Sharp Teeth Read online

  even sleepy, he’s a bear you wouldn’t poke at.

  “Long time, Tati.”

  “Yeah, long time.” Tati, waking up, smiles

  as he watches Lark help himself to the fridge.

  “Tati, I’m going to need your car for a while.”

  “How long?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Tati’s smile wavers. “My car?”

  Lark nods as he drinks the water.

  Tati was once someone in certain circles

  ten years and twenty pounds ago,

  but things happened back then

  leaving deep scars and comeback debts

  that are thicker than blood.

  It’s all dancing fast across the inside

  of Tati’s mind right now.

  His smile grows again, big and true.

  “Sure, man, take the car.

  Far as I’m concerned,

  it’s yours.”

  Driving out of the city center

  Lark sees the sun rising up in the east.

  He thinks of her, he thinks of Baron, he thinks of the boys

  the fallen and the ones who are still out there

  reaching onward toward

  the fingers of the coming light.

  He pulls up in front of Bonnie’s.

  He knows the key is in the cactus pot

  He knows the security code is 323

  He has the computer on.

  He has a week till she comes back.

  And now he has a car.

  One thing that’s nice about this town,

  just like seeded soil on sunshine days,

  LA will blossom for you.

  All you need is intelligence, time,

  and a solid automobile.

  In moments he’s found six churches

  worth a visit, each one a new age variety

  where the lost ones land like dandelion seeds.

  He’s found a methadone clinic

  near the beach, sure to be populated

  with souls as empty

  as cracked swimming pools,

  and he’s posted a notice

  on an extreme sports site

  offering “Self-Reformation,”

  a radical technique

  for anyone seeking

  “discipline, adventure,

  and dynamic physical

  transformation.”

  Out of these three paths

  he might be able to sew together something

  resembling

  a somewhat decent pack.

  V

  Game day.

  Cutter and Blue are up, showered fresh

  as springtime ducklings, they’ve even got

  ties and church shoes on.

  Hair parted like choirboys.

  These are the regional finals

  goddamn it.

  Let’s get serious.

  The smooth carpet

  feels like luxury, the staff

  nod and smile as they pass.

  It’s been a month of generous tipping and

  now everyone working here treats them

  like champagne kings.

  Hitting the tournament room,

  Cutter greets Sara Dudley

  from the oversight committee.

  Blue pours them each a glass

  of orange juice from the buffet table

  which is overflowing with pineapple, melon,

  pastry, and cream. It’s all as abundant

  as any civilization

  could ever hope to be.

  They’ve seen these fellows around here before.

  Cutter sizes up Mr. Venable.

  The man looks sharp and cagey,

  he smells like bay rum and lavender.

  The big fellow, Mr. Goyo, wears the same scent.

  Cutter wonders what else they share.

  Blue looks at them too.

  He notices the way Venable’s eyes

  don’t match his smile, eyes warm,

  smile cold, eyes alive,

  smile dead. Blue doesn’t know what this means

  and he can’t read Goyo any more than

  he can read a stone.

  But he figures the play of the cards

  will say a lot, it always does.

  Cutter and Blue have their own conventions.

  Their play has mystified

  everyone from San Luis Obispo to Laguna Beach.

  Their bidding leaps like electricity arcing.

  Venable and Goyo have a quieter style.

  Cutter can tell that Goyo is the machine.

  Venable lets him lead them, Blue can almost smell

  the numbers burning in Goyo’s mind.

  Prim Sara Dudley announces the end of the first session.

  It is now eleven thirty.

  Cutter and Blue are up, two rubbers to one.

  But it’s been tough, a battle won by small degrees.

  At the coffee station they’re huddling, reviewing their hands,

  when Venable comes over and interrupts

  with some simple words that

  throw the entire day

  completely upside down.

  “I’m sorry,” he says,

  “to hear about your friends.”

  Cutter’s and Blue’s eyes lock, everything stops as

  they survey the quiet room.

  In other times, the blood would start flowing

  but now, there’s Sara Dudley checking the cards

  as a waiter methodically refills the water pitchers

  and Mr. Venable saunters back to his table

  to whisper in Goyo’s ear.

  Cutter’s hand goes to Blue’s shoulder.

  “Let’s finish the game,” he says.

  “The guy could just be fucking with us.”

  Fires devouring mountains inside him

  need to be quenched. Soon.

  But first, there are cards

  to be played.

  Predictably the next rubber goes poorly.

  For the good part of the early afternoon,

  their rhythm is off.

