Just One Bite Read online

  “Morning, Timothy!”

  I look up. My neighbor is on the sidewalk, dressed in a tank top and sweatbands. A blond Labrador sniffs around his running shoes.

  I always feel sorry for dogs, even though I’ve been bitten a few times. Like me, they’re keen observers of body language and have a good sense of smell. Also like me, they love meat, they have poor impulse control and they’re usually at someone else’s mercy.

  “Hi, Shawn,” I say. “You’re up early.”

  Can he see the blood on my face and my shirt? Probably not, if I stay in the shadows of the carport. And from this angle, he can’t see the inside of the trunk. I casually close the lid.

  “New Year’s resolution,” Shawn is saying. He does an exaggerated hamstring stretch. “I’m gonna get into shape.”

  Shawn is already in shape. I’ve often thought he looks tasty. Two hundred pounds, five foot nine, thirty years old, black. There’s no sweat in his mustache, so he hasn’t started his run yet.

  “It’s December,” I say.

  “I know. I’m training for New Year’s.”

  “Oh. Have fun.”

  The dog looks very interested in the trunk of my car. She strains at the chain.

  Shawn tugs her back toward him. “You should come with me,” he says. “We could make it a regular thing.”

  “Maybe another time,” I say.

  Shawn has lived next door to me for years, but only started talking to me recently, after my roommate disappeared. I think Shawn was scared of him. He should have been scared of me instead. He seems like a good guy, so I try to avoid him. I don’t want him to get hurt.

  Shawn finally registers that I’m not in running gear and I don’t have a dog. “What are you doing out here so early?” he asks.

  I’ve been racking my brain for something that won’t make him suspicious. “Packing,” I say. “I’m going snow camping with my cousin. Figured I’d beat the traffic.”

  “I thought I just saw you arrive.”

  “Nah, man. Just turning the car around so it’s easier to load.”

  “Snow camping? Is that a thing?”

  “Yeah. You should try it sometime.”

  The dog starts tugging the leash again, pulling Shawn closer to me. I take a step back. My camping story doesn’t cover the blood. I should have told him that I’d just come home from the hospital, or something.

  “Where’s your campsite?” Shawn asks.

  I hesitate. “Not sure. I’m meeting Jesse—that’s my cousin—in Dallas. Then I’ll follow him the rest of the way.”

  “Did Jesse used to live with you?” Shawn asks.

  Damn him and his good memory. “Different Jesse,” I say.

  The dog growls at me, her fur standing up.

  “Take it easy, Caitlin,” Shawn says.

  “Anyway,” I say, “I better keep packing. Enjoy your run.”

  “Thanks, man. See you.”

  I turn my face away as he pulls on the dog’s leash. The dog follows reluctantly. Shawn breaks into a jog and disappears down the street.

  I let out the breath I’ve been holding. I need to get the dead guy inside before anyone else comes along.

  I unlock the back door of my house; it leads directly into my kitchen. Then I go back to the car, open the trunk and lift the plastic tub out. The body feels even heavier now—or maybe I’m just exhausted. There’s always a crash after the adrenaline trickles away.

  I drag the tub into the house, triple-lock the back door and finally make it to the bathroom.

  It would be smart to start covering my tracks. Reverse-engineering an alibi for the last few hours. But I can’t ignore the body in the kitchen.

  When I get back from the bathroom I switch on the lights and crouch over the dead man. The flesh around the bite wound has already gone white. I look for piercings, or tattoos. Nothing. There’s a line of scar tissue on his chest, like he’s had a skin cancer removed. Mud on the soles of his feet, his knees, his palms. But his hair smells of shampoo. All of it, including his pubic hair. He’s trimmed his beard recently.

  There’s a cut on one of his fingertips, like you might get from a thorn or a staple. The blood has been cleaned or sucked off, but it hasn’t healed. Probably happened within the last forty-eight hours.

