Sharp Teeth Read online

  Somehow, that didn’t feel so good.

  So he kept digging,

  tracking them until he came up against

  clubs no one can join

  with tournaments no one can play.

  But there are ways in, he’s sure,

  he keeps prodding.

  One clue came

  from a concierge who dealt in,

  among other things, children.

  Wealthy pedophiles picked up what they needed from him,

  along the way he picked up dirt and secrets he could sell.

  Lark listened to the concierge chatter on

  as they sat in a canary yellow hotel suite.

  Something about a strange man

  with a large silent partner.

  “This man, this little man, he is quirky,

  he wanted to know about fighting dogs,”

  said the concierge, tapping his fingers on the chair’s armrest.

  “I say to him, ‘man, that’s the one thing I don’t sell.

  I hate dogs. I love drugs, any drugs,

  I love pussy, young pussy, you know, but not dogs. No way.’

  The little man was asking about a girl too,

  someone specific, mid-twenties, blonde,

  I said hey, welcome to Southern California.

  I mean, good luck, right?”

  Lark smiled, pressed on, chatted and pretended to barter,

  picked up what more he could.

  Then excused himself to hit the john.

  Going in, he left the door slightly ajar.

  There, while listening to the concierge whistling

  some popular song.

  Lark took off all his clothes

  and changed,

  then nosed the door open

  and trotted back into the suite.

  The concierge left the world

  bloody and scared.

  He was cleared away without a liquid trace,

  the room licked clean, more pristine than

  any maid could make it.

  Lark follows the clue to a card game.

  He sent the smart ones, Cutter and Blue,

  to ask around, study the players, get into the room.

  There’s something up there.

  It’s tedious but worth sniffing out.

  He knows it will come, he feels it, he waits.

  As someone once said,

  “paciencia y barajar.”

  So just hold on to your patience

  and keep shuffling the cards.

  Wolf packs,

  loose packs,

  domestics.

  That’s a lot of untamed territory.

  And to make these moves with assurance,

  Lark has to have his pack tight.

  That’s why he lured Con into taking him on

  showing him signs of weakness,

  Sun Tzu bullshit, easy stuff,

  Con took the bait and was buried in the yard.

  Poor fucking Con, he was strong and he was proud,

  Lark liked him fine but the pack is stronger now,

  they’re solid.

  “Thank you, Con,” he thinks to himself

  as he puts on cuff links, straightens his tie.

  He never stops,

  he always thinks to himself,

  and right now he’s thinking

  fact

  something unknown

  nips him with worry.

  VIII

  Calley wakes up

  if it could be called that

  hits the phone, calls in sick

  turns on the TV

  lays still in the bed

  opens a bottle

  and wishes someone would come

  and put a chain saw through his gut.

  Why the hell not.

  IX

  It’s at the same bar, the first one, the dark one,

  Anthony is sitting there sore as hell

  he wrestled a Saint Bernard today

  it would have been funny

  if the thing hadn’t been so strong

  he doesn’t mind it though

  he sensed the dog wouldn’t bite.

  He is beginning to know

  these sorts of things.

  “Is this seat taken?” she asks.

  There she is. Dark hair. Cautious blue eyes.

  Great.

  She looks at him a little too intently,

  a subdued version of the look you’d expect to get

  when you finally met

  your stalker.

  “No, hey, no, here. Make yourself at home.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  A strange opening bit, but, well,

  he’ll take anything, let’s see where this goes.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen you around.”

  “You work at the pound?”

  “Mmmn-hmmm.”

  “I hear there’s a job opening up there.”

  “Word gets around.”

  “Look, you don’t know me, but, well, one of my brothers,

  Bone is his name,

  he’s looking for a job,

  would you mind meeting him?”

  “Bone’s his name?”

  She pauses, smiles, “Nickname.”

  “Oh, well, sure, yeah, I’d be happy to meet him.”

  A small silence.

  He’s desperate for a word, a thought.

  His head feels like straw at the very moment when

  he could sort of use a brain.

  “Look, I’d buy you a beer but—”

  “No,” she says. “I’ll buy, let me, please, as a way of saying thanks.”

  His pride kicks in funny.

  “Well, normally I’d say, um, I dunno, you know?”

  He squirms a little, scratches his neck.

  “What are you saying?” she asks, her hand now resting on his.

  He looks at her hand, looks into those eyes, smiles and replies,

  “I’m saying I think we could use a drink.”

