IQ(41)

“Semen extender?” Dodson said.

“I haven’t made a nickel off the dogs. It’s one of those passion things. God, I hate that word. But wait ’til you see the pups, they’ll blow your mind.”

“Semen extender?”


The barn had a big sliding door and a regular door, Isaiah noticing there was no lock on either. The dogs had sensed the visitors and were barking wildly. Isaiah thought if Dodson wasn’t black he’d be pale.

“Damn,” Dodson said, “how many dogs you got in there?”

Skip opened the regular door a few inches. A slate-gray pit bull with laser-green eyes jammed its head in the opening and snarled at the newcomers. “Oh shit!” Dodson yelled, jumping back. Isaiah was waiting for it. No other reason to have unlocked doors unless there was some other kind of security.

“Can’t you just see somebody trying to break in here?” Skip said, grinning. “Back up, Attila. Sit.”

Attila backed up and sat. Skip swung the door open and a swath of sunlight cut through the cool, dark barn. Isaiah smelled wet cement, wet dog, sawdust, gun oil, cordite, some sort of disinfectant, and the faintest whiff of dogshit. Chain link kennels were lined up against one wall. They’d been recently hosed down. There were sleeping pallets to keep the dogs off the cement and water bowls with clean water in them. Two of the kennels were empty, one of them twice as big as the others. The dogs were all pits, different colors, most of them normal-size. Except for Attila, who hadn’t moved, all the dogs were barking savagely, the volume almost unbearable.

“Okay, shut up,” Skip said like he was talking to his little sister. The quiet was immediate and shocking, the only sound the dogs’ panting. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.

“Damn, Skip,” Dodson said. “They know who they daddy is, don’t they?”


Dodson had heard dogs could smell fear and if that was the case he was stinking up the barn. He could smell it himself. Like spoiled milk with a little BO mixed in. The dogs were watching him. Only him. Their long tongues hanging over their toothy grins. It reminded Dodson of his first day at Wayside, walking along the cell block carrying his bedding, the inmates making kissing noises, calling him lean meat and asking him if he liked to toss salads.

“Those two look really big,” Isaiah said, pointing with his chin at two black dogs. “What are they, ninety pounds?”

“I like big dogs,” Skip said. “Cool, huh? They freak people out. Go ahead, the litter’s in the back.” Dodson led the way, past neatly stacked bags of kibble and cases of canned dog food. He thought it was strange how Skip took better care of the dogs than he did of himself. Shiny metal food bowls were stacked on shiny metal shelves. Igloo coolers were marked GROOMING, FIRST AID, EARS, EYES. Spiked collars and muzzles that looked like flowerpots hung on nails. What looked like a long two-pronged barbecue fork with a thick yellow handle was hung separately like a clock or scroll.

“Is this them?” Dodson said, like he was looking at a nest of tarantulas.

“Yup,” Skip said, beaming. The litter was in a pen made from temporary fencing. The cement floor was covered with wood shavings, a child’s swimming pool full of shredded paper in the middle. Next to the pen, a lightbulb on a wire hung over an old couch bowed in the middle, a slumping pile of magazines on the floor.

“Want to get in there with them?” Skip said.

“No thank you,” Dodson said. “A baby shark is still a shark. He’ll just eat you in smaller chunks.”


Isaiah and Skip sat in the pen, the puppies bumbling over their laps, yipping, tugging on Isaiah’s shoestrings, and chewing on Skip’s Crocs. Each pup had a different-colored spot of nail polish on the top of its head. The green pup was twice the size of the others.

“How old are they?” Isaiah said.

“Ten weeks,” Skip said.

“What about this one?” Isaiah said, scratching the green pup. “Can’t be ten weeks. Is it from the same litter?”

“Looks good, right? His eyes are set right, full dentition, good tail set, topline, bone structure. Could be a winner.”

“Are you going to show him?”

“No, but I’m gonna take him to dog shows.” Skip batted the red puppy around with his hands. “Come on, red, be tough,” he said. “That’s it, there you go, mix it up, mix it up. My dogs have great bloodlines. Redboy, Carver, Bourdaux. Every one of them game bred.”

“What’s game bred?” Dodson said.

“Game bred means the dog’s parents fought in the ring,” Skip said. “It’s like your mom and dad are Mike Tyson and Ronda Rousey. A game dog has like a really high pain tolerance and won’t back down no matter what. Like it’ll keep fighting even if it’s losing, even if it’s getting torn apart and dying. You should see my dogs. They won’t quit even if they’re winning. Seriously? If the other dog was dead and buried my dog would dig it up and kill it all over again.”

Like that’s something to be proud of, Isaiah thought. Training a dog to be good for nothing but killing. Not thinking twice about letting it tear somebody apart. Skip was a sociopath, which only confirmed what Isaiah knew the moment he came out of the house. This was the hit man.

“Oh listen to this,” Skip said. “There’s this Mexican guy lives out near the landfill? He’s got a herd of goats, rents them out for brush clearing. Seriously, those f*cking goats will eat anything. So one of my dogs escapes and get this: he kills the whole herd. I’m not kidding, like twenty of them.” Skip grinned. “They were running around, climbing over each other. BAAAH BAAAHH. I got blood all over me.”