by Martha Carr
Red and blue police lights flashed through the front door. The static crackle of a radio rose faintly through the blaring music.
The bounty hunter smirked at the crowd of hardcore metalheads who thrashed at the far side of the bar and formed their own mosh pit without a live band anywhere in sight. He sniffed and approached the counter to lean over it to shout at the bartender, “You got Johnny Walker Black?”
The man with long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail nodded and turned swiftly to take the bottle off the shelf.
Johnny grinned. “Neat.”
He watched while his drink was poured swiftly and expertly, nodded in time to the music, and jerked his chin at two women who approached the bar. With a small smirk, he slapped a ten-dollar bill on the wood in exchange for his drink and knocked it back. The women at the bar scrutinized him thoroughly and constantly darted glances at him as they ordered their drinks.
A fight broke out at the far side of the amateur mosh pit—two skinny guys with baggy pants wrestled each other to the table and threw wild fists that mostly caught only thin air. A glass shattered somewhere but the music continued to play.
The bartender returned and shouted, “Want another?”
“Naw, I’m good. Keep the change.” Johnny grinned. “You know, I thought this city was a real shithole. After comin’ here, though, I think maybe it ain’t so bad.”
“Okay, man.”
The dwarf threw devil horns with one hand, and the man returned the gesture swiftly before he leaned toward his next customers.
With a chuckle, the dwarf pushed through the bar patrons who hadn’t felt the need to run from the cops. The wrestlers thumped against the wall beside the front door before one of them hauled the other to the floor and began to batter him with his fists. Johnny stepped around them without a word and entered the alley.
The police lights still flashed from the two squad cars pulled up on the curb in front of the other bars. He stepped out of the alley, sniffed, and turned to find Lisa and the hounds waiting for him. “Perfect timin’.”
“That’s twice in under an hour.” She held two fingers up. “We’re working this case together, Johnny. I’m not here to chase you all over Portland and lose my mind thinking your dogs can understand what I’m saying.”
He glanced at the hounds, who both licked their muzzles and stared at him. How the hell did they manage that?
“Do you have anything to say?”
With a grunt, he gestured up the street in the direction of their hotel. “Do you still have beer in your room?”
“What?” She fell into step beside him and Rex and Luther trailed a few paces behind them. “I thought you didn’t drink beer.”
“I don’t. But I reckon you could do with a few after tonight.”
She scoffed and fixed him a condescending frown. “I don’t need to drink after every confrontation with a couple of thugs in an alley.”
“I know. But if you’re thinkin’ my hounds can understand you…”
“Stop.” She glanced over her shoulder at the animals padding along behind them, who panted and gazed at her with huge eyes. “They did know exactly where to find you, though. Which is a little weird now that I think about it.”
“No, it ain’t. They can sniff a ʼgator out from miles upriver. I think I’m a hell of a lot easier to find.” And she’s cuttin’ awfully close to the truth here.
“Kind of an understatement, Johnny,” Rex said.
“Yeah.” Luther stopped to sniff a bench on the sidewalk. “You’re no ʼgator but you have your own kinda Johnny stink, you know?”
The bounty hunter snorted and shook his head.
“What’s so funny?” Lisa asked.
“You did good back there, darlin’—showin’ up with the hounds and tossin’ a few fireballs.”
“You know, I appreciate the pat on the back but I can’t shake this feeling that you’re keeping something from me.”
He shrugged under her scrutinizing stare and simply grinned. “You’re the fed. If I’m hidin’ somethin’, you’re bound to find out sooner or later.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Does that have anything to do with why you simply disappeared without a word to go beat up a guy with a red boar tattoo?”
“Nope. That was only me tryin’ to get a lead. That little gang back there has somethin’ to do with the drug ring. No one gets the same tattoo as that red stamp simply ’cause they think it’s cool.”
“Okay. I get that you wanted to catch the guy before he disappeared. And that all four of us walking into that bar together might have drawn more attention than you wanted. Fine.” She shook her head and focused down the street to search for the marquee above their hotel. “But don’t do it again.”
“All right. Sorry for steppin’ on your toes, Agent Breyer. Next time, I’ll shout it out in the open where everyone can hear.”
She punched him in the shoulder and he staggered sideways along the sidewalk with a snort. “And don’t leave me in a back alley on the other side of a door with no handle either.”
“Fine.”
“Did you at least get your damn drink?”
“You bet.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The next morning, Johnny sat on the bed in his hotel room, searching through his phone for information about the Shanghai Tunnels tours. He tried to swipe up again to refresh the Internet search and his screen shifted to the last page he’d been reading instead. “Damn smartphones. Has anyone ever managed to pin down what the hell makes ʼem so smart?”
Rex raised his head from his forepaws and yawned widely. “Have you tried asking it questions?”
“Yeah, Johnny.” Luther gnawed between the toes of one paw, then settled for licking it repeatedly. “That’s how we test something’s smarts. If it can’t answer a question, it’s dumb enough to be chased.”
Johnny waved his phone at the hound. “You wanna chase my phone now?”
