Mile Zero

Mile Zero by Thomas Sanchez

Book: Mile Zero by Thomas Sanchez Read Free Book Online
Authors: Thomas Sanchez
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sheet off the bed and threw it at her with a snarl. “Cover yourself up and beat it before I bust you too.” No, Justo did not like hot dogs talking about his family.
    “Jesus Christ, bubba! I be a respectable businessman. I have rights to shoot my own dogs.” Handsomemost wobbled to his feet, hands crisscrossed over his groin in anticipation of another kick. “Ain’t gettin ready to blow me away, are you, bubba?”
    “I’m busting you for illegal discharge of a firearm within the city limits.”
    “Oh cooome-ooon, man!” Handsomemost howled. “Don’t be givin me the riot act. What it be you want from me?” He hobbled across to the two dead dogs sprawled in a blanket of blood. “How much be two dead puppies worth anyway?” He looked back at Justo. “I know it’s not money you be wantin. Out with it. What’s the accommodation?”
    “Some weird stuff going down in town.”
    “Always is. George Washington be first president of the United States and there be penguins in Alaska. So what else be new?”
    “Don’t mean the usual stuff.”
    “Like dead chickens nailed to doors and goat heads in the cemetery kind of stuff?”
    “Yeah. Ever since the last boatload of Haitian refugees came in it’s been getting weirder.”
    “I be hearin that. Yackity here, yackity there, you know how people yack.”
    “I already talked to my people about it and this is outside my people. I thought your people might know. Might be your people’s kind of thing, which is different.”
    “It be different.”
    “How different? Suppose you tell me, or do you want me to run a check on this gun of yours to see what kind of exciting life it’s had?”
    “There be things not to talk about. Don’t be a shitkicker. A shitkicker, he sees a big ol pile of shit on the far side of the street, he run over and kick it. Best you pass it on by. The maggots and the flies of this bad world will take care of the shit piles. Ask me bout somethin else. Hey, I got an idea for you. You want a dog?”
    “I’m crossing the street to kick the shit.”
    “This here be a nice dog for you. Don’t make a mistake and pass him up.” Handsomemost winced from the pain in his groin as he knelt next to the leashed greyhound. He ran a hand along the animal’s arched back, down over the thrust of its boned ribcage, underneath to the soft belly, his diamond-ringed fingers stroking the short hairs in time to the rapid thump of a racing heart. “This here dog be a good pal. Keep you out of harm’s way because he don’t know shit from apple butter. That’s why his racin days be over. This fella, he turned into a biter instead of chasin the little metal bunny. Be your pal for life. He don’t bite people, just other dogs when he be runnin with em. This biter cost me over eight thousand in handlin and trainin fees. He be yours for the takin.”
    “Untie him.”
    “Ah-hah!” Handsomemost chuckled deep in his throat as he pulled at the end of the leash knotted to the mangrove stump. “Knew you be an animal lover.”
    “I want you to untie him because I don’t want him in the way when I blow the apple butter out your ears.” Justo aimed the gun at Handsomemost’s head.
“Dos aves de rapiña no mantienen compañía.”
    “Don’t be givin me none of that Cuban mumbo-jumbo. Just what you be talkin, bubba?”
    “Two birds of prey do not hunt together.”
    “No more triflin with me. You be triflin too much. I don’t be no triflin man.” He jerked the knot of the greyhound’s leash free.
    Justo kept the gun on Handsomemost as he released the dog. Maybe he wasn’t going to get this cagey bird to talk. Maybe Handsomemost didn’t know anything about the weirdness and was just playing it up as something he could trade. Justo looked over to the end of the runway where a plane nosed into air, its silver belly passing overhead, the whiny propellers echoing across the mangrove swamp. It seemed to Justo a perfect opportunity to put one more hot dog out of

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