  I pull his mouth open. A faint smell of toothpaste over an even fainter smell of red wine. A merlot, I think. He has straight teeth—probably had braces as a kid—and a couple of fillings. I’m no expert, but they look expensive. His eyes have a slightly dull sheen. I carefully scoop out a pair of contact lenses.

  He has a wedding ring—a plain gold band. I wiggle it off his finger. It’s engraved with a date and two words: Love, Gabbi.

  A twist of guilt in my chest. I always tell myself that I only eat bad people. Most of Warner’s enemies are criminals, like her. This man could be anybody. An innocent, if such a thing exists. But I know that bite mark is the first of many. I won’t be able to help myself.

  If only he had some gang tattoos or something. I want a reason not to feel sorry for him.

  “Who are you?” I ask him.

  He stares up at me through gray eyes.

  Tap, tap. Someone’s knocking on my front door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When you run, I speed up; when you slow down, so do I. If I stop, so do you. What am I?

  I freeze for a moment. Maybe they’ll think no one’s home. The curtains don’t let any light in or out.

  Another knock. Whoever is out there, they’re not giving up.

  “I’m coming.” As quietly as I can, I lift the dead man up, lower him into the chest freezer and close it. I dump my bloodstained jacket and shirt in the laundry tub and twist the faucet, slowly, so the sudden hissing of water doesn’t give me away. Pink water runs down the drain. I use a wet washcloth to wipe my face and neck, and dry myself with a dish towel. Then I approach the door, trying to look sleepy instead of panicked.

  I don’t make it.

  There’s the distinctive whir of a lock-release gun. The door bursts open so suddenly that the handle leaves a dent in the wall. Two big men with crew cuts storm in. Sariklis—the one with the drooping eyelid—and Francis, the gym-junkie who was supposed to meet me on the side of the road.

  I open my mouth to scream. Getting arrested is better than drowning in the back of a van.

  But Sariklis is too quick. He slaps a hand over my mouth and compresses my throat with the crook of his elbow.

  “Jacksonville, Phoenix,” he says.

  Warner has a password system. Every message from her begins with the last password she used, and a new one for next time. Last time it was Santa Monica, Jacksonville. Next time it might be Phoenix, Saint Louis, or Phoenix, Fargo, or Phoenix, Dallas. She uses a different password for each employee. She rarely meets people in person, so this system ensures that no one else can give orders, at least not without her finding out. I assume she has a database somewhere of which employees are expecting which passwords. If it was me, I’d memorize them all. But not everyone can do that.

  “You’re coming with us, Blake,” Sariklis says. “You want to be conscious, or unconscious?”

  I go limp.

  “Good call,” he says, and lets me go.

  Francis has closed the door and is looking around my dusty living room. His gaze settles on my ratty sofa, the holes in the fabric patched with duct tape.

  “You know,” he says, “I think I saw your house on an episode of Cribs one time.”

  “Where were you?” I ask. “I was waiting.”

  “Tell it to the boss lady. Maybe ask to borrow some money while you’re at it. Her interest rates are very reasonable. Buy yourself a new sofa. Shit, maybe a whole new house.”

  “Leave your phone here,” Sariklis tells me.

  One exception to Warner
’s take-your-phone-everywhere rule: I’m not supposed to have it when I meet her in person. Or, I assume, when her men are taking me to an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere.

  “Sure. I’ll put it on the charger.” I start to walk toward my bedroom.

  “Nope.” Sariklis grabs my shoulder. “Leave it right here, on the floor.”

  “Let me grab a shirt at least,” I say.

  “No time. She wants to see you ASAP.”

  I put my phone on the floor. Sariklis frog-marches me to the front door. Francis cracks it open. Cold air floods through the gap.

  “No one out there,” he says. “None of these fuckers have jobs. They won’t be up for hours.”

  Shawn is up. But I don’t say anything.

