The Ten-Ounce Siesta

FIVE

“What we’re looking at is most likely a case of chronic bronchitis. That’s what the endoscopic examination indicates. We’ll start Spike on some corticosteroids to reduce the inflammation. In addition I’ll give you some cough suppressants, but don’t use those unless Spike has trouble sleeping.”

The vet handed the Chihuahua to Tura. “I did a bacterial culture, too. Just to be certain there’s no infection. Why don’t you give me your phone number, and I’ll contact you when I receive the test results.”

“I don’t think that would be such a great idea.” Tura smiled. “We’ll call you, Doc.”

Dr. Frank Newman, veterinarian to the stars, pushed his thick glasses high on his nose. Casually chic in a summer suit and bow tie, even at five-thirty in the morning, Newman was tall and cadaverously thin. Nearly seventy, he enjoyed playing the part of the kindly country doctor. His clients recognized that, and he knew he owed a good percentage of his business to the image he had created.

People needed to trust their veterinarian. They wanted a sense of old-fashioned American values when they brought Spot or Rover in for treatment. And who better to provide that than Dr. Frank Newman, who looked as if he had stepped out of a Norman Rockwell wall calendar?

Of course. Dr. Newman did not own a Norman Rockwell wall calendar. No. He had a Harlot’s Hollow wall calendar, featuring twelve of the finest lap dancers known to man. It was posted in the private bathroom adjacent to his office.

The only problem with the calendar was that it was a year out of date. That was Dr. Newman’s fault. He could never get past October, for that was the month that featured a startling erotic pose by none other than Tura Lynch. My, but she knew how to make a pumpkin look good.

Harlot’s Hollow wasn’t the same since Tura quit. Dr. Newman was sure that he missed her more than any of her other former customers.

He really missed Tura. If only she’d stayed in Vegas. . anywhere. There were plenty of other lap dancers in town, but none of them equaled Tura Lynch. None of them had her confident take-no-prisoners attitude. And none of the other girls called the man with the Norman Rockwell manner “Dr. Gooddoggy.”

This was why Dr. Newman came to the office as soon as Tura called, even though the hour was late (or early, depending on your point of view). It didn’t matter that his exit from home required a ridiculous excuse invented for his wife’s benefit. That was a small price to pay. Infinitesimal. If Tura Lynch wanted to see him, he would cross the Sahara barefoot.

“On second thought, maybe I should keep Spike for a couple of days.” Dr. Newman tried to keep his voice calm and professional. “I could run some tests. Just to confirm my diagnosis, you understand.”

“Oh, Dr. Newman,” Lorelei teased in a throaty little-girl voice. “You’re not just looking for an excuse to see my sister again, are you?”

“Well.” The vet loosened his bow tie. “The fact is-”

Tura slipped off her leather coat in one smooth move. “The fact is that I’d like to pay my bill in full, and right now.” Her slim fingers traveled long leather strips that clung to her voluptuous body like a black highway with dangerous curves. “Sit, Dr. Gooddoggy.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice.

“Good boy.” Tura snapped her fingers. “Music, maestro.”

Lorelei cued their boom box. Framed diplomas, veterinary science certificates, and autographed photos of celebrity clients swayed on Dr. Newman’s wall to the ear-splitting beat of Generation X’s “Dancing with Myself.”

Tura slithered forward and straddled Dr. Gooddoggy like a hungry jaguar, her thighs brushing his. Her brown skin glowed, and, oh. . her milky white scars did too. Tura had explained that the scars resulted from rattlesnake bites. Dr. Gooddoggy didn’t know if she was lying, but. . oh, he liked the idea that she might be telling the truth.

The music pulsed. Doctor Gooddoggy could feel it in his blood. His heart throbbed to the drumbeat. Suddenly the office was very hot-

Tura’s exhalations fogged one side of his glasses. His perspiration fogged the other.

Tura removed the glasses and tossed them away. “Are you ready to dance. Dr. Gooddoggy?”

Dr. Gooddoggy didn’t say a word.

He sat up and begged.

Tura howled and pulled Dr. Gooddoggy’s head between her breasts.

Then she started to move.

Tura stroked the doctor’s angelic white hair. “You’re a good little doctor, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes. I’m very good.” Dr. Gooddoggy. . er, Dr. Frank Newman, said.

He straightened his bow tie and cleaned his glasses. Lorelei collected the boom box and the Chihuahua while Tura dressed.

“Well, it’s been fun. Doc,” Tura said. “But that old highway’s a callin’.”

