Blood of the Dogs_Book I_Annihilation

by Richard Cosme

  The moment was upon us. I unbuttoned my jacket.

  “How do you plan to cook the dog?” I asked, looking him straight in the eyes. “He’s very muscular and sure to be very tough. Over a spit? Stir fry? Maybe a nice casserole with wild rice. Are your women good cooks? I’ll bet they are. I’ve heard ugly women make good cooks. Hey, I know what… you can pan fry him. You can use the grease in your hair to keep the meat from sticking to the pans.”

  The Cobras froze. Their semicircle a statuary. The Edge’s face reddened and began to tremble, as if all the tics decided to jump in unison. A little line of spittle snaked across his herpes sore and ran down his chin. I dropped my hands and Duke focused on my left one.

  The time was very close.

  I took a step backwards, hoping the group would bring themselves closer to us. They obliged by tightening the semi-circle by two steps. One back for me; two forward for them. They were a meter closer now. Felipe looked to the man on his left and, trying to control his rage, managed a guttural croak: “Shoot the fucking dog, Sean.”

  Duke was trained by both voice and hand signals. When given the sign to attack, he always went for the kill. Only at the “Duke, Stop” command from someone in our family would he break off the attack.

  We had several hand signals. Three fingers down indicated he should kill the last person who spoke. Four fingers meant go for the first person who moved.

  I signed three fingers and Duke flashed across the distance between him and The Edge in a single leap and found the soldier’s throat, shaking his head as his teeth sunk into the leader’s neck. Bright arterial blood arced from the Cobra leader’s throat, splattering the men on each flank as Duke jerked his head from side to side, snarling deep in his throat, the classic predator kill.

  Before Duke had reached The Edge, I took a step toward Sean, who was struggling to pull a pistol from his waist band. My second step was a kick to his nuts. As Sean doubled over, I pivoted to his right side, the Glock already in my right hand. I continued the spin until I was directly behind him, grabbed his collar with my left hand and wrapped my gun hand around his neck and sat down, pulling him on top of me. I rolled to my left putting two shots into his side. His body jumped with their impact, then went still. Then I rolled back and sat up, using his body as a shield.

  Of the remaining eight Cobras, three were running, two were standing completely still, their mouths agape, and the remaining were in various states of weapon readiness. Shots were fired and I felt the thuds as they smacked into Sean’s inert body. Errant shots kicked up slivers of concrete on either side of me.

  I had fifteen rounds left and quickly used three of them on the Cobras with smoking pistols in their hands. I had to fire without a good set and from an awkward position, so they weren’t all kill shots. I put two more into each of the shooters. The six bullets that remained were used on the two unfortunates who were never able to get in gear. They died looking dumb. They should have run.

  My ears rang from the exposure to multiple close range gun shots. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. I felt like I could have jumped over a building.

  I looked over at Duke. He was finished with Felipe and stood next to me, muzzle dripping blood, as if to say, who’s next? Seven were down, scattered around us, unmoving. Behind me the remaining three ran toward the faded yellow double arches of a hamburger restaurant, their bodies becoming smaller as they increased the distance between us. I dismissed the notion of sending Duke to bring them down. They were still armed.

  I pushed Sean’s lifeless body away and reloaded before I stood up, looking for signs of life among the seven Cobras whose blood stained Roosevelt Road. I quickly popped the clips from their weapons and searched their pockets for more ammo, finding several spare clips. The leader’s pockets and several of his men’s yielded bags of grey powder, which I also kept. The drugs could be useful in barter. I then smashed all of their weapons on the concrete.

  There was no more work to do. We needed to get the hell out of there. We had just killed seven soldiers of one of the most powerful clans in the entire city area. Not a good start to the day.

  I said to myself, next time I’ll take North Avenue. Next time I won’t daydream.

  It wasn’t until I saw Weasel several hours later that I realized that the Roger Miller song had finally been exorcised. That very thought was the catalyst for its return.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Let me get this straight,” Weasel said.

  We were all in the kitchen. The homecoming had gone fine until I told them about the Cobras on Roosevelt Road.