“Uh…”
Rex chuckled. “Yeah, you passed the smarts test, all right.”
A knock caught his attention.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Lisa.”
“’Course it is.”
“What was that?”
“Nothin’.” Johnny tossed his phone onto the bed and slid off to open the door.
“Morning.” Lisa shoved another to-go cup of coffee toward him. He took it gratefully and closed the door behind her as she waltzed into his room.
“Don’t tell me you wasted any more money on those dog biscuits.”
“Nope. Only coffee. I assumed that if you wanted breakfast, you’d get it yourself. Which I see you’ve already done.”
“I was up early.” He slurped the coffee, swallowed, and glared at the cup. “Damn. It’s still good.”
She pulled her tablet out from under her arm and sat in her usual place on the round lime-green armchair. “And you decided to wait inside?”
“I was tryin’ to read about those tunnels but the damn phone won’t do what I want.”
Biting back a laugh, she settled more comfortably. “What did you find?”
“Tour times. All kinds of back story about the tunnels. Unfortunately, they ain’t advertisin’ the extra thrill of gettin’ marked by dark magic and hallucinatin’ demons.”
The agent took another sip of coffee. “So you’re completely sure you still want to wait for the last tour of the day?”
“Did somethin’ change in the last fourteen hours?”
“No.” She placed her coffee down and looked at him with a barely concealed smile. “But if that’s the case, it means we have all day to poke around the area—”
Johnny snorted. “If you made another one of those damn wish lists, Lisa, you can forget it right now.”
“No, I don’t have a list.” She glanced at her tablet and cleared her throat. “But I did find a great park not too far from here.”
Rex and Luther both jerked their heads up again to stare at her. “She said pa
rk, Johnny.”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard.”
“We’re in.”
“I ain’t goin’ to no stupid Blues Festival.” The dwarf sipped his coffee and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Johnny, you can’t hole yourself up in a hotel room with two hounds for the next eight hours.”
“Watch me.”
“I’d rather not.” She pulled up pictures of the park and leaned over the chair’s armrest to show him the tablet. “And I wasn’t talking about the Blues Festival. You made your opinion perfectly clear on that one.”
“Uh-huh.” He studied her warily for a moment before he took the device. “So what’s this?”
“A hiking trail with green space and fresh air. It's not downtown Portland. If that doesn’t do it for you, I know two coon hounds who look like they could use a nice hike.”
Rex and Luther gazed at her with wide eyes. “Johnny, she’s onto something.”
Luther pawed at the carpet and inched toward her. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s on her way to bein’ a better two-legs than you, Johnny.”
The dwarf grunted and frowned at the smaller hound, who looked quickly at him and stopped belly-crawling. “I mean, it’s not like she could do that.”
“We don’t wanna stay in a hotel room all day, Johnny.”
“No way. A park sounds good.”
“Really good.”
“We can run.”
“Don’t you wanna let us run, Johnny?”
“Enough.” Johnny handed the tablet to her and caught her frowning at him in surprise. “What?”
“That’s what I was about to ask. Enough what?”
He sniffed and muttered into his coffee cup, “The damn hounds are starin’ me down.”
Lisa glanced at Rex and Luther, who now stared at her with their pleading puppy-dog eyes. “Not anymore.”
His loud slurping filled the hotel room. “Fine. We’ll go for a hike.”
“Yes!” Luther leapt to his feet and yipped. “We get to run!”
“But I ain’t payin’ to walk around outside.”
“It’s a public park, Johnny.” She chuckled at the younger dog’s excited tight circles and stood. “They’re free.”
“The way this city’s runnin’ things, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
Rex reached the door first and spun to stare at his master, panting madly. “Let’s go, Johnny. I’m ready!”
“Not if I’m ready first.” Luther raced toward his brother, misjudged his skid to a halt, and thunked his head against the door. He shook himself and turned in another tight circle. “Totally ready.”
“The park ain’t on the other side of this door, boys. Y’all need to rein it in.”
They took the SUV to Forest Park and pulled into the parking lot twenty minutes later. Lisa slid out, shut the door behind her, and took a deep breath of the warming morning air. “This is beautiful.”
“It ain’t the Everglades, darlin’, but it ain’t the city, neither.” Johnny walked to the back to open the cargo area for the hounds. Rex and Luther bounded out and trotted toward the trailhead, sniffing furiously.
“Johnny, this is awesome.”
“Everything’s so green.”
“Kinda like home, right?”
“No, it ain’t.”
“What?” Lisa joined them at the trailhead.
Johnny cleared his throat. “It ain’t like home.”
“Yeah, you said that already.”
“Well, it bears sayin’ again.” He rubbed his mouth and trudged down the dirt path. This ain’t gonna last. I gotta tell her about the collars.
“Hey, what was that?” Luther dove into the thick foliage on the side of the path, rustled around in the ferns, and yanked his head up to search the forest floor frantically. “Where’d it go?”
“You mean that squirrel?” Rex raced past his brother into the underbrush, baying wildly.