  They push me out, toward the white van. The cold makes the hairs on my arms stand up and turns my nipples into bullets. When I was homeless I had zero percent body fat—with a shower and a haircut, I could have been a model. But being half-naked in this weather would have killed me in minutes. These days, I figure I can survive about an hour.

  They bundle me into the van. Something is on the floor inside, wrapped in a blue tarp. I can’t resist lifting part of the plastic. Yup, it’s another body. Six foot, two hundred pounds. Probably Aaron Elliott. His face is slack and gentle. He doesn’t look like the sort of person who would beat up a call girl. But death has a way of erasing your sins, or at least making them invisible.

  Warner could be lying to me. Making up criminal backstories for the dead, so I feel less guilty about what I do to them. I’ve avoided investigating this possibility.

  Francis climbs into the driver’s seat.

  “Were you really late?” Sariklis asks him, almost too quiet for me to hear.

  “Five minutes, if that.” Francis is lying. Interesting.

  No time to think about it. The van lurches into motion. No bag on my head this time. Means we’re not going to Warner’s office.

  “Can you turn up the heat?” I ask, shivering.

  They both act like they can’t hear me.

  We drive through outer suburbia, where poverty has landed like a hurricane—and so has an actual hurricane, come to think of it. Car parts, rotting furniture and broken TVs litter the lawns. Kids pedal bikes back and forth, no helmets, ready to sell meth to the first tweaker to wake up.

  An hour later, we’re on the west edge of Bayport. Most of the warehouses and factories look abandoned, some halfway through construction. I’ve been wondering something for a while: Once you’ve killed your body-disposal expert, how do you get rid of his body? Maybe I’m looking at the answer. You take him to a place like this, and pour a slab of concrete over him.

  The van pulls up in front of a diner called The Crack of Noon. I can’t imagine many people working around here, or starting this early. But against the odds, the diner is open, and it’s half-full. A server is carrying a pot of coffee from table to table.

  Sariklis hauls the van door open. “Out.”

  I look down at my bare chest. Are they really expecting me to go out there like this?

  Apparently. Francis drags me onto the street and pushes me toward the diner.

  Some of the customers glance up at me as I stumble in. A young black woman’s eyebrows go up, and a middle-aged white guy smirks. But then they turn back to their breakfasts, like it’s not so weird to see a half-naked man get strong-armed into a diner at dawn.

  Charlie Warner is in a booth, with her back to the wall and a clear line of sight to the exit. I’ve heard cops call that “the Clint chair,” because of Dirty Harry. She’s dressed in jeans, boots and a flannel shirt, all tailored to fit perfectly. Cowgirl chic. Her blond hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail. A Stetson rests on the seat next to her.

  Warner is sipping an espresso, while everyone else here has brewed coffee. The bacon on her plate looks perfectly crisp, and the eggs neither too sloppy nor too dry. I wonder if she left a huge tip last time she was here, or if the owner knows who she is.

  Wordlessly, she gestures to the seat opposite. The seat from which the exit and the rest of the room are invisible. I wonder if there’s a name for that—the anti-Clint chair. But they won’t kill me in front of all these witnesses.

  Not that any of those witnesses are looking my way. When I was a street beggar, I developed a keen sense of being avoided. I have it now—a feeling of being not watched, of gazes placed anywhere but on me.

  Francis and Sariklis hustle me forward. Hands on shoulders, they press me down into the seat Warner indicated.

  “Francis was late,” I say.

  Warner dabs at her mouth with a napkin, leaving a little lipstick on it. She clears her throat. “Let me tell you a story,” she says.

  A server brings me a cup of coffee. Brewed. She leaves without saying anything. I don’t touch the coffee. Thallium sulfate is tasteless. So is botulinum. Amatoxin. Compound 1080. Any of these would kill me. Some of them would even kill anyone who ate my body afterward.

  “There was a girl who used to work for me,” Warner says. “Indigo. She was a stripper, and a skilled one. It was amazing, how quickly she could get a man to the point where he would do absolutely anything. She didn’t even need to talk—she just had a really authentic smile. Sweet kid. Anyway, her husband had some debts, and Indigo wanted to pay them off. So she requested a promotion to active duty.”

