Shoot the Moon

Chapter Twenty - Saint Francis

I woke up the next morning with the pit bull slobbering on my wrist, frail pleading sounds deep in his throat. He loved me. I thought I'd better give him his medicine just the same. This hazy thought elongated and warped into a crazy little dream which led me straight back on the road to sleep. I was just about to disappear for another twenty minutes when an electric spike of panic stopped my heart for an instant and jolted me upright. I wildly rubbed and pressed my eyes to get some focus and to knock the sleep out of my head. I rocketed off the bed and down the hall to check on the Dalton Brothers. The door was opened and they were gone. I called and called, staggering around the apartment still asleep from the neck up.

The Yorkies were gone. Duro was off his leash and he had eaten the Dalton Brothers!

I was trying to decide whether to go to the trouble of framing an elaborate lie to tell Echo or just run for it. I would need a new name and papers... New York City Driver's License of course, uh... Social Security Card... What else? New fingerprints? The new identity would have to be good, airtight because Echo would track me down to the storied Ends of the Earth and subject me to an Edgar Allan Poe Pit and the Pendulum -style torture-slash-death...

Then I heard the pit bull huff and two higher voices chimed in. I looked down and there they were, all three of them, best of pals.

I stared at them while my heart rate returned to normal. The Dalton Boys were very happy at having a large friend able to reach high enough to get me out of bed. They were barking and playing, throwing themselves at the flanks of the pit bull and bouncing off like long haired black and tan soccer balls. Duro for his part paid them no attention. He just stared sadly pleading for his dope.

I got out of bed and wobbled to the kitchen. The Dalton Boys raced ahead yapping happily. Boy, was this fun!

I opened the cold water tap and let it run. The pit bull finally caught up, thumping along. His limp had gotten worse and now he was swinging his left foreleg out and around like a peg leg. I tossed the dog his fix and he caught it on the fly. It was a good trick. He would learn to sing the triumphal march from Aida if it would get him high. The chocolates were almost gone. When the cupboard was bare, our warm, drooling friendship might take an entirely different and unattractive turn.

I opened some food for the Yorkies and they scarffed it down. I even opened two or three cans for Duro but he was on the nod and showed no interest. I drank a glass of water and stared at the three dogs. Evidently the Dalton Boys had engineered their own escape some time in the night, come to the kitchen and convinced the pit bull to chew through his clothesline. One major problem: the Dalton Brothers long coats were mucked and gummy with pit bull shit. I had a problem there that I would have to handle after coffee.

I filled the coffee pot with Kenya AA, set it to work and examined my head for a plan.

One thing I knew was that men who would entrust their fates to Mickey Dolan were stupid enough to deserve everything that came their way and crazy enough to be dangerous; I'd seen more than one dead body that Teddy had ordered up in a fit of pique. I didn't know Cruz but he had to be more of the same.

My choices weren't great. Mickey's plan wouldn't work. Especially not when they learned how much he'd stolen from them. Drug dealers enjoy being victims even less than the rest of the population and they are in a position to do something about it. If I returned the records to them they'd find out they had been robbed and they'd never stop looking for him. After they killed me in some very painful way. However, that would happen no matter what we did now. Returning the books was the only chance Mickey had of cutting himself a way out of jeopardy and my survival, like it or not, was tied to his.