Foodchain (21 page)

* * * * *

Frank started the car and turned the air conditioning on while Annie folded the front seat down whistled for Petunia to get in the back seat. Frank thought of the quiet gentlemen’s reactions to a dog in the back seat and smiled. And not just any dog, either; Petunia smelled like she’d swam across a few of the sewage treatment plant ponds to get home. Hell, if he could, he’d get Petunia to take a dump on the front seat before he got rid of the car.

Annie rode in the front seat and pointed directions while talking nonstop about her brothers. “Stupid goddamn fuckheads. They can’t stop jerking off for fifteen minutes to settle on anything but sex—and if they can’t get that—which of course they fucking aren’t—then it gets to anger right fucking quick.” She killed the AC and rolled down her window.

Frank hit a highway going up into the hills and stepped on the gas.

Annie lit a cigarette like she was shooting a gun into the wind. Petunia curled up in the back seat and went to sleep. “When they get into it, fighting, they’re like goddamn dogs, all that frustration where they don’t know whether to fight or fuck, so you just gotta treat ’em like dogs. Hose ’em off with cold water. Most of the time, that works. Most of the time.” Annie inhaled the cigarette in six savage bites and lit another with the filter of the first one. “Turn here.”

Annie slowed down, relaxing into the seat, taking it easier on the cigarette. “I’m sorry. Tonight was important, and those fucking morons fucking fucked it up,” she said and put a hand on Frank’s thigh. But the touch was brief, and then her hand was on to fiddling with the radio. “Fucking radio around here sucks. It sucks long and hard.” With her particular emphasis on those last words, Frank couldn’t help but wonder if she meant something else. Fed up with the selection, Annie switched the radio off. “Where you from?”

“All over.”

“That much I guessed. Where were you born?”

“East Texas.”

“Where’s your family now?”

“All over.”

“You visit with ’em much?”

Frank followed Annie’s finger and turned into an empty parking lot. There was a half moon, just enough to reflect off the fifty-acre reservoir. He shrugged as he pulled into a spot and stopped. “Didn’t see the point in driving all over to visit a bunch of cemeteries.” He stopped the car, facing the lake, under a billion stars.

“Your mom?” Annie finished her cigarette, threw it out the window, but made no move to get out.

Frank gave a sad smile. “Cancer.”

“Dad?”

“Don’t know.”

“My daddy’s in jail. He’s not a good man. I hope he never gets out.”

“How’d he get there?” Frank was hoping she’d put her hand back on his thigh.

Annie gave her own sad smile. “He broke into seventeen campers and trailers across the southwest, killing the husbands and any children, then raping and killing the wife. You probably heard about it.”

“Jesus.” Frank was sorry he’d asked.

“No, I’m fucking with you. He’s in a jail, sure, but hell, he’s just a dumb-ass. He went after armored cars—he’d stake out an ATM and follow the truck back. He nailed two trucks, cops nailed him on the third. Thought he had to be a tough guy and use a loaded gun. So he oughta be up for parole in twenty years or so. I take a bus and see him once in a while.”

Frank turned off the engine and they sat in silence for a moment. “My daddy was a preacher. Can’t exactly say he was a man of god. He believed in…well, he believed in the devil, one. That’s for damn sure. And two, he believed in serpents. He was one of them snake handlers, always saying the word of god was protecting him from bites. Didn’t matter that he got bit twice in the face. He said that was ’cause of me. And mom, but mostly me. His fault for spawning me. God was punishing him.”

Annie twisted around to look at Petunia and put her hand back on Frank’s thigh. “You think she wants to go swimming?”

Frank didn’t want to move, didn’t want to give Annie any reason to pull her hand back, but he carefully turned his head and glanced into the back seat. Petunia snored softly, curled up in a tight ball, dead to the world. “I don’t know. She looks awful comfortable.”

“That’s what I thought.” Annie slid closer. “Kind of nice, just sitting here, looking at the water.”

“Yeah.”