  It’s as if Cutter and Blue are trying to communicate

  through rusty, broken radios.

  Cards fall uselessly on the table,

  as hand after hand fall dead beneath

  the engine of the big fellow’s mind.

  It churns on as Venable hums concertos,

  his game gaining

  the sort of momentum

  that has always helped the assured

  crush the confused.

  Blue can’t hear anything but his heartbeat

  while Cutter has flashes of the past, the pack

  Lark, Baron, Con, the girl, Bone, Zack, the rest.

  Aces are seizing the tricks,

  and tricks are slipping away like time.

  Cutter just wants to change now and run out

  all the strength in his bones.

  Run past the concierge.

  Run down the street.

  Run into the hills.

  Run to the lakes and rivers where the pack

  would find the peace that comes away from the city.

  Where these animals all once ran,

  where they belonged,

  together.

  His concentration is shattered, his eyes filling with tears.

  And then he goes for the one strategy that might just

  buy him some time.

  He falls hard to the floor and closes his eyes.

  In the banquet room’s bathroom

  Blue throws water on his own face

  while Cutter breathes deep.

  “I haven’t thought about them,” he says.

  Blue crouches down to where Cutter is sitting

  on the gray tile floor, beneath the fluorescent lights.

  “I know. But now, we just need to win.”

  “Why?” asks Cutter.

  “Because Lark told us to.”

  Then they d
o something they have never done.

  They reach out and hold one another, embracing

  like brothers.

  Five minutes later, they emerge

  and engage.

  They grit their teeth and

  gnaw through the rest of the day

  feinting and thrusting while

  defeat ebbs away

  like the end of a red tide.

  “We are wolves,” Cutter chants

  in his mind.

  “We don’t find the weak. We

  don’t prey on the slow.

  We simply eat absolutely

  fucking everything.”

  The answer is literally there

  in the cards.

  If you were watching

  you would see four men

  playing classical music

  with nothing but cards for an orchestra

  and, in the end,

  Cutter and Blue’s song

  is just a little bit sweeter.

  Sara Dudley and the other associates

  present the boys with their check.

  There is a picture taken for Bridge Monthly.

  As Venable and Goyo rise, Venable extends his hand.

  “We should play again,” he says, smiling.

  “Yes. Soon,” Cutter replies, shaking

  the man’s small, soft hand. “Let’s do that very soon.”

  “Why don’t you come to my suite tonight?” Venable grins

  with all the confidence of a sure winner,

  leaving Cutter to wonder exactly what he’s won.

  “Yeah, okay.” Cutter is

  exhausted, curious, and hungry.

  “We’ll see you there.”

  VI

  Frio and Jorge have been beaten bloody

  every day. Waking up

  sometimes in rooms filled with men

  other times they rise in rooms

  filled with barking, snarling dogs,

  teeth bared with growling wet spit

  spraying out onto

  the boys’ cowering bodies.

  Ray feeds them meat stew

  and offers cryptic advice:

  “The change is in you, boys.”

  “The power comes from within.”

  “There is your destiny, take it.”

  Then the men come from behind.

  The boys raise their arms but the

  blows persist, raining down again and

  again till the blackness returns.

  One morning, the beatings are coming down,

  as they always do—like cruel, unrelenting storms—

  Frio and Jorge have their backs to the concrete wall, they are

  struggling, shouting, begging, crying

  when there is a new sound, a strange one.

  Jorge turns to see Frio’s

  eyes squeezed shut. A gurgling, growling noise is

  coming out of his guts as he bows over.

  Jorge thinks, that’s it, he’s dead.

  But Frio’s body trembles and then

  in a wild spasm, his flesh starts to

  swell, bulging pink and raw.

  Frio’s eyes flare with panic as his bones shift

  beneath the changing skin, he reaches for his friend’s hand

  but finds his fingers curving in, as bone yields to claw.

  Jorge screams now too, high pitched and unrestrained

  he shakes with fear as

  furred needles puncture Frio’s face and arms.

  Angry teeth and pointed snout mouth and eyes that hold

  nothing familiar.

  His clothing is torn as his body, in thrusts and jerks,

  reshapes itself down to all fours.

  Jorge screams louder. Frio barks back.

  The men step back now

  and bend down,

  beginning their own dark change.

  Within moments Jorge is surrounded by

  a room full of angry dogs.

  As Jorge leans against the wall,

  the sound of his heart beating in fear

  almost drowns out the barking of the dogs

  who stare up at him with knowing eyes.

  Frio is no different from the rest of them.

