Cornwell, Patricia - Andy Brazil 03 - Isle Of Dogs.txt

by Isle Of Dogs (lit)

  "Move, " Regina said, snapping her fingers and stamping her foot.

  Trip blinked and didn't budge.

  "Come here right this minute, " Regina tried again in a harsh tone as the First Lady hurried down the winding staircase, clutching a box of trivets that she intended to stash in the butler's pantry.

  "You stupid pony!" Regina yelled.

  "Regina!" Mrs. Crimm paused, panting hard from exertion. "You know not to talk to the help that way!"

  "Oh, she isn't talking to me, ma'am, " Pony said as he appeared in his starchy white coat. "Can I assist you with that box?"

  "What's all the commotion about?" the governor inquired as he stepped out of a parlor, peering through his magnifying glass, obviously befuddled. "Where am I? I walked into my office and I couldn't find my desk. Did someone move my desk? What are you carrying, Maude?"

  "Just some things that need to be tossed, " she quickly made up a story. "I was cleaning out one of my closets and came across that revolving shoe tree I bought on an information commercial. I don't suppose you know which one I mean, but it's never served a useful purpose, and most of the shoes on it are out of style anyway. "

  "Your desk is in the same spot, " Pony told the governor. "May I help you upstairs, sir?"

  "What's this?" The governor spied the minihorse and was instantly smitten. "What a pretty little fellow you are! And such a handsome harness with a nice little leather handle, and my goodness, he even has shoes!"

  "He has to have shoes or he'll slide all over the hardwood floor, " Regina impatiently explained as the First Lady dashed downstairs to hide the trivets. "But he's worthless. He won't do a thing I say, so I certainly can't see what good he's going to do, Papa. Come here!" Regina clapped her hands at the indifferent tiny horse. "You idiot, get here right this minute or I'm sending you back and you can just go live with some other blind person who probably lives in a dump and has no household staff or limousines or cooks or important people visiting!"

  "Perhaps you're not saying the right words to him, " the governor considered as he moved closer to Trip and patted his thick red mane. "Sit, " he said.

  Trip did nothing.

  "Fetch. " The governor tossed an imaginary stick across the Oriental rug. "Well, leave it then. "

  Trip did.

  "Sir, " Pony said. "What would you like for your midafternoon snack?"

  "I believe two eggs and a piece of toast would be nice, " the governor replied as his magnified cloudy eye scanned his new guide horse.

  "Over or under?" Pony politely asked.

  "Under, " the governor decided, and Trip suddenly crawled under an inlaid mahogany Federal card table.

  "Now isn't that strange, " the governor commented as he got down on his knees and tried to coax Trip back out. "I think there's something wrong with this, horse. Or maybe you've confused the poor thing and intimidated him with your rude voice, " he said to Regina.

  "Right, " she said sarcastically, and Trip backed out from under the table, turned right, and started walking across the ballroom in his Velcro-fastened tennis shoes. "Everything's always my fault. I'm so sick and tired of being blamed for whatever goes wrong. I'm an excellent supervisor, and it's the retarded horse who's screwing up, not me... !"

  "Wait, " the governor snapped at his daughter, because he had heard quite enough.

  Trip stopped.

  "Sir?" Pony was back. "Would you like hollandaise sauce, butter, salt, pepper, or anything else on your eggs?"

  Crimm paused to check on his submarine, which had been blissfully still in the water since he had stopped eating Major Trader's sweets. Well, maybe he didn't need such a bland diet anymore. Dear Lord, wouldn't that be a blessing?

  "I might even try ham again, " he thought out loud.

  "I can put ham on the eggs, as well, " Pony suggested as Trip continued to walk across the ballroom, his driverless harness flopping.

  "Well, why not?" the governor happily said. "Load up!"

  Trip stopped in his tracks and then headed toward the elevator.

  "Look at that, " Pony marveled. "That horse is headed right toward the... where's he going? He's going to the... "

  "Lift!" the governor interrupted with excitement, finishing Pony's sentence and using the English word for elevator, because he preferred all things English and always had.

  Trip stopped and lifted a hoof.

  "I believe there's a pattern developing, " the governor announced as he went to Trip and patted his head. "You can put your foot down, little fellow. "

  Trip didn't move.

  "Seems like to me he only listens to one or two words, " Pony observed. "Load up, " he said to Trip.

  The horse lowered his hoof and headed to the elevator again. Intrigued and challenged, Pony followed and pushed the down button. The doors opened and Trip boarded.

  "We'll just ride along with him and see what he does, " the governor said, enjoying himself more than he had in quite a long time.

  He and Pony rode the elevator with Trip, and when the doors opened on the kitchen level of the mansion, the minihorse stood still, waiting.

  "Let me see, " the governor pondered. "I suppose the opposite of load up would be unload. Unload, " he said to Trip.

  Trip clomped off the elevator.

  "Right!" Pony exclaimed, hoping that the governor had figured out the pattern of commands.

