The Dark Country

by Dennis Etchison

  He set the pouches out neatly and then, by reflex acquired through years of practice, slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and withdrew a folded square of white paper. With one hand he opened it and read the name and address printed there with a grease pencil in straight block letters. The name and address.

  He refolded it and slid it back into his pocket under the apron. Another job.

  Then, positioning in an easy, familiar stance, he reached for the wire brush and steel scraper and box of salt and began cleaning his cutting block, employing short, sure motions with his strong arms and shoulders, conserving his energy for the job to come. And as he worked on into the night, his tanned face and immaculately styled hair set off tastefully above the high, fashionable collar and wide hand-sewn tie that lay smoothly against his tailored shirt of imported silk, the whole effect suggesting a means far beyond his butcher's salary, was that perhaps the beginning of a narrow, bloodless smile that pinched the corners of his thin, efficient, professional lips?

  For five nights Avratin hammered his pillow and spent more time than he should have in the cramped bathroom. Then the good news arrived.

  Up went the noisy butcher paper painted with the proclamation he had kept rolled and hidden for three days now. He was nervous with anticipation as he tore off strips of masking tape and slapped it up across the plate glass windows. It covered the whole front of the store, right over the futile daily specials from the week past, as well it should have.

  The first customers of the day were already waiting at the door when Avratin's wife finished dressing and joined her husband.

  She stopped in the middle of the fresh sawdust floor, looking about as if by some transmogrification of sleep she had just walked into a strange, new life, or at least someone else's store. She smoothed her hair and gaped, turning around and around.

  "This is a holiday? Or I'm sleeping still. Pinch me, Lou."

  Avratin had pulled out all the trays in the meat case and was busy arranging his new, large display.

  "Take it easy, take it easy, Rachel. You got your wish."

  The last parking space in front filled up, and at last Avratin stood and leaned back and watched the women milling around on the sidewalk, pointing excitedly to the sign. He smiled a special smile .that he had not used in years.

  "Lou! Lou! Lou! You didn't do nothing too drastic, did you?" Then what he had said seemed to hit her.

  She clipped to the door, shook the knob, apologized to the woman with the gray bun who was first in line, hurried back to get the keys, almost ran to the door and opened it.

  Avratin watched her outside, shading her eyes, holding off their questions until she could get a good look at it herself.

  She stood with one hand on her hip, one hand above her eyes, reading and rereading the banner with disbelief.

  The women scrambled inside, heading for the meat case. He leaned back on his hands, watching them over the scales, a bright morning chill of anticipation tingling in his blood.

  They stopped in front of the case, staring for long seconds.

  Avratin wanted to speak to them, but held himself in check a moment longer.

  His wife was the last to enter the store. She pushed her way through the inert bodies, ignoring the still, dulled faces on a few of which was beginning to dawn the first dim, uncomprehending light of recognition.

  "Lou, I saw the sign," she beamed. "Is it true? Is it? Where is he?"

  Avratin leaned forward. He spread his arms behind the transparent case in a gesture of supplication, palms out. His eyes rolled up to the creaking, slowly revolving fan and then returned to the display, newly arrived from the man in the high white collar, which he had just now finished arranging so carefully under the glass, the whole length of the counter, to the new cuts, strange cuts, so invitingly laid out, preserved by the cold, here something red, there something brown and almost recognizable, there a fine shank, there an opened ribcage, there a portion of a face you knew so well you almost expected it to greet you.

  "Here," Avratin answered, in a voice he had not used in years. "Here! Can't you read the sign?

  "LUTTFISK IS BACK!"

  Very shortly thereafter the short, muffled cries began.

  THE MACHINE DEMANDS A SACRIFICE

  Soot fell in a continuous haze that obliterated the sun over the freeway, leaving a gritty texture on the once-bright finishes of the variegated cars and trucks. For miles ahead they extended bumper to bumper in a snaking line, stretching on through infinite gradations of opaque smog, and if you let your arm hang down from the window and brushed the door with your fingertips, they would come away grainy and black-edged and imprinted with hundreds of microscopic lacerations.

