The Mentor (34 page)

I took a half
step forward and she shook her head.

One last
try, I asked again: "Who is doing this to me?  This is my life, and
I’m not in control of it anymore!"

"Well
at least you got that right."  She raised the gun, but didn't point
it toward me nor my canine friend.  "Give them what they want when
they ask, and it'll be over."

"Over?
 They can have whatever they want, I don't have anything.  They can
take it and leave me alone!  And don't call me kid, lady.  You're the
same fucking age as I am."

"Yeah,"
she said and closed an eye.  "They said you were smart, really smart,
and I had to be on my toes."  One last time, she looked me in the
face, expressionless.  "I don't see it."

Her lips
parted, then the gun exploded in her hand, my ear drums exploded with it, and
the dim garage bulb spit fire, then went dark.  

Down on one
knee (I didn't remember dropping), I watched the outside door bang open and
close like a lighthouse flash, and then I was back in the dark.  My first
worry:

"Toby?
 You okay?"

Nothing.
 My heart sank and I pushed the door behind me farther open, turned on the
hall light.  The thick, yellow beam of light painted a rectangle on the
garage door and just to the left of it, I saw the big, midnight black dog in
the corner of the room, shifting from paw to paw.

"Oh,
thank god."

Toby
whimpered back and I took a few steps forward.  "You really are all
bark and no bite, huh?  Come here, thanks for--"

A low growl
rippled from the dark.

"Okay.
 I'll say thanks from here."  I stopped and backed up one step.
 "Good dog.  Maybe I can feed you one of the neighbor kids as
reward, okay?"

Toby’s
tongue hung out, and some part of me wondered if it knew what I had just said.

Chapter
Twenty

Pavan
jumped backward, then forward again, unsure what he should do with his feet.
 “What is that?  What… what was that noise?  What
makes
that kind
of noise?”

“Toby needs
water,” I said.

“What’s a
Toby?”

“Its papers
say ‘dog,’ but I don’t think that’s the complete picture.”  I stood to get
the jug, and then stopped.  

I'd called
Pavan and, thrilled to be back in action, he was at the Dvorak's house the next
morning.

Nashville
was about four hours away, so round trip plus an hour of time (give or take) at
Solomon-Bluth regional office it was going to be a nine or ten hour road trip.
 

The
kitties, they had their little box, and I could load them up with food and
water easy enough.  Toby required a little more attention.  He’d need
a trip around the block once or twice.

Once in the
garage, Pavan asked if he could hold Toby's leash as we walked.

"Are
you serious?  You're not afraid he'll eat you?"

He'd
gleefully taken a pair of work gloves, slipped them on, and grabbed the chain.
 As he walked over to Toby in the corner, my stomach flinched, but the dog
watched Pavan like a curiosity.  An odd, little dude.  And, honestly,
he's my best friend but that's how most of the world looks at him.

Why should
the dog be any different?

According
to the missus of the house and the note left by the Dvoraks, I was to feed the
cats twice a day.  Thankfully, dog fed itself.  

There was
an instruction to “play” with the kitties, too.  As felines are
notoriously poor at “fetch,” I couldn’t really imagine what sort of playing
they were into.  There was an air hockey table in the basement, and it
seemed conceivable they would enjoy batting around the flat, plastic puck, but
a few days earlier, I'd discovered the air jets only scared the willies out of
the cats, and it took me more than an hour to pry them out from under the game
room’s sofa.

Old school,
I'd searched the home for yarn but the closest thing available had been dental
floss.  Muggles (or Ruggles) didn’t seem interested, but Ruggles (or
Muggles) played a little but constantly lost sight of it, only to strike out in
frustration once it did find it, which skewered my hand once too often (once)
and that little round of playtime was over.  They seemed content to swirl
around my feet as I tromped from room to room, so “playtime” became the
twice-daily routine of walking through every room in the house with the kitties
in tow.

The note
also said that I was to walk Toby the bear-dog a couple of times.  It
didn’t say “a couple times
a day
,” so it seemed a few times over the
next week and a half would suffice.  

The
midnight black dog in the backyard at one point ran out of food and simply bit
through the bag sitting next to the empty one.  I did not, however, find
any shards or strips of thick, brown paper, thus it seemed apparent that Toby
had
eaten
the top portion of the bag.