  “You and Duke just killed seven members in good standing of the Insane Cobra Nation and let three survivors get away.”

  “Right,” I said. “And we are unscathed. Thanks so much for asking.”

  “That would be the same Insane Cobra Nation that’s so mean even Satan’s Messengers won’t mess with them?”

  “Correct.”

  He ripped open his shirt, popping buttons all over the table, and tossed me a butter knife.

  “Right here,” he said, pulling his shirt aside with two hands to expose his bony chest. “Go ahead. Plunge it in.”

  I smiled at him. “Next time Duke and I go straight to Sarah. She knows how to welcome weary men home.”

  She was on her hands and knees, cleaning off Duke’s muzzle, which was still stained red. She was scooping water out of a bowl with her hands and rubbing it all over his jaws.

  Looking up at me, she said, “Don’t mind Weasel, hon. He’s a heathen. He’s just as happy to see you two as Stevie and I are. He has a slight problem expressing. It must have been horrible, what you went through.”

  “Tell you the truth, Sarah,” I replied, “once it became clear that they were going to kill us, I went into an automatic mode. Used what all of us know about survival plus a few of Weasel’s lessons and just reacted. It couldn’t have lasted more than twenty seconds.”

  “Lasted any longer than that,” Weasel said, “and you might not be here to tell us about it. You did what they didn’t expect. Good job, Mac.”

  Praise from the master. A few years ago, before Weasel had joined us, I wouldn’t have been able to come home, back to Sarah, to tell the story. They would have taken us both down.

  “Thanks,” I told him. “Not for the words. But for the years of teaching. It helped.”

  “Don’t give me too much credit, Mac,” he said. “It was you and Duke out there. Not me.”

  “This presents a new problem for us,” I said.

  “No shit, Einstein,” Weasel responded.

  I continued, ignoring his sarcasm. For a couple of months, things had been quiet. If it hadn’t been for our sources telling us the Messengers were looking for me and Duke, it might have seemed that both clans had forgotten about us. “We haven’t heard a peep out of the Cobras. It’s almost like Roberto hasn’t even given us any thought. I’m afraid I just woke him up.”

  “Down in southern Illinois, when I was a kid, we lived in the woods. Place is damn near all woods, come to think of it. Spring and summer we had thunderstorms and tornadoes the likes of which you never see up here.”

  I could feel a Weasel life lesson coming on. They usually started with a little story.

  “I remember sittin’ on the edge of a huge meadow, me and my brother and sister, about twenty or thirty woodchucks out in the middle, munchin’ away on the grass. Some of ‘em standing up and craning their heads to keep a look out for predators. Like little furry people with their hands at their sides and noses in the air. Across the meadow, several miles southwest, the sky turned black. We had beautiful afternoon sun in the meadow, but I could see the storm coming our way.

  “All of a sudden, all those woodchucks bolted, scattered to all points of the compass. In five seconds they had all disappeared. All of ‘em down their holes.”

  Stevie and I sat quietly at the table, listening attentively, waiting for the punch. While she groomed Duke, Sarah listened attentivel
y.

  “Me and the kids stayed and watched the storm come in. Took about half an hour for it to reach us. Damndest storm I ever saw, short of a tornado. Got so bad we had to find a fallen tree to hide under, keep us safe from the wind and hail. Day turned to night and then we got blasted with lightning bolts that almost broke our eardrums.” He laughed as the recollection triggered fond memories. “Soaked to the bone, wind howling like a thousand cougars in our ears, lightning so close you couldn’t even call its sound thunder. It was like huge explosions all around us. Two of them squeezed up to me so tight I had little finger marks in my skin hours later. Never cried once, just held on tight. Must have thought I could protect ‘em. Guess maybe I did that time.”

  He got up from the table and began gathering up the equipment he always took with him on excursions. No lessons. No moral. No punchline.

  “Let’s go, boy,” he said to Stevie. “Daylight’s burning. Sun’s not gonna wait for us.”

  Stevie jumped up, collecting guns and ammo, hiking shoes, body armor, his backpack.

  “Where we going, Weasel?” he asked.

