Anyone who still professed that a dog couldn’t appreciate a classic television show simply didn’t scrutinize his pet’s addictions often enough. Even before Bruce became a formidable wordsmith, he routinely lounged within viewing range of America’s most inefficient pastime. Bruce logged six hours in a retro marathon of Mannix before he heard Kip’s car putter into the driveway. Seeing Kip stumble into the house dressed like a reject from the cast of Pirates of Penzance immediately cured the beagle’s boredom.
“Holy Macho Man!” Bruce exclaimed. “I thought the Village People broke up?”
“I look pretty stupid, huh?”
“Not as stupid as Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch, but I wouldn’t let you do my taxes either.”
Kip’s plate was far too full for even a paltry portion of mockery. He looked like he just sprinted a marathon; his cheeks were flushed and he clutched the manila envelope against his chest like a defibrillator. After his harried thoughts caught up with his breath, he peeked outside through the nearest window in the foyer.
“I think someone is following me,” he said.
Bruce already determined the source of Kip’s anxiety. “It looks like you got a chance to chat with Mark,” he said. “He must’ve laid the scoop on you, huh?”
Kip shifted away from the window and paced into the living room, where the beagle sprawled out on his couch like road kill. Bruce devoured the bowl of dog food soon after Kip left for work. The rest of the bag was torn open and nearly consumed as well.
“You really haven’t moved all day, have you?” Kip asked.
Bruce felt like belching, but that would’ve been overtly crass. “When I make a commitment to do something—even if that something is nothing—I stick to it like a tick on a dog’s ear.”
“Is that the credo of lazy canines or something?” Kip asked, huffily.
“IDK, but you better put on a jacket, because I gotta license to chill.”
“Why am I regretting this already?”
The beagle licked his chops and picked his head off a throw pillow. “I’m sensing a little terseness in your voice, Kip. Did Mark’s spiel give you the heebie-jeebies? You look like Shaggy after seeing a ghost.” Considering the beagle’s potential fate, Kip found Bruce’s nonchalant disposition maddening.
Kip grabbed the remote control from the couch and flicked off the T.V. “How can you be so calm? According to Mark, people are trying to kill you.”
“Settle down and take deep, tantric breaths,” Bruce advised. By this point, Kip’s adrenaline wouldn’t permit such meditative behavior.
“Tantric breaths? Let me guess: you’ve got a yoga instructor, too?”
Bruce stretched his front paws out in front of his body and arched his butt into the air. “A yoga instructor? Seriously, whatever gave you a crazy idea like that? Beagles don’t do yoga. We’ve got three modes: eat, sleep, and sniff. If I fetch a Frisbee here or there, it’s a bonus. I just saw a commercial for Tantra classes on the tube. I figured it might help you hook up with some limber chicks, too.”
“You need to stop watching so much television. It’ll rot your brain.”
“You don’t look hairy enough to be my father, but thanks, Dad.” Bruce noticed Kip’s hands fidgeting with the envelope. More than anything, the crinkling noise generated by Kip’s grip on the dossier caused the dog to whimper. “I realize you’re a bit frazzled, but that sound is making my ears bleed.”
Kip set the envelope on the edge of the couch’s armrest and plopped on the cushion. He swiped his hands through his sweating hair a few times to absorb the perspiration peppering his scalp. “Look at me. I’m sweating like a fat bulldog. I didn’t think I’d be so nervous about this.”
“You, nervous? Nah,” Bruce said. “I haven’t seen such steeliness since Tom Arnold married Roseanne Barr.”
It took a few moments, but Kip eventually managed to calm down and recount the business at hand. “Mark wants us to leave here tonight. I assume you know where we’re going?”
“Yep, somewhere in Pennsylvania to pick up a car, but did he really say we should leave now, smack middle in a Mannix marathon?”
“I thought you preferred Columbo anyway?”
“Hey, this dog doesn’t live by a rumpled raincoat alone, okay? Besides, the world could stand to gain a few more real men like Joe Mannix.”
“Look, Bruce, I don’t want to talk about your favorite TV detectives, okay? We’ve got a bigger mystery in the works, if what you and Mark told me holds water.”
“Oh, trust me, it retains more water than Elvis on tour in 77,” Bruce assured. “I guess I was just hoping we had a little more time to dogpaddle.”
“Nineteen hours. That’s how much time he gave us to get to the bunker.”
“You’re right then. The MUTTS must be getting closer.”
With a sudden surge of energy, which belied his bloated stature, Bruce pounced from the couch and began sniffing the air and ground in the room’s four corners. He ultimately moved toward the rear end of the house, where a sliding glass door awaited his inspection. He smelled the door’s jamb a few times before returning to the living room’s couch.
“You said you think you were followed,” Bruce inquired. “Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not positive. But there were headlights behind me for a few miles until I turned into this development.”
“Well, I didn’t catch a whiff of any MUTTS around here yet, so we might be safe.”
“What do you mean? You can smell them before they even show up?”
“I’m a beagle—what do you think? That’s what I do. I’ve got a talent for this sort of thing. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve known like my nose.”
Before Bruce nosed out another inch of real estate, a crash occurred on the deck outside the house. Both Bruce and Kip whipped their heads in the direction of the sliding glass doors. “Did you hear that?” Kip asked.
Bruce’s ears perked up as he said, “Are you kidding me? Helen Keller wearing earmuffs could’ve heard that. You got a garbage can out there?” Bruce scooted across the room toward the slider, being mindful to stay in the camouflage cast by the door’s vertical blind.
“Yeah. I always keep it on the deck.”
