Passenger(57)

There are celebratory cheers from one side of the room, booing and hissing from the other.

Both Dougie and Maxwell Devine look on humorlessly.

The black dog barks at the carcass as its owner reels it back against the pit wall by a length of silver chain. Two other men grab the dog dish from the loser’s corner and immediately stomp it to triangular bits of plastic beneath the heels of their shoes.

“Them some pooches,” Maxwell remarks to a beefy-looking handler in a tight-fitting T-shirt.

Wearing gloves, the handler straps a muzzle to the black dog’s face. He gives the dog’s chain a good tug and the beast whimpers. He then presses something directly against the dog’s rectum which seems to at first incite the beast then, after a second, causes it to fall to its haunches. The handler’s head is large and squared-off and resembles the stone statues on Easter Island.

“Abracadabra,” says the handler.

Dougie frowns and Maxwell utters something that approximates, “What?”

“Abracadabra. The magic mutt.” The handler offers a reticent grin that highlights his bad teeth and brings his sexuality immediately into question. “Not a mutt, actually. Pure pit. You into dogs?”

Maxwell laughs. “Are we into dogs?” He looks at the questionable handler like a police officer assigning guilt. “Got a line on some breeders, that’s all.”

“No shit?”

“You pull any weight around here or just clean up dog shit?”

The handler smirks. But he is offended—that much is clear. Battleship skin, New York City somewhere just beneath the glittering, smoky viscera. Maybe New York City, maybe Timbuktu. But on the outside he’s pure Baltimore. He holds out a hand and introduces himself as Jonathan Frick. Maxwell pumps Frick’s hand once then drops it.

“Come on around back,” Frick says.

We follow him, along with the muzzled pit bull, into a hallway that communicates with a narrow chamber lined with wire-mesh pens. Most of them are empty, although there are a few dogs in some. They strike up a chorus of barks as Frick leads Abracadabra to one of the pens. Abracadabra appears unusually solemn. Frick opens the pen and the dog pads inside, still muzzled and looking forlorn. The thing is bleeding from his jowls and there is a torn bit of bloody flesh, pink with puckered tissue, running from the corner of his right eye straight back across its meaty neck. It’s painful just to look at it.

Distaste must be evident on my face, because Frick glances at me and says, “I know it looks bad, but he’ll clot up. Gets regular vitamin K injections.” Frick’s eyes shift to Maxwell. “Your friend ain’t a fast laner?”

“He’s green,” Maxwell says. “Just drives the truck.”

There are truck tires hanging from the beams in the ceiling by lengths of chain. They hang nearly five feet off the floor. The lower portions of the tires have been shredded, I assume, by dogs’ teeth.

“So what kind you boys breed?” Frick wants to know.

“All different kinds,” says Maxwell.

Dougie lights a cigarette and Frick, embarrassed, asks him not to smoke in here. Eyeing Frick over the cigarette, Dougie murmurs, “They get they throats ripped out and you’re worried ’bout second-hand smoke?”

Frick nods nervously at the shelves of bottles, medical supplies, equipment. “Flammable chemicals.” To Maxwell, Frick says, “We only want fighters. Got no interest in schooling dogs. Only want dogs already learned.”

Maxwell walks past the wall of cages. “These monsters look half dead already. This one’s blind, this one’s missing ears, this one’s got half its face torn out. Ugly f*ckers.”

“You bring any pictures?” Frick wants to know.

“This sorry son of a bitch’s got its voice-box dangling from his throat,” Maxwell continues, still peering into the cages. Then he glances back up at Frick. “Pictures?”

“Of the dogs. Most guys looking to unload dogs, they bring pictures.”

“Hell,” says Dougie, the unlit cigarette still poking from his lips, and Frick’s head snaps in his direction. “Hell, we got ’em outside in the truck. The real deal in the flesh.”

This is when I realize things are going to go bad. I am standing here, sweating in my coat, thinking of how I can get out of here. My head is still dizzy from the drinking session with Timmy Donlon and my thoughts are slow forming.

“I ain’t got the money to buy ’em tonight,” Frick tells them.

“You can still take a look,” Dougie says. “Ain’t no charge for looking. Yeah, Maxie?”

“No charge for looking.”

Frick thinks for a moment. At one point, his eyes swing toward me. He is searching my face, trying to read my expression. He can’t read me. I’m a different language. But surely he senses this is all wrong, whatever this is. You don’t hang around a place like this without learning how to read people, to read situations…

“Yeah, okay,” Frick says.

We exit through a wrought iron spiral staircase toward the rear of the chamber. It crawls up to a set of tornado doors which Jonathan Frick pushes open, spilling cold air and snow flurries down the chute. Outside, fireworks are exploding over the water in the distance. Around us, the world rings in a new year.

Crossing the street, I lag behind the others. As we draw closer to the burgundy Lincoln, Maxwell turns to me, placing a flat palm against my breastplate.