Pavan and I
were going to be gone for the day and since Toby had defended me against
"Sorority She-Ra," at the very least, he deserved a quick, rewarding walking
tour around the block.

Outside,
Pavan's enthusiasm dimmed only slightly, as the big dog effortlessly pulled him
down the sidewalk.

“How far
you supposed to walk him?”

“I dunno.
 Never had a dog.”

"Doesn't
make you a very good dog-sitter, man."

For such a
nice neighborhood, all this work on keeping lawns and yards perfect-- nobody
ever went outside.  Maybe they were all part of some new fad of in-town
vacation properties.

"I’m a
house-sitter, Pavan.  Not a dog sitter."

"But
if the house you’re sitting on has a dog, then you are a dog-sitter, too."

"Well,
if you put it that way, I guess," I said.

Pavan was
still grinning that stoned grin of his.  “Man, this is not a dog.
 It’s like some Woolly Mammoth someone thawed out and put a collar on.”

“Don't talk
like that.  You’re just making me nervous,” I said and decided that the
dog would let me know how far we were walking into the early morning, which was
as it had cooled began to pull a thick fog blanket down to keep the earth warm.
 

Luckily for
me, in this setting, the hound of the Baskervilles was at the end of the leash
Pavan was holding and, theoretically, on my side.  If anyone tried to get
me, Toby the dog could eat him.  

I’d told
Pavan about my encounter with the blond in the Dvorak’s house the night before,
and how I’d seen her a couple times before.

"What
did she mean by 'they'?  You asked about Sodom-Boof and--"

"Solomon-Bluth."

"Right,
and she said '
they
' meaning you got more than one person after
you."

She’d said:
They always get what they want.  Always.  Christ, it's why
they're-- whatever

They're…
what?  What was she about to say?

"So
I've got a group or team or company after me because they want something-- and
they'll get it-- because 'they' always do."

"What
kind of team?"

Shook my
head.  “Either way, I’m not hiding the rest of my life.  Time to
impose my will on the enemy for a change,” I said, watching Toby sniff around a
bush that had been sculpted to look like a mushroom.

“Is the
Toby-dog going to eat that bush?”

“Fine by
me.”

“Listen,
man,” Pavan said and turned to me.  His soft features sharpened slightly.
 “What do you hope to find at… you know, this place?  In Nashville.”

"It's
the only thing I have to go on right now.  I know The Mentor and a hot
blond might in some way work for them."

"Oh,
you didn't say she was
hot
.  How hot?"

"And,
that it's a 'them' not one person.  Not just a
him
… or
her
."

"Well
if it was just the one guy, that guy would be the owner guy of Sandman--"

"
Solomon
-Bluth.
 How hard can that be to remember?"

"Now
it's jumbled, permanently… it's lost forever, man.  The owner dude, what's
his name?"

Toby
stopped so we stopped.  When he would move again, we would move.  I
only hoped Toby decided to go home soon.  Or at all.  

"Marion
Bluth."

"It's
a chick?"

"No,
just an old dude.  You know John Wayne's first name was 'Marion.'
 Tough guy like that."

"Neat.
 Who the fuck is John Wayne?"  Pavan said and his head snapped
back halfway as he was yanked forward again.  "Nevermind.  So
you got a bunch of guys all hanging out, like Wayne Bluth."

"Christ,
Pavan," I said and laughed.  "Okay, why do
I
have a
‘bunch of guys’ like Marion Bluth?"

"'Cause
guys with big houses, big cars and skinny wives only hang out with other guys
with big houses, big cars and skinny wives."

"Huh."

"When
was the last time you hung out with a millionaire?"

"Billionaire."

"Whoa,
fuck a duck!  No shit?" Pavan hopped a couple times, trying to hold
onto the leash.  Toby had sped up and was moving toward a long expanse of
lawn, capped by a gorgeous white, antebellum mansion.  "Wish I'd been
born into that family."

"Nah,
money like that makes weird kids."

"With
money like that, they don't never call you weird, man.  Eccentric."

I nodded.
 Pavan is smarter than he looks.  Well… he'd have to be.

"So
you got a bunch of rich guys gunning for you," he said plainly.

I stopped.

Pavan, not
his fault, kept walking.

"What?"

Calling
over his shoulder, he said.  "If there is a 'they' and one of the
'they' is Big Money then the other 'theys' are Big Money.  Big Money don't
hang out with Little Money."

