Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,90
around,” Skank says.
Atlanta hesitates, but does so—slowly.
And there stands Skank, holding a Luger pistol. Leather pants vented with knife slashes. Torn black half-shirt with a white Swastika emblazoned upon it, what little cleavage she has thrust up and out, tits pale as couple of cave crickets. Her hair a briar tangle of platinum branches.
“You overplayed your hand this time,” Skank says. Lips the color of spilled wine peel back to show her feral smile. “I’ve been waiting to do this.”
Atlanta sticks out her chin, defiant. “…do what?”
Skank clubs her on the side of the head with the gun. Atlanta goes down. Dizzy. Feels the Nazi girl’s fingers wind around her hair and yank her forward.
Skank drags her by the hair around the back of the Morton building—the murder building—and throws her up against the metal wall with a bang. To her left she sees a bale of barbed wire and a metal washtub. To her other side, a heap of moldering plywood, rusty nails sticking up like beckoning fingers.
Atlanta feels a trickle of blood run along her jawline. Fingers fumble along her temple, finding the skin torn where the gun barrel—or, likelier, the sights of the gun barrel—bit her. Skank just cackles again.
“For someone who thinks she’s so smart, you’re dumber than dog shit,” Skank says, licking her lips. “You really thought you could pull one over on us? Set some kind of… what? Trap?”
“I’m just here for the fight,” Atlanta croaks.
“Mm-hmm. Sure, sure. Just a coincidence that we’re here. Guess you didn’t call Mister Erickson last night, try to lure him here? Oh, hey, here comes an old friend—“
Around the back of the building walks John Elvis Baumgartner. Scalp freshly shorn. Arms inked with the scenes and symbols of a Hitler rally. He’s not just smoking a cigarette—he’s practically chewing it. Agitation and anxiety bleeds off him—he’s on something other than nicotine, Atlanta thinks. Coke, meth, pills, something.
He storms up, stopping short of stepping on her. She kicks at his knee, but he dances out of the way.
“Worse than a dog,” he says. “A dumb bitch dog.”
Skank leers. “Somebody needs to put you down like they put down your faggot friend.”
“That your official statement?” Atlanta hisses. “Somebody put him down? You? Him? Who?”
John gives Melanie a look, backhands her shoulder. Skank punches him in the gut and for a half-a-second Atlanta thinks she has a shot at getting away because he gives his girlfriend a look like he wants to go toe-to-toe with her—he even half-lunges with a fist cocked, then stops.
He gives Atlanta a twitchy look. “Your friend killed himself.”
“Go to hell,” she says. “That what I’m gonna do? Kill myself?”
“You just might,” Skank says.
“Your boss sign off on this? Where is the big man, anyway? Where’s Orly? Or Mitchell? I saw his Tahoe. I know that sonofabitch is here.”
John Elvis rubs his eyes, laughs, punches his fists together, wham wham wham. Atlanta feels like she’s watching a monkey rage at the zoo—railing against the bars, attacking the tire-swing. Then he seems to pull it back together.
“You really think he’d show up? At an illegal dogfight? After your clumsy-ass attempt to trap him? He knows you ain’t gonna give him that dog. Dumb slut. Dumb fucking slut.” He pitches his cigarette into the woods. “I’m gonna go get Petry. He’ll know what to do.”
“Let’s just handle it ourselves,” Skank says. “Drag her in the woods. Shoot her in the head, leave her for dead.”
“I said I’m gonna go get Petry!” John Elvis says—more petulant than pissed. Like he’s tired of being emasculated. “Don’t make a move without us.” Once more, for good measure: “Don’t.”
He storms off, leaving the two girls alone once more.
Skank paces. Never taking her eyes off Atlanta. Like a predatory cat watching a little kid from behind the zoo glass. Cicadas buzz in the trees. On the other side of the Morton building the crowd roars. A dog yelps and the crowd gets louder—booing, cheering, jeering, hooting. The fight’s on. Is it Jasmine or Tuco? Champ or cur?
Time is ticking down. Atlanta feels the candle wick burning and the flame guttering—and with it, any hope of coming out on top. Orly’s not here. Atlanta doesn’t have her phone—and, even if she did, it has all the cell signal of a broken toaster. The plan, so simple, so elegant, so impervious to harm, is now just sand in her hand sliding between the gaps in her fingers.