Carnivores

by Richard Poche

  “Now, y'all don't have to be like that!” the black lady that accosted them earlier said. “Go easy on him. Police brutality! Police brutality!”

  Lopez put the man's face to the ground but he continued to scream.

  “The wolves did it! This was done for a reason! Like when a cat leaves a bird on your back porch. They are showing appreciation to someone! Someone here is connected to the wolves!”

  “Get him out of here,” Spinks said as Lopez lifted up the handcuffed man.

  “Werewolves are real!” the man cried out he as navigated through the crowd of on-lookers.

  “Situations like this bring out the crazies,” Spinks said to Miranda.

  Miranda gave him a tight-lipped smile. She looked into the crowd and saw three Mexican men, all with tattoos of a wolf on their forearm.

  One of them nodded at her.

  Lopez struggled to bring the handcuffed Tannenbaum to the squad car. The black lady taunted him as they walked by.

  “Done fucked up again, huh?” the black lady pointed her finger in Lopez's face. “ Can't even protect folks from getting they heads chopped off! The Po-Pos done fucked up again!”

  Hank always arrived at the flea market early.

  He set up his table in short order and laid out his handmade knives underneath a glass encasing. Hank had been taught the finer points of the craft at an early age from his father. The skill had been supposedly passed down from his grandfather.

  Now Hank turned to knife making to supplement his dwindling income.

  He remembered setting up shop with his dad at the same flea market. People would come in droves and he'd sell out within twenty minutes. They liked his work as well, but there just weren't as many people flocking to the market as there were in 1980s.

  Most of his own customers remarked at how colorful his finely polished marble handles were. They didn't care about the purity of the steel or the hard work that went into making the knife.

  They just wanted something pretty.

  But Hank thought the flea market to be a great place to people watch, especially in Oakland. He sat and sipped from a Capri Sun and turned his hat backwards.

  A Caucasian man in his late fifties walked by wearing a tight white t-shirt and blue jeans with dried paint splattered everywhere. His long white hair wild from being out in the wind too long, he bopped his head to the music blaring out of his earphones. Hank recognized the song as an early 1970s tune that he couldn't quite place. The man looked over at him and grinned, showing a row of crooked teeth that reminded Hank of brown rice. A Vietnamese man sauntered by, pressing his forefinger down on his left nostril and blowing a ten-inch snot ball out of his nose. Two college girls walked up to his stall, both wearing shirts with “CAL” emblazoned across. Their eyes scanned across his display. Hank caught the eye of the pretty one. She had incredible blue eyes, like freshly picked blueberries, and a heart shaped face. He stared at her beauty and she quickly looked down, averting eye contact. They had a hushed discussion that he couldn't make out and walked away with the noses turned up.

  Hank slurped up the remaining juices of the Capri Sun and tossed it to the side.

  “How much for that one?” a young Mexican-American man in his early twenties pointed down at one of the knives. “The red one.”

  “Sixty,” Hank said.

  “Sixty bucks, Lita!” the man said to his girlfriend. Lita gave an exaggerated sigh then returned her attention to her cell phone. She stood with her shoulders hunched and shivered in the early morning cold. Dressed in only a low cut t-shirt and blue jeans, Hank wondered why she just didn't wear a damn coat but he knew she was showing off her body.

  “You make these yourself, right?”

  “Yep,” Hank said. “Unreproducible and one of a kind.”

  “One of a kind, eh?”

  Hank could tell the young man wanted the knife. Suddenly, the man looked up at him with recognition in his eyes.

  “Aren't you Mr. Vanderhorst?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I was in your class for about a semester.”

  “When was this?”

  “A couple years ago. I liked it. I remember we made the knives.”

  Hank could not place the young man's face to save his life. He had a teardrop tattoo running down side of his face. He wore a red-checkered Pendleton shirt only buttoned at the top, revealing a white t-shirt underneath with crumpled black Dockers so baggy that one would think he hid an AK-47 underneath. He also had the largest birthmark Hank had ever seen in his life. It ran down from his neck all the way up to the side of his face. He remembered him now.

