Foodchain

by Jeff Jacobson

  The men were impressed. More money was laid down.

  The lioness flung the corpse at the back of the pit, near the chute. She shrank into a spot between the dog owners and the hunters, up in the front, refusing to look at the body. Chuck dragged the dead dog out with a long gaff, originally designed for hauling 100-pound tuna out of the ocean.

  Jack read two more names. “Scorpion” and “El Perversio.” Based on how fast the lioness had killed an experienced fighter, Frank chose one of the strongest dogs, Scorpion, and a dog near the bottom, El Perversio. Scorpion had both eyes, most of his muscle; El Pervesio had three legs. The entire process was repeated, all the way through until the cat killed both dogs. She was smart, and went after Scorpion first, holding El Perversio off with her left paw. That fight lasted fourteen seconds.

  The lioness was panting, so Frank opened the chute and placed a five-gallon bucket half-filled with water on the floor and stepped back. The cat came forward sniffed, and lapped at the water. Frank studied her and decided to gamble. The cat had to die in the fourth round, yet Sturm wanted the hunters to believe that she could just keep killing dogs all night long, so Frank had to make it look realistic. He chose three of the healthiest and most vicious dogs. They weren’t the biggest, but he knew they would be some of the toughest. He rested his beer on the fence, holding it loosely with his right hand, fingers slowly working in code. His eyes remained on the cat. Six. Nineteen. Twenty-seven.

  Jack, who was seemingly looking at Sturm the entire time, nodded. He pulled out the checks and read the names aloud. “Shadow of Death. Pansy. Tr—” But before he could finish, Pine tore up into the stands and knocked one guy on his ass. Pine must have caught the hunters making a bet between themselves.

  While the first hunter struggled to push himself up from in between the bleacher seats, Pine alternated between jabbing the second hunter in the chest with his index finder and driving the first hunter on his back deeper into the narrow gap between the benches. When Pine finally let the guy up, the hunter was spitting blood.

  Nobody had any objections to placing all bets through the house after that.

  Jack repeated the first two names and read “Trigger” for the third round. Frank knew the cat would kill all three, she was that tough, but it would be a good fight. The dogs would undoubtedly get a few good licks in, maybe tearing her open a little in the process. With all the blood in the auction yard floor, Frank figured it would be tough for the hunters to get an accurate fix on the cat’s condition.

  The dogs were released, and the lioness took on all three at the same time, one with her right paw, one with her left, and the dog in the middle with her teeth. Pansy, the dog under her left paw, got loose and circled around the back, snapping at her back legs. Pansy got hold of the lioness’s dew claw just above her back left foot, and nearly tore it completely off. The dog sank it’s teeth into the meat of the of the cat’s leg, just under the knee. The lioness whirled, Shadow of Death still hanging limply from her jaws, and broke Pansy’s neck with one swipe. Trigger was kicking in a slow circle, dragging his intestines through the dirt.

  Girdler, who had been keeping track with his watch, hollered, “Two minutes, forty-three seconds!”

  Frank immediately saw that she left a track of fresh blood every time she took a step with that back left paw. No one else could see it, the chain link fence was too constricting, and there was simply too much blood on the auction yard floor. But Frank knew it was over. This was fresh; there was an unmistakable sheen under the lights. But like cats everywhere, she hid any outward evidence of the wound and never altered her rolling, sinuous walk. This was an instinctive trait, hiding any weakness or sickness from possible predators. So no one suspected. No one knew. It would help.

  * * * * *

  “She’s wounded,” Frank said. Nobody listened. But that was okay. It was his job to make things realistic, so he took a chance that this bunch would be ready to brush off his warning. “I said, she’s wounded.”

  Sturm watched him. “Heads up,” he hollered. “The vet says she’s wounded. I don’t see it. Any else see it?”

  Frank didn’t point out the location. He wrote it down on a twenty, and wedged it into the edge of the cage. “When it’s over, you check and see what I put down. You’ll find the wound on her. You can see the blood already.”

