Petectives: Under Fire

Chapter 3

     This was not a good situation. There was a tree behind Molasses and me but the dogs would be all over me before I could turn around and climb it. It looked like the best I could hope for was to hold off the dogs long enough for Molasses to escape.

     "What's going on here?" A low voice rumbled from behind the dogs.

     It was Rocky the Dog Patrol Pit Bull with whom I had just conferred. Either he had followed me without me noticing or he had just showed up at the right time. Either way he was the first and hopefully the last dog that I ever had the urge to kiss.

     "Who are you?" Nails barked.

     "My name's Rocco. I'm with the Dog Patrol. Who are you?"

     Nails responded with a word that I'd rather not repeat here. The dogs had stopped advancing on Molasses and me.

     Molasses whispered. "Let's go!"

     I nodded and she ran up the tree expecting me to follow. I stayed put. I wasn't about to take off and leave Rocky to deal with the three dogs by himself.

     The dogs ignored Molasses. Rocky had the full attention of Nails and her boys. "You're one of Duke's punks!" Nails snarled.

     Rocky had walked around the three dogs and took a position standing next to me. "I can see that you dogs don't have licenses, you don't belong in this neighborhood and it looked like you were threatening these cats."

     Fusco the Doberman growled, "What are you going to do about it?"

     Nails looked annoyed at her underling. "Shut up! I do the talking!"

     With Fusco properly put in his place, she turned back to Rocky. "Look, we're just visiting in this neighborhood. I saw Gatsby over here and I wanted to say 'Hi'."

     I have to admit that I was actually rendered speechless. Molasses had situated herself on a tree branch directly above us and I heard her snort in disgust.

     Rocky wasn't buying it. "Really? Well now that you've gotten reacquainted maybe you could answer a couple of questions for me."

     "Do you mean questions like, 'Who are you?', 'Where are you from?' and 'How long are you planning to be in my neighborhood?'"

     "Yeah." Rocky replied. He was staring a hole into Nails. The smile had left her face a while ago and she was returning the stare.

     If any humans were driving by at that moment we would have made a weird sight. Nails and Rocky were locked into an intense Pit Bull staring contest, neither of them showing any sign that they noticed the heat. In contrast Geech and Fusco were definitely feeling the heat. They were visibly uncomfortable with their panting the only noise that could be heard other than distant traffic. I was looking as cool as a cucumber sitting next to Rocky and Molasses was looking down on all of us from her perch in the tree. We probably made a lovely tableau for a summer morning.

     Nails broke the silence. "I don't have time to answer dumb questions. We're out."

     She turned and walked toward the sidewalk. Geech gave us a grunt and followed his boss. Fusco tried to snarl at us but his panting got in the way so he sort of gasped at us and then trotted after the other two. They took the sidewalk and headed north.

     Rocco didn't follow them. He just stood there glaring at them.

     After the dogs were out of sight Molasses jumped down from the tree. "Thank you! Thank you!" she gushed to Rocky, "I don't know what would've happened if you hadn't come along!"