Authors: Susan Sey
“Yikes. Is that a dog?”
“Yeah.” Erik took a careful step back from the fence himself. The dog scrambled to its feet, gave itself an almighty shake, then stood there blinking owlis
hly around the yard. Maybe look
ing for something that would explain the massive concussion, Nixie thought. It spotted them again and lunged at the long suffering fence, headache apparently forgotten. It barked fiercely--big, deep, sonic booms of noise accompanied by the occasional streamer of spittle.
“That dog can only eat one of us at a time,” Nixie said, watching sharp white teeth gnash against the chain links. “No offense, but if it comes down to running for it, I
will
be faster than you.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
The front door of the house opened, and a man stepped out. He was as old a human being as Nixie had ever seen, bent practically half, his neck permanently craned upward like a vulture’s so he could train his one remaining eye on the world. He had a shotgun in one hand and what looked like a remote control in the other.
“Lady!
Chissakes
, Lady, shut it!”
Nixie blinked. “That dog’s a girl? And he calls her
Lady
?”
Erik waved at the man. “Hey, Otto. Have a minute?”
“Lady! Shut the hell up!”
The dog continued her frenzied barking until Otto shook his head and pointed the remote at her. Lady gave a short yip, twitched and fell over. Nixie felt the impact in the concrete under her feet.
Shock collar, she thought.
No wonder the dog took concussions in stride. Otto leveled the shotgun at them.
“Who the hell are you?”
Erik held up both hands in the classic we-come-in-peace position. “I’m Erik Larsen. I’m a doctor at the clinic next door.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Our receptionist.”
Nixie gave him a respectful nod. She’d met plenty of people at gun-point in her life. The key was to look wary of the gun, but interested in the person. Definitely don’t smile. A guy with a gun is never funny. She glanced down at the dog, who’d dragged herself to a sitting position. Her eyes were a little unfocused, but her lip curled around a rumbling, death-threat of a growl. Nixie groped behind her back for the door handle
of the Jeep
, just in case.
“What do you want?” Otto asked. His brows were so big and bushy that from the sidewalk they looked like some kind of grey caterpillar marching across his forehead. Nixie had no reference in nature for the matching tufts of hair sprouting from either ear.
“We’re wondering if you’ve seen a friend of ours. She’s about yea big
--”
Erik leveled a hand around his shoulder “--
blonde
, blue-eyed. She works at the clinic.”
Otto considered this as he stumped down the porch steps. Lady tro
tted to his side, her head
chest-high on the old man. Nixie wondered if it had ever occurred to the dog that she could just step over the fence whenever she felt like eating somebody.
“The lady doctor?” Otto asked. He pulled at his ear hair and sucked his teeth as he thought it over. “I seen her around here and there. Don’t say much, but she got a world class ass. Just the way I like ‘
em
. Quiet and curvy. You lose her?”
“I’m not sure.” Erik gave the old man a wide smile. The shotgun came back up to chest level and Nixie winced.
Never smile at the gun man
. Erik poked his hands back into the air.
“If you
ain’t
sure, what are you bothering me for?”
“I heard
Tyrese
asked for her, that’s all.” Erik didn’t smile this time. “You know where we might go looking for her?”
Otto studied them. “You
kin
of hers?”
Nixie shook her head, and Otto said, “I know
you
ain’t
. Damn, I got eyes, don’t I? You
ain’t
got no ass whatsoever.”
“Hey!” Nixie said. “You have
one
eye, and I have a very nice ass.” At least according to
Chat Magazine
she did.
“
Pah
. Seen better curves on an ironing board,” Otto said. “Got yourself a smart-alecky mouth, though.” Nixie bit her tongue while he turned to Erik. “What about you? You related to the lady doctor?”
“No,” Erik said. “But she’s important to me.”
“Huh
.” Otto cracked a wide smile
. “
Tyrese
done stole your girl.”
Erik frowned. “He didn’t steal my girl.”
“You don’t got her. Ty does. Sound like girl-stealing to me.” He bent suddenly, whacked at his filthy trousers and started making an awful hacking noise. Nixie hesitated. If he collapsed, they’d have to go in there to help him. Lady would eat them, but Erik had probably taken some kind of doctor oath that mandated it.
Then Otto straightened and from the gleam in his eye, Nixie deduced he’d been laughing. She p
ressed a hand to her stomach. G
eez.
“Have you seen her, Otto?” Erik looked less than amused himself.
“Nope.” Otto grinned and thumped Lady on the head. She blinked appreciatively. “You got a problem with
Tyrese
, you going to have to take it to him. I
ain’t
your snitch. Come on, Lady.”
