by Peter Liney
“What the hell is it?” I asked, angry at being woken in such a manner.
“They’ve gone!” she said, not backing away from my annoyance one bit.
“Who?”
“Gordie and the dog.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jesus, could things get any worse? Lena was being held captive by Infinity, Arturo’d been killed, Jimmy had a death warrant on his head and any number of people hoping to collect it, and now Gordie’d run off. And just at that moment, I gotta tell ya, I couldn’t help but feel I had to take more than my share of the responsibility.
I should’ve known Gordie’d take that dog and run—at his age, in the same situation, I’d’ve done the same. And suddenly my argument that it would’ve been dangerous to keep it seemed so trivial, so unnecessary, I couldn’t believe I’d ever made it.
“I’ll go look for him,” I said, struggling up.
“Oh, Clancy!” Delilah moaned.
“What?”
She made this face, like it was obvious and didn’t need to be said, but Hanna wasn’t so restrained.
“You made him go!” she cried.
“I didn’t make him.”
“You wouldn’t let him keep Dorkus!”
“Look, it’s okay, I’ll find him, I know where he goes,” I reassured them, as if it was just a matter of going there and picking him up.
I ended up searching all morning, my right buttock and thigh far from happy at being pitched back into such exercise, but there was no sign of Gordie anywhere. Kids are usually the best source of information about other kids, but there were so few around, and when you did spot one they were pretty swift to slip away. I managed to talk to a couple of young guys—I mean, a boy with a dog, it was pretty unusual—but they hadn’t seen a thing, and it occurred to me that if Gordie didn’t want to be found, amongst all that chaos there wasn’t a lot I could do.
I just couldn’t believe I’d fallen out with him over a dog, not after everything we’d been through together. Surely I could’ve handled it better than that?
I searched everywhere I could think of, for a few brief moments even getting irrationally worried when I saw this apartment block on fire, just in case he might be in there. But no matter how much I wanted to keep going, to scour that whole city, eventually I had to go back to the churchyard to rest. The look on the others’ faces as I entered the shelter almost broke my heart.
“Sorry,” I told them.
“Let’s have something to eat, then we’ll all go out and look,” Delilah said.
“Can he keep the dog?” Hanna asked.
Jeez, that kid never wastes a word. “Anything,” I replied. “A whole damn zoo, if he wants.”
I wouldn’t let Jimmy come. He wanted to, but I couldn’t bear the thought of something else going wrong, another of us disappearing. I also insisted that Delilah and Hanna went out together, no matter how much more ground they might cover separately.
I spent all afternoon searching—street after street, almost going over to the ocean; in so much pain, I almost wished I’d accepted Jimmy’s offer to borrow his stick.
It was almost dark when I got back. Delilah and Hanna had already returned. One exchanged look was enough to know that no one had found him, nor heard a word concerning his whereabouts.
“He’s gone,” said Delilah, as if she’d previously thought it was all a game, that Gordie had just been trying to make a point.
“We’ll find him,” I said.
No one answered or looked my way and I knew they all blamed me, and that they had every right. I eased myself down onto my sleeping bag, trying to relax my aching body, the muscles around the top of my leg threatening to go into spasm. There was nothing more I could do, not that night—though, in fact, within minutes I was forcing myself back up to my feet.
I grabbed the spray can I’d looted and shook it to see how much paint was left, then urged my protesting old body out one more time. I went to the usual places: along the street, the Square, not really knowing what to write, but in the end keeping it real simple.
LOST—ONE BOY
If Gordie read it, he’d know what it meant, that we were missing him. As would anyone else connected with us, including, of course, Gigi.
She didn’t come ’til the morning, just as we were discussing how to go about continuing the search. Mind you, she was spitting nails and broken glass. “Where is he?” she demanded.
“We don’t know,” I confessed, fearing I was about to be turned on yet again.
“What happened?”
I let Delilah tell the story, for sure I didn’t feel like relating my part in it. When she got to the bit about the dog and my objection to keeping it, I did try to explain my reasons, but Delilah cut me off. Though we were in for a bit of a surprise, ’cuz Gigi didn’t react the way we expected.
“A stray dog?” she said, looking decidedly worried.
“Yeah,” Delilah nodded.
“Shit!” she groaned.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Oh shit!” she repeated, as if the real impact of it was only just hitting her.
“What is it?”
“It’s not a stray dog!”
“What do you mean?”
“I warned you about these people.” She paused for a moment, staring at us, but no one had a clue what she was talking about. “Enticers! They train dogs to befriend kids! To bring them back to their place, then they drug them and operate, take out whatever they want.”
It was so unexpected, so shocking, that for a moment all we could do was gape at her.
“The dog?” Delilah eventually uttered.
“Yeah!”
It was too much to take in—that cute little dog romping and playing with Gordie was in fact the accomplice of some back-street organ-stealer?
“You sure?” I asked.
“Yes!” she shouted. “I told you, they got all sorts of tricks!”
“Jesus,” I groaned.
“He should’ve known that!” she cried, that little pixie face of hers displaying more emotion than I’d ever seen before. “Stupid dumbass.” She stopped for a moment, trying to get her thoughts together. “What’s the dog look like?”