“I know you’ve heard about me,” Annie said without looking at Frank.

“What?”

“Let’s stop pretending, okay? We do it all the time, with everyone, with everything that goes through our heads, so let’s…Let’s just not do it tonight, okay? Not between you and me. It’s demeaning. So, what did you hear? I know they filled you in. I want to know what they had to say.”

Frank exhaled, long and slow, wondering if one of Annie’s cigarettes would help. He thought of something better. “Well. You’re talking about the guys, the clowns, right?” He felt around under the driver’s seat and pulled out the bottle of cheap rum he’d stashed earlier.

“Who else?”

“They’re…they’re big fans. Chuck is, anyway.”

Annie smiled hugely. “Of course he is. But why? What did he say, exactly?”

Frank unscrewed the top, let the cap fall wherever it wanted. “He, uh, he said you were the best.” He took a long, long drink.

“The best. Best at what?” Annie still hadn’t moved her hand. Frank was sure he’d never been anywhere that had been so goddamn quiet. It was so quiet he could hear Annie’s thumb and forefinger tracing little circles, smoothing out the denim on his thigh.

Frank took another hefty swallow, decided to get it over with. “He said that, for twenty bucks, you gave the best blowjobs ever.” He immediately took another drink, then offered it to Annie.

She took the bottle with a knowing smile. “Good. Perfect. That’s what I hoped he’d say.” She took a drink. “Uggh. This is crap. Where’d you get this?”

Frank laughed, took it back. “It was cheap.”

Annie lit a fresh cigarette, took it slow, enjoying the drag. She still wouldn’t look at Frank. “The way I see it, no matter what you do, no matter what kind of job you want to get, it’s all about marketing, you know? It’s all about word of mouth It’s all about perception, see?”

Frank shook his head.

Annie said quietly, “I never gave anybody a blowjob. Shit. I’m still a virgin.” She gave Frank a little grin that stopped his heart. “I just get ’em to pay for a blowjob, and then to say that they had one. You understand?”

Frank wanted to nod and say, “Yeah.” But he said, “No.”

Annie turned in her seat to face Frank, eyes alive with mischief. “It’s simple. Men and their dicks. You play with their ego. See, I start slow. Maybe a little rubbing, through the pants, but the whole secret is talking dirty. You get to talking dirty to a man, I mean, really working it, really stroking his imagination, and hell, you’re almost there. That’s all it takes. Want me to show you?”

Frank’s heart had almost started beating again when this stopped it dead. “Why don’t you walk me through it first.”

“You sure?”

“No.”

Annie laughed. “Okay. Okay. Well, it starts slow, like I said.” She started rubbing his thigh. “Then we go for a drive. Some place private. Like this,” she gestured out at the lake through the windshield.”

“You been here before?

“Maybe. So then I start talking about, oh, I don’t know, about the night or the lake. Doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m using words like
soft
,
wet
,
smooth
, for the place. Then I refer to them, using words like
powerful
,
hard
,
strong
. Things like that, you know?”

With each adjective or adverb, her voice became husky, slow, seductive. The rubbing of his thighs matched her voice. “Then my hand moves up. Hell, half the time I don’t even have to unzip their jeans.” Her palm slid up to Frank’s crotch. He was surprised to find that he wasn’t the least embarrassed about his aching erection, and took another swallow of rum.

“Then I just rub, slow, for awhile, talking to them the whole time. About what I’m going to do to them, about how much I enjoy it, how much I
need
it. I’ll go into detail about how soft my mouth will feel, how much suction my tongue will give, how much I
want
them. Sometimes, that’s all it takes. Sometimes, they last a little longer. So I use a rubber glove. Like a surgical glove. Didn’t bring one with me tonight, though.” Her hand paused on his belt buckle. “Thing with latex gloves though, you gotta provide a little extra lubrication, so I’d stick my hand down my pants, pretend to rub myself. All I had to do was act like I was enjoying it. Want me to show you?”

“Not if it’s fake.”

