She looked good. Dressed in tasteful skirt, blouse and stockings, she’d also done up her face with heavy lipstick and loud eye makeup. Compared to last time, she definitely looked more like an advertisement from a fashion magazine than a bicycling middle schooler. His loins stirred, anticipating the moment he took more than pictures. But first, he had to push her to the next stage.
Johann made some small talk with her, asking about her game that morning, all of the chatter geared toward trying to help her relax as well as assert an in-control air that everything was perfectly legitimate. Traffic was light given the weekend, and he parked on the street in front of the building.
As soon as they came in the door, he made a point of giving her the $100 sitting fee. It was a familiar pattern for her, things were just like last time, and would also make her feel obligated as he began to push her. After putting the bills in her purse, she sat on the loveseat again with shoulders rolled forward and eyes looking all about. This time he didn’t join her at an adjacent chair, but went straight to his desk. First he took out the camera from a bottom drawer. Then from the top, be pulled out a bright but rumpled rod of colored foil.
Peeling back the foil to reveal chocolate shards, he took a piece and popped it in his mouth.
“It’s good chocolate. I’ve been sneaking pieces here and there. Would you like to try some? A small piece won’t hurt at all.”
He walked out from behind the desk with it. She eyed the broken chunks skeptically, looking up and down the wrapper and the pieces. After a moment’s hesitation, she took a small piece and placed it in her mouth. A few chews and the buttery sugar and cocoa kicked in providing a light to her eyes and a slight smile.
“Good, huh?”
She nodded as she finished swallowing. Kids liked any type of sweet. To him it was low-grade vending machine chocolate.
Holly watched him return to the desk and put his camera around his neck. She put her hands on the upholstery at her sides to dry her sweating palms. Then he opened an upper drawer again and took out another of the long chocolate rods. The foil wrapper was in the same colors, but this one was smooth and unopened. He tore it away to reveal the smooth brown candy, rapidly approached and thrust it toward her with outstretched hand.
She reached and took it by reflex, his sudden rush at her making her head swim with some confusion. The flash went off and dazzled her eyes.
“Come on, put your tongue on it. Show our client how good of chocolate it is. We both just had some.”
Eyes rapidly blinking, she slowly did so. Behind the lens, the camera’s shutter clattered away with each press of the button.
“Put it deep in your mouth like you want a big bite!” he instructed.
As she complied, her eyes felt bedazzled by another flurry of flashes.
“Lay down on the loveseat. Let your hair hang off the end. No, keep it in your mouth. Leave your skirt where it is. You look sexy with it up a little.”
The rod’s diameter wasn’t uniform. The end was thicker, and it hurt her jaw to open wide enough for it. Holly pulled it away to look at it. Her eyes widened in horror and embarrassment. She felt sick to her stomach and dry heaved. In her mouth had been a 12-inch long chocolate dildo.
“Keep going, you are doing great! Everyone loves chocolate.”
She sat up and bent forward, lowering her head toward her knees.
“It’s the same as last week. Just a different type of sweet. Chocolate instead of hard candy.”
Holly knew that wasn’t true. It had been just the other day. But a respectable adult was telling her it was true. So it was, wasn’t it?
“You don’t want to give the money back, do you? You want a horse? You want to ride instead of being one of the stupid hockey girls? Then you need to earn it.”
Johann took a couple more pictures while she stared at it, wielded it in her own hands. She told herself it was just chocolate. She put her lips on it again.
“Yes, great. Now lean back again on the armrest. Good, let your one leg hang off onto the floor. Now pull the other leg up toward you. Try and touch your heel to the back of your leg. Good,” he proclaimed taking another shot. “Close your eyes and lean back so your hair hangs down. Great! Now, rub the candy on your thigh. Love it! They’ll love it, too.”
