Richard Lange

by This Wicked World (v5)

  Taggert walks to the pen and sets the goat down inside it. The animal bleats forlornly and butts the wall with its tiny horns. Beyond the pen are five cages. Three are occupied by pit bulls, the source of the barking. The cages extend through holes cut in the rear wall of the barn to allow the dogs access to sun and fresh air. The concrete floors are clean, and there are troughs of fresh water.

  “Miguel takes good care of my boys, doesn’t he?” Taggert says as he and Virgil walk over to the cages. He stops in front of the first one, which holds a big red dog with one eye, and sticks his fingers through the chain-link fencing to let the animal lick them.

  “This is Butcher Boy, a dead game fighter,” he says. “I traded a nice shotgun for him. He’s won five matches for me so far and once, no shit, took down a Rottweiler that outweighed him by forty pounds. They should make men as brave as this dog.”

  The barking starts to get to Virgil, makes his guts jump around. And it’s hot in here too, stuffy. He feels like he can’t get enough air. He nods when he’s supposed to, but he’s not actually listening to Taggert go on and on about his fucking dog. He just wants to go outside.

  Taggert grabs a leash off a hook on the wall and tells Virgil to stand back. “They’ll tolerate Miguel and me, but anybody else, we train ’em to go right for the balls,” he says.

  Virgil moves toward a workbench and considers climbing on top of it as Taggert opens the cage and attaches the leash to a chain around Butcher Boy’s neck. As soon as the dog is outside the enclosure, he lunges at Virgil, barking wildly and foaming at the mouth, his single eye practically popping out of his head. Virgil backpedals into the bench and grabs a hammer.

  “That’s real smart,” Taggert says, pulling the dog up short. “Now he thinks you’re threatening me. Put that fucking thing down.” Virgil lays the hammer on the bench, and Butcher Boy settles a bit. Taggert leads the dog to the pen containing the goat and motions for Virgil to follow.

  “This is the pit where we fight them,” Taggert says. “We’ve had some epic bouts here, dogs in from Arizona, Mexico, New Orleans. This old boy from Memphis walked away with ten grand one night when his dog came back from the dead to beat a bruiser named Capone.”

  Taggert opens a gate in one wall of the pit, and he and the dog enter. Butcher Boy goes nuts again when he sees the goat, which cowers against the far wall, clearly terrified. Taggert bends over the dog as the goat mewls plaintively.

  “Gonna get him, aren’t you,” he whispers into Butcher Boy’s ear. “Gonna sic, sic, sic.” He unhooks the leash, and before he can stand upright, the dog is halfway across the pit. He leaps on the goat, clamps his powerful jaws onto its throat, and shakes his head. The bleating stops, and blood spurts. Virgil looks away. He killed a cat once with a twenty-two when he was a kid, but nothing like this. When he turns back, the dog is flinging the dead goat around the pit like a stuffed toy.

  “Get me a breaking stick off that bench,” Taggert says. “Looks like a cutoff broom handle.”

  Virgil locates the splintered length of wood and hurries to the pit to hand it to Taggert. Taggert stands over Butcher Boy and grabs his collar, then jams the stick into the back of the dog’s mouth, behind his teeth, and twists it to force his jaws open. The goat drops to the carpet, and Taggert leashes the dog and drags him out of the pit.

  “You got to let them kill something every so often,” Taggert says. “That’s how you keep them good and crazy.”

  He leads Butcher Boy to his cage and locks him up again. Virgil glances down at the goat. Its head is almost separated from its body, and there’s blood everywhere. Virgil flashes back on Eton and the whole scene at the house and gets a weird taste in his mouth, something sour. How fucking unfair can you get? The poor thing didn’t have a chance.

  All of a sudden Taggert is standing right beside him, too close, crowding him. “We need to talk,” he says. His voice is little more than a whisper now that the dogs have quieted down.

  Every muscle in Virgil’s body draws taut, and he has to stop himself from running away. “Yeah?” he says.

  “That fucker who drew down on T.K. and Spiller and got shot to pieces, was he a friend of yours? Ethan?”

  “Eton,” Virgil says.