Delilah told her, describing Dorkus in great detail, while Jimmy turned to me like he couldn’t believe it: in this world you couldn’t even trust a dog?
“Jesus, Big Guy! That is so uncool!”
I nodded my head, noticing Hanna getting ready to go out.
“There are a lot of fires up near the Square,” Gigi told her, as if trying to put her off.
“I don’t care,” she said, making for the entrance.
“Hanna!” I called, but she was gone before I could say any more.
“Where’s she going?” Gigi asked.
“I dunno.”
She hesitated for a moment, looking more than a little put out, then rushed after Hanna.
I turned to Jimmy and Delilah. “What the hell’s going on?”
Delilah shook her head. “Clancy!” she said despairingly, like I was the biggest fool ever.
“What?”
“They’re in ‘love’ . . . Both of them.”
I stared at her for quite a while before the thought finally got off the ground. “Gordie?”
“Yes!” she cried, as if a block of wood would’ve surely seen that.
And actually, once she said it, it did make perfect sense. That was why Hanna always acted so oddly around Gordie, not to mention how negative she was about Gigi: she was jealous!
“Great,” I sighed. “That’s all we need.”
Once again I told Jimmy he shouldn’t go out, and for the same reason, but this time he wouldn’t have any of it. He was as fond of Gordie as anyone and was joining the search whether we liked it or not. We argued with him for a while, but eventually gave in, though I did manage to persuade him to at least stay near the churchyard.
I was so stiff from the previous day my ass felt like it had been nai
led on, but the more I walked, the easier it became. I talked to as many people as I dared, avoiding anyone I didn’t like the look of, concentrating more on the dog than on Gordie—I mean, that mutt must’ve pulled the same trick any number of times. In a way, it was something of an irony—a scheming, malevolent dog—my old man would’ve been delighted. But then, when you think about it, the dog had to be trained, so maybe it didn’t prove his theory, after all—maybe it is all down to the owner?
I searched and searched, streets and buildings, squares and waste ground, wondering if that dog had already completed its task and got Gordie back to its master. Like I said, Gordie’d become like a son to me and I was feeling pretty protective, pretty damn angry. What sort of scum were we dealing with here? Who’d snatch kids off the street, slice them open and steal their organs? If I did find them, I wasn’t sure how responsible I was gonna be for my own actions.
And yet, as the day wore on, it looked less and less likely that I’d have the opportunity to vent my anger. God knows how much ground I covered—I got so tired I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to make it back to the churchyard—not to mention the fact that my wound was starting to ooze a little.
In the end, I had no choice but to stop and rest. I swear if I hadn’t, I would’ve keeled over. Part of it was the ever-present sea of smoke; my lungs felt almost numb, as if they wanted to close down rather than breathe in any more of that crap. I slumped down onto the steps of a run-down old apartment block, checking my wound for bleeding, but thankfully, there was none.
I guess I fell asleep, though whether for two minutes or two hours, I don’t know. Nor do I know what woke me. Maybe it was my sixth sense, but whatever it was, it did me one helluva favor.
I shook my head and opened and closed my eyes a few times, trying to awaken a glimmer of life in my dull old frame. It was getting late, the light was starting to fade, and I should be heading back to the churchyard.
I was just about to stand up, to get moving, when suddenly this little dark shape came trotting out of the smoke toward me—that damn dog!
“You miserable little piece of shit,” I muttered.
My immediate urge was to leap down the steps, run at him as fast as I could and kick the life out of the treacherous mutt, but then I had a second thought and the moment I did, I knew it was the right thing.
I kept as still as I could, not looking directly at him but following his progress out of the corner of my eye. When he finally reached me, I sprang down from the steps screaming at the top of my voice, spreading my arms and legs, trying to make myself look as big and crazy as possible. And it worked: that dog jumped the best part of a foot into the air, let out a yelp of terror and turned and ran off as fast as he could. Immediately I chased after him, all my energy suddenly restored. Yeah, that’s right, you damned little coward: run! Run all the way back home!
For a little dog, he sure could move. I’d never have managed to stay with him if he hadn’t kept stopping and looking back to see if I was still following. He took a side street, scampering down there as fast as he could, but with me still puffing along behind.
Once I thought I’d lost him: I turned a corner and there was no sign of the mutt—Jeez, could he really have disappeared into the smoke that quickly? But I ventured slowly forward, checking out doorway after doorway, until finally I flushed him out and again he bounded off with me screaming along behind. People were stopping and staring, wondering what the hell was going on—even in Senseless City, I was coming across as insane.
Thankfully, less than a mile from where I first saw him, “Dorkus” suddenly veered off down an alleyway and began to scratch at a door. Above it was a garish but slightly faded sign: “Body Talk Tattoos—We’ll Say Anything.”
This young guy, not much more than twenty, with greased-back hair and cheap but fashionable clothes, opened the door to let the dog in and I jumped in behind it, hitting the little punk, knocking him up against the wall.
I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him into my face, giving him a real blast of the look. “Where’s Gordie?”
“What?” he cried, his face a contortion of confusion.
