Foodchain (13 page)

DAY FIFTEEN

Annie wasn’t the only customer to visit Frank. Two days later, the woman with the brittle red hair from the gas station rushed into the veterinary hospital, clutching a cat carrier. A coughing male cat, just shy of six pounds and twenty-two years lay inside. The coughing jag subsided, and it hissed like a slow leaking tire. It was dying. Frank knew this. The woman with the red hair knew this. The cat knew this.

“Help him. Oh please help him,” she said.

But the cat wanted to die. It was ready. It needed to die. It shivered, breathing about seven hundred miles an hour for a while, followed by that long, low hissing leak that caught the attention of the lionesses out back when Frank took him out of the carrier.

At first, only the two lionesses closest to the back door noticed. They drew themselves upright and cleaned their shoulders, ears cocked. Then the others heard the familiar sound and one by one, stopped and went motionless.

Frank threw as much technical jargon as he could at the woman, trying to stall, anything, wishing the goddamn cat would finally just give up. After two minutes that seemed just a hair shorter than the last ice age, he tried to gently give the cat to the woman, saying slowly, “Why don’t you hang onto him for a moment, and…well—it might be time to say goodbye.”

But she couldn’t say goodbye and wouldn’t take the cat. She couldn’t face the thought of losing her little man, and gripped the side of the table with her right hand, squeezing it hard enough Frank was worried that one of the purple veins across the back of her hand would rupture, filling the muscles and tendons with blood, slowly filling the skin until it resembled a pink Mickey Mouse glove. This cat was her life. It was that simple.

Frank started to place the cat as gingerly as he could on the table, but the woman shrieked, a short, sharp bark that escaped like a hummingbird out of her mouth. She clapped her left hand to her chin and shoved it down at her chest, held it there for the briefest moment, then plucked a towel out of the carrier and straightened it out on the table, so he wouldn’t have to lay on the cold steel.

Frank put her cat on the towel and grabbed a sealed syringe and a 30 cc vial of Sleepazone. It looked like blue toilet bowl water and would stop the cat’s heart instantly. The woman had her chin in her right hand before he said three words. She knew precisely what he was about to say and she wanted none of it. She demanded that Frank do something, anything to save her cat.

Admittedly, Frank didn’t know much about common housecats. He had only really studied horses in school, but he knew that all the textbooks in the back room weren’t going to help this cat. It was finished.

So Frank cradled the cat in his arms and talked to the cat and the woman in a low, calm voice. He talked about the cat’s markings, the shape of the skull, splay of the claws, praising everything. The woman clasped her hands together, little trickles of tears mingling with black eyeliner and peach rouge rolling down the wrinkles in her face. The cat hyperventilated and leaked air.

* * * * *

It took nearly ten minutes, but the cat finally drifted into a sagging death in Frank’s hands. And then, the woman with the red hair really lost it. She backed away, skipping through the denial stage of death in about two or three eyelash flutters, and plowed right on into anger. A low, keening sound seeped out of her lungs as she tried to wrench the examining table out of the floor, dumped a roll of paper towels in the sink, and scooped a whole armload of vials onto the floor in a shattered mess.

Frank felt sorry for her. He really did. This cat was probably the only thing this woman had for a family, and now it was gone. As she crumpled on the table, cradling the cat, sobbing into the limp gray fur, Frank found himself listening seriously to a calm, reasonable voice inside that suggested just plunging a syringe full of Sleepazone into her ample backside. The medicine would hit her heart in less than a second, and it would be over. She’d sink to the floor, forever joining her cat in whatever heaven that allowed animals. At least then she’d be happy. No more sadness. No more death. Just an eternity together.

Frank actually broke the seal and had the syringe itself out before he realized that he didn’t want to be responsible for another death. Killing her wasn’t the best way to ease her suffering, although he’d be damned if he knew a better way. Instead, he found a small Styrofoam ice chest in the back, and together, they buried the cat out in the field of star thistles, near Annie’s still smoking fire pit. It seemed to make the woman feel a little better, but Frank knew that once she got back to her empty house, the pain would be back with a vengeance, and again, he considered just gently easing her out of this world and into the next.

