Working Stiff

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Dr. Moreau’s Veterinary Clinic (Sterilization Specialists) advertised “We serve all species, breeds, and dimensional aspects. Heightened security available upon request.” As I approached the entrance, I encountered a small protest—actually it was a regular protest, but with small participants. A group of angry gremlin demonstrators, obviously members of GETA, marched up in front of the clinic. The gremlins looked determined, though with their diminutive size, not very intimidating. They carried signs, waving them in the air so that they came up to my waist, “Neutering is Nuts!” or “Protect Procreation!” or “Stop Spaying!” The gremlin at the end of the parade line carried a sign that said “Allow Alliteration!”

  I dodged past them, careful not to trip on the socially-aware gremlins. When they yelled at me for crossing the picket line, I brushed them off. “I don’t even own a pet.”

  “Want a puppy?” asked the gremlin carrying the “Allow Alliteration!” sign.

  I wondered if some of the strays unleashed from the animal shelter had followed them back to their secret GETA headquarters. “Not at the moment,” I said. “Maybe for the holidays.”

  I pushed through the door into Dr. Moreau’s clinic, a place of stainless steel, reinforced windows, and surgical theaters. As I stepped up to the front desk, the nearest operating theater door swung open and a burly man in a surgical gown and mask strode out. He had rubber gloves covered with green blood. He wore large aviator mirror-shades.

  “Mark down another success, Maria,” he said. “You can tell Mrs. Johnson that her basilisk is spayed.” He lifted his sunglasses. “And yes, these reflective shades work just fine. Good to know.”

  A surgical assistant in scrubs, with her hair tucked in a surgical cap, opened medicine cabinets and took out vials of antibiotics and de-wormers.

  The receptionist marked down the successful surgery before looking up at me. “How may I help you?”

  “Zombie PI. I’m here to speak with Dr. Moreau.” I flashed my private inspector’s badge and glanced at the veterinarian.

  “Sure, what do you need?” said the big man. “Are those protesters still cluttering the front door? GETA is a PITA—Pain In The Ass! They don’t understand the good work I do here. They want to protect the masculinity and femininity of unnatural animals, but who wants packs running loose? Have you ever seen a demon cat spraying to mark his territory? Or a hellhound in heat?”

  I seized my chance. “A hellhound is what I’m here about, Dr. Moreau. Hairy Harry has lost his pet, Lucky, and I’m trying to track down all leads. I understand he had an appointment for some minor surgery here?”

  “Oh, that one—I remember!” Moreau scratched his surgical cap. “We had already arranged security for the hellhound.”

  The surgical assistant finished arranging the bottles of medicine, took a vial of antibiotics, and headed for the operating room door. “I’ll go check on the patient, Doctor.”

  He nodded absently, but just as she swung open the door, he extended his mirrored sunglasses. “Wait—”

  But she didn’t hear him in time. She walked into the operating theater where the freshly spayed basilisk was recovering. We heard a loud, terrified cry that turned into a bloodcurdling scream, then silence.

  Moreau hung his head. “I lose more assistants that way. When dealing with unnatural animals, you have to take precautions.”

  I was worried. “Should we go investigate?”

  “No, she’s already turned to stone. Sometimes they get better, sometimes not. Nothing we can do.” He turned to the receptionist. “Can we install more mirrors in the operating theater as a security precaution?” Then he glanced back at me. “Now where was I?”

  “The hellhound, Lucky?”

  “Yes, we were all ready, but Hairy Harry never showed up, so I canceled the appointment. We have a surcharge for that.” He adjusted his surgical mask again. “I wish I could help you, Mr. Chambeaux. What’s my next appointment, Marie?”

  “A nightmare stallion in operating theater two, Doctor,” she said. “To be neutered.”

  “One nightmare gelding coming up.” Dr. Moreau took a large pair of bolt cutters hanging on the wall. “If I think of anything, Mr. Chambeaux, I’ll call your office.” Swinging the heavy tool, he went into the second operating theater.

  7

  The raging furry terror struck again that night, but instead of attacking a popular drinking establishment, the creature chose an odd target: an abandoned warehouse that had once been a laser-tag arena, “now featuring REAL DEATH RAYS!” The death-ray/laser-tag business had gone belly up though, probably because their clientele perished after only a few visits.

