by Nick Petrie
The Dog had wanted to bend her over the porch rail, right then and there. Throw up her robe and take her from behind in front of God and everyone. Not even tie her up. Sometimes that was part of the fun, just being spontaneous, following his urges. Although the Dog was trying to be more careful about that.
He sure as hell hadn’t stopped because of her idiot husband. The Dog had served with the man in the Army, had in fact saved the man’s ass on several occasions, but the husband never was much of a soldier, and wasn’t much of a man afterward, either, always chewing those pot cookies. Big Dog wouldn’t even let the man carry a loaded weapon. Although the Dog had more than one reason for that.
Anyway, this deal with the Colonel was work, not pleasure. The Dog couldn’t jump on Elle Hansen because she knew his real name, and she was connected to this whole thing, it was her damn company. Better to keep things clean.
When the police asked their questions, the Dog wanted the cops to think he was no different from the husband. Just another sad-sack Army vet missing and presumed dead. That was how it was supposed to look.
Maybe he’d circle back for Elle, when it was all over.
When Big Dog had taken himself out of the world for good.
He’d spent twenty years living under the harsh regimentation of the United States Army. Without the Army’s discipline, the Dog knew he’d have ended his days as a shiftless goat-humper living in some abandoned West Texas cabin, dead before his time. The Army had organized his shiftless young life in a productive manner, had given him rank and responsibility, had made him a man.
Most importantly, the Army had taught him the discipline necessary to be more than a hungry hound, chewing up every piece of tasty pussy he could find. He’d learned to focus, to control his appetites, to be the Big Dog.
He still woke up early for PT every day, his belly as taut as it was when he was twenty, his body harder and stronger and faster than the younger men he’d worked with.
The Dog hadn’t loved the Army or the war, but it had sure as shit showed him what he was capable of, and in that way he missed it. A certain kind of freedom.
It’s why Big Dog had jumped on board with the Colonel. The Colonel was a tight-ass, but he knew his business and the work was fun. There was money in the game, too, real money, and the Dog liked money. Money was freedom. Freedom to slip his leash.
He wasn’t going to work for the Colonel forever.
Until that time came, the Dog had work to do.
Like kill this here sonofabitch, who’d singlehandedly taken out Big Dog’s entire team, not to mention interfering with their second informal bonus.
The Colonel had said the guy was too tenacious to let live.
Big Dog was up for that. He wanted the money, sure.
But he would have done it anyway.
Dog’s gotta hunt, right?
—
The sonofabitch in question was running down East Forty-fifth like a goddamn jackrabbit in combat boots. No, not like a jackrabbit, thought Big Dog, because jackrabbits were sprinters. This guy ran like a goddamn coyote, smooth and easy and faster than he looked, like he meant to cover some ground.
He ran with his phone in one hand, checking it from time to time. Big Dog figured he was using it for wayfinding in the big city, but he didn’t otherwise appear to be packing any kind of heat.
The Dog was supposed to be dead and gone, so his Durango had vanished into a chop shop in Greeley. He had a backup vehicle registered under another name, an older but serviceable shit-brown Dodge that looked like any other workingman’s pickup, including an empty gun rack across the back window of the cab.
His ideal plan was to roll up alongside the guy and empty a magazine into him, make it look like a gang hit, but that was out of the question now. The guy had an unmarked law enforcement unit tailing him a block back, trying to be subtle and not doing a great job of it.
The Dog didn’t mind killing a cop if he had to, but knew it would bring down too much heat. The Colonel would shit a brick, and it was a bad play anyway with Big Dog’s team of pros gone to the happy hunting ground.
So the Dog idled along in the parking lane for a while, a half block behind the unmarked, waiting for an opportunity. He watched with grudging appreciation as the runner angled left through a parking lot, crossed the road to a self-storage outfit, then went up and over the chain link like it wasn’t even there, leaving the unmarked idling at the curb.
Big Dog passed the frustrated cop and turned right on Havana.
