Bones Omnibus (24 page)

Bones didn’t flinch. Even better, it didn’t even look like he’d considered it, which made Billy smile. He’d taken Bones through crowd-control training exercises a few times. They’d spent days with instructors taunting them without Bones batting an eye. The dog proved unflappable.

In this instance, it just angered the one doing the taunting.

“Put him in 19,” Paul scowled. “Then get the fuck out of here.”

Billy pushed past Paul and into the kennel, only to have the bright fluorescent lights blazing inside nearly blind him as he entered. But even more than the volume of luminescence, the wave of sound waiting for him on the other side of the door just about knocked Billy on his ass.

Long as the building was on the outside, it was clear once inside that it was divided in half. The room Billy and Bones had entered was filled to the ceiling with steel cages on every wall, mirroring the barn with its risers. But instead of drunken spectators, these cages were filled with furiously barking dogs across several breeds, mostly mixed. There were pit bulls and Rottweilers, Dobermans and mastiffs. An English bulldog barked at an Akita ten times its size while the Akita growled at a sleeping pit one cage over. The sound of it all was deafening.

“It looks like the damn
Brady Bunch
,” Billy joked to Bones, the reference coming from the cages being stacked three high with a different face peering out of each, staring out at its neighbors.

There was a metal ramp with rubber edges nearby, mats bolted onto the surface. Billy surmised it was a ramp that allowed the animals to descend from the second- and third-level cages, the mat to keep the dogs from slipping. But the empty cage “19” turned out to be on the ground floor, so no ramp was necessary.

As he led Bones to the cage, Billy flinched half a dozen times as this dog or that turned its fury on the newcomers. The closer he got, the more he could see the dogs’ battle damage. There were heavy scars and missing fur, broken teeth and misshapen limbs that hadn’t been set properly after being broken. Almost worse than this, however, were the steroid cases. It was most obvious on the pits, their beefed-up muscles giving them the appearance of overstuffed body builders. They were freakish. Some of their mouths were so misshapen that their teeth were prominent and bent, but then Billy wondered if this was a desired effect.

For Billy, who’d fallen into dog handling in the Army, only to come out loving dogs above most humans, it was a devastating sight. These dogs were beyond help. Even if law enforcement managed to shut down a ring like this, these animals would surely have to be put down.

“Fucking hell, Bones,” Billy muttered as he ushered the shepherd into the empty cage. “I’m sorry about this.”

But Bones seemed to barely notice. He clambered into the cage, turned around, and faced Billy with an expectant look on his face. Billy hesitated before closing the cage, but then didn’t slide the latch all the way in place.

“Just in case,” he whispered, tapping the unused lock. “One good hit, and you’re sprung.”

Bones took a sniff before lying down on an old crusty towel on the bottom of the cage. Billy wondered how many dogs had spent their last moments on that piece of cloth before he banished the thought from his mind.

“See you on the flipside,” he said, though he didn’t know if the dog had heard him.

When he exited a moment later, the sergeant marveled at how soundproof the building was. What was a commotion so loud he couldn’t hear himself think one minute was completely muted the second the heavy door closed shut, sealing in the din.

“Evenin’, everybody!” Timothy barked through a megaphone to the crowd in the barn. “You stone-cold bastards ready to see some hardcore fucking bloodshed?”

The crowd, seventy-some-odd people all told, roared their approval. Most were drunk or high, the smell of marijuana hanging in the air. In addition, more than a couple had taken up offers from some of Timothy’s girls wandering the barn for a quick blowjob or fuck in the nearby sealed-up stables. Timothy knew these girls came equipped with meth, ecstasy, GHB, and occasionally ketamine, but as long as they gave him a cut and maybe threw a couple of freebies at his boys, he knew they were great for business.

“Now, for anybody that ain’t been to our dog pit before, you might be thinking, ‘Dogs hate
cats
, dogs hate
squirrels
, dogs’ll fuck up a
burglar
, but what about other dogs?’” Timothy continued, hamming it up for the crowd. “Don’t they just like scrapping and barking at them?
Naaaaah
. I think it was Herodotus who told us that the Greeks could get all pissy and precious about fighting others, but when it came to fighting other Greeks, they’d
fucking tear them to SHIT
!”