Dr. Newman couldn’t surrender so easily. He had to give it one more try. “I really think I should run those tests, Tura. If you’ll just leave your phone number-”

“No way, Doc. Like I said, we’ll call you if the medicine doesn’t work.”

The doctor trailed Tura and Lorelei through the office door. Black go-go boots beat a hard rhythm on the tiled floor as the Lynch sisters walked down the corridor. In a moment they’d be gone. Dr. Newman couldn’t allow that to happen. He might never see Tura again.

The sisters passed the door to the operating theater. In a few moments they’d be in the lobby. Dr. Newman hurried after them. Once again, Tura was walking out of his life. Maybe forever this time-her lithe leg muscles dancing with every step she took, bone-colored snakebite scars glowing ethereally on her chestnut thighs. .

“Wait a minute, girls.” Dr. Newman opened the operating theater door. “I’ve got a patient in here that you really must see.”

Tura paused. “Sorry, Doc. We don’t have time.”

“I think you’ll have time for this, my dear.” Dr. Newman squinted, staring at the Lynch sisters through lenses as heavy as hockey pucks.

A playful grin crossed the veterinarian’s lips. “I know you girls like snakes. . but have you ever seen a dragon?”

Jack said, “Angel, how about you just leave the tape deck alone?”

“Jesus,” she said. “I can’t believe the stuff you listen to. Dean Martin, Louis Prima, Frankie Laine. Anybody ever tell you that the twenty-first century is right around the corner, Jack?”

“C’mon. . we’re almost there-”

“Yeah? Let me see that address. . This doesn’t look like the right neighborhood.”

“It is. Newman’s office is around here somewhere. It has to be.”

Angel laughed. “Don’t tell me. You’re lost, aren’t you?”

“No,” Jack said. “I’m not lost. It’s around here somewhere. If you just give me a couple minutes-”

“You’re fuckin’ lost. I can’t believe it.”

“I am not lost.”

“There’s a gas station. Why don’t you pull over and ask.”

“Angel-”

“Jesus, Jack. I can’t fuckin’ believe you. You’re such a fuckin’ guy. Just pull over and fuckin’ ask.”

“Wait a minute. There it is. That office building over there.”

Angel thumbed the safety on her.45. “I hope you shoot better than you drive, Jack.”

“Don’t you worry about it.”

“No-you worry about it. Because if you shoot my dog by accident, I’ll forget all about what a good listener and all-around nice guy you are.”

“You’d shoot me.” Jack was incredulous. “After all I’ve done, you’d blow me away.”

“Yeah. Especially after all you’ve done.”

Jack parked the Celica. “You ready?”

Angel looked at him. Really looked at him. Dead in the eye. “This might be a trap, you know.”

“I know.” Jack stepped out of the car. “That’s why I’ll go through the door first.”

Dr. Gooddoggy was pleased; Tura was excited.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A Komodo dragon,” Dr. Newman explained, “the world’s largest lizard.”

“What’s its name?”

Dr. Newman chuckled. “Bruce.”

Tura stared into the steel cage. Dr. Newman placed a hand on her shoulder, rather instructively, and was delighted to discover that she was trembling with excitement.

The reason was obvious. Bruce was an amazing specimen-two hundred and twenty pounds of carnivorous reptile. With thick skin the color of bloodstained concrete and hard black eyes that gleamed with cold reptilian intelligence, the huge monitor lizard would send a shiver up anyone’s spine.

Bruce turned in the cage, razor-sharp claws clicking against the metal floor. The lizard looked at Tura for a long moment, pale yellow tongue flicking in and out of its mouth.

“Is he dangerous?” Tura asked.

“Very,” Dr. Newman said. “Just look at those claws. And his teeth are razor-sharp.”

“What does he eat?”

“Komodo dragons eat meat, alive or dead. I once saw Bruce devour three suckling pigs in the space of twenty minutes. He ate so much that he literally couldn’t move for several hours.”

“Where’d you get him?” Lorelei asked.

“Bruce belongs to a couple of magicians who have quite a menagerie.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Bruce is getting a little old. Last year he started to develop cataracts. I’ve been monitoring his eyesight since then, and we’ve decided that it’s time to operate and correct the problem. Later today I’m bringing in a veterinary ophthalmologist from Virginia to perform the surgery. She’s the best in the country.” Newman laughed, pushing his Coke-bottle specs high on his nose. “In fact, if my eyes get much worse I might have her take a crack at me.”

Dr. Newman glanced at Tura and Lorelei. He thought his joke was uproariously funny, but the Lynch sisters weren’t laughing at all. Obviously, they weren’t listening to a word he said.