  “Eton. Right. Eton Dogfood.” Taggert smirks and spits on the floor. Virgil can smell the beer on his breath. “So he was your buddy?”

  “I actually barely knew him,” Virgil says. “Olivia set it up, me staying at his house.”

  “Still, it must have been pretty fucked up seeing him get killed like that, right in front of you.”

  Virgil shrugs, trying not to give anything away.

  “Yes? No? You ever see anybody shot before?” Taggert asks.

  Virgil feels a sob building in his chest. He fights to keep it down, shakes his head.

  “Answer me out loud,” Taggert snaps.

  “No, sir.”

  “Call me Bill.”

  “Okay.”

  Taggert reaches up and massages his forehead with the fingertips of his right hand. He licks his lips and says, “I’ll tell you this one time that I’m real sorry about what happened, but you’re a man, and you’ll get over it. If that kind of stuff bothers you, you should pick nicer playmates and take a job at Walmart, right?”

  “Right,” Virgil says.

  “In fact, it’s not you I’m worried about; it’s your sister,” Taggert continues. “I know Olivia was tight with Eton, and it would tear her up if she found out what happened to him. I don’t want her to go through that; know what I mean?”

  Taggert is still all up in Virgil’s personal space. Virgil tries to put some distance between them, a few inches even, while looking around for something to swing in case it goes like that.

  “I ain’t gonna say nothing,” he mumbles.

  “Nothing, right?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Good,” Taggert says. “And what about when she asks how you ended up out here? What are you going to say then?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  Taggert places his hand on Virgil’s shoulder and squeezes once, hard. “Tell her that my guys showed up to make a delivery, and you all got to talking,” he says. “Eton mentioned that Spiller and T.K. worked for Olivia’s boyfriend, and you decided that you wanted to visit her and asked if they could give you a ride. They called me, I said sure, and here you are.”

  “Okay.”

  “You got that?”

  “I got it.”

  Virgil remembers what T.K. said about Taggert’s eyes — look in them, and you’ll see the end of everything. He forces himself to raise his gaze to meet Taggert’s, but all he sees in the scary bottomless blackness is his own reflection.

  Taggert moves away then, going to the wall to take down a saw hanging there. He holds the handle in one hand, the end of the blade in the other, and shakes it so that it makes a sound, a metallic wobble.

  “I used to know a man who could play a saw like a fiddle,” he says. “You ever heard that? It’s a real sad sound.”

  Virgil wishes he wasn’t sweating so much, wishes he’d been born with better luck, wishes lots of things. “No,” he says.

  Taggert puts the saw back on its nail and says, “That idiot’ll charcoalize those steaks if we don’t stop him.”

  Virgil lags behind on the walk to the house, his legs a little unsteady. He blames it on hunger, but it’s something more. He feels ashamed, like he’s backed down from a fight. He knows what Taggert was doing with the goat and everything: he was trying to put the fear of God in him.

  Someone else is sitting under the awning now, on the car seat next to the Mexican. Olivia. She’s wearing a hippie skirt, a black bikini top, and a trucker cap that says CSI on it. Her hair is blond this time, short and shaggy.

  Taggert leans down and kisses her on the cheek; says, “Mornin’, sunshine.”

  She looks past him at Virgil and frowns. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she asks.

  Virgil raise
s his hand in a weak wave and says, “Surprise, Olly.”

  9

  NOTHING SPECIAL FOR MR. KING TONIGHT, THE USUAL martini on the dry side, one olive. Boone pours him Sapphire, instead of the well rotgut, a little treat. And why not? Delia, the other bartender, actually showed up for her shift, and it’s been nice and slow for a Saturday.

  Besides Mr. King and Gina, the only other customers left on his end of the stick are four Germans — big, blond, sunburned beer-drinkers who’ve been tipping a lousy buck a round. He’s not about to let that dampen his mood though. He turns it into a private joke, ignoring them until they’re practically banging their glasses on the bar to get his attention.

  Mr. King looks like he started early tonight. His tie is crooked, his hair mussed. He attended the funeral of an old friend earlier in the day, and it’s made him nostalgic.

  “To Ben Crosson,” he says, raising his glass.

  Boone raises his too, the martini Mr. King bought him. Might as well let the man get it out of his system.

