From Russia With Fur

by Rene Fomby

  “Yeah. The election returns will start coming in around five, and everyone’s nervous about how that’s going to turn out. But how—” It takes me a second to catch up with where Bella is headed with all this. “Oh! Right! If anyone can get us priority status with PETSEC’s relocation bureau, it would be Tony, the newly elected president.”

  “And he owes you, Moose. Big time. If it wasn’t for you, he would already be packing up his office—”

  “Well, not exactly, since he’s currently still running PETSEC out of his own office, but I get what you’re saying. Plus, a lot of the folks over at relo still appreciate what I helped pull off at Southside last year. Saving all those dogs and cats from being put down. So yeah, I’ll take off right away and see what I can work out. And with any luck they can figure out how to get us both placed in a good home together!”

  “That would be awesome, Moose!” Bella leans over and gives my muzzle a short lick. “If you leave now, you can make it to the office as they are just getting started for the day. That’ll give them a whole day to work something out for us. And—Moose.” Her eyes are starting to get that wet look again, and it’s catching. “I don’t have to tell you, Plan B is all we’ve got right about now. If our humans really are planning to get rid of us first thing tomorrow morning, we won’t have enough time to work up a Plan C—”

  I nod my head, trying not to look up into those big brown eyes of hers. I need to stay focused here. “I know, Bella, I know. So I guess everything’s riding on me now to make this happen, to get the relo bureau working on finding us a new home today, before our masters take us for that final car ride in the morning.”

  “You can do it, Moose, I know you can. With everything else you’ve accomplished over the past year, breaking Killer and the rest of the animals out of Southside, saving PETSEC from the Russians and the Crimson Canines, I know you can do it. I—I have faith in you, Moosie. I know you out of all the dogs in the entire world, you can make this happen. Can save both of us from whatever Susan and Howard are cooking up.”

  Bella’s words have finally managed to break through whatever control I’ve got over my eyes, and I turn my face away quickly before she can see my waterworks in full flow. I’m already starting to work through all the train connections to downtown in my head, and that helps a little with the downpour that’s just about to break out on my face. I stumble toward the small hole in the fence behind the mulberry bush and make my way out into the alley. But before I go, I stop to take one long last look at Bella. “You can count on me, Bella,” I call out to her in a shaking voice. And I only hope she can. Because if I fail this one last mission, everything else I’ve accomplished over the last year will have been for nothing.

  Relocation Bureau, 9:03 a.m.

  I

  haven’t set foot in the relo bureau since the day we got Killer resettled into that nice little house in the suburbs, a day that now seems like a lifetime ago. And in many ways it was. My life now is nothing like what it was before Killer’s girlfriend got murdered. For one thing, I had never had to face my own mortality before, never had to stare Death right in his ugly face, eyeball to eyeball. But I did, and I beat him, beat Death, not just once but over and over and over. And now I have to beat a foe even uglier than Death. It’s not just about me anymore. I have to save Bella’s life.

  The dog sitting at the intake desk is so short he can barely see over the top, even though his chair is cranked up all the way to the top, and he’s sitting there kind of shivering. Some kind of Mexican short-haired Chihuahua, I think, but this one is mostly no-haired, and what little hair he does have is scattered around his scrawny little body in random little clumps, like someone was gluing it on for him and got distracted. I understand some humans think the breed is so ugly they actually come off kinda cute. Well, there’s no accounting for taste, is all I have to say.

  I rap a paw on the desk to get his attention. “Uh, excuse me, but I’d like to talk to someone about filing a relo application…”

  Chee-wa-wa glances up from whatever he’s working on and gives me a sharp and sour look. “You would, eh? Well, mission accomplished, then. You’ve talked to someone. Now run along, will you. I’m busy, here.” With that he drops his attention back to his paperwork.

  I clear my throat. “A-hem! What I meant was, I need to get started with filing for relocation. For myself, and for a—friend.”

  Wa-wa waves a paw toward a rack of paperwork just off to his left without ever once looking up. “You’ll find what you’ll need over there. Form R-57 to get started. We’ll need that in triplicate. When you’re done you can just drop it in that box near the door. Someone will get back to you on your application in a few weeks or so if we approve it. Oh, and your friend will need to come down here and apply in person. We don’t accept applications from third parties.”

  Weeks? I don’t have weeks, Bella and I will be at the slavers well before that! “You don’t understand. I need to arrange a relocation today. And Bella, she can’t make it down here to apply. Her humans put a concrete footing around her fence. So no digging out.” That wasn’t exactly true. They’d missed one particular spot that Bella and I had long ago used to full advantage. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  If anything, Wa-wa seems to have doubled down on whatever he’s scribbling on. “Oh, sorry, my bad! I was unaware we had royalty in the building. Read the sign.”