Even in his jacked-up Durango, the Dog knew he could never have followed the runner over the berms and through the plantings that divided each little section of that industrial-park maze of dead-end streets and parking lots. He’d spent three months driving all over town for Heavy Metal Protection, and taken the time to scout the bike paths that wove around that corner where Northeast turned to Northfield. There was a decent-sized grow operation tucked between the shipping companies and office buildings, and he’d once thought that a small off-road motorcycle would be a great way to hit it, because you could take the bike paths across the freeway in a couple of places, then disappear into the city. Although he’d never gotten around to cleaning out the grow, he figured the bike paths would be a good way for a man on foot to try to lose a tail.
Still in view of the cop, Big Dog took it easy up to Forty-seventh, swung left, then put the pedal down as Forty-seventh became Northfield, cutting around the maze, turning left again on Central Park Boulevard, which in this neighborhood was nothing like it sounded. He throttled back here, coasting along with the windows down in the still-cool morning, comfortably anonymous in the old brown truck, watching the parking lots to his left.
The runner popped out of the scrub ahead of him, veered left, and hit the bike trail that paralleled the road. Big Dog gunned the motor to catch up, but saw a problem.
The bike trail crossed the freeway on the same bridge as the cars, but the Dog would have to fire the machine pistol across two lanes of oncoming commuter traffic. Shooting from the driver’s seat, the MAC-10 wouldn’t be accurate past twenty feet, even without all the damn cars. It’d be like trying to hit the guy from the moon.
Big Dog thought he knew the route the guy was taking. So he goosed the truck along, weaving through traffic across the train tracks to Thirty-sixth, where he pulled a quick U-turn, grinning at the upright finger from a pissed-off lady in pearls, to come up toward the runner in the right lane, where he got ready to fire out the passenger window from ten feet away.
Then the guy dropped off the bike path down toward the river, where dirt paths wandered under the railroad bridges along the Sand Creek Greenway. There were no real roads down there, only footpaths, and the Dog didn’t know the territory. So he put his flashers on, grabbed the little laptop, and pulled up the sat map, trying to figure where this guy was going.
When he saw the chain of parks curling down the screen, he threw the truck into drive and pulled another U-turn and hauled ass down to Thirty-fifth, where he turned toward the greenway and stopped a half block short. He was in the middle of Stapleton, a new neighborhood on the site of the old Denver airport. Sidewalks, small landscaped lots with big fancy houses and townhomes, all surrounded by wild, prairie-looking parks. No place the Dog could ever live.
He pulled the little Nikon binoculars from the glove box and waited until he spotted the runner on the bike path.
Moving fast, the guy was harder to recognize now. He’d peeled his shirt off, carried it balled up in one hand and what looked like his phone still in the other. But the Dog would know that forward stance and that loose, easy stride even without the binoculars.
Then the runner turned his head to glance down Thirty-fifth, just for a moment, and Big Dog knew.
The runner wasn’t some scrawny little coyote.
He was a goddamn wolf.
And now the wolf was hunting the hunter.
Big Dog smiled right then, felt it all the way down to his happy place.
<
br /> He surely did enjoy a challenge.
—
Piloting the Dodge purely on instinct, he spotted the runner cutting through Central Park by the Pavilion, then flying across the oval at Twenty-ninth past that weird-ass sculpture, and twice more along the greenway headed west before diverting into what the sat map called Fred Thomas Park. Big Dog never caught the runner looking directly at him, and it wasn’t clear he’d been spotted each time.
But the Dog was sure the runner knew he was there.
The sonofabitch was up to something.
What the hell was it?
The Dog had his police scanner tucked between his legs, and hadn’t picked up any unusual chatter. He hadn’t seen any other cars paralleling him, either, so he wasn’t worried about the police. According to the cop quoted in the story in the Post that morning, the runner had just moved to Denver from Oregon and was brand new to Heavy Metal, so he probably didn’t have any buddies around for backup. The Dog was thinking the guy was trying to lead him somewhere, maybe back to where he was staying, maybe where he had a weapon stashed, which would be just fine.