  “Ben and I met on a Western in forty-five, right after the war,” Mr. King continues. “We were production assistants, so low on the totem pole we had to provide our own meals. He was missing the little finger on one hand. A Jap — Japanese — sniper shot it off on Guadalcanal. Someone’d be half in the bag, and Ben would hold his hands up in front of the guy’s face and ask, ‘How many fingers do you see?’ Guy’d always say ‘Ten.’ Funny, you know. Ben was funny.”

  Mr. King removes his glasses and swipes at his bloodshot eyes with the napkin from under his drink. Gina pats his arm and says, “Talk about something else, Papa. No be sad.”

  They’re singing “Happy Birthday” at a table in the restaurant, the waitresses joining in. Boone sips his drink and glances at the Germans. This might be a good time to check on them, let the old man pull himself together.

  “I’m not sad,” Mr. King says. “I’m telling stories that need to be told. Every day a little more of my past disappears, and, by God, I’m going to do something about it. Jimmy, my boy” — he reaches across the bar and grabs Boone’s forearm — “I want you to remember what I’m saying tonight. Remember it for me and for Ben.”

  “You got it,” Boone replies.

  “He used to do this other trick too,” Mr. King says. “You’d leave the room to answer the phone or step out of the editing bay for a cigarette, and when you came back, he’d be sitting right where you left him, doing exactly what he was doing before, only buck naked, starkers, not a stitch on him. I’d laugh till I thought I was going to pass out.”

  “A real wild man, huh?” Boone says.

  “Oh, he was, he was,” Mr. King says. “He was wild. Best editor I ever worked with. We wouldn’t see each other for years at a stretch, but I’d think of him now and then, and all of a sudden I’d be happy just knowing he was somewhere out there in the world.”

  He finishes his drink in a gulp, then slides off his stool and steadies himself against the bar. “Is the music always so god-damn loud in here?” he asks before heading off to the men’s room.

  Delia announces last call, and the Germans order a round. One of them asks Boone where he and his buddies can meet women. Boone suggests they talk to Robo out front but doubts their stonewashed denim shorts and “Venice Beach Lifeguard” muscle shirts will pass muster at any of the clubs in Hollywood.

  He’s helping Gonzalo unclog the ice machine when his phone rings.

  “Jimmy Boone?”

  “This is he.”

  “My name is Loretta Marshall. I do pit bull rescues.”

  Boone had called the number the vet gave him and left a message before coming to work.

  “Sorry to get back to you so late, but I couldn’t sleep thinking about that dog you found,” Loretta continues. “I want to start trying to find it a permanent home as soon as possible.”

  Boone glances at his watch. Almost midnight. So she’s a little kooky. Lots of that going around.

  “When can I come over and see — what’s the dog’s name?” Loretta asks. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  “Male,” Boone says. “The people I got him from called him Joto.”

  “Joto. That’s kinda sweet.”

  “It’s Spanish for fag.”

  “Oh,” she says. There’s a long pause. “Well, when can I come see him?”

  Simon crosses from the restaurant to the bar and frowns when he notices Boone on the phone, motions for him to hang up. Boone raises a finger. One second.

  “How about tomorrow afternoon, around noon?” he says to Loretta.

  “Lovely. I can meet you and the dog and fill you in on what I do.”

  Boone gives Loretta his address and hustles the good-byes. Simon is leaning on the stick, waiting for him to finish. “You know the rules,” he says, holding out his hand, palm up. If he catches an employee making a personal call while on the clock, that employee has to pay him a five-dollar fine.

  Boone reaches into his pocket, throws a crumpled bill onto the bar.

  “Don’t be mad at me,” Simon says as he picks up the money. “It’s your own fault.”

  Yes, it is. This and every goddamn thing that’s brought him to this point. No arguing with that. Simon stands there grinning his mean little grin, and before he puts his fist in the middle of it, Boone calls to Delia, “I missed my last break, so I’m taking it now.”

  He ducks under the bar and walks out the front door.

  Robo is standing on the sidewalk, talking to the valets. He’s wearing a suit tonight, per Simon’s order. It’s black, looks almost like wool, and fits pretty well, considering the acreage it has to cover. He’s also got on a white shirt, which has come untucked, and a red tie.

