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He poured some beer into a glass, and took a sip, “So, did you help them?”

The buyer poured himself a glass of beer, then opened the Jack, and poured himself a large shot, then told the boy, “Yes, I helped them.”

“I took hold of the legs, and they started kicking at me, I nearly died of shock. I thought they worked for the coroner, or the city, you know, cleaners or something, every big city has people that go to work at night and it’s their job to remove the dead people from the streets, but these guys were stealing live people, and I was curious as to what they were doing with them.”

“So you just went along with a kidnapping, because you were curious?” the boy looked serious and puzzled as he asked.

“Have you never done something wrong, because you were curious? I think everyone has, especially my brother.” The buyer smiled.

“We put the victim in the back of their van, and the elder of the two men introduced himself as Terry, the younger one was John. Terry asked me what I did for money, I told him, he laughed and asked me if I wanted to make some serious money. I said yes and that was the start of it all. We climbed into the back of the van, and John went In front to drive. The victim was still struggling, and Terry told him to stop, he didn’t, so I told him in French, he did.

Terry explained that we couldn’t damage the package, because if we did it would be less money. We arrived in Monmatre just before dawn, we drove down a small alley, and stopped in front of some metal shutters, and John got out, dug out some keys from his trouser pocket and opened the shutters. The sign in the window said Philip’s Pet Store, and there were some puppies in a caged pen right there in the window. John opened the front door and then came back to help us with the package. We got the package out of the van and through the front door, just as the morning light from the sun fell upon the street. I stood there with a mans legs in my hands looking at an ordinary pet store, there were goldfish, kittens, animal, food some budgies, two beautiful cockatoo’s and an assortment of toys, little wind up mice for your cat, chewy bones for your dog, they even had a saddle for a llama.

I remember thinking of my poor brother as Terry was telling me to hurry up and move. He was loosing his grip, and if we damaged the package then we wouldn’t get as much money. We took the package through the door at the back of the store. Terry told me to put the package down, I did. It was then that I looked around, the room was about 20 meters long and about 12 meters wide, the floor was covered with sawdust, like a hamsters cage, it was then that I noticed the smell, it was terrible, it was like acid was burning my nostrils, my eyes started to hurt, and I was gasping for breath.

As I tried desperately to cover my face, John said, “Its ammonia, from the urine, you think you’ll never get used to the smell, but you will. It was then that I looked around, there were cages, lots of cages, about 2 meters cubed, and all of them had people in them there were maybe 150 people in those cages, maybe more, “The Urine.” John said. Terry took the heavy cotton sack off of the package, it was a man, in his fifties, disheveled, dressed in rags, unshaven and probably very smelly, but I couldn’t tell in that room. The man looked around, he didn’t speak, just put his head down and stared at his own feet as Terry held his arm and walked him to a cage, unlocked it and ushered him in, the cage already had 5 people inside, they were all sitting on the floor looking downwards.” The buyer took a long sip of his Jack Daniel’s, refilled the glass and asked the boy, “ Do you think they were bad people, Terry and John I mean, not the victims?”

The boy looked shocked, “could I have a shot of that?”