  He points to a small sign hanging on the wall behind him, then goes back to his scribbling. The sign has a big red oval near the top, with the word “Notice” written inside in bold white letters. Below that in smaller black letters was the phrase “Be Advised: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

  Nothing I tried could get Wa-wa to pay the slightest bit of attention to me, and I finally had to give up. Well, not give up entirely. Just go over his head, bring in the big guns. Because this relocation bureaucrat obviously wasn’t going to budge an inch. Fine. I just can’t wait to see it when Fat Tony wipes that smug, self-satisfied look off that ugly Chihuahuan face—

  Fat Tony’s Office, 9:55 a.m.

  W

  ith the presidential election now winding down to its final phase, Tony is hard at work coordinating something he calls the gotvee effort, whatever that means. Phones are ringing all over the office, and dogs and cats are rushing around like their tails are on fire, so it isn’t easy getting him to stop for a moment and listen to my problem. And even then his eyes keep darting around the room and his big hairy tail keeps swishing back and forth, so I know in my heart he’s only giving me a very small part of his attention. But that has to be enough.

  “So the deal is, I told him it was like a priority, that Bella and I needed something done right away, and he just pointed me to a sign that said he didn’t care. Little did he know his boss and I are best buds—”

  Tony is only half-listening to my story, nodding slightly the whole time, even as his ears are going every which-way around the room. “Yeah, Moose, I hear ya. Emergency relo… as I’ve often said, humans are just no damn good, I tell ya. And yeah, I’d really like to help you and Bella out here, I really would, but my paws are kinda tied—”

  “But all I need is for you to make a quick phone call, touch base with someone inside the bureau who has the authority to cut through all the red tape, to put Bella and I at the front of the line for relocation.”

  “Sure, sure. I mights could do that.” Someone shoves a piece of paper in front of Tony, which he signs without reading. “Look, Moose, things are kind of crazy here today. Maybe we could pick this up sometime next week—”

  “I don’t have until next week, Tony,” I all but shout at him. “Like I said, our humans are probably going to drive us to the slavers tomorrow morning! So we’ve got to get relocated today!”

  “Uh, yeah, I hear your concerns.” Another piece of paper snags Tony’s attention for a second as he scratches out a signature. “Alright, I’ll ask
around, okay? See what I can do. But things are a little insane around here right now, so—”

  I’m not proud about what happened next, but I was desperate. President or not, it was a matter of life and death. My death, quite possibly. And more important, Bella’s. So I grab Tony by his collar and pull him up muzzle-to-muzzle with me.

  “You listen to me, Anthony Shapiro,” I growl as menacingly and convincingly as I can manage, all the while showing every tooth I got. “All of this going on around you right now, this place would be a graveyard if I hadn’t stepped up to the plate to save your fluffy little butt. Put my life on the line time after time over this past year to save this organization, to save you. So it’s payback time, you hear me? No more excuses—you’re going to pick up that phone on your desk and call someone in the bureau, someone who has the power to find Bella and me a new home—today—and if you have to, you’re going to keeping making phone calls until that happens. Capisce?”

  I can see his eyes go from angry, to frightened, then all the way to defeated, and I know I’ve got him.

  “Yeah, okay, no need to get ugly here, Moose,” he says, finally breaking free from my grip. Off to the side I see some of his security goons moving toward us, but he waves them off. “I’m sorry, I—I’m just a little overwhelmed here, is all. Go on, head back over to the relo bureau. I’ll make some calls, and make sure someone sees you right away.”

  I’ve cooled off a bit since my explosion, but I’m feeling pretty proud of myself that for the first time in my life I’ve managed to channel my inner big dog into getting people to show their proper respect for me. Maybe I should try the up front and personal approach a little more often. Like I said earlier, these canines of mine are pretty impressive.

  As I pull away I give Tony a little thank you rap on the shoulder with my right paw, then, glaring at his security goons the whole time, just daring them to get in my face themselves, I push my way through the bustling crowd and make my way toward the exit. I can already see that smug little Chihuahua’s withering face even as I step out into the sunshine and turn left toward the bureau.

  Relocation Bureau, 10:39 a.m.

  O

  nce again, Wa-wa didn’t even bother to look up from his paperwork, instead just pointing toward a side door and pressing a button under his desk that unlocked the door with a loud buzz.

  A large German Shepherd is waiting patiently for me on the other side, and with crisp German efficiency steers me through a rat’s maze of cubicles to a large office set in the far wall. “Herr Moose,” he announces with a guttural voice as he ushers me though the door, then turns sharply on his heel and strides off briskly down the corridor.

  Inside the office, a small dog of highly questionable parentage is rising from his well-upholstered seat behind a large, mostly barren mahogany desk. “Ah, Mister Moose, please come in, have a seat. Can I get you something? A bowl of water, maybe? Milky bone?” He points to another, less well upholstered chair across the desk from him.

  I grab the offered chair, hopping up quickly to face him. “No, I’m fine, but thank you.” Obviously, whatever Tony had said to whomever it was within the bureau had made a big impression. This champagne and caviar attention is worlds different from the way I’d been treated by that ugly, self-important Chihuahua earlier in the morning. Although, to be honest, I’ve never tasted either champagne or caviar, so it might be the same after all.

