Blood of the Dogs_Book I_Annihilation

by Richard Cosme

  “You know I’ve never lied to you,” I said. “We’ve always been completely straight with each other. And you know damn well it’s not in me to throw down on defenseless men. Nor is it the way of your soldiers to be so easily eliminated.”

  Roberto sat back in his chair, looking me straight in the eye, challenging me to back down, tacitly admit I was the liar he never imagined I could be. His life would be easier if it were true.

  I returned his gaze, held it until he suddenly leapt from his chair and slammed his massive fist to the mahogany desktop. Sounded like a leg of lamb hitting a tree. His face flushed in anger; his eyes flashed his rage. “You son of a bitch!” he screamed. I momentarily feared he was coming over the desk at me. “You know what the fuck this means if you’re telling me the truth?”

  I stayed quiet, willing him back to his chair before I responded. I had never seen him explode. Almost 300 pounds of muscle packed on to a 5’10” frame, Roberto was like tightly packed bags of sand with arms and legs—the whole thing poised to topple over on me.

  “It means you’re gonna look like an asshole,” I said, maintaining my position.

  “You’re fucking ace deuce right,” he said, voice still several decibels beyond the conversational level. “It means I look like a fucking stooge to my people. I tell them you’re on the list; then I say, oops, never mind, our own people betrayed us all. This guy’s OK.”

  “I’m not lying to you.”

  “You know what happens if you are?”

  Slow death. Painful death. I smiled my confidence.

  “How you going to find out?” I asked.

  He laughed, combination of a bellow and a bark. Nice sound to hear in my situation. It dispersed the smoldering fire between us.

  “You think Cobras don’t lie, McCall? This is a fucking clan, not a monastery. I been dealing with druggies and liars for ten years now. Before that I was a druggie and liar myself for another ten. At ten years old I could have been in the Olympics of liars. Liars forget their lies. The truth is easy to remember. You watch. If my men lie to me, I will know it. If they are lying…”

  The implication of his unfinished sentence hung in the air like the smoke of burning garbage.

  Over the next half hour he called in the three men who had escaped the battle with me and Duke. He asked each of them two questions: what kind of weapon had I used and in what order I shoot the men? He received three different sets of answers.

  Finished with his interrogations, he ordered us the finest array of Mexican food I had ever sampled. We talked over lunch. “You watching those men?” he asked between bites of soft chicken tacos liberally spiced with peppers and onions, hot enough to make my eyes water. “Almost every liar has a tell, usually in the eyes. Sometimes its a small facial movement or something with the hands. Maybe in the voice. All those men were lying. Got three different stories and none of ‘em were true. In five minutes we get some more evidence, wait and see.”

  “What about me?” I asked. “Did you think I was lying?”

  “Any man who can take out seven Cobras, even with the help of the devil dog,” he said, “I got to figure that man could be such a good liar that even I couldn’t catch it. Because I didn’t see any giveaways, no tells. So…you are either a most skillful bender of the truth…or…something that is as rare a commodity as the perfect liar.”

  “What’s that?”

  “An honest man. Honest men are terrible liars.”

  A soldier knocked and entered, approaching Roberto and whispering in his ear. The man placed something in his hand and left us. Roberto threw three more bags of Bad Boy on the desk top, identical in color and texture to the one from Felipe’s pocket that I had given him.

  “While I listened to those pigs, my men searched their quarters.”

  The big man picked up the seven bags of Bad Boy and poured their contents on his desk, creating a salt and pepper pile that he plowed his immense fingers through, creating little valleys and hills.

  “I hate these drugs, McCall. The men, they think it makes them tough. It keeps their brains soft and their cocks hard. They think that is all a woman wants, a hard cock. It is a shame reality is not enough for some men.”

  “Sometimes it’s too much,” I said.

  • • • •

  When we finished our meal, he walked with me through his compound, showing his people we were friends, stopping to tell soldiers what had happened, that I was no longer to be hunted.

