Let Slip the Pups of War: Spot and Smudge - Book Three

by Robert Udulutch

  “Oh, yes,” the ghost writer said, “I’d love one. Please, call me Holly.” She set her thick portfolio down on the coffee table and removed a pen and a writing tablet.

  “So, Holly,” Gloria said as she handed the woman a small fluted glass and touched her arm, “Tell me how you’re going to make me not sound like a dummy.”

  “Well,” the ghost writer said, “I have some outlines roughed out, I thought we could organize your memoir around your many accomplishments. Would you mind if I also had a glass of water?”

  The women talked for the next three hours about the lucky parental lottery, careful in-law selection, and meteoric rise to power of Gloria Bekker-Myers. The ghost writer scribbled furiously, and Gloria strode around the office spinning almost truthful versions of her charmed but somehow also hard-won life. She put up patiently with the writer’s questions, until they started to talk about Orthus.

  “So you don’t want to address the issue at all in the book?” Holly asked.

  “Why would I?” Gloria said, “It’s trumped up shitola that I don’t care to give an ounce of my positive energy to. That reporter showed up out of nowhere and was gone just as fast after their piece of garbage got published. You’d think the Post would have been more tactful….You know the article was pure bull hockey, right?”

  “Well…” Holly said, and then she paused. She started again, “Gloria, can I speak frankly with you?”

  “Of course,” Gloria said, smiling broadly, “I assume we’re under ghost writer celebrity confidentiality, or whatever.”

  “Sure,” Holly said, “I want you to ask yourself, how many books do I want to sell?” Holly paused to let that sink in, and then said, “You have a golden opportunity to get your version on paper. It will be seen as the official version, and if written perfectly will sell a shit-ton of your memoirs. And I can write the shit out of this fucker.”

  “You think?” Gloria said. She was standing at the window looking down at the circular drive and the portico where the big guy’s limo sat idling for the past two hours. She finished the last swallow of sherry from her glass and walked over to sit opposite the writer. She eyeballed the tall, sturdy woman. If there was a dictionary entry for an overeducated New York lesbian liberal ghost writer, Gloria figured it would have this woman’s picture above it.

  “Let’s start with the allegations,” Holly said, “The article said you have an inappropriately close relationship to Orthus, and a direct connection to the Mogevichs specifically.”

  Holly watched the Security Advisor’s face carefully as she spoke, noting her breathing, eye movement, and minute posture changes. Gloria launched into twenty minutes of what Holly’s recently deceased boss would have called classic New England shit-spreading.

  As Gloria’s obfuscation and denials wound down Holly said, “Well they aren’t around to verify any of that. I tried to reach them for an interview but no one has seen or heard from Semion or Katia in more than a month. What do you make of that?” Holly got up and poured Gloria her fourth glass of sherry.

  “How the fuck should I know?” Gloria said, rubbing her hands over her face, “And interviewing them would be a waste of our time, would it not?” She didn’t look as crisp and collected as she did when Holly first walked into her office. The professional politician was actually sweating a little as she said, “I told you, other than using that company for some of our advanced weapons systems I don’t know anything about them.”

  “Are you investigating them?” Holly asked, “I mean, it seems a little odd that you’re not even a little curious.” She had started setting her cold water glass down on the table without using the coaster. It left a large puddle on the antique burled wood.

  “No,” Gloria said, frowning at the water and wiping it up with a napkin from the bar, “None of our agencies are interested in the whereabouts of Semion and Katia Mogevich.” She rolled the wet napkin around in her hand, forming it into a ball as she added, “There’s no indication a crime has been committed, and we don’t see any potential threat to our national security.” She tossed the ball into the trash and snatched up another napkin to dry her fingers.

  Holly had all she needed. She rose and said, “Madam Advisor, I think we’ve done well tonight. I appreciate you carving out time from your packed schedule. I’ll get some of these notes into an outline and be ready whenever you are to talk again.”

  Gloria wasn’t used to being the second one in a room to stand up, but she was feeling a little off her game. She stood and hit the button on her desk phone to summon the intern.

