The Kill Society (Sandman Slim)(31)

Everyone shoots the shit at dinner. They ask me about my life back home, so I tell them the truth. I ran a video store. That gets some laughs. Then we move on to the inevitable What did you do to get here?

“I’m like all of you,” I say. “It was all a big mistake. I’m supposed to be playing Candy Land in Heaven with the baby Jesus.”

The dog pack finds that funny enough. All except Sweat Pig.

He says, “Fuck the baby Jesus. Fuck him like I fucked the preacher before I burned him and his church.”

I spit out a piece of gristle.

“Wow. You beat up a preacher. That’s like beating up, what, a math teacher?”

People look from me back to him.

“You never killed anybody, I bet.”

“Look at his face, you drongo,” says Johnny. “You don’t get a face like that just running a shop.”

I rub my chin.

“My mom says I’m the handsomest boy in the world.”

“Your mother needs glasses,” says the twin with brown and blue eyes.

“It’s true. She used to chase my dad around with a rolled-up newspaper thinking he was the dog. ’Course it was his fault for shitting on the carpet.”

The Mohawked Hellion hands me a beer for that one. Sweat Pig is the only one not smiling.

He throws down his plate.

“No more bullshit. We all told our stories, but this fuck gets to sit there cracking jokes. And you let him get away with it. I say he tells his story or he gets out. Or he fights me right now.”

“Calm down, Billy,” says Daja. “No one wants to hear that shit now.”

I push my food around with a fork, singing quietly.

“‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so . . .’”

Billy jumps to his feet. I let him take one step toward me before I snap my wrist with the fork in it. It slices across the circle of seats and buries itself in the bastard’s right cheek. He howls like a brontosaurus and comes at me with the fork still stuck in him. At the last minute, I get up and toss my chair at his feet. Billy stumbles over it and falls, driving the fork deeper into his stupid face. As he hauls himself up, I pull the knife PTA Mom gave me, but I don’t make a move in his direction. I need to gauge the room. If everyone is going to jump me, I want to know.

“Billy!” shouts Daja.

She points at me.

“And you. Get your chair and sit the fuck down.”

I pick up my chair from where Billy kicked it, and sit.

“And put the damned knife away,” Daja says.

I slip it back into my coat.

Billy is on his knees pulling on the fork and moaning.

The toothless old man with heil on his fingers brings Billy a bottle of whiskey.

“Drink this. All of it,” he says.

Billy upends the bottle and hands it back to the old man, who takes it and cracks Billy across the side of the head. Billy rocks back. While he’s still dizzy, the old man plants a boot on his chest and yanks out the fork. Billy howls again and falls forward onto his arms, cursing at the dirt. When he’s done, he looks at Daja. She’s on her feet.

“Get up,” she says.

He scrambles to his feet, knowing he’s fucked up.

Daja turns to me and says, “You too, slick.”

“You just told me to sit down.”

“Get up!”

I get up.

“The two of you are going to shake hands in a minute,” she says. “But, Billy, since you started the fight, you owe Pitts something. What are you going to put up?”

“I don’t have anything,” he says like a whiny kid.

“You know the rules. You better find something.”

He goes to the saddlebags on his bike and comes back with something cupped in his hand. When he hands it to me he says, “Don’t tell the others.”

It’s a Saint Christopher medal. Protector of travelers and children. I doubt that he knows that. He just saw the little kid and the old man and liked it. Probably thinks it’s Santa Claus. I wink and put the medal in my pocket before anyone can see it.

Daja says, “Now, Pitts. You give him something.”

I pat my pockets. There isn’t much there. I don’t want to give him the butcher knife because it might piss off PTA Mom and I have policy against pissing off women with that many knives. And I’m sure not going to give him my Colt. I reach into a pants pocket and find a thousand-dollar poker chip. I put it on my thumb and flip it to him. He catches it and looks it over.

“Don’t spend it all in one place,” I say.

He holds it up and looks at me, apparently satisfied with the trade and that I didn’t rat him and Saint Christopher out.

“Now shake,” says Daja.

I put out my hand and he wraps his big mitt around it. It’s a fast, limp shake. He’s not fucking with me. Now that I know his secret, he just wants to get things over with.

We both look at Daja.

“Now both of you sit down and no more of this shit tonight. You make us look bad in front of the havoc. People look up to us. They’re afraid of us, and that’s how it should be if we’re going to take care of the Magistrate.”

She looks at me.

“And that’s job number one for us. Everyone is expendable. Except him. Understand?”