Page 79 of The Secret Dinner

“Shit!” Antunes shouted, sprinting for the exit with another officer.

I followed them. Outside, the heat was almost unbearable. A basset hound barked incessantly from the back seat of the Civic. Two or three cars sped past, but the officers didn’t even bother to hide their weapons. Antunes signaled for us to head into the woods. I stepped onto the dry ground, expecting to find a jungle, and froze in horror. It was a green clearing with a sparse scattering of trees. That poor woman didn’t stand a chance. I was terrified for her.

The cops slid quietly through the brush with their weapons drawn, poking every shrub or crevice where she might be hiding. Antunes crouched down listening for rustling vegetation, waiting for his prey to emerge from its hiding place. A muggy breeze carried sounds around the forest. I closed my eyes and prayed that the woman would escape. About twenty feet away, some officers were motioning to each other while crawling through the trees, while others formed a wall and began to sweep the area, heading east.

I staggered along, but I couldn’t give up now. I crouched down low, trying to keep my eyes on the horizon. Panting, with my heart in my throat, I noticed a subtle movement to my left and spotted the woman, curled up under a nearby bush. She was shaking and crying silently, her eyes wide. She put her finger to her lips, begging me not to say anything. Two agents were scouring nearby and would find her any minute.

“I think she’s over there,” I shouted, pointing the opposite way.

Some officers took off in the direction I’d pointed, but Antunes kept moving forward like he knew I was lying. When he was less than an arm’s length away, the woman jumped up and sprinted at full speed for the highway, fighting for her life. She screamed for help, but her despair was drowned out by birdsong. Soon she was surrounded and overpowered by four officers, who grabbed her by the hair and dragged her through the brush. She begged them not to hurt her.

“Stop!” I screamed. “Stop, please!”

The woman had distinctive features. Her guttural cries and bleeding forehead, I will never forget. The officers handcuffed her and threw her down in the middle of the clearing. One pinned her head to the ground with his boot. Another approached with the basset hound writhing and growling in his arms, its frightened eyes turned to its owner, who was sobbing in terror.

“This fucking dog won’t stop barking. What do we do?”

Without batting an eye, Umberto aimed his gun and shot the dog in the head, which just made the woman scream even louder. The officer tossed its lifeless body into a bank of bushes like an empty beer can.

“We call it bycatch, Dante,” said Umberto. “Did you know that for every pound of shrimp fishermen catch in their nets, five pounds of other marine animals are killed and thrown back into the ocean?”

I realized I was crying. I thought about shooting Umberto right then and there, but I wouldn’t have had time to reload the gun, and the cops would’ve been on me in a matter of seconds. Killing him would be my final act of heroism before being shot to death in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t have that kind of courage.

“What about her?” I asked.

“Your shot, Dante,” said Umberto. “She’s the chosen seagull.”

“Are you insane? I’m not going to shoot that woman.”

“Seagull … Little birdie…” the police officers sang tauntingly.

They kicked the woman in her stomach and ripped off her muddied clothes, exposing her naked and bloodied body, punished by the midday sun. Antunes had his weapon trained on me, but Umberto signaled for him to lower it.

“Go ahead, Dante. Shoot.”

“Fuck you.”

I dropped the shotgun and walked away without looking back, my legs shaking. I closed my eyes, expecting to be shot, but it didn’t come. As soon as my feet touched the asphalt, I ran to my car, desperate to get out of there, but it was locked. Umberto still had the keys. Leaning against the door, I cried even harder, like I hadn’t in years. It seemed like the tears would never end.

Umberto emerged from the woods several minutes later, flanked by the other officers.

“You’re the one who asked to come.”

“All those bodies … Did you kill all those people at a traffic stop?”

“This is just one of our hunting bases, Dante. There are many others, in different police divisions. Not to mention the shell companies that advertise job interviews in the paper, and fake dating profiles on the apps, arranging meetups with women desperate to get laid…”

I could barely speak. I had no idea where to start, it was all so outrageous.

“And what about Ruth, the woman on the flyer? She’d just gone out for a walk!”

“That was a direct order from Vladimir. Eliminating a witness.”

Two cops emerged from the station, struggling to carry the man’s body, now wrapped in black plastic. Through an opening I glimpsed his bare, bloodstained feet. His flip-flops had been left behind. Umberto got into the car and parked it behind the station, then popped the trunk so the police could put the body inside.

“Stop it!”

“Dante, please, keep it together.”