“Well, all right,” he repeated, his tone more jubilant now, and closed the briefcase, sealing its clasps tight. “You know, in all them movies and TV shows, the money always comes in a briefcase, and I’m always thinking, well that’s a nice bonus. I mean, they get the cash, and they also get a nice briefcase. I always thought that would be pretty cool, like an unexpected small pleasure, and I like small pleasures, yes sir. And now look at me.” Ted held the briefcase to his massive gut, and smiled. “Me with my money and a new briefcase to boot. I think this is going fine, yes I do.”
The Hawaiian said nothing, simply looked to his feet, arms folded at his chest. Fat Ted was about to try and convince the Hawaiian to come back to the barn with him one more time, the silence becoming quite unbearable, when he heard the distant rumble of an engine.
Thank the ever-lovin’ lord, he thought.
The man also turned, and they both listened to the clattering of the truck and the squeaking struts of the trailer as it came slowly up the driveway. Soon, headlights were flittering through the trees, and a few moments after that the big F150 pulled past them, headed back toward the barn.
Fat Ted watched it go by and lifted a pudgy white palm toward the driver. But Gabino, eyes forward, did not spare him a glance, a nod or a wave. All business, Ted thought. I suppose it’s that kind of a night.
“Well, that’s my boy, and that’s your horse.”
The man nodded and started to follow the truck’s exhaust toward the rear of the house, toward the barn.
“All right then,” Ted said, and followed as best he could, holding the briefcase in one hand, the other palming his balls through his moist sweatpants.
“Let’s get ‘er done.”
Gabino stepped from the truck, the night air much cooler than he expected. He was still shaken by the series of odd events on the road, but he didn’t believe in spirits, or curses, or mystics or any of the other garbage you saw on television. He was a Catholic, and Catholics believed in saints, gods and angels, demons and devils. The ward from which was prayers and symbolic ritual steeped in the teachings of the Bible and Jesus Christ. There was no need to ward against angry spirits, pagan curses and the like.
And yet…
He shook his head, lowered the brim of his Stetson, and pushed the large barn door along its rails, creating room for his truck and trailer to fit through comfortably. The inside of the cavernous space was a rich black that swallowed his headlights, a vaporous veil opaque as a grandmother’s funeral dress.
He could hear the stranger approaching from behind, his footsteps light on the loose gravel of the makeshift driveway that led around the house to the barn. He could also hear Fat Ted puffing like a blowfish beyond that. Never mind them, it was time to get this done, get his money and get out. Maybe get out for good.
He closed his eyes, laid a hand on the rough wood of the barn, bowed his head quickly, before the others could reach him. “Cúbreme con Tu sangre redentora y me llene de su Espíritu Santo. Sanar y transformar a mí de ser la oscuridad a la luz siendo...” he recited. Then lifted his palm, pushing away from the barn, opening his eyes to the empty darkness looming before him, a swallowing void. Yes, this would be the last, he decided.
He got briskly back into the cab and drove forward, waiting for the truck’s heavy yellow beams to split open the dark, but the dark only engulfed him.
Fat Ted caught up to the Hawaiian, who stood at the open entrance, staring dumbly like it was a mystery to behold. The demon eyes of the truck’s red taillights lurked deep within. Ted smiled and walked past the Hawaiian without breaking stride.
His trained hand found the power box easily in the gloom and he rammed the rusty switch upward. Rows of massive overhead cage lights flickered, then popped on throughout the interior.
The barn was two stories in height. There were stalls lining two walls on the bottom floor, and the second-story, a wraparound loft, held supplies, feed, tools and other garbage Fat Ted had accumulated over the years. A lot of it had been left over from when his daddy owned the farm and ran it as such. But Fat Ted had found other ways of doing business that were much more profitable, and much easier on his constitution. He greatly preferred handling the occasional stash of illegal guns, drugs or other such contraband, and hiring one of the many illegal immigrants he could lay hands on who would transport said contraband for pennies on his dollars.