  “Now that you are no longer an enemy of the Cobra Nation,” Roberto told me, “perhaps the Messengers will remove you from their hit list.”

  “Why am I on their list?” I asked, testing his feelings about the Messengers.

  “The Babe wants me to commit the Cobras to join him in his war against all Folks clans.” He spat on the ground. “He thinks he will gain my favor by searching for you. In truth, it makes me sick. We need no help in our efforts to avenge our own. The Babe is seriously loco. He is a fool who does not know that if we wipe out every Folks clan in the entire area, reduce them to rubble, kill their offspring, salt the earth, it will change little in our lives.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “If we were to successfully eradicate every man, woman and child who lives under the Nation of Folks, who would certainly not go down easily, mind you, the cost to the People Nation and all of our clans would be very high. If we were to do this, McCall, embark on a war to annihilate all Folks clans, what would change in our world?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I had plenty of opinions, but I wanted to hear his take.

  “We are savages,” he said. “It is a natural reaction to the collapse. The clans are nothing more than tribes of primitive hunter gatherers. Instead of spears we have assault rifles. If all the Folks were purged from this city, it would be only a matter of months before People began to battle amongst ourselves. The only way we can evolve beyond this primitive state is to resist such temptations. The Cobras will defend ourselves. But I will not commit my people to a war of aggression. We cannot grow unless our numbers increase.”

  “Did you know The Babe dreams of presenting my head to you in a bird cage?”

  Roberto sneered. “Herod offering the head of John the Baptist to Salome. Such drama. And this from a short eyes. You know he fucks little children, don’t you McCall? Tortures his prisoners. Sells little ones to the sex pens of other clans. Keeps the freshest ones for his own depraved needs? He had the balls to ask us if we wanted to buy. The man lives in an evil fantasy. If he does not self destruct, it is a guarantee that the Cobras will have to deal with him. But I feel he is embarking on a journey that will prove too difficult for the Messengers to survive. At least now you will no longer be on his city wide hit list.”

  “Uh, well, unfortunately, I’ve got a dead Messenger in my back yard, along with two dead Mambas, and another Messenger locked in my closet, banging on the door screaming for his Bad Boy. The guy in the closet was part of a Messenger scouting party looking for me and the dog. I think I’m still high priority.”

  “Your life is a mess, McCall. It is good you came to talk to me. Look at it this way. At least today you have solved half your problem.”

  • • • •

  Roberto walked with me as I began my journey back to his border. Ten meters behind, we had a small contingent of armed guards. Unlike the trek we had a few hours ago, this time we talked.

  “What happens to those men?” I asked him, referring to the three soldiers caught in the lies.

  He snorted in derision. “They are dead. It is the only way. First we talk to them for a day or so. Then the execution, and we feed their bodies to the dogs.”

  “Talking to them” was a clan euphemism for intense interrogation. “Before you start on them,” I told Roberto, creating the opening that would enable me to finish my business with him, “there’s some information you should know.”

  I had been thinking about our situation with the Messengers for days. The whole t
hing started at the parking lot, over a year ago, the massacre of the Gaylords. From that point our lives had no longer been our own. We were no longer in control. Unable to make choices, move freely. And the whole problem centered around The Babe and his Messengers and Roberto and the Insane Cobra Nation.

  Two days before my meeting with Roberto, a possible solution to the bizarre relationship between the Messengers and Cobras came to me. What if Roberto was another victim in this scenario? What if he and the Cobras, rather than active participants, were also objects of The Babe’s manipulations? Just some more chess pieces.

  “You are about to make my life more complicated, aren’t you?” he replied.

  It was time to test my theory. I took a deep breath. “I think some—maybe all—of those men were in bed with the Messengers.”

  “Because the fools purchased the Bad Boy from the the Messengers? Unfortunately, the Messengers and the Cobras share a western border. It could have been a matter of convenience.”

  “Remember when the Gaylord’s were slaughtered at the college parking lot?”

