Rubbed Out (2 page)

C
alli had always had bad taste in men, but Dirk was the worst of the bunch. Dirk? What kind of name is that anyway? It sounds like something out of a bad sword-and-armor movie. A drummer who'd last worked with a band called Tonto and the White Boys, Dirk lazed around Calli's house, ate her food, and made long-distance phone calls to Rome—the Rome in Italy, not New York State—on her phone when she was down at the paper. Oh, did I forget to mention the minor fact of him forging her signature on a couple of checks? But Calli had an excuse for that too.

I had not a doubt in the world that he or one of his white trash, redneck buddies was behind Tiger Lily's disappearance, but Calli refused to listen. I just couldn't figure out what she saw in him. He wasn't that hot. He certainly wasn't that smart. Or nice. Or helpful. Maybe he was great in bed, but I couldn't buy that either. He was too concerned with himself to be interested in someone else's pleasure. Anyway, if he were I would have heard.

“This isn't your business,” she reiterated as we got out of the car.

I flinched as the wind hit. I definitely needed a warmer jacket. The lining on this one was falling apart. “It is when you involve me.”

She reached for the bolt cutters. “Then give them to me. Wait here. I'll get Lily back myself.”

“Don't be ridiculous. It's a two-person job. Anyway, you don't know one end of these from the other.”

“I think I can figure it out.”

Calli wore high-heeled boots, believed shopping was an art form, and had trouble changing the lightbulbs in her kitchen fixture. She was most at home parked in her cubicle at the local paper, where she worked as a reporter.

The wind was making the lobes of my ears burn. I flipped the hood on my parka up and held on to my temper. “This is stupid. We both want the same thing: Tiger Lily home. Let's just concentrate on that. Okay?”

Calli's hand dropped to her side. “Okay.”

I slipped the bolt cutter under my jacket. It made for awkward walking. I probably should have taken a smaller one, but I'd wanted to make sure it could do the job. I wanted to snip the metal and go in, not stand there struggling with the damned links. We were conspicuous enough as it was. I glanced at Calli as we walked down the street. The cold had leached the color from her skin. She looked like an advertisement for a vampire movie with her white skin and blood-red lipstick.

“Lily will be fine,” I repeated. I didn't know what else to say.

“She's due in two weeks. I hope the stress doesn't make her deliver early.”

“Me too.”

“Dirk says he'll help.”

“That's comforting.”

“Can't you ever drop anything?”

“No.”

“Even when I ask you to?”

“Don't you want to hear the truth?”

“Your truth?”

I shut up. Sometimes there's no talking to Calli.

“Fine then,” Calli said.

I watched her hunch her shoulders up against the wind and keep walking. A moment later we arrived at the fence. It was as Calli had described it. Standard chain link. Except for one thing. There were five other dogs staked out in the small junk-cluttered backyard. I counted two nondescript, medium-sized black-and-tan mutts, a young black lab, a German shepherd with torn-up ears, and a beagle.

Tiger Lily started woofing the moment she saw us. Great big woofs. The other dogs joined in a few seconds later. The din was enough to alert everyone in a three-block area. All the dogs were tied up to metal stakes on short leads. No water or food bowls were in evidence. Even though it was minus seventeen with the wind chill factor, there wasn't as much as a blanket, let alone a shelter of any kind in sight. The snow around the dogs was stained brown with feces.

“You should have called Animal Control the moment you saw this,” I said.

Calli put her hand on my arm. “I know. I'm sorry. I just wanted to get Lily. We'll call Animal Control once we get Lily in the car. An hour more or less won't make any difference”

“It would if you were the one freezing out there.”

“Robin, be reasonable. I was afraid if I told you, you wouldn't do it.”

“You should have allowed me the courtesy of making up my own mind.”

As I turned toward the fence, I reflected that the problem with old friends is that you take things from them you wouldn't take from anyone else.

“Aside from everything else, given the noise the dogs are making, it's only a matter of time before someone comes over to find out what we're doing.”

“I know.” Calli buried her hands underneath her armpits and hopped up and down while I took the bolt cutter out of my jacket and got to work.

