Carnivores

by Richard Poche

  Spinks sped along the freeway shoulder and took the High Street exit. They drove in silence until they reached the Oakland Hills. This part of the city no longer had the din of sirens and hip-hop music blaring from car stereos. The farther up they drove, they more Lopez noticed homes with warm lights inside and large screen televisions flickering, intact families sitting around a dinner table, talking and sharing laughs.

  The domestic vista made Lopez feel lonely.

  “I figure religion can only hurt me on the job,” Spinks continued. “You can't turn the other cheek. That shit may have worked in ancient Israel, but in Oakland, you'll get your head blown off.”

  Lopez said nothing. They hit a red light and an Asian family crossed the street in front of them. A man and woman were walking hand in hand with a boy about five years old. The boy waved at the officers. The man had a golden retriever on a leash and even the dog seemed happy.

  Lopez waved back as the light turned green.

  “I'm not referring to John specifically,” Spinks clarified. “I mean that can happen to anyone. He was a cool dude. You know, when shit like that happens you think about the immortal soul. How if God and Christianity and all that shit is real, you know?”

  “I don't think about it,” Lopez said. “At least I try not to. But perhaps not thinking about it just delays the inevitable. I know what happened to Laguardia can happen to anyone.”

  “I know this job can get to you,” Spinks said. “Don't let anyone tell you any different. But when I'm feeling down, I don't pray. I just eat. Ain't nothing that a big ass plate of pork ribs can't fix.”

  Spinks's laugh echoed throughout the car. His face illuminated green from the lights off the communications monitor. Lopez thought he looked like a crazed Haitian voodoo doctor.

  “Cheap ass shit!”

  Hank recognized the voice but it didn't sound friendly.

  Javier returned and this time he had his “boys” with him. Two other men, one taller than Javier, with a permed out hair-do. He wore reflective chrome glasses. The other wore dark shades that matched his skin complexion. Both wore short-sleeved shirts with tattoos of wolves on their forearms.

  Javier walked up to Hank quickly and grabbed a fist full of his shirt.

  “Look at this shit!” Javier held the knife up to Hank's face, the blade now bent to the side.

  “What did you do?” Hank asked.

  “What did I do?” Javier looked at his two friends. “The question is what did you do? And that was rip me off. Now give me my fucking money back!”

  Hank just shook his head and put up his hands in appeasement. “I don't know what you did to make it bend like that-”

  “Shut the fuck up and give me the money,” Javier said pushing Hank back.

  Hank reached into his box. “Here,” he said, handing Javier a twenty dollar bill. “Twenty bucks, discounted because-”

  Javier looked at Hank up and down. Then he licked his lips as if they tasted of salt.

  “It was sixty,” Javier said as he pushed Hank to the ground. His friends were immediately on him, kicking his stomach and back.

  Hank curled into a fetal position and tried to protect his head. He endured the stomps, which lasted only about ten seconds when he heard a woman's voice yell “Stop!”

  He looked up and saw the UC Berkeley girls screaming for help. The cute one with the blueberry eyes had her cell phone out. Someone's dog began barking at the three men.

  Javier reached down and grabbed the rest of the money, about seven hundred dollars, out of his box. Then his friends stuffed their shirts and pockets with the knives before kicking the display table over.

  Hank lay frozen with fear. He had not been in a fight since junior high. He felt as if buckets and buckets of ice water poured on him as the men yelled at him with hostile threats.

  The wind blew into Hank's face and dried leaves whirred around in front of him. It gave him assurance that he was still conscious.

  “Punk ass!” Javier said as he kicked Hank's head.

  Then everything turned black.

  CHAPTER 7

  This was the part of the job Lopez dreaded the most.

  Talking to grieving families.

  Pastor Kosmovich's cottage stood at the end of a cul de sac atop Oakland Hills.

  Darkness shrouded the house as they approached the door. A dog could be heard barking a few doors down. Two of the side windows were closed shut, like two tightly closed eyes.

