The Unscratchables Read online

  “The hiss and squawk. The Dusty Dingus Happy Hour.”

  “You won a radio competition?”

  “A sports quiz, Crusher! I knew all my study would pay off! You comin’ or what?”

  For a moment I pictured myself sitting high and mighty in Solidarity Stadium, chugging on a tingle-water, chomping on a chicken wing, cheering Rocky Cerberus. This was going to be the biggest fight of the year, the night when the doggies showed the kitty cats a thing or two. Every mutt in the Kennels would kill to be there; every cop in the force had applied for arena duty. And here was my best pal, telling me he had top-grade tickets. It seemed too good to be true.

  But then, in a horrible flashback, I remembered the mixmastered bodies on the chrome slabs. The stink of cat in my dreams. The killstare of the chief. And I knew I couldn’t commit myself to anything.

  “Fang it,” I said. “You know what I’d do to be there, Spike, but at the moment…”

  “At the moment?”

  “I don’t know…there’s something going on here, I can’t say too much.”

  A chuckle from Spike, like he didn’t swallow it. “You’re kidding, ain’t you?”

  “I wish I was, pal. But there’s a new case here, as curly as they come.”

  A hollow pause. “You really saying you can’t make it?”

  “I reckon not. I’m all tied up. So count me out.”

  Silence for a few seconds, then: “I can wait till—”

  “Nah, don’t wait for me, pal. I ain’t gonna be there. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Gee…if you say so.”

  “You go by yourself. Have a good time.”

  A pause, then a flattened voice. “I guess I’ll see what happens, Crusher.”

  I felt like I’d swiped his blanket. Spike and I went way back. We’d been to the same obedience school. We hunted wild pigs. We chased bitches in heat. We even (not something I cared to remember) were prisoners of war together. But where I’d found something in the heat of the battle—pride, defiance, something—Spike had lost it. Even now he lived in a doghouse ringed with razor wire, jagged glass, and sentry lights, like he couldn’t get his bobble out of the prison camp. The war had stir-fried his brainpot.

  I got out of the building without the chief sniffing me and took a squad tooter down to the wharf. The air was clouded with flies: blowflies, green-and-blue flashers, bloodsuckers, maggot factories. The wharf was still sealed off with tape. A nervous young spaniel was doing sentry duty. The wetnoses from SI, the floppy-eared lot of them, were waiting for me obediently. I found my full barrel-chested voice:

  “Listen up, doggies. Whatever you’ve heard about this case I want you to flush it from your bobbles right now. We got a murder scene here. We got a few pools of stale blood from the victims—two ’weilers and a cat, an alley cat most likely. Most important, we got a killer off the chain. And it’s this killer I need you to track now. I want a scent trail, doggies, and I want it fast.”

  “Any idea of the killer’s ID?” one of the beagles chirped.

  “Make a difference?”

  “There’s gonna be a lot of trails here—it’d sure help.”

  “Okay,” I sighed. “Word from the S and D rooms is that we’re looking for a cat.”

  “A cat?” the beagle said.

  “That’s what Dr. Barnabus tells me.”

  There were grumbles—the beagles didn’t like Barnabus any more than I did.

  “All right, put a muzzle on it. At least you know what you’re sniffing for. So give me a hard-target search. The whole district. Every doghouse, fleahouse, cathouse, and stinkhouse. And snap to it!”

  As they went to work I headed into Slinky Joe’s Sardine Cannery to ask about Flasha Lightning. But no one had heard from the whippet all day—he hadn’t jangled in sick; he hadn’t jangled in at all. But he was a scumlicker, and no one expected any better. I got his last-known flopdown and headed outside. To my surprise, the beagles were already waiting for me.

  “What’s the meat?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” one said.

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “No trail.”

  I looked down the fly-blown wharf. “You couldn’t pick up the scent, through all this stink?”

  “We picked up everything there was to pick up. Two ’weilers—”

  “The heavies.”

  “—and a cat. The victim you were talking about. There’s cat blood on the wharf, with traces of gunpowder, all the way to the edge. But nothing else. No trail of any other cat.”

  I frowned. “What’re you talking about?”

