I heard a noise coming from one of those “employee-only” back rooms. It was a high-pitched whine, like a vacuum sucking helium. I followed that sound through a pair of floppy double doors and found myself in a white tile and stainless-steel room, full of meat-cutting equipment. The place had an unfriendly fermented smell, like an old refrigerator crossed with my brother Frankie’s feet. A guy in goggles and a stained white smock stood at the far end of the room at a stainless-steel table, cutting up a side of beef with what looked like a band saw. He did it with such concentration, you’d think it was brain surgery.

This was the last guy in the world you’d want to see near a sharp object. He was tall but hunched, his neck sticking forward at an angle that made my own neck hurt just watching him. His hair was thin and unkempt. I couldn’t tell if it was white or just very, very blond. I could see patches of red scalp through his hair.

“Excuse me,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. He just kept on cutting the meat. The machine let off a grating whine whenever it hit the bone.

“Excuse me,” I said again, a bit louder this time.

Without looking at me, he turned off the saw, and it buzzed itself silent. “You are not supposed to be here!”

He had a strange accent. Almost German, but not quite.

“I just want to ask you a few questions. You’re the butcher here, right?”

“I am the night butcher,” he said.

Okay, now here’s the part of the movie where a kid with any brains gets out of there, unless he wants to end up in neatly arranged portions in the display case, because no kid with any brains is gonna stand alone in a room full of knives, saws, and grinders with anyone who calls himself the “Night Butcher.”

“You come to taunt me more, eh?” he said, raising his voice. “You and your friends. Letting the air out of my tires, scribbling rude words on my windows. This I know! You think I don’t?”

“I can see it’s not a good time. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

I backed up, but missed the door and knocked over a broom. The handle hit the floor with a nasty thwok, and my heart ran to hide somewhere in my left shoe.

“No!” he said. “You have business with me, you tell me now. We settle this here!”

He came toward me. I could see that his neck was scaly, and red as raw meat.

“We have nothing to settle,” I told him. “I didn’t let the air out of your tires, or anything. Trust me, I’ve got better things to do than mess with the Night Butcher.”

He scratched his neck thoughtfully. “And I should believe you?”

“Yeah.”