  A house that kept its secrets.

  The door opened before Spinks's finger reached the bell.

  “Hello officers,” the woman said. “I've been waiting.”

  The petite Filipina introduced herself as Dionisia Kosmovich. She led the men into the main living room. It had a high ceiling and the whole house smelled like dried squid. Old-fashioned furniture adorned the room and the officers sat on opposite ends of the couch.

  Dionisia sat on a chair next to the fireplace with a log that looked to be flickering out. She fiddled around with the fire poker for a bit, then, unable to get the flames going again, she turned her attention to the policemen.

  Spinks surmised that the pastor met his bride during a missionary trip to the Philippines. He brought her over to the States and treated her like an in-house slave while he cruised the strip looking for whores.

  She looked about thirty-five years old, at best. She had long black hair with a braided section on top. She averted eye contact with the men, her line of sight going to either the ground or the sidewall.

  “He never hit me,” the grieving widow said. “He yelled a lot. But never hit me.”

  Lopez thought that it odd and wondered why that would be her criteria for assessing a man's worth.

  “Do you know if he had any enemies?” Lopez asked.

  “You guys don't know?”

  “Well,” Spinks bluffed, “we need to cross-reference whatever information we have on your husband.”

  “He took in some members at the church. A group of Mexicans. I think they were part of a gang. The Locos or something-”

  “The Lobos.”

  “Right. Anyway, something happened. I don't know what. I think he was trying to help out one of their members who was trying to get out of the group. His name was Jaime. Anyway, Jaime was murdered and I remembered James being all sad and worried. He kept looking out the window a lot, like someone was coming for him.”

  “They made threats?”

  “He didn't tell me. But I remember Officer Laguardia coming here and taking a report. He ordered me out of the living room. I eavesdropped only a little. They said they had to rid the streets of these gangs. James would ID the guys. They never told you guys about this?”

  “We'll have to look into it,” Spinks said.

  “So I don't know what the deal was. I think James got in a little over his head. Tried to get one of the gang bangers to convert. Then they found the kid murdered. Disemboweled. Then the next thing you know, James is dead.”

  “Do you mind if I look around?” Spinks asked.

  The woman nodded her head. “Go ahead,” she said. “He always liked a clean house. Nobody ever came over, though. I thought he was ashamed of me. Ashamed of me and my accent.”

  Lopez put down his pad and paper. “I can't imagine how hard this must be for you.”

  She shook her head. “I didn't love him,” she said in a quiet voice. “But I didn't want him to die.” She clutched the rosary beads in her hand.

  “Do you have kids?”

  “No,” she said. “But he has kids from a previous marriage.”

  “They live here?”

  “No,” she said. “They live in Las Vegas. He never sees them. Never even talks about them.”

  “How old are they?”

  “They're young. A boy. Seventeen maybe. A girl. I think she is fifteen now.”

  Dionisia walked over to the mantelpiece and handed Lopez a picture. Looking at the ages of the kids, he instantly ruled them out as suspects. />
  “He cried whenever he looked at that picture. I wanted to take it down. Sometimes he just avoided looking at it. And sometimes he would lock himself in the bathroom and I would hear him cry. Just sobbing and weeping that went on and on for hours. He was a man in despair. There was really nothing I could do for him.”

  “You don't know what made him cry?”

  Dionisia shook her head. “After a while, I stopped asking.”

  “Does he keep in contact with his ex-wife?”

  “I know he sent the kids money. That was it.”

  “I have to ask a few tough questions,” Lopez said. “Do you know what he was doing out at San Antonio Park in the middle of the night?”

  Dionisia shrugged her shoulders. “He was...” She paused. She wanted to tell Lopez something but didn't know how to say it.

  “He was what?”