  It was five o'clock in Los Angeles on a July afternoon.

  A short black van with the words E'MER-GEN-Z-INC stenciled on the sides was stalled in the far right lane.

  "Jeezus," said the driver, wiping the sweat out of his eyes with a dirty sleeve. His face was bloated like a brown paper bag full of potatoes, his black eyes peering out through two torn, badly placed holes. "It's that fuel pump again—you know that, don't you?" He shook his head and glared outside lor confirmation.

  "I thought the Company was supposed to put in a rebuilt one, after last time," said the other, a slight young man named Jaime who was new on the job, with exaggerated disgust. This was in fact only the end of his first work week, and he still looked to the fat man for direction, trying to limit his end of the conversation to a general swearing, bitching echo.

  "Jeezus H. Christ," said the fat man, hunching over the wheel and shifting his huge buttocks. A horn started up behind them.

  The fat man shook his head at the floorboard. "I am the Company, me and Raoul. Told that son of a bitch—but no, he's worried we'll miss some nice, juicy accident if I put 'er in the shop till noon. Man, I tell you ..."

  "Yeah," said Jaime. "Well, hell, I'll get out and push the son of a bitch. There's a crashpad right up ahead. Thank God at least for that.''

  He climbed down from his side and went around to the back. The driver got out and pushed at the door, straining to reach the wheel inside. There was a wide shoulder by the side of the freeway, only yards ahead. After a few nauseous grunts through carbon monoxide and bleating horns, the driver hoisted himself in and braked as the van rolled to a stop in front of the compactor.

  "Far enough," he gasped, stumbling out. "Don't want to junk this baby yet. God damn. Get too close and the junker takes over."

  Jaime stood around trying to look grim, kicking rocks off the blacktop.

  "Now we just got to wait for it to cool. How much credit we got on the card register, kid?"

  "Uh, the starting fund from this morning, plus that two-car we found. The digits we sold 'em. Not much."

  "Great. All we need's a COPter to spot us right now." The fat man leaned on the magnetic grapple of the compactor and let a sigh whistle out through his small mouth. "The junk fee on the van would just about pay the breakdown fine," he laughed bitterly. "They got it figured so it comes out exactly even, that's what I think."

  "Yeah. Except for the vacutract unit," said Jaime. "Right, Jesse?''

  But the fat man was looking back over his shoulder, past the massive compactor.

  He stuck a thick finger to his lips. He motioned to the kid, a rat-shrewd light coming into his eyes.

  Jaime walked over, keeping behind the line of the automatic junking machine. He bobbed his head around the crane where Jesse indicated and saw it.

  An '89 sedan with a selenium top was racked up at close to a 45 degree angle, the right side crumpled against the pavement from hood to tail. A man in a business suit with spider webs of blood spun from his ear and forehead was laid out on the front seat. A thin man with glasses was reaching up and in the opened driver's door, tending the wounds.

  "Watch this," mouthed Jesse, trying to force his shirttails back into his belt under the light smock.

  He stepped boldly around the compactor. "What h
appened here? He hit the rail?"

  The man with glasses half-turned, startled. He quickly sized up Jesse and his partner—too quickly, thought Jaime, his heart dropping.

  "I'm a doctor," announced the man. He started toward his own car, parked at the end of the pad. Just then the bottleneck ahead on the freeway unclogged momentarily, for the river of stagnating cars revved up and surged forward a few choppy feet. "Just—let this be," sighed the doctor arbitrarily, flattening his hands in the haze. "I've got him sedated right now."

  Jesse ambled forward. "Looks like you're pretty near to having a dead man on your hands, doc," he said.

  "Who are you people?" snapped the doctor.

  "We were just passing by. Our unit's back there. Thought we might be of some—"

  The doctor's cool gray eyes flicked between the two men. "You thought you might make a bootleg sale or two, eh? Well, you can just go on. Go on, now."

  "We're in business to help people, same as you, sir. Now if this is an emergency, why, you know, we might be in a position to help you save this poor guy's life." Jesse stepped closer. "Any internal injuries?"

