130
TWO HUNDRED NAMES. For the first time, I missed New York. If I was home, if I could tap into my machinery, call in some markers, work the angles, make some trades…I could narrow them down. Find out which of the kids had later died, gone to prison, been institutionalized, moved away. But out here…I was working in the dark.
I needed a match.
131
CALLED BOSTICK. 'Can you check some real estate for me?'
'If it's local, sure. Take about an hour.'
I gave him Matson's address.
132
IN VIRGIL'S back yard, night falling.
'She checked the place again?'
'Yep. Reba says he lives alone, looks like.'
'The house is in his name. Nobody else on the mortgage. He could have a girlfriend living there. Or maybe one of his Nazi pals. We'll play whatever's there.'
'He's got that dog, though.'
'It's a long shot. We can't wait for him to be somewhere else. Have to go in while he's there, brace him, take a look. He's gonna guess who we are, tell his pal the cop.'
Virgil shrugged. 'Kids go to bed early. I'll be up, watching TV with Reba. Lloyd too.'
'He's dirty anyway. Can't see him going to court. And I'll have a message for him, he does that. Let me do the talking, it comes to that.'
'Okay.'
'We'll leave Lloyd in the car, like last time.'
Virgil nodded. I caught a look on his face. 'What's wrong?' I asked him.
He dragged on his smoke. 'I don't hold with killing dogs, brother.'
'Matson, he's an amateur. Probably thinks the way to make a good watchdog is to starve him. I'll take care of it.'
133
'I NEED TO knock out a dog.'
Blossom didn't change expression. 'What kind of dog? How fast?'
'A shepherd. Figure, eighty, ninety pounds. He needs to go down pretty quick, stay down for at least a half hour.'
'Can you use a needle?'
'No. Unless you got a tranquilizer gun lying around.'
'Let me look.'
She came back with a black medical bag. Opened it on the countertop, starting stacking little vials and bottles in a row. I leaned over her shoulder to watch. Opened a bottle, spilled out some tiny round orange pills. Cupped a handful. Stared down at them. SKF T76 in black letters.
'You know what those are?' she asked.
'Yeah. Thorazine. Fifty milligrams.'
'How come…?'
'When I was a kid…before I learned to keep inside myself…they used to give it to me.'
'You were in a psychiatric hospital?'
I didn't like the sound of my own laugh. 'I was in what they called a training school.'
'You still remember…?'
I nodded, remembering it all, saying nothing. It was always dark in there. The gym was fear, the shower room was terror. Nothing clean, nothing private, nothing safe. Some kids ran. They brought them back. Some found another way to go— a swan dive to the concrete, a belt tied around a light fixture. Viciousness was worshiped, icy violence was God. When the rage-dam broke inside me, I didn't know when to stop. Stabbing inmates was okay, but not fighting a guard. So they went to the Thorazine. Chemical handcuffs. They didn't work the same on everyone. This one boy in there with me, the stuff worked on him like an anabolic steroid— he raged against the chemicals inside his body so his life was an isometric exercise. It got so he could crush a man's life with his hands. And that's what he did. Me, all I wanted was to learn to ride the storm.
The prisons were full of men they trained in those training schools. By the time I went down, I was ready.
Blossom was quiet, pawing through her supplies. Then: 'Here it is.' Holding up a stainless-steel needle, encased in plastic.
'Here's what?'
'Secobarbital sodium. Like Seconal, you know what that is?'
'Sleeping pills.'
'Like that, but this is damn near an anesthetic dose. It's in Tubex. One-shot needles, preloaded. Just inject them right into whatever the dog's going to eat.'
'Is that enough?'
'There's a grain and a half in each cartridge. I've got four here. Enough for a whole kennel.'
'How long would it take to work?'
'Depends. It has to go through the GI tract. He laps it right up, runs around some to get his blood pumping, maybe five, ten minutes.'
'Okay. You got any chopped liver around?'
'Chopped liver?'
'Like you get in a deli. Never mind. I'll be back in a little while.'
134
TWO MORE DAYS of working with the clips, trying to match an address for any of the 'Family Reunified— Closed' cases with something close to one of the shootings.
Nothing.
135
TWO A.M., at the end of Matson's block. Lloyd at the wheel, Virgil and I in the back seat, me on the passenger's side.
'Tell me again,' I said to the kid.
'I drove by last night. Like you said. The dog didn't do nothing. So I got out of the car, walked up to the fence. He started barking like all holy hell, snapping at me. I get in, drive away. Wait ten minutes. On my watch. I drive back, he's quiet again. Simmered right down.'
'Okay. Put it in gear, cruise by slow. You see anyone, see another car, just keep on going.'
Virgil gave him a couple of hard pats on the shoulder and the Chevy rolled forward.
No lights on in the house. The dog's sleek shape loomed in the shadowed front yard. Lloyd slowed to a stop. I got out, the softball-sized glob of hamburger with its chopped-liver core in my gloved hand. The dog hit the fence, snarling. I slapped the meat against the chain link with an open palm, feeling his frenzied gnawing against my glove as I stuffed it through. The dog grunted his rage, clawing at the fence.