  “From the street to the murder scene is nothing but vehicle scent: styrene-butadiene tires and engine oil. Spots of diesel. Minute traces of saliva, urine, and scurf. A lot of loose hair. Most of it matches the files.”

  I knew the beagles kept detailed sniff-records of every cop and registered newshound. “Nothing else at all?” I asked. “No cats?”

  “Only the one that went into the water.”

  “What about other dogs?”

  “Fish packers, salty seadog scents—too many to count.”

  I tried to think it through. Did that mean that the murderer was a dog after all? One of the local workers maybe? His trace lost amid all the colliding stench? Or did it mean that the killer, cat or not, had escaped the scene by some other means?

  I looked up. Even now a thwucker was heading out of town. When they needed to get from Kathattan to their resorts down-state, the pussies usually took a thwucker, a light plane, the high-speed monorail, or a luxury yacht—anything to avoid having to put a paw in the Kennels. But could one of them really drop out of the sky, dice the ’weilers up, and then vanish back into the clouds?

  “Barnabus is getting old,” the beagles said to me, and I could feel them—all the wetnoses—begging me to cast a slur on the old basset.

  But I only growled. “All right, pack it up. I want a report on my desk by two. And speak to no one about this, that clear?”

  As they headed back to their dogcart I took another look around the wharf, remembering Flasha Lightning’s sweating tongue, his spluttering witness report. Clearly the whippet wasn’t telling us everything. Because he’d seen the killer? Because he’d seen a thwucker?

  When I reached the tooter the barkbox was hissing. I picked up the mike. “McNash.”

  A squeaky voice. “Detective? Forensic Pathology here. I was told to jangle you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The saliva samples on the dog carcasses show traces of FIV.”

  “FIV?”

  “Feline Immunodeficiency Virus.”

  “A cat disease?”

  “Uh-huh. Also evidence of endo-and ectoparasitical infections in the blood samples.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The subject had fleas, Detective.”

  “A lowlife?” Nothing from Kathattan had fleas.

  “Traces of flea medication are extremely minimal. I’d say very lowlife.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll check in later. Over and out.”

  A lowlife cat. I sat for a long time in the tooter, thinking about it. Could Barnabus really be wrong after all? Was it possible there was only one cat all along—the victim, the trash-munching alley cat already in the S and D rooms? That he’d sprayed some blood on his killers before getting drowned? And could it be, like I always said, that the ’weilers themselves had been ambushed by a dog? Or dogs?

  And could I still keep the case out of the paws of the FBI?

  I gobbled a blowfly that was buzzing near my snout. I got the motor growling. I backed up the tooter and headed for the road. I needed to track down Flasha Lightning. But first of all there was a bar I needed to visit.

  TOBY SHAW RAN a traditional Irish watering hole—Smell o’ the Bog—with peatwater on tap and plenty of mashed potato on the menu. The place always drew a rowdy crowd, especially on Friday nights, when there were hoop-jumping and banshee-howling contests. What Shaw didn’t
advertise, but what was an open secret anyway, was that hidden in the basement was an illegal betting saloon—a smoky, windowless room, thronged day and night with all sorts of mutts, working dogs mainly, waging small fortunes on the grey races. I knew it, the chief knew it, the whole force knew it, but nobody did a thing, because Shaw was a priceless informer.

  “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya.”

  “Still morning?”

  “Always morning to an Irish Terrier.”

  “And always dinnertime to a bullie. Spare a minute?”

  “To be sure, to be sure.”

  He was half Basenji, from which he got his smarts, and half Irish, from which he got his temperament. He played up the Irish half, though, kitting himself out in a waistcoat of green tartan and a shamrock-shaped tie, and smiling just about permanently with his eyes and snapper. He was as much a performer as Rin-Tin-Tin.

  “How might I be o’ help to you?”

  I did a quick scope around the bar, where a couple of regulars were eyeing us from the stools. “This ain’t for general exhibition.”

  Shaw grinned. “You’d be wanting to visit the leprechaun’s grotto?”

  “If that’s what you’re calling it now.”

  “To be sure, to be sure.”

