“That’s his method,” he said, his voice very, very quiet. “You don’t want to mess with him. You end up as dog food.”
“Oh, I got that message,” Caleb said quietly. “Do you realize you’ve already messed up? So you’re next.”
“No, no, I’ve worked with him for years,” he said.
“You only get so many free passes,” Caleb said. “You’ve had all of yours.”
The guy looked at him in terror. “You don’t understand. I mean, sometimes he doesn’t fully kill the men before he gives them to the dogs. That’s not humane. The boss is a psycho. I’ve seen him do it.”
“Nobody wants that,” he said. “You didn’t do anything about it either, did you?”
“What do you want me to do?” he cried out. “Anybody who bucks him dies.”
“Well, an awful lot of deaths are to be accounted for that happened in that house, not to mention the previous owners of the dog. Do you know anything about them? They appear to have disappeared,” he said. When the man just stared at him in terror, he added, “And if you think you won’t get caught along with Huevo, you’re wrong.”
“I haven’t done anything,” he said, his voice very, very low and ugly. “You can’t make it look like I did.”
“We already have you on three counts. Besides you screwed up because nobody was supposed to find that body for a long time.”
“Nobody was supposed to find it,” he said, “and that’s the way it was supposed to be. Make sure all the evidence was gone. I wanted the body to be found sometime. Give the family closure.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s my cousin,” he said resentfully. “I didn’t want him eaten by the dogs. I figured at least he’d get buried this way eventually.”
“And so you starved the dogs, huh?”
“No, they ate very well that day,” he said bitterly. “Two men died, and my cousin was one of them. One man was the War Dog’s previous owner. The woman was fed to them for dessert.”
Caleb’s stomach revolted. No wonder no one wanted to buck this guy. Fear was a hell of a motivator.
“What the hell makes you think that you’re safe now?” Ansel asked, looking at him in surprise. “You’ve already been marked. We have you in custody. Huevo already knows that you’ve talked.”
“No, no, no, no,” he said. “He knows me.”
“Yeah, that means he also knows how you felt about your cousin and that you screwed up on that because it’s already all over the news that we found the body.”
“If that’s true, I’m dead.”
“Well then, you better help us out so that we can pin him into a jail cell before he comes after you.”
“There isn’t a jail cell that’ll hold him,” he said wearily. “He’s damn scary. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything. He kills the women if they don’t make him happy.”
“Can the dogs eat it all?” Ansel asked the intruder, but he was staring at Caleb.
That was something that bothered Caleb. Of course, anybody who knew that was their future wouldn’t perform in any way that would make anybody happy. This Huevo guy was somebody who just wanted a reign of terror.
“Not always,” he said. “Then the body parts go into the freezer. Over the next couple days they’ll get another piece.”
“Has he ever killed anybody because he ran out of dog food?” Caleb asked.
At that, Ansel looked over at him in surprise, and then his face twisted in horror.
“Yes,” the intruder whispered. “One of the young women. She had a scar on her face, and he figured that she would be no good on the market.”
“Great, and I wonder if it wasn’t an asshole, like you, who put that scar on her face.”
“It was him. He hit her too hard,” he said, “and then he shot her. He didn’t kill her though and fed her to the dogs anyway.”
“Nice guy,” Ansel said.
The intruder looked up at him, his eyes dark. “I’ve seen things,” he said, shaking his head. “I still can’t sleep at night.”
“And that’s how he functions, on complete terror.”
“It’s not fair,” he said. “Some of those women, they didn’t deserve it.”
“And the men did?”
At that, he winced. “No,” he said, “but they knew the game.”
“And that makes a difference,” Caleb said in acknowledgment.
“But not enough. You don’t know him. He’s got spies everywhere.”
“Of course he does, that’s how he keeps everyone obedient. So he already knows that you’ve been picked up.”
“Not yet,” he said, his voice exhausted, “but you’re right. He will soon.”
“So what can you do to help your case?”
“Nothing. If I go back now, he won’t believe me, and, even if somebody tries to convince him otherwise, he won’t believe them, and they’ll get shot, so nobody’ll even bother.”
“Nice boss,” he said.
“No, you have no idea,” he whispered. He shook his head, laid back down, and stared up at the cops. “Just shoot me, please.”
“No, I can’t do that,” Ansel said mildly. “But you can bet we’ll take you to prison and will let everybody know where you are.”
“I won’t last a night,” he said. “And that’s a fact.”
Ansel looked at the intruder intently.
“Of course, he already has several of the guards in his palm,” Caleb said.
“Interesting,” Ansel murmured.
“You guys have no idea how much corruption there is,” the intruder said.
“Well, we have a good idea. We’re getting a handle on it,” he said.
“He grabs brothers, daughters, sisters, friends,” he said. “He takes whoever you care about and holds them until he’s got you where he wants you. Then and only then he releases them, if you’re lucky. And, if you’re lucky, he releases them alive. Otherwise, he just keeps them as a threat over your head.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“Yeah, my kid brother a long time ago,” he said. “He was really sick and couldn’t pay for the treatments he needed as he didn’t have no insurance. So my agreement was, I work for Huevo and do his dirty jobs to keep my brother alive.”
“And how long did that last?”
“My brother died about a year and a half later,” he said, “but, by then, I was already in so deep.”
“Did you ever wonder if he didn’t kill your brother anyway?”
“I did wonder, and I have no proof,” he said, “but it’s something that eats away at me.”
“How did your brother die?”
He looked at him. “A drive-by bullet.”
“Well, that’s pretty obvious.”
“And still I can do nothing about it. He doesn’t accept anything but blind loyalty. And no screw-ups.”
“Can you identify the guys he’s killed?” Ansel asked him.