Eden by Candice Fox Page B

he was forbidden to speak to, shouting in Caesar’s bent ear. Sunday was nowhere. The boy glanced back to see the thoroughbred’s right front foot stripped of meat to the pink bone, flapping flesh, hopping. It was pretty much half over in a minute. A limping finish. Smart bets were being paid already. The mutt got the big fellow’s throat and swung back and forth. Wet, squelching bites, the happy mumbled growling of a mouth washed with blood. Heinrich put his hands in his pockets and looked up at Bear. The big man was smiling, shifting notes from one hand to the other.
    “Here you go, short stuff,” he said, flapping a note in the boy’s face. “Don’t lose it all in one pop.”
    Heinrich grinned and pressed back into the crowd. Elbows and arses. He pushed, pulled, squirmed, shuffled his feet on the wet floor. A penny buried in grime. He reached down and scooped it up. Uncle Mick was there on the corner, arguing, pointing into the pit. He took plenty of tugging to bring around.
    “Where’s Sunday?” Heinrich asked.
    “No idea. Care less.”
    “Take my punt on the next one?”
    “Oh, Jesus. Yes, all right.”
    The man snatched Heinrich’s note and stuffed it into his pocket. Two more dogs were being lowered into the pit. Heinrich had a quick look. Breathed the thick air. He searched for Caesar and the forbidden man. They were gone. Bear was talking to someone in the crowd.
    “Hurry up, dickhead.”
    “Sorry.” Heinrich chewed his lip. “All right. The black one.”
    “All in?”
    “Yeah.”
    Uncle Mick nodded and folded his arms. Heinrich heard a familiar voice behind him. Caesar was drawing on his cigarette, the dogs in the cages forgotten, his eyes on the faces in the crowd. The forbidden man. The cop looked down at Heinrich. The boy turned back to the pit, straightened his jacket, cleared his throat.
    “This Bear’s sidekick?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Who’s he belong to?”
    “Search me.” Heinrich turned for a second, saw Caesar shrug. “Care less. Bear’s always bringing in stray cats. Been doing it for years.”
    “Stray cats.” The cop laughed. Heinrich looked up at him. “Stray cat, are you, boy?”
    Heinrich chewed his lip. A smile danced on Caesar’s thin scarred lips.
    “That where the nigger girl came from?”
    “Yeah, and others. I don’t know why he does it. Half the time he raises them up and they go wild on him. Break his bones.”
    “They don’t bother you.”
    “Now and then they bother me,” Caesar glanced down at the boy. Heinrich dropped his eyes. “Mostly he keeps them out of my way.”
    “I don’t know how you stand it,” the cop said. “I hate cats. You know how to get rid of unwanted cats?” the cop asked the boy. The boy shrugged. “You feed’m to the dogs.”
    The push was so unexpected, so light, that Heinrich hardly felt it. He reached up and touched the cop’s hands as they touched his chest and they felt gentle, warm even. He hadn’t known how close he was to the edge. There wasn’t time to make a sound before he hit the bottom of the pit. And then the air was out of him, his elbow split inside the jacket and leaking, his vision vibrating.
    The crowd was screaming. The dog in the cage nearest to him in his ear, the sound making his eardrum pulse, too loud to be anything but a physical sensation, a punching of noise. Heinrich rolled. Blood and feathers on his palms. He wasn’t sure what of it was his. All he knew was that he couldn’t move as fast as he should have been able to. A weight had fallen over him and his limbs weren’t responding in time with his thoughts. Bear was on the edge of the pit, his arm outstretched.
    “Here,” the Bear said. “Come here. Get up.”
    Heinrich looked back at Caesar and the cop. Caesar was smiling. The cop was smiling. Caesar nodded to the man holding the rope that released the door of the black dog’s cage. The man paused, looked at the boy, looked at Caesar.
    “Get up, Heinrich!”
    Heinrich got to his feet,