Real Men Don't Bark at Fire Hydrants Part 12

The other three followed him to the door.

Mickey jerked against his bonds and swore.

Rocky tipped her seat back and worked the loops of rope that held her ankles over the ends of the chair legs. She stood up as best she could with her torso still tied to the chair. She stumbled to the kitchen counter, where she turned around and managed to open a drawer. In a second she held a carving knife.

Mickey glared at the dog. "Man's best friend," he said. "Hah!"

"Women have always known better," said Rocky.

11. Making Faces

"I'm late," Rocky grunted as she leaned into her stride.

"You could have called." Mickey kept up with her easily, but Kilroy had to trot.

"I hate to cancel. My clients need me. And everyone else in the clinic is booked solid too." She glared at a hydrant as she pa.s.sed, sidestepped a slower pedestrian, and plunged into an intersection just as the light changed. Cars honked.

Mickey stayed with her until a rack of clothing rolled from a delivery van toward the door of a boutique. She made it through. He and Kilroy had to wait.

When he caught up once more, she sounded thoughtful: "I'm not sure that was really Quayleedum. Might have been Quayleedee."

"At least they're gone." The relief Mickey had felt when the door had closed behind the cops was still strong. So was his bewilderment. He wished he knew what was really going on.

"And I believe you. G.o.d help me, now I believe you. s.p.a.ce aliens!"

"Huh! What do you mean?"

"They didn't have a warrant," she said. "They didn't take us to the station. And then they just walked off, leaving us tied up."

"So you think they must be up to something funny."

"Funny business." She nodded emphatically and stopped walking. This intersection was already full of moving vehicles. "Maybe even something to do with barking executives, backwards singers, and Bullwinkle and Elvis impersonators."

The light changed, they started across the street, and Mickey added, "And G.o.d alone knows what else."

"So you're probably right. s.p.a.ce aliens."

"That doesn't necessarily follow." He told himself he was happy that she had come around, but he did have to be honest. Then he snorted in surprise as doubts suddenly flooded in upon him, and again at his own lack of faith in his guesses.

"Real people aren't that weird," she said. "Just like you said. And if they're all s.p.a.ce aliens, that would explain a lot."

He wondered if it could possibly explain the woman across the street, bending to retrieve the panties that had slid down her legs, or the man holding his briefcase carefully over his crotch with one hand, while the other hand half covered a split seam in back.

At last he said, "We need to kidnap one or two of them and ask a few questions ourselves."

"What if they don't have any answers?" asked Rocky. "Or what if they don't want to give us any?"

"Then we'll have to..."

A city bus rolled past them, trailing stink. A siren sounded in the distance. The next corner gave them a glimpse of the city's center. Mickey's own office was two blocks away.

"This is where I turn," said Rocky. "You walking with me?"

He spoke, but not in answer: "Look at that!"

He was pointing at the department store they were pa.s.sing.

"That" was a display window full of children dressed in well worn and often patched, but clean, jeans and s.h.i.+rts. Some had their faces pressed against the gla.s.s. Some were stretching their mouths and eyelids with their fingers, or contorting their lips, or twisting their tongues into unlikely shapes.

Rocky shook her head. "What are they advertising?"

Suddenly every face relaxed. The children pointed. They screamed and cheered and barked so loudly that Mickey heard them easily through the gla.s.s.

When he turned to see what they were pointing at, he saw Clem Padiddlepopper dodging cars and trucks and cabs, jaywalking in their direction.

He was carrying a slender stick in one hand and his overcoat was swirling around his ankles.

"Would you look at that?" he cried as he reached the curb. He swung his switch at the hydrant and used it to point at a parked car with a shattered headlight. "Some of my handiwork!" he said.

Then he tossed his switch toward the gutter, slipped his arms through theirs, and spun them around.

"But..." cried Rocky.

"Your clients will be fine," he said in a reasonable tone. "We need your car."

"What for?" asked Mickey. He tried to resist the b.u.m's insistent tug back the way they had come, but the effort was futile. Clem Padiddlepopper was much stronger than he looked.

"You are getting annoying, Mr. Michael Gorgonzola," said the b.u.m. "So it's time to let you in on something. Maybe then you won't want to kidnap and torture us. Let's go for a drive."

When Mickey asked, "How did you know what I was thinking of doing? You weren't anywhere near!" Clem gave no answer. His grip on their arms simply became more irresistible, and their movement toward the parking lot where Mickey had parked his Chevette more inevitable.

12. Even the Birds Can Tell

"You said 'us,'" said Rocky Forte.

"So you're one of 'em," said Mickey. Even though the car was his, he and Rocky were in the back seat. Clem Padiddlepopper had insisted, and Kilroy had demanded the front seat to himself. "What do you do? Bark at lamp posts? Dress up as Maid Marian after a hard night and call yourself Thor?"

"I throw rocks at headlights," said Clem.

"And where the h.e.l.l are we going? Back to your flying saucer?" Presumably, he thought, the very one he had seen from his hotel room's window. "Where is it?

In the park?"

"Nope," said Clem as he steered the car around one more corner.

Kilroy barked. Mickey recognized the block ahead of them. There was the pet shop he had pa.s.sed when he was following the backwards singer. Its window was still full of parakeets. The boxy speaker was still over its door, and the street was still full of birdsong and puppy yelps.