The horse meat trend fell into his lap like a Christmas gift that had been found behind the tree, hidden behind wads of used-up paper and an ill-placed nativity scene. He couldn’t believe how easy it was to find buyers for something he could get hold of as easily as snapping his pudgy fingers. Horse meat, of all things. He didn’t know how many he’d slaughtered over the years, despite the ill-kept laws against such things. He preferred to buy stock cheap and turn it for a profit on the black market, but he realized how much more lucrative it could be for “special orders,” the men and women who paid top dollar for the higher breeds of equine, as if it made the quality of the meat that much more enticing. He laughed to himself as he thought about the kind of money folks would pay for a hundred pounds of flesh, or eight pounds of heart. Hell, his family had been slaughtering pigs for generations, and his daddy had left the world indebted to two banks and sporting a sour liver, a delightful parting gift courtesy of the cheap liquor he swilled by the bottle to compensate for all his many failures. Fat Ted, however, was mortgage-free, on his third Jaguar, and had a flat screen TV, with satellite, hooked up in the shitter. His daddy might have worked hard, but Ted worked smart, and if this particular client maybe rubbed him the wrong way, perhaps made the hump of his taint shrivel inward a smidge, or the back of his neck crawl with the feeblest tingling of concern, well hell, that was the price of doing business, and he wasn’t going to let it impede the transaction’s completion. At least, not if he could help it.
He turned to the Hawaiian, who still stood pensively at the door, and tried to put on his very best smile of reassurance. “Well, c’mon, friend. Aloha and all that.”
The man looked at Ted with dark soulless eyes, gathered himself, and strode defiantly inside. He gave Ted a quick glance...
“I’m Chinese.”
...and continued toward the rear of the barn. Ted laughed and pulled the wide sliding door closed, sealing them all inside with a clang.
“Friend, as long as your money’s American,” Ted crooned, laughing as he followed, “I really don’t give a fuck.”
Gabino held his breath while dropping the gate on the trailer, fearing the worst. But Widowmaker stood still and strong as when he had loaded her in, even craned her neck to give him that one-eyed glare she seemed to have perfected, that brown orb glossy as an all-knowing crystal ball. He sighed in relief and stepped into the trailer to unhitch her.
“Easy, lady,” he said, turning her around in the tight space and pulling her out by the lead. She pushed her muzzle against his chin, looked down at him wonderingly. “I have no more treats, lady. No tengo más caramelos.”
Gabino led the horse out of the trailer, down the dropped gate, and presented her to the client, holding tightly to the lead.
“All right all right!” Ted bellowed. “Let’s get to business.” He put a hand on the Chinaman’s shoulder. “That, good sir, is the famous Widowmaker. A Dutch warmblood of great descent, her daddy being Chancellor, who placed in the World Cup.” He made a fat fleshy V with his fingers, held it a foot from the client’s nose. “Twice.”
The Chinaman nodded, staring awe-struck at the massive black mare.
Fat Ted waited for a further response, got none, and nodded to Gabino, who stood clutching the mare’s harness like a mute. “Well, good. Shall we get to it? Gabino, let’s take her to the back there.”
Gabino nodded and led the mare to the rear of the barn, past the other half-filled stalls—some containing worn-out horses, one holding three milking goats—to where the butchering tools were. There was a large “stage” of broad wooden planks, a slaughter platform that
could be easily hosed-down after the fact. A pegged wall held an array of scythes, knives, and sledges for the killing, plus an array of finer implements, as needed, for the cutting.
Widowmaker’s hooves beat a staccato against the planks. Gabino wrapped her lead over and around a heavy iron rail mounted into the rear wall of the barn.
She dropped her head into his chest, and without thought he patted her neck. He stepped back and she nudged him. He turned and looked into her eyes, so clear in the bright lights of the building’s interior. She did not shy away from his hand as he ran his thick fingers over her muzzle. He felt bad about using all the treats now, he would have liked to have given her one more pleasure before death.
As he rubbed the horse, Gabino felt something heavy shifting around, deep down in his chest. A rough-edged tumor of hate, a charred lump of misery and loss. He looked at the horse as it nudged against him and knew that things could have been different. In another life, a horse like this would be like one of his own children. In this life, horses like her were just money and meat and guilt, an abyss of despair that he would steal and murder and burn until the end of days, until there was no more hate to butcher.