  The mixture of liquor and beauty and time

  lend three hours in a bar

  their own delicious alchemy.

  She doesn’t say much,

  asks a few questions,

  “So, what do you like?”

  “I like the ocean.”

  “We’re in LA, that’s an easy answer.”

  He smiles, shrugs. “Easy and true.”

  She likes that phrase, easy and true.

  She nudges him on

  here to there, says some things, but mostly

  listens some more

  and pretty soon

  Anthony has said it all.

  It’s like she’s got every number

  to his master lock

  and now he’s wide open.

  His job, the guys there at work,

  Mason’s death, a cop’s questions

  he unveils more, his father going,

  his mother, self-medicated out of existence,

  his brother, little better, long gone,

  she listens, he puts a life on the table there.

  He listens too, she grew up

  near the beach, later he’ll remember that her father

  was Italianish, her mother Mexicanish

  just like him.

  He fills in the rare pauses with more of him,

  he tells

  how he feels working with the dogs

  like they’re each playing a role

  every dog wanting to be wild and Anthony

  just there to rein them in.

  It’s animal control and

  there’s a song playing in the bar

  a woman singing of wild winds,

  they’re drunk enough now that

  Anthony can ask her to dance

  so he asks and she smiles yes

  they dance slow in a place that’s empty

  save for the old soldier with the broken piano key teeth

  who’s murmuring doggerel to
a man in a wheelchair.

  The old man’s laugh crackles,

  but the dancers don’t notice,

  they just sway together toward the end of the song.

  She looks up at Anthony,

  her stalker eyes are twin blue moons looking sympathetically down

  on his briar-ridden world.

  “You’re very nice, Anthony,” she says

  holding him tightly

  for a few more breaths,

  before gently pushing off and

  walking out the door.

  He would follow. He would, honest,

  but when he held her, dancing,

  everything felt good but

  not everything felt right.

  X

  She knows Lark is watching her,

  but he shouldn’t worry.

  This is an easy job, three weeks.

  Then that’s it, time to pick up,

  move on, get out.

  Maybe just swing by her old beau Pete’s

  before she disappears up 101

  maybe Seattle, Spokane,

  or some nothing town.

  She’s said this before

  but now there’s something in the air,

  some hidden sense that’s telling her

  she better get going, because

  it’s getting late.

  She likes the dogcatcher

  yet that’s a pointless thing,

  like a candy comic

  better to crumple it up and move on.

  She’ll stick to Lark’s plan for now

  play the dogcatcher for what he’s worth

  get Bone in the door

  make Lark happy

  help the pack

  then go.

  She doesn’t need the dogcatcher

  she just needs some sleep.

  She likes Anthony.

  Tomorrow she’ll take Bone down to meet him.

  Pieces will fall into place, just like Lark says.

  Three weeks, tops.

  She doesn’t need the dogcatcher,

  and the only thing that bothers her

  is that she’s thinking about him

  a little more than she should

  like for instance

  right now.

  XI

  Two days later and now the cages are really short on men,

  downtown may have to get involved,

  and nobody wants those suits

  sorting things out.

  Anthony has to call Calley.

  The guy answers the phone weeping.

  Jesus, he’s slobbering too.

  “Come on, pull it together,” is Anthony’s general message,

  and he’s not even sure why he bothers to say it.

  All he hears in return is

  “udde phlub bubba turner sob, fucking turner, wha.”

  “What? Turner?”

  The phone goes dead

  as everything seems to these days.

  This is definitely

  one lousy job.

  “Hello, dog pound, dispatch section.”

  “May I please speak to Anthony Silvo?”

  Anthony recognizes the cop’s voice.

  “Detective Peabody? This is Anthony.”

  “Anthony, yeah, I called to tell you about Turner.”

  “Turner?” Anthony doesn’t like the timing,

  first Calley is gurgling the name and now

  only an hour later, it’s on the cop’s lips.

  “Yeah, Turner, the last guy who had your job,

  we can’t find him.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, apparently, the week before you started

  he disappeared.”

  Anthony keeps listening.

  “He’s not anywhere, Anthony, not with relatives,

  not in the morgue, he didn’t have any friends,

  he had even less money, he’s gone.”

  Anthony asks if the cop has any theories.

  “Maybe the guys down there are dealing drugs,

  or maybe they’re selling dogs.

  I don’t know Anthony,

  but something is going on.”

  “Selling dogs?”

  “To fight leagues maybe, to gangs who pit them against one another.”