  "Listen, you. I'm the doctor. I pulled off to assist, and I can only hope to God I'm not too late. I've already called for an ambulance. This man is going to Central Receiving. Go on now, get going, before I call for a COPter."

  "Uh, your ambulance is close by, is it?"

  The doctor fumbled with his stethoscope and shook it at Jesse. It flopped like a serpent. Impatient and indignant, he strode up to Jesse and almost struck him across the face with it.

  Jaime looked down at his fingernails.

  "Under the laws of the State of California I can have you arrested," threatened the doctor. "You realize that?"

  "Don't know what you're getting at," said Jesse cordially. "Mr. Sandoval here and I were just returning from a two-car call on the Ventura Freeway and—"

  "Not only your license to buy and sell," continued the doctor, "but my own license to practice. Oh, I know your game, all right. I know how you independents operate. I wasn't born yesterday. Moving in like vultures when you spot a quick touch, taking what you want with or without authorization, selling your wares to anyone fool or desperate enough not to ask questions! I'm going to call in a complaint right now." He turned and headed for the red phone box on the rail. "What's the number on your van?"

  Jaime, facing backwards, touched his partner's arm. "Hey, Jesse, maybe we better ..."

  Just then an undulating wail, unnoticed till now, increased to an ear-splitting level and an ambulance, long and shiny with Day-Glow lights flashing, screeched up the connecting ramp. Its doors and tailgate flung open and a stretcher touched down before it had stopped. Two antiseptic attendants sprang down and snapped back a side panel. A new portable vacutrans unit gleamed at the ready. They lugged it out and headed for the wreck.

  Jaime looked at Jesse.

  "Jeezus H. Christ," said Jesse. "Looks like the sons of bitches beat us out again." He ran his stubby fingers through his short, oily black hair. "Come on, kid," he muttered. "Let's get out of here. We're wasting time."

  "Do you think the van'U start now?"

  Jesse whistled two descending notes. "Get in," he said.

  Jaime got in. He ground the starter again and again.

  "Come on, come on," growled Jesse. He climbed in and struggled with the engine cover between the seats. "I think I hear something. Let's go. Piss on it. God damn, I'll get it going."

  He yanked his smock up under his arms. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway already. Jaime saw the wide segmented plastic belt hanging over Jesse's belly and swallowed his surprise. He watched Jesse unhook the belt, position it above the overheated fuel pump and pull the stopper. Amber liquid

  poured down over the metal, steaming, until the reservoir was empty. Jaime stuck his head out the window and took a breath.

  A whirring sound began in his ear. He moved his hand to brush it away. Then he noticed the COPter dipping low. The policeman touched down on the other side of the compactor.

  "Hey," suggested Jaime.

  "Don't tell me."

  The policeman lowered his arm, stopped the whirling blades and folded them back into the nightstick. He went to the wrecked vehicle first.

  "That'll cool her down," grunted Jesse, fastening the empty belt and covering it again with his clothing.

  Jaime floored the accelerator and twisted the key. The engine turned over and caught.

  "Tromp on it," said Jesse.

  They cut away from the freeway, slipped back onto the Harbor at Eighth and connected with the Santa Monica. The traffic smoothed out a little. They passed an empty Chinese GT buckled against the Adams off, an overturned milk tanker covered with flies in the center lane at La Brea, an impossible-looking two-car head-on at the Robertson on-ramp, five or six stalled cars on or near the next few crashpads at quarter-mile intervals and a grotesque four-car pileup smeared across as many lanes just before Washington. Jaime slowed, but Jesse pointed at the two independent units already converging on the scene; it wasn't worth their time. Above it all, lacing the sky in a dense crosshatching, were the circling COPters, officers of the law hand-strapped to their spinning, humming nightsticks, about to drop in a black swarm.

  "I thought he was gonna stop us back there."

  "What? Aw, they know their job. They can't hassle a unit doing legal business at an accident."

  "Good thing we got started, anyway," said Jaime. "The fine for a breakdown on—"

  "The bastards."