  “It occurred only a mile from where our territory ends. Open turf. The college is my favorite place to find books. I was there within an hour of hearing the news. Gaylord’s may have been pusses, but they were still People.”

  “Didn’t hurt The Babe’s recruiting,” I commented.

  His eyes narrowed, and he slowed our pace. “You goin’ somewhere with this, McCall?”

  “Pretty brutal scene.”

  “Biggest fucking mess I ever saw,” he replied. “Funny how no one’s come forward to claim it. Clan carves up another like that, they always take credit. What good’s a message if no one knows who sent it?”

  “I know who did the work,” I said.

  He stopped dead in his tracks. Behind us, his soldiers snapped their rifles up, began scanning the environment. He waved them off, told them to relax. Urging me forward a few paces, out of their hearing range, he said, “You’re one amazing fount of information, man. Anything you don’t know?”

  “It’s been a busy year,” I said smiling. “I could use a vacation. The fact that you’re not teaming up with The Messengers makes that a possibility. You’re telling me you have never had any shared operations with the Messengers?”

  “I can’t believe you could ever think I would consider such a move. Team up with a such a beast. You disappoint me, McCall.”

  “Aren’t you the one who believed I killed your men in cold blood?”

  “Touche’. Irony noticed and accepted.”

  “Seems like that’s what most of this is all about. Making you think things you normally wouldn’t think. Making you miss items you’d normally see.”

  “Explain.”

  “Some of your Cobras have thrown in with The Messengers. They are in your camp, Roberto. They’re living with you. Sleeping with your women. Selling Messenger Bad Boy to your soldiers and children.” I nodded my head back to his guards. “Some of them could be reporting to The Babe. He’s pulling every string he can to get you to join him. If you throw in with him, the rest of the People clans will follow. Then he goes to all out war. My guess is you would suffer some grievous wounds somewhere early in the conflict. Then the Cobras would belong to The Babe.”

  “You’re weaving this tale based on the fact some of my men are using Messenger Bad Boy? That’s a pretty weak link, McCall.”

  “No,” I replied, “there’s a couple of more items. The prisoner we have locked in our closet, pretty much put it together for me. He indicated The Babe is obsessed with taking me out. But its not completely because he wants to win your favor. More importantly, he wants to keep me from ever talking to you. My head in a cage would serve both purposes.”

  “Why should he worry about me and you talking?”

  “Because I saw the massacre of the Gaylords at the college. I was there.”

  “Madre Dios,” he exclaimed, belief battling skepticism. “You could, uh, maybe provide a detail or two that would dispel any doubts I may have lingering in my mind?”

  “What happened to the corpses?” I asked.

  “We dragged them over to the Gaylord camp. They were a small clan to begin with. Not many left after the massacre. The few that remained moaned and groaned and appropriately beat the drums of vengeance and then fed the bodies to the dogs. So much for respecting the dead. Gaylords never extracted their revenge. They basically fell apart, drifting into other People clans. We took none. Gaylords are not Cobra material. Mambas got a few. Messengers got the most. Messengers recruited them.”

  I described the scene in detail to Roberto, the placement of the corpses, the exact number, itemizing the grisly mutilations to the bodies, the Folks sign carved into skulls and torsos, the upside down People signs, challenging and disrespecting the affiliation of People clans, the removal of fingers to get at the jewelry. Every detail I could remember was given to Roberto.

  He believed. He had seen the bodies.

  “You’ve known all along who did this and didn’t tell any one? Why not?”

  “I’ve known what happened,” I said, “but not why. Three reasons I’ve been keeping this quiet. Number one, no one would have believed me. Number two, what good would it have done? It would have started a bigger war than is going on now. This is small time compared to what The Babe really has in mind.”

  “Number three?” Roberto asked.

  “I hadn’t figured any of it out until just two days ago.”

  “You could have told me, McCall. I like to think I have retained a certain amount of sanity.”

  “I thought you were in on it. Until today, even though Merlin assured me it was impossible, I still entertained the notion.”