“Don’t you have a problem letting them run like that without being able to see them?” Lisa asked.
“Why would I?”
“Like you said. It’s not the Everglades.”
“They’re fine.”
“What about you?” She looked directly at him as they moved up the first small hill.
“As long as no one tells me I gotta leash my hounds in an open space, I’ll be fine too.”
When they reached the top, they had a full view of most of the path stretching out in front of them down the middle of a valley. Tree branches covered in moss and creeping vines grew everywhere along the mountainside and other hikers were out on a warm summer morning.
Lisa smiled. “It looks like a popular place.”
“Uh-huh.” Johnny frowned as he studied the people moving up and down the path and even between the trees. All of them were couples holding hands or with their arms around each other, laughing, kissing, and gazing into their partner’s eyes. “I think you might have chosen the wrong place.”
“What do you mean?”
They passed a young couple seated on a fallen moss-covered log.
“Look at that. They’re all over each other like it’s their own private park.” He turned around and leaned toward them. “Y’all know there’s other folks out here, don’tcha?”
The couple didn’t come up for air to respond.
Yeah, they’re not hearin’ anythin’.
Lisa shrugged and looked at the overhanging branches above them. “Maybe it’s the sunshine. I know it’s summer, but aren’t nice days like this still rare out here?”
“Rare or not, that ain’t an excuse for all this…” He swept a hand across the valley to include all the couples.
She smirked at him. “You have a bone to pick with PDA, huh?”
“PD what?”
“Public displays of affection.” She laughed. “We both know you’re the best at what you do, Johnny, but sometimes, I wonder about your social skills.”
He clicked his tongue and uttered a noncommittal grumble. “I have no need for social skills when I’d rather be huntin’.”
“Or you could simply enjoy some fresh air and decent company. It’s not a bad alternative, right?”
“No, I suppose it ain’t.”
They walked in silence for a while and tried to ignore the oddly increasing number of couples who came out to the hiking trail for public canoodling. The hounds raced out of the underbrush and glanced behind them as they rejoined him briefly on the path.
“Hey, Johnny. Whatever you do, don’t go back that way.”
Rex snorted and trotted in front of his master. “That was not an image I wanted burned in my mind.”
The dwarf frowned and peered at the thick foliage from which the hounds had emerged. A soft rustling on the other side was followed by heavy breathing.
“What’s wrong?” Lisa stopped and studied the same area.
“Does that sound like a struggle to you?”
“Well…there are wild animals out on a hiking trail…”
A woman’s high-pitched giggle traveled faintly toward them, followed by a man’s deep laughter and a low, barely concealed moan.
Her eyes widened. “Oh…”
“Told you, Johnny.” Luther stared at the rustling bushes and cocked his head. “Wild animals, all right.”
“Hey, weren’t you the one who wanted privacy with that Great Pyrenees?” Rex sniffed the ferns on the other side of the path and inched slowly into the foliage again.
“That’s different, Rex.”
“Yeah, in more ways than one.”
As the hounds disappeared in the woods again, Johnny cleared his throat and kept walking.
Lisa tucked her hair behind her ear, shook her head, and hurried away from the not so private rendezvous. “So.”
“Yep.”
“You know, we…haven’t had a chance to talk about Amanda starting at the academy.”
“We don’t need to go there right now, darlin’.”
“Why not?”
The d
warf sniffed and turned away from her to gaze into the trees. “You spent time talkin’ to her before she left for that school. I can’t say much you ain’t already heard straight from her.”
“Oh, I know she was excited to get started.” She chuckled but her smile faded when he still wouldn’t look at her. “Johnny, I was talking about you.”
He released a slow, heavy sigh and darted her a sidelong glance. “What about me?”
“I know how much she means to you.” She shrugged. “Anyone who saw you two together could see it immediately, no matter how hard you tried to hide it.”
“I didn’t try to hide a thing.”
With her hands clasped behind her back, she studied his frowning profile. “Except for how much you miss her already.”
Johnny scoffed. “I’m fine.”
“You clam up every time her name’s mentioned. And as soon as she started at that school, we found you drunker than I thought you could get. I know it was hard enough to go through Dawn’s case and I also know how quickly you and Amanda—”
“I don’t need any of that head-shrinkin’, all right? I said I’m fine. She’s in good hands at that school. She wants to be there. We’re all movin’ on. Simple as that.”
“I’m not trying to be your therapist—”
“Then stop pryin’ into my personal affairs and leave it.”
She stared at him and slowed on the path.
The dwarf kept walking, then slowed and gritted his teeth. Now you’re bein’ an asshole. Fix it. He turned to look at her and grimaced when she frowned at him in disbelief. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
“Look, darlin’, I—”
“You’re ridiculously dense sometimes, you know that?”
He gaped and his eyebrows drew closer together. “Say what now?”
“Do you honestly think I’m asking all this because I’m trying to pick you apart?” Lisa stepped toward him. “Or get enough juicy details to add to my reports to the Department? Is that it?”
Johnny scratched the side of his face. “Well, now I don’t know what to think.”