The Chinaman, slick as oil in his black suit, stepped up onto the stage, ran a hand over the horse’s side, her neck, his expression one of open amazement.
“Gorgeous,” he said quietly. He looked at Gabino, his eyes as wide and pupilless as the mare’s. “You did very well. She is perfect.”
Gabino nodded awkwardly, not one to enjoy talking to the clients, and scuffed his boots against the planks. The stage creaked as Fat Ted joined them, smacking his palm against the horse’s haunch with good humor.
“Yep, she’s a beauty, all right. Of course, once she’s gutted and crispy she’ll look just like the others in the ditch out back.” Ted set the briefcase down gently, tucked his hands into the deep pockets of the duster, swayed back on his heels, happy and confident as a pig in a pile of corn. “So, if we’re all settled here, maybe we can...”
The man in the black suit raised one hand sharply, cutting him off. He looked only at Gabino, making the thief meet his eyes.
“You will kill it?” he asked.
Gabino looked to Ted, who nodded. Gabino in turn gave a small nod to the client. The strange man put a hand on Gabino’s shoulder, moved close to him so he could speak quietly. Gabino did not like to be touched, and the man’s breath smelled like garlic, sharp and pungent. He tried not to pull away as he spoke.
“However you are going to kill it, it’s very important...” His eyes darted away, and he licked his curling lips. “Please understand, I need the horse to continue living, for many minutes, while it is also bleeding out.” The man let this sit for a moment. “So... can you kill it slow?”
Gabino didn’t pretend to understand the reason for the request, but he knew many ways to kill a horse, and so he just nodded.
The man patted Gabino’s shoulder once, then, without preamble, stepped briskly off the platform. Gabino and Ted met eyes, and Gabino knew Fat Ted did not like this client. But he liked his money, so all would be well. He hoped.
“Hey...” Fat Ted said, as the man walked a few feet away and began to undress.
The client took off his suit coat, laid it over a dusty barrel. He began to unbutton his shirt, eagerly, excitedly.
Ted gawped, and Gabino fidgeted. Ted gave Gabino a wide-eyed glare, his pudgy white face broadened in a baffled expression. He took a step toward the edge of the platform.
“Hey man, just what the hell are you doing?”
The client ignored him, removed his shirt, laid it atop his suit coat and, bare-chested, stepped back onto the platform. His chest was covered with a massive red tattoo of a snaking dragon that crawled over one shoulder and across his pecs, the darting tongue of the creature slithering downward over his muscled belly. With Gabino and Fat Ted still at a loss for words, the man deftly bent, reached to his ankle, pulled up a pant leg, and slid a folded straight-razor from a black leather holster laid along his muscular calf. He showed the folded razor to Fat Ted, the shining metal of it gleaming in the light. Fat Ted threw up his hands instinctively, his mouth a tight O of surprise.
“I am not here for the meat,” the client said. “Where I am from, I cannot return.”
Gabino and Ted waited, the air heavy with tension.
“When the time is right,” the client continued, “I will cut my own throat, and die lying with the horse. Once we are dead, you will burn our bodies. You will bury our bones, and our ashes, together in your pit.” The Chinaman then nodded with some finality, as if the matter were settled, and activities, as laid out, could commence.
Fat Ted could only stare at the man stupidly, his flabby mouth hanging open, his lower lip wet with saliva, his chins folded into his neck. Gabino’s expression was more placid, but he took a step away from the man toward the horse, almost protectively. He did not know this man, but he seemed very dangerous, and Gabino was suddenly quite sure there were demons hiding inside him.
Ted closed his mouth, swallowed, spared the retreating Gabino one more glance, then turned back to the man, the jocular Fat Ted now folded away, somewhere deep within all that flesh, and a different, much more threatening Ted, appearing in his stead, a Ted with hard eyes and a set jaw, whose rubbery white cheeks were glowing a raw crimson.
“Now, listen here,” Ted said slowly. “I don’t know what you think this is, but we are not some Satanic ritual center for the fucked-up and lonely, you understand? This is a business, like any other. You give me money for the meat, I provide the meat. You say you want the meat fresh, you want to watch the butcher, I say jim-dandy, come on along. It’ll cost you extra, but I got no problem with a little quality control if it helps you sleep at night.”