  “Super, Holly,” Gloria said as she squared her shoulders, “Just call the receptionist when you’re ready and I’ll make time.” She held out her hand, and as the two tall woman shook she said, “As you said, it’s important to get this right.”

  Gloria pulled her office door open, and as she turned to face the ghost writer Holly held her eyes.

  “Yes,” Holly said, “Yes it is important to get things right.”

  An hour later a gasping, sweating Gloria clutched her chest and pounded at the phone on her desk. She missed the panic button and fell off her chair, landing face down in the new taupe Berber carpeting she hated. Her face contorted. It felt like someone had slipped a cold metal hand into her chest and was squeezing her heart. She tried to call out but just croaked, and clawed at her swollen throat.

  A blurry, distorted face floated down from the ceiling and slowly came into focus right in front of her. It was Director Barton. He smiled, and then his face rotated away. When it came back around it had become a different face. It was the ghost writer. Holly’s face smiled at her, and then it too rotated away. When it came back around it had changed again, but just the slightest amount. Holly’s face had become the face from an agent’s profile Gloria had flipped through months ago in the dark of her garage, just before Barton’s car had pulled in.

  As Gloria’s breathing slowed and she heard her last few heart beats ring in her ears she exhaled, and whispered, “Loyal...”

  At that moment ex-special agent Loyal Comina leaned over the sink in her beltway hotel room to rinse the last bits of color out of her hair. She wrapped a towel around her head, looked at the clock on her nightstand, and tapped her cell phone.

  “Loyal?” a woman’s voice answered on the first ring as Comina looked at the green light on her decryption app.

  “Hi, Vicky. We’re clear to talk,” Comina said, “It’s done.”

  After a pause Vicky Barton said, “So you were right, those fuckers really went all the way to the top. Jesus Loyal, that God damn bitch.”

  VB’s wife went silent for a long while. Eventually she said, “You alright?”

  “Truthfully,” Comina said as she combed her wet hair, “I swear I felt someone telling me I did a good job tonight. I’ve been missing that.”

  “I bet he did,” Vicky said, “You sure she’s gone?”

  “Yes,” Comina said, “She got a full dose on her fingers. It was enough to kill a horse in an hour…even a big, bitchy, lying, murdering, traitorous cunt of a horse.”

  “Any news of the rest of them?” Vicky asked.

  “Not yet,” Comina said, “It appears they’ve gone deep underground.”

  “Is that good news?” Vicky asked.

  “I doubt it,” Comina said, “but I’m still digging. Eventually, even the smartest cockroaches can’t resist the light.”

  “Well, if I can help in any way, you know,” Vicky said, “How’s the family doing?”

  “They sounded good,” Comina said, “Actually, they sounded really good. They’ve been warmly received and it appears they are settled into their new home.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Vicky said, “Are you still coming on Sunday? The kids were asking about you.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Comina said as she plugged in the hair dryer.

  Chapter 81

  The brothers weren’t often uncomfortable. Banji and Bawa saw daily examples of hum
an carnage and the shortcomings of an underfunded healthcare system that couldn’t address even the simplest of disfigurations, but the man looking at them from across the desk made both of them squirm.

  As Banji continued to describe their operation and what services they could offer him, Bawa went to the upper landing of the office stairs. He called down to the tavern for a round of refreshments to be sent up. He lingered at the railing, thankful for any distraction that allowed him to avoid looking at the man.

  A minute later a very pretty woman opened the office door and carefully pushed it closed with her hip as she carried in a tray. She didn’t look at the bent man with the distorted face but she could feel his one eye roaming over her as she filled their glasses.

  The man watched her closely, noticing the fresh black eye on her beautiful face. He spoke, and it came out in a wheezing slur as his twisted lips fought to form the words, “I congratulate you on your staffing, gentleman. She’s most, attentive.” He put his deformed hand on the woman’s waist and slurred, “Thank you darling, bring another tray of those treats, please.”

  Banji put his fig bar back onto his plate and wiped his hands on a towel, it wasn’t often he’d lost his appetite. “Jewel, bring us more cocobars,” he said.