Big Dog had never met this guy personally and didn’t know jack shit about him, but he was starting to get a feel. He was one of those sneaky fucks. But the Dog wasn’t about to back off. He was having too much fun to stop now.
West of Fred Thomas Park was an oddball grid of streets, mismatched older homes with alleys running between the lots, but the runner moved west in a relatively straight line, on East Twenty-sixth for a while, diverting north to Twenty-eighth for a few blocks, maybe to avoid the school, another sign that he knew the Dog was behind him. Then stepping back south a block for every few blocks west, ending up on Twenty-third and headed for the slot between the golf course and the Denver Zoo.
Big Dog had grown up hunting whitetail in West Texas with his no-account daddy, and as a grown man had learned to love tracking big predators in the rugged mountains of Idaho and Montana. He’d grown very good at hunting men with a squad of soldiers, and lately with his smaller team for the Colonel, but this single-o deal was different, something he could get a taste for.
Pick a man and kill him, a man who knew he was being hunted.
Sure made a body feel alive, didn’t it?
It’s true, the Dog already had a serious hobby, a special pleasure he’d been chasing for many years. That’s why he was getting off the radar, so he could take his hobby full-time.
But there wasn’t no law against having more than one hobby, was there?
The Dog was a block back as the runner crossed Colorado, sticking to the bike lane on the westbound side of Twenty-third, the golf course on his right, the ball fields’ parking lot and the zoo coming up on the left. Big Dog figured he’d catch up, put a few rounds into the man through the passenger window, then pull over, get out, and park a final round in back of the man’s skull. Do it right.
But the Dog got stuck behind a Prius at the light on Colorado, the runner getting smaller but still clearly visible on the roadside bike path. The wait gave Big Dog a minute to think.
Why was the guy still running along the road?
He’d always headed toward green space before, so why hadn’t he diverted to the shadier bike path along the baseball diamonds? Or a nicer trail through the golf course, or around the zoo or the lake?
Now the runner had slowed to a stop, half bent, hands on his knees, sideways on. Maybe looking back the way he’d come. Why would he stop here? The guy had run for an hour without slowing down at all.
Then Big Dog saw, across the road to his left, the black nose of an SUV poking out from behind a tree, ready to leave the parking lot by the baseball diamonds.
There was something wrong about it. The Dog scratched his chin.
What was wrong about it?
The light turned green. The Prius in front of him was slow to move out. Normally the Dog would have hit the horn, a special dislike for slowpokes in general and Prius drivers in particular, but now he watched the SUV.
No turn signal, although you couldn’t hold that against him. Big Dog didn’t use his own signal half the time. That wouldn’t have caught his hunter’s eye.
What stuck out was the fact that the driver was still there. He’d had a half dozen chances to pull out into traffic, but never did.
Maybe the driver was just on his phone, checking his email. People stopped to stare at their phones in all kinds of stupid places. Regardless, it put Big Dog on his guard.
The Prius finally got rolling and the Dog stepped on the gas. The runner still hadn’t moved. The SUV hadn’t moved, either, and when Big Dog finally came up even with it, he saw some damn jigaboo in a bright white shirt and sunglasses standing by the driver’s door, staring right at him. Even at speed, Big Dog could see the man’s balance, his readiness.
Then the jig raised some kind of long gun to his shoulder and dropped his eye to the sight in a single smooth motion. Without conscious thought, the Dog cranked the wheel hard to the right, across the verge and onto the golf course.
He heard the BOOM of a large-bore gun going off at the same moment as the sound of breaking glass behind him. BOOM again and the clanks of what must be shotgun pellets against the sheet metal of the Dodge. The Dog hoped like hell he didn’t lose a tire as he tried to manage the terrain and find the black SUV in the rearview at the same time.
He saw the runner sprinting toward the SUV. The MAC-10 lay on the floor out of reach. The Dog swore and stomped down on the gas, scattering an early-morning foursome like so many chickens before he was out of the line of sight and away into the scrub.
Man, that runner? And his pal with the shotgun?
Before this was over, the Dog was going to track them down and eat them for lunch.
