Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay by Gordon Carroll (good books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

nearly as rundown as Pimple’s place out in Aurora, but at least the front door didn’t have a hole punched in it. I parked a block down, facing them. Nothing moved anywhere.

It was almost one and the sun was bright and high in the sky. The wind blew out of the west and held just enough coolness to keep the car from being stifling once all the windows were down. I unwrapped two sandwiches, PB and Js, offered one to Max, which he refused to even look at, and ate them both, slugging down a soda with them. I listened to some radio while I sipped water and watched the house. It was one-twenty. Time flies.

Traffic picked up in the neighborhood around three o’clock, kid traffic that is, and then again around five, this time real traffic. But nothing moved at the house. Tom and Amber might be inside. The smart move would be to wait until night.

I waited.

At seven-thirty I felt it was dark enough and I got out of my car. I’d been sitting there for over seven hours. A stranger — alone in a car. I watched children playing in their yards, people walking their dogs, joggers, teenagers, old people, and no one called the cops to even have me checked out. So much for Neighborhood Watch.

I dropped the leather key-holder I keep on my belt, in front of the passenger’s side rear tire, then strolled up the block. There were lights on inside the single story house, but all the curtains were pulled closed. No carport, just a driveway with Baldy’s car resting on it. I noticed the windows were rolled up now and the doors were locked. Hmm. A change of behavior from earlier at the Ice Rink? Perhaps something inside of value? I figured they’d hooked up with Gauges and Short-Shorts to do some drugs, but maybe they didn’t want to share all their drugs with them. In which case the only place to hide the rest would be in the car.

The house faced west. I slipped to the north side and found a five-foot tall, rickety wooden fence with a gate. The bottom hinge was broken, but by pulling up on it I was able to get it open with no noise. I checked for window wells. There were none. That meant no basement. The back yard was in need of a mowing but otherwise fairly nice. There was an ancient cement incinerator at the end of a short sidewalk that started at the back porch. Two clothesline poles, bereft of clotheslines, stood opposite each other like old west gunfighters ready for a quick draw. A rusted sheet metal shed slumped in the far corner of the yard with a lawn mower parked inside, its handle sticking out past the open doors.

At the back door of the house I looked through the window and saw four people sitting in the kitchen just to the right. It was Baldy, Pimples, Gauges and some fat guy I hadn’t seen before. Short-Shorts wasn’t visible. They were sitting around a table drinking whisky and rolling dice. Heavy ribbons of blue smoke hung in the air of the kitchen like building storm clouds. Pimples sucked a long drag from a clear glass crack pipe, held it in, his eyes moving back and forth under his lids, before letting the smoke dribble slowly out his nostrils. He grinned and it reminded me of Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker.

Gauges rolled the dice and laughed. Baldy and Fat Guy didn’t laugh with him.

“Yeah! That’s what I’m saying. Pay up,” said Gauges, still laughing as he said it and motioning for Pimples to pass him the pipe. Pimples did and Gauges flicked his Bic under the bowl, its long flame licking the burnt glass and melting the small rocks of crack cocaine inside. Now there were two Jokers.

Pimples stood up. “That’s enough for me. Where’s Trish?”

Fat Guy snorted, it was high pitched and whiny. “She’s toast.”

Pimples was still smiling. “I like toast.”

“Come on, man, she’s totally out cold,” said Fat Guy.

“What’s it to you?” Pimples was still smiling but there was a nasty edge to his voice.

Fat Guy must have heard it too because he quickly looked down and shook his head. “Nothin’ — it’s nothing,” he said.

“That’s what I thought,” said Pimples. “I like em when they’re out.” He grinned real big. “Less fighting that way.” He laughed hard and walked out of the room.

The house was small: one bedroom, a kitchen, one bath and a small living room. No dining room. I moved over to the bedroom. There was no curtain but a yellowed shade covered the window. I could see just a little around the edge of the shade. I saw part of a thigh and the rounded cheek of a bare buttock. Apparently Short-Shorts wasn’t wearing her short-shorts anymore. Pimples came into the room.

I went back to my car. Unless Tom and Amber were stashed in the bathroom they weren’t in the house. I picked up my leather key-holder and put it back on my belt. I opened the back door and let Max out. He’d been cooped up a long time. He hopped down, went to the car in front of mine and lifted his leg, urinating on the back fender.

What a clown. I shook my head.

When he was done I gave him the fooss command and he fell in step. We went back to Baldy’s car. I put Max in a sit and walked to the back bumper. I pointed to the car and said kilo. It isn’t a German command or even Dutch, but I use it for narcotics searches because that’s what I hope to find, a kilo of drugs. Max went up to the car and began sniffing, starting at the rear license plate and working around the passenger’s side toward the front. He passed the passenger’s front door — made it to the tire — did a head check back toward the