  “What was your name again?”

  “Javier,” the young man said. “Javier Moreno.”

  “Didn't you always used to wear a Raider hoodie?”

  “You remember!” Javier said. “Yep. That's me.”

  Hank remembered Javier as a shy young man much like himself. One of those types that never said much but he could tell that if he spent some time with him, he could help the kid come out of his shell. He vaguely remembered Moreno dropping out of school altogether but didn't want to bring the subject up.

  Hank could also smell the Corona on his breath.

  “I'll knock off ten dollars,” he finally said then relented after a moment. “No, how about twenty. I'll give you a discount for remembering me.”

  “I don't know, man,” Javier scrutinized the markings on the knife. “What is this? These markings?”

  “A wolf tooth,” Hank said, looking at the insignias that his father trained him to make: a mark of a cross over a wolf's tooth. “Just there for artistic reasons. Forty dollars is steal, dude.”

  “Okay,” the young man laughed. “You take credit cards?”

  Hank paused for a beat.

  “I'm kidding,” Javier took out his money clip. A fistful of one hundred dollar bills that the young man could barely get his hand around.

  Hank privately cursed himself. He had broken one of his father's cardinal rules of flea market bartering. Never sell low to anyone because you feel sorry for them. Because if you do, the only person you will feel sorry for is yourself.

  CHAPTER 5

  “That's weird,” the coroner said. He had dull orange hair and the worst case of acne scars that Lopez had ever seen.

  “What?” Spinks asked.

  “There is no metal detected in the wounds.” The coroner handed the officer a piece of paper as if Spinks could decipher the lab results on his own. “Knives or sharp objects leave behind hilt marks. So I really don't know what could have done this.”

  The coroner placed x-rays of the man's body on a light monitor. He looked at them with meticulous detail.

  Lopez found the autopsy room to be cold and damp, as expected. Murder photos and stills were strewn across the medical examiner's desk. Pictures of the dead waited to be filed away and forgotten.

  Then he heard a beep coming from a microwave in the corner.

  “Dinner is served,” the coroner said, running to the microwave and taking out a Hot Pocket. “Steak and lobster. Food for the lonely.”

  **

  “Fascinating,” the examiner ran his hand through his tangled red hair, making a few back strands stick up like a Native American feather. “Absolutely fascinating. I have no idea what could have caused this. Maybe someone made a 3D rendering of a Grizzly Bear's paw. Because that is just about the only thing that could do this kind of damage.”

  An orderly stepped in with the head of Pastor K wrapped in plastic.

  “Ah,” the medical examiner continued. “Now let's see if I can wrap my head around this.”

  “If we stick around long enough, the jokes will only get worse if you can believe that,” Spinks said.

  The coroner ignored the remark and placed the head near the torso, seeking to match the cuts.

  “I worked as a paramedic once,” Spinks said. “Before I got into the force. One time, we got a call about this huge crash on the freeway. Mother an
d daughter driving behind a semi were hit by another semi from behind. Slammed into the back side and beheaded the mother as they slammed into the hitch. Sickest fucking thing I ever saw.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah,” Spinks said. “But the daughter survived. And this chick was beyond hysterical, freaking out. Mexican girl. Kept crossing herself. Told me that the mother's head kept yelling at her. Told her she couldn't drive worth a shit,” Spinks laughed. “See the brain can last awhile without oxygen. Guess the woman's head was severed above the voice box. Sickest thing I ever saw. Until now.”

  Spinks didn't tell Lopez of the nightmares he had of that night for weeks after seeing the beheaded mother. He witnessed the accident in his dreams. A nightmare that replayed the event like the slow motion replay of a game sequence with the two women looking like helpless dummies in an auto crash commercial, being flung through the windshield. He wondered if he would dream about the headless pastor.