  “That’s fucking dog blood,” somebody in the crowd shouted. He stumbled down the bleacher steps to the cage. “I’ll fucking bet you that goddamn lion is gonna chew through the next four dogs faster you can say shit. That bitch is mean.” He jammed a cigarette into his mouth, held a light to it, and inhaled. But the act of taking a deep breath jarred something loose, and he coughed up a thick tether of phlegm that unfurled in one long wave, the back end still clinging tenaciously to the side of his tongue. The other end stuck to his bottom lip and chin like a dead jellyfish. Either the guy didn’t notice it or just pretended it didn’t happen, he took the cigarette back out of his mouth as if he’d forgotten what he was doing, got out a twenty, stuck it in the cage. “Fucking believe it. I’ll take that bet. She’ll kill them dogs deader n’ shit.” He stuck the cigarette back into his mouth and finally got it lit.

  “Sir, you do understand that Frank is telling you flat out, that that lioness, that beautiful specimen down there, that she’s not going to make this round, and you still want to bet?” Sturm asked the guy, but he was saying it loud enough so the crowd could hear.

  “You’re goddamn right,” the smoker yelled.

  “I’m telling you, that cat is finished,” Frank said.

  “Go fuck yourself, retard.” The smoker wiped his chin. A chorus of insults rained down over Frank as hunters rushed to leave cash at the cage.

  Plenty of men wrote their names on twenties and stuck them in the crevices of the cage. Frank yelled back. “Bunch of piss-brain morons.”

  “Look who’s talkin’,” someone else yelled back.

  Frank knew he’d take some shit for his gamble, and getting insulted was necessary part of the plan. But this was more than he’d expected. The men saw it as the perfect opportunity to air all their jokes and names in an open place. They unloaded on him. It was unnecessary. He got pissed. “Look, I’m telling you. She’s not going to make it. The wound is connected a major tendon back there—that back leg goes, that’s it. It’s over.”

  “Hey, he got enough to cover this?” the smoker asked Sturm. Nobody paid the slightest attention to Frank, except to have fun at his expense.

  “It’s covered,” Sturm said. He checked his watch. “One minute ‘til the betting window closes.” When the minute was up, a green hedge of cash had sprouted along one side of the fence. Sturm nodded at Frank.

  Frank went back to the mouth of the chute clenching and unclenching his fists. That just sealed it. That cat was not going to finish this round one way or another. He bent over the water bucket, lifting it with his right, and helping guide it towards the small flap with his left. Conscious of his audience, he concealed a short, squat syringe with a modified plunger in his curled left hand. Instead of a needle there was just a wide snout of plastic and a cap. The cap was connected by a short piece of thread to his little finger; the syringe was connected to a horse catheter that ran up his arm and across his shoulders, filled with enough morphine to keep Chuck busy for the next year or two. If Chuck had seen Frank surreptitiously squirting all that morphine into the bucket, he might have wept. He pushed the bucket through the small gate while sliding the syringe up into his sleeve at the same time.

  The cat sniffed the bucket as before and began to drink. Frank held off starting the round until the cat had lapped up her fill. It would take a while for the morphine to seep into the bloodstream through the stomach lining, much longer than injecting it into veins, but at least, when the time came, when the dogs finally got her down and her throat and belly were exposed, it would be as painless as possible.

  Chuck gave her another blast of pepper spray just to piss her off and
Frank turned the dogs loose. They swarmed down the narrow chute, and backed the lioness up against the far side of the floor. Men screamed and shook their fists. One dog got too close, and the lioness swatted at it, but that left her side open, and two more dogs lunged for her back legs, jaws snapping and popping in quick succession, like a string of firecrackers.

  The lioness held them off for a while, killing one dog, but Frank could start to see that her reflexes were slowing. Finally, the biggest dog, a pit built like an anvil and accustomed to killing anything that moved, clamped on the cat’s right front paw and rolled into her, knocking her flat. The other surviving two dogs went after her face and she fought them off, best as she could, as the giant pit bull scrambled up and tore at her inner thighs.

  Fourteen minutes later, she stopped trying to move and Sturm stood up and declared it finished.