The crowd laughed, though Timothy didn’t think they had any idea who Herodotus was. Hell, he hadn’t until Henry made him read
The Histories
, suggesting he might learn something about being a leader.

“Dogs are like Greeks in that respect,” Timothy added, though everyone had already gotten the punch line. “So when we put one of these canine killers in the ring, don’t feel sorry for the furry little shit. This is what they were born to do — fuck up another member of its own race. They
live
for this shit, and they’ll fucking die for it, too. Wait…what the hell are we waiting for?!”

More laughter and applause. Timothy plucked the first two slips out of his pocket.

“Now, will the handlers of Jinsky and Titus bring your animals to the pit?”

A fat, fifty-something redneck with a bushy red beard and coveralls stood up as those around him cheered their champion. In another section of the same risers, a Hispanic man of about the same age also rose, drawing as much if not more applause. The pair disappeared out the barn door, and the other spectators began the countdown to the night’s first event.

Next to the pit, Timothy glanced up into the rafters. He could just make out where Henry sat, headphones on, a small electronic device in his hand that he aimed from one spectator to the next. He entertained a passing thought that if Henry fell and broke his neck, his problems would be solved, but he just as quickly banished it.

Henry saw him looking and shook his head, as if to say,
No luck yet
. Timothy sighed and waved back.

The entrance of Titus’s and Jinsky’s owners to the kennel sent the caged dogs into a tizzy all over again, waking Bones, who’d fallen asleep. The shepherd got to his feet and eyed the two fight dog handlers with curiosity as they retrieved their animals.

“Jinsky’s never lost a fight,” the redneck bragged. “I knew he had it in him when he killed his own mother. That’s just not natural, especially not in dogs!”

The redneck clearly expected, if not hoped, to be taunted in return, but the other man said nothing. Rather, he walked straight to a cage near the door and ushered out a Kangal so big it looked like it took up the entire cage. The redneck’s eyes went wide.

“Jesus fuck,” he whispered.

Going to the cage of his own animal, he brought out a stubby gray pit bull that hadn’t stopped slobbering or barking since Bones had entered the room. When Jinsky saw the Kangal being led to the same door it meant to exit, the smaller dog unleashed a flurry of barks that seemed to threaten nuclear annihilation.

“Yeah, Jinsky’s ready to tear out your doggy’s belly,” the redneck said, starting up again. “Wonder if ‘Titus’ knows he’s only got a few seconds to go in life.”

The Kangal turned to Jinsky at that moment, bared its teeth, and growled, low and guttural, its meaning clear. The pit took two steps back and unloaded a pile of shit onto the floor. The Kangal’s handler offered the redneck a withering look and then exited the door. Jinsky’s handler shook his head in disappointment.

“You stupid motherfucker,” he spat. “I’ve got money on you. You lose, you’re dead, you know that? This ain’t no fucking game!”

The redneck jerked Jinsky’s chain and hauled him after the Kangal. Bones watched until the door closed again, but then settled back down on the floor of his cage, head nestled on his front paws.

Bets were allowed from the moment the dogs were placed in their chutes under the barn floor until the second before they entered the ring. The timing was decided by Timothy, who generally made sure everyone who wanted to lay money got the chance before signaling the judges’ table to sound the bell.

The odds for each fight were decided by an elderly man Timothy referred to as “Uncle John,” who wasn’t related to him, but had been a friend of his and Henry’s father. Uncle John sat beside the judges, who tonight included Lil’ Mwerto, who’d accepted Timothy’s invitation to do so. Beside him was a stern-faced Irish fellow named Cookie Moran who Timothy thought looked like a
Killing of a Chinese Bookie–
era Ben Gazzara. Cookie was a friend of Uncle John’s.

Rounding out the trio was a skinny twenty-year-old kid getting a veterinary degree at Delaware Valley College in New Britain. He’d impressed Timothy and the others the first time he came around with his fight dog knowledge and his ability to handicap the dogs. When the regulars got wise and refused to take the kid’s bets, Timothy offered to pay him $10 a fight as a judge. The student, named Derek, agreed. Each time Derek entered the barn, his gaze never strayed to the handlers, spectators, other judges, or Timothy himself. Instead, they stayed fixed on the fight pit, whether there were dogs in it or not.