  She nodded without looking up and hurried out of the office as the wheezing man watched her backside. She didn’t offer anything to the three large, handsome Caucasian men standing in a line at the back of the office as her new bosses appeared to be ignoring them.

  “Mister Tzeng,” Banji said, “Mister Hong tells me you’re interested in our operation in South Africa. He’s our best customer, and of course we’d be happy to assist. Is there a particular animal, or part, that you are shopping for?”

  Harley smiled, which resulted in the lump that was his lip shifting horribly below a spot where his missing nose should have been.

  “Yes,” Harley rasped as he rose slowly to his feet, “There is a particular animal I’m hunting for.” He used a cane to walk slowly to the air conditioner and said, “Mister Hong tells me your man in the Kwazulu-Natal mentioned running into some troubles with anti-poaching dogs.”

  The brothers looked at each for a brief moment, and then at the row of tough looking men standing at the back of their office. Bawa said, “Well, nothing we can’t handle I assure you.”

  “I’m sure,” Harley wheezed, “I want you to tell me exactly what your man described, word for word. Leave out no detail, and I am specifically interested in the behavior of the dogs.” As he raised his arms to the cool air blowing from the vents the brothers quickly turned back to their cups of tea, wishing they hadn’t looked. The Chinese man’s arms were as badly burned as his twisted face. He was missing several fingers, and the jagged chunk missing from his forearm looked like a shark bite.

  An hour later Jewel crossed one of the hotel rooms in the brother’s brothel and helped Harley remove his compression tunic. She turned away as his tight skin moved in sickening clumps over his ribs. Between the puckered burn scars were deep circles of removed flesh. What Jewel assumed were once tattoos of dragons and warriors and naked women circling Harley’s torso had merged together to form horrible, fighting creatures.

  “Draw us a bath, darling,” Harley slurred. As he took a few long breaths from a small oxygen mask he dialed his satphone. With his good eye he watched the woman’s bottom while she leaned over the tub to stopper the drain.

  Semion answered on the first ring.

  “I’ve found them,” Harley wheezed into the phone.

  Chapter 82

  Smudge rubbed her snout in the dirt and sneezed several times, shaking her head with each snort.

  Spot watched his sister and laughed, and let the painted dog pup he was playing tug of war with run off with the chunk of bone. He joined Smudge by the gerenuk carcass and said, Need some help, sis?

  Smudge tipped her head back, angling it so her brother could better see her snout in a bright patch of moonlight. Spot opened his paw and gently removed the small bit of bone lodged in his sister’s nostril.

  There you go, great black hunter, Spot said, I told you not to jam your head into the carcass.

  This, dear brother, Smudge said as she picked her nose with a claw, is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

  They watched as the pack of colorful wild dogs finished tearing away pieces of the small antelope. The gorged alpha and his mate joined them on a little rise above the kill as the pack’s puppies pounced on each other and fought over the remaining bones. The female licked blood and bits of liver from Smudge’s snout after curling up with her.

  As the four dogs huddled together the pack formed loose circles around them and settled down for a nap in clusters of three and four dogs. In the spots of bright moonlight filtering through the marula trees the effectiveness of the painted dogs patchwork camouflage was most evident. As soon as they stopped moving they all but disappeared. Spot and Smudge had adapted their coats to the same sized patches, but Spot hadn’t yet figured out how to effectively mimic the browns and yellows of the wild dogs so they settled for black and white spots, making them look a little like reverse Dalmatians.

  The pups had been hunting with the pack for several nights and Smudge and the alpha female struck up a fast friendship. Smudge dubbed her ‘Fenn’ as her big round ears looked like a fennec fox’s.

  The first night the pups had encountered the pack at the watering hole they watched from a distance for an hour, learning the dialect and observing their strong social structure and hierarchy. The painted dogs’ vocalizations, especially when hunting, were a form of ostinato. Growls and singing yaps repeated throughout the pack so the duplicated sound seemed to pulse through the bush. The higher placed animal barked an order and the subordinates passed it down the line, resulting in the sound rolling through the pack in one connected and undulating stream. The pups quickly understood the need for such a system when they saw the size of the entire pack. With more than twenty adults it was an efficient way of disseminating information and keeping track of everyone’s position.

