Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The THE BIG NOWHERE

Conklin spoke calmly, like holding seventy pounds of dog at the end of a stick was everyday stuff. “Pits dish it out, so they gotta be able to take it. I won’t sell you no dog if you gonna coddle it.”

Rape-o was hanging stock-still, groans vibrating from his throat. Every muscle was perfectly outlined; Danny thought that the animal was perfect mean beauty. He said, “I live in an apartment, so I can’t have a dog.”

“You just come out to look and jaw?”

Rape-o’s groans were getting deeper and more pleasured; his balls constricted and he popped an erection. Danny looked away. “Questions more than anything else.”

Conklin squinted, his eyes slits behind coke bottle glasses. “You ain’t a policeman, are you?”

“No, I’m an insurance investigator. I’m working a death claim and I thought you could help me with some questions.”

Conklin said, “I’m the helpful type, ain’t I, Rape-o,” moving the stick up and down, wrist flicks while the dog humped the air. Rape-o yowled, yipped and whimpered; Danny knew what was happening and fixed on the fat man’s coke bottles. Rape-o let out a final yowl/yip/groan, let go and fell to the dirt.

Conklin laughed. “You ain’t got the sense of humor for pits, I can tell. Ask your questions, boy. I got a cousin who’s an insurance man, so I’m prone to the breed.”

Rape-o slinked over to the fence and tried to rub his snout up against Danny’s knee; Danny took a step backward. “It’s a murder claim. We know the victim was killed by a man, but the coroner thinks he may have let a dog or coyote or wolf at him after he was dead. What do you think of the idea?”

Conklin stuck a toothpick in his mouth and worked his words around it.

“Mister, I know the canine family real good, and coyotes and wolves is out–‘less the killer captured and starved them and left the dead guy out for them to pick clean someplace amenable. What kind of damage on your victim?”

Danny watched Rape-o curl up in the dirt and go to sleep, sated, his muscles slack. “Localized. Teeth marks on the stomach, the intestines bitten and Side 49

Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The sucked on. It had to have happened someplace inside, because the body was clean when the police found it.”

Conklin snickered. “Then you rule out coyotes and wolves– they’d go crazy and eat the fucker whole, and you can’t exactly keep them inside the house. You thinkin’ pits? Dogs?”

“If anything, yes.”

“You sure them teeth marks ain’t human?”

“No, we’re not sure.”

Booth Conklin pointed to his pit pens. “Mister, I run these three farms for my cousins, and I know how to get what I want from dogs, and if I was crazy enough to want one of my pups to eat a man’s guts, I imagine I could think up a way for him to do it. I’ll tell you though, I’ve got a real taste for blood sport, and I couldn’t imagine any human being doin’ what you just told me.”

Danny said, “If you wanted to, how would you do it?”

Conklin petted Rape-o’s hindquarters; the dog lazily wagged its tail.

“I’d starve him and pen him and let bitch dogs in heat parade around in front of his cage and make him crazy. I’d muzzle him and bind his legs and put a restrainer around his dick so he couldn’t get himself off. I’d get me a rubber glove and tweak his dick till he just about got there, then I’d clamp his balls so he couldn’t shoot. I’d get me some doggie menstrual blood and spray it in his eyes and nose for a week or so, till he came to think of it as food and love.

Then, when I had me that dead man, I’d spread a big puddle of pussy blood right where I wanted him to bite. And, mister? I’d have a gun handy in case that tormented old dog decided to eat _me_. That answer satisfy you?”

Danny thought: No animals, it just isn’t _right_. But–have Doc Layman do organ taps on Goines, his body parts near the mutilations, tests for a second, nonhuman, blood type. He threw Booth Conklin a long-shot question. “What kind of people buy dogs from you?”

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