  We shifted to the rear of the joint, where Shaw maintained a little cubbyhole filled with mounted rabbit heads and paw prints of world-famous sprinters. A fire was always crackling, even in summer. From downstairs, seeping through the soundproofing, came the din of the gambling den.

  “Mind if I smoke, laddie?” Sliding behind his desk, Shaw was already jamming a pipe with a blend of field clippings and cow dung.

  “Go ahead. I won’t be here long anyway. Just a few names I want to toss in the dish.”

  “Savage Brown and Lucifer Thorn?”

  I blinked. “That’s a good start.”

  Shaw released a cloud of smoke—it smelled like Sunday in the park. “I read the rags.”

  “The rags didn’t name names.”

  “And I smell things on the wind.”

  “Care to divulge your sources?”

  “Come now, laddie, you know the score.” Shaw’s network was more secretive than the CIA. “All I know is Savage and Lucifer met their Master last night in ways that might make an undertaker charge overtime rates.”

  “You don’t look diced up about it.”

  “Savage and Lucifer lost their currency when Cujo Potenza got whacked. They became ’weilers-for-rent. No one’ll miss ’em.”

  “Know who they were working for recently?”

  “Wish I could say so.”

  “A biscuit under the table loosen your memory?”

  “Come now, laddie”—Shaw actually looked offended—“I’m sellin’ you no froth. Truth be told, Savage and Lucifer played muscle dog here a couple of years ago. But I had to dispense with them. They were gettin’ a little snappy with the regulars.”

  “No good as bouncers?”

  “No good at anythin’, except whacking. If they made trophies for whacking”—he gestured to the sporting trophies—“their cabinets would be eternally full.”

  “So they wouldn’t be working for charity, these two?”

  “They’d be hired by someone who wanted to make sure the whacked stayed whacked, if you get my meaning. And had enough meat-tickets to pay for it.”

  I didn’t like the sound of it. “So the fact that these two hippos got whacked themselves…that’d have to make some ears prick up ’round here?”

  Shaw puffed out a cloud of smoke. “It’s got tongues wagging.”

  “Any idea of who might be behind it?”

  “Not the way it was done.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Casserole work’s not the way of professionals. A professional puts a slug in the back of someone’s bobble then bins the evidence. If he’s desperate maybe he puts the body through a grinder. But to make a meat stew out of two victims and leave the mess steaming on the pier…” Shaw let the image hang in the air like his pipe smoke.

  “What about Flasha Lightning—name meaning anything to you?”

  “Sounds like a bunny chaser.”

  “A whippet. A fish packer. Sure you never heard of him?”

  Shaw shook his head. “I can float his tag on the breeze, if you’ve got a minute.”

  “I’d be grateful.”

  Shaw left by the back staircase—a cloud of smokestick fumes blew in through the door—and I sat watching the little buzzscreen in the corner that was tuned permanently to the Reynard Sports Channel. They were doing a throat-lumping story on Rocky Cerberus in the lead-up to Friday’s prizefight: Rocky frolicking with his pups; Rocky sparring with his four twin brothers; Rocky belting into a side of beef at the Chump’s factory. “I kinda feel like I’m fighting for the whole of dogdom,” he said. They were actually playing howl music under his words.

  Then there was a news flash: the Persians had launched a massive terrorist attack on the Afghans, threatening global oil production. President Goodboy had issued an immediate condemnation of the attack and called for an emergency meeting of the United Breeds. When he spoke of world threats the prez seemed to grow a few inches, like he actually knew what he was talking about.

  “Voting for Goodboy, are you?” It was Shaw, returning from downstairs trailing a shroud of smoke.

  “Nothing’ll change if I do or don’t. I’m more interested in Flasha Lightning.”

  “A real buttrag, they tell me. Changes his tag with his lodgings. Called himself Jaws McGraw last year. But there’s more bite in his name than his snapper.”

  “I can vouch for that. Any idea where he’s flopping now?”

  “Try the junkyard in Mongrolia. They say he snoozes there.”

  “Trash always returns to trash.”

  “Sounds like Scripture, laddie. Anything else I can do for you, ’fore you go?”

  But I was already rising. “If I’m gonna make it to Mongrolia I’ll need to get out of the starting box right away. But thanks for the meat. If there’s anything I can overlook, just lemme know.”