  * * * * *

  Afterwards, when the men were gone, Jack laughed and shook his head as he opened the cage and let Frank out. “Would you just look at the balls on this one!” Chuck and Pine dragged the lioness out the front door to Sturm’s pickup. Up in the stands, Sturm kept his attention on his folded hands.

  “Frank,” Jack explained patiently, “the whole point of throwing a fight is to make money off it, true. But if you’re throwing it, don’t to try and convince the gamblers to keep their money. Or, God forbid, they bet with you. You follow?”

  Frank nodded, plucking bills off the cage. Every tenth one was kept in a different bundle.

  Sturm laughed at Jack, then came down and for his ten percent. He said, “Well, well. This is all fine and I understand. First time you grew a pair and all that. Fine the first time. And as it happened, it worked like a charm. Them dumbshits went for it. You made some more money. Good.” Sturm tucked his cash away and glared at Frank. “But if you think you’ll ever, ever get away with that shit again, understand this. I will shoot you, no warning, nothing, I ever see you doing that. Anybody else around here starts questioning why you are somehow knowledgeable about the outcomes of fights, then you are putting our financial income in jeopardy, and I can’t have that. You’re on probation.”

  “I didn’t th—“ Frank started.

  “You didn’t think,” Sturm said. “I know already. Problem here is, the more I think about it, I don’t much appreciate your general attitude. I expected more from you, son. I would have thought you would have had all this figured out by now. You did once work at the racetrack, right? You were responsible for some things that left those horses dead. Or have you forgotten?” Sturm crossed his arms, waiting for an answer, demanding one.

  “I remember,” Frank said.

  “Then I would think that you would be coming up with all of this yourself. For a goddamn horse killer, you sure are a squeamish sonofabitch.” Sturm let the words hang in the suddenly quiet air. He spit. “Aw hell. That’s okay. Good for you. Hell, you told ’em. Told ’em not to bet.” He started to laugh. “’Ya’ll are a buncha’ dumb fucking cunts.’ Exact words.” The clowns started laughing as well, popping the tension like a knife in a balloon.

  * * * * *

  They followed Sturm out to the parking lot. It was now clear of any beer cans. Sturm did his best find any litter at all and trotted all over the place, but couldn’t spot one piece of trash. The place was otherwise empty; the hunters had gone back to their campsites.

  Frank and the clowns clustered around Sturm’s pickup, staring into the bed at the body of the lioness. Underneath that was a bed of monkey corpses. The hunters had been pissed that the monkey with the earring had gotten away, so Sturm promised he’d drop all the monkeys at the taxidermist, who would then go through each one, looking for any evidence of pierced ears. Problem was, some of the heads were half gone.

  Frank cracked a beer. “We’re gonna have problems with that bear. He won’t fight. Not like you want him too.”

  “Nah. It’ll work the same,” Chuck said, leaning over so far that his chin and both wrists rested on the pickup, up near the passenger side of the cab. “We’ll just blast him with the pepper spray. That’ll get him goddamn set and prime.” He yawned. Jack stood next to him, but kept his eyes on the far off campfires, listening closely to the distant gunfire. Frank was alone at the tailgate. Pine and Sturm flanked the other side. The side of the pickup came up to Sturm’s adam’s apple. Theo’s shadow peered out from inside the cab, listening through the open back window. Chuck finished his yawn with a flourish. “Worked just dandy with the cat. Besides, Girdler said it would fight. ‘It’ll fight hard,’” he drawled, his imitation of Girdler dead on.

  Frank shook his head. “Girdler is simply too fucking dumb to realize the bear is like that with everyone. He’s a big old puppy dog. The cats will kill that grizzly faster then the dogs tonight.”

  “So we don’t feed it,” Sturm said.

  “Girdler already did, when the old girl in there was killing seven dogs here tonight,” Frank said.

  “That sonofabitch,” Sturm said. “We’re gonna have to watch him.” This was directed at Jack. “He’s liable to go apeshit he sees what’s gonna happen to his pet.”

  “That’s the problem right there,” Jack said. “He still thinks its his.”

  Sturm spit. “Fuck. Thought we had an understanding all worked out. Why didn’t you tell anybody that he was feeding it tonight?”