Ted took a menacing step toward the man, one hand sliding into the bulging pocket of his duster. He had a foot and a good hundred-fifty pounds on the sinewy Asian, and he loomed over him like a heavyweight fighter ready to stomp a misplaced featherweight. Gabino noticed, to the smaller man’s credit, that he did not back away. Ted’s voice was rising.
“But you tell me you wanna strip off your clothes and slit your own throat, in my barn... in my place of business... well, mister, you might as well be telling me you wanna howl at the moon and stick your little yellow Don Ho into the horse’s behind, bathe yourself in blood and chant some ritualistic bullshit in an ancient tongue. Because all these scenarios have a problem, see, and that problem is that it leaves me with the mess. The mess and the heat. So, you see, sir, that we abso-fuckin-lutely have ourselves a teensy-weensy problem, all right?”
Ted was sweating, his eyes bulging, his cheeks trembling with rage. “Shit, man,” he said, barking out a hard laugh, “I’d go as far to say that we have ourselves an impasse.” His heated face was only a few inches from the man’s now, the corner of his lips white with drying spittle, his voice dangerous and grating as a meat grinder. “Yes sir, that’s exactly what I’d say we have. A motherfucking impasse!”
Gabino waited, breath held, hand resting lightly on the tied lead of the giant horse, who seemed ironically indifferent to the strange conversation happening a few feet away, every word of it about her fate.
The man did not retreat from the imposing figure, brewing like a fattening black storm cloud, glaring down at him. Gabino thought he looked almost bored, Zen-like. His eyes flicked to Gabino, as if making a split-second determination, then slid back to Ted’s red face.
“I’ve paid you for the horse,” he said calmly.
“That you have, that you have,” Ted spit back, “but that fee does not cover human corpse-disposal. No sir, it don’t. And you know what else it don’t cover? It don’t cover weird occult shit in my barn! No, it don’t that either, you see what I’m saying?” He poked the man’s bare, tattooed chest with one fat finger. “You feeling me, bro?”
The Chinaman seemed to think a moment, then nodded. “You want more money.”
Ted’s eyes
bulged impossibly wide, his lips pressed together so tightly as to make them pale. And then, in a mountainous eruption, he lifted his head and laughed, bellowing loud and deep enough that the sound seemed to roll upwards and across the A-frame of the barn’s ceiling like thunder.
“More money!” he yelled to the heavens, turning to look at Gabino with death in his eyes, a sick smile on his face.
Gabino, who had already moved one hand from the lead to curl it into Widowmaker’s halter, let his other hand float to the wall. His fingers brushed a hand-scythe hanging neatly from two pegs he had built in himself. He waited to see what Fat Ted would do next.
“More money,” he repeated, looking hard again at the bare-chested man. “Yeah, you know, more money might be just the thing. You get me more money, boy, and I’ll let you hari-kari yourself on my kitchen floor if you want to.” He took a small step back, creating space between himself and the man, his hand never leaving his pocket. He stared wildly at the client, waiting for a response. The tattooed man said nothing.
“Well,” he said, huffing. “Since you’re the silent type, I see I must solicit the terms. Okay, then, how much money, exactly, are you willing to offer to do this,” he flapped his non-pocketed hand behind him, nonchalantly indicating Gabino and Widowmaker, “ritualistic, mutual-suicide deal?”
The man thought a second, closed his eyes, then slowly opened them.
“Twenty thousand more. I can wire it to you immediately.”
Ted whistled. It was an ugly, spittle-flecked, high-pitched thing. “Twenty thousand. Well well...” He walked around the stage in a small circle, as if internally debating.
Gabino gripped the handle of the scythe.
Ted stopped pacing. “Nah,” he said, flatly, almost in a whisper. “You know what I think?” The bulge in his coat pocket grew as his fist tightened around metal. “I think you’re a weirdo. They got a Chinese word for that, chung-fuck? Weir-do?” Ted’s voice grew quiet and cold. He spread his feet apart with delicate ease, as if preparing to duel.
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