“We got one more animal coming through,” Salvatore yelled over the din. “But it’s only for boneless beef. There’ll be no carcass. Got it?”
Mark made a circle with his thumb and index finger to indicate he understood.
Salvatore then passed through the soundproof door that led into the administrative area of the building. Entering his office, he hung up his bloodied coat and construction helmet. He sat down at his desk and went back to his daily forms.
Concentrating as hard as he was, Salvatore wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Jed suddenly appeared at his door. “We got a slight problem,” Jed said.
“Now what?” Salvatore asked.
“The head of that downer cow fell off the rail.”
“Did any of the inspectors see it?” Salvatore asked.
“No,” Jed said. “They’re all in the locker room with the SME for their daily chitchat.”
“Then put the head back on the rail and hose it off.”
“Okay,” Jed said. “I thought you should know.”
“Absolutely,” Salvatore said. “To cover our asses I’ll even fill out a Process Deficiency Report. What’s the lot and head number of that animal?”
Jed looked down at his clipboard. “Lot thirty-six, head fifty-seven.”
“Got it,” Salvatore said.
Jed left Salvatore’s office and returned to the kill floor, He tapped José on the shoulder. José was a sweeper whose job it was to sweep all the filth from the floor into one of the many grates. José had not been working there very long. It was a chronic problem keeping sweepers because of the nature of the job.
José didn’t speak much English and Jed’s Spanish wasn’t much better, so he was reduced to communicating by crude gestures. Jed motioned that he wanted José to help Manuel, one of the skinners, to heft the skinned cow’s head from the floor onto one of the hooks on the moving overhead rail.
Eventually José caught on. Luckily José and Manuel could communicate without difficulty, because the job required two steps and significant effort. First they had to get the hundred-plus-pound head up onto the metal catwalk. Then, after climbing up there themselves, they had to hoist the head up high enough to secure it on one of the moving hooks.
Jed gave a thumbs-up sign to the two panting men, who at the last second had almost dropped their slippery burden. Jed then trained a jet of water on the soiled skinless head as it moved along on the rail. Even to the hardened Jed the appearance of the cataractous eye gave the skinned head a gruesome aura. But he was pleased with how much of the filth came off with the high-pressure water, and by the time the head passed through the aperture in the kill-floor wall on its way into the head-boning room, it looked relatively clean.
ONE
Friday, January 16th
The Sterling Place Mall was aglow with the marble, bright brass, and polished wood of its upscale shops. Tiffany competed with Cartier, Neiman-Marcus with Saks. Mozart’s piano concerto number 23 was piped in through hidden speakers. Beautiful people milled about on this late Friday afternoon in their Gucci shoes and Armani coats to survey the offerings of the post-Christmas sales.
Under normal circumstances Kelly Anderson wouldn’t have minded spending a part of the afternoon at the mall. As a TV journalist it was a far cry from the gritty beats she was usually assigned around the city while putting together in-depth pieces for the six or eleven o’clock news. But on this particular Friday, the mall had not provided Kelly with what she wanted.
“This is a joke,” Kelly said irritably. She looked up and down the expansive hall for a likely candidate to interview but no one looked promising.
“I think we’ve gotten enough,” Brian said. Brian Washington, a lanky, laid-back African-American, was Kelly’s cameraman of choice. In her mind he was the best WENE had to offer, and Kelly had maneuvered, cajoled, and even used threats to get the station to assign him to her.
Kelly puffed up her cheeks before blowing out her breath in an expression of exasperation. “Like hell we’ve got enough,” she said. “We’ve got diddly-squat.”
At thirty-four, Kelly Anderson was a no-nonsense, intelligent, aggressive woman hoping to break into national news. Most people thought she had a good chance if she could find a story that would catapult her into the spotlight. She looked the pan with her sharp features and lively eyes framed by a helmet of tight, blond curls. To add to her professional image she dressed fashionably and tastefully, and groomed herself impeccably.