  Anthony looks around the kennel’s bright fluorescent room,

  he can easily see this crew doing something like that.

  They already stink of being that low.

  “Okay, Anthony, all I’m saying is

  keep your eyes open. Something about this situation

  feels a little odd.”

  “Are the police going to help?”

  “You know what the city dollar is like these days,

  we’re stretched thin. Hell, I can’t even get a new partner.”

  “We’re stretched here too,” says Anthony. “But thanks for the warning.”

  XII

  She told Lark what he needed to hear

  that the man would help Bone get the job

  that the man was worth keeping

  and could be helpful

  while the rest were simply trash just like Lark suspected

  and that the plan was proceeding

  according to plan.

  Lark seemed to be waiting for something else

  as she talked.

  She’s speaking too fast.

  When she’s done, when she pauses,

  Lark reaches over and

  gently touches the spot

  above her collarbone, there

  where the flesh sinks in

  toward the heart.

  All he says is,

  “Be careful.”

  He was the one who had brought her in.

  She had met him sitting at a table on Abbott Kinney.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked,

  his eyes tracing the line of salt

  where the tears had dried on her face

  hours before.

  He was a kind expression on hard features,

  they had coffee. He listened for hours,

  his patience becoming the bedrock

  she could rest her fears upon.

  They walked along the canals,

  mostly in silence, Lark waiting

  and patient, until she finally

  opened up, choking out

  the sad story

  of life with Pete,

  how almost every day came with

  its habitual tumble of humiliation.

  Lark didn’t react,

  just walked her back to her house

  told her to wait

  while he went in to talk to Pete.

  Fifteen minutes later he came out

  with a duffel stuffed full of her things

  then drove her to his house.

  To this day she doesn’t know

  what he said to Pete

  she only knows

  considering Pete

  it must have been something

  pretty strong.

  She’s leaned on Lark for so long now

  you’d think it was love.

  The house was empty that first night

  looking back, the boys must have been

  on a desert run

  where they often disappeared,

  chasing one another for the weekend

  sometimes stopping in Vegas

  to feed unquenched appetites.

  So there she was, alone with Lark.

  He gave her a room

  she slept solidly for fifteen hours

  woke up and it was night again,

  just a scratch of moon in the sky.

  She found Lark sitting in the kitchen

  with a small knife, some bandages, a bottle of wine.

  Now it was his turn to talk.

  “The way I see it, you have to find your own way,” he said

  as they drank.

  “You can’t trust anyone else for your strength,

  you’ve got to find it i
nside yourself.”

  He said many things as

  the night wore on

  and she slipped down

  into the soft crook of his words.

  “What I’m offering is something

  that will change you completely.

  Its strangeness will seem like a dream

  but it comes with a certain power.

  With this power, maybe you take back some of what you’ve lost.”

  The talk went on until the moon disappeared,

  and she bit her lip and looked down and knew that

  whatever it was, she would agree.

  But he kept talking,

  until she finally wanted it so bad,

  she could feel the night’s darkness

  vibrating inside her.

  Unfolding the knife, he slowly cut himself

  along a well-worn pink-and-yellow scar

  that ran the length of his last finger.

  The knife cut through the lines

  of quieter fortunes.

  She shook her head,

  leaned back wary, a little nervous.

  Gently, he took her by the wrist

  and paused for a moment,

  until a glint of confidence returned to her eyes.

  Then he cut into the small piece of fat beneath her thumb,

  and pressed his bleeding palm against hers.

  “It’s okay. It’s for you,” he said, wrapping the tape

  and binding their hands together.

  She looked into his eyes now, watching

  as his pupils dilated wide.

  She looked down to where

  blood flowed across the kitchen table

  a red line coolly sliding across the tile.

  Three beats of the heart later it hit her.

  What followed was messy,

  the quick spasm, the doubling over

  while her stomach clenched and heaved.

  White bombs exploded through her muscles

  adrenaline and heat flooded her system

  she felt the red rush to her cheeks.

  A piercing shriek shook the windows

  and she passed out.

  Unconscious on the floor

  twitching and morphing,

  she could not see

  the silent wolf

  lapping up the spilled blood

  in a quiet and diligent manner.

  She woke up with the sleeping pack

  lying all around her like waves in a strange ocean.

  She wondered how many days she had missed

  as the sun slipped down again behind the hills.

  All she knew was that this was a different world.

  She breathed a deep

  sigh of relief.

  Dog or wolf? More like the one than the other

  but neither exactly. Standing on four legs in her fur,