Lenny Parker, PI / roadie / metalhead is back in a new serial, blending a bit of comedy with a hardboiled detective story, one feet into metal culture. This time he is hired to track down a missing dog. Read the other parts here.
EIGHT
Lenny parked his truck near Market
Street and killed the lights. Casey was with him, sitting next to him.
“You take the wheel. When I come
out you get us away from here as quick as you can,” Lenny told her.
“Expecting trouble?” she asked him.
“I’m going undercover at an illegal
dogfighting ring. If shit goes sour it will probably get real sour,” Lenny
explained.
Casey nodded. “Sounds logical. Be
careful, Len.”
“Sure,” he said and left the car.
The street was quiet, but a little
further ahead he noticed a high number of parked cars. That had to be near the
warehouse. He walked closer. Indeed, the cars were parked near a big abandoned
warehouse. The windows of the building were boarded shut, but there was some
light coming through the wood. Two big dudes were in front of the warehouse’s
door, arms folded, all attitude.
“Hey,” Lenny said by way of
introduction.
One of the big guys, a muscular
black man with a sleeveless green shirt and camo-pants gave him a dirty look.
“Move along.”
“Scooby Doo,” Lenny said, feeling a
bit silly as he did.
The other guy at the door, a
Caucasian dude with a hipster beard and a shitload of tattoos frowned. “I
haven’t seen you before.”
“I’m new. But eager to spend some
money,” Lenny said.
The black man shrugged. “He’s got
the password right.”
“I guess,” the hipster said. “Arms
up, spread your legs.”
“Huh?” Lenny went, but before he
could say anything else the hipster was frisking him.
“Clean,” the hipster said.
The black guy opened the door.
Lenny walked into the warehouse, saying thanks.
There had to be at least forty guys
in the warehouse. They were seated on wooden benches that surrounded an
impromptu fighting ring created by wooden gates. Next to the gates stood half a
dozen cages. In the cages Lenny spotted ferocious looking dogs. He couldn’t be
sure if Ozzy was in there too, though.
A Hispanic man with slicked back
hair and a long leather jacket approached him. “You’re new, right?”
“Yeah,” Lenny admitted.
“I’m Luis. I will take your bets,”
the Hispanic man said.
“Okay. I’m Lenny. Cool.”
“Already have any favorites?” Luis
asked.
“Not yet. But I usually root for
the underdog.”
Luis laughed. “Quite funny! But
seriously, going for the less popular fighter will get you the most profit in
case it wins.”
“All right, twenty bucks on the
least popular then,” Lenny said.
“Minimum bet is a hundred,” Luis
told the roadie.
Lenny sighed. This case was costing
him a lot. He forked it over, though.
“Okay, here’s a hundred.”
“Great. A hundred on Cujo.”
Cujo? Seriously? Originality wasn’t
these guys strong suit, Lenny thought. He walked over to the cages.
“What are you doing?” Luis asked.
“Getting a better look at the
dogs,” Lenny told him. “I want to know what I just bet on.”
“Take a seat please. We don’t want
you to get too close to the fighters. For your own safety. And of course, we
don’t want anyone sabotaging the fight, you understand?”
“Sounds logical,” Lenny agreed and
went over to the benches. The bench slightly creaked under his weight.
Obviously, profits didn’t go into the furniture.
Lenny was sitting next to a guy in
his fifties with a moustache and a scarred eyebrow. The man gave Lenny a look.
He refrained from asking if he was new, but Lenny had no doubt that was going
through the man’s mind. Obviously this case catered to a regular audience.
From his bench Lenny tried to get a
better look the dogs in the cages, but the light lower than at a black metal
concert, obscuring the animals from his view.
Luis walked into the gates and turned
out to be the ringmaster of the evening. “Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for
the first match!”
There was some excited applause.
Lenny tried to muster up some as well, imagining he was watching Exhumed or
Testament on stage.
“In one corner we have Cujo, in the
other we have the great Cerberus!” Luis announced.
Two guys in coveralls opened two
cages and led the dogs at their collars into the ring. The dogs wore muzzles.
The men in coveralls removed the muzzles and quickly got behind the gates. To
Lenny’s horror the dogs rapidly went at each other’s throats. Ozzy wasn’t one
of the dogs but Lenny felt compelled to break it up. He figured Luis and his
men wouldn’t exactly be too happy about that, not to mention the forty
spectators.
Lenny started to wonder what
exactly he was going to do when in fact he found Ozzy here. He’d come in there
to find that dog. But it didn’t look like he had any way to get the dog out of
there without losing his own life. Maybe he should have thought this over
better.
