Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,82
an overturned table, holding a bag of frozen sweet corn to his head. His lip is split. Blood on his chin. Blood down on his neck.
“Atlanta,” he croaks. “Sup.”
Whitey wriggles his way into the trailer. Ears up. Shoulders forward. Looking around.
“Guy,” she says. Her eyes feel hot and they start to sting and she quickly wipes tears away before they form and fall. “What… what happened?”
“I was gonna call you but they bashed my phone to shit.”
“They? They who?”
“Who you think? Wayman. And his little inbred white-boy nephews.”
She moves toward him to hug him but her skin crawls and cymbals crash in her head and she pulls away suddenly—the panic comes fast and without invite as it always does, leaving her feeling cold and clammy and like everything is hyper-real. Feels like she’s having a stroke and a heart attack all at once.
Shotgun blast. Man screaming. Blood on the bed.
Instead she backs away from Guy. Mumbles a mousey, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” He sighs. Pulls the frozen corn away to reveal a busted-up eye. The white’s gone red, the whole eye ringed in a knotted bruise. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It’s my fault.”
“Yo, I drove you up there. My choice, not yours.” Way he says it doesn’t sound like he means it, though. He won’t look at her, either, gaze drifting near her but never at her.
Shane finally stomps in through the door, panting. He takes one good look around: “Holy crap.”
“Sup, vato,” Guy says.
“Uh. Hey. Um. You look bad.”
Guy flips him off.
“Did Wayman say anything about me?” Atlanta asks.
“’Cause it’s all about you, right?” Guy’s nostrils flare. “Sorry. Yeah, we talked about you. He wanted to know where you lived and shit. Wanted to maybe pay you a visit. I didn’t tell him. I don’t give nobody up. I’m no snitch, not to cops, not to crooks.”
“Thanks,” she says. But then adds, “That doesn’t make sense, though. Kucharski knew who I was.”
“She doesn’t know where you live and I guess they figure best way to get that information was to beat it out of me.” Guy again molds the bag of corn to his eye. “Or maybe they just wanted to send a message. Big man wants his dog back.”
“He can’t have him.” Nobody can but me. She’s surprised at her own stubbornness on this point as her mental heels dig in. She scratches Whitey behind the ear. His head tilts and his eyes close.
“Yeah. Well. Guess you gotta wonder how far you’re gonna take this, then.”
“I guess I do gotta wonder.” She chews on the inside of her cheek. It’s a question she doesn’t want to ask much less answer. “Did he give you a way to contact him?”
Guy winces as he stands, feels around the countertop by the microwave, comes back with a slip of paper. A phone number sits scrawled across it in hasty black marker. “There.”
She takes it. Nods. “I’m gonna go make a call.”
As she passes Shane on the way out, he looks up. “Wait, hold up. What are you planning?”
“I don’t know yet.” It’s not a lie.
* * *
She stands by the busted Scion, pacing like a zoo animal. A pair of mockingbirds chase one another in the nearby briar. A red-winged blackbird hops along the fence.
Atlanta chews her lip. Runs her fingers through her hair.
Takes the phone. Looks at it. Waits. Puts it away.
Finally she takes it out again and makes the call.
Ellis Wayman picks up on the first ring.
“Was wondering when you’d call,” he says. Voice gruff, growly, but also hidden there is a vein of amusement. “Quicker than I figured.”
“Do you even know who this is?”
“The girl with the great name. Atlanta Burns.”
“How’d you know?”
“Says so on my phone.”
“Oh.” She should really figure out how to turn that off. “I got your message. You hurt my friend pretty good.”
“He broke my gate. You stole my dog.”
She starts pacing again. “I didn’t know it was your dog. Your nephews attacked me.”
“Not before you attacked them.”
“They hurt dogs. They were going to hurt your dog.”
This seems to give him pause. “Then I’m going to have to have a chat with them. I’m old guard, sweetie. I like to keep my dogs healthy. I’m not in it for the blood. I’m in it for the sport.”
“Don’t see how you can separate the two.” The mockingbirds flit above her heads.
“In the ring you can’t, but outside it is a different story. The niggers and Nazis like to kill their curs if they don’t perform. Shoot ‘em or use