Before the idea really took hold, he urged her into her car, offering empty encouragement like, “He’s in a better place now, and wouldn’t want you to be sad,” and “It’s going to be okay. It really will get better.” Both of them knew it was lies, but at least it got her moving. She drove away and Frank went inside for a beer.

* * * * *

The phone was ringing. It was Sturm. “How’re my girls?”

“Better. They’re moving around more, picking up on stuff. Eyes are clear. Stool looks good. So far, they seem to be responding quite well to the food.”

“Good to hear, good to hear, ’cause come Saturday, I’m gonna need them to be, well—if not healthy, then active at least. We’ll need four of ’em; one of ‘em’s gotta be the tiger. You think at least four of ’em’ll be healthy? I want them to be able to run. Think they can run?”

“Saturday?”

“Yup. Got an old buddy coming into town. Known him for years. He’s bringing some associate, and we’re gonna have ourselves a good old fashioned safari.”

“Saturday then. I’ll have four cats ready.”

“Don’t forget that tiger.”

* * * * *

At night, Frank would sit in the office with Petunia, reading. At first, she would growl at him from her spot on the couch. But after two or three days, she let Frank sit on the couch with her and before long, she let him touch her back. Frank had lined the floor with newspaper, and replaced it every day. He kept the food and water dishes full and fresh. By Friday night, she was curling up on the couch next to him, throwing her shoulder into his thigh and sleeping as he read aloud about rabies vaccines and feline leukemia.

Annie never came by. Frank didn’t know why. He didn’t have her number. He was even sure the Gloucks had a phone. Whenever he got the urge to drive on out to her house, he thought of the woman across the street at the gas station, and he couldn’t face her again. Maybe he didn’t do anything because he was afraid of that dead tree full of kids with BB guns.

To distract himself from waiting on Annie, he had been thinking about the vet office’s role in the town. Found himself rearranging the vials of medicine on the stainless steel shelves in the examination room. Sweeping and mopping the floors. Thumbing through the clients’ address book. Testing the radio. Writing down a proposal to spay and neuter the stray cats roaming the town. Lining up vials of vaccines for a rabies clinic.

Petunia squirmed and farted in his lap; she lay on her pack, all four legs splayed against him and the couch, and it hit him like a bullet in the chest that he was dreaming. Here he was, squatting in one place like a goddamn elephant with constipation, when he was up close and personally responsible for the deaths of at least three men.

Closing the book softly, so as not to disturb Petunia, he knew he needed out of the country, out of this town, out of his skin. But the same problems were still there, waiting for him like a patient cat watching a mouse hole. He didn’t know where to go. And wherever he went, the ten grand from Sturm would only last so long. He’d hidden the cash under the frozen meat in the freezer in back of the barn, just in case he had to get out in a hurry. He eased back into the couch, vinyl giving a squeaking sigh, grabbed the bottle of rum from the bookshelf, and unscrewed the cap with his thumb.

It tasted harsh and sweet and when he got to the bottom, he figured his problems could wait outside the door forever.

DAY SIXTEEN

Pine found him sprawled on the couch with Petunia in the morning. “Goddamn,” he said. “You’ll fuck anything.”

Petunia growled at him.

Sturm had sent the clowns over to the vet hospital with a large horse trailer. Frank and Pine lined the inside with chicken wire, preparing it to haul the cats out to Sturm’s ranch, listening to the monkeys chatter and screech at the two men. It took a while, mostly because the construction took a back seat to drinking beer.

* * * * *

Sturm pulled in, followed closely by a giant white SUV. The guy who got out of the driver’s seat was big, as big as Sturm was short. He was near the end of his fifties, and looked like he might have been a football player in his day, but fat had grown off the muscles like a fungus and now everything kind of wilted off his large frame. He walked with a barely perceptible limp as if he was casually cheating at golf wherever he went. He looked like he’d swallowed about a gallon of red food coloring and tried to vomit it back up straight away, but it leaked out and soaked out through his face instead.