  I met McGoo at the scene of the carnage. Claws and teeth had torn open the corrugated metal walls, peeling them aside like an orange. The windows had been shattered. Long silver claw marks looked like extended lightning bolts across the metal walls.

  “Must have been the same thing that struck the New Deadwood Saloon,” I said.

  McGoo nodded. “You sure it’s Hairy Harry’s hellhound?”

  “I can do the math, even though math was never my favorite subject. Any security cameras here?”

  He frowned at me. “Who would be watching this place, Shamble? The squatters tore out the cams and sold them for parts a long time ago.”

  “Squatters? Does that mean there were witnesses?”

  “No. They only sleep here during the daytime—a couple of trolls and a werewolf girl with a bad case of the mange. They were out panhandling when it happened.”

  “How does a wild hellhound just disappear, McGoo? Hairy Harry thinks Lucky was dognapped—but if that’s the case, why would it go on random rampages?”

  McGoo and I walked around the crime scene. “I put out an APB for a violent furry beast that’s prone to ferocious destruction, and our tip line has been flooded. Apparently that’s not a specific enough description in the Unnatural Quarter.”

  I looked up at the dilapidated death-ray sign, tipping my fedora back so I could see better. “An abandoned warehouse? An unlikely target. Why would a hellhound attack here?”

  McGoo grinned. “I know something you don’t know, Shamble—and if the monster really is Hairy Harry’s hellhound, maybe …”

  “What?”

  “Before this place was a death-ray/laser-tag arena, it used to be a warehouse—a criminal warehouse, owned by a mummy black marketeer. Lenny Linens.” He grinned, and I caught on.

  “This is the warehouse where Hairy Harry had his shootout? Where Officer Littlemiss was killed?”

  “Win a prize every time, Shamble. Now that’s a connection you can work with.”

  8

  I felt guilty about laughing over someone else’s misfortune, but it really was funny. Besides, Coupe De Ville had done very little to endear herself to the general public.

  Walking on legs that were as thin and brittle as mummified sticks and adorned with sagging fishnet stockings, she emerged from a fancy boutique on Hyde Avenue. That’s not an area I normally frequent, since uptown is too highbrow for me and most of my clients, but Hairy Harry and I were walking down the street when it happened.

  The socialite lich wore an overabundance of unnatural bling: gaudy amulets, and necklaces of heavy moonstones that looked like eyeballs. She was haughty in her patchwork white coat made of lab rat fur, surrounded by a miasmic cloud of perfume from sampling every possible aroma in the boutique.

  Coupe De Ville lifted her sharp chin as if she meant to cut the air and yelled for a taxi. Her severe face turned into a rictus of disappointment when a cab did not instantly appear.

  That was when the rambunctious and militant GETA gremlins rushed out of an alley, yelling, “Puppy parasite!” and “Pet predator!” They carried plastic Solo cups full of scarlet paint, which they hurled at her. Several gouts only reached the lich’s knobby knees, but one gremlin was exuberant enough to splash paint all over her rat fur coat. Then the gremlins dropped their empty plastic cups and raced away, laughing and cackli
ng.

  Under the best of circumstances, Coupe De Ville’s voice was enough to make my skin crawl, and now her scream was enough to shatter glass. Fortunately, the jewelry stores and high-end perfume shops on Hyde Street all had reinforced windows to protect against burglars and, as it turned out, shrieking liches.

  As she stood horrified at the red paint splattered over her, it really wasn’t terribly funny—I know that. But Hairy Harry started chuffing first, and I couldn’t help myself. It was good to hear the rogue werewolf cop laugh for a change.

  He had been so forlorn and distraught ever since he came into our offices in search of Lucky. Sick of waiting around for news, he had begged to accompany me this morning as I walked the streets in search of clues. As a police detective himself back in the day, Hairy Harry knew the technique of “investigation by wandering around.”

