I looked through the brush and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. A trickle of sweat slid across my ribs like a bloodstain oozin’ down the side of a bathtub in some cheap hotel. My heart started doing the rhumba in my chest.
The dog was on point.
“On point” is what dog guys call it when some mutt just stands there without movin’ a muscle, starin’ at nothing like it’s knocked back too many shots of rotgut hootch. Dog guys say “on point” is a good thing. It gives me the creeps; reminds me of a partner I had once. He ended up the same way, after his fifth marriage went on the rocks.
Slowly I raised my heater and let my finger caress the trigger like it was makin’ a quick little trip down some broad’s cheek. Just one pull, one little pull on this and it’s curtains, lights out, gonesville, history. Taillights through the fog, the big sleep.
I put all that out of my mind and tried to take a deep breath, but it stuck in my throat like a hairball in a shower stall drain. My stomach threw a half-hitch around the cold meatloaf sandwich I’d had for lunch. Some last meal, I thought. You never know.
The barrels of my Roscoe felt smooth as a chorus girl’s ankle as I slid my hand over the cold steel and swung the business end around to cover the bushes out in front. I slid my thumb up to the safety. It felt as rough as my chin on the morning after a night before.
I cut my eyes to the right. Sam had stopped too. He had his own piece pointed where it’d do the most good. The dog didn’t move. Nothin’ moved.
“Hey Sam,” I growled outta the side of my mouth. “The dog’s on point.”
They say your whole life passes in fronta you when the dog’s on point, like when you’re looking down the blade of the scythe, tryin’ to see the Reaper’s eyes back deep inside the hood of his cloak.
They’re wrong. I didn’t see nothing’ from my childhood. Ma never showed up and wherever the old man was, he was probably too drunk to make an appearance. I couldn’t see nothin’ farther back than the day before, when Sam came bustin’ through my office door, slammed it quick behind him and moved over so his back was against the wall. Sam’s my friend. Don’t ask me why.
Next to him, through the frosted glass, you could see my name, Mike Tumbler, painted on the door – except from inside it read RELBMUT EKIM.
Sam’s eyes went flickin’ around the room like a pair of cockroaches doin’ the tango in a hot skillet.
I flipped my cigarette out the open window. I wondered for a second if it might land on some schmo down in the street and then decided, what the hell. Everybody knows smokin’s bad for you. We’re all in the same boat, like it or not.
“Sam,” I said.
“Jeez, Mikey,” Sam said. “It’s tomorra!”
“What’s tomorrow, Sam?” I don’t like guessing games.
His eyes went on ricochetin’ like Baryshnikov with a case of jock itch.
“C’mon, Sam, it’s just me and you. Spill it, for chrissake.”
“Jeez, Mikey,” he said again, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Tomorra’s th’ grouse season!”
Yeah. Right. No wonder Sam was actin’ like a whore in church.
“It opens tomorra, Mikey!” Sam said.
Grouse season. The woods are fulla birds. It’s them or us. Somebody’s gotta do it.
Just then the door opened again and Darla slipped in, lookin’ sleek as a panther with a fresh haircut. Darla’s my secretary and my main squeeze, when I’m in town.
Sam lurched like a punch-drink boxer with fleas in his skivvies.
“Oh, hi, Sammy,” Darla said. “Long time no see.” Then she got that look on her face. “It’s the grass season, ain’t it, Sam?”
“Grouse season, dammit!” Sam growled. “It’s grouse! Grouse! Capiche?”
“Sure, Sammy, whatever you say.”
Sam stumbled over and collapsed in the chair next to my desk. It ain’t a comfortable chair, but Sam was too far gone to bitch. He sat there, starin’ at the floor. I knew what he was seein’. The woods. Fulla birds.
Darla walked over to my desk, her hips swingin’. Darla, with the rear end that looks like two Labrador pups fightin’ under a silk sheet. Darla, with a pair of legs that reach clear from her spike heels to her butt. Darla, with a heart of gold and a smile that makes tough guys wilt like celery that’s been in the icebox since before the war. Me and Darla, we go way back.
“Mr. Tumbler,” she said, like she always does when there’s a client in my room. Classy broad, Darla. But now there was a tremble in her voice.
“The governor just called. He wants you to start tailing the lieutenant governor first thing tomorrow morning. She’ll be wearing a black cocktail dress with a red scarf and handbag . . . ”
“Can it, babe,” I cut her off. I ain’t into fashion. “Tell the governor he’s gonna haveta wait a few days.”
A stricken look came over Darla’s face. She knew. All of a sudden I felt as cold as an ounce of chilled No. 8s.
“The grouse season opens tomorrow,” I said.
Darla’d been upset and scared when I left the office. She was breathin’ in quick little gasps. I told her to sit down and put her head between her knees before she passed out. I woulda done it for her, but I didn’t have the time. The last thing she said was “Oh, Mike, promise me you’ll be careful.”
Her voice came back to me now like a cucumber belch spiked with pepperoni and stale beer.
Yeah, sure, baby, I thought. There’s plenty of time for careful. Later.
The dog was still on point, one of his paws lifted, frozen like a cat burglar pinned in a police car spotlight.
“Hey Mikey,” Sam whispered. “It’s your turn to flush.”
“Flush” is what bird guys call it when you walk over to where the dog’s pointin’.
You know there’s a bird there but you can’t see it. The dirty rat can see you, though; knows right where you are. He’s got the drop and you gotta make ’im show himself. Flush ’im out. Flush of success, straight flush over two pair, flush of youth, flush it all down the drain.
And it was my turn.
Sure, I thought, give it to Mikey. There’s a bird out there with his name on it. Well, it better be spelled right is all is gotta say.
My throat felt like it was stuffed with a pair of wool socks and an old mitten that had lost its mate.
I moved fast, figurin’, What the hell, let’s dance.
At first nothin’ happened. Then I heard the wings. They sounded like a tommy gun in some dingy alley a couple blocks away down a lonely streeet.
A shape whizzed past my head. I ducked like a prizefighter dodgin’ a left hook and spun around, swingin’ my Roscoe.
Just gimme one clear shot. It ain’t too much to ask.
The heater kicked against my shoulder. The bird wadded up like a snotball with feathers; went down without even a bye-bye wave. I heard a muffled thump as it hit the leaves. The roar of gunfire faded till it was only a faint ring in my left ear.
“Go fetch,” Sam said to the dog. It was Sam’s dog.
“Fetch” is what the dog guys call it when they want their mutt to go pick up a bird in its mouth and bring it back. The thought of it gives me a case of the yim-yams. Dog guys love it, though. Dog guys.
“Jeez, Mikey,” Sam said, takin’ the bird away from the dog and holdin’ it up. “Good shot!”
“Yeah, Sam,” I said. “I lucked out again.”
I looked at the bird and then back at the woods.
There was more of ’em out there. There’s always more of ’em out there and the best you can do is hope to luck out just one more time.
But like I said, somebody’s gotta do it.