Bobby D. Lux - Dog Duty

Dog Duty

by
Bobby D. Lux

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, organizations, or locales is entirely coincidental.

DOG DUTY. Copyright © 2014. Bobby D. Lux. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, electronically or otherwise, without express written permission from the author.

To request permission to reprint any portion of this book, email the author directly at
[email protected]

Cover art by Tory Hoke.
www.thetoryparty.com

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 - On the Job

CHAPTER 2 - Just Another Head on the Wall

CHAPTER 3 - The Long Leash Goodbye

CHAPTER 4 - Speaking in the Second Dog (in the Room)

CHAPTER 5 - You Ever Read “No Exit”?

CHAPTER 6 - Be On The Lookout

CHAPTER 7 - The Hunt

CHAPTER 8 - This Is Happening Right Now

CHAPTER 9 - Everyone Pretends They’re Something Sometime

CHAPTER 10 - The Unveiling

CHAPTER 11 - On the Other Side of Town

CHAPTER 12 - A Mild Distraction

CHAPTER 13 - The Ballads of Chucho and Lincoln

CHAPTER 14 - A Routine

CHAPTER 15 - Of Things Concerning Ugly Little Bugs

CHAPTER 16 - What’s Morality When It’s Time To Eat?

CHAPTER 17 - South Side, Grand City

CHAPTER 18 - Inside The Dogcatcher’s Net

CHAPTER 19 - A Lot Happens in a Moment

CHAPTER 20 - The Tenth Race

CHAPTER 21 - The Post Race Wrap Up

CHAPTER 22 - Life is a Jung Man’s Game

CHAPTER 23 - The Lady in the Backyard

CHAPTER 24 - The 34
th
Annual Grand City Dog Show

CHAPTER 25 - The Docks

EPILOGUE - One More Place Left to Mark

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

About the Author

For Nipper, Ernie, and Missy.

I hope your real life adventures when our family was asleep were as exciting as I imagined them to be.

Dog Duty

I focused on the criminal I was chasing between the buildings on the outskirts of Grand City’s industrial section. A part of the city the taxpayers would have left off the map if they could’ve. That’s where I was. I felt right at home.

My first mistake was thinking it was just another night on patrol. After eight years on the job, it was an honest mistake. I was guilty of getting caught up in the routine of day-after-day
, every day. Eight years, also nearly three-quarters of my life up until that point. There had been talk around the department that they wanted to retire me two years prior. Once I again passed all the required tests, they couldn’t find a legitimate reason to send me packing. Not that I was complaining. What else was I going to do? What else was there to do?

Nothing and nothing, that’s what.

The mundane in this case was the one hundred and sixty pound bag of sweat I was gaining on. I’ll give it to this guy, The Perp, he was fast. Not fast enough. Nobody was.

His attempts to lose me were comical. Faking right before turning left as if something
so trivial would throw me off. I could still see, even if only in black and white. I could run through the arteries of those back alleys in my sleep. They didn’t go on forever. This human clot would soon find a clogged one.

The Perp got tired of trying to lose me and resorted to knocking things over to try and trip me up. A sure sign of desperation. This chase would be over in no time. Then I smelled the distinct reek of rotten tuna.

It was dinner time for a fat cat who was about to feast on a half-opened can of fish. I know humans have a different definition of fat cat. For me, in this setting, it was all too literal.

My fat cat was perched atop of one of the stacks of boxes
The Perp hoped would slow me down. The Perp made a swipe of his right hand and sent the boxes, the rank tuna, and the cat flying my way.

They say cats
can adjust themselves to land on their feet in under a second. The look of panic smeared across this guy’s face told me that he was going to need help with his landing. I’ve never had the same problems with cats that other dogs do. I don’t particularly like them. I don’t dislike them either. They’re just cats. I jumped over the boxes. I figured, since I was up there anyway, I might as well catch the damn thing. It really was the least I could do.

“Nooooooo!” the cat screamed, as h
e fell nice and snug into my jaws. The poor jerk didn’t even have his claws. We landed safely and I dropped the cat. My hunches were right. He plopped flat on his back before getting up to his paws. “Don’t eat me.”

