“Rape-o, Hacksaw and Night Train. Them dogs won sixteen altogether. Southern California record for one man’s stable.”
Danny turned to face the voice. A very fat man in overalls was standing in the doorway of the shack just off to his left; he was wearing thick glasses and probably couldn’t see too well. Danny unpinned his badge and slipped it in his pocket, thinking the man was garrulous and ripe for an insurance agent ploy. “Can I talk to you for a second about your dogs?”
The man ambled to the fence, squinting and blinking. He said, “Booth Conklin. You in the market for a good pit hound?”
Danny looked into Booth Conklin’s eyes, one a free-floating waller, the other cloudy and pocked with cataracts. “Dan Upshaw. You could start me off with some information on them.”
Conklin said, “I kin do better than that,” waddled to a speckled dog’s pen and flipped the latch. The beast made a dash, hit the fence with his front paws and started licking the wire. Danny knelt and scratched his snout, a slick pink tongue sliding over his fingers. He said, “Good boy, good fellow,” putting off Doc Layman’s theories as long longshots then and there.
Booth Conklin waddled back, holding a long piece of wood. “First lesson with pits is don’t talk baby talk to ‘em or they won’t respect you. Rape-o here’s a leg pumper, just wants to get your trousers wet. My cousin Wallace named him Rape-o ‘cause he’ll mount anything with bad intentions. Down, Rape-o, down!”
The pit bull kept nuzzling Danny’s fingers; Booth Conklin whacked him in the ass with his stick. Rape-o let out a shrill yowl, cowered away and started rubbing his backside in the dirt, all fours up and treading air. Danny felt his fists clenching; Conklin stuck the stick in Rape-o’s mouth. The dog clamped down his jaws; Conklin lifted him up and held him out at arm’s length. Danny gasped at the feat of strength.
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 sucked on. It had to have happened someplace inside, because the body was clean when the police found it.”