He shook Frank’s hand with a hand big enough Frank thought the man might have been wearing a catcher’s mitt. “Bob Bronson. How ya’ doing.”

It was like Castellari: Frank wasn’t sure if the guy was asking a question or just stating a fact. Frank went with a generic, “Good, good,” but Bronson was already moving down the line, attacking the clowns’ hands, beaming, saying, “Bob Bronson. Nice to meet ya,” and “Bob Bronson. Good to see ya.”

The other guy’s name was Fairfax, and he might as well have been wearing a sign that said, “Lawyer.” He wore clothing so new Frank wasn’t surprised when he saw a long sticker on the back of his thigh, announcing to everyone that he wore a 54 waist, 28 length. His boots were so stiff that he winced whenever he took a step.

Sturm wanted to introduce the men to the cats, acting like a proud father showing off his infant daughter for the first time, so Frank walked everyone through a tour of the facilities, having fun with his new words and calculations. The real problem was administering the anesthesia to the animals. You couldn’t just shoot them with tranquilizers every time.

“Why not?” Pine asked.

Frank didn’t have an answer right away. He just felt it was kind of cruel to the cats, but he didn’t want to give that as his real reason. “Lotta problems with that. You never know how much of the tranquilizer was administered for one. Two, there’s always a strong risk of striking the animal in the bone, perhaps tearing cartilage. And if the subcutaneous tissue gets infected…well.” He looked at all of them. “I think we all know what would happen then.”

Everybody nodded sagely.

“Gentlemen,” Sturm said, “I suggest we get this show on the road. My boy, Theo, will be hunting one of these fine animals this afternoon, and Jack and Chuck should be back by now. I’ve been promised that dinner will be served at eight o’clock sharp, and it’s gonna be a goddamn treat, I’m telling you. I got just one word for you, just one word to start them taste buds.” He sucked in a breath, looking around at the semi-circle of men. “Abalone.”

“Algae?” Fairfax cocked his head.

“Abalone,” Sturm said with uncharacteristic patience. “It’s basically just a shellfish, spends its life on the same damn rock, just turning in a slow circle, eating algae and slime and shit. You’ve seen the shells, right? Lot of folks along the coast use ’em for decoration. But not many people have ever tasted abalone, and for good reason. Black market prices go for over ninety bucks a pound. Just wait ‘till you taste it. I give them Japs credit. Nobody even thought about eating ’em here, but not them slant-eyed boys. They figured it out. You fellas just wait.”

* * * * *

Sturm patted Theo’s shoulder and said, “Now, you pick out which one you like. Look at their eyes,” he murmured into his son’s ear.

Theo took his time, walking slowly along the cages, letting his fingers trail along the chain-link fence. The cats watched him out of the corners of their eyes, tails flicking, acting disinterested. Theo stopped at the last cage, curling his fingers through the fence. The lioness inside, a large cat with tinges of black in her muzzle, growled low, almost inaudibly, and pressed her body against the warm cement, tail flicking back and forth. “This one,” Theo breathed.

Sturm looked at Frank expectantly. Frank and Pine rolled the squeaking hand truck down the corridor, maneuvering the anesthetic tank closer. Frank handed the hose to Pine and cranked the two handles open. Pine held the plastic cup as close as he could to the lioness. All four heard the hiss of the gas emit from the end of the tube, but the lioness didn’t move. The men at the far end stood still, trying not to breathe. After ten seconds, the tail flicking grew sluggish, and Frank saw the cat’s muscles relax.

He opened the cage, moving slower than a watch’s second hand. Pine turned his head away and pulled his “Bacon is a Vegetable” T-shirt over his mouth, and tried to hold his breath. Frank crept inside, moving slow, slow. Pine started to work the plastic cup through the chain-link fence. Frank stopped, watching the cat carefully.