A few minutes later they were done. She’d not taken off any of her clothes, but still felt dirty and icky. Maybe she was just a hockey girl. Maybe she didn’t deserve a horse. He offered to give her a ride, but she shook her head and started walking quickly toward the door. The money was already in her purse and her obligation was fulfilled. He followed in some feigned politeness, pretending to hold doors for her that she’d beaten him to and opened herself.
Kelton walked west on Main Street. It hadn’t taken too long to corner Abriella, even with her being evasive by not sitting down to eat her cake. Getting her to hand over her keys if he’d relock the car and leave them on the house’s back porch took all the assertiveness that he could muster, even having to remind her the pack was his and not hers. It almost turned into a scene and she flushed guiltily, but a soft touch on her arm by Elizabeth had finally tipped Abriella over the edge.
He’d felt like a quick pace and Azrael was always up for that. At first he thought it was just some energy bounce, like feeling good that his sickness was behind him. Or maybe a sugar surge he wasn’t used to from the punch and cake. But as he hustled away from the campus and a world that he just flat out didn’t belong in, he had to wonder if he was really running away from a stirring that was most inappropriate but still caused a rush of adrenaline. But regardless, he was contently moving down the sidewalk on the north side of Main Street when the blond teen he’d seen at the fixture emerged from an apartment building with tears in her eyes.
She walked right by him, not having seen him before and clearly not in a state of mind to pay attention to those about her now. Especially a man in drab clothes with a backpack and floppy hat. She did not seem to notice Azrael either and nobody failed to see the powerful Belgian Malinois.
Then Kelton noticed the big black sport utility vehicle parked on the street, the bumper sporting a Westburg Hunt sticker. He’d not noticed the license plate from before, the angle had been wrong and he’d no reason to. With something deep inside him telling him that something wasn’t quite right, he took out his phone and took a picture of the plate. The flicker of motion in his right peripheral made him turn to see a fluttering curtain in the nearby building’s window.
But then the image came to him. The eye was often faster than the brain could process, but if one stayed focused and was patient, it would catch up. It was the gray clad guy from the fixture. Could he swear to that in court? Well, maybe not. It was hard to say with certainty what was really seen and what blanks his mind may be subconsciously filling in based upon what he thought he should be seeing. Analyzing that was getting nowhere. He stepped forward and pounded his fist in an obnoxious fury of knocking on the window. Kelton stopped after five rattling blows and stood staring at the panes. The curtain didn’t move.
He considered what to do, looking westward bound down the long street flanked by the cafés and general merchandizers. Kelton pondered what there was out there good for him and Azrael that wasn’t before him now. Coming up with nothing, and without any flicker of motion from the curtain again, he made an about-face toward which he’d come to check on the blond teen.
CHAPTER—7
Kelton led Azrael back down Main Street toward Full Cry Market. Car traffic was picking up a little with the weekend lunch hour, but despite the electronics repair shop and the dry cleaner being open across the street, the town was far from bustling. It made it easy to keep his eyes on the blond teen ahead of him on the wide sidewalk, weaving by the occasional mom with a baby carriage or couples idly window shopping who instinctively shied away from the homeless man wearing a gun accompanied by a dog.
While easy to keep his eye on her, it was turning out to be not so easy to overtake
her without resorting to a run which may alert her to his pursuit. Kelton opted for his powerwalk strides; he and Azrael ignoring and walking right by the other type of people that slowed and turned to ask about petting his dog. She’d gotten further ahead of him than he would have liked while Kelton pounded on the window and waited for a response. The girl had long legs which were young, and she was clearly athletic and fit. Kelton began to wonder if not only was he not closing the gap, but if he was losing ground? The pack’s straps seemed to weigh heavily upon him.
Thankfully, she hesitated under a sign hanging from a beam jutting out from a storefront. There were a few black iron sidewalk tables and chairs against the store’s window and a green garbage can kept in place by surrounding wooden slats. A couple went in, and another came out, before she decided to turn and go inside herself. As Kelton approached he smelled the melted cheese, and then could interpret the picture on the sign of a yellow triangle wedge with red circles on it. Pizza actually sounded kind of good. A few more strides, and he could see through the storefront glass himself.