  Pony turned right and walked through an open door, where the First Lady was struggling to set the heavy box of trivets on a shelf. When she heard the minihorse's sneakers and glanced around and saw her husband, she shrieked and the box crashed to the floor. Trivets clanked and banged and scattered across centuries-old heart of pine.

  "Wait!" Mrs. Crimm tried to explain as her thoughts and fears tumbled together nonsensically.

  Trip stopped.

  "What are all these?" the governor asked her, perplexed, as he eyed the trivets through his magnifying glass. "Okay, " he said.

  Released from the wait command, Trip stood inside the pantry surrounded by trivets and listened for what he was supposed to do next.

  "So that's what this is all about!" the governor declared. "Shopping. Huh. You've been hiding trivets again, and all the while I thought you were entertaining immoral men in the mansion. "

  "How could you think such a thing?" the First Lady cried out as she stooped to gather up her beloved trivets, or at least the most recent batch of them she had ordered over the Internet. "Why Bedford! I would never cheat on you!"

  "Leave it, " the governor ordered her to stop picking up the trivets, and Trip obeyed the command by not bothering to do anything, not that he was doing much at the moment anyway.

  "What do you mean, again?" Mrs. Crimm asked in amazement. "You know I've been hiding trivets?"

  She gave Pony an accusing look, and he shrugged as if to say, He didn't find out from me.

  "Oh, I've run into your trivets here and there, " the governor explained. "Frankly, I just thought they were junk, possibly left by previous governors in the last century. "

  "They most certainly aren't junk, " Mrs. Crimm said indignantly. "And they're very expensive, " she unwisely added.

  "Send them back, " the governor ordered.

  "Back? Back!" the First Lady raised her voice angrily and Trip took a step back inside the pantry, clanking a horseshoe trivet into a lacy one that featured a dog.

  "Goodness me!" Pony was startled. "You think he recognized the horseshoe and that's why he decided to step on it? That's one smart little horse! Maybe he recognized the dog, too. Maybe that's his way of saying he wants to knock Frisky out of the way and be your only pet. "

  "We must keep them separated, " Mrs. Crimm said, dismayed that she had yet one more thing to worry about. "Oh, poor Frisky. He'll be heartbroken if we pay more attention to this little pony than to him. "

  It was unfortunate that she planted this thought in her husband's head, because from that point on, he began to refer to the minihorse as the pony, which was very confusing t
o Pony the butler.

  "Come here, pony, " the governor tried to coax Trip out of the pantry, and Pony responded by stepping inside the pantry, where he, Trip, the First Lady, and the governor crowded one another and began to step on trivets. "Be good, pony, and come on out of here, " the governor said as if Trip were Frisky and might expect a biscuit.

  Pony stepped back out of the pantry, and Trip didn't budge.

  "You're being very obstinate, pony, " the governor said rather sharply.

  "I'm sorry, sir, " Pony said, and by now he was thoroughly confused. "I didn't mean to do nothing to upset you. I guess you want your eggs under. And let me see. Load up? I believe that's what you said. "

  "Right, " the governor abstractedly answered as he peered through his magnifying glass at Trip as the mini-horse walked out of the pantry and under a harvest table before he headed to the elevator and took a right, which led him into the kitchen.

  "That's the most amazing horse I ever seen!" Pony marveled. "Look at that, sir. I think he's going to fix your eggs. Now listen up, " he said to Trip. "Under. And load up. That's how your master wants his eggs. "

  Trip walked under a butcher's block and headed back to the elevator.

  "I was just having a little fun, " Pony sheepishly said to the First Couple. "I know there ain't no horse on this planet that can cook. If there was, you could just have all these little horses in the mansion and you wouldn't need inmates no more. "

  "I, for one, wouldn't eat anything a horse cooked, " Mrs. Crimm said with disapproval. "Think how unsanitary that would be. "

  "That reminds me, " the governor said, following Trip. "We need to get you straight with the Department of Corrections. I'll give them a call. "

  "So you must've read that nice thing Trooper Truth said about helping me out, " Pony remarked with joy and amazement. "I sure do wish I knew who he was, 'cause I'd like to show my 'preciation. "

  Twenty-eight

  Hey! Shut the fuck up!" The hostile voice came from inside a cramped, stinking, dark cell. It was late at night now, and the lights had been turned off inside the city jail.

  "Shut yourself up!" Major Trader snarled back at the tedious bandit who called himself Stick and had ended up in jail after supposedly bumping his head, which had been covered with a bag, and then faking unconsciousness, assuming he would get a free ride to the hospital and then escape. It hadn't worked.

  "Shut up!" another inmate chimed in, and Trader wasn't certain, but he thought the offensive voice belonged to Slim Jim, a repeat offender whose specialty was picking car locks and stealing toll money and sunglasses.

  "You shut up!" Trader answered back. He was in far too foul a mood to be intimidated by anyone.

  "No! You shut up, you motherfucker!" And it was Snitch who was awake now and irritable.

  "Si, " the Mexican boy piped up. "Everybody shut up, par favor. "

  "Stay out of it, spic, " Trader warned.