In a minute I'd made a hole big enough for Calli and me to crawl through. By now Tiger Lily was wagging her tail so hard, her hindquarters were wiggling from side to side. The other dogs were barking hysterically.

“Oh, Lily,” Calli said and ran toward her. She wrapped her arms around Lily's neck and buried her nose in her coat. The golden licked Calli's cheeks. “You poor thing.” And she started to cry.

I snipped the rope that was holding Lily with the bolt cutter and tapped Calli on her shoulder. “Let's go.”

Calli stood up. Released, Tiger Lily jumped up and put her paws on Calli's shoulders and gave her another long lick. Her coat was matted and dirty, but a good bath and brushing would take care of that. The other dogs looked about the same.

“Don't you worry, guys,” I told them. “You'll be out of here soon.”

We had taken a couple of steps when we heard a woman yell, “Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?”

Calli and I turned. A heavyset woman wearing a bathrobe and unlaced work boots was standing by the side door shaking a broom at us.

Calli grabbed onto Tiger Lily's collar. I noticed it was a frayed blue nylon. The people who'd taken her must have gotten rid of the expensive leather one Calli . had purchased for her in Florence. I wondered what they'd done with it as Calli screamed, “I'm taking my dog.”

The woman took a few steps toward us. Her hair was black. She had prominent cheekbones. I saw her mouth moving, but I couldn't hear most of what she was saying because her voice was being drowned out by the noise the dogs were making. But then she changed her mind because she whirled around and headed back inside her house instead. I didn't know what she was going to do, but I did know I didn't want to be around to see.

“Come on,” I said to Calli. “Let's go.”

We ran for the hole in the fence. Lily bounded along beside us. Delirious with joy, she was wagging her tail so hard, it was difficult for her to move and Calli had to keep urging her forward.

When we got to my car, I threw the bolt cutters in the back seat and Tiger Lily hopped in after them, while Calli and I got in the front. A moment later, Lily jumped up front and started lapping Calli's chin. Calli was laughing and trying to push her away, but it's hard to overcome a determined golden retriever.

After a couple of tries I managed to extract my cell phone from under Lily's ample rump and call Animal Control. Then I drove Calli and Lily home.

“Don't lie to me next time,” I said to Calli as she got out of the car.

“I'm sorry,” she said. Miss Meekness. But I could tell from the expression on her face that she was glad she'd done what she had.

I turned around and drove back to the house we'd just left. I wanted to make sure that Animal Control showed up, because sometimes they didn't.

This time the truck showed up twenty minutes later. I got out of my car and explained the situation to the officer. He was a tall, stoop-shouldered man who looked as if he'd been doing this job for too long. He shook his head when he saw the backyard.

“People,” he said in disgust. “I don't know why they say we're the higher species. Last week, I found twenty dogs in a basement. No food. No water. We had to put most of them down.”

He clamped his lips together, marched toward the house, and knocked. The door opened. The woman who'd shaken a broom at us, as well as a skinny, light-complexioned kid who I put at about twenty-one, came out.

“Madam,” he said, “I'm Officer Driscoll from Animal Control, and I'd like to talk to you about the dogs you've got in your backyard.”

“What about them?” the woman said. By now she'd changed into gray sweats.

“They look in pretty bad shape.”

The kid gave Driscoll a sullen stare. “They're fine.”

“Perhaps we can discuss this inside,” Driscoll said.

“Fuck you,” the kid said. Then he looked up and spotted me. “She's the one you should be hassling.” He pointed a finger in my direction. “She stole a dog from us.”

“She's the one who lodged the complaint,” Driscoll said.

“You believe her 'cause she's white.”

“Yeah,” Driscoll replied. “That's it.”

“She did,” the woman said. “I saw her and her friend take one of my dogs.”

“Did you steal a dog from them?” Driscoll turned and asked me.

“Absolutely not,” I replied, giving him my most winning smile.

“There you go,” Driscoll said to the boy and the woman. “Now, are you going to let me in there or am I going to have to call the cops?”

“You got no call to take our animals,” the boy said. “We love them.”