  “Kinky,” she said. “A disloyal and corrupted man. But he never brought the girls home. He gave me something once. I had to go to the clinic. The doctor told me about what I contracted and I confronted him. Then he just cried. Begged for forgiveness. Said he wouldn't do it again. If he did it again, he wanted God to strike him down. Maybe that is what happened?”

  Dionisia stroked her rosary beads again.

  “I see,” Lopez said, not knowing what else to say.

  “He's going to haunt me forever, isn't he?” the woman asked. “I know it. I never loved him. I only used him to come to California. He knew that. But he wasn't a nice man. You guys don't know him like I know him. He's trapped in purgatory somewhere. I have to pray to get him out of there. Otherwise, he will haunt me. Haunt me in my dreams.”

  The woman gripped her rosary beads so hard that they spilled to the ground.

  Hank laid on the C-spine for what felt like hours. The paramedics strapped him to the gurney and the plastic board made his shoulder blades feel as if they would snap at any moment. They had taped across his forehead to stabilize his neck. Immobilized and helpless, he felt like ripping the tape off his head, but he knew the doctor would reprimand him for doing that. “You want to become paralyzed?” he could imagine the physician saying.

  But he sat there, wet and shaking, feeling more like the victim of a road accident then an assault.

  He gave the nurse Miranda's number, but specifically instructed that he didn't want to alarm her. Then again, a part of him wanted to see her show some caring for him.

  “Oh my God!”

  Miranda's voice echoed in the hall. Then came the click-clack of her sandals as she came racing down the hall and to his side.

  “I'm okay,” he said.

  “What happened?” she asked. He could not turn his head, but looked saw the worry in her face as she looked down on him.

  “Short story,” he said. “I was robbed.”

  “Mr. Vanderhorst?” a balding man in his late forties appeared and introduced himself as Dr. Reuben. He asked Hank a few questions and cleared him off the C-spine.

  They took x-rays and everything came out negative.

  Then the police arrived to take the report.

  Lopez and Spinks shook hands with Hank as he put on his clothes.

  “I don't remember what they looked like, really,” Hank said. “It happened really fast. They were Hispanic. That's all I can tell you.”

  “People at the flea market said you looked quite friendly,” Spinks said. “At least at first.”

  Hank nodded his head. “I sold one of them a knife.”

  “Okay,” Spinks said. “Then after that, they came back and assaulted you?”

  “That's correct. Said I sold them cheap shit. Wanted their money back and ended up robbing me.”

  “Anything else you remember about them? Tattoos?”

  Hank just shook his head.

  “One of the witnessed said they all had tattoos of a wolf,” Lopez chimed in. “On their forearms.”

  “I don't remember.”

  “Is there anything else, officers?” Miranda interjected herself in between Spinks and Hank.

  Spinks backed off, smirking at the unctuousness of the man's girlfriend.

  “Didn't we take report from you the other day?” Spinks asked.

  “You're quite the detective,” Miranda said.

  “Well, Mr. Vanderhorst, we can't catch these fuckers unless you give us something.”

  “He's had a long day,” Miranda interrupted again.

  “The description that we got matched members of the Lobos Street Gang.”

  “The Lobos?” Hank asked.

  “Wolves,” Lopez said.

  “Mexican street gang that patterns their behavior after a wolf pack,” Spinks added. “If you encountered them, consider yourself lucky you're still alive.”

  “Wolves,” Hank repeated to himself.

  “And they're exactly that,” Spinks said. “These punks think they are the wolves of the street. They prey on whomever they want. Think they can get away with everything.”

  “Kind of like cops nowadays?” Miranda said with a tone of sarcasm.

  Spinks glared at Miranda and came close to rolling his eyes. “They haven't been an active bunch for awhile. But they are starting to increase in their number of assaults. If you can think of anything and want to help us stop them from harming other innocent people, please give me a call.”

  Spinks handed Hank his card. Then he passed gas as he walked by Miranda.