I hit him again, just to up his concentration levels. “Gordie!” I growled. “You got operations going on here?”
Just for the briefest of moments, his eyes flicked to an inner door and I knew I was right. I promptly hit him so hard he’d take no further part in proceedings and left him lying on the floor. The dog scrambled under the sofa and just managed to avoid the hefty kick I directed his way. I tell you, if that damn thing hadn’t been seen to, I was more than happy to offer my services, and I wouldn’t be needing any surgical instruments or anesthetic either.
Out in the narrow corridor I was confronted by several doors. I hesitated for a brief moment, then heard a male voice coming from behind one and kicked it open with as much force as I could muster. I wanted to put the fear of God into whoever was inside, but it was me who ended up being most disturbed.
There were two people, a man and a woman, performing an operation—and if that summons up a vision of white coats and sterilized surfaces, forget it. A young boy, no more than six or seven, was stretched out on an old wooden kitchen table with dark bloodstains all over it. Hanging from each side were these heavy leather straps, obviously for restraining the patient if necessary, though in this case, it wasn’t: the little guy was well and truly out of it. The “surgeon”—stocky, dyed-black hair, maybe even the father of the one I hit outside—had his hand pushed through a six-inch gash in the boy’s side and was probing around in an altogether incompetent manner. Next to him, this little dark woman—I guess it could’ve been his wife—was standing there dressed in blue overalls, also covered in dried blood.
“Who are you?” the guy demanded.
“Stitch him up,” I told him.
“Get out!” he replied indignantly. “David!”
“I wouldn’t bother.”
“David!”
“I’m not going to tell you again,” I said. “Stitch him up!”
With that, the woman promptly turned on the man, leaving little doubt that they were husband and wife. “We told you! We told you!” she screamed, as if she’d been waiting for this day for a long time.
“Oh, shut up! David!” the guy called again, but of course there was no reply.
“Last chance,” I told him, desperate in my disgust to exact a little retribution.
Still the guy hesitated, turning to his wife but seeing no signs of sympathy, then back to me. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to interrupt a surgeon performing an operation?” he said, trying another tack.
“First off, you ain’t no surgeon,” I told him, “you’re a damn tattooist. Secondly, the only person this operation is dangerous for is you. Now, stitch him up while you still can.”
He took a sideways glance at his miserable collection of medical instruments and what appeared to be his one and only scalpel.
“That’d be the stupidest mistake of your life,” I warned him.
“All right!” he said impatiently, picking up a different instrument. “All right.”
“Where’s Gordie?” I asked.
“I don’t know any Gordie.”
I couldn’t be bothered with him anymore. I returned to the corridor and started opening doors. The next room along was just junk: piled boxes, tattoo catalogs, that sort of stuff. The final one, at the end, was locked and I had to put my shoulder to it. The first time it cracked encouragingly; the second, it burst open.
I tell ya, I just stood there, for a moment too shocked to even enter.
There must’ve been half a dozen or more bunk beds crammed into the room, all of them occupied by children, the youngest no more than five, the oldest maybe fifteen or so. Each one was covered by a single grubby, bloodstained sheet. Several of them were staring at me, but they didn’t seem able to take anything in, their eyes were all lost and lifeless. But it was the sense that they weren’t human, that this was ju
st an organ production line, that was most sickening. One little girl, probably no more than eight or nine, looked at me with the most haunted expression I’ve ever seen in my life, like she didn’t know if I’d come to do good or bad, and didn’t really care either.
“Gordie?” I called, but there was no answer and I started to check through the beds, one by one, searching face after face.
“You can go,” I told them. “Go on, get going! . . . Get!”
I was just about to give up when I found him lying on the top bunk in the corner. He looked so unbelievably childlike and vulnerable, it took me a moment to recognize him.
“Jesus!” I gasped. “Gordie?”
He just stared at me as if he couldn’t believe it, when he finally did speak his voice was noticeably slurred. “Where’d you come from?”
“Tell you later.”
He tried to get up but gave a kinda tremble halfway and fell back again. Thank God, I found him when I did—I figured his turn at being “operated” on couldn’t’ve been that far away, that he was in that state ’cuz they’d prepped him already. I reached underneath his pale, wiry body, knowing I was gonna have to carry him. I just about got my hands around him when I felt it.
I released my hold, pulled up his T-shirt and there it was: this ugly scar, about six or seven inches long, caked with dried blood, slashed at an angle across his side and crudely stapled together.
“Fuck!” I cursed, unable to stop myself.
Gordie just looked at me, on the point of tears, like he wanted to apologize for being so stupid, for causing me so much trouble, and it was that as much as anything that prompted me to turn and make my way back into the other room.
They must’ve known how I’d react ’cuz I met them at the door about to make a run for it.
I hit the guy really hard in the face and he fell back against the doorframe. “You fucking butcher!” I screamed. “How dare you do that to them!”
“I just take kidneys! I just take the one kidney!” he cried, as if that made him one of the good guys.
I was so angry at what he’d done, and that he didn’t even seem genuinely contrite, that I got hold of him and threw him onto the kitchen table, securing him with the straps.