“I’m not going to eat you,” I said.

“Oh, you’re a cop,” he said, as he stared in awe at my collar engraved with
Grand City K9
. “Thanks, Officer.”

“Fritz is fine.”

Introductions aside, I had other pressing matters. The Perp’s distraction bought him a smidgen of time. I’d make up those extra yards in a few seconds. I took off again down the alley. Again, this was all too routine for me.

I
’d lost sight of him. I followed the sticky scent of sweat and the sound of pounding feet. I rounded another corner and found myself facing a dead end. There was a wall directly ahead of me, too high for The Perp to climb over. The footsteps had stopped but the scent was right there. The sirens were still in the background. I was on my own while backup played catch up. Not that I needed it. If the sweat didn’t tell me where to go, the shivering refrigerator box may as well have had a neon sign above it with an arrow pointing down.
The Perp was right there
.

I should have just kept my position. I should have started barking. I should have waited for backup
to arrive and skipped this entire mess that is about to follow. Instead, I was dulled by the routine ease I’d experienced up until that point. I pounced on that box and tore through it. I got a good, deep bite on The Perp. Suspect detained. I could keep him at bay without having to tear his arm off.

“If I were you,” a voice rumbled
, out from behind me. “I’d let go of him right now.”

I swung The Perp around and took my first glimpse of Clay, a Rottweiler custom built with one-syllable efficiency. Bite. Maim. Kill.

“This is none of your concern,” I growled, out of the side of my mouth that wasn’t holding on to The Perp. “Turn around and go home.”

“If you’re smart,”
a voice said, one that hovered near Clay’s shoulder. A voice that sounded like the screech of air from a balloon. “You’ll be the one who lets go and goes home.”

“Shut up, Scamper,” Clay said.

Scamper, a Jack Russell Terrier, and Clay’s parasitic sidekick, stepped out from behind Clay. The lightweight wasn’t my main concern. That was saved for the dog with shark eyes who descended upon me.

“This is official police business,” I said. “You’d best be advised to leave.”

“Oh no,” Clay said. “That’s where you’re wrong—”

“Stop barki
ng,” The Perp said, crying out. He relaxed his arm as best he could, considering the circumstances. Too many people think their arm is stronger than it really is and have tried to shake me off. They’d have better luck trying to swim up a waterfall. Some have tried to use their other hand to pry my mouth off. An excellent way to lose fingers. This Perp was smart. He knew his way with dogs. “Get him. Clay, attack!”

“Dead wrong,” Clay said, finishing his threat.

I let go of The Perp in time to maneuver away from Clay’s pounce. The Perp got up, took his shirt off, and wrapped it around his arm. Clay and I circled around one another.

“D
on’t worry, Clay,” Scamper said, who appeared behind me, showing his needle teeth. “He can’t leave now.”

“Maintain silence during the operation,” Clay said.

The Perp darted into one of the buildings. I made after him. Clay took me down with a precision bite to my arm. He pulled it out from under me. I was pinned down and Clay was going for my neck.

“Oh
, my Lord,” Scamper said, taunting. “I’ve never seen such a beating delivered in all my years of watching this most brutal of all sports. I thought I’d seen it all until tonight. This is carnage at its finest or worst, depending on your perspective.” 

I kept my head moving so Clay couldn’t get a good crack at my neck. I got my hind legs under Clay’s chest and pushed him off me. I shook myself off and we were face-to-face. It was time for Clay to be another notch on my dance card. A lightning bolt shrieked up my tail.

I yelped and turned. Scamper was trying to take my tail home for a souvenir. The dirtiest move a dog could pull on a fellow canine. It’s the human equivalent of a kick to the jewels.

“I got him,
” Scamper grunted, through his closed jaw. “I got the cop. I did it.”

“You got him,
” Clay said, “but I’m gonna finish him.”

I kicked my leg back and caught Scamper clean in the skull. He let go and I turned back as Clay lunged on me. Clay was on my leg pulling it out of socket. I could feel the muscles peeling away off my bones. My body froze with pain while Clay’s jaw grinded into my leg. I jerked at my leg to free it. Instead, Clay bent it
in the wrong direction. No half measures with him.

