I go around back and whisper the secret password to some guy in a bad black suit. He ushers me in. I don’t like what I see. This is a dark place, a place where sick bastards with twisted inner secrets come to get off. This isn’t strictly about gambling. It’s about power, control, and a blatant disregard for Lassie. That’s right, I said it. Something happened to these sick bastards as children. Maybe it was as simple as not having enough love or maybe they just didn’t like how a dog like Lassie was better than them at making friends and they’ve held a grudge against canines ever since. Whatever is broken with them, whatever it is all those psychologists couldn’t figure out, whatever makes these sick fucks tick, I’ll cure tonight.
In the center of the room everyone is gathered around a deep pit. Immediately I spot Cordoba chained to the wall. That I never liked the bastard doesn’t seem to matter now. He doesn’t deserve this, no beast deserves this. He looks up at me and I can see in his eyes that he knows who I am. Good dog. He doesn’t give me away. It’s not lost on the mutt that something bad is about to go down.
“Hello there, stranger.”
I turn and standing there like a Polaroid of my wettest dream is Natasha. She’s got the “come hither” thing down pat: tight red latex, black straps, fishnets, and heels a mile high. And then it hits me, and it hits me hard. She’s wearing a blond wig. She was the dame with the Dutch boy haircut who cut through our craps game this morning. She was scouting out dogs to snatch. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.
“Howard, I’m glad you could make it.”
I look over my shoulder, thinking she’s talking to someone else, but then I remember I told her my name was Howard Stern. “Uh, yeah, it’s damn nice to be here. Who decorated this place? Martha Stewart’s evil clone?”
“Very funny, I don’t think anyone actually decorated this place.”
“I think you’re right.”
She does some sort of little hop and her tits jiggle underneath her red latex dress. It’s all I can do not to unfold like some sort of card table. There’s something bothering me, though. She just seems too goddamn nice to be mixed up in this dog fighting stuff. Or maybe it’s me projecting on to her, maybe I just don’t want to believe someone so beautiful on the outside could be so rotten on the inside.
She grasps my arm. “Ooh, there is Tan Blancard. I want you to meet him. This is his setup.”
I know this guy from somewhere. I hope he doesn’t make me.
“Who is this?” Tan asks. “And what happened to his face?”
He rubs a wispy little porno star mustache with his thumb and forefinger. I hate porno star mustaches. I can tell by the way he carries himself that he considers himself a tough guy.
“This is Howard Stern,” Natasha says.
“Howard Stern, like the disc jockey?” he asks.
“Yeah, but it’s spelled differently.”
I can tell by the tone of his voice that he doesn’t buy my name. He grabs me by my collar. “This isn’t Howard Stern. This is Burma Ludlow. He was my wife’s private investigator. This fucker helped to screw me over in the divorce. He even slept with her.”
“Actually there was very little sleeping going on,” I say.
“Private who?” Natasha asks.
“He’s right, I’m a private detective. I’ve come to take back my friend’s dog.”
Chances are I’m not going to make it out of this place alive. I’m okay with that, I have to be. Every day you go in search of the truth you know that odds are you won’t live to see another day. I can’t let these dogs die, though. They didn’t do anything to anyone. Me, I probably have it coming. At least I tell myself that because it will make the end that much easier.
I’m surrounded and I didn’t even get a chance to blink. A dozen goons dressed in black, a dozen goons with chains, guns, and pipes, a dozen goons wanting to sing me a sweet lullaby.
Be tough, I tell myself, you’re not going out like this. You were destined for a much more grandiose exit, something preceded by a lobster dinner, call girls, and a big explosion.
They start closing in and my fists lock around Mom’s brass knuckles. “Who’s first?” I say, and uncork my fists. It’s a glorious bloodbath. Mom’s brass knuckles behind my powerful fists are breaking jaws and crushing noses. I’m a human wrecking machine, but there are too many of them. Someone hits me in the back of the head with what feels like a magnum of champagne and I go down.
My body rises off the ground and I’m tossed into the dog pit. I land and the dogs chained to either side of the pit start barking.
I rise up onto all fours and spit blood. “There’ll be no dogs dying here tonight.”
Everyone from every direction is still laughing, having themselves one hell of a time.
“Release the dogs,” Tan Blancard says.
The dog handlers obey. The only things I can see are flashes of teeth and yellow eyes. I won’t hurt the dogs.
This is a damn hard pledge to keep, though, as the first pit bull rips into my arm and the second bites into my calf. “Good dogs. Nice puppies.”
I try to keep a picture of Tank and Lassie in my head. I picture them in a meadow sharing a couple of Whoppers. It helps the pain from completely reaching my brain.
“Stop, damn it! Stop,” I yell.
I see angels or something damn close to them fluttering around my head and I have to admit that this just might be the end. It’s been a damn good run-maybe too good for a no good bastard like myself.
Snap! Snap!
The dogs fall limp next to me. It’s Natasha. She’s shot the dogs with a tranquilizer gun. I know what was bothering me about her now. She’s a cop. Okay, maybe I was wrong about her snatching the dogs, but what I’m not wrong about is that she’s in trouble.
Tan Blancard comes up from behind her and beans her with a club. She goes down hard. I reach into my trench coat and pull out my roscoe. “This is for you, Tank.”
All those that came to watch the dog fights are scrambling for the exits. There’s smoke and flames. One of the bullets must have hit something flammable.
I pull myself out of the pit and see one of the goons mounting a giant stereo speaker. He lets loose with an Uzi, spraying lead all over the joint. It’s ugly. The rich guys dive behind their escorts. A bullet skims my scalp and blood runs down my face. I grab one of the dead dogs from an earlier fight by the collar and use it as a shield as I move toward the shooter.
The corpse takes shots and I can feel warm dog blood running down my forearm. I reach around the dead dog and fire one shot after another, hitting the guy on top of the speaker, blowing his arm off at the elbow. He’s in too much pain to come after me now, but I shoot him through the head anyway.
It’s a damn shame all this dying, but I figure that every time one of these bastards gets snuffed the positive balance of the universe is righted. I’ll make sure hell fills up real quick.
I reload and reload again, shooting up every bad guy in the joint. Soon everyone else is dead or gone except for Tan Blancard. I give him the bum’s rush as he unloads his pistol into the dog corpse and then I chuck it in his face, knocking him down.
Tan Blancard says something like, “Fuck you.” But at this point it doesn’t matter what he says. He’s going to die.
I jump on top of him, pinning his arms down with my knees. He’s got more teeth in his mug than a pack of were-wolves and they’re glaring at me all yellowlike. I swing with my brass knuckles and half of them are lying on the ground in bits. I pick several pieces out of my fingers and then, as if my fists have minds of their own, they start pounding his face in. With each strike of my brass knuckles I feel power surge through my body. “You’ll…never…kill…another…dog.” It’s a goddamn beautiful thing. I see Tank, Lassie, and my mom smiling down on me from heaven.