  The mutt is speaking, in a high and uncomfortably squeaky voice. “Our mutual friend President Tony has already explained your unfortunate situation to me in great detail. Most unfortunate, indeed, facing the possibility of becoming an unwitting victim of canine trafficking. And your friend, as well. I truly wish we could do something for you, but I’m afraid our paws are tied, here.”

  That statement hits me from completely out of the blue, like the time my master threw a ball for me to fetch and it slipped out of his hand and careened off the back of my head. “What—what do you mean, your paws are tied? You’re the Relocation Bureau! You’re ninety percent of why PETSEC even exists!”

  “Yes, yes, that’s true.” Muttsy’s ears are now drooping a little from when I’d first walked in. “But, the thing is, relocation is a very delicate and complicated operation. Very scientific, in fact, matching dogs and cats to their potential human masters and mistresses. You’ve got to place the right animal with the right home and the right humans at the very precise moment the prospects for adoption are at their highest. If any of those things is just the slightest bit off, it just won’t work. And the trickiest part of all of that is the human target, catching them at the very moment they feel weak enough to want to take in a stray off the street. You saw how it all works, when we placed your friend Killer in that home with the little girl. It all has to be very carefully choreographed to make sure everything clicks into place at just the right point in time. No room at all for error.”

  “But with all the resources you have at your disposal, surely you can find something, someone who’s willing to take Bella and me in,” I protest. “We’re very good dogs, and very desirable breeds at that.”

  Muttsy nods his head slowly, but I can tell he’s not convinced. “You are that, for sure. Normally, any human in their right mind would jump at the chance to adopt a well-behaved Corgi and a Yorkie, but—”

  On any other day I would have torn his half-breed face right off his skull for that insult—Yorkie, indeed!—but today I have to hold my bark. I need this guy on my side, at least until Bella and I can get situated in our new home. “But what?” I ask, not completely succeeding at keeping all of my one-inch canines hidden from view. “Can’t you at least locate two families who live right next door to each other, like we have now? Is that so hard?”

  “Actually, Mister Moose, it is, it really is. You see, before you arrived for this meeting I had my computer boys run a scan of our databases, where we store all of the info on potential human targets, and not only do we have zero possibilities on the two-dog adoption angle, it seems we don’t even have two high-profile humans that might fit the bill living anywhere near each other. Much less two human families who are a good match for your two breeds.”

  “Then just place us with anyone who’s close! That’ll save us from the slavers for now, and you can re-relocate us later on when you find a perfect match!”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, Moose. I’m sorry, but our entire operation is predicated on our target humans being already highly susceptible to the adoption. And the adoptees. We tap into their television feed and insert specially designed ads featuring cameos of the very type of dog we’re trying to place. We arrange for them to ‘randomly’ run into other humans with the same breed of dog over the course of several months, while we try and steer other breeds away from them. And that’s just a small sampling of the psychological tricks we have in our arsenal. Our experts on human behavioral training call all that the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or more commonly, confirmation bias, flooding their tiny human brains with images of other humans enjoying something they don’t yet know they want. In this case, a dog or a cat. And it works almost every time, kind of like when dogs see other dogs with a bone. There’s no thought process involved, they just gotta have it.”

  “Then just batter my hoof for Bella and me! Why can’t you do that?”

  “Because—the Baader-Meinhof approach doesn’t work overnight, it takes time. Sometimes many weeks or even months before we’ve rendered the humans sufficiently susceptible to the adoption. A single day? That’s barely enough time to get them to jump on something they’re already convinced they want, like an expensive car or a good steak dinner. You see, humans have this stupid habit of wanting to ‘sleep on’ things overnight before they make a decision. But—if you’re right about what your masters are planning, overnight will be one night too many to keep you from being handed off to the slavers. I’m sorry. I wish I had better news.”

  My stomach is starting to roll over,
and suddenly I feel like I might dump this morning’s breakfast all over the spotless desk in front of me. Weeks? Months? Bella and I just don’t have that kind of time. Even if it doesn’t happen tomorrow, I saw the look in Howard’s eyes. It’s all just a matter of time, whether I like it or not. So I need to figure out a Plan C, after all. And fast.

  “Okay, so what’s our alternative here?” I ask. “Say you get to work on a relo for Bella and me today. What do we do to escape the slavers in the meantime?”

  Muttsy’s ears droop even further. “I—I’m afraid our only option is for you and your girlfriend to hit the streets before you get shoved into your masters’ cars for that final trip to the slave factory.”

  “You mean run away from home? Become—homeless? Run-of-the-mill strays? Is that what you’re saying?” I can’t believe what I just heard. I mean, I have a lot of recent experience with the dark and dangerous mean streets of Chicago, so I would make out just fine. But Bella? Whole different story. Bella is a city dog, used to all of the comforts of home. She wouldn’t last a day.

  Muttsy slaps both paws down hard on the desk in front of him, startling me. “Strays? We—we don’t like to use that term. It’s all so—derogatory. We prefer to call them ‘fenceless.’ As in unfettered by human barriers, by human limitations and expectations. Free to roam wherever their hearts might take them. As all the breeds were back in the very beginning of time, before we had masters and mistresses to serve us.”