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''You know the old saying, 'Ask me no questions and I tell you no lies'?" |
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Matty banged the pail again. |
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"Whaddya feed him besides water?" |
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"Steak," Jerry said. "On the rare side." |
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Muzzy looked back at the thing sitting in the middle of the cage banging the pail. "Least is, you can tell me what you're gonna do with the thing." |
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"Meet the mother of all pit dogs," Jerry said, straight-faced. |
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"You mean you're gonna conference him? Gonna put that in the pit?" |
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"Among other options. I bet he could pull twenty-to-one odds against anything on four legs. Minimum fifty grand upfront." |
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"Fifty grand's a lotta ante, is all." Muzzy tried to look away but kept glancing at the cage. The kid crouched in the far corner. "Besides, who's gonna wanna see that thing fight?" |
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If it came to that, Jerry would get the Fig to come up with a select list of players, by special invitation. Only "the most discriminating." It was one thing to watch dogs tear each other apart, but some of the regulars with families might have a problem with a kid and bulls going at it. Even though he was, as Muzzy said, a freak, and apparently getting freakier by the day, behind the jungle glare, the hair and jumbo wang, he was still a twelve-year-old boy. Jerry could not risk any ethical dilemmasbettors going weak-kneed on him during the main event. He had in mind guys with cast-iron guts who didn't have children or, if they did, who saw their own as insulated from the dark pleasures of their fathers. The kind of guys who were morally anesthetized to their gradegoombas who dealt in kiddie prostitution, chicken flicks and snuff movies, whose cocaine operations stretched from schoolyards to video arcades. A designer clientele. |
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"Whaddya gonna match him with, Dracula?" |
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Jerry's grin was mirthless. "At the moment, nothing." |
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Muzzy looked puzzled. "I don't follow." Matty threw the bucket with a loud clang against the cage where they were standing. "Can't he talk?" |
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