LuLu's Desperate House Dogs (formerly the Bow Wow Blog)

LuLu's Desperate House Dogs is a blog about an eccentric little Beagle named LuLu, who, along with her sister Sadie (a Whippet/Terrier/Beagle blend), writes the lurid Puppies in Lust series, and absorbs local color in an idyllic, off-the-leash, canine-centered village known as Lincoln Park~

Friday, September 28, 2007

Tonight...the chase is on, and Sam gets another major surprise! (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

posted by LuLu @ 10:43 PM 

4 Comments:

Blogger LuLu said...

The Maltese Chew Toy (continued)

Last week, with Cairo the pug's help, Sam finally located his client Brigid, and the two of them enjoyed a slow waltz on the carpet. Brigid convinced Sam that the jewels she's been looking for really do exist...but is she true blue or a cur at her core?


Sam left the Canine Coronet Dog Spa just as a thick fog was beginning to wrap its way around the city. He loved the fog in San Francisco and the insular feeling it gave him. He had a sense of being all alone in the world, and generally he liked that feeling.
But tonight the fog seemed to reach into his bones and leave a chill behind.

He could still smell Brigid's flea powder in his hair and on his paws. She was a hot, dangerous bitch and she had the power to excite him. She lacked Iva's neediness, and she certainly lacked Effie's patience and warmth, but Sam had made up his mind early on in life that he would never be a sit-and-stay kind of dog. Brigid, he felt certain, was the same kind of canine he was.

In an odd way, he thought of her almost as a twin spirit, and he found the idea both stimulating and disturbing at the same time.

While rejecting the words "sit and stay" in reference to himself, Sam couldn't help but associate them with Effie -- his little beagle, with her pretty face, her velvet ears and her almond-shaped eyes; she who would soon present him with a litter of wriggling, squealing puppies. So, in all probability, would Iva, but Sam still thought of her as Archer's bitch, and of the puppies as part of his late partner's legacy.

His sentiments for Effie, ill-defined as they were, remained separate from the casual lust he felt for Iva and the gnawing hunger he felt for Brigid.

Being Sam Spencer, he saw no reason to examine those sentiments too closely.

The fog parted as he came to a corner, and a mass that was at first amorphous gradually emerged as one of the city's numerous large, decorative fountains. He crossed the street and lapped up some tepid water, which tasted, not too surprisingly, like feet and urine.

Brigid's perfume clung to him like a dogcatcher's net, and he thought about Murray splashing around in his swimming pool earlier. Murray liked to swim, and the water dulled his scent.

Sam made up his mind, gritted his teeth, and climbed into the fountain. The water was cold and it stank even worse now that he was neck deep in it. Within seconds he jumped out and shook himself off.

Then he grinned.

He no longer smelled of Brigid.

Story continued below...

1:04 AM  
Blogger LuLu said...

Story cont'd...

Back on his own patch of earth, Sam found both Effie and Iva huddled in the tool shed together. The yellow porch light at number 891 cast eerie shadows over them, making them appear vaguely unreal and disconcertingly unfamiliar.

Effie barked first. "The fog is heavy tonight. I'm glad you made it back safely, Sam."

Iva's blonde hair was badly matted, and she looked haggard and old. "I'm glad you made it back at all," she added tartly. "Is that perfume I smell? You were supposed to be looking for Archer! You were supposed..." She broke off. "Oh, I can't believe he's dead!" she howled.

"Why aren't you inside?" Sam asked her, feeling more annoyed than compassionate, for he had hoped to find Effie alone. "Did Sophie notice your expanding girth?"

"Sam!" chided Effie. "Please, not now."

"Miss Caruthers is upstairs with her boyfriend," Iva moaned. "They're planning to go away together tomorrow, and she's leaving me here with Mrs. Petrona until she gets back."

She whimpered self-servingly. "Everything happens to me! Archer gets killed, I have puppies on the way, and now my mistress dumps me. Oh, Sam, what am I going to do?"

"Iva, don't worry," soothed Effie. "Sam will work this out."

Her hero twitched his tail slightly. He was fresh out of ideas.

It was Effie instead of Iva who asked -- "Were you able to find Archer's body, Sam?"

The truth was, he'd never even thought to look for his partner's body. What would have been the point? But Sam lied. "He died quickly," he said.

"How?" Iva demanded. "I've got a right to know."

"Bugsy Gatthamer's son shot him," Sam told her.

"But why?" Iva stared at him through bloodshot eyes. "Why would anybody shoot a harmless old dog like Archer?"

"He was looking for something. Some jewels. Archer...got in the way." Sam stretched out in front of the tool shed and tried not to yawn. For a dog who was only three years old, he suddenly felt very tired, almost as weary as Archer must have felt with his years weighing heavily on him.

"Jewels?" echoed Iva. "You mean, like diamonds?"

"That sort of thing, yes," Sam replied.

"Strange what two-footers consider valuable, isn't it?" asked Effie. "Stranger still what they'll kill for," she added philosophically.

Iva said nothing for a while, but at last she turned to Sam and asked, "You never really saw Archer's body, did you?"

He turned his attention to a light in a window at 893 -- Sophie Caruther's apartment. "No," he arfed. "No, Iva, I didn't."

Iva turned to Effie. "Did you hear that? If Sam didn't actually see him..."

Sam cut her off and stripped her of any hope. "Iva, the police were on the scene like cockroaches on a lump of sugar. They took everything away. Everything. Archer is dead. You're just going to have to accept it."

"You're a mutt, Sam" And she began to whimper again. Effie gently licked her face.

"Sam," she said, "would you mind sleeping in the doghouse tonight? Iva needs comforting."

Story continued below...

1:31 AM  
Blogger LuLu said...

Story cont'd...

Sam let a low growl die in his throat. He got up, shook himself off, dipped his nose into the empty food bowl, and finally flopped down on the torn, flea-infested bedding inside the doghouse. The bedding smelled strongly of Archer.

Sam snapped at the fleas and tried to pretend his stomach wasn't growling. He had shared a bowl of fresh chicken livers with Brigid before slipping out into the fog shortly after their carpet canoodling, but a few chicken livers hardly made up for a solid meal.

He sighed, pawed around in the bedding, frightened away a mouse, and finally curled up, closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

But sleep wouldn't come, and the fog was no help. Like probing fingers, it nudged at this senses and made him nervous. He stayed awake, listened to the soft snoring coming from the shed across the way. In the wee small hours he heard a telephone jangle from somewhere close by. Saw the light go on in Sophie Caruther's apartment again.

Shortly thereafter, he heard a man's footsteps on the back stairs, rapidly descending. Heavy footsteps.

Sam's nose twitched and he rose to his feet. That smell! Images of Floyd Munsday's cottage flashed in his brain. The smells were identical -- and he'd sniffed the same aroma while he and Murray were hiding behind the topiary. Leather and polish -- and perfume. Sophie Caruther's perfume.

Sam's thoughts exploded as realization struck him. Sophie Caruther's new boyfriend was Bugsy Gatthamer's son!

He charged out of the doghouse, squeezed through the hole under the fence and followed the hefty two-footer as he hurried down the alleyway, no doubt headed for his roadster.

The phone call, thought Sam. Had someone located Brigid for him? If so, the gunsel would make quick work of the pretty Maltese at the Canine Coronet Dog Spa.

She wouldn't have a chance!

The fog closed around Sam, and in the distance he heard the sound of a car starting up.

Story continued next week....

1:54 AM  
Blogger LuLu said...

She wouldn't STAND a chance, either, and I like that line better.

Just so you'll know.

LuLu, the author~

2:54 AM  

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