  "Huh!" the Mexican boy replied, offended. "I seen you jumping around the Dumpster. "

  "Whoa, " Stick said. "I knew that man was crazy as shit. What he be jumping around a Dumpster for?"

  "I think he was jerking off, " said the Mexican boy, who had yet to reveal his real name to his cellmates or admit to the police that he was a juvenile. "See, I'm hid-ing from the police behind this bar, you know? And I seen him jumping around in the alley and he's holding his dick and jumping and making all kinda noise. So I run off 'cause he's loco. "

  "Ain't you lucky as shit to end up in the same cell with him, " Snitch sarcastically said as he shoved the flat pillow under the back of his head. "Ain't all of us lucky to have some crazyass stinking fat loco in the cell with us?"

  "Yeah, what you jumping around for, huh?" Stick prodded Trader.

  "None of your damn business. But I have a reason for everything and do nothing without a motive. "

  "Whoa. Loco-motive, " Slim Jim said in a mocking voice. "We got Locomotive on the next bed. "

  "Please. Let's not fight. It's bad enough to be in here. For the love of God, let's show a little consideration and pray for peace, " said Reverend Pontius Justice, who had dropped off several videotapes at Barbie Fogg's house last night and then had made the mistake of negotiating for a blow job on his way out of her neighborhood, only to discover that the woman he had decided to solicit wasn't a hooker but a spinster whose car had broken down after the battery had died in her cell phone.

  "What would I want your twenty dollars for?" the spinster had inquired in a strange accent as Reverend

  Justice motioned her to come closer to his Cadillac. "If you offering me taxi money, babe, that sure is nice, but I don't take no money from strangers. "

  "I don't care what you spend it on, " replied Reverend Justice, who was intoxicated and worn out and unfulfilled from promoting his new neighborhood watch program that so far had not prevented a single crime. "You climb in and take care of me for a minute, and you can do what you want with this brand-new twenty-dollar bill I'm holding. See?"

  The spinster, who turned out to be Uva Clot and was infinitely older than he had thought when he'd first spotted her in the distant darkness, approached his Cadillac, wrote down his plate number, and started yelling for help. As Reverend Justice sped away, the police were on his butt with their sirens screaming and lights throbbing like his head.

  "So, what you in for?" the reverend asked the dark area of the cell where Trader filled up the bed like a huge sack of potatoes.

  "I'm a pirate, " Trader said in an ugly tone.

  "Lord protect us all!" the reverend exclaimed in shock. "You ain't one of them pirates that beat on that poor truck driver and stolt all his pumpkins, I sure hope?"

  "None of your business!"

  "Lord help us!"

  "And I take pleasure in harming small animals, " Trader added, for he knew enough about psychopaths to be aware that all of them began their monstrous lives of violent crime by tormenting helpless creatures.

  He, for example, had never felt a hint of remorse when he'd torched the crab plantation, murdering mothers and little babies and other molting crabs who were temporarily without their protective shells. He didn't care a bit about the bateaus that had burned up, and it wouldn't have bothered him at all if Hilda's Chesapeake House had gone up in flames or if most of Tangier Island had. Nor had his peace of mind been disturbed when he had set up Hammer's Boston terrier to be stolen by Smoke and his ruthless road dogs. Trader hoped Popeye had long since been put to a cruel end. It would serve that bitch-superintendent right.

  "Whoa, " Stick's disapproving voice sounded in the dark cell. "That one thing I never done and never would. I think we should drown him in the toilet, " he said to the others. "Two of us hold him and whoever's hands is free can shove his head in. "

  "Someone run over my puppy when I was still in the eighth grade. " Slim Jim sounded sad and upset. "I never did get over that, and the asshole who done it didn't even stop. "

  "What'chu mean, still in the eighth grade?" Snitch was curious as he sat up in bed and shoved the pillow against cinderblock to support his cramping back.

  "You know, I just couldn't get out, " Slim Jim replied. "Kinda like this place, you know? Every year, they said I had to repeat the eighth grade, all 'cause of that Mrs. Knock, my homeroom teacher. "

  "Bet they was all kinds of knock-knock jokes flying around the eighth grade, " Stick observed.

  "Un huh. That was one of the things that pissed her off, " Slim Jim replied as he drifted back to that frustrating time in his failed life. "Knock-knock?"

  He waited for a response from his cellmates. Finally the reverend caught on.

  "Who's there?" he asked.

  "Shut up! "Trader blurted out in disgust.

  "Shut up, who?" the reverend asked, relieved that a distraction had presented itself.

  "Shut up the fucking pirate in the toilet bowl and flush his fucking brains out!"

  "Yeah, how I know it wasn't you who run over my puppy?" Slim Jim accused Trader's b
ed.

  "Because, for one thing, " Trader's voice coldly replied, "it is highly unlikely I frequented your trashy neighborhood. No doubt you lived in federally subsidized housing and spent all of your time on the street eating free cheese and wearing stolen sneakers. "

  "You dis me one more time, " Slim Jim threatened, "and I'm coming over there and popping you in the head before I stick it in the toilet and flush your soul to the sewer where it belong!"