“You add a little spit to it,” she mimicked, licking her hand, “and yeah, sometimes you had to touch ’em.” Her hand closed into a fist. “I just pretended I was milking a cow. Usually didn’t take ’em long. ‘Specially if I talked.” Her hand unclasped his belt buckle with a smooth jerk.

“Then what?” he asked.

“Then what—what?” She pulled back and flicked the cigarette out of the window. “They came. I could usually talk them into wiping themselves with their shirts.” Annie thought this was pretty funny.

“You never…”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She turned toward him, up on her knees, hands in lap, demure as choir girl. “Put something like that in my mouth? Please. Especially with the hygiene around here. But the thing is, they can’t tell each other the truth—they can’t admit that they never got a blowjob. Hell, they think they’re the only one that came before getting their dick sucked, and there’s no way they want to admit it to each other. They don’t want to be the only one that didn’t come in my mouth. So yeah, they’re out there telling each other that they got the best blowjob of their lives.”

Frank didn’t know what to say. He checked on Petunia. She hadn’t moved. Annie blinked at him. His erection hadn’t gone down. His scalp itched from being shaved. “Why are you telling me this?”

“’Cause I want you to know that I’m not…well, I was going to say not a whore, but that would be lying, wouldn’t it? I am a whore,” she said, almost proud. “I just have boundaries.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

“’Cause I like you. And I want you to like me.”

Frank took another long drink. The bottle was nearly half empty. “Look. I, uh…” The rum decided he should be honest. “Ahh, fuck it. I do like you. I…shit. Ever since I met you, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Annie’s face glowed in the starlight. “Please Don’t tease.”“

“I’m not. We both do things…things that we wish we didn’t have to.” He reached out and cupped her head, thumb just in front of the ear, the rest of the fingers stroking the back of her skull. He kissed her. Gentle. Tender. Her lips felt soft as clouds. He pulled back. “But you…stimulate cattle for reproduction.” Frank gave her a cold, lopsided smile and Annie wanted to pull away from his touch. “I kill.”

* * * * *

They sat in silence during the ride back. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though. It was more a contemplative quiet, each lost in his own thoughts. Both realized that they had revealed more of themselves to each other than perhaps anyone else alive. This was a new experience, a strange sensation, being so honest, so open with someone else. It felt like struggling into a new skin. Something that didn’t feel uncomfortable exactly, just different.

Frank stopped in front of the satellite dish. Petunia, awake by now, licked his ear. He turned to Annie. “I need to see you again. Soon.”

She gave a secretive little smile, clasped his face with both hands, and kissed him deeply on the mouth. He felt the electrifying touch of her tongue, just a brief little stab, but it was enough to stick in his mind for days. Then, without saying a word, she slid out of the car, let Petunia out, gave a tiny wave, and disappeared into the house.

Frank finished the bottle of rum driving back to the vet office. He grabbed a beer and told the cats about his evening. He wasn’t sure if they were impressed or not, but he was happy. He hadn’t felt this good since the night of the town BBQ and carnival. The nagging worm of doubt about who was telling the truth was gone. Annie had shared her secret with him and he was sure she was being honest. He couldn’t say why, exactly. There was something about the way she watched him most of the time, direct, merciless; but she’d get shy every so often and couldn’t meet his eyes. Soft and hard. Sweet and sour. Yin and yang. It was the contrast, that wonderfully wild seesaw of feelings that pulled him in. He didn’t think she had enough control over her emotions to lie.

He fell asleep on the couch, plotting out an escape to some tiny seaside town in Mexico. He’d earned plenty of cash, and Annie would come down later, only wanting to be with him, to lie in his arms and listen to the distant surf. It was a fine vision.

And it seemed damn close to grab.

