Immelmann stared at the ground, looking annoyed. “You’re a hard man, Chinese. I just spent the night being chased around town by every cop in southern California because the king of the bean bandits gave you his secondhand newspaper instead of wrapping garbage in it, and now you decide it’s time to be an asshole. All I ask for is the kind of favor you’d do for your fifteenth cousin twice removed.”
Kepler spoke from somewhere to his right and slightly behind him, and Chinese Gordon wondered how he’d gotten way over there. “Fact is, Chinese, we’ve got the damned thing. I don’t know what we can do but see if Immelmann’s right. If we have to whack it out I’d rather do it here than in public.”
Chinese Gordon nodded. “I’ve got four steaks up in the refrigerator.”
“Thanks, Chinese,” said Immelmann, and bounded up the stairs toward Chinese Gordon’s living quarters.
“What do you think, Chinese?” said Kepler. “We could lace one of the steaks with rat poison just in case the first three don’t cheer him up.”
“Immelmann?”
“No, for Christ’s sake. The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
“I don’t keep poison around. Doctor Henry Metzger handles that kind of thing. Sometimes he brings me the heads and feet as a present. He seems to think it’s funny. It’s enough to make you faint—little tiny pink hands…”
“That’s okay,” said Kepler, screwing the silencer onto the barrel of his pistol. “It’s better to go quick anyway. I’d just hate to miss and have bullets bouncing around in here.”
Chinese Gordon was about to answer, but Immelmann was coming down the stairs waving the steaks.
“Okay,” Kepler said. “Here’s what it looks like to me. We rig the door with a rope. We all go up the steps, give the rope a tug and let him out. Then we give him a steak or two and see if we can work out a deal with him.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Immelmann. “That’s probably the way he’s been fed before.”
“What’s to keep him from going up the stairs and taking your leg off?” said Chinese Gordon.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Immelmann. “A dog can’t climb a ladder.”
“Oh no,” Chinese Gordon said.
“Don’t be so damned lazy.” Immelmann examined the wooden steps. “We could take off this bottom section whole and put it back afterward. A couple of new four-by-fours and it’ll be stronger than it is now.”
Kepler and Immelmann, working with crowbars, pried out the spikes and moved the bottom section of the steps aside. Then Kepler wedged a short section of a two-by-four between the handles of the trailer door, tied Chinese Gordon’s clothesline to it, and they all climbed the ladder to the balcony. Chinese Gordon sat in silence in his kitchen while the others worked, consulting loudly about the best way of tying the knots, when to pull, what to do next.
When the two stopped talking, Chinese Gordon knew it was time. He walked to the balcony and peered over the edge as Immelmann tugged the clothesline and the two-by-four clattered to the floor.
The trailer door swung open and the huge black dog leaped out, already running. His teeth were bared and his eyes wild as he dashed about the shop. He never barked. The only sound was the deep “huff-huff-huff” of his panting in anticipation of the horror he longed to perpetrate.
When Kepler saw him he seemed even worse than the night before. In the dark he’d hoped his imagination had added something to the size and maybe even more to the ferocity of the beast. He said, “You’re sure dogs can’t climb ladders? That is, no dog can climb a ladder?”
The dog looked up at the three men and bared his teeth still more, uttering a long, low growl.
Immelmann tossed a steak down to him. It made a wet, flapping sound as it hit the pavement beside the animal’s feet, but the dog didn’t look at it. Instead the dog made a leap for the end of the steps that Immelmann and Kepler had left intact. His forepaws almost touched the last step. He gave a low rumble of frustration and tried again. This time Kepler heard a toenail scrape on wood and felt the hair on the back of his neck begin to rise. “What do you think? Shall we fire a warning shot across his bow?”
“It’ll only piss him off,” said Immelmann. “We don’t want to make him think we’re scared of him or he won’t respect us.”
“You’d have to be a moron not to be scared of that thing,” said Kepler. “For Christ’s sake, it doesn’t even look like a dog.”
“It’ll eat in a minute, and then we’ll try to talk to it,” Immelmann said.
Doctor Henry Metzger had watched the black dog and the men long enough. He spent some time cleaning his fur, then decided to investigate the broad, smooth surface of the unfamiliar trailer. He jumped off the balcony and landed with a light thud on the roof of the van.
Chinese Gordon, Kepler, Immelmann, and the dog all jerked their heads toward the van in unison. “No,” said Chinese Gordon. Doctor Henry Metzger looked at him without interest, then crouched and leaped to the roof of the trailer.
The dog walked slowly toward the trailer, his forelegs stiff, his eyes on the cat. “I guess this has gone on long enough,” Kepler said, flicking the safety on his pistol.
It was Chinese Gordon who said, “Wait.”
Doctor Henry Metzger crouched at the edge of the trailer roof and peered down at the dog, motionless. The dog slowly lifted his head and sat down, his tongue like a long slice of ham hanging out. In a movement like lightning, the cat was on the ground. The dog fell backward and ran around behind the van, but Doctor Henry Metzger shot under the van, and both disappeared from view. Kepler was poised with his arm steadied on the railing, the pistol aimed at a spot a foot beyond the van’s grille, waiting, but neither animal reappeared.
There was no sound. At last, Doctor Henry Metzger walked slowly into view and sat down to lick his paws. Then he noticed the steak a few feet away and trotted over to examine it. In a few seconds he was trying with little success to nibble off bits of it.
The dog walked around the rear of the van and approached Doctor Henry Metzger. When the dog was still six feet away he lay down on the pavement and rolled over on his back. The three men stood in shocked immobility as Doctor Henry Metzger sauntered over to the great black beast and then walked back with it to the steak. The dog clapped its big jaws onto the slab of beef, tearing and grinding it happily.
When Doctor Henry Metzger decided it was time to tour the inside of the horse trailer, the big dog dropped the steak and followed. While Doctor Henry Metzger prowled about the trailer, the dog sat outside, waiting. When Doctor Henry Metzger was satisfied that he knew what there was to know about the trailer, he and the dog returned to finish the steak.
Immelmann climbed down the ladder cautiously, the second steak clamped under his arm. As his foot hit the floor the dog poised for a spring, his teeth bared. Doctor Henry Metzger walked up to Immelmann and rubbed his body against Immelmann’s leg, purring, and the dog sat down. Then, unaccountably, as though from some dim memory, the great black dog rose on its haunches, its big jaws open, and begged.
He leaned down and kissed her eyelids, softly. The lashes fluttered slightly and then the clear green eyes opened and stared at him. “Chinese, have you—uh—done something?”
“Nothing that compares with this. You could be a movie star, or at least a model or something.”
“I know. I could have been a contender. Cut it out and tell me what you’ve been doing.”
Chinese Gordon lay down beside her, teasing himself with the feel of her warmth, her skin. “Nothing much. You met Doctor Henry Metzger’s dog. If it is a dog.”
“He’s sweet. Every cat should have a two-hundred-pound dog. But what else? Chinese, you have the work habits of a snake. You swallow an animal whole and then hibernate for months. At the moment I don’t see any of