Tura knelt and peered into the cage. “Daddy would just love him.”

Lorelei nodded. “And he’s got a birthday comin’ up at the end of the month.”

“You get him anything yet?”

“Nope. How about you?”

“Nope.”

Lorelei chuckled. “Could you imagine the look on his face if we brought him one of these?”

“We’d have to change his name, though. Daddy wouldn’t want a dragon named Bruce.”

“Yeah. Maybe we could call him Yog Soggoth.”

“Works for me,” Tura said. “How about it, Doc?”

Dr. Newman didn’t know what to say.

But there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he had to say something.

“Tura,” he began, “you have to understand-”

The world’s greatest lap dancer leaned forward and removed Dr. Newman’s Coke-bottle glasses, placing them atop Bruce’s cage.

Suddenly, Dr. Newman’s throat was uncomfortably dry. “No, darling, you really must listen. I just can’t let you do this-”

“Sure you can,” Tura said. “You want my phone number, don’t you?”

Dr. Newman couldn’t see a thing without his glasses, so he didn’t see Tura’s hand moving toward him. But as soon as he felt it, he made his decision.

He would tell the magicians that the dragon had been stolen. Or kidnapped. Yes, kidnapped. That would be better. He’d send the magicians a ransom note-

“The dragon is yours,” he said, and suddenly his bow tie seemed very tight indeed.

Tura kissed the vet. He had just consigned himself to hell. He was sure of it. But at the moment he didn’t care-

Until the door to the operating theater burst open.

Until someone yelled, “Get your hands in the air. . and give me that Chihuahua.”

Tura couldn’t believe her eyes. The asshole was dead. Dead. And dead didn’t come back with a Colt Python in its hand and a blond bimbo sidekick armed with a.45.

“C’mon,” Jack Baddalach said. “Just give us the dog and no one gets hurt.”

“Yeah.” The bimbo aimed her.45 at Tura. “Like he said.”

Tura raised her hands, just slightly. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She angled behind Doc Gooddoggy. He was squinting in Baddalach’s direction. Obviously, he couldn’t see a thing.

Tura sucked a deep breath. So far so good. Her heart was out of the line of fire. So was her left hand. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled the Walther PPK.

Lorelei saw her do it. She had a firm hold on Spike, cradling the dog over her heart. Baddalach and his bimbo wouldn’t shoot her. Not when they might hit the dog.

“I’m not going to wait forever,” Baddalach said. “Bring me the dog. Now.”

“Okay,” Lorelei said. “But don’t shoot.”

Quite suddenly, Tura grabbed Doc Gooddoggy by his prissy white hair. Using him as a shield, she aimed the Walther over his shoulder and started shooting as Lorelei dumped the mutt and yanked a Heckler from the shoulder holster concealed under her coat.

Baddalach and his bimbo dove behind a metal counter near the operating theater door.

They rose a moment later, guns blazing.

Warm blood splashed Dr. Newman’s face. He heard a few stumbling steps, and then something thumped to the floor in front of him.

He heard a dog barking, claws scrabbling over tile floor.

The pistol next to his ear barked several times, and then he couldn’t hear a thing.

“No,” Dr. Newman moaned. “Oh please God.

Tura yanked his hair. At least he thought it was Tura. He couldn’t see a thing without his glasses.

She pulled him backwards, hiding behind him, until they were on the far side of the Komodo dragon’s cage. Then she yanked his hair again, and he dropped to his knees behind the cage.

People were shouting. He knew they were. But his ears were ringing with the sound of gunfire.

He couldn’t hear a blessed thing.

“You killed my sister,” Tura shouted.

Jack and Angel crouched behind the metal counter. Angel was holding Spike. Her.45 lay on the ground. Suddenly, she had forgotten all about it.

“You blond bitch!” Tura screamed. “I’m going to make you pay!”

Angel glanced at Jack, her face creased with worry. He shrugged. “You did shoot her sister,” he said.

“Either I walk out of here,” Tura said, “or the vet dies.”

“Oh, man,” Jack said.

Spike coughed, and Angel held him tight. “What are we going to do?”

“We’ve got the dog,” Jack said. “The vet probably doesn’t have anything to do with any of this. I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“Yeah, but we can’t just let her go.”

“So what do you want to do? Shoot it out? That’s great. Maybe one of us will plug the vet by accident and save her the trouble of killing him.”

“Yeah. But if we let her go, do you really think this will be the end of it?”

On the other side of the room, a door slammed.