At the end of the night, when all the dogs were either dead or crowned champions and all the bets had been paid, Derek exited without a word, Timothy having Vickers pay him as he passed the check-in table by the parking lot.

But for the first fight of the night, Jinsky v. Titus, the judges earned their ten bucks without being asked for a decision, so clear was the victor. Jinsky had won the fight in forty seconds, having broken the Kangal’s leg in his very first attack. When the larger animal reared back, the pit dove for Titus’s belly, tearing out a chunk of flesh before scrambling around onto its back. As the wound on its underside bled, the Kangal struggled to flick off the much smaller dog, but Jinsky had burrowed his teeth into his opponent’s scruff, the pit’s preferred kill spot. The pit rode the mastiff like a rodeo bull, shaking his head violently to inflict more damage, teeth shredding skin and muscle all the way to the bone.

Finally, the blood loss was too great, and, with a strangled whine, the Kangal flopped onto its side, wheezing out its last breaths.

The redneck leapt to his feet as the spectators cheered the unlikely victor.

“Hell, yeah!” Jinsky’s handler bellowed, sounding as surprised as he was relieved.

Only, the celebration turned somber a second later as Derek nodded to the redneck.

“You’ve got to put him down,” he advised. “He’s in bad pain.”

All eyes returned to the ring as the dying whimpers of the Kangal were drowned out by the keening cries of the pit as it struggled to move, its back legs dragging uselessly behind it. Its back was broken, the mastiff having landing awkwardly on the pit when it smacked to the ground.

The redneck handler looked stunned, standing stock-still even as his friends collected their winnings from the other spectators, their tone now muted. Jinsky’s handler slowly made his way to the pit, hopped down, cradled his champion in his arms, hesitated a moment longer as the pit gave his master a familiar lick on the arm, then gingerly placed the dog’s neck in the crook of his elbow. He finished the victorious fighter off with a swift backward twist of his right forearm.

As the handler, tears now streaming down his face, carried the dog out of the pit, Lil’ Mwerto pulled Timothy’s microphone close to his mouth.

“A round of applause for my boy, Jinsky,” he drawled, clapping his hands.

The spectators followed, applauding solemnly for the fallen pit bull as his distraught owner tripped on the stairs and almost fell on his ass. With a helping hand from Cookie Moran and Uncle John, he finally staggered out of the arena and made his way to the door. Once he was gone, Timothy searched the crowd for the Kangal’s owner.

“We got Titus’s handler here?” Timothy asked, nodding toward the remaining corpse.

“He left,” someone called back. “Think he’s getting another dog from his truck.”

Timothy nodded, understanding the man’s desire to try to win back some of the money he’d inevitably bet on his own animal. He signaled a couple of his guys, who hauled the Kangal out of the pit and took the corpse out back, where it’d be incinerated the next day with any other unclaimed losers. Timothy didn’t begrudge any handler who didn’t want to go home with a dead dog in their ride, particularly if it meant avoiding unwanted questions from law enforcement in the case of a traffic stop.

That’s when he suddenly remembered Henry and looked up. The scowl on his brother’s face suggested he’d been waiting for Timothy to turn his attention back to the more important matter at hand.

“
Him
,” Henry hissed, pointing at a thirty-something man in the risers wearing a Megadeth T-shirt.

Timothy eyed the man. He hadn’t seen him before, but he didn’t think the fellow looked like law.

You sure
? Timothy mouthed back to the roof.

Henry nodded vigorously, holding up the electronic device gripped in his right hand.

God, let my dumbass brother be useful for once,
Timothy thought, climbing past the judges and waving to get Megadeth T-shirt’s attention.

At first the handler looked away, as if he hadn’t seen Timothy draw near. But this only made the fight operator lean in closer.

“Sir?” he said in a sharp, officious tone. “They’re telling me your dog got all fucked up in its cage. Like, it was trying to get out and its paw got caught. You need to get over there.”

“Shit, really?” Billy said, taken aback and truly surprised. “Sorry about that. He’s a moron, my dog.”

“Yeah, well, you should check on him,” Timothy sniffed. “Make sure he can still fight.”

“You got it.”

The police sergeant rose and headed for the door. He knew Timothy Knippa was staring at him as he walked, but he didn’t dare turn around. He tried to re-create Timothy’s face in his mind’s eye. Had he seemed suspicious? Or was that just indifference?