  She means prostitution. I say nothing.

  “I thought she’d earn me a fortune. I changed her name to Sindy—with an S—and put her to work.” Warner skewers a piece of bacon with a polished fork. “She was really good at getting the customers from the entrance to her room. Once they were in there, she was not so good, but I thought that would improve over time.”

  I’m surprised that she’s talking about this in public. No one else in the diner seems to be listening, but I’m not sure what the point is.

  “Instead, it got worse,” Warner continued. “It took her longer and longer to recover after each client. They seemed less and less satisfied. Eventually she freaked out and hit one of them. My boys thought he was trying to leave without paying, so they beat the shit out of him.”

  “Wasn’t us,” Sariklis put in.

  “We know you have to pay up front,” Francis added.

  Warner looks at them, and they both shut up.

  “Indigo tried to run, too,” Warner said. “We caught her. I saw straightaway that she’d never work again. She wasn’t injured, but some people can’t handle it, psychologically. So I let her out of her contract.” She smiles like the Dalai Lama, pleased with her own generosity. “Her husband was pissed, but no harm came to her. She moved away and never came back.”

  “If you’re looking for a replacement,” I say, “I doubt people would pay much to have sex with me.”

  Like most jokes, this one has a sharp grain of truth. I’m a virgin. I can’t get close to anyone without endangering them.

  Warner ignores this. “Sometimes people apply for a job. When they start doing it, they realize it doesn’t suit them. But they’re too scared to quit. They don’t want to own up to their mistake.” She swallows a mouthful of eggs and leans back in her seat. “I’m wondering if you have the stomach for the work I’ve given you.”

  My guts rumble. That bite of the mystery man didn’t touch the sides. “I do,” I say.

  “Are you sure? Because I won’t tolerate another failure.”

  This is your way out, Thistle says in my head. For Christ’s sake, take it.

  “I waited for forty-five minutes,” I say. “Francis never showed.”

  This is an exaggeration, and it provokes the desired reaction. “Bullshit,” Francis says. “It was fifteen minutes at the most.”

  Warner’s eyes flash over to him, and he shuts his mouth. I wonder if he has a tracking app on his phone, like me.

  “At least twenty,” I
say. We’re both losing her trust, but he’s losing it faster.

  Warner holds up her hands. “Enough. Where were you, Blake?”

  “I drove home,” I say. “He’d never been late before. I thought he must have been caught, and the cops might figure out where he was going.”

  She considers this. I can’t tell her about the dead man. She’ll worry that the cops who are looking for him might find me. Then I’ll accidentally lead them to her. Safer to kill me before they get to that point.

  “I need this job,” I say.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” she asks.

  “That could have screwed us both. If I got caught, there would be a record of me calling you. And if you were caught—”

  “Nice of you to worry about me. Next time, don’t. You call me the second something goes wrong.”

  I let the air out of my lungs. She’s letting me live, for now. “Sure.”

  “And if you decide you can’t handle the work,” Warner says, “let me know, and we’ll figure something out.”

  “Sure,” I say again.

  “Don’t try to run,” she says. “You have no family and no friends, which limits the number of ways I can threaten you. But don’t assume that makes you safe. There is nowhere on Earth you can go where I won’t find you.”

  I realize that everyone in the diner is staring at me. The young woman, the middle-aged man, the server, everybody. The same cold, level stare, like a room full of androids.

  They all work for her.

  “Do you understand?” Warner asks.

  I nod.

  She signals to Sariklis, who drags me out of the booth.

  “Take him home,” she says.

  Francis goes to follow us.

  “Francis,” Warner says. “Don’t go anywhere.” She points at the seat I’ve just vacated.

  Francis slowly sits down, suddenly old, as Sariklis takes me out the door.

  * * *