Just at the moment Clyde was halfway between his unit and Thomas Charles “Tick” Henry’s screened-in porch, Henry’s dog made its presence known by coming round the corner of the garage, raising its hackles, crouching, and beginning to emit a low growl almost like the purr of an idling diesel. The dog had not revealed itself until Clyde was halfway between the unit and the front door, exposed on a barren glacis of creeping Charlie, crabgrass, and faded aluminum beer cans. Clyde unsnapped his holster.
The important thing was not to show fear.
Clyde changed direction and lunged straight toward the onrushing dog, which, like all other bad dogs he had ever seen, was some kind of offshoot of the race of German shepherds (or, as people around there called them, perhaps ironically, police dogs). Tick Henry’s dog was so startled that it actually faltered; and when Clyde shouted, “Get the hell out of here!” into its face, it planted its feet and came to a complete stop, its scraggly dewclaws snagging long skeins of creeping Charlie so that the whole surface of the lawn moved around him.
There was a moment of silence, and Clyde heard a low hissing noise from the screened-in porch. The sound of someone drawing on a cigarette. Clyde looked that way, but the only illumination now came from the big hissing farm light on the garage, which was enshrouded by a more or less infinite number of small insects. Larger black shapes briefly eclipsed it from time to time: bats going after the bugs.
Finally the dog’s ears rotated to the side a few degrees, flattened just a bit. Instantly Clyde stomped forward two more strides and shouted, “Get the hell out of here!” The dog turned, ran away, and looked back at Clyde, beginning to wag its tail.
“You maced my dog!” shouted Tick Henry, kicking the screen door open. “You maced my dog!” He stepped out into the yard, moving stiffly on the front steps, hindered by his football-ravaged knees. He must be pushing fifty, Clyde realized.
“You maced my dog,” Tick Henry said. It was clear from the conviction on his face that he was one of that breed of mankind, frequently encountered in Clyde’s line of work, who could make themselves believe anything simply by uttering it three times.
“I don’t carry Mace,” Clyde said, “because I got a gun. And if your dog had taken one more step toward me, I would have shot it.”
“That’s police brutality!”
“If you could read, Tick Henry, you would know that I ain’t police but sheriff’s department. You know the difference?”
“Huh?”
“The sheriff’s department’s main job seems to be serving papers on the likes of you—and your houseguest,” said Clyde, stepping forward and waving a court summons in the air.
Tick Henry said nothing at all, just drew on his cigarette and squinted at Clyde. The farm light went out for a moment as an especially large bat, or perhaps even an owl, eclipsed it.
“I know he’s in there,” Clyde said. “Everybody knows you’ve been sheltering him.”
“So Grace went out and got herself a goddamn lawyer,” Tick said, and shook his head in disbelief.
“Everyone’s entitled to a lawyer,” Clyde said. “Buck could have got one if he’d been on his toes. Then the divorce could have happened right here. As it is, it’s going to happen in Seattle—more hassle for Buck.”
“Seattle? Grace took off to Seattle?” Tick Henry shook his head again. “I suppose Seattle’s dyke paradise or something.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Clyde said. “Where is he?”
Tick jerked his head back toward the house. Clyde gave the dog one last warning glare and then climbed up onto the screened-in porch.
Buck Chandler was fast asleep on the living-room recliner, illuminated by the light from the tube, which was showing a baseball game on the West Coast.