  “I didn’t know the bear had been sold,” Frank said.

  “Fuck. I guess, technically, we never got around to telling him.” His attention turned back to Frank. “No, that’s not why I’m telling you this. That bear is going to kill a bunch of them big cats over the next few nights. All I want you to do is make sure that damn bear wins until I say so. Hell son, all I’m asking you to do is make it look halfway fair, but hell, as long at that bear wins until the third, the fourth night if it’ll hold out, then we’re all gonna make some very serious money. As long as nobody finds out the damn thing’s name is Bo-Bo.”

  “Look, it wouldn’t matter if that bear hadn’t eaten for a month. He simply isn’t going to last. You put that thing up against hell, one of them pound dogs, and it’ll shit itself. It’ll be dead tomorrow night.”

  “Well then. That’s why you’re here. You’re the expert.”

  “We’ll go in there, spend all night going to work on that bad boy if you want,” Pine said, always ready to hurt something. “Make sure it’ll fight good and hard.”

  “No. Not this time. I got a feeling Doctor Doolittle here’s got a point.” Sturm gave a hint of a smile at Frank. “That’s why you’re gonna make that thing fight tomorrow. I got confidence in you, son,” Sturm said as he climbed into his truck. “See you gentlemen tomorrow.”

  Nobody said anything to Frank. They looked at the horizon, mumbled excuses, and left. Frank drove back slowly, nursing his bottle. He didn’t see the point in hiding the long black car anymore, and left it outside in the parking lot at the vet hospital.

  He stood for a long time in front of the sink. He got down on his knees and pulled the baggie free. It came loose with the sensation of pulling a long, fresh scab off your knee. The noise was very loud in the vet hospital, echoing inside the small space under the sink. He put the bag in the butter drawer in the refrigerator, finished the bottle, and went to bed.

  DAY THIRTY-TWO

  Sturm thought the bear had to weigh at least a thousand pounds. Frank’s guess was closer to nine hundred. The Kodiak was still massive, like a VW bug covered in rolling muscles and sparse fur, but it looked to Frank like he might be getting a little thin. Maybe the lack of hibernation had caught up to his metabolism.

  Frank, Sturm, Chuck, and Jack looked down at the bag of pills on the examining table. “I think four of ’em will put that bear right where we need it,” Frank said slowly. “Any more…I’d hate to give it a heart attack. Be a hell of way to end the fight.”

  Frank had called Sturm first thing in the morning. Early. Just to let Sturm know that he was working. “I got these pills. Got ’em offa trucker.
I took one and it knocked me sideways for at least twenty, twenty-two hours.

  Sturm was silent for a moment. “How many are left?”

  “Six of the speeders, and five of the unknown ones.” Frank had put ten pills aside earlier, hiding them back up under the sink, just in case.

  “Okay. Okay. I’ll see you later. In the meantime, you make sure the rest of them lions are ready to go tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, and son, you did the right thing telling me this.” He hung up.

  Sturm came alone to the vet hospital an hour later. Chuck and Jack were already there, getting the trailer ready to haul the remaining cats over to the auction yard.

  Sturm picked the baggie off the table and shook it, peering at the pills. “You think four’ll do the job.”

  Frank shrugged. “It’s a guess. That’s all.”

  “What’ll they do to him?”

  Frank shrugged again. “Can’t say. They’re definitely a stimulant. I’m hoping they’ll make him stronger. Meaner. For a while, anyway.”

  “How are you gonna dose him?” Jack asked.

  “Hide the pills in his food.”

  “What’s Girdler feed that damn thing?” Sturm asked..

  “Whatever sheep parts we got left over at the end of the day. Walnuts. Almonds. Peaches. Oranges. Whatever he can find in the orchards. Fish, too.”

  “Fish?”

  Frank nodded. “Three, four a day.”

  “Oh yeah,” Chuck said, going through the fridge. “He goes up to the lake. He drinks all night, you know, with us. So he goes up there at dawn, goes fishing. Catfish mostly. Sometimes trout. Crappie. Whatever. He keeps the fish on ice while he sleeps.”