“Shit,” Jack said. “Shit!"

Dr. Newman couldn’t see a thing. The gunshots had rendered him as deaf as Beethoven, but at least Tura had stopped pulling his hair.

He undid his bow tie and wiped the blood from his face. Then, scooting along on his ass, he moved away from the Komodo dragon cage. He didn’t want to be too close to the bars. Bruce’s claws were sharp as a samurai’s blade. One slash and Medicare wouldn’t begin to cover all the reassembly Dr. Frank Newman would require.

There. That was better. Bruce couldn’t reach him now. And no one had grabbed his hair to stop him from moving. That was better still.

Dr. Newman reached out tentatively. He couldn’t remember where Tura had put his glasses. Maybe they were on the floor.

His fingers drifted across the tile and touched cold metal.

The door to the Komodo dragon’s cage. .

. . and it was open.

Dr. Newman couldn’t hear the scream that spilled over his own lips. But he could feel the dragon’s long slithering tongue as it slapped against the back of his hand.

And he could smell the stream of urine even as it spilled down the leg of his summer trousers.

The vet was scooting around the floor on his ass.

The redhead lay by an open door, half her skull splattered on the wall behind her.

The door swung shut slowly. And then Jack noticed the other door. The one to the big metal cage.

A fucking monster came out of the cage, moving fast, little black eyes gleaming like eight balls.

A Komodo dragon. Jesus. Jack had seen one of the big lizards on an old Johnny Quest cartoon. The damn thing had tried to devour Race Bannon, who had outsmarted it through good old American ingenuity.

The vet might be an American, but he wasn’t in Race Bannon’s league. He just sat there on his ass, looking kind of like Pa Kettle dressed up for the county fair. Jack couldn’t understand it. Even if the vet didn’t see the big lizard, he’d have to hear the thing’s claws clinking over the tiled floor-

The monster’s long yellow tongue flicked against the back of the vet’s right hand. Then its jaws opened wider.

Jack raised the Colt Python and opened fire.

Once again, blood splashed Dr. Newman’s face. Only this blood was colder.

He reached out and touched a long, slimy hunk of flesh. Bruce’s tongue. Only the tongue wasn’t attached to anything.

Bruce was dead.

Bruce had been shot in the head.

Along with an exotic dancer.

All of it had happened in Dr. Newman’s operating theater. Dr. Newman began to cry, because none of these events could possibly occur in a Norman Rockwell universe.

His career was over.

And, worse than that, he would probably never see Tura Lynch again.

The vet sat on the floor, holding the dead lizard’s tongue and crying.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jack asked.

“I think he’s deaf, for one thing. And blind, too.” Angel picked up the doctor’s Coke-bottle glasses and handed them to Jack. “He probably can’t see a thing without these.”

Jack dropped the glasses on the floor and stomped them hard.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Do you want him to be able to give the cops our descriptions, or what?”

“Oh. . yeah.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“C’mon Spike,” Angel said, hoisting the Chihuahua. “We’re going home.”

After a while, Dr. Newman dropped Bruce’s tongue and stumbled out of the operating theater.

He felt his way along the wall and eventually found his office, where he bruised his thigh on the sharp corner of his desk before sinking into his plush leather chair.

Fright consumed him, but he persevered. He reached out tentatively, exploring his desktop even as his heart raced, afraid that his fingers would brush the severed tongue of a Komodo dragon.

They didn’t, of course. The dragon’s tongue was on the floor of the operating theater.

Eventually Dr. Newman found the telephone. He held the handset to his ear and could not hear a thing. Without his glasses, he couldn’t see the keypad, either, but he started pressing buttons anyway.

Three buttons each time. Then he would say he had an emergency, and give his address, and hang up and do it again.

Eventually, he’d hit 911.

Eventually.

It was simply the law of averages.

“God, I’m glad Spike’s okay.” Angel hugged the Chihuahua. “I’m glad this whole thing is over.”

Jack didn’t say anything. He just drove.

“Jack. . it is over, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. The woman who got away. . she’s out there, somewhere. So is Harold Ticks. And the old lady and the guy with the rattlesnakes. They’re out there, too.”

Angel nodded. “Don’t forget Tony Katt. He probably the arranged the whole thing. And the woman with the wrist braces.”

“Yeah.”

“So what should we do?”

“I don’t know, Angel. I just don’t think they’ll leave it like this. You shot that woman back there. You killed her. And her sister isn’t going to forget that. She’ll probably come looking for us. God help us if she brings those other freaks with her.”

“You think they’ll come after us?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Unless we go after them first.”