  “Check you out,” Boone says.

  Robo opens the jacket and slides his thumbs under the suspenders that hold his pants up. “El rey de los reyes,” he says.

  “Where’d you score it?”

  “Over in Santee Alley. Homeboy’s friends with my dad and hooked me up on short notice. Now fucking Simon can kiss my big brown ass.”

  Hollywood Boulevard is bumper to bumper with kids in from the Valley, East L.A., the Westside, all looking to get crazy on Saturday night, get wasted, get laid. Music thumps out of open windows, and neon reflections whirl over hoods and windshields like out-of-control carnival rides. Boone watches the traffic stream past and wonders what Amy’s up to, if she’s having fun.

  “How’s that dog?” Robo asks.

  “Had to take him to the vet this morning,” Boone replies. “Cost me two hundred dollars to find out he had a stomachache.”

  “If you need extra cash, come with me tomorrow. I’m gonna repo a forty-two-inch plasma from some pendejo who quit making payments to the dude who sold it to him. I’ll toss thirty bucks your way.”

  “I don’t think so, bro,” Boone says. “No more rough stuff for me.”

  Robo makes a pair of pistols with his fingers and points them at Boone. “Come on,” he says. “We’re a good team. Fatman and Robin.”

  A stretch Hummer rolls past with bellowing frat boys hanging out of every window. They disappear like frightened chipmunks into their holes when an LAPD cruiser chirps its siren and a cop using the car’s loudspeaker orders the driver to pull over. One of the valets says something in Spanish that Boone doesn’t catch. Robo clucks his tongue and shakes his head.

  “Did you talk to Rosales, tell him what you found out about Oscar from Maribel and the roommates?” Boone asks Robo.

  “All that nothin’?” Robo says. “Yeah, I told him. I also refunded him sixty bucks, meaning I made shit on that job.”

  “Well, check this out,” Boone says. “The vet I took the dog to said he was used for fighting and that he has a tattoo in his ear that identifies his breeder. I was thinking if you found this breeder, he might know something about what happened to the kid.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “So, maybe you can get more money out of the old man to look into it.”


  Robo waves his hand dismissively. “Shit, ese, that borracho don’t have no more money, and I sure as hell ain’t working for free.”

  Boone pushes a bottle cap into the gutter with the toe of his shoe. “It’s your thing,” he says. “Just letting you know.” He’s disappointed. He’s been thinking about Oscar all day and had hoped to ease his mind by getting Robo to follow up on the lead.

  “You want to do something for me,” Robo says, “find me some jobs that pay.”

  Mr. King and Gina walk out of the Tick Tock, Mr. King leaning heavily on Gina. He looks old and frail, almost trips over a buckle in the sidewalk.

  Robo turns to the couple and spreads his arms wide. “Hey, hey, hey, the beautiful people,” he says with a big smile. “Where you off to now? One of them Beverly Hills parties? Some dancing maybe?”

  Mr. King hands the valet his ticket. “Straight to bed, Robert,” he says. “The sooner this one ends, the better.”

  “It do go like that sometimes, don’t it?”

  Boone heads into the restaurant. “Ben Crosson,” Mr. King calls after him. “Remember, Jimmy.”

  “I will,” Boone says.

  The Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” is playing on the sound system when he gets back inside, a song he’s always liked. One of the waitresses is into oldies, she told him earlier, and this is her CD. So the Smashing Pumpkins are oldies now. What a kick in the ass.

  BOONE IS WIRED after closing, so he walks down Hollywood to Skooby’s for a chili dog, stepping on the sidewalk stars of all kinds of people he’s never heard of, probably more of Mr. King’s friends. A flock of homeless punks are hanging out at the stand, along with a couple of girls dressed for the clubs in short skirts and high heels. The girls pick at their fries with long, painted fingernails and crane their necks awkwardly as they bite into their dogs to avoid dripping mustard on their outfits.

  Boone eats at the outdoor counter, spinning around on his stool to watch the late show on the boulevard. Two bums come to blows over a Starbucks cup filled with vodka, and a skeev dressed like Superman limps past, yelling into a phone.