  “I scratch your ruff, you scratch mine?”

  I spared enough time to return his spud-licking grin. “To be sure, Toby Shaw.”

  WHEN I GOT back to the tooter I found the barkbox squawking again, but I dialed down the volume and took off at once. Mongrolia was at the rump end of town. I didn’t have time for jawback.

  It was afternoon already and a skywriter was puffing a familiar message in the blue: Canem te esse memento. Nobody in the Kennels was sure what it meant. Some said it was an ad for a new worm treatment. Others said it was a word puzzle with a million-biscuit reward. Still others insisted it was Latin for “Remember thou art only a dog.” Whatever it meant, it didn’t make us feel good.

  The traffic in Pugkeepsie was nose-to-tail and moving about as fast as a garden slug. I swung into some twisty side streets (they said the cat planners of San Bernardo had created a maze of dead ends, loops, chicanes, and crescents just to keep us mutts occupied) but it only got worse. Approaching the Avenue of Freedom I got so hemmed in I couldn’t even crank up the howler to clear a path. Ahead, a grizzly old collie was standing outside his tooter, chewing on a beefstrip.

  I stuck my bobble out the window. “What’s happening, pal?”

  The collie shrugged. “Some sort of parade.”

  “Antiwar?”

  “Antieverything. The Party of the Perpetual Underdog.”

  I gave a low snarl. The PPU was a ragbag collection of disobedients who didn’t want to answer to anyone and questioned the whole “pack mentality.” I got infected with their ideas myself in that murky age between pup and dog. But I came to my senses eventually. More recently, the Reynard Media had done a good job of exposing them for what they were—mangy, ungroomed, distempered…bad dogs.

  There was a Stinky Tex’s Chicken Ranch by the side of the road and it was pumping out so many spicy aromas that I started drooling over the steering w
heel. I hocked the tooter into park—no one was shifting an inch—and mushed inside to order a Crispy Skin Special.

  “Any peppers with that, pardner?” The counter-jockey was wearing chaps and a cattle dog’s hat.

  “Skip the peppers, but I’ll have a half-gallon of tank water.”

  Back in the tooter I wolfed down the lot, bones and all, in half a minute. I had a feeling I’d regret it—that wishbone was still refusing to make way—but as my pappy used to say, “If Our Master had meant us to eat mince, he wouldn’t have given us choppers.”

  I hit Mongrolia at four p.m. It was a down-at-heel district, the inland counterweight to Fly’s Picnic, full of bone-boiling works, rubber-toy factories, and sniffrag storehouses. Beyond was nothing but sooty trees and industrial waste all the way to Flickertail. I parked in the lot of the Mongrolia Municipal Waste Management and Recycling Lot—in the old days we called them junkyards—and sprayed some extra flea powder down my shirt.

  The racket inside was like a war of harmonicas. Huge steam engines with pitbull jaws were munching into old tooters and dropping them into metal contractors. The shrieks weren’t all of steel either—sometimes an old stray would get thrown in with the wash and no one cared to punch the Off button.

  I fronted up to the site manager’s shack and flashed my tags.

  “Flasha Lightning—name mean anything to you?”

  “Sounds like a hump-and-grind star.” The manager looked half pug, with a pug’s surliness.

  “Might be traveling under the name Jaws McGraw.”

  “This ain’t a hotel, you know. I don’t keep no register.”

  “Good thing for you, stumpy. An unlicensed flopjoint could get you tossed in the cage quick-smart.” I hooked a nail under his collar. “Come with me.”

  “I can’t leave the—”

  “I said come with me!” I wasn’t fielding any lip from no yellow-toothed pug. “You’re taking me on a little tour, gorgeous. And we’ll start with the perimeter.” I rammed him through the swinger.

  “Whaddaya need me for?”

  “Exit holes…tunnels…fence breaks…don’t tell me you don’t know where they are.”

  We headed for a huge mountain range of tooter wrecks. Puddles of rusty water were swimming with larvae. The rats were the size of raccoons. At the back of the mountain the pug found a hole in the chain-link fence you could’ve driven a dairy cow through.