The truck vacuumed up the desert highway, the speedometer touching ninety, Fergus still a few miles away, Skip’s fury like a burning comet. “IF HE TOUCHED MY DOGS I’LL KILL HIM I’LL KILL HIM I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM.”
There were louvered doors on the bedroom closet, Dodson getting just enough grip to pull them shut from the inside. The big dog charged into the room, gluey slobber dripping off its fangs. Growling, it pawed at the doors and sniffed like it was trying to inhale Dodson through the wood. “NO!” Dodson screamed. “GET AWAY! GET AWAY! SIT! LIE DOWN! FETCH! ISAIAHHH!” The dog was getting frustrated, barking and whimpering, trying to claw its way in. Dodson saw a movie where the character gave commands to his attack dog in a foreign language. “?VáMONOS! ?HASTA LUEGO! ?VAYA CON DIOS!” The dog bit into the louvers, rattling the doors, Dodson keeping them closed with his fingertips. “ISAIAHHHH! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?” The dog kept biting and gnawing, hooking a louver in its teeth and tearing it off. The dog got more excited, savaging the louvers, chomping and ripping, drool coming through the spaces where the louvers were missing. “SAYONARA! ACHTUNG! SIEG HEIL! GO THE FUCK AWAY! ISAIAHHH!” More louvers were torn off, the dog sticking its massive head into the closet, lips pulled back over its teeth like the alien in Alien, amber eyes fierce and murderous. “DON’T KILL ME DON’T KILL ME LET ME ALONE!” The dog pushed its whole body in, splintering louvers and roaring like a werewolf. Dodson fell to the floor, screaming, not believing it was Auntie May’s yard all over again—and now the dog was on top of him, its searing breath in his ear. He couldn’t die like this, he couldn’t—
Isaiah swung the door open and shot the dog with the dart gun at point-blank range. “Get off him,” he said. The dog bawled, snarled, and lunged at him, Isaiah stumbling backward into the hall, the dog leaping at him, knocking him down, its jaws at his throat, thick spittle dripping on his face—and then it collapsed, its weight like a building on his chest. Isaiah heaved the dog off and stood up.
Dodson came out of the bedroom. “Where were you?” he sobbed. “That muthafucka was about to eat my ass alive! Goddammit, Isaiah, I told you I didn’t want to come here! I told you, I fuckin’ told you!”
“Go get the gurney,” Isaiah said.
“That’s all you got to say? Go get the gurney?”
“Go get the gurney.”
Muttering and blubbering, Dodson staggered away. The dog was paralyzed but conscious, panting heavily with its eyes open. It looked like a dog now instead of a killing machine. Isaiah wanted to comfort it.
Dodson ran back in. “Skip’s coming,” he said.
Skip swung the truck into the yard, slid to a stop, a storm cloud of dirt and gravel peppering the house. “I’LL KILL HIM I’LL KILL HIM I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM.” He ran inside and a moment later the animal control truck came around the side of the house and sped off toward the happy lights of the Drop In Diner.
Skip would have gone after the truck but he saw Goliath collapsed in the hallway. He rushed him to a twenty-four-hour vet in Victorville who thought the dog was a Great Dane. The vet gave him oxygen and fluids and said he should stay overnight as a precaution but Skip took him home.
Skip’s new mission in life: Kill Q Fuck. He could go into witness protection and hide in the fucking jungle but Skip would find him and shoot him and let Goliath go at him until there was nothing left but guts in a puddle of blood.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Die, Bitch
April 2006
At ten o’clock in the morning, when most of the residents of the Sea Crest were at work, a Navigator and a Cadillac CTS rolled up in front of the building. Booze Lewis emerged from the CTS, got buzzed in, and crossed the lobby, wincing with every step. His foot was heavily bandaged and he was wearing a slipper with Velcro straps. He should have been on crutches but he didn’t want Kinkee taking his place again.
Booze limped down the hall toward Junior’s apartment, nobody behind him or coming out of the fire exit, everything like it always was. He was halfway there when some little midget muthafucka stepped out of the electrical room aiming a gun. He was completely covered up. Ski mask, shades, turtleneck, long-sleeve gangsta flannel, gardening gloves, and a red flag in his pocket.
“Don’t move, pendejo,” the midget said.