DIVER

Carnie slumped against a dumpster in the alley behind her gallery, snoring softly in a greasy, sweat-soaked McQueen corset. Her Valentino slacks lay heaped beside the grubby soles of her bare feet, and a thick mat of coarse black hair fanned along her inner thighs from beneath the worn-out elastic of her urine-soaked underwear. Flies swarmed above the dumpster and fed on the carcasses within: exotic pets, mostly—Asheras and Löwchens and Ball Pythons.

A maggot writhed on Carnie’s bare shoulder, another between her breasts. She clutched an open decanter of Beluga Epicur and hardly stirred when a rat climbed into her lap, sniffed at the vodka, and ran off to lap up the pinkish effluvia pooled beneath a rusty caster. Beside Carnie lay the remains of a rare bulldog—a blue merle Frenchie—its squat body brutalized, loose diamonds glinting near an exposed patch of skull.