DAY TWENTY

Like the cheap rum, the fantasy had rotted the next morning, turning sour and sick in his mind. His head felt brittle, fragile, like his skull was too tight. He wanted to smash something breakable. Around six, the sensation of his head cracking apart like hardwood cooking in the sun drove him into the bathroom, where there was a bottle of aspirin on the toilet. He stumbled back to his cot where he slept dreamlessly until noon, when it took him at least ten minutes to realize someone was ringing the hospital’s buzzer.

* * * * *

Frank drifted along the rows of cages, the eyes of the big cats like starving leeches on his bare skin. His tongue felt as if fungus had covered it during the night. The horizon swam and lurched in his eyes.

And when he saw the two deputies outside, his hangover got truly vicious, grabbing him by the ears and stabbing at the nerves behind his eyes and refusing to let go. His stomach spasmed and quivered, threatening to spatter half digested tiger meat, pasta, and spicy vegetables all over the tile floor.

Through the bathroom window, standing on the toilet seat, Frank saw them waiting just outside the front door, hands on their hips, alternately watching the empty street and the door. They looked like they were trying hard to look bored, but the occasional cry or hiss from one of the hungry cats made their heavy-lidded eyes snap open in furtive movement. Then they’d glance quickly at each other, as if reassuring themselves that they were on the right track. Herschell Thibbetts still wore his mirrored sunglasses, anchored to his squashed, pinched face by a strap around the back of his head. Olaf Halford looked like he’d sheared his head that very morning. Neither one let go of the butt of their handguns.

Thoughts swam sluggishly through Frank’s wounded mind. His first reaction was to simply bolt out the back door, snatch the cash hidden in the horizontal freezer behind the barn, jump in the long black car and drive north. He was all the way to the back door, his hand curling around the doorknob, when he heard Herschell shout, “Mr. Winchester. Mr. Winchester, we know you are in there. That car of yours is back in the barn.” Herschell hit the buzzer again. “Mr. Winchester.”

The last shred of rational thought left in his head begged him to slow down and think. Driving north wouldn’t help him much. Frank needed help, plain and simple. He could always try to run later, if it came to that. As long as he wasn’t a suspect for the murder of some trucker. Or the murder of the zoo owner. Or, while he was being honest, one of the quiet gentlemen, the one he’d pulled into the tank with him.

He let go of the back door handle and stumbled over to the black phone nailed to the wall. He dialed Sturm’s number, but Theo answered.

“Hey. This is Frank.”

“So?”

“Your dad there?”

“Why?”

“This is important.”

“Then tell me. And I’ll decide if it’s important enough to get my dad.”

Frank resisted the urge to smash the phone against the wall. “I need to talk to your dad. Right now.”

“He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s out.”

Herschell or Olaf rang the buzzer again.

“Well listen. This is Frank. I need to talk to him right now.”

“He’s out.”

“Yeah.” Frank punched the wall. “Listen, doesn’t he have one of them cell phones or walkie-talkie things? Said so himself that this was serious work. Said these cats were the most important element in our business. I know you can reach him. Give me the number.”

“Don’t have it. So fuck you,” and the line went dead.

Frank slammed the phone down hard enough to pull the top of the base away from the wall. Baby spiders, stung by the sudden light, crawled sleepily out from under the base, setting out for the nooks and crannies of the vet hospital.

Frank knew he didn’t have a choice. He went back up front and opened the front door. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned with exaggerated gestures. “Morning.”

“Good…” Herschell checked his watch. “… afternoon, sir.”

Olaf Halford fixed his stare on Frank. “Wondering if we could come in and take a look around.”

Frank said, “Sure,” but didn’t move. “What are you officers looking for? Maybe I can help you out.”

“Some of the neighbors have expressed concern over the use of the facilities,” Olaf said.

“Neighbors? Didn’t realize I had any,” Frank said, eyeballing the empty, dead houses down the street.

Herschell’s smile was thin and forced. “This whole town is your neighbor, sir.”

“And these concerns…concerned…?”

“The illegal captivity and holding of non-licensed animals.”

“Well, this is a vet hospital. Didn’t realize that sick animals needing my help needed licenses to be treated.”

