If it's true that man's best friend is his dog,
then his worst enemy has got to be MAN
then his worst enemy has got to be MAN
The Only Thing That Fits by Beau Johnson
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Four boys playing fort are who found what we’d
thought was the second girl, Rebecca Hall, age 12, beat, bloodied and
dead. Last time anyone had seen her was
two days prior, a Monday, two steps off her school bus and sixty from
home. Deputy Detective John Batista is the
officer who catches the case, me, in turn, becoming his very next call. A murderer in my own right, I had no problem doing
what needed to be done. Batista, giant,
thick, with a face the color of pissed-off brick, knew this as well. Both of us more than proficient in the art of
subterfuge we’d come to utilize. Seeing we
were the very same thing we’d come to hunt meant we pretty much had to be.
The autopsy confirmed what each of us feared:
rape. What it also confirmed was that
Rebecca Hall was not the second victim but actually the fourth. Not to be out done, it was the girl’s stomach content
which spoke loudest of all.
“It’s canine, Rider. Goddamn bastard fed her her dog.” Even strong
men had bad days. For Batista, this was
one. “A Collie named Frank.”
“Narrows it down though, way I see it.” I was right, of course, and Batista knew as
much. Didn’t mean either of us he had to
like it. Scenarios just worked better
this way. Same thing with plans.
Three weeks later---after every vet, pre-vet,
canine shelter, dog walker, and pet food store owner are interviewed from Culver
City down to Hanson Falls---it’s a man by the name of Gank the CCPD looks at
hard. Inheriting his kennel by way of an uncle who held a different last name, Rudy Gank had come to Culver three years
prior by way of overcrowding, early release and a probation system down for the
count. Wasn’t much of a surprise either,
the circumstance one the core reasons the Detective and I had begun what we
had.
Text message received, I find the piece of scum in
jeans and a beater T. Thick and wide, he’s packing a bag in an attempt to
flee. It’s as he turns around that I tell
him to lie on the ground.
“You ain’t no cop.” Man had me there.
“By the time I’m done with you, Rudy, I can
guarantee you’ll wish I was.”
Fuck and you were the next things that tried to
come from his mouth. Once he regained
consciousness I’d already connected jumper cables that stretched from balls to
battery and back again. Juice turned up,
the man fries, the world becoming a slightly better place in the process.
Or so I’d thought.
“It’s happening again,” Batista says, and the look
in the man’s eyes tells me more than I care to know. Turns out Gank had a sibling, a brother,
Henry J. Seems Henry J liked the same
things Rudy did, right down to feeding his victims a lighter shade of pink.
“I mean, you can’t be fucking serious.” It was rhetorical, and Batista had said it
more than a few times since we’d uncovered the link. We were at the usual spot, each of us looking
down over Culver as it slept.
“Doesn’t make a difference, John. Once we find him, man’s going to die all the
same.”
“I know. I
know. But Gank having a partner, a
brother no less, and us missing that, it makes me think I might be getting too
old for this.” I’ve seen a lot of
things, more than I care to acknowledge.
One thing I know for certain is that true evil is more human than
mankind will ever come to admit. It also
lives only to destroy. Batista knew as
much, was the reason he wore the badge, but it also proved that he and I were as
different now as we’d been back then.
“John. The
man will slip up. We’ll get him. I promise.”
And we did, just not as I thought we would, nor
when. Four years and eleven girls later I
get the call. Batista. He’s at a safe house of mine, one of the
bigger ones, telling me he’d finally struck gold. I move, and fast, as there was something in
the big man’s voice. Shouldn’t have
surprised me though, what I found, as the case had taken its toll on Batista,
whittling him down bit by bit these last couple years. Empathy and ineffectiveness will do that to a
cop. Sadly, each is capable of creating the
worst type of fuse.
“Stop…no…too deep!” is what comes to me once I
open up the floor. The screams accompanying
the words are high and full, erupting from a mouth that can hardly catch what
it needs to breathe. What hits me next is
the smell of shit that is wet and fresh and round. As for Batista, he’s there within it, Henry
Gank’s pants about his shins, his face against the wall, and Batista up inside
him with a piece of rebar that could have passed for bone.
Batista is grunting, a man determined, but he is
weeping as well, and it is here I lay a hand upon his back, and then upon his
wrist, and then he all at once stops and relinquishes the steel.
“I tried, Rider…thought I could…” he says, and I
know how he needs it to end. I’ve always
known. But we weren't the same, never
have been and never would be. I’d like
to say I envy him that, but no, I've too much hate.
“I’ll finish.”
I say and then send Batista up a level to clean up as much of himself as
he could. Once I hear the floor door
close is when I step towards a face so close to one I thought I’d never see
again. He’d made his way to a corner, a
trail of shit and blood snaking the concrete between us. I hunker down, face
him, and tell him of his brother; of how that piece of scum had burned and wept
and pled before I ripped apart his eyes.
The man starts, snarls, but then stops just as quick, and I can only
assume it’s because Batista had taken too much from him. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth,
I too take something from the man, his jaw, by way of hammer, but before I do
he tries his best to stand. Once up, he
glares at me, finally choosing to speak.
“Like I tole your friend, why we did it, why we do, it’s because even
dirty bitches need to eat.” It’s only
when the silence comes that I realize the time for talking had already passed.
For those of us who know, it’s the only thing
that fits.