“Just fucking do it!” Theo yelled.

The cat flinched. Claws, nearly an inch long and sharper then a needle, erupted from its paws. Frank froze. The cat gradually relaxed. Frank moved forward, slowly, deliberately, took the cup from Pine, and gently placed over the cat’s nose and mouth. Soon, the cat’s head rolled off to the side and before long, it was resting on the cement. Frank kept the cup over the muzzle, letting the cat breathe the anesthesia for a full two minutes, before he crouched down and injected Ace into the lioness’s left back leg. The cat slumped even further, sinking deeper into the concrete. Frank removed the plastic cup and watched and waited. The cat continued to sleep.

He motioned to Jack and Theo and the three of them dragged the sleeping cat to the cage door. There, they lifted her onto a wooden dolly used for carrying heavy pallets of dog food back and forth along the cages. They wheeled the cat out the back door, across the overgrown lawn, to the waiting horse trailer. Once the cat was inside, sprawled awkwardly on a bedding of straw, Frank said, “She should be out, four, five hours, at least. Give her another hour or two to wake up completely, and she’ll be ready for a hunt.”

“Perfect!” Sturm declared after checking his watch. “That’ll be perfect. Goddamn. Couldn’t of worked it out better myself.” He shook Frank’s hand vigorously. “Good timing. Perfect. Thank you for getting this hunt off to a splendid start.”

“Yeah,” Frank said.

“Okay then.” He tuned to the clowns. “Don’t know what the hell all you dipshits are standing around like slack-jawed morons. Snap to it. We got us a hunt to organize.”

Frank wasn’t sure what was left to organize, but he locked the back door to the vet office behind him, and jumped into the Pine’s truck. Everyone pulled out of the parking lot, slowly, slowly, as if it was a funeral procession, instead of a hunt. Sturm led in his pickup, Bronson and Fairfax next, followed by Pine and Frank towing the horse trailer with the sleeping lioness. Chuck and Jack brought up the rear.

* * * * *

The convoy wound its way through town. Folks stopped whatever they were doing, and stood at the edge of the highway, just watching the procession, as if they knew what was inside the horse trailer. The few people actually left in town proper, all stepped out of their shops to witness the parade roll through downtown, watching the vehicles drive slowly away down the highway, shiny and sharp in the afternoon sun.

When they got to the Sturm ranch, Sturm drove right through his front lawn, through the pine trees that surrounded the lawn and the house, and out to the middle of the main field, a dry, dusty expanse that was ostensibly being prepared for next year, but it was obvious that the soil was quite dead. Pine and Frank parked, left the keys and the sleeping lion behind and slowly walked back to the farmhouse, passing a bottle back and forth.

* * * * *

The hookers showed up at three. A little guy with a mustache big enough to demand its own hairdresser was driving. They all got out of a big blue minivan. The three women were short, lacquered, and all business.

“We pay you now?” Chuck demanded immediately, nervous and breathless, almost a threat.

The little guy shook his head, adjusted his razor-thin sunglasses. “No man. You pay the girls, you know, when you get down to it. Know what I’m saying?”

“Sure.” Chuck nodded like he was an old hand at paying for sex.

The women didn’t interest Frank. He tried, picturing them under him in bed, writhing and moaning, thought it was the right thing to do, to fit in with everyone else. But it was like trying to get fired up over a black and white picture of some old woman with tits as thin as wet mudflaps, hair growing out of her ears, and four teeth. Instead, he couldn’t help thinking of Annie, back in town somewhere.

Maybe he should just take Petunia by the house. But Petunia had made it clear she didn’t want to go anywhere. At the vet hospital, she had two, sometimes three solid meals a day, a cool place to sleep, and most important, someone who was always around to pet and talk to her. Frank knew getting Petunia into a vehicle and taking her home would be difficult. He hoped it wasn’t because he was becoming fond of the damn dog. It was bad enough having a crush on the dog’s owner.