“We’d like to take a look around,” Herschell said. The “sir” attitude was gone. “We can come back with a search warrant, if you’d like.” Herschell’s tone suggested that this would be a bad idea.

Frank knew it was useless to pretend anymore. “Of course, just curious, that’s all. The animals are back here. Mr. Sturm had ’em brought in special.” There was a distant hope that by mentioning Sturm’s name, these deputies would understand he was simply following orders, same as them.

“Mr. Sturm is subject to the same laws regarding exotic animal captivity as anyone else,” Herschell said, stepping inside. “If these are actually indeed his animals.” Olaf followed, both removing their hats with their left hands. Their right never left the butt of the sidearm.

Frank said, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” stalling for time.

“We’ve got these reports. From concerned citizens,” Herschell said, standing solidly in the middle of the room while Olaf wandered around, looking nowhere and everywhere at once. Herschell held his hand up and snapped his fingers, a snapping, dry crack that stabbed Frank’s brain like a dull icepick. When he had Frank’s attention, he said, “I think you know why we’re here.”

Frank shrugged. “I don’t understand the nature of the complaints.”

Herschell brushed past Frank saying, “I think you do,” and followed Olaf through the door to the back of the office. He poked his head in the bathroom, the second examining room, and the back room filled with books. But this was a quick, cursory scan, making sure Frank didn’t have any company.

Frank wondered if Herschell or Olaf had been with Annie.

“Seems like there’s been a whole hell of a lot of different animals in and out of this place in the last few weeks, not to mention the shooting in town, we want to know just what the hell is going on. We got the safety of this town to think about.”

“Yeah. So you’re looking for…?”

“Besides the monkeys out in the barn? And that thing, whatever it is, some kind of retarded elephant?” Herschell opened the door to the cats. “And of course, these little darlins.” He motioned for Frank to follow. Herschell stopped halfway down the cages, triumphant now that the game was up, fishing in the back pocket of his uniform. The cats shrank to the back of their cages, tails flicking, eyes darting.

He held up a sheaf of official looking paper, skipped through a few parts with his index finger, and read out loud, “…here…’for exotic specimen, including, but not limited to, lions, lionesses. Both of ’em. In fact, both male and female for any other species named or unnamed, from henceforth within. Tigers. Cheetas. Any other kind of big cat. One big rhino. A barn full of monkeys.’”

As Herschell read on, Frank knew the cops had been through the hospital, had seen everything. They had already taken a good long look at all of the animals. They’d been in the back room. They’d been through his stuff. And just like that, Olaf brought Frank’s shotgun up from behind him, bringing it up to that peculiarly soft stretch of skin up behind his ear, between his neck muscles and the back of the jawbone. The sharp coldness of the barrel hit his skin back there, strangely gentle, as Olaf’s voice said, “And what the living fuck are you doing with a loaded firearm?”

Frank lifted his arms and spread his fingers wide. “Easy. Easy does it. I’m no criminal.”

“Where you from, Mr. Winchester?” Herschell asked. Olaf pulled the shotgun back. But he remained behind Frank.

“I was born in East Texas. My mom and me, we lived all over the Midwest, we—”

“Where you working now, dipshit,” Olaf said.

“Ohio. Cleveland.”

“Bullshit,” Herschell said. “You seem a little on the slow side, so let me help you understand just how deep the shit is that you have just found yourself in. One,” Herschell counted on his fingers, just to help Frank comprehend. “You got fugitive written all over you. Here you are, no identification, no nothing. You ain’t from Cleveland, I’d bet my badge on that. Two. You seem to be running this vet hospital, but I’ll be damned if I see any of your degrees or certificates or any other crap like that anywhere around. Even the head rat catcher over at the Dole sugar plant has got a certificate of somesuch. What do you got? Fuck all, that’s what. But for whatever reason, you seem to be living here. And treating patients, I might add. Of course, from what I can tell, you ain’t too good at your job. Last I heard, you killed a poor housecat. And that brings us to three and these animals here.” Herschell tapped the cages with the official documents. “This is California, not some jungle village in deepest, darkest Africa.” He shook his head. “You’re in some serious trouble here and you’re just too goddamn dumb to know it.”