  “Who should we start to suspect?” Lopez asked.

  “Could be anyone,” Spinks said. “Pissed off parishioner. Could have been cheating on his wife. Cheating with someone else's wife. This shit was personal.”

  Both officers stood quietly above the body. Spinks listened to the window shutters of the office creak backwards and forwards in the furious wind. It gave the entire autopsy office a dark sense of restless spirits and haunted stories never to be told.

  “I gotta take a piss,” Spinks said, leaving the autopsy room and closing the door behind him quietly, the way it might be closed by a nurse leaving the bedside of a dying child.

  Hank knew he could be too much of a soft touch when it came to price. His forefathers had been hard-nosed businessmen that inevitably failed. His grandfather had a construction business before immigrating to America. He had a falling out with his father and they never reconciled. The business had torn them apart. He never met his grandfather.

  Hank saw what money, or the lack thereof, did to his own dad. He did not want to become like him, constantly worried about when the next paycheck would come in and never fully enjoying life.

  His dad kept everyone at arm's length. He didn't want anyone to know he was a failure. Or at least that is what he thought they would think of him.

  He told Hank how much he loved him before he was killed. It was almost as if he knew he would die soon. He told Hank that everything he did was for him and that he wished they could have spent more time together. “I didn't know,” his dad said over and over again. “I didn't know how fast time would go by.”

  Hank could only cry in response.

  “Don't be like me,” his dad pleaded. “Do something that you love. Nothing else matters.”

  Hank toiled for years trying to find something to be passionate about. He read self-help books by the dozen and tried to find a sense of “purpose.”

  Nothing really came out of it.

  So he became a shop teacher.

  He considered the Oakland Public School system to be a repository for kids that no one wanted, so perhaps that could be his purpose: to teach the underprivileged. He taught at Fremont High School and spent a few summers teaching at the remedial Dewey High.

  Hank had fifty minutes to make a difference in the lives that passed before him. An impossible task but every now and then, a kid would take an interest in the knife-making section of his curriculum. And he could get satisfaction out of that until the administration caught wind of it.

  “Teaching thugs to make knives?” a superintendent had asked with sneering condescension.

  Hank looked up at the sky and saw the storm clouds begin to rise in the eastern horizon, like a horde of black and hairy wolves. The wind started to pick up and he thought about closing up shop early.

  “Your knives are exquisitely crafted,” the old man said, his voice a near whisper.

  Hank looked up and saw a slight man before him, speaking in an accent that did not take him long to place. He had milky green eyes that did not blink and a long nose bent in the middle.

  “Thanks,” Hank said.

  The old man's stare bore into him as if he knew something that Hank didn't. “Can I look at that green one please?” he pointed at the jade colored knife without looking at it.

  Hank broke the eye contact first to get the knife. He handed it to the old man.

  “Worked on that quite a bit,” Hank said.

  “That is a tooth on the handle, yes?” the old man scrutinized the white incisor lodged inside the marble.

  “Yeah,” Hank said. “It was a trick my old man taught me. A wolf's tooth for good luck. Or at least that is the legend my dad told me. They're real teeth. I get them from this place in Alaska.”

  The old man brought the knife up to his eye. “Luck, eh?” he said. “Our lives are so dependent on that one word. Luck.”

  “Sure are.”

  “It's a large tooth,” the old man went on. “Almost like a Canis dirus.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The dire wolf,” the man continued. “Prehistoric ancestor to today's gray wolf. Or I should say a very distant cousin.”

  “You sound like an expert.”

  The old man shook his head. “I've read some. Plus I watch the Discovery Channel. Tons of those wolves buried in the La Brea tar pits. I know more about wolves than the average bear. And the cross?”

  “Dad always added that in. Although I don't remember him as being particularly religious.”

