Pain Killers (32 page)

On my last job (as a needle wrangler for a Lifetime pilot about a junkie ballerina who secretly didn’t know how to read, and her love for an Iraqi talk show host), the studio guard who checked my trunk said he didn’t know Lincoln made trash compactors.

Unless I wanted to go full ghetto and wear a down jacket on a ninety-degree day—hiding the bolt cutters underneath like a sawed-off—I needed something to put them in. I owned a briefcase that looked fairly professional. But the last thing I needed to look in a Highland Park alley was professional. I settled on a burlap bag.

I was eyeballed when I walked out of Chico’s. The lookout squatted in front of an open door, peering through the wrought iron that ran along the top-floor walkway on the three-story apartment fronting the parking lot. He was a skinny shaved-head kid in a white T that fit like a muumuu. In black shorts so baggy they hung around his stick legs like lampshades that stopped at the tops of his white socks. It’s not like gangbangers wanted to hide their occupation. They were as easy to spot as FedEx.

I got in the Lincoln, made a right on Avenue Fifty, a left on Figueroa, then cut back up Avenue Fifty-one from the other direction. One stoop had some occupants whose heads all turned at once. But nothing more eventful.

The pound was a low cinder-block building with a half-dozen slanted spaces out front. I parked in the handicap spot, close to the entrance, marked only by a small sign on the door with HOURS OF OPERATION and a faded sticker: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, DIAL 911.

A retaining wall ran across the alley to the dead-looking house. The homeowner had ceded in the war against graffiti. As a result, the wall was nearly solid with stylized letters and numbers whose import was as arcane as Kabbalah—except for the odd 187. Police code for murder. As any wannabe who’d listened to more than three tracks of a rap CD since 1987 would know.

I tried to look purposeful, keeping the bolt cutters close to my leg. Made my way past the front entrance and up the small broken-glass path that ran between the shelter and the back of a quiet house. This was pit bull territory. Once a dog lost a fight, the fellas liked to toss it out of a moving car. I imagined the ones that survived the bounce ended up in the shelter, and they probably weren’t happy about it. Just in case, I’d mixed up a knockout paste in the car, in the lid of a Kiwi shoeshine can, and smeared it on Chico’s dog treats. My old partner Razetti had taught me how to make the stuff. He called it Somi-lax, after its two main ingredients, ample helpings of Sominex and Ex-lax. It worked on humans, so I assumed it would do the job on dogs.

I reached a fence in the back but heard no snarling. Nary a bark or whimper. Odd. Streetlights weren’t a problem, either. They’d all been dismantled for copper. All I had to do was climb the six-foot cyclone fence without dropping anything. Somewhere inside was a bigger clue to Mengele than anything Google could produce. I just didn’t know I was going to have to wash it and feed it.

I clawed my way to the top of the fence, tried to shimmy sideways so I’d land on a pile of tires on the other side. Before I made my move, my Chico’s bag tipped over. Bones and meat chunks landed with a splat, followed by a fevered
“Pendejo!”
I was so startled, I slipped. The right pocket of my leather jacket ripped on the fence and I dropped on top of a truck tire. The tire moved, then morphed into a jumpy older version of the kid I’d seen doing lookout behind Chico’s.

“The fuck you doing, mang?”

He stood up and wiped a blob of chicken parts off his grimy face. I didn’t see the knife until he waved it at me. “He sends a gringo to kill me? My ass is green-lighted, right?”

I smacked the blade out of his hand. He scrambled for it, ranting.

“I didn’t even rat him out. I said he hit the bitch. Thass it, I swear. I didn’t say what really happened. They had my
ass,
mang. You know what I’m saying? I got two strikes.”

He stood up again, knife in hand. This time I grabbed it. He didn’t resist. “I didn’t know they was gonna arrest him, okay? Somebody saw the shelter’s name on the side of the van. I ain’t no snitch. I didn’t say nothin’ ’bout the shit we did.”

“What shit?”

He didn’t answer. Just kept talking.

“It’s my ass, too. He thinks I’m gonna rat my
own
ass out? I ditched the van, too. I told the lady who runs the shelter somebody stole it, at gunpoint, like, she doesn’t even ask me to make no police report or nothing, just fires me on the spot!”

“Hey, slow down,” I said. But he just talked faster. Was there anybody who wasn’t enhanced with bathtub crank?

“That’s the thing. Once you’re in a gang, nobody ever believe shit you say. I don’t care who the fuck he say he was, I ain’t goin’ down for that shit. It was his idea, mang!”