  After last night’s attack on the former black market Hummel warehouse, a place that had so many dark memories for him, Hairy Harry was in even worse shape. His lupine eyes were bloodshot, as if he’d been crying through the night as well as howling at the moon. He shook his shaggy head. “It’s more important than ever that we find Lucky—before someone gets hurt.” He suggested we go uptown. “Some rich types might want a purebred hellhound. You never know.” I think he just wanted company.

  Hairy was a rumpled, no-nonsense sort of werewolf, who, in his years of being a tough cop, had seen it all, then gone back for a second look.

  He wasn’t much for conversation, though. We had been walking along in companionable guy silence, not bothering to look in the store windows. I would have enjoyed the stroll more if Sheyenne were with me, even though we couldn’t afford most of the things in stores like these. I couldn’t pronounce most of the brand names, much less identify the type of merchandise they specialized in. I admit it, I’m not entirely sure I even know the definition of “couture.”

  Laughing at Coupe De Ville’s misfortune didn’t prevent Hairy Harry’s cop instincts from kicking in. A werewolf cop can retire but he’ll always be a werewolf cop. I controlled my laughter, too, as my detective instincts kicked in as well. “I want to talk to those gremlins. I keep bumping into GETA at every step in my investigation. They may be involved in the disappearance of your hellhound.”

  Hairy Harry’s hackles rose. “Let’s go.”

  Coupe De Ville was still waving her clawed hands in the air, looking in revulsion at the red paint that splattered her rat fur coat. She was in such a horrifying state that even well-meaning people didn’t dare go closer.

  I called out as Hairy Harry and I dashed past her after the gremlins. “We’ll try to catch them, ma’am.”

  “But who’s going to help me?” she wailed.

  I gestured toward the curious onlookers. “They will.” The crowd bolted as soon as I made my suggestion.

  The werewolf cop put his nose to the ground, sniffed the discarded plastic cups, then loped off. “I’m on the scent.”

  I did my best to keep up with him. Fortunately, I stay in good shape, regularly working out at the All-Day/All-Nite Fitness Center, shambling along on their treadmills.

  The paint-hurling gremlins were small but they could run fast on their little legs. Gremlins like to throw a wrench in the works, then dash away before they get caught—but they weren’t used to being tracked by a werewolf cop and a relentless zombie detective (although my contribution to the pursuit was definitely secondary).

  We never caught sight of the fleeing gremlins as they dodged from street to street, but Hairy Harry kept after them. As he ran along bent over and nose to the ground, his jeans slid down, letting me glimpse too much of his big hairy butt crack—not something I wanted to see, but I’d seen many horrific things before.

  The werewolf cop slowed, sniffing harder. “We’re close.” He turned down a narrow side street, passed several unmarked tenement doors, then stopped at a low delivery door with a side mailbox labeled “GETA Secret Headquarters.”

  “This is the place,” I said.

  Hairy Harry snarled sarcastically. “You really are a detective.”

  As we approached, I drew my .38 just in case there was trouble. The werewolf gave my weapon a scornful glance, then withdrew his much more impressive .44 Magnum. Hairy Harry smashed the door with a clawed hand, then charged in. “Got you, little bastards!”

  Inside GETA headquarters, the gremlins scrambled about in a panic. Several were washing up, changing clothes. They recoiled in alarm as we burst in, and several raised their hands in surrender upon seeing Hairy Harry’s gun, which was about the size of their smallest member. One gremlin raised Neutering is Nuts! picket sign defensively, though a .44 Magnum blast would cut right through it as easily as it cut through a wall of monster figurines and one rookie cop.

  I pointed my much-less-impressive pistol at them. “Caught you red-handed.” Two of the quivering gremlins did indeed have red hands from spilled paint. “We saw you dump that on Coupe De Ville.”

  “She’s an evil lich,” said one of the gremlins.

  “She wears fur coats. Think of all those poor lab rats,” another gremlin said. “And she keeps adopting puppies. I think she eats them. They’re never seen again.”

  The gremlin peeked out from behind her Neutering is Nuts! sign. “And she’s not a nice person at all.”

  “GETA defends animals of all kinds, even the nasty ones,” said the leader of the group. “We’re here to stop the torture and the experimentation.”

  Another gremlin said, “And the neutering.” His voice cracked in a high falsetto.