She'd
said: "They always get what they want.  Always.  Christ, it's
why they're--"

"Billionaires?"

I caught up
to Pavan and he said, "Yeah, maybe.  Are there a lot of those kinds
of guys around?"

Well, I
couldn't be sure they'd all get the big B tag, but Pavan had a point.
 And, playing back She-Ra's conversation back in my head, when I'd asked
about Solomon-Bluth--

Oh yeah.
 Actually, I think one of them does run that place.

In this
group, 'one of them,' a
billionaire
didn't stand out from the rest.
 And Big Money wouldn't really stand out, as Pavan put it, next to Big
Money.  

Pavan broke
my train of thought.

"What
if you do find your Mentor guy?  Track him down.  Whaddya do,
then?"

“There’s a
Cobb County detective I’ve talked with.  He’s a good cat.  I could—“

“Oh, so
you… you are going to karate chop the guy, tie him up with your shoelaces, and
call in the cop guy?”

"I'm
glad you find it so funny."

“Sorry, but
the only thing I’ve seen you go hand-to-hand with is a foot-long roast beef
sandwich!”

Pavan,
again, was right.  Still, I pulled a package out of my pocket that had
been hanging on a hook in the novelty section of the gas station.  Tearing
open the package, I tossed the bracelets to Pavan.

They hit
his chest and he caught them with his free hand.  His smile grew so wide,
I wondered if he could taste ear wax.

“Toy
handcuffs?  No way, man.  You are a crazy bastard!”

“My
ex-girlfriend put those on me one time,” I said.  “She swallowed the key,
thinking it was a sexy move.  After we were done, not so sexy anymore
being strapped to the bed.”

“Sure, you
can't go to the can or get out if there's a fire or nuthin'.”

“Right, my
exact thoughts, sure.  Uh… Tried and tried to get the things off.
 One option was to load my girl up with Raisin Bran and give it a couple
hours.”

“Gross.”

“Instead,
we called the landlord to get me out of them.  Even he said they were
surprisingly sturdy.”

Tossed the
cuffs back.  Well, if your
landlord
says they’re good…”

Pavan belly
laughed and got a quick yank again from Toby.  

"Toby,
eat my friend if he dares to laugh at me again."

I looked
down and saw we were halfway up the manicured lawn of someone’s very nice and
very large home.

When Toby
finally began to pull his hind legs forward I realized he was about to push
some of that paper dog food bag out of his system.  

I took a
step back.  Pavan looked up at the house and handed me the chain.  

"Come
on, we gotta hit the road."

There was a
stiff tug on the leash as Toby started moving away from his deposit.  As
we started walking again, thankfully, the big dog was moving back in the
direction we'd come from.

Pavan,
braver than me, looked back and whispered, “It’s like a Volkswagen.”

“Don’t look
at it,” I said, shuffling forward, being dragged by the huge animal .  “If
the owner of that house sees us, he might make us haul it away.”

When we'd
rolled up to the house, I stopped for a quick second not instantly recognizing
the car in the driveway.  Then remembered it was Pavan’s P.O.S.

"Huh.
 Where'd ya put the van?"

Pavan was
making zigzags as he walked next to me.  "I drove it to the airport
and put it in long term parking."

"Why?"

"I
think I saw it in a movie one time," he said and this was enough of an
answer for my friend.  Made perfect sense.  "Then I took the bus
back to my neighborhood."

"Okay."

"'Cept
the bus, sucks!  I ended up at the bus depot and from there I couldn't get
home.  So, my cousin picked me up."

I'm not
sure how many cousins Pavan had.  Or uncles or aunts.  But I'm pretty
sure
every
day since we've been friends, at some point, he's mentioned
one of his cousins.  And if you told me that he'd never brought up the
same one twice, I'd be inclined to believe you.

Before we
left for Nashville, we stocked his car with munchies and beer.  Loading up
the back seat, I saw that he already had a couple dozen snack sized bags back
there.

“How many
empty Funyuns bags are back here?”

“Chill,
they’re not all empty, man,” Pavan said.

“What is
this
stuff?”  I'd dug deeper into the silvery-foiled abyss.  “I don’t
think they even make this stuff anymore.”

Pavan got
in the driver's seat and set up his soda and,
why?
a new bag of Funyuns.
 I was sure that if I kept digging, I might find something of value.
 Or maybe a small family.