Free Slow Burn by G. M. Ford

took a healthy swig. The room was silent except for swallowing.
    "Please
excuse my son, Spaulding," she said. "I assure you he doesn't always
act this way."
    Sure he didn't.
Unless I missed my guess, Spaulding Meyerson was well down the road to a
lifetime of serious ass-holery. As if in confirmation, Spaulding belched and
gave us a toothy grin.
    "These
gentlemen are Mr. Francona." She nodded toward Drapeman. "And Mr.
Hill." Neither man made a move to shake hands, so I stood still.
"They handle all of my security needs. As I told Sir Geoffrey, beyond
their able services I have no need for special security assistance."
    "Except
for when Rickey Ray beats the holy hell out of them, that is," Spaulding
added.
    I was getting
the brush-off, so I waded right in.
    "I was
hoping we might be able to put our heads together on how best to stop Mr Del
Fuego's—uh—" I stammered.
    She helped me
out. "Barbecue." "Yeah. The barbecue."
    "Old
Jackeroo is gonna roast old lardass." Spaulding smirked.
    She shot her
son a quick, murderous glance. "I assure you, Mr. Waterman, no such event
shall take place."
    "You sound
pretty confident," I said. "The Lord works in mysterious ways."
"Care to share?"
    "I'm
afraid not," Abby said. "For my daughter's sake, for the sake of
decency, this abomination must surely be stopped. Bunky must be saved. I have
faith." She said it like a chant.
    "But
..." I looked around the room. "What if Bunky is already, you know .
. . shrink-wrapped."
    "Have you
seen today's paper?" Abby inquired. "Haven't had the chance."
    She stuck out
her hand like a surgeon waiting for a tool. The one she'd called Hill slapped a
section of newspaper into her small hand. She held the newspaper under her and
let it unfold. It covered half of her petite body.
    "Come On
Down, Folks. Feed Yer Face at the FeedLot," was all it said. It was the
picture. That and the facial expressions. Ol' Jackeroo held a carving knife in
one hand and a leash in the other, his face a slanted mask of malignant
mischief. The leash was attached to the halter of an enormous black bull, whose
liquid eyes seemed to say he somehow had an idea of what in hell was going on and
didn't like it one damn bit.
    Worse yet,
someone had taken a piece of white chalk and divided the animal's gleaming
black hide into a series of irregularly shaped quadrants. The sections were
labeled. The one at the rear read rump. T-bone, porterhouse, sirloin, short
ribs, chuck, tri-tip and London broil, they were all there. I changed my mind,
^he bull didn't look worried; he looked embarrassed.
    When I was a
kid, I used to wonder if the cattle knew their fate. If maybe each herd didn't
have at least one cynic who walked around the pasture going: " They're
gonna kill us, ya know." While the other cows went, "Oh, Larry, chill
out, you're so paranoid. We're pettts."
    "I have it
on good authority that the setting of that picture is here in Greater
Seattle."
    "Gasworks Park," I said. "About a mile or so north of here."
    No doubt about
it. The abandoned apparatus of the old gasworks rose from the hillside like the
conning tower of some buried battleship.
    "Mr.
Francona spoke with the photographer."
    I waited.
    "The picture
was taken two days ago," she said.
    I shrugged.
"Why? Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to just have the animal dressed
out? I mean, That’s gotta be less trouble than keeping it alive."
    "Obviously,
you don't understand Mr. Del Fuego," she said.
    "that’s
probably true," I admitted. "So why is he going to all this trouble?
I hear he's got enough problems of his own."
    "Because
he hates me. He blames me for his business failures. He claims I've been spying
on him." "Have you?"
    "Certainly
not." She seemed genuinely insulted. "This is a difficult market. Not
at all like when we began."
    According to
Abigail Meyerson, Jack had merely ridden a wave of prosperity, using the
initial success of every new restaurant to finance the next, and so forth, on
down the line, creating a nationwide