  Not why or how long will we be gone or what’s our purpose. Just where. The kid had faith. We all did.

  “Storm’s a coming, son,” Weasel said, shouldering his HK 81. “We gotta find ourselves another hole.”

  “Why?” Stevie asked. “We been working our asses off on this place. We’re not going to leave it, are we?”

  “Hell no,” he said. “And we’ll keep working on it, too. But we need to give those Cobras some respect. They didn’t get to be number one by being nice guys. And they’re all gonna be after Mac now that he’s gone and iced seven of their men. We’re just looking for a place to weather the storm if it gets too strong.”

  “What about Satan’s Messengers?” Stevie asked. “I thought they were number one.”

  “In terms of nastiness,” Weasel said, “yes. But in terms of effectiveness and organization, gotta go with Insane Cobra Nation. Roberto’s got leadership chops.”

  “Maybe we need a plan,” I suggested.

  “Got somethin’ in mind,” Weasel said. “Me and Stevie got a project.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  MAY 2056

  CHICAGO LOOP

  I had been summoned. It meant we would get some data, hard, reliable info. I doubted it would be good news. Best source we had was Merlin—so named because he looks like a young version of King Arthur’s advisor and acts weird enough to be a wizard. Duke and I made a night trip to the city to find him.

  Merlin is rumor central of our world. He knows everything that’s going on and is happy to share—for a price. A snitch, yes, but to us more than that. I’m not sure how much they paid informants in the in the vids, but whatever it was, Merlin is much more expensive. But he’s worth it, even though his news is frequently as bad as his looks. Pale, gone to seed, emaciated, and hygienically challenged. But his eyes match. They shine with intelligence. He is always smiling, and I don’t hold it against him that his smile is chemically enhanced. He is our biggest marijuana customer. And he pays his monthly bill with information.

  I have never seen Merlin straight. I once suggested to him that going weedless occasionally might be a wondrous adventure. He said he tried it for ten years and it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. One of us, either Weasel, Sarah or me, delivers a half pound to him every month. He uses half for trade, protection, and tolls and smokes the rest.

  Sarah calculated that to smoke a quarter pound a month, Merlin would have to put away at least five joints a day, probably more. That seems about right to me from what I have observed when I was in his presence. The pot makes Merlin’s world more tolerable. Since he can’t change the ugliness of our society, he’ll change the way it comes into his brain.

  • • • •

  First time I met Merlin was in the city, summer of ’54. There are two incredible life size statues of horse-mounted Native Americans that stand sentinel over a highway about a half mile from Lake Michigan, where the business section of the city begins. There were some apartments in early 21st, some condos, but mostly stores, the still magnificent Hilton Towers, and office buildings marching north on a street called Michigan Avenue.

  The statues are iconic pieces of art. They stand just a few blocks south of the Art Institute. They face each other across six lanes of road, each warrior on a horse, each man preparing to launch his weapon. Time and weather have done little to dilute the impact of what seems the warriors’ last stand. Although they are facing each other, I feel they are allies.

  East of the statues is Buckingham fountain, a once magnificent centerpiece to the Chicago’s lakefront. The fountain is now a mossy, algae filled duck pond.

  First time I met Merlin, back in ’54, I was about thirty miles from home. The 18-speed touring bike was my transport and I was coming into the area called “The Loop,” riding straight East down a highway named after a 50’s President called Eisenhower. Duke loped effortlessly by the front wheel as we passed under a huge structural steel frame that held trains above the road, heading toward Michigan Avenue, where I hoped to scrounge computer printer cartridges and parts from the huge office buildings.

  A block ahead of us, in the middle of the road directly between the statues of the horse riding warriors, were four men, three clan members and a skinny little guy standing beside a 27-speed racing bike. I recognized one of the four, James, a steely-eyed black kid who was a lieutenant with The Black Gangster Disciples.

  Right side jewelry and bicep and forearm tattoos of blood red hearts with wings on the sides and six-pointed stars and crowns identified them as a Folks affiliated clan. The Black Gangster Disciples were a hard working clan, men and women who harvested the lake, farmed Grant Park, and controlled part of the area I wanted to explore.