There were a handful of other customers using just a pair of tables, making the place only a quarter full. The interior walls were brick, will some type of shelf up top to hold Styrofoam planters for the draping plastic ivy. Pictures of the Roman Coliseum and Leaning Tower of Pisa filled in the gaps in the artificial foliage. The girl was at the register with a bill in her hand. A glass case on the left side of the counter let their clientele view “by the slice” options under a heat lamp and a soda station sat in the corner. He grabbed the brass handle and pulled on the faded green door making tarnished brass bells jingle.
“No dogs in here!” shouted the manager at him before he could cross the threshold. The couples at the tables eyed him and the backpack with wrinkled noses, but the girl took her red and white paper cup to the soda machine without a glance back at him.
“Sitz,” he whispered to Azrael and went inside.
He ordered three slices and a drink, loitering at the register trying to look friendly and unassuming while his order was filled. A bell dinged and the manager handed the blond girl a plastic-ware plate with a steaming slice of pepperoni and pineapple. He made a show of craning his neck in her direction.
“That looks good,” he proclaimed.
Everyone ignored him, including her. She went to a vacant table in the corner and began to eat. His ready slices were up just a moment behind, but with Azrael outside, he went to one of the sidewalk tables. He slipped off the pack to sit in the chair and let Azrael lay down from the sit position.
His plan had been to try and sit near her with three slices, feign a full stomach after two, and offer it to her to try and engage her in conversation. It probably wasn’t a bad plan, but he seemed invisible to her. His attire didn’t help, and he was old enough that she probably lumped him in with grownups instead of the hot college boys. So he ate the pizza and awaited the next opportunity to make contact feeling ridiculously like a stalker. Probably, because he was being a stalker.
The girl didn’t linger. She finished her slice and drink before resuming her walk back to campus. When he saw her, he hastily pulled the cheese off the remaining half of the third slice to give to his dog and threw the crust, plate, and drink into the garbage can. He’d saved his napkin for one final wipe of the fingers, disposed of that and slung on his pack. She’d already racked up quite a lead in the meantime.
It wasn’t about losing track of her. He felt he knew where she was going anyway, and Azrael could track her if the need came to that. It was about getting to have a conversation with her, where he gained enough of her trust and confidence for her to share what was wrong so he could put the world right for her. And Kelton wasn’t the pickup artist, or master of social skill, to pull that off with a teen girl from an elite school in a random meet on the street looking like a drifter. Even with a dog to help.
So he slowed, and then stopped in front of an ice-cream parlor, while she continued walking. He could see Full Cry Market as the town’s buildings thinned out as Main Street approached the intersection of the Full Cry Road bypass. She’d take a left down there, and then make her way back to Fox Ridge School. It was time for a change in tactics. Maybe Abriella and her friends could help. Or Helmut. He should probably just let it go, but with no pressure to move on he felt it was his duty to make sure.
The name of the ice-cream parlor was “Scruffy’s,” with a big fluffy black dog painted on the window with a collar and an SPCA tag. He told Azrael to sit again, and opened the door.
“Your dog can come in,” said girl behind the counter with her dark hair tied up in a blue bandana. He guessed she was in her early twenties. The store was about half the size of the pizza joint and painted plainly in a pale yellow. A water dish was on the floor at the base of the counter with a blue plastic jug above it so it never ran out. Azrael trotted up to it and lapped away.
Kelton followed, “Thanks. I thought with serving food the health inspector wouldn’t let you. We didn’t have such a warm welcome at the pizza place.”
“We’re not for profit with nothing for sale so we fall under a different set of rules. If you like your cone, we invite you to make a donation to the SPCA.”
“With people being people, it would seem the lowlifes would clean you out.”