He disappeared into the house with his assault vehicle of a dog trotting behind him.
“Nice work, Colombo.”
Erik sneered at her. “This from the woman who spent the last ten minutes with one foot in the car.”
“Somebody had to go for help if
Cujo
decided to eat you.”
“You’ll never know how that eases my mind.”
“No problem. And hey, word of advice? Don’t smile at the gun man.”
“What?”
“It makes them feel like you’re not taking them seriously. So next time you’re questioning the gun man, even if he cracks a joke, don’t smile. You’re going to get your caps blown off.”
“My caps?”
“Oh, sorry. Are those your real teeth?”
He glowered at her. “Yes.”
“They’re very...white.”
He stalked past her toward the next house on the block. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Nixie said again, hiding a smile.
“I had no idea you were such an expert on human nature,” Erik said. Nixie shrugged modestly. “You want to take this next one?”
Nixie eyed the house. It was identical to Otto’s except that the fence was a little more ramshackle and the yard a little more over-grown. Garbage was heaped along the fence, and a narrow alley ran between the two yards. “No dogs?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Who lives here?”
“Mattie Getz-
Strunk
.”
“Mattie gets drunk?”
“No. Mattie. Getz.
Strunk
. Hyphenated.”
“Tell me she’s not a drinker.”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Okay. Watch and learn, doc.”
Nixie let herself into the yard and picked her way over the heaved-up front walk to the porch, Erik trailing behind. She
rapped
her knuckles on the stingy window in the door.
“Mattie?” she called. She was
not
going to call her Ms. Getz-
Strunk
. She gave Erik a suspicious look. He wasn’t above making that up just to
pay her back for making him take her along
. “Mattie? Are you at home?”
Something moved
across the hallway
beyond the living room. Nixie couldn’t tell what it was, only that it was approximately human sized, ambulatory and very fast.
“I think somebody’s in there.” She put her face to the window, framed it with her hands for a better look. She rapped again on the glass. “Mattie? We just have a couple questions for you.”
“
Ooooh
, I wouldn’t have said that.” Erik stood behind her, hands tucked into his pockets, jacket open to the biting wind. He looked perfectly comfortable
in the for
ty degree air, his cheeks reddened, his eyes very blue. He wagged his head at her.
“Why not?” Nixie went back to the glass. “Damn, she
is
in there! Or somebody is.”
“Was.” Erik tipped his head toward the sound of the back door slamming.
“What?” Nixie hopped off the porch into the alley that separated the houses and headed back. “Where’s she going?”
“Jesus, Nixie, don’t
--”
The door to the detached garage flew open and an El Camino rocketed into the alley. The woman at the wheel had tortured red hair that stood up and waved around her head like she was underwater. She was addict-thin and between that and the hair she looked like a lit fuse. She stomped on the accelerator and the car lurched forward, eating up the distance bet
ween Nixie and her
fender with alarming speed.
Nixie dove over the fence
into a pile of garbage and slimy leaves that must have been rotting away since last fall. The El Camino screamed by and sailed sideways into the street on two tires, taking out Otto’s garbage can on its way.
“Fuck you, pigs!” Mattie’s laugh was like gravel in a can, and she stuck one skinny arm out the window, middle finger extended as she blew through the stop sign at the corner. “Kiss my
white
ass!”
Nixie sat up and blinked at Erik. He came down the porch steps to squat beside her.
“Nice reflexes, princess.” He picked a leaf off her cheek with two fingers. “You ever want to play softball, you let me know. The hospital team could use a girl who’s not afraid to get her shirt dirty. Who would have thought an ironing board could move so fast?”
“Ironing board,” Nixie muttered in disgust. She rolled to her hands and knees, mentally cataloguing her injuries
--
scraped palms, banged knee, filthy clothes, and yes, bruised ass. She patted at it and winced.
Something hot and elusive shifted in those calm blue eyes. “Don’t take it so hard, Nixie. Some men like their women, ah, subtle.”
She snorted. “
Okay, t
hat guy was at least six hundred years old and he only had
one eye
. I’m pretty sure he was talking
about
you
with the ironing board thing
.”
“Those fabled people skills of yours could use a little work, though,” he mused as if she hadn’t spoken. “Hold still now. There’s a little bit of slime right
--”
He took her chin in his hand, used his thumb to rub gently at her cheek bone. Her heart took a funny little tumble in her chest and she slapped at his hand. It was probably just a delayed reaction to having nearly been Mattie Getz-
Strunk’s
hood ornament, she told herself.