“Shut the fuck up!”

I needed to straighten him out, so I backhanded him. But not in a mean way. He staggered a few steps and sat down hard on the ground.

“Listen, compadre, nobody sent me to do anything. And who are you talking about…with the van?”

Even though I knew already, I needed him to tell me. But my new friend was more interested in those chicken and goat bones. He was the same height as me, six feet even, but if I’m two hundred he had to be pushing one forty-five. I knew, because I used to be that skinny, when I was young and strung. Homeboy was sucked up and grimy. The haunted whites of his eyes contrasted with the black film covering his face and hands. He snatched up a half-eaten chicken leg and ripped into it. “This shit is good.”

I knocked the Somi-laxed fryer out of his hand before he ate any more. “That shit’s for dogs,” I said.

“Think I care? I am so fucking hungry. But I can’t show myself. I seen what he can do. I know his skinny ass is in Quentin, but—”

“Who is he?” I repeated. “Maybe we’re looking for the same guy.”

“I’m not lookin’ for nobody, he’s lookin’ for me.”

“Goddamn it, who?”

“The old German. The freak.”

The back of my neck tingled, the way it does when I’m
close.
Even if I didn’t know what it is I was close to—or how close it was.

“What kind of freak we talkin’ about? He some kind of
chomo
? A diaper viper?”

“Naw, dawg. He’s no diaper viper. He—naw. Never mind. I don’t even want to talk about it.”

“Can you get us inside?” I put my hands on his shoulders, talked to him like he wasn’t as crazy as he looked. “Let me get you something to eat.”

“Food…”
He lit up at the idea, then dimmed, sagging, as though eating was an exotic dream, like talking about what you were going to do with the cash when you won the lotto.

“Is this the key?” I asked, slipping the ring out of his pocket while he hallucinated chorizos. He nodded, then grabbed my arm. “They come in at six. Is it nearly morning?”

“Relax. It’s gonna be night for a while. What’s your name, hombre?”

“Fuck you wanna know?”

“So should I call you ‘Fuck’ or ‘Fuck you’?”

“Carlos,” he said.

“There an alarm system, Carlos? Some kind of code?”

“Keypad’s on the wall. Four two one oh five.”

“Hitler’s birthday,” I said. “Your boy ain’t hidin’ his tracks.”

“Whatever. I need to eat.”

I found the keyhole in the dark. I didn’t know what was behind the door. Inside it was pitch-black, except for a blinking green light. I pressed the Führer’s digits. The light beeped and went out.

“Good lookin’ out.”

He reached for the switch and I stopped him. A pair of lights swept the window. “You heard of B&E, Carlos? That’s what we’re doing. Right now. You and me.”

“Hey, I got two strikes!”

“You don’t keep it down, this is your last night on the outs.”

The headlights blasted the room and we ducked. They wobbled and swept the other way. Whoever was driving was turning around, not parking. The lights swept back through the shelter reception, reflecting off the chest-high metal counter that cut the room in half. Red footsteps painted on the floor led to one end of the counter, over which a sign said ADOPTION HOURS. The light moved before I could read them, briefly illuminating green footsteps to the other end. DROP-OFFS MUST FILL OUT FORM. NO EXCEPTIONS.

“Enchiladas
verdes,
Carlos. I’ve got two, from Chico’s.”

“That place is good.”

“They’re still hot. Wash up.”

“You a faggot?”

“You lonely?”

He muttered something and dropped to a crouch like he was threatening to wrestle.

“Why you want me to wash?”

“’Cause the enchiladas are in my car and we’re gonna get them together. And you look black. You walk around lookin’ that black in this hood, one of your boys will put you in the ground.”

His eyes went wide. He hoisted himself over the counter and pushed through the black double doors behind it. The stench broke like a wave of cat piss and industrial-strength cleaner fumes. I hit the flashlight and saw the cages, some wolf size, some cat or beagle compatible, lined up along one side of the room. The creatures curled three or four to a cage. I couldn’t tell what they were. Nothing moved. It was beyond disturbing.

Carlos doubled over from the exertion of walking eleven steps. I talked while he panted.

“That’s what you gangsters do, right, to keep the neighborhood clean? Kill blacks?”

“You know?”

“Come on, Carlos. It’s been on the news.”

“It has?” His voice cracked high with panic. “When?”

“I don’t know, a year ago.”

“A year? Oh, ha! Fuck, you’re talkin’ about—ha, that’s good.”

“What did he say he was going to do to you?”