Frank didn’t say anything. Herschell seemed disappointed.

“Fine. Fine. Here’s what’s gonna happen,” Herschell said. “We’re gonna take you down to the station, take a pretty picture. Then we’re gonna send that picture out all over the country and I’d be willing to bet somebody, somewhere has a big time hard-on for you.”

Olaf grabbed Frank’s arms and Frank heard the distinct clicking and muted jangling of handcuffs in the small of his back. Real ones this time, not the plastic ones the quiet gentlemen used. There would be no breaking these with a screwdriver.

As if sensing the sudden tension in Frank’s arm muscles, Olaf said, “Give me any trouble and them cats’ll be licking your brains off the floor.” The handcuffs locked into place like a pit bull’s jaws.

* * * * *

They’d gotten Frank out to the cruiser and were just about to lock him in the backseat when Sturm’s pickup bounced into the parking lot in a storm of dust. Herschell and Olaf exchanged glances.

Sturm ambled up like he was being social after church, bare-chested except for the wide swath of bandages strapped around his upper torso. The milky skin on his shoulders had started to glow red in the relentless sun. He had his black cowboy hat squarely over his bald head and the Iron Mistress swung at his hip. “Howdy boys. No trouble with my employee, I hope.”

Herschell nodded. “I’m afraid so. This man has no ID, no license to practice veterinary medicine in California, no nothing. But we got all these animals, none of ’em native to this state, supposedly under his supposed care. Then there’s the animal that got loose. Tiger, I believe. Operation of a firearm on a public street is a violation of County Code 43 and is punishable by fine of not less than three hundred dollars and not more than six hundred dollars,” Herschell recited in a flat, dull voice. “We’ll have to take him down to Redding for this,” he added and nodded at Frank. “I’d hate to think he was taking advantage of us. For the safety of the community, we’re gonna take him in, see if we can’t find out who he really is.”

“Can’t be too careful in these uncertain times,” Olaf said.

“Oh hell no. Can’t be too careful whatsoever,” Sturm said. “And these are unfuckingcertain times, that’s for goddamned sure. This man is an extremely valuable employee. I need his help. I need his help right now, today, in fact. And I’d hate to be inconvenienced in any way. You boys take him down to Redding, it might take a while to clear his name. I don’t have that kind of time.” Sturm tapped his head.

“I can appreciate that, Mr. Sturm,” Herschell said. “But the fact is, we got ourselves plenty of violations happening here. We don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Shit.” Sturm rapped his knuckles across the hood. “This doesn’t have anything to do with that permit I forgot to file, does it?”

“It might,” Herschell said.

Sturm pulled a roll of cash bundled in a thick rubber band from his Carhart overalls. “Knew I forgot something last week. This permit we’re talking about, I’ll need it for the meeting of a gun club. How much was it again?”

Herschell eyed the roll. “Normally, we’d be talking a couple hundred. But this, this is different. These conditions, the large number of animals…I’d say we’re looking at somewhere around four hundred, at least. Plus the fine of six hundred.”

Sturm’s fingers pinched off a thick stack of twenties. “Listen, I appreciate your willingness to take care of business out here. I’d hate to drag this downtown. Let’s just take care of all them damn fines, citations, levies, taxes, and whatever else shit you want to charge right here and now.”

Herschell took the cash and Olaf popped the handcuffs open. Frank rubbed his wrists and backed slowly towards the hospital. Somebody in the town, most likely the woman from the gas station, had sicced the cops on him.

Out in the petrified mud, past the back end of the vehicles, Herschell said quietly, “You sure about this, Mr. Sturm? I been in law enforcement going on thirty years now. I don’t need a goddamn neon sign to tell me someone is bad news. And this boy is bad news, I’m telling you.”