Chase

Fourteen

Yablonsky was reading the Canfield Examiner and having a cup of coffee in the bus company’s kitchen area when a woman poked her head in and said, “Gus, there’s some people here to see you.”

The driver put down the paper. “TV people?”

He figured that video one of his passengers posted of him saving the dog’s life would eventually draw the attention of the media. He wasn’t hoping for it. Just expecting it. He didn’t want any attention for breathing life into that mutt. His only regret was that the dog hadn’t hung around so that he could try to locate its owner.

“I don’t know,” the woman said. “They don’t look like TV people, but—”

Three people pushed past her and entered the room, the lead person flanked by another man and woman. Everyone dressed in black. The men were in suits, and woman in black slacks, blouse and jacket.

“You Gus Yablonsky?” the man in the middle asked.

Gus took another sip of his coffee. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m Daggert,” he said.

“And these two?”

The woman said, “I’m Bailey.” She pointed a thumb at the other man. “This is Crawford.”

“Mr. Daggert, Ms. Bailey, Mr. Crawford — I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I am, as you surmised, Gus Yablonsky.”

“We want to know about the dog.”

Gus tipped his head to one side, sized up his visitors. “Where are the cameras? Aren’t you from the TV station?”

“We’re not from the TV station,” Daggert said. “We want to know your involvement with the dog.”

“Involvement?”

“You enabled its escape.”

“Escape?” Gus shook his head and stood up. “Look, Mr. Daggert, I found the mutt in the cargo hold. He was nearly dead. I got him breathing again and he took off. End of story.”

Daggert’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you hold onto him?”

“I wanted to. But he got away.”

“Did someone take him from you?”

Gus blinked. “Huh?”

“Was it all worked out ahead of time?” Daggert asked. “Did you tell someone you’d be bringing the dog to the station? Was someone waiting for you and the dog to arrive?”

Gus said, again, “Huh?”

“Are you really this stupid, Mr. Yablonsky, or is someone paying you to act dumb?”

“Mister, have you been smoking something funny? Because you’re not making any sense at all.”

Daggert gave a nod to Bailey and Crawford. They closed in on Yablonsky, grabbed him under the arms, dragged him across the room and pinned him against the wall.

Bailey produced a device in her free hand. Not a gun, but something with what looked like pincers on the end. She pressed a button, and a bolt of electricity crackled between the two points. A stun gun.

“Close the door, Crawford,” Daggert said.

“Whoa!” said Gus. “Hang on!”

Daggert approached, his face an inch away from the bus driver’s. “I’m going to ask you again. Who are you working for? If I don’t believe you, Bailey here will turn you into a light bulb. Now, who do you work for?”

“The Simpson Bus Company! I’ve worked here twenty-three years!”

Daggert pursed his lips, nodded at the woman. She released her grip on Yablonsky, hit a button on the weapon, and touched it to the man’s stomach. It made a sound like a bug wandering into a zapper.

“Aggghhhh!” he shouted.

The man slid down the wall and crumpled onto the floor.

“One more time,” Daggert said. “Who do you really work for?”

“I’m telling you the truth! The Simpson Bus Company!”

Daggert looked deeply into the man’s eyes. “You know what? I think I believe you.”

“It’s true! It’s true!”

“Do you know where the dog went?”

“He just ran away! Well, he came back just for a second.”

“He came back? Why?”

“To lick me,” Gus said.

“To lick you?”

“He wanted to thank me.”

Daggert considered that bit of information for a moment. “Interesting,” he said. “Did the dog try to communicate with you in any other way?”

“Communicate?”

Daggert sighed impatiently. “Yes, communicate. Do you not understand me?”

“Like I said, he licked me. Is that communicating?”

“Nothing else?”

Now it was Gus who was becoming exasperated. “Like what?”

Daggert shrugged. “A series of eye blinks or tapping of paws, for example? Did he show you his port so that you could link with him? Did the dog in any way attempt to speak to you?”

Gus, eyes wide with disbelief, said, “Seriously, what have you been smoking?”

Daggert let out a long breath. “He knows nothing,” he said to Bailey and Crawford. To Bailey, he said, “Give it to him one more time, but set it to amnesia.”

Before Bailey zapped him again, she said, “You’re gonna lose an hour, you’ll never know we were even here. You’ll have one hell of a headache, but at least you’ll be alive.”

“Who are you people?” Gus Yablonsky asked. “Who do you work for? Who asks if a dog has communicated with them?”

Bailey smiled before she touched the stun gun to the bus driver’s arm. His eyes rolled up into his head and he slid down to the floor.