I knew I was close when I saw the clapboard shacks standing just off the dirt road. A trio of chopped-down Hogs sat outside one shack, ape-hanger handlebars sprouting like stalks from the chromed engines. One of those prefab metal sheds sat behind the shack. They'd be cranking up the heat inside, making meth, choking on the ether fumes. The bikers figured out the dope business a long time ago— the real problem is getting the stuff across the border, so they cook their own right here.
The last house made the others look like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. Set well back from the road on a winding, narrow approach, it sagged from depression. Tar paper covered most of the windows, missing shingles pockmarked the roof, the whole sorry mess rotting from termites who had long since fled to better pickings. If it burned to the ground, the coroner would call it suicide.
I pulled the Plymouth into the side yard, gunning the engine, sliding on the dirt, letting him know I was there. Turned off the ignition and waited— I wasn't going to jump out too fast.
He came around the side of the house, a tall, rawboned, slope-shouldered man with a doofus mustache. Hair cropped short, wearing tiny round sunglasses. A rifle in one hand, a dog on a chain in the other— a white pit bull with a ring of black fur around one eye and one black ear. The animal didn't look a bit like Spuds McKenzie.
Elroy. He lived back in the woods. Off the land, he said. He'd jack deer by spotlight at night when they came to the salt lick he'd set up. Blow ducks off the water with his shotgun. Anything that had fur, feathers, or scales. He wasn't a hunter, he was an armed consumer.
Even the bikers cut him considerable slack— people said he ate road-kill sandwiches.
I hit the window switch, let him have a good long look.
"Burke!" he boomed out.
"Yeah, it's me. Put the gun down, okay?"
"Sure."
"And tie that animal up."
"Barko wouldn't hurt anyone," he said, sounding insulted.
"I got Pansy in the car," I told him, by way of explanation. I climbed out. The pit bull watched me with only mild interest, but his ears were cocked. He had Pansy's scent, growled a challenge.
We walked around behind the house. Elroy had his own prefab shed too. Maybe they came with the original houses.
"You have the paper?" I asked him.
"What's your hurry?"
"That paper isn't going to move itself, Elroy."
"Come on," he said.
We walked past the shed toward the woods. Two more pit bulls were anchored to metal stakes set in cement. One had an old tire in his alligator jaws, waving it around in triumph as the other watched.
"Aren't they beauties?" Elroy asked.
"They are, for sure. You training them?"
"Yeah! Want to see?"
"Okay."
"Barko's really my best one. Just wait here, I'll get him."
He came back leading the dog. The other two yapped in anticipation, pawing the ground. A low-slung four-wheeled cart stood on a level patch of ground, piled high with solid-concrete blocks. Elroy took an elaborate leather harness from a hook on a nearby tree. It was lined with some spongelike material. As soon as he took up the harness, Barko began running in little circles, overcome with excitement.
"Come on, boy! Time to work!"
Barko trotted over on his stubby legs and Elroy fitted him up. He attached two short leads from the harness directly to a U-bolt on the front of the cart. Barko stood rigid at attention, waiting.
"Okay, baby…pull!" Elroy yelled.
The pit bull surged forward, straining against the harness, fighting for traction. When all four legs locked in, he began to inch forward, dragging the cart behind him, foaming a bit at the mouth, Elroy screaming, "Full Pull, Barko! Full Pull!" Soon the little tank was slogging forward, like a man wading through setting cement. Barko never faltered, chugging ahead until Elroy ran to intercept him, kicking a wooden wedge under the cart's wheels. He unsnapped the harness, held the dog high over his head in both hands.
"The winner… Barrrko!" I swear the dog grinned.
"That's what you're training the dogs for?"
"Sure. You don't think I'm gonna let my dogs fight, do you? This is the latest thing. They get ninety seconds to pull the weight fifteen feet— that's a full pull. Barko's going in the middleweight class this fall."
"Pit bull tractor pulls?"
"Yeah, man! You know how much Barko just lugged across the finish line? One half ton, man. A thousand pounds. And that was on grass— the regulation pulls're on a piece of flat carpet. Better traction, smoother roll."
"Unreal."
"He's still working. The record's a little over one full ton, man. Twenty-one hundred pounds."
"What pulled that, a Clydesdale?"
"A pit bull, Burke. A forty-eight-pound bitch, in fact. That's the middleweight class, not the open. Some of those damn Rottweilers, they could pull a house."
"Jesus."
"Yeah, they're amazing, huh?"
Elroy dropped Barko to the ground. I saluted him. He trotted back to the front.
"Pansy's in the car," I reminded him.
"Barko's no dog fighter."
"He's a pit bull."
"It's all in how you raise them, man."
Some of Elroy's receptor sites were burned out, but he knew the truth.
"Let's look at the paper," I said.
49
It was spread out on a long clean table in the shed. Bearer bonds, beautifully engraved. Face value, ten grand each. Elroy had been a counterfeiter, but his last stretch in the pen had cured him of playing with funny money. Now he just worked in small lots: bonds, deeds, certificates. Takes some real skill, and you need specialists to move it, but the risk is lower.
"How many you got?" I asked him, turning the paper over in my hands, admiring the craftsmanship.
"Three point five million, you add it up."
"You know how the quick flip works, Elroy…you're looking at maybe a hundred grand your end, tops."
"That's okay. This'll be my last score. I got plans, anyway, do something else to make a living."
I put the bonds into my attaché case, walked out to the car. Barko was lying in the sun, basking in the glow of his recent triumph. Pansy's massive head was framed in the front window of the Plymouth.
"Could I look at her?" he asked.
"Tie your guy up first…just in case."
I opened the door and Pansy strolled out. I gave her the hand signal for friends, and she stood patiently while Elroy pawed all over her, even pulled back her lips to check her teeth.
"She's gorgeous, man. True Italian stock, I can tell. The Italians breed them much lower to the ground. It's good you didn't dock her tail."