Dog In the City

If we can get the bugs out, this kind of dog will be a huge help for handicapped people."

I looked up quickly at this, expecting to see a corporate stiff handing me the company line, but was stopped short. You could tell by his face that he really meant it. I was starting to like this guy.

"Sheba, right? Mr. Wilkins..."

"Tony."

"Okay, Tony, can you stay by a radio in case I need you?"

He nodded quietly and stole a glance at Pacheco, who watched the whole thing with an air of bored annoyance. I snatched the folded floor plan I saw on the hood of a squad car and walked toward the gate.

I spent some time just walking around, getting familiar with the layout of the place while I waited for updates on the radio. The dog had been seen about twenty minutes ago on the first floor, southeast corner. People had obviously just been scared, because until Tony told me about Sheba everybody else had thought it was a male.

I finally got into the big station building after waiting for the rookie at the door to call for permission. As soon as I got inside with the door closed, the mood changed. For one thing, I was sure this was the cleanest place in the whole neighborhood. The entry hall was quiet enough, but the huge machinery could still be felt through the soles of my cheap boots. This was no substation, but the main generation plant for most of the county. If the dog gets into the machine rooms, I thought, it's going to be terrified just from the noise.

As I usually do when I'm working a scene like this, I had my doubts. Since I wasn't a real cop anymore, I was armed only with a radio and a sticky-gun -- the same kind that I'd gotten fired for two years back.

It was after the riot. I'd been wearing my dress blues at a party thrown by the mayor to show us off to the press while he took credit for his boys and girls stopping the riot. Besides the other cops, I didn't know anybody there. The mayor's wife, a shrew and a lush, tried to order me to get her another drink. When the bartender assignment didn't take, she went off her trolley and come after my face with her long lacquered nails.

Everybody within view thought it the funniest thing, me covering my face and her ladyship casting dignity to the wind with an all-out assault in an evening gown. After I saw that nobody was going to do anything, I restrained my impulse to punch her, pulled the sticky-gun and shot downward. The thick blob of harmless adhesive putty anchored her foot to the floor long enough for me to get out of range of those nails, while the laughter just got louder and more raucous. She stopped using words at that point and just screeched, spinning back and forth in a small circle trying to yank her foot loose. She'd been publicly humiliated, her hen-pecked husband had been publicly embarrassed, and I'd been publicly blamed and fired.

I'd heard months later that he'd gotten a divorce. I'm sure he was much happier, but it didn't help me at all.

My thoughts were drawn back to the present as I felt something weird in my head. Like the feeling you get sometimes when somebody behind you is waving to get your attention. I turned, but was still alone in the hall. I walked the rest of the way and opened a heavy inner door.

The noise almost smothered me.