  Jorge breathes deep and tastes vomit in his throat.

  The door is unbolted and Ray enters.

  He’s holding a .44 and the barrel

  quickly finds its way

  to the side of Jorge’s head.

  “You’ve seen the change,” Ray growls.

  “You’ve seen the destiny.

  Either find it within, man,

  or accept the end.”

  The steel is so real

  as Jorge inhales his fear

  and screams a new sound

  that can only be called

  a howl.

  VII

  Reading the paper, she scans an article

  while hummingbirds outside drink with their

  insatiable, jittery thirst

  compulsively sucking the nectar

  from the violet curling petals.

  Anthony turns the pages of the sports section.

  She smiles because she loves his every motion.

  She’s never felt it quite like this,

  where the love runs so deep

  and plays out as simple

  as any child’s game.

  She turns back to her paper,

  reading in the lifestyle pages about

  how some psychologists believe

  a few hidden secrets

  can actually help the average relationship.

  Yes, it’s true, they say, surprisingly

  the stupid drunken office kiss, a love sonnet from a neighbor,

  an in-law’s sloppy groping

  during dinner’s dish clearing,

  these can all be buried happily beneath

  the small and constant waves

  of studious devotion until eventually

  it is all simply

  carried out to sea.

  Yes, it turns out,

  the open, completely honest relationship

  may be as much of a myth

  as unconditional love itself.

  Even one good-size secret, these scientists say,

  even an affair that rises and then falls within a few seasons

  even this won’t rock the foundation

  if the foundation is granite strong.

  As she reads, her foot plays with her bag beneath the chair.

  She has three cell phones in there

  each wiped clean of the blood.

  The owners have left the world,

  their pain ended,

  screams silenced

  and much of what they ever were

  is now buried within her.

  The pack is drying up like a puddle in the heat

  and she is as unforgiving and uncaring as the sun.

  She is merely killing the spiders

  as she always does

  whenever she sweeps out the house.

  She drives to the ocean with Anthony once a week

  they swim and kick high against the waves,

  his boyish smile ear to ear as

  she hears laughter that’s so loud and full

  she doesn’t even recognize it

  as her own.

  This is love.

  And now here in this morning,

  this is love.

  She looks up at Anthony,

  thinking how, if he knew,

  if he had any idea,

  then the soil of her Eden

  would be ripped away

  leaving her alone

  on this unforgiving rock.

  The secret must stay

  and—according to the scientists—

  the love will live.

  The heart is quite comfortable with secrets.

  After all, its home is a dark wet place

  tucked in among all the other organs

  who aren’
t talking either.

  She smiles, touches his toe

  with hers.

  The idle morning trickles on, pages of the paper turn

  until a crime scene photo

  leaves her thinking about her own recent acts.

  They were all so stupid,

  these weren’t victims, they were fools.

  Why do they go out solo?

  Who’s running that damn pack?

  Lark would never let his men go out alone

  unless it was undercover

  but each one she has called has appeared

  as lone as a lost lamb.

  They think they are strong, after all

  they have guns in their pockets,

  but bare teeth to an arm slow

  a gun’s progress considerably.

  Cocky men’s eyes grow bald with fear

  when their flesh is torn open

  and they face

  their weakness.

  Tomorrow she knows

  the tactics will have to change

  her luck has held three times

  and as Lark has always said,

  luck is stupid as a cow

  and as blind as a bat.

  What would you do

  to protect the love you have?

  Would you kill?

  Would you hunt to kill?

  Would you kill without mercy?

  And if you wouldn’t

  then how precious is your love?

  She comes around the table

  and straddles Anthony’s lap,

  he laughs, still trying to read his paper as

  she smiles and lifts her shirt.

  Within a few simple, fevered beats

  his lips are tasting the salt of her skin

  while she grabs a handful of his hair

  and holds him tight.

  Later, think later,

  for now there is only this moment

  his hands, his body

  and limbs stretch, muscles expand

  as his breathing reaches

  deep within her.

  The heart is a bloody thing.

  VIII

  Peabody turns onto the block

  ready for another night of the endless stakeout.

  Watching the nothing unfold, as his partner used to say.

  Twelve slow nights.

  He’s about to switch off the ignition when he sees the dog

  trotting down the street

  cock of the walk, so self-assured.

  It looks like the one back at Calley’s.

  Peabody coasts just behind,

  ready to throw the beast in the back of the car

  drive it to animal control

  and wait to see who shows up.

  Suddenly the dog stops

  looks back over its shoulder