Lee bought a couple of malt liquors for him and his boy. He then placed a bet with the bookie after examining the dogs that were next up on the unofficial card. Lee put fifty dollars on a black pit named Mamba, due to fight a tan-and-white named Lucy. He was advised to do so by an obese man he'd seen around the clubs, had a copy of the Scratch Line in his hand. Fat Tony seemed like he knew his stuff. Plus, Lee liked the way that dog looked, black and strong. Also, Lee liked its name.
The music was turned off, a signal that the fight was about to begin. The spectators and players gathered around the perimeter of the ring. In the pen, both dogs had been placed in their corners by their handlers.
A referee, dressed casually, the same as everyone else, stepped in and ordered the cornermen out of the pit. Both got out of the fighting area but held their dogs fast by their collars from outside the gates. The referee instructed them to face their dogs.
The dogs were released. They ran to the center of the ring and clashed. The crowd was loud and intense. They laughed and called out for murder and blood. The dogs were virtually silent. They fought methodically, battling for position and dominance. Both were taken down and both sprang back up. Both had been conditioned for strength and endurance with cat mills, carpet mills, and spring poles. Both wanted to please their owners and defeat their opponent. Only one could emerge victorious.
It was Lucy, in the end, who won, her jaw furiously clamped onto Mamba's face. Finally, after a word from the referee, Lucy's handler used parting sticks, which were nothing but ax handles, to force his dog off the other. Lucy drew back. Mamba's right eye had been ripped from its socket; it hung by nerves, just barely connected, halfway down his cheek.
Lee was angry for listening to the fat man, and for picking the dog because of its name, an amateur play. Miller, for his part, had enjoyed the fight. His dick had got hard in his South Pole sweats when that tan dog had bit right down on that other dog's face.
Mamba, confused and in agony, rubbed his snout on the bloody carpet, trying to do something about his useless, dangling eye. Mamba's handler stood over the dog, berating him, calling him names. Then he picked the dog up and cradled him in his arms. He walked from the ring and headed toward the first aid table.
'You ready to book on out?' said Miller.
'Not yet,' said Lee, looking with contempt at the owner holding his crippled animal. 'I'm gonna win my money back first.'
'Mamba wasn't shit,' said Rico Miller.
Lee nodded, thinking, Fuck that animal. Let it suffer some. Cur deserves to suffer for showing no heart.
Lorenzo Brown and Mark Christianson took the Tahoe, the newest vehicle in the Humane fleet, across town, because it had the best ride and also because of the CD player in its dash. Lorenzo was a radio man, strictly PGC or KYS, but Mark liked a kind of rock that could rarely be found on the airwaves anymore. Mark called it 'punk before punk.' When they paired up, Lorenzo deferred to Mark's seniority and allowed him to drive and control the music. Mark had put Fun House into the player and turned it up.
Lorenzo looked over at Mark, normally easy mannered and genial, his face now set, his jaw tight. Mark got that way when they were making calls like this one. More than Lorenzo, he was totally committed to, some would say obsessed with, protecting animals. His dislike of animal abusers in general and dogfighters in particular bordered on hate.
But Lorenzo could understand it. Mark had been through the worst of it, had patrolled these streets during the most violent phase of the fight-dog fad, and had seen some very bad things. All while Lorenzo had been serving his time.
Mark had first worked for PETA, straight out of college, but quickly grew tired of meetings, fund-raising, and desk duty. He then took a job at the shelter, picking up strays and biters, working the 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift, going alone at night into some of the most run-down sections of the city. It wasn't long before he became a Humane officer, wanting to take his mission to the next level.
This was the midnineties, when the fight-dog craze was at its peak. Having a pit or a rottweiler had become a symbol of power and fashion, a hip-hop accessory, like having the platinum chains or the nicest car. Pit bulls, in particular, seemed to be everywhere. Never mind that few of their owners knew how to care for them or had the desire to learn. Dogs, especially those who had lost fights, were disposable, like a shirt friends ridiculed because it had gone out of style. Mark found dogs shot in alleys, lying curbside with broken necks, thrown off roofs, and disposed of in Dumpsters with the trash.
To do his policing, he went into neighborhoods, apartment complexes, and Section Eight housing projects where his was the only white face for miles around. Places like First Terrace, around M and North Capitol, where the theft of dogs was common, and Simple City, at the time a legendary breeding ground for violent crime. Worst of all was 50th Place in Lincoln Heights, in Far Northeast. There the most serious dogfighters resided and held their matches. Dogs were flown in from Florida, with thousands invested in the animals, many paid for by drug money. The owners had much to protect. Back in that cul-de-sac, Mark encountered some of the scariest people he had ever seen.
He was physically threatened, ridiculed, and called, alternately, a faggot, a punk, and a bitch. The threats of violence bothered him, but not the names. He knew he was on the right side. He had suffered from stress-related weight loss and sleeplessness during this period, but he hung with the job.
And then time eased the situation. The culture began to change. It became less fashionable to own a fighting dog. Some handlers became sickened at the injuries and death. Others just grew old. The gangster romance thing had its window, and that window stayed open, it seemed, only for the young. Mark knew dogfighters who had quit because they'd started families, or because their women had insisted they get out of the game, or simply because they knew they couldn't jail.
The laws changed too. Failure to provide veterinary care to an injured animal was now a misdemeanor. More important, there was a new felony dogfighting law on the books. One judge in particular, down at the District Courthouse, was known to give offenders actual jail time. The law was often invoked to help put violent multi-offenders — domestic abusers, rapists, and the like — behind bars when other charges had failed. Its implementation had made a dent in the dogfighting in the city.
Some offenders had gone on to related but less risky ventures. Many bred and sold pit bull puppies. Others trained and engaged dogs in professional weight pulls, a different kind of wagering activity that did not involve violence. Some dogs trained and bred for weight pulls even wore harnesses lined with sheepskin so the pressure would not cut their coats. Lorenzo Brown was not opposed to such contests, as the dogs, though powered up on steroids, were treated with relative care. Mark, predictably, was passionately opposed to animal exploitation of any kind.
The two of them were mostly on the same page, though. Their outlooks were different, but only by degree. There was still plenty of dogfighting and animal abuse in the city to keep them mutually focused.
Mark Christianson took the Benning Bridge over the Anacostia River and turned left on Minnesota Avenue. Lorenzo reached for the CD player and turned down the volume. They were nearing their destination. He radioed in to the office and asked for the whereabouts of the police. The MPD had been called, but Cindy at the dispatch desk did not know if officers had arrived.
Mark hooked a right onto the residential block of E Street and drove east. He went back into the alley and slowed the truck. Up ahead, where the alley dead-ended at a field, they saw many cars. A boy stood beside a silver 330i. He straightened as he caught sight of their blue uniforms through the windshield of their truck.