  I never searched for local clan leaders to pay a toll. They generally found me. When I came across them I always began the necessary business transaction, namely identifying myself and paying the toll and agreeing to share information and salvage if they wanted part of anything I had located. Most of the clans were comfortable with this business arrangement. When we ran across a clan that wouldn’t cooperate, Weasel or I made a night mission and took what we needed.

  As Duke and I approached the foursome, I could see in their body positioning and gestures that the discussion was not friendly. The situation did not look dangerous yet, but certainly unpleasant for the skinny guy with the bike. Weapons shouldered and holstered, I nodded a greeting to James as I dismounted the bike and scrutinized his two friends, who were more alarmed by Duke’s presence than mine. I smiled and told them the dog was OK, then put Duke on parade rest.

  “Don’t be believin’ none of that shit, boys,” James said to his friends. “I seen that dog take a Double Deuce’s arm half off last year. Just don’t be makin’ no sudden moves at my man, McCall, here, or else that dog be on your ass quicker than a fat boy on grits.”

  James turned to me. “How you doin’, Mac? Comin’ down to the city to pick up some more useless shit, man?”

  Paper and computer parts were not valuable commodities in clan circles, and James was always glad to see me so he could get his toll and let me take from his turf what he considered to be garbage. The Black Gangster Disciples usually went for ammunition or herb for their tolls and I was carrying enough of each to pay my way.

  “What’s up, James?” I nodded to his soldiers. “New recruits?”

  “Angel, Wind Chill,” he said to his buddies, “this white bread here is McCall. If he pays, let him play. The man never gave me any shit. And he always pays with high grade stuff.”

  Angel was short, dark haired. Intelligent eyes looked me over from a round Hispanic face. You don’t have to be black to be a Black G. D. His brown eyes shifted to Duke. “What about the dog, man? I don’t like dogs.”

  I gave Duke the command to lie down. “He won’t hurt you, Angel,” I said, “unless you go after me or I give him the attack command.�
��

  “How you do that? Whadda you say to him?” Wind Chill spoke now. The deep baritone voice emanated from a tall muscular young black man I judged to be sixteen or seventeen.

  “Can’t tell you,” I said. “If I say the word, He will take one of you down, and he knows only one way—balls out. He’ll rip you up.”

  “What if someone else says the word?” asked Wind Chill. “Will the dog still attack?” He laughed, a deep bass chuckle. “Could I get him to take Angel’s arm off?”

  “Hey, man,” said Angel. “Maybe I learn the word and get that mutt to chew your unit off. Whachew think of that, man?” They were both smiling.

  “Wouldn’t work.” I said. “Duke only responds to me and and his pack members. You could say the word all day long and he’d just sit and look at you.”

  “How many pack members you got?” asked Wind Chill.

  “Not so many that the dog gets confused. Good friends are hard to come by.”

  “I hear that,” said James. “And it ain’t gettin’ any easier. But listen McCall, we got business here with this skinny little dude who’s givin’ me shit about payin’ his toll. He’s one of your people. Maybe you can talk some sense to him.”

  I wasn’t sure if James was referring to the fact that both Merlin and I were white…or indies. Whichever the case, the Disciple leader figured I could talk sense to the skinny guy who wouldn’t pay. I wasn’t so sure, but I was willing to try.

  The four of us shifted our attention to the little man with the bike. He shuffled his feet nervously under our scrutiny. A head band cut from a flannel shirt held long blonde hair off of his face, which was decorated with sparse goatee and mustache, both in need of growth hormone. His eyes were hidden behind granny sunglasses. A dago tee covered his scrawny frame and was tucked into a pair of jeans covered with patches of various fading shades of denim, many of them displaying slogans or symbols. Peace symbols and marijuana leaves predominated, and Iggy Pop, Sex Pistols and CSNY were represented on the front legs along with ‘Clean Gene’ and ‘Timothy Leary’ and ‘Remember The Chicago 7’ and ‘Dump Trump’ patches. Around his neck were lightweight headphones with a cord dangling to the i-pod on his belt.