Driscoll grimaced. “If this is love, give me hate. So what's it gonna be?” he asked when the kid didn't answer. “You gonna let me in or not?”

“Not.” And the kid ran back in the house.

“Damn,” Driscoll said as the woman followed, slamming the door behind her. “My wife said my horoscope was predicting this was going to be a bad day.”

The dogs in the backyard were still barking as the woman yelled through the door, “You better get out of here 'cause I got a gun and I sure do know how to use it.”

“Great. Fiiggin' great. I got Annie Oakley here. What I want to know,” Driscoll said to me as we walked toward his truck, “is how come I get all the morons.”

I didn't have an answer, though it was a question I'd often asked myself.

“Y
ou sure took long enough,” Manuel told me as I walked into Noah's Ark. He was playing with one of the red-tailed boas we'd gotten in on trade a couple of weeks ago.

In all, it had taken a little over two hours for the police to talk the woman and the boy into coming out and to load the dogs in the truck.

“The situation was a little more complicated than I expected.”

Manuel snorted as the snake slithered up his arm.

“It always is with you.”

“There were five other dogs out there with Tiger Lily. I had to wait for Animal Control to come take them.”

“That sucks. Were they in bad shape?”

“How happy would you be chained outside without any shelter, food, or water?”

“Someone should take a baseball bat to people who do things like that,” Manuel commented as the boa wound itself around his upper arm.

“I think this woman is crazy.” I peeled off my gloves and stuffed them in my pocket.

“And that makes what she did okay?”

“I didn't say that.”

“But you got Lily?” Manuel asked as Zsa Zsa came out of the back room.

“When have I ever not accomplished what I set out to do?”

“Excuse me,” Manuel said. “I forgot I was talking to Wonder Woman.”

“Well, don't,” I told him as I laid the bolt cutter on the counter and bent down to pet Zsa Zsa. She jumped up and lapped my chin. I rubbed the fur behind her ears for a little while before straightening up.

“And she's okay?”

“She's fine.”

“How about the other dogs?”

“They looked worse than they are.”

Manuel unwound the boa. It started moving toward his neck.

“Now me,” he said. “I would have lifted Lily over the fence instead of using those.”

He nodded in the direction of the bolt cutters. When you're seventeen, you think you know everything.

“She weighs over a hundred pounds.”

“I could do that easy.”

“Really? You weigh what? One-forty?”

He bristled and indicated my left hand. “At least then you wouldn't have gotten that.”

I glanced down. I had a nasty gash on my thumb. I must have done it on the edge of the metal when I was trying to bend the links back. Suddenly my thumb began to throb. I rubbed it. Funny how things like that work. Something not bothering you until you know about it.

“That guy with the tattoo of a cross on his cheek was in,” Manuel continued as the snake curled around his neck and began slithering down his shirt. “He wants to sell you some more angelfish.”

“If he comes back, tell him the last fish he sold me had ick. Anything else?”

“Yeah.” Manuel scratched his goatee.
“El Pendejo
called. He says he has a job for you.”
Pendejo
is Spanish for putz, Manuel's favorite name for Paul Santini.

“Did he say what kind of job?”

“No. But he wants you to get in touch with him ASAP.” Manuel pulled the snake out of his shirt by his tail and put him back on his arm. “I didn't think you were talking to him anymore.”

“Santini?”

“No. The snake.”

“That was last month.”

“You should keep it that way.”

“Why don't you like him?”

Manuel grimaced. “What's to like? The guy's a schmuck. He thinks he's friggin' Christ Almighty.”

“I wouldn't go that far.”

“I would.” Manuel did an imitation of Santini's New Jersey accent. “ ‘Make sure you tell her I called or I'm gonna come down and tan your ass.' I mean, what's that about?”

“You could try giving me his messages.”

Manuel grinned. “Then he should be nicer.”

“So should you.” I was picking up my backpack when Manuel said, “How much you think Lily's pups are going to go for?”

“Why? You want one?”

“No. Bethany does.”

I groaned. Bethany was Manuel's girlfriend. Under-aged girlfriend. Right now she was living with Manuel's mother because she'd gotten kicked out of her nice middle-class suburban house.