  He gave me a befuddled, what in the fuck are you talking about look. I quickly continued, giving him the final puzzle piece he needed. “The Gaylords were killed by People, Roberto. People killing People.” A Barbara Streisand song, one of Weasel’s favorites, suddenly popped in my head. “It was the Messengers. The Babe was belly deep in blood. His bat looked like he was tenderizing sides of beef. They lured the Gaylords in, making it look like a no guns rumble against Folks, played with them a little and then brought out the hard stuff.”

  “How do I fit in?” he asked.

  “There was at least one Cobra there. Probably more. It was Felipe, the Edge. He was having a good time. He liked using his knife on dead bodies. I figured the massacre had been OK’d by you. Why else a representative of the Cobra Nation?”

  He slowly absorbed the impact of what I was telling him. Over a year ago, Felipe, a rising star with the Insane Cobra Nation, a man Roberto had trusted, had been in bed with the Messengers. How many more of his soldiers had gone over? He glanced back to the five guards who had accompanied us, as if his back were no longer safe. Maybe it wasn’t.

  “Jose’, Flint,” he yelled to two of the guards, “come over here.”

  They trotted over and stood awaiting directions. “Send the rest of the men home. And bring me two of their rifles.” As the two men departed, Roberto told me, “Those two have been with me since we were all hanging onto our mothers breasts. Thirty years, McCall. I trust them with my life.”

  “It was when they left the parking lot,” I continued, “that Duke and I walked among the dead, saw what had been done to them. Some of the men were still alive when they were mutilated, Roberto. Maybe he just wanted one last look, maybe he had a feeling, a premonition. I don’t know. But The Babe came back. He wasn’t alone. There was one man with him. It was Felipe.”

  “That little fucking vermin,” Roberto hissed.

  “They were out of rifle range, but close enough so they could see us. I looked them over through binoculars. They were as clear to me as you are now. Felipe’s tattoo was very impressive. We, the people I live with, have known for quite some time that the Messengers have been looking for me and the dog, keeping it quiet. When I ran into Felipe and his men, it was like they struck gold. But they were too whacked out o
n the Bad Boy, overconfident.”

  “So for a year,” he said, “you have been living under the threat that both the Messengers and the Cobras have been after you. A heavy burden. Most men would have run.”

  “We made other adjustments. Running wasn’t an option. There was one item of information in our favor as far as you and the Cobra Nation were concerned. None of our snitches reported that you were looking for us—not until I killed Felipe’ a couple of months ago, anyway. It was if you didn’t care, weren’t threatened by my knowledge of the attack on the Gaylords. It was that possibility that brought me here today.”

  His two soldiers approached, carrying the two extra rifles he had requested. The big man inspected each weapon, popping the clips, checking the load, clearing the chamber, dry firing. Satisfied, he tossed one to me. It was a FA-MAS, 5.56 25 round clip. Well maintained, it looked to be the better of the two rifles to me. An extremely valuable piece. He pulled a pistol from his belt and handed it to me along with two extra clips.

  “You will not need these in Cobra territory,” he said. “But you must travel beyond our borders.”

  I thanked him.

  “But my own weapons are stashed at the edge of your territory,” I said.

  “Then you keep these until you retrieve yours,” he replied. “Jose’ will accompany you. Return them to him.”

  He shouldered his weapon in preparation for his return, but he didn’t move. Reaching his hand out to mine, he said, “The Cobras are in your debt, McCall. I have some very complicated business to tend to back at the camp. It will take some time to cull the traitors from our midst. So you will not hear from me for awhile. But when my house is in order, I will find a way to repay you.”

  Captured by his huge paw, my hand felt like that of a baby. I could barely get my fingers to the edges of his palm. I returned the pressure of his shake the best I could.

  “The resumption of our friendship is payment enough,” I said, smiling. Such a huge weight had been lifted from us that no further benefits were necessary.

  Roberto laughed. “Such a politician. If peace ever visits this war zone, perhaps I will make you the ambassador of the Cobra Nation. You would be good. Such a bull shitter.”