Glancing over his shoulder, he looked for Jed. When he didn’t see him in the pandemonium, Kim took a chance that Jed wouldn’t miss him and walked through the doorless opening into the head-boning room.
“I’ve come into the room where the heads go,” Kim said into his microphone. “This is potentially important in how Becky happened to get sick. Marsha had found something in the paperwork about the head of the last animal on the day the meat for Becky’s hamburger might have been slaughtered. She said it was ‘revolting’, which I now find curious, since I find the whole process revolting.”
Kim watched for a moment as the head conveyer dumped a head every twelve seconds onto a table where it was attacked by a team of butchers. Knives similar to the ones used to slit the animals’ throats quickly cut out the huge cheek muscles and the tongues. The workers took this meat and tossed it into a two-thousand-pound combo bin similar to those Kim had seen at Mercer Meats.
“I’m learning something every minute,” Kim said. “There must be a lot of cow cheeks in hamburger.”
Kim noticed that after the cheeks and tongues were removed, the cow heads were pushed onto a flat conveyer belt that dumped them ignominiously into a black hole that presumably led to the basement.
“I think I might have to visit the basement,” Kim said reluctantly. He had the sense that his childhood fear of basements would be put to the test.
So far it had been a good day as far as Jed Street was concerned, despite its being Monday. He’d had a great breakfast that morning, had gotten to work early enough to sit and have a second cup of coffee with several of the other supervisors, and had had to face fewer absenteeisms than usual. Finding and keeping decent help was Jed’s biggest headache.
With none of his key day employees having called in sick, Jed was confident that his team would have processed close to two thousand head by the lunch break.
That made Jed happy because he knew it would make his immediate boss, Lenny Striker, happy.
Jed slipped out of his white coat and hung it up. Wanting to catch up on his paperwork, he’d retreated to his office with his third cup of coffee of the day. He walked around his desk and sat down. Pen in hand, he went to work. He had a considerable number of forms that had to be filled out each and every day.
Jed hadn’t been working long when his phone rang. He reached for his coffee before picking up the receiver. He was relatively unconcerned about getting a call so late in the morning and could not imagine it would be particularly serious. At the same time he knew there was always a chance. Being in charge of something as potentially dangerous as a kill floor, he knew that disaster was never far away.
“Hello,” Jed said, overemphasizing the first syllable. He took a sip of coffee.
“Jed Street, this is Daryl Webster. Do you have a moment to speak with me?”
Jed spat out his coffee, then scrambled to wipe the brew off his forms. “Of course, Mr. Webster,” Jed sputtered. He’d worked for Higgins and Hancock for fourteen years, and during that time the real boss had never called him.
“I got a call from one of Bobby Bo’s people,” Daryl explained. “He told me that we’ve employed a new slop boy just today.”
“That’s correct,” Jed said. He felt his face heat up. Hiring illegal aliens was tacitly condoned while the official policy was that it was forbidden. Jed hoped to God he wasn’t going to end up being a scapegoat.
“What’s this man’s name?” Daryl asked.
Jed frantically searched through the papers on his desk. He’d written the name down, although not on any employment forms. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found it.
“José Ramerez, sir!” Jed said.
“Did he show you any identification?” Daryl asked.
“Not that I recall,” Jed said evasively.
“What did he look like?”
“He is a little strange-looking,” Jed said. Jed was confused. He couldn’t fathom what difference it made what the man looked like.