primitive, irrational, information system that had evolved to keep her alive while her intellectual mind ran around on its fool's errands.
'Well, this time you're wrong,' she whispered to the waiting, watching self in the mirror. 'I'm just letting this thing wig me out.'
Wadding up the paper towel, she hooked a rim shot over her shoulder into the garbage can. She ran into Donna from downstairs shuffling up the hall with a sheaf of papers. She handed a ream to Frank, sighing, 'Inventory. You need to go through every item assigned to you and verify its condition. If an item's missing, broken, or obsolete, you need to fill out'—she showed Frank a form—'one of these.'
'And you need 'em back tomorrow,' Frank guessed.
'Wednesday.' Donna smiled tiredly. 'Have fun.'
The support tech lumbered on, her two-hundred-odd pounds looking as painful as they must have felt. Frank dropped the stack off in her office. Darcy was writing at his desk and Bobby and Jill were chewing the shit. She thought to remind Jill that she was late with a half-dozen follow-ups, but she knew.
Before stepping back into the box with Cousin It, Frank peeked through the surveillance window. She looked around the tiny room. It was empty. Ceiling, corners, under the metal table, all empty. Frank stepped inside. The room was empty. She held the door open and tested the lock. It didn't open from the inside.
Frank ran back to the squad room.
'Did you let that bum out?' she demanded of Darcy.
'No,' he said, surprised. 'Why?'
'He's not there. You see a pile of rags walk by?' she asked Bobby and Jill.
They both shook their heads, following Frank into the hall.
'Bobby check up here, the men's room. Jill get the women's room and help Bobby. Darcy you go look downstairs. I'm gonna look out back.'
She trotted down the stairway, fuming over who'd let her detainee out. In eighteen years Frank had seen that happen a number of times and always over a miscommunication. There was no misunderstanding here, no colleague to assume or misinterpret whether they should keep him, it,
The good news was that it couldn't go too far. Not on those feet. She checked the holding cells, asking the occupants if they'd seen anybody go by. Couple cops, that was all.
'You missed the guy in the blankets?' she asked.
'Weren't no one in blankets,' a Hispanic man claimed.
Frank stepped into the afternoon sunshine, sweeping the parking lot. A rooster crowed and she jogged to the entrance on the side street. It was the only way in or out other than through the station. She scanned the short street. It was empty. She sprinted to the corner. There were plenty of people on Broadway, but no one shambling around in rags. The 12-Adam-22 car was coming into the station. Frank flagged it and bent to the driver's side. Sergeant Haisdaeck was behind the wheel and the 36-24-36 new boot rode shotgun.
'Haystack, you see an old wino on your way in? All bundled up in blankets?'
'Only thing I saw,' the old uniform boomed, 'was a six-pack and an easy chair.'
Frank shifted her eyes to the rookie who answered, 'No ma'am.'
She slapped the top of the car and it rolled on.
'What the fuck?' she wondered.
Frank backtracked, checking between each car on the side street. She glanced into the lot. Bobby and Jill were near the back door.
'Did you find him?' she yelled.
Jill shook her head and Frank swiveled at a sound in the bushes. It was a scrabbling noise, like someone clawing in the litter of old cellophane and dead leaves. Frank crouched, trying to see into the dark greenery. She reached to part the branches, instinctively pulling back when she heard the low growl. But too late. She saw the pit bull's square head the instant she felt the flare in her arm. Frank's left hand folded and smashed into the dog's tattered ear. The blow made her grunt in pain, but didn't faze the dog. Its teeth were buried in her wrist.
Frank dropped her weight onto its thick chest, but the dog nimbly pivoted. She swung an ineffectual kick then tried prying the jaws apart. She only impaled herself deeper. Frank thought about shooting the dog, simultaneously gauging her backdrop, the chances of shooting herself, the paperwork involved in firing her weapon, and the prospect of an IAD investigation. She pulled at the jaws again, unable to believe she couldn't get free of this fucking mutt.
She heard the feet and saw the legs. Bobby, Jill, and the boot had run over from the lot. Haystack puffed up behind them. Bobby tried to get a kick in, missing as the dog wheeled around the fulcrum of Frank's wrist.
'No!'
Bobby yelled and Frank glanced up to see Jill pointing her pistol.
'Hold still,' she shouted at Frank.
'Don't shoot!' Frank shouted back. 'Don't shoot!'
Frank saw the boot—what the hell was her name?—pull a 2x4 out of the back of a pickup. It ripped through the air into the dog's back. The dog yelped and spun to confront its new attacker. Frank felt the teeth give and tried pulling free. Her movements made the dog forget the pain in its spine. It locked down on her wrist, eyes snapping back onto hers.
'Hit it again!' Frank bellowed. The uniform swung again, harder. Frank winced at the shock of the blow, but the dog let go. Frank scrambled back on her ass and the legs around her jumped beyond the reach of the chain. Frank saw the hole the dog had made under the fence, wondering what would have happened if a little kid had walked by instead of her.
She grayed out a little, thinking it was Haystack who said, as if from a distance, 'That's a lot of fucking blood.'
Jill, equally distant, screamed for an ambulance. Frank tried to protest, but was stunned by the ferocity of a sudden memory. The remembrance was so vivid it cleared her head and erased the fire in her arm. The dog lunging on its chain, the pain in her bloodied arm, the feet shuffling around her, Jill screaming for the ambo—she was reliving it over again.
'I've already done this,' she said to herself.
Jill bent next to her and the deja vu vanished.
'What'd you say?'
'Nothing,' Frank mumbled. She was watching the dog. It danced on its rear legs, slavering and barking wetly. Its jaws were slick with drool and blood. Her blood.
'It's red,' she said.
'What?' Jill asked, lifting Frank's mangled arm over her head to slow the bleeding.
'The dog. It's red.'
'Yeah, Frank, it's red.'
Frank's vision darkened and tunneled inward. She felt queasy. The Mother's honeyed voice teased, 'Watch out for a red dog,' then Frank heard laughing.
Bobby was asking her if she could stand.
'Yeah,' she answered, but didn't try. She thought she was going to puke.
'Let's just wait for the ambulance,' Jill said.
'I think we should get away from this dog,' Bobby maintained. 'He pops a link we're in trouble.'
Frank felt hands under her arms, tried to help raise herself. Couldn't.
'Give me a sec,' she whispered. Her cops ignored her, dragging her across the street.
'Wait. Wait,' Frank tried again, fighting the nausea and grayness. They hesitated and she breathed, 'Let me sit a sec. I'm okay.'
She slumped onto a fender and dropped her head between her knees, rushing the blood to her brain. Jill told