So this
was it. I tried to get back on my feet and failed. I wasn’t going to lay there and let this happen. I heard the tendons pop and snap near my foot. I couldn’t stand. I looked like a fish trying to flop its way off a boat and back into the ocean.

“He’s done,” Clay said,
his teeth coated with my blood that was smeared across his face.

It was The Perp who saved me from a further mauling. He distracted Clay by lurching his head out above the safety of the other side of the wall. My neck was fully exposed and my head felt like concrete.

“Clay, Scamper,” he said. “Let’s go. Come. Back to the docks…”

And that was the last I remembered before the pain and the darkness squeezed out the r
emainder of my sight. There was no time to process the ridiculous possibility that “dock” might have been the last word I ever heard in my life.

I must not have been out long because when I opened my eyes, I saw Scamper balanced on a shaky ladder of boxes, trash, and broken appliances. He moved his hips back and forth trying to generate the momentum to jump over the wall.

T
he voices of the other officers approached, calmly giving The Perp’s description into their radios. Male white, early thirties, six feet, hundred fifty pounds, dark hair, wearing a black, long sleeved shirt, blue jeans, unknown weapons. I barked so they would know where to find me.

I tried to get up. I couldn’t. My head was spinning. I saw the blood around my body. I wanted to let everyone know I was okay. The Perp was getting away and I saw which direction he went. He went through the building. I could still get him. I just needed someone to get me back up on my paws, dammit. My partner, Officer Hart, was the first to find me.

“K-9 unit down,” he said, into his radio. I barked and tried to point my head in the direction of the building. “It’s okay, Fritz. Just stop right now. Relax.”

The barking made me dizzy. It bothered me that Officer Hart didn’t seem to care about catching The Perp.
I wanted to bite Officer Hart for not going after The Perp. I was fine. Officer Hart kept his hands on my leg to stop the immediate bleeding. My blood was already all over his dark pants. It wasn’t until more officers arrived that they continued the search and established a perimeter. The Perp was probably already long gone by that point.

As if things couldn’t get worse, Nitro was with the officers arri
ving at the scene. He was a rookie. Typical. A cowboy who relied solely on a belief system that got him through each day: himself. Nitro’s partner let him off the leash and he ran over to me.

“Which way did they go?” Nitro said.

“He went into the building,” I said, shivering. “In that door over there, nearest the wall.”

“How long?”

“Maybe four ago. I don’t know. I was out.”

“You couldn’t stay awake?”

“I don’t know what happened.”

“So much for the investigation then.”

“The other two went over the wall,” I said.

“What other two?
” Nitro said. “There was only the one guy.”

“He had two dogs with him here in the alley.”

“Fritz, the only one who cares about any dogs around here is you.”

“I see they still keep you on a short leash,” I said.

“Not for long, Fritz. Tough break.”

“It’s not broken, Nitro,” I said.
             

“I’m not talki
ng about your leg,” Nitro said, as an ambulance pulled up to the end of the alley. Two EMTs jumped out and came over to me. Officer Hart stood, wiped my blood off his hands as the medics tended to me, and conferred with Nitro’s partner. “This is my case now. It’s about time they let the real cops on the scene. Your ride is here. Your chariot awaits.”

Officer Hart and the EMTs scooped me up and placed me into the back of the ambulance. My leg seized and I cried out. The larger of the EMTs put both gloved hands on my leg and tried to hold it steady. I had to control every instinct I had not to bite him. They gave me a shot in my good leg and any fight I had left in me evaporated.

Before they closed the door to the ambulance, I watched Nitro make a show of going to the building I pointed him towards. Nitro sniffed around the door then he looked up and barked to make sure all eyes were on him. When they were, he scratched at the door with one paw.

“
Excellent work, Nitro,” Nitro’s partner said, as they entered the stalagmite of a building.

“Don’t worry
, Fritz,” Officer Hart said. I could barely hear him over the sirens as we rolled out of there. “We’ll take good care of you. You had a good run, boy. Real good.”

Then m
y eyesight lost a battle to the suffocating nothingness. For the second time that night, everything went black.