Hair of the Dog

him pleasure, Jerome really didn’t feel much at all in the way of emotions most of the time, but because he thought Clair deserved this man’s pain. So he did very bad and painful things to Tyree, who was strong at first, but not for long and certainly not at all by the end, and when he was done he realized he had improved vastly in his technique since the incident with the boys who had killed his dog.

“Let’s go gets our money,” said Lil’ Grill as he started for the door.

And then the little girl walked out of the back bedroom. She was about three, with curly black hair, nut-brown skin and sleepy eyes she rubbed at with one pudgy fist. She saw the men and her eyes went wide, much like her now deceased mother’s had just before she was shot.

Bad Boy shook his head. “Crap, almost forgot about her.”

Lil’ Grill echoed the movement. “Too sad for you girly.” He pointed the gun he’d finally managed to remove from his waist band and pointed it at her bare chest. She was wearing only a soggy diaper.

Jerome gripped his wrist and twisted till the gun pointed at the ceiling.

“Whach you doing, man?” cried Lil’ Grill, his bones on the verge of breaking.

“She’s just a little girl,” said Jerome.

“Never know what anyone can or can’t do, brother. ‘Sides, the man said everyone here dies, no exceptions.”

“Nobody said anything about a little girl,” said Jerome. It was maybe the longest speech he’d given in a year.

“Not to you,” said Bad Boy. “The man said there’d be a baby here and she had to go with the mom.”

Jerome’s brain took this in and did the type of calculations he was supremely capable of. He shot Bad Boy through the upper lip and then, still gripping Lil’ Grill’s wrist, put three rounds into his chest. Lil’ Grill’s body went limp and only the strength of Jerome’s arm kept him from slumping to the floor.

The baby girl, her eyes squeezed shut and her hands pressing tight over her ears, started to cry. Jerome picked her up and patted her back, just like he used to do with his sister, Clair, so many years ago. He didn’t know the little girl’s name so he patted her back and whispered “Clair” gently into her ear as he took her away from the blood and death he had brought to her home.

2

Current Day

I finished the last brush stroke through Pilgrim’s fur and blew a puff of fluff away from my face as it tried to settle on my nose. A blanket of undercoat lay scattered around the two of us like velvety snow.

I shook my head. “You know,” I said to him, “I could probably make another you out of you here.” He muzzled my palm and rolled on his belly before lightly nibbling on my wrist in response.

“You goof,” I said, scrunching his neck fur in my fingers and checking the shaved section along his belly and flank where the bullet had torn through him. I nodded and smiled. “It’s looking good, boy. I think you’re going to be okay.” He pinched at my thigh with his front teeth looking like he was smiling, as if he understood what I just said. Who knows, maybe he did. Pilgrim’s always been wicked smart…goofy… but smart. He was my partner for years when I worked a patrol beat back in the day…back before I got canned…back before my wife and daughter were murdered.

Suddenly the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention as if a cold breeze had slithered past…only there was no breeze.

I turned my head and there sat Max, staring at me. Max is kind of like a scary version of a vampire. First he’s not there… then he is. Spooky. Sometimes he sports little flecks of blood on his muzzle or chest, leaving me to wonder if the villagers, armed with torches and pitchforks, might not be giving chase from down below. If he left any of them alive that is. He’s a two-year-old, ninety-pound, Belgian Malinois that acts like he’s maybe as old as time. Pilgrim, on the other hand, is a fourteen-year-old, one-hundred twenty-pound, German shepherd that acts like he’s a kid.

Spring had truly sprung here in Colorado and the sun soared high overhead. Not too hot yet, maybe seventy-five up on the top of my hogback that overlooks C470 and Hampden and all of Denver far to the East. But at ten in the morning there remained plenty of day for things to heat up.

Being a Saturday, I decided to spend the day taking it easy. After all, Pilgrim isn’t the only one nursing wounds. Our last case still haunted us. People died, others were hurt, and the three of us were no exception. The bullet wound that started in my upper trap and ended on the outside of my left biceps still stretched and pulled every time I activated my elbow, feeling like the skin was tearing open. And that was nothing compared to the hole in my chest and the collapsed lung. But, like Pilgrim, I was healing. At least on the outside. And the dreams had stopped. Thank the Good Lord for that.

I caught movement out of my peripheral vision and saw Max’s head snap to the side and up, his nose scenting. Pilgrim still chewed playfully at my thigh, but he was old and hurt and a mere shadow of his working days. Looking down the winding road that twists and turns coming up my mountain I listened and, like Max, sniffed. My nose paled to Max’s, of course, but decades of living and training working dogs has its effects. K9 handlers live feeling, tasting and smelling the wind, its direction, humidity, speed. Understanding the wind can often make or break your chances of finding the bad guy or the drugs or the bomb. It is often the difference between life and