  The van roared on.

  "I think it's about six, Jesse."

  "Don't rub it in. But we can't go back yet. I got a wife and kid to feed."

  "I guess I'm lucky," said Jaime.

  "My kid, she ain't got a tooth in her head. My wife made one big mistake, that's for sure."

  They passed the LAST SANTA MONICA EXIT sign.

  "She loses a tooth, my wife tells her to put it under her pillow for the fairy. Some fairy. I leave her a quarter. Next thing you know, she's pullin' out teeth to get more money. I can't afford to give her no allowance. She's a good kid, real smart, she understands—business is tough. But this fairy shit. I don't have the heart to tell her. So pretty soon she's got no more teeth. Whadaya think of that? Take this street here."

  They prowled the blocks off Lincoln, Jesse calling the turns, and found themselves eventually on Navy. Jesse dipped his head, scanning the small houses and narrow corners in the protracted twilight.

  "This is more like it," he said.

  They hung a left and steered on deeper into a disintegrating neighborhood. Jaime felt tense. Once they passed an automatic patrol; Jaime straightened his arm to wave, caught himself when he heard Jesse snicker, and pretended to adjust the side-view mirror instead. He had to remind himself that nothing more than a TV scanner swept the passing streets from behind the aluminized windows. Jaime felt a familiar fear throbbing low in his back.

  "Turn here," ordered Jesse. The tips of his fingers rubbed together.

  "Here?"

  "Yeah. I can feel it. Can't you?"

  Jaime started to shrug, stopped. "I'm ... not sure," he said.

  Halfway along the short block, parked at an odd angle, was an old sedan. Years of unrepaired dents trimmed the body, a few half-heartedly pounded out and coated with fading primer, the edges of the dents now rusted in permanently. A shadow moved to one side within the car and a dark shape shifted by the open passenger door.

  "Well, well," said Jesse, "let's see what we got here."

  The van cut its lights, passed slowly.

  "We got one," announced Jesse.

  They pulled up in front of the car.

  Jesse studied the rearview mirror. "All right, boy," he said. "Let me do the talking." He jerked open his door and lumbered to the curb.

  "Hello, good evening. Any trouble here?"

  A woman stood up uncertainly. Jaime saw her; something stirred in him. "Why, uh, ye-es," she said, eyeing them, their van. The
n, relieved into a decision: "Can you help me, please?"

  Jesse grew bolder. "Let's just see what the trouble is here." He spoke with authority. "Stand aside," he ordered.

  Jaime edged out and watched by the van. His senior partner certainly knew his job—there was no doubt about that now— and he tried to listen to catch a few pointers.

  ". . . Just went out of control," she was saying. It was hard to hear. Two little faces studied Jaime from the window. She went on explaining how her husband had lost control of the car. "Just keeled over" were the words she used over and over.

  "Get the litter," yelled Jesse.

  The young man swung open the back panel and brought the water litter, flipping on the heater in the handle. An overweight man in a metallic green suit was sprawled on the front seat. They turned his legs and Jesse cradled his head, not too carefully, thought Jaime, as they hauled him out. His hat with the fishing lure in the band fell into the gutter.

  "You going to be all right," the woman said over the man. "Oooh . . ."

  They wheeled the litter to the van. The water pad slogged and gurgled under the body. Jesse pulled a lever and the tailgate lifted them inside.

  Jesse strapped an electrode plate over the chest. He clicked on the diagnostic scanner and checked the dials hurriedly, preoccupied. The man groaned and the respiration dial wavered.

  "He all right? Isn't he?" the woman called in a high voice from outside.

  Jesse shot a look at the young man. It pressed him hard, relentlessly, and Jaime felt himself shrinking in his clothes.

  With a grunt Jesse stumbled out and walked ominously to the car. He clasped his hands at his back and lowered his head.

  Jaime heard him say, "Your husband—he is your husband, right?"

  "Yes sir, we just ..."

  "Well, your husband is dead. At the present time."

  She protested, then raged, then wailed, but Jesse talked her