22
By the time Peter had sprinted fifty yards to the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Lewis was back in the driver’s seat with his seat belt on and the windows down, hollering, “Can’t you run any faster?”
He wore a tilted grin and a starched white button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled back in two crisp turns, the fine cotton bright against his dark skin. His sunglasses had probably cost more than Peter’s truck.
If Lewis hadn’t been thumbing fresh shells into the shotgun, Peter thought, he might have been headed for a business breakfast, or an elegant picnic in the park.
Peter slid slick and sweaty into the passenger seat as Lewis handed him the weapon, then punched the accelerator before Peter even got his door closed.
But instead of following the brown pickup into the golf course, Lewis turned right, back onto Twenty-third.
“I know you’re the driver,” Peter said, “but why aren’t we following him?”
“Faster this way,” Lewis said, eyes on the road as he took a tight left onto the wrong side of Colorado Boulevard. The big Jeep surged forward, Lewis weaving effortlessly through the oncoming cars. “He’ll be looking for the nearest exit, which oughta be cutting this corner. Plus the golfers won’t take our picture with their phones.”
Peter had one hand on the shotgun, the other holding hard to the oh-shit handle. “I thought that’s why you outlaws wore bandannas over your faces.”
“Who, me?” Lewis put some street into his voice. “I ain’t no outlaw. I’m jes’ a bidnessman.”
“Going seventy the wrong way down a one-way street.” Peter didn’t have a free hand to get his seat belt buckled. He’d developed an appreciation for their functionality. “And heavily armed.”
“Reminds me,” Lewis said. “Watch your feet.”
Peter set the shotgun butt-down in the footwell, the barrel back against the center console, so he could buckle up. He saw a cloth bundle on the floor, the wrap starting to come apart with the bumpy ride. The gap gleamed with the dark shine of walnut grips and oiled steel.
“Pair of revolvers down there, and a rifle under that blanket on the back seat. You know I like to be prepared.”
“Always the Boy Scout,” said Peter.
Lewi
s snorted and looked left toward the golf course. “There he is.” The brown Dodge pickup came out of the trees on the far side of the fairway, now running parallel to the road maybe eighty yards away. “You crazy motherfucker. Where you going?”
“Not crazy,” Peter said. “Smart.”
“Smart enough to spot our setup,” said Lewis. “I don’t like that.”
“He got lucky,” Peter said. “Stuck at the light with time to think.”
“Never underestimate,” said Lewis.
“I was trying to make you feel better about being spotted,” Peter said, angled in his seat to track the pickup. “I know you’re sensitive.”
Lewis scratched his nose with his middle finger as he slid into the bike lane to dodge a bus, chasing a string of two-wheeled commuters up the curb. “Lotta cyclists in this town,” he said. “Love these bike paths.”
Then the Dodge veered away into the dried-out scrub, heading toward the center of the course, trailing a rising plume of dust behind.
Lewis looked at Peter.
Who said, “What’re you looking at me for? Go get him.”
Lewis grinned and spun the wheel.
The Jeep bounced up the high curb in mid-turn, and for a moment Peter was afraid they’d snap an axle, or worse yet, roll the damn thing. But Lewis twitched the wheel and the Jeep landed on all four tires like a big black motorized cat, then leaped ahead.
The white-lettered tailgate of the brown Dodge was visible for just a moment before it disappeared in its own dust cloud.
Lewis moved his hand and the Jeep’s windows went up as they followed the pickup into the swirling haze.
They could see forty yards ahead, then twenty, Lewis slowing to avoid killing a stray golfer. “If he was really smart,” Peter said, “he’d hop onto one of those cart paths and sneak out through the dust.”
“How I’d do it.” Lewis angled right, then left, looking for fresh tire tracks in the dry ground already marked up by a thousand golf carts over a long dry summer. They slid through a pair of surprise sand traps, leaped back into the dusty rough, then bounced out of the cloud onto a putting green between a pair of middle-aged hipsters in straw fedoras and salmon-colored shorts. Golfing ironically.