“Who, the German? He didn’t say shit. But he was always talkin’ about his connections. I’m like, you got connections, why the fuck you gassin’ dogs with a ninth grade dropout? Man, he got so mad. He was always fuckin’ with the machines, you know? ‘Makin’ improvements.’ That’s what he said. So, after I disrespect him on his connections he says, ‘Come on, I want to show you somethin’ I’m workin’ on.’”

“What was that?”

Carlos stared in abstract confusion at the dials and hoses. “I been givin’ flea baths to dogs and cats for two and a half years, now I’m blankin’ on how to work the sink.”

“Carlos, what was he working on?”

I pulled the hose down and twisted the blue faucet. A stream of water thick as a fist hit him in the face. He staggered backward with his hands up. I sprayed his arms.

“Come on, Carlos.”

“I can’t….”

“What was it, Carlos? Is it here?”

I hosed him again. He spun around and I shot the tire grime off the back of his skull. I took no pleasure in this. Anybody who’d been deloused at County knew the ball-numbing misery of it.

Carlos straightened up. I handed him another towel. His dried off from tattoo to tattoo, watching each materialize from under the grime: a full-lipped, doe-eyed chola; a low-rider in wraparound shades, ban-dana and droopy mustache at the wheel of a ’68 Chevy; and on his chest, in the position of honor, a skull wearing a fedora with a bullet hole in it—insignia of L’Avenida, the Avenues.

“Carlos? Talk to me.”

He held his hands up and squealed until he realized I’d stopped spraying. When he was done washing, the towel was black. Now he looked like a clean young banger—the “18” on the back of his neck as crisp as the number on the side of a plane.

“It was the van. The dog-catchin’ van.”

“What about it? What’d he do?”

“I can’t….”

“Carlos!” Now I stepped closer, letting the nozzle dangle, loosely swinging a foot of rubber hose. Letting him know I wasn’t asking anymore.

My flashlight caught a tear, squeezed from the corner of his eye. His chin quivered, but he was trying to stay macho. “Gas.”

“What?”

“We—no,
he
rigged it up…. Then, the first day, he showed me. We picked up some strays in Mount Washington. Except they weren’t straying anywhere. He straight-up dog-napped these motherfuckers. Till we had seven. Then he says, ‘Don’t worry, it’s ecological.’ I’m like, ‘What’s ecological?’ He says instead of goin’ into the atmosphere, the exhaust goes back in the truck, and we can use it. Me, I’m sayin’, ‘What?’”

“So you gassed animals in the van? As you were driving?”

I found the Big Dog water-absorber towels under the first sink and threw one to Carlos. He caught it and stood there, grime dripping down his face like runny mascara. He opened his mouth to explain but nothing came out. I helped him along.

“Yo, Carlos, why are all the dogs sleeping?” I leaned close to a cute little Pomeranian. He scratched himself.

“They’re not all sleeping, homes. Some of them are dead.”

“
Dead?
Why are they in a cage?”

I stepped back quickly and bumped into a ceiling-high cabinet. Beside that was the cleanest appliance in the place. It looked like a medieval washer-dryer. The dull metal door and steering wheel handle had been polished to a sheen. On impulse I turned the heavy steel O. The thick door swung open without a squeak. I don’t know what I’d expected or what I was after. But Mengele had worked there, and this was an oven.

I stuck my head into the sparkly clean interior. Twisting my neck, I could see the pipes above and below the door, each with eight rows of sixteen holes. White bits of what looked like popcorn stuck to the top and sides.

I banged the top of my head popping out, the same spot where I’d been whacked in Tina’s minivan at Quentin, and by Harry Zell before that.

I reeled backward, wiping grime off my hands.

“Know what I used to trip on?” Carlos asked.

“Can’t say I do.” I checked the top of my head for blood. What
I
was tripping on were fascinating facts I recalled from the Discovery Channel. It took twenty minutes for a human body to burn in the oven at Auschwitz.

“What tripped me out,” Carlos said, “was thinkin’, like,
Why can’t we use the microwave?
I always wondered, you know? But, check it out, when I mentioned it to the old German, you know what he said?” Carlos’s lips were so cracked they bled when he laughed. “He said, ‘Microwaves cause cancer.’ You believe that shit? I’m like, ‘How they gonna get cancer, they’re dead?’ But this dude, I’m tellin’ you, he got this look on his face, make you feel like shit, you know? He starts chewin’ on that raggedy-ass mustache and smiles, clownin’ me off. ‘I’m not talkin’ about who’s
in
the oven, Herr Carlos, I’m talkin’ about who’s
runnin’
it.’”