  “Sorry,” Spinks said. “Rice and beans for lunch.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Those fucking pigs,” Miranda said as she brought over two cups of coffee to their table at Starbucks.

  Hank had a crushing headache. He wanted to go home, but Miranda wanted her coffee fix.

  He looked out the window and felt trepidation as he saw a group of young Mexican men exit a vehicle and head into the store. They were dressed much like the thugs who had beaten him up, but had less of a swagger in their stride.

  Hank looked away from them. He didn't want to talk to them.

  Then again, he was started to get tired of being afraid.

  “So useless,” Miranda said. “I mean, if you don't have a description, you don't have a description. Why belabor the point?”

  Hank nodded his headed and took a sip of his vanilla latte.

  “It's not like you knew their names or anything.”

  “I did know their names.”

  “What?”

  “It was one of my old high school students.”

  “Then why didn't you-”

  Hank shook his head, cutting her off. “I'm not going to say he was a good kid. Because he was. I thought he was. I know his backstory. I just-I don't know.”

  “So he targeted you?”

  “No, I think it was a random thing of them walking around the flea market and wanting the knives.”

  “So what now? I mean, we can't stop selling the knives, right?”

  “No,” Hank said. “We need the money.”

  “Right,” Miranda said. “But what happens if you see them again?”

  Hank said nothing. He looked outside the window and saw the Mexican men surround a white teen. Then one of them pushed the kid to the ground.

  Miranda followed Hank's eye line and looked outside.

  “What is it?”

  Hank blinked hard. His imagination had gotten away with him. He looked again and saw nothing out the window but parked cars.

  “Nothing,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Nothing.”

  Spinks lounged in the driver seat, noodling around on his laptop while Lopez ate from a foil-covered burrito.

  “I found this on YouTube,” Spinks said. “I thought I recognized her. See, yours truly never forgets a face. I may forget names. Sometimes places. But never a face. She's the one that has been leading a lot of those damn protests.”

  Spinks turned his laptop toward Lopez so they both could watch. The video showed Miranda addressing a diverse group of mostly young people.

  “Disobey!” she screamed into
the bullhorn. “They treat you like you have no value. Like you have no rights! That you are invisible! That when you die, no one will care! I am here to tell you that you matter, that each and every one of you has inalienable rights. Our police officers seem to have forgotten about that.”

  The racially mixed crowd nodded in unison.

  “You know,” Spinks said, “now that I think about it, that chick is pretty cute.”

  Lopez laughed.

  “They paint black men as thugs,” Miranda continued. “As wolves that need to be hunted and killed. I say if we do nothing now, then that is exactly what will happen. They will become endangered species. Killed by the cops or locked up and thrown away.”

  Miranda picked up a picture of a young black man that had been killed by the cops.

  “Melonte Lawson,” she said.

  Spinks just shook his head. He had been the cop that had killed Lawson. But only after Lawson pointed a gun at him and two other officers.

  “Melonte Lawson was murdered in cold blood by a police officer that had been assigned to protect us. Mel was a good kid. He was one of my students. I can't articulate how much potential he had. He was not a thug or a crook. He went to school every day. Melonte had passion. A fire for life that was extinguished by the state. He was just like you or me. He wanted to find a good job. He wanted to give his mom a better life. He was just like you! Look at his picture! It could be you! Melonte was just a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time meeting the wrong fucking cop!”

  Spinks just rolled his eyes and shook his head. He looked out the window as the video stopped for a moment as the stream stalled. Then it began again.

  “We have been sheep for too long!” Miranda shouted. “It’s time we become wolves. Wolves that eat pigs!”

  The crowd hooted and hollered. Then they set a garbage can on fire. He thought he heard howling in the background noise until he pressed the stop button.

  Hank massaged his temples to relieve his headache.

  Miranda gripped the steering wheel tightly and always looked nervously in her rear view mirror whenever she drove. Hank thought she drove like someone being pursued by demons.