Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,63
a little while.”
“Like he, uh, said, I’m his associate, so. I better go with him.”
“They’ll be okay without you for five, ten minutes.”
He leans in his head. His tobacco breath is dark, earthy, acrid. Nosehairs curl up out of his nostrils and twitch as he takes a sniff of her.
“Hey,” Shane protests again.
Winky ignores it. “I like your shampoo.”
“It’s called soap,” she says, voice shaky. Suddenly she wishes the shotgun wasn’t in the back of the car. Stuffing the barrel up under his chin would go a long way toward getting him out of her personal space. Everything feels hyper-real, suddenly. Tense. Uncertain. A spinning dime about to fall off the edge of the table. She has the collapsible baton on her back. How long to reach in and get it? Snap the button, pop the baton? No room to move in here. Open the door? Push him back? She’s starting to feel claustrophobic. Do something.
But it’s Guy who does something. He grabs the bag of money, flips the zipper, and grabs a handful of twenties. He thrusts them up under Winky’s chin. Then says, “I forgot there was a toll. Can we go, yo?”
Winky smiles a mouth full of ochre teeth, then nods. “Sure thing, ess-ay.” Then he goes up to the gate, pops the lock with a key, and swings it wide over the gravel.
They drive forward and Atlanta feels suddenly like they’re heading into the mouth of hell through the front gates, pulling right up to the Devil’s own palace for valet parking.
* * *
It’s not long after the front gate that the Farm comes into view. A quick glance shows that its simple and earnest name is true: it’s a farm, plain and simple. A red barn dominates, standing tall like a demon’s church. On the other side is a Morton building, an old grungy farm tractor sitting outside, a pull-behind brush-cut mower sitting next to it (with grasses and weeds growing up all around it). Atlanta can see a house, too, off in the distance—a white stone farmhouse tucked away in the trees, making it almost hard to see.
But the centerpiece is the pit.
It sits in the middle of everything, and that’s where all the people are. She can’t see much from here—just plywood walls affixed to metal stakes forming a big dug-out octagon, dozens of people standing at the perimeter and watching whatever’s going on inside, and another dozen more milling about like ants that wandered away from the colony.
Guy parks the Scion at the edge of the lot. Atlanta stays. Draws a deep breath. The encounter with the man in the John Deere hat has left her shaken—like someone stuck an ice pick through the links of her imaginary armor and got her right in the lungs. She pulls it together. Another breath. Another. Toughen up, you dumb girl.
“Stay in the car,” she says to Shane.
“But—“
But nothing. She’s already out and closing the door behind her. Her bag remains in the seat where she left it, but the collapsible baton sits tucked in one of her baggy pockets.
The sun is bright. Hot. The day is starting to cook the earth, dry it and split it like a hot dog left too long on the grill. Guy stands in front of her, and pops on a pair of Wayfarer sunglasses. “You good?”
“I’m good.”
“You got a plan?”
“Nope.” And with that, she starts walking. Heading right for the big stage, the main event, the really big show. That’s what they call it, Guy said. Those in the know don’t call it the “fight” or “fights.” It’s the Show. Capital-S.
Stones crunch under her boots. Guillermo walks next to her. Hands tucked into pockets, trying to look tough, or maybe trying to look like he just doesn’t give a care, or maybe those are the same thing for him.
The crowd, like the cars in the lot, is a wild mix. And fairly segregated. A cluster of black dudes there—most of them looking like gangbangers. Hispanics on the other side, and some of them look like bangers, too, but just as many look like a guy you’d expect to see in a restaurant kitchen. The whites ring the other side and they’re a mix all their own—a clot of hillbillies, a handful of sweaty suit-clad business types, and then on the other side the fucking skinheads. Some of the Nazis are punky, like John Elvis Baumgartner and his bitch bride, Melanie. Others are clean, conservative, real Hitler Youth types.