Frank retreated to shade of the fire truck. Behind him, the shooting gradually tapered off. Girdler and Asshole #1 ran out across Sutter Street, firing at the rest of the monkeys that had scattered down the alley, but the heat of the day made them walk back to the park, gasping and sweating. The rest of the men kicked through the monkey carcasses, arguing over who shot which monkey.
* * * * *
The low, purring sound of a luxury car rose slowly above bickering. Frank bolted upright, convinced, for just a second, that the quiet gentlemen in one of their long black cars had finally found him.
But the Mercedes that rolled up Main Street was pale blue, not black. It turned left on Third Street and parked next to the tables. The man that got out wasn’t as short as Sturm, but was quite small nevertheless. He wore a white linen suit with a matching white hat and some kind of red ascot and carried a tiny dog close to his chest, like a fragile egg. The dog had huge, bulging eyes and some kind of fluffed mane, like some hair stylist’s idea of a toy lion.
“I em lookeeng fah Meestah Hoooreece Stahmmmmm.” It sounded like the stranger’s voice was coming out of his nose, and every syllable ran together, as if enunciating the crisp notes of each word was simply too much trouble. He tilted his head so far back Frank was surprised that white hat didn’t toppled backwards into the street. It was an odd accent; definitely French, but he wasn’t from France. Maybe Quebec.
Sturm ambled up to the man, not quite eye-to-eye, more like eye-to-nostrils. Sturm now wore his new pistols strapped into a glittering silver-studded gunbelt and holsters. “That’s me. What can I do for you, Mr….?”
“Meester No-hweee.”
“No-weee?”
“Meester No-hweee, yes.”
Frank already hated the guy. Only an asshole would wear a fucking ascot in this heat. The little dog yipped and struggled within Noe’s arms. Frank couldn’t even call it a bark. He thought back to the little dogs he’d treated as a vet student and none of them were any damn good.
“Hush, Maxeemus, hush.”
“Well, Mr. Noe. What exactly can I do for you?”
Mr. Noe smiled. “I am here to hunt, yes?” he said simply, looking at the dead monkeys strewn across the brown grass.
* * * * *
Something cold nuzzled Franks’ palm. He looked down and found it was Petunia’s nose. She stared up at him, her thick stump of a tail wriggling frantically. “Well, I’ll be damned. How are you, you big girl you.” He crouched down and let Petunia lick his face, scratching her haunches, her chest, her ears with both hands in long, slow strokes. “What are you doing here, huh?”
“She missed you.” Annie smiled down at him, all aglow in a scandalously short baby-doll dress and cowboy boots. She’d come up behind Frank while he was watching Mr. Noe and his little rat, Maximus. “She thought she should come visit.”
“Did you now,” Frank said, massaging the loose folds of skin around Petunia’s neck. The dried blood on his head and neck itched.
Annie sat down next to him on the fire tuck’s running board, and he could smell something sweet, not perfume exactly, more like she’d washed her hair in honeysuckle. Her tan skin glowed in the shade. She patted his thigh and he was glad they were out of sight from the hunters.
Frank was trying to think of something clever to say, something maybe even downright romantic, when Mr. Noe’s dog, all four pounds of pop eyes and bristling fury, came around the corner, strutting through the dead grass with his sharp nose and sharper teeth, and caught sight of Petunia.
But instead of flinching and barking, as Frank expected, he pranced right on over, and now Frank could see quite clearly that Maximus was indeed quite male, as his penis suddenly erupted like an embarrassingly red and swollen cocktail straw.
Before Petunia even knew Maximus was there, the little dog was on her. Frank didn’t even have a chance to stop scratching her ears. Maximus rose up and launched his pelvis at the base of Petunia’s wriggling stump of a tail. Petunia jerked sideways at first contact, somehow swiveling with her front shoulders, kicking her hindquarters into space; she brought her sledgehammer head around faster than Frank’s eyes could follow, and crushed Maximus’s skull in one chomp. It sounded like hitting a shotgun shell full of #9 shot, when you’ve got it in a wood vice and you’re bashing away at the primer with a ball peen hammer, all dry and crackling.
Petunia wouldn’t let go. If anything, she sunk her teeth even deeper, locking those jaws into place. She shook the tiny dog’s body viciously, like she was trying to water the lawn with his blood.
“I guess Petunia wasn’t in the mood,” Annie said.
“Was she in heat?” Frank asked. For some reason, this seemed important, as if it might be some kind of shelter in the face of the inevitable storm.
Petunia tossed the little sack of bones and skin into the air, then pounced as soon as it hit the grass. She shook it again, just for the hell of it, and proudly brought it over to Frank and Annie, dropping it at their feet. She sat back and panted at them, mouth open in a toothy grin, bloody tongue lolling wildly.
“Oh, oh, you’re fucked.” Theo peered around the back end of the fire truck. “You are fucked but good. Dad! DAD! That Glouck dog just killed Doctor No’s dog!”
* * * * *
“Maxeeemussss!” Mr. Noe shrieked and wobbled in front of his dead dog. But he couldn’t bring himself to touch the corpse. Petunia rolled her eyes towards him, decided he was harmless and had no food, and turned her attention back to Frank and Annie, that stump of a tail just a blur. Mr. Noe’s horrified stare went from his dog to Petunia and back to what was left of his dog. He rose and slipped backwards through the knot of hunters crowding around the two dogs.
“For a dead dog, he sure is excited,” Girdler said, nodding at Maximus’s erection.
Sturm’s icy gaze slid over Frank and Annie, noticing everything. “Just what in the hell happened here, Frank?”
Frank shrugged. “I guess Petunia was in heat…and the little dog here thought he’d help himself…and well, Petunia wasn’t…ready.”
Sturm stared at Annie. “What’s that dog doing here?”
“She’s with me,” Annie said, voice sharp and definite.
“Well,” Sturm said, “this is one major fuckup, that’s for goddamn sure. I’m gonna have to give Mr. Noe some kind of a discount…where is he?”
“Here he comes,” Asshole #3 said. “Looks upset. Where’d he get that rifle?”
Mr. Noe shouldered his way through the cluster of hunters, brandishing some kind of stocky European rifle with a banana clip. He jerked the bolt back and let it slam home. Everybody suddenly gave him some room to move; it was like Mr. Noe exhaled, and his breath blew everyone back five feet.
“Now just hang on here now—“ Sturm began.
Mr. Noe pulled the rifle to his shoulder and the barrel found Petunia.
Frank was on his feet, fist around an unopened can of Milwaukee’s Best Ice, and as Mr. Noe’s finger settled over the trigger, Frank flung the can at Mr. Noe’s head. Twelve full ounces of cold beer encased in whisper-thin aluminum cracked into Mr. Noe’s forehead and his rifle spit out a bullet that took out the side mirror of the fire truck instead of Petunia. Mr. Noe’s head snapped back and this time, his hat did fly off.
Annie smacked her open palm across Petunia’s hind end and hissed, “Home! Now!” Petunia was disappointed, but she waddled away.