sergeant Sherry Sundown. You
killed my father. Now I make you pay."