  To Spot and Smudge the Pembury coyotes’ yaps and growls had sounded tough, almost urban. The more refined and cynical wolves of Quebec had sounded French to them, although Smudge had freely admitted to Ben that might have just been the pups projecting based on their location. The way they heard the African painted dog’s accents was a little harder to explain. They had a sly, almost ranting quality to their musical yaps and barks. Smudge told Ben their communication was certainly intelligent, but also entertaining as it sounded like a cross between Jack Nicholson storming through the Overlook hotel and Nina Simone.

  They also produced a much wider range of sounds than the other wild dogs the pups had encountered, and they soon found out why. The painted dogs of Africa lived in a far more complex world than the coyotes or wolves.

  When they first observed the pack from above the watering hole Spot had wanted to single out one of the dogs on the periphery to test the waters. Smudge had disagreed and decided to just ring the doorbell, bring them a gift, and see what happened.

  They chased a reedbuck right into the center of the pack and Smudge dispatched it with a quick twist of her powerful Cu Sith paws. She tossed the animal at the alpha female’s feet as Spot quickly tried to explain to the alpha male they were just passing through, and happy to share their kill with the pack. The wild pack mother tentatively stepped forward and began tearing into the animal as she stared at Smudge. Her pack circled but hung far back from the strange interlopers.

  As Smudge approached Fenn she growled but didn’t stop yanking away chunks of the antelope’s soft underbelly. When Smudge lowered to gnaw on a rear hoof Fenn moved to the far side of the carcass, but she continued to pull away tasty bits. After a few minutes their red faces were side by side as they dined on liver together, and the pack’s young dove in to join them. As they rested in a pile later, Spot pointed out it was finally nice to have met the neighbors without the need for any mounting or
killing, other than the poor antelope, of course.

  Spot and Smudge had spent every night with the painted dogs since that first meeting. After the ranch quieted down for the evening they’d head over to the compound’s workshop, use the tracker to get a fix on Fenn’s radio collar, and then trot off to meet the pack. They were careful to heed Ben’s warning and tried to stay clear of the other killers roaming the jungle. Still, it was invigorating running around in their extremely dangerous and completely alien new neighborhood at night. When he described it to Ben later Spot likened the experience to Hamish’s stories of his younger pub-crawling days on the docks of Glasgow.

  Spot watched the pack for long hours at a time as Smudge played with the curious dogs. He saw the painted wild dogs operated in unique, and ultimately very successful ways that were supremely adapted to their dangerous environment. Females were regarded equal in stature to the males, especially Fenn who ruled with an iron fist right next to her mate. It was also the females who leave the pack to start new families when they are mature, unlike the male Casanovas of the wolves and coyotes. When they leave they do so with their littermates, and stick together to start new families. It’s the only way to survive. The pups quickly came to understand that numbers mattered in the wild bush. The also saw the jungle was a very different place at night than it was in the daytime. Even the hunters traditionally thought of as solitary, like leopards and cheetahs, work together in larger groups at night more often than even Theo’s men realized. The pups learned there was much about the stealthy animals that own the night humans had guessed at based on fleeting observations, and had gotten wrong.

  The pups also quickly learned these dogs have an extraordinarily tight knit pack with complex social bonds even stronger than those of wolves or coyotes. The many individuals each played an important role in the pack’s function, which apparently was the constant pursuit of game. Even the puppies were called into action as flankers and sentries as soon as they could run fast enough to keep up. A few aunts remained in the den to care for the newborns, but everyone else hunted, and the pack only ate meat. Lots of meat. They brought down at least one animal a day, almost exclusively antelope, and they were very good at it. Musa was right about one thing, unlike hyena the painted dogs weren’t scavengers. The pups saw firsthand why they didn’t need to rely on other’s scraps. They were a highly efficient killing machine.