“Her birthday's coming up.”

“We'll talk later.” Manuel opened his mouth. “Later,” I repeated.

Otherwise I'd say something I'd regret.

“Fine,” Manuel said and ostentatiously turned away from me and started talking to the snake.

I didn't care. I went into the back room, poured myself a cup of coffee, and unwrapped the Snickers bar I'd bought earlier in the day. It was a little late for lunch, but what the hell. A girl's got to keep her strength up.

Paul Santini is an ex-cop who'd opened up his own shop a couple of years ago. He was an old friend of George's—they met on the force—but the friendship had ended when I slept with him.

I was pissed with George for walking out on me, and Paul was convenient, the closest guy around who was expressing an interest in me. So I was getting even. So what. Lots of people have done lots worse. The sex we had wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. I'm not sorry it happened, but the fact that I do work for him means there are more levels to deal with than I'd like.

Paul specializes in security work, with a sprinkling of missing children and matrimonial stuff thrown in. He's licensed and bonded and advertises in the yellow pages and does all the rest of that professional stuff. Unlike me, who is unlicensed and get my jobs strictly through word-of-mouth referrals.

A while back my husband Murphy died and I inherited Noah's Ark. Not that I wanted to run a pet store, but I couldn't sell the place without taking a big loss. To make matters worse, one of my employees was killed and I was tapped for the murder. It's amazing what you can do when your ass is on the line. I discovered I had an aptitude for survival I didn't know I possessed. All those investigative skills I used as a reporter leaped into action.

I've been doing it part-time ever since in a low-key kind of way. I like finding things out and fitting those pieces together. Helping people now and then doesn't hurt either. I figure it helps with my karmic debt. Which is huge. I handle missing children and animals and the occasional missing spouse.

Once in a while I help Santini out. He pays me fairly well and, more importantly, he'll run checks for me on his computer. Of course I could get my own. I'm probably the only person in the known universe who isn't wired, but right now my cell phone is as far as I'm prepared to go technology-wise. It startles me to think that in my heart I'm a conservative instead of the liberal I always believed myself to be.

A couple of months ago, out of curiosity, I'd paid $39.95 to an on-line company to write a report about me. The next day they e-mailed me the result. It included my complete credit history as well as a list of every place I'd lived in the past eight years. And that list included the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all my neighbors. It was very impressive. And even though this kind of thing makes my job easier, it scares the hell out of me.

I was eating the last bit of my candy when Manuel popped his head in the back. “So what does he want?”

I threw the wrapper in the trash and licked my fingers.

“I haven't called him yet. Why do you care anyway?”

“I figured maybe there'll be something in it for me.”

“I thought you said he was an asshole.”

Manuel shrugged. “He is, but if I only did business with the people I liked, I wouldn't be doing any at all.”

A demonstration of trickle-down economics at its finest. I work for Santini and Manuel works for me.

They say pain bonds and maybe it does because Manuel and I had been shot by the same person and become friends when we were in the hospital recovering. Hobbling around the corridors together, we found we liked each other. I still can't figure out why. A highschool dropout, Manuel gets by doing a little of this and a little of that. Most of what he does is in the gray area between legal and illegal, although he's not averse to stepping over the line and has therefore acquired a fairly sophisticated knowledge of the judicial system.

He sure as hell knows more about what's going on in the street than I do, and he'll share that knowledge with me for a fee. Nothing Manuel does is for free. He's the quintessential entrepreneur. Right now he's working at the store for me while Tim is on vacation. I've offered to hire him on a permanent basis, but Manuel doesn't want to be tied down.

He prefers to drift in and out with the tides. Sleeping at different people's places, owning nothing, borrowing what he needs, ready to move at a moment's notice, waiting for his big opportunity, the one that's going to let him buy his SUV

I can't do that anymore. I've gotten to the point where I need a certain degree of permanence. Maybe that's what middle age is all about—sleeping in your own bed at night and being happy about it.

I poured myself another cup of coffee, cleaned out the cut on my hand, picked up the phone, and called Santini. We arranged a meeting at his office down at the State Tower Building for six.

I was fifteen minutes late.