‘em as bait for other, meaner champs. Like that big-time fancy football player who electrocuted his dogs. Not me. Then again, I don’t buy bad dogs. I buy champs. I buy into strong legacy breeding lines. Bloodlines with a history of wins. Like that dog you have in your possession as we speak.”
“He’s not much of a fighter.”
“My nephew’s hand says different. Got nerve damage, you know that? Doc said his fingers won’t work so great after this. And the last two fingers—the pinky and whatever the other one is called—may never get the feeling back in ‘em.”
“Pardon me while I cry into my pillow over your dog-torturing bully of a nephew.”
“Not asking for sympathy, just stating facts. Way I figure it he had that coming to him.”
“On that we agree.”
A hot wind, dry as the air coming out of an open oven, spills across the meadow. “I paid ten grand for that dog,” Wayman says finally. “That’s a lot of money. You gonna pay me that?”
“I’m not. I can’t.”
“Then I need that dog back.”
“I’ll bring him back,” she says. “When’s the next fight?”
“Two weeks. And I’m not interested in waiting that long.”
“You may not be interested in it, but you’ll do it anyway. I’m gonna train the dog for you.”
He laughs. A big grumbly sound like if you threw some ice into a garbage disposal. “That’s sweet, but no thanks.”
“It’s not an option. It’s an offer and the only one on the table. I’m going to train him to be a fighter and then he’s gonna win his fights and you’re going to owe me instead of me owing you.”
“You’re no dog trainer.”
“Your nephews were doing such a fine job of it.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit a pretty girl like you.” An acquiescing growl. “Still. You got a point. So. You bring me a champ, then what do I owe you?”
“I want revenge on someone,” she says. “Someone you don’t much like.”
“Who’s that?”
“Orly Erickson.”
A bigger, meaner laugh from Ellis this time around. And with that, she knows the hook is set. She just hopes she can reel in such a big dang fish.
She stands there for a while. A rare breeze blowing. She then dials another phone number and tells Jenny’s mother she’d like to talk to her daughter, please.
Jenny is stiff on the phone. “It’s you.”
“You said you wanted it all shut down.”
“I do.”
“That you don’t want dogs hurt anymore.”
“I don’t.”
“Is the money still on the table?”
“Anything I can offer.”
“Good. Because I’m gonna do it. Couple weeks from now, I’d keep a close eye on the news if I were you. Then you’ll see. Everybody will.”
* * *
Back inside the trailer, she tells them what happened. What she did and what she said. They look at her the same way some folks look at really nasty YouTube videos, like a guy taking a skateboard to the nuts or a couple girls eating something they dang well shouldn’t—wide-eyed disbelief, disgust, disturbed beyond rational limits. They ask her what’s wrong with her? Why did she do that? And she tells them it’ll be fine. She has a plan. It came to her like—and here she snaps her fingers—that. As she tells them the plan, a plan so simple and so elegant it cannot fail, she feels the hairs on her arms and neck rise, feels the sense of driving in a fast car down a dark road with no headlights on. Exhilaration and fear in equal measure. They nod. They still look worried. But the plan is the plan and there’s no turning back now.
Part Three: Kissing Fire
Two weeks later. Night before the dog fight.
Her mother still hasn’t come home. Atlanta’s spoken to her a few times—Arlene told her daughter a story about how Harley and his wife Tuyen (she’s Vietnamese) have twins and were having a helluva time watching those rambunctious kids, so while Harley went over Mama’s “case” she figured she could stay here and help out and that’d pay for the legal consultation. Atlanta told her it was fine even though it was most certainly not fine, told her to have a good trip even though she felt pissed to high hell about it, and when her mother tried to say ask Atlanta how things were going up there, Atlanta interrupted her and said, “I gotta go,” and hung up.
So tonight, she’s having a party.
That’s what kids do. They have parties when the parents are gone. They trash the house. They smoke and drink. They have sex in the