  “I haven't seen this insignia in a long while. It was used in Holland as a sign that the Lord would overcome the darkness. Then it was adopted by group of wolf slayers.”

  “That's right! My dad said that these knives were used to kill werewolves in Holland way back in the day. Fifteenth century, I think he said. Of course, he told stories like that to make it cool for an eight year old. But I did some research and they had werewolf trials just like they had witch trials. Executed a bunch of people because they thought they were werewolves. They were just serial killers, of course. Humans who behaved like animals. So they invented the werewolf myth to excuse and explain their behavior.”

  “Interesting,” the old man said.

  “Do I detect a Dutch accent there?”

  “Yes,” the man gave the knife another once over, closing one eye and squinting as he scrutinized the blade's edge and the insignia again. “My parents are from there,” he said.

  Hank stopped himself. He never volunteered information to strangers, a habit he picked up from his dad. But this old man had a demeanor about him that made him want to engage.

  “You would like Amsterdam. But I suggest the countryside. You would like Maastricht. It is like a children's storybook. Full of wonder.”

  Hank's eyes lit up. His father had been born in Maastricht. He felt like spurting that information aloud to the old man but felt he had been too long-winded already.

  The old man lifted the knife up to his eye level. He unsheathed it and felt the edge with his thumb.

  “A bit dull,” he said, now looking at Hank up and down.

  “I can sharpen it up for you,” Hank replied. “Most folks just like it as a showpiece rather than a utility.”

  “Dull from lack of use or dull because it was made that way?”

  “Both,” Hank said, wondering if they were still talking about a knife. “But again, I can sharpen it.”

  “Then maybe here is hope for it,” the old man said. “Do you have any made completely of silver?”

  Hank shook his head. “Only metal.”

  “But could you make one?”

  “Sure,” Hank laughed.

  “You obviously have talented hands. But these hands…” The old man lifted his own arms up. His joints were gnarled knots of wood and veins. “I'm the opposite of King Midas. Everything he touched turn to gold. Everything I touched turns into a steaming pile.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Hank said with a slight laugh.

  “If I supplied you with the silver, could you melt it down?”
/>
  “Sure,” Hank said.

  Without warning, the man produced a brown sack that he had at his side. He dropped it on the display table with a large clang. “The job I have in mind requires strong and capable hands. Do you have those?”

  Hank paused for a beat, taken aback by the man's question.

  “Yes,” he finally said.

  “Make as many as you can,” the man said. “I'll be back in a week or two.”

  The old man walked away as quickly as he came into Hank's sight.

  Hank looked inside the sack stuffed with silver coins and silverware.

  CHAPTER 6

  Spinks knew the streets of West Oakland like the back of his hand. He navigated the squad car through the intersection and turned onto the freeway.

  “Where we headed?” Lopez asked.

  “They want us to talk to the wife.”

  “Okay.”

  “A lot of the guys on the force went to this guy’s church. I was never into that shit. You know, praising Jesus. My grandmother was and it drove me nuts.

  “I can't imagine.”

  “Are you?”

  “What?”

  “Religious.”

  “I'm undecided.”

  “Undecided,” Spinks laughed. “Like it's a vote or something. Plus, I thought all Mexicans were Catholic. If you are Mexican in California then you are Catholic and like the Oakland Raiders. Those two go together like hand and glove.” Spinks laughed harder this time and the car swerved.

  “Nope,” Lopez said. “Not a fan of either.”

  “There you go.”

  “You think that these murders are connected? John and the pastor.”

  “I don't know yet. John went to the guy's church. We don't rule out anything until it gets ruled out.”

  “Seems like a lot of guys are taking the pastor's murder just as personal.”

  “Yeah,” Spinks said. “You shouldn't take things personal. But there are situations where you can't help it. You'll learn as you go. I never met this preacher. I heard he helped a lot of cops out spiritually. But off the record, I heard he liked to drop his drawers on Hooker Boulevard, if you catch my drift.”