Everyone gathered on the back deck, overlooking the wilting garden. Frank didn’t stray too far from the keg, packed tightly in ice inside an oil barrel. But most everybody else stood in a tight circle around the women. The women all had tall glasses of Long Island Iced Tea, with straws and umbrellas and everything.

Sturm raised his beer. “Gentlemen…and ladies too,” he said, leering up at the women, “a toast, if you please.” Everyone raised their glasses. “First of all, my son.”

Everyone drank. “Today is his first real hunt.”

“Let’s hope it goes better than his first fight,” Chuck breathed to Frank and drank quickly.

Frank was more than happy to drink. He needed more, so he edged closer to the keg while Sturm rolled on. “Secondly, a toast to these fine, beautiful whores.”

The men howled in appreciation while the women smiled thinly and raised their glasses. Shockingly red lips found their straws and they drank quickly, sucking up the last drops. Theo fell over himself to refill their glasses. “That’s right, goddamnit, that’s right,” Sturm continued, determined to ride the wave of their adulation. “And to our guests,” he jabbed his finger at Bronson and Fairfax.

“And finally,” Sturm said, quieter now, taking a seat on the railing. “To the prey.” He fell quiet for a moment, letting it sink in. “We are men. We are men, last of a dying breed in a world that has failed to recognize man’s need for instinct, for cunning, for…sharp teeth. We are true men. We are men that exist to hunt.” He raised his glass. “To the prey…for without them, we are nothing.”

“To the prey,” the men echoed in voices that were swallowed by the wind, raised their glasses and drank.

* * * * *

They gathered their guns. Rifles mostly, but a couple of shotguns could be seen. They headed out across the field in a wide line, eyes on the truck and horse trailer. The sun threw their shadows behind them, thin and impossibly long, like scarecrows marching across the field, eyes sparkling like their cars in the sun.

Sturm came riding out in an Army surplus open jeep. Theo was driving fast, and threw up a cloud of dust that hung in the late evening air like a blood red fog. Theo stood up in the driver’s seat and rested his rifle, a thin, ancient lever-action rifle on the windshield. It was a .405 Winchester and Theo’s namesake had called this particular caliber “lion medicine.”

The men clustered in a ragged semi-circle, all eyes on the trailer.

When Theo signaled that he was ready, Pine threw the bolt with a quick jerk and Frank yanked on the rope tied to the gate. But nothing happened as the gate swung wide in the swirling crimson dust. Theo fired anyway. The .400 Nitro Express shell sent the solid copper bullet ricocheting off the bolt at the top of the gate, splitting it wide open. The gate tilted wildly as it crashed into the dirt.

The recoil put Theo in the back seat of the Jeep.

A short laugh burst out of Chuck, but a sharp look from Sturm killed the rest in Chuck’s throat.

Pine, the poor bastard that had had to open the gate, didn’t think it was funny either, though for different reasons. The falling gate had nearly snapped his wrist, twisting his entire body sideways, and leaving him in the dirt. At first, he’d thought it was the lioness, busting out of the trailer and landing on the gate. But when he picked himself up and danced around trying to look everywhere at once, he finally saw the lioness, still crouched inside the horse trailer. Then he got pissed. “What…the fuck I’m gonna sonofabitch me that goddamn time it never happened mother stumping fuck,” he blurted in a machine gun fire of hoarse words and came stomping up to the Jeep. “That was goddamn close.”

“Settle down,” Sturm said. “Bullet missed you by three, four feet.”

Theo got out of the Jeep, ignoring his father and Pine, stalking the lioness. Everybody else took that as their cue; safeties were snapped off, bolts were thrown and locked, sweaty fingers caressed trigger guards. Theo slowly and methodically put each step in front of the other, as if he was creeping up on some strange house for a game of Ding Dong Ditch, and approached the back of the horse trailer in exaggerated slowness, rifle held straight up in front of him.