She looked him up and down from behind her thick plastic glasses, which reminded him what he probably looked like.
“Westburg doesn’t have too many of those types of folks. The cost of living is too high and there’s not many jobs. Visitors like that generally move on after a day or so. What flavor would you like?”
“Vanilla, please.”
She handed him a scoop in the sugar cone.
“The recommended donation is $2,” she said in a helpful tone.
Kelton handed her $20 from his breast pocket and took a chilly bite. It was sweet and creamy. He turned toward the door.
“Do you have anything smaller? I don’t have a lot of change,” she explained to his back.
He shrugged at her with a smile over his shoulder as he pushed the door open with his free hand. Kelton made a quick licking bite and followed Azrael outside.
A white pickup with blue lights on top of the cab came east bound down the street. As it passed him he saw “Westburg Animal Control” on the door and stainless steel carrier cages filling the bed. It did a U-Turn and came back to stop in front of him. An overweight middle-aged man clad in a tan uniform clumsily disembarked and pointed his arm. The Velcro name tag over his pocket read Bobby McFife.
Bobby cried out, “You there. I need to see your Westburg dog license!”
People on the street turned, with mouths agape at a respectful distance.
Azrael whined as he took a restless sit because Kelton had stopped walking. His eyes were bright with concentration and tracked the dogcatcher waddling up onto the curve.
“We aren’t a town resident,” replied Kelton.
“Do you have your driver’s license on you?”
“I don’t have a driver’s license,” declared Kelton.
The man noticed the gun on Kelton’s hip and quickly gripped the butt of his own gun while he pointed with the other hand.
“You are not cooperating with law enforcement. I need you to show me your hands!”
“How am I not cooperating?” asked Kelton without moving his hands.
“You failed to produce I.D.”
“No, you asked me for a driver’s license. Those aren’t the same thing,” Kelton tried to explain but the dogcatcher cut him off.
“I’m taking your unlicensed dog,” Bobby declared and turned toward his truck to fumble with the brackets holding the catch pole hanging on the side of the bed.
Kelton turned away from him and began to walk down Main Street with Azrael following, but both of them wearily looked over their shoulders at the dogcatcher. Finally, the guy worked the release mechanism and had the long steel pole with the loop of cable at one end. The dogcatche
r stumbled after them, clutching the pole with both hands.
“Stop!” ordered Bobby. “By order of the Town of Westburg, stop!”
Kelton kept on walking down the sidewalk with cars passing alongside. When he’d been taken into custody back in St. Albans, Azrael had been on the run by himself. Kelton considered that an unforgivable breach of trust and vowed never again. He’d even made the promise out loud to his dog. His gun hand started to twitch as he weighed his options. Kelton wasn’t looking to kill a man in broad daylight on a public street and looked about for better choices. But if it came to that, his mind had already been made up on how far he was willing to go; he had made his peace with it. He didn’t see any other city police units but knew they wouldn’t be far away. It wasn’t called Main Street for nothing.
The pole came down in a big arc, the hanging lasso on the end aimed at his dog’s head. Kelton kicked at it as Azrael dodged to the side in the nick of time, the dog’s tunnel vision making it hard to see it coming. The fight was on at that point, but it didn’t last long. Kelton squared up to the man, and the dogcatcher froze in intimidation facing the young ex-army officer. Getting fixated, there was no chance to dodge or twist away from the ivory white fangs racing through the air that clamped down on Bobby’s right bicep.
“Sweet Jesus!” he screamed. Bobby had never been an athletic man, even when young. Strength and balance were not his forte. As Azrael’s jaws clamped down tight as an alligator, the dog’s 75 pounds sailed right over his shoulder spinning Bobby about like a child’s top. He hit the concrete sidewalk hard, breaking a front tooth on the catch pole on the way down and then bruising his collar bone. Kelton walked up to stand over him.
By Dog Alone: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 2 Page 6
