a hard wind and next thing Atlanta knows he’s tumbling over the edge of the trailer. Yelling as he falls.
Then: thump.
Oh, shit.
* * *
She stands over him but doesn’t help him up. Atlanta can see that his limbs aren’t twisted up or anything and that his biggest problem is trying to get air back into his flattened lungs after all the oxygen was punched out of them when he hit the grass. When he fell, he narrowly missed hitting a small rusted picnic grill. Good for him.
He flails about with a hand, trying to get her to help him up.
“No,” she says. And swats the hand away.
She’s patient. She waits for him to finally gasp air back into his chest and sit up. Butt in the grass, he looks up at her with pathetic hang-dog eyes. “You pushed me off my damn roof.”
“That was an accident.”
“You didn’t mean to shove me?”
“I meant to shove you, just not off the roof.”
He laughs but it’s not a happy sound. “You’re lucky I’m not dead.”
“I’d say that makes you the lucky one.”
“Yeah. Good point. Listen, I don’t do the dog thing anymore. That’s something I did as a kid. And even then it wasn’t that I wanted to do it was…” He rubs his eyes, groans. “Life is better now, is all I’m saying.”
“But you know people.”
“I didn’t fight dogs around here.”
She says it again. “But you know people.”
“Of course I know people. Dog fights are like… they’re like the oases you see on nature shows where all the animals come from hundreds of miles around to hang out at this one watering hole. At the fights you find, like, drugs and gangs and guns. Hookers. All kinds of shit.”
Atlanta’s suddenly not sure she can trust him. Guy’s part of that. He’s not her people—he’s one of the beasts at the watering hole. Once she thought of him as a friend, now she’s a bit wifty on that point.
Still. What choice does she have?
“I’m looking for some people. Used a friend’s terrier as a bait dog.”
“Ooof.” He shakes his head. That means he gets it. He knows what that terrier went through.
“And I need to get some payback for her.” And for that poor dang dog.
“I dunno, Atlanta. That’s tough, but…”
She folds her arms in front of her chest. “You’re gonna help me.”
“And why is that?”
“Because next time I’ll do worse than just push you off a roof.” She grabs at her crotch, then says: “Remember the thing with my mother’s boyfriend.” She turns her hand into a gun, lets the thumb-hammer fall. “Boom.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, his deep tan going suddenly pale. “Awright. Help me up. Let’s go inside. I need some ice.”
* * *
He doesn’t have any ice so he holds a tall-boy of beer against the back of his neck. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he says. Guy cranes his neck left, then right. Vertebrae snap, crackle, pop. “Ow.”
“I’m just looking for two particular dickheads. Bodie and Bird Haycock.”
“They’re the ones that stole the dog.”
“Yup. They’re staying somewhere called ‘the Farm.’”
Guy winces. “Course they are. That’s where they hold the fights. It’s a fucking compound, yo. You’re gonna need an in if you want to get within a mile of that place.”
“You’re my in.”
“I’m not your in.”
“But you said… it’s like a watering hole for shitheads or whatever. And you used to…” She doesn’t bother finishing the sentence.
“I’m nobody around here and I like it that way. Got it? I sell my little pills and do my little thing and ain’t nobody thinks I’m more than just a stone in the tread of a sneaker. You want to head to the Farm, you’ll need somebody to vouch for you and I’m not that guy.” He sets the beer down, cracks it with a psssshhh. Catches foam with his lip and slurps it up. “Besides. You don’t wanna go up there. That’s nasty-ass business. You want just those two, fine, wait till those rats poke their head outta their hole—they’ll go buy smokes or beers or go try to get some trim somewhere, and when they do, you get ‘em then. Don’t go up to the Farm.”
“I want to,” she says, and it’s true though she doesn’t know why. It’s like walking into a dark cave knowing there’s something real mean sleeping down in the deep, but you keep walking anyway because you have to see it with your own eyes. “I’m going to the Farm one way or another, so