“Someone or something just knocked it over.”
Kip sprung onto his feet to check out the scene for himself. When he neared the slider, he flicked a light switch on the wall to illuminate the deck’s exterior. Sure enough, the garbage can was tipped on its side. Plastic containers and a few beer bottles covered the cedar planks. Bruce’s pushed his nose up against the door to assess the situation.
“Do you see anything?” Bruce asked.
Kip scanned the deck and surrounding yard. His eyes caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a squirrel scampering away from the trashcan.
“Looks like a squirrel,” Kip said, partially relieved.
“Can’t be.”
“I think I know what a squirrel looks like, Bruce. It’s gray and has a bushy tail.”
“So does a Shih Tzu, but that doesn’t make it a squirrel.” Bruce pressed his snout against the slider’s track again, this time huffing deeply. He couldn’t discern anything at first, but noticed a movement in the shadows off the deck.
“You see anything?” Kip asked.
“Can’t tell, but your squirrel theory flies as well as a wingless ostrich.”
“Ostrich’s can’t fly.”
Bruce picked his head up and shot Kip an obtuse look. “I keep reminding myself that you’re greener than gangrene when it comes to mockery. Squirrels aren’t nocturnal.”
“Well, maybe it’s a raccoon then.”
“Smarter guess, but I’m not picking up a scent.” Bruce nosed the door’s jamb again to reaffirm his point.
Kip peered more intently at the backyard, and discerned the definite shape of a squirrel perched on its hind limbs in the grass. It faced the sliding doors; its head seemed fixated in one position. “It’s right in front of you,” Kip said, directing B
ruce’s attention to the spot in the yard by tapping on the glass. “Don’t you see it?”
Bruce nudged his nose against the window so that the fog of his own breath stained the glass. He only needed to preview the object for two seconds before he scuttled away from the slider and hid behind the blinds.
“I told you it was a squirrel,” Kip said, robustly.
“That’s no more a squirrel than I’m a chimpanzee.”
“What do you mean? Look at with your own two eyes.”
“Get away from the window,” Bruce advised. “Let’s hope they didn’t finger us yet.”
“Fingered? Who’s gonna get fingered?”
“Relax. It’s not time for your annual physical. Maybe they’ll go away.”
“They?” Kip rechecked the squirrel’s status. “I can only see one.”
“Since you’re afraid of being goosed, take another gander.”
Kip squinted to study the squirrel’s habits more thoroughly. He detected a lavender glow emanating from its eye sockets. “I think its eyes are flashing purple,” he muttered. Bruce clamped his jaws around a portion of Kip’s pirate pantaloons and tugged him away from the door.
“What are you doing?”
“Unless you like being photographed, stay out of view,” Bruce cautioned. “They’re using a drone with an infrared camera.”
Reflexively, Kip did a double take. After scrutinizing the squirrel again, he realized that it wasn’t moving with a living creature’s normal fluidity. “Well look at that,” he remarked. “You know, I think you’re right, Bruce. That thing isn’t real. It’s a robot.”
“Otherwise known as a drone squirrel,” Bruce clarified, “which means it’s gonna get nuttier sooner than I hoped.”
Kip backed away from the slider and yanked down on the vertical blinds’ drawstring, thereby obstructing the exterior view completely. A natural mode of panic overtook him. His voice shuddered when he said, “What does this mean? Why are they using a squirrel drone?”
“I don’t think its out harvesting acorns,” Bruce said. “We can’t take any chances now. I’d say we’ve got about ten minutes before the MUTTS are all over us like fleas on a junkyard dog.”
Kip didn’t need any further provocation from the beagle. He groped at his pockets in search of his car’s keys. Eventually, he forwarded a jangling mass of metal before declaring, “I’m ready to go now. But I need to change my clothes first.”
“You’re not going to a cotillion, Kip. You look fine.”
“I don't feel fine. I feel foolish dressed this way.”
The dog trotted over to the couch and mouthed the dossier on its armrest. As far as beagles go, Bruce didn’t typically get overly dramatic, but he made an exception in this case. “Look, we either skedaddle right this second or you might as well uncap a jar of Vaseline and lube up.”
“What are you saying? Are they really that sick?”
“Nah, they might even be sicker. Last time they caught a couple of informants, petroleum jelly was a luxury item.”
Kip didn’t require any further encouragement in order to shift into ass-saving gear. He was already half out the door before Bruce finished his proclamation.
“C’mon,” Kip urged the beagle. “We’ve got to get out of here fast.”
“Now you’re talkin’ like a pro or just someone who doesn’t like a random prostate exam. “You’re really famished for an adventure, aren’t ya?”
Kip exhaled dishearteningly before admitting, “Hell, no. I just ran out of Vaseline.”
The two made a hectic dash for a butter-colored car in the driveway, but upon previewing the method of transportation, Bruce seemed underwhelmed. “That’s your ride?” he asked, visibly cringing at the make and model.
“Yeah. What’s the matter with it?”
“You tell me. What do you call that thing?”
“It’s a Taurus and it runs great. I’ve had it for over fifteen years.”
“That’s longer than my lifespan,” Bruce said. “Are we gonna make it to the drop zone in that clunker?”
“Unless we leave now, we’ll never know. Right?”
Beagles weren’t bred for their obsequious smiles, but Bruce managed to curl his jowls moderately on this occasion. “I’m beginning to like you, Kip Hinkle. You’ve got chutzpah.”
Maybe so, but what Kip really needed for the journey ahead was an extra pair of clean underwear.
Chapter 14
Mark, There's a Beagle in My Bedroom! Page 13