“Perfect. How soon can you get him?”
“We’re workin’ on it. They tell me a month or so.”
“Not good enough,” Stoat said.
“Lemme see what I can do.”
“Hey, while I got you on the line”—Stoat, giving the Upmann another try—”how’s my head mount coming? Did you get with your fiberglass guy?”
“He’s on the case,” Durgess said. “Says it’ll look better’n the real thing, time he gets done. Nobody’ll know it’s fake except you and me.”
“I can’t wait,” Palmer Stoat said. “I can’t wait to see that magnificent beast on the wall.”
“You bet.”
Stoat failed to detect the mockery in Durgess’s tone, and he hung up, satisfied that he’d lit a blaze under the guide’s slothful butt. Stoat fastidiously nubbed the ash of his cigar and went to shower. He carried a portable phone into the bathroom, in case Desie called from Hostage World, wherever…
The lights went out while Stoat had a head covered with shampoo lather. He groped in the dark, cursing and spitting flecks of soapy foam, until he found the shower knobs. When he tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge. He leaned a shoulder to the glass, with no better result.
Through stinging eyes Stoat saw a hulking shadow on the other side of the shower door. A cry died in his throat as he thought: Mr. Gash again. Who else could it be?
Then the glass disintegrated, an earsplitting echo off the imported Italian marble. The door fell in pieces around Stoat’s bare feet. Afterward the only sound in the bathroom was his own stark, rapid breathing. He felt a stinging sensation on his right leg, and a warm trickling toward his ankle.
The shadow no longer loomed face-to-face; now it was seated on the toilet, evidently evacuating its bowels.
“Mr. Gash?” The words came out of Palmer Stoat in a choke.
“Wrong,” the shadow said.
“Then who are you?”
“Your friend Dick sent me,” the shadow man said. “Dick the governor. Something about a missing pooch.”
“Yes!”
“Suppose you tell me.”
“Now? Here?”
The lights came on. Palmer Stoat squinted, raising one hand to his brow. With the other hand he covered his shrunken genitals. Broken glass lay everywhere; it was a miracle he’d only been nicked.
“Start talking,” said the shadow man. “Hurry, soldier, life is passing us by.”
As Stoat’s eyes adjusted, the broad-shouldered figure on the toilet came into focus. He had sun-beaten features and a silvery beard, exotically platted into two long strands. Tied to each of the strands was a beak, yellow and stained like old parchment. The man wore ancient mud-caked boots and a dirty orange rain jacket. Bunched at his ankles was a legless checkered garment that might have been a kilt. On his head the man wore a cheap plastic shower cap, through which shone a shiny bald scalp. Something was odd about his eyes, but Stoat couldn’t decide what it was.
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
“Call me captain.” The visitor spoke in a low rumble, like oncoming thunder.
“All right, captain.” Stoat didn’t feel quite so terrified, with the guy sitting where he was. “Why didn’t you just ring the doorbell?” Stoat said. “Why break into the house? And why’d you bust the shower door?”
“To put you in the proper frame of mind,” the man replied. “Also, I was in the mood for some serious goddamn noise.”
“Dick Artemus sent you?”
“Sort of.”
“Why—to get my dog back?”
“That’s right. I’m from Animal Control.” The man barked sarcastically.
Palmer Stoat fought to stay calm. Considering the political stakes, it almost made sense that Governor Dick would recruit his own tracker to take care of the dognapper—maybe not to kill him but certainly to stop him before he caused more trouble. But where had the governor found such a crazed and reckless brute? Stoat wondered. He was like Grizzly Adams on PCP.
Stoat asked: “Are you a manhunter?”
“More like a shit scraper,” the visitor replied, “and I’m starting with you.”
“Look, I’ll tell you the whole story, everything, but first let me towel off and put on some clothes. Please.”
“Nope. You stay right there.” The man rose and reached for the toilet paper. “In my experience,” he said, hoisting his checkered kilt, “men who are buck naked and scared nutless tend to be more forthcoming. They tend to have better memories. So let’s hear your sad doggy story.”