  From behind a door in the back of the GETA secret headquarters, we heard a scuffle, a yipping sound, then muffled shouts.

  Hairy Harry perked up his tufted ears. “That sounds like Lucky!” There was no stopping him as he boiled forward. Snarling, he swung his Magnum and blasted open the door to the back room. He didn’t even bother to try the knob. The 44-caliber bullet blew the knob, the hasp, and half the door into shrapnel, then Harry smashed it inward.

  Wooden steps led down to a basement, from which we heard excited barking and yipping.

  I swung my .38 at the embarrassed and frightened GETA members in the main room, then I followed Harry down into the cellar of the secret headquarters. The basement was a wreck—not a chamber of horrors, but cluttered and ransacked … as if it had been torn apart.

  Hairy Harry immediately spotted the dog. “Lucky!”

  Lucky really was just a puppy, about the size of a young German Shepherd. The small hellhound bounded forward, delighted to see his master. In his jaws, the puppy held a terrified and squirming gremlin by the scruff of the neck. The captured gremlin screamed for mercy, and Lucky dropped him on the cement floor, then bounded forward into Hairy Harry’s well-muscled arms.

  “I expected him to be a little bigger than that,” I said.

  “He’ll get there,” the werewolf growled. “Right now he’s just a puppy with plenty of puppy energy.” Harry tugged the ears and shook the dog’s head back and forth as he cooed in a baby voice, “Isn’t that right? Isn’t that right?”

  Lucky’s tail wagged furiously, thumping against the open-frame cellar wall. Bored and rambunctious, the puppy had already ripped out the wadded insulation from the walls, knocked over boxes, spilled debris and laundry. I saw two other gremlins cowering in the corner, as if afraid the hellhound might want to play with them as well.

  Lucky licked Hairy Harry’s face, and the werewolf started licking him back. I grabbed the shaken gremlin that had been dropped from the puppy’s jaws. “Why did you kidnap this dog? What did you mean to do with him?”

  “We were saving him!” the gremlin cried.

  The other cowering creatures came forward, struggling to find their defiance. “We knew about his appointment at Dr. Moreau’s clinic.”

  “His master was going to have him neutered. That’s a majestic hellhound. You can’t emasculate a hellhound!”

  The puppy barked and bounded toward the cornered creatures
as they ran screaming for cover.

  “He seems to be quite a handful,” I said.

  Hairy Harry glared at the gremlins. “And you want to handle a full-grown hellhound with too much testosterone? I suffer from the same problem. I love my puppy, and I’m not going to have him go through that.”

  “Save us,” cried the gremlins. “Take the dog!”

  Hairy Harry wrapped his big arms around the puppy and pulled him away from the terrified creatures. “Aww, he’s just playing. That’s what a puppy does. Maybe I should throw one of you across the room and say fetch.”

  The gremlins screamed and cowered.

  “We should take Lucky and go,” I said, trying to defuse the situation.

  Hairy Harry glared at all of them. “You don’t know how much damage you almost caused. Maybe you should try to understand the bond between a werewolf and his dog. I need my puppy.”

  Hairy Harry made sure his .44 Magnum was tucked in its holster, then he clapped his paws and made the dog follow him up the stairs. I swept my gaze across the cowering gremlins. Since Hairy was too distracted to remember it as he took his hellhound out into the streets, I said, “You just made my day.”

  9

  Later that week, Hairy Harry called me back to his house for a visit. His voice sounded much happier, and his grin showed sharp teeth as he let me inside. “Things are back to normal, Mr. Shamble. Thanks for your help.”

  “Glad to have another satisfied client,” I said. “So, Lucky was unharmed?”

  He led me through the house to the back porch. “Yes, though he doesn’t think so right now. I just brought him home from his appointment at Dr. Moreau’s.” He lowered his voice. “Snip, snip.”

  In the fenced-in yard, Lucky bounded around chasing leaves, although he was befuddled by the plastic cone around his head that prevented him from licking his new testicle stitches.

  I thought of the enormous spiked collar on the mantelpiece back inside the house. “I have to ask. That collar is enormous, but Lucky is just a normal sized puppy.”