Hound Dog Blues (33 page)

Harley wished she had her mother’s confidence. Or the ear of the universe.

Neil glanced back at Harley and seemed to be making up his mind. Then he nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, fine. It’s not like the cops haven’t already made me anyway. Hurry up. I just need that piece.”

He must need money really badly, Harley thought, but as long as she could get him out of the house and away from Yogi and Diva, that was all that mattered. If only there was a necklace she could give Neil once she got him out of the house . . . something to trick him into leaving.

Neil wasn’t quite as trusting or hurried as she’d hoped. He made her tie up Yogi and Diva before he’d leave them alone, and he ripped out the phone line from the wall. It took several minutes to do all that, and by then he was really jumpy. He kept twitching, the gun in his hand moving back and forth from her to her parents and back again, snapping orders at her when she took too long. Harley couldn’t help wondering where Cami was, and if she’d fallen asleep out there on the front porch. She’d looked pretty comfortable sitting on Diva’s wicker couch.

They went out the back way, Harley a few steps ahead of Neil. If there was any such thing as help from the gods, he’d trip over a whirligig or the windmill. She should have known better than to hope for that, though. Her luck ran along the lines of bad to abysmal.

Yogi’s workshop was dark. Next door, the light over Morgan’s garage shone down on an empty driveway. He was still out at the warehouse on Jackson, of course. Along with Bobby, and all the cops looking for Neil Campbell in Dumpsters and along the railroad tracks.

“Where the hell is it?” Neil snarled, and she pointed just ahead of them.

“In his workshop. That’s the last place I saw it. It’s hidden in plain sight. You could look right at it and not see it.”

Maybe she could catch him off-balance somehow, grab his gun and start screaming. If she could wake up Cami, or if Mrs. Shipley wasn’t too far under the influence of her Benadryl and vodka nightly libation. Where was Cami? She had to have seen what was happening by now.

“Harley, what’s going on?”

As if conjured up by her thoughts, Cami appeared on the driveway by the chain link fence that was supposed to keep King in the back yard but only gave him climbing exercise. Harley came to an abrupt stop and Neil bumped into her, nearly knocking her into a spinning metal whirligig shaped like a flamingo.

“Get over here,” he snarled at Cami, and she looked first confused, then terrified, her eyes getting really big and gleaming in the murky glow of the vapor lights. “Hurry it up!”

“Who . . . who are you?”

“The man with the gun. Get your ass in here. Now.”

Cami pushed open the gate and scurried through it. Neil grabbed her arm and shoved her ahead of him, jerking his head toward the workshop to indicate impatience. Harley understood. And now she had to worry about two of them escaping instead of just herself. This wasn’t at all helpful. She should have conjured up a cop. Bobby. Morgan. Even Delisi. Any cop would do right now.

“Wait, I know you,” Cami was saying as they reached the workshop. “You’re the jeweler. I met you in Midtown.”

“Shut up.”

Neil had taken the words right out of her mouth, Harley thought, and reached for the long string that dangled from an overhead light. Light swayed over the mess of Yogi’s workbench. Bins of screws, pieces of metal, wire, cans of loose crystals, soldering irons, and the flotsam of his hobby née career lay scattered about. Three pound coffee cans were stuck here and there.

“It’s in one of these cans,” Harley said, gauging the odds of flinging a heavy can at Neil and then running. Not feasible right now. He still had Cami by the arm and stood nervously in the doorway, watching her with narrowed eyes.

“Just find the damn thing and give it to me.”

Harley made a show of looking in cans, dragging out crystals, half-finished necklaces, bracelets, dangly earrings, and a dream-catcher with colored crystals and feathers. Yogi’s solder iron lay on the table. It had one of those really long cords on it, and she had the thought it’d make a decent weapon if she had to use it. Maybe if she plugged it in . . . .

“All these coffee cans look alike,” she said when Neil snarled at her again to hurry up. Tension made her jumpy, and her stomach hurt. Acrid fumes wafted up from the soldering iron she’d plugged in as it heated. “Wait. Is this it? The necklace you want?”

Neil stepped closer, pushing Cami ahead of him, so that Harley couldn’t get a clear shot at him with the heated iron.

“What? That thing? Those are crystals, and cheap ones at that. You better not be dicking me around, Blondie.”

“No, no, I’m just not sure which coffee can. It’s out here. I promise this is where he put it.” Her voice should have the ring of truth since Yogi had, indeed, stuck the necklace in one of these cans. That was where Morgan had found it.

Morgan. She concentrated fiercely on him, trying to conjure him up, feeling stupid but rationalizing that it worked for Diva on occasion. And it might not help but it couldn’t hurt.

“You’ve got two minutes. Then your little friend here gets hurt.”

He sounded serious. Cami looked terrified. Harley felt sick.

“Gotcha. Looking.”

This hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Now she had Cami in trouble. And she really did feel sick. With shaking hands, she reached for another coffee can. It tipped over and crystals and wire and beads went everywhere, pattering on the table and floor like hard rain. She knelt to pick some up, and Neil snarled at her to forget it, just find the necklace.

“Right. Right. Wait . . . I think this might be where it is.” Yogi had a system of glass jars that held different size crystals, screwed into lids nailed to a board. A mayonnaise jar held what looked like a necklace, and she started to unscrew it from the lid with one hand, while reaching for the soldering iron with the other. “Is this it, do you think?” she asked, leaning forward to peer at the jar and hoping Neil would come closer.

He did.

Blinking owlishly in the glare of the bare bulb overhead, Neil leaned closer to look at the jar, and Harley took the opportunity to seize the hot iron and stab it into the hand holding the gun. He screamed, Cami screamed, and Harley yelled at her to run. She did, breaking free with a sudden twist. Neil lunged for Harley, the gun still in his hand, cussing a blue streak as he grabbed a fist full of her hair and shoved her to the floor. She was eye-level with his chubby knees.

“You stupid little bitch . . .”

Harley bit him. He let out a howl. Then he hit her on the side of the head with the gun and stars exploded in the back of her brain. Somehow his hands were around her neck, and he choked her while she clawed frantically at his pudgy fingers, with a loud buzzing sound in her ears and blackness encroaching on the light. So this was it. This was how she’d die, on her knees gasping for air.

As quickly as it had started, it stopped. Neil suddenly released her and screamed, louder this time. Someone was snarling and growling. Neil kept screaming.

As her vision cleared, Harley saw a black, white, and pink creature tug fiercely on baggy pants and, apparently, generous amounts of skin. King had a good grip on Campbell, and he didn’t seem disposed to let go despite the blows to his head and back. Then Neil grabbed a length of iron pipe, and at the same time, Harley saw the gun he’d dropped. She grabbed it.

“Hit that dog and I’ll shoot,” she croaked, her voice painful and sounding raspy. “And I’m not worried about anyone hearing it.”

Neil yelped louder. “Get him off! Get him off!”

“Drop the pipe and I will.”

Neil dropped the iron pipe and Harley reached for King’s collar. The dog didn’t seem inclined to release his victim, and while she tried to pull him away Neil screamed louder as strips of flesh and denim pulled loose.

“You move and I’ll sic him on you again,” Harley got out when she succeeded in pulling King away from Campbell, but he was so busy moaning and whining she wasn’t certain he heard her. King looked rather pleased with himself, and he kept a predatory eye on Neil.

Who would have ever thought the dog could be useful?

Then, just as Harley was thinking how to get Neil out of the workshop so she could call the cops, Morgan appeared in the doorway. He sized up the situation rather quickly, and took Neil into custody, putting him on the ground outside the workshop. Then he snapped cuffs on his wrists while he reminded him of his rights.

It had worked! She’d conjured him up. Maybe Diva really was right about that sort of thing.

“Harley. Are you okay?” Cami stuck her head in the door.

“I will be. One day. Did you call the cops?”

“Yes.”

So much for mental conjuring. Not that it mattered. Harley sat on the floor amidst spilled crystals and wire, Neil’s gun in one hand and every nerve in her body screaming at her for help. The smell of burned skin and the soldering iron reminded her that she should unplug it. King sat beside her, his tail thumping against the floor, when Cami came in to kneel in front of them.

“You don’t look okay, Harley. You look like you need chocolate.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I need. Chocolate-covered Valium.”

Cami laughed. “Good thing Bruno showed up.”

“Bruno? Oh. Morgan. I didn’t know you knew his number. How did you call him?”

“I didn’t. I called 911. They aren’t here yet. Come on. Let’s go inside.”

By now Morgan had hauled Neil to his feet. He looked up as Harley and Cami came out of the workshop, light from inside streaming across him. He’d found another shirt. Too bad. He looked at the gun in Harley’s hand.

“Is that his weapon?”

“Yes. I presume you’d like to have it.”

“Master of the obvious, as always.”

Sirens sounded, getting louder as they got closer, and in just a minute, cops swarmed all over the house. Déjà vu all over again, she thought, and gladly relinquished the gun, King, and any pretense at courage. It felt good to collapse on the living room couch, while Diva fussed over her and Yogi kept his comments about the establishment to a minimum. Cami looked like she’d been run over with a Mack truck, and Harley suspected she looked much the same. Not that it mattered. They were alive, and for a while there, it’d seemed doubtful.

“I need to go home,” Cami said finally, “my poor creatures haven’t been fed yet.”

“I fed them. Earlier. You can clean up the poop, though.”

Cami nodded. “Thanks, Harley. When Archie showed up, I was just getting ready to feed them. Was that today? Yesterday? It seems years ago.”

It did. A decade at least.

“I’ll take you home,” Harley said, but as she started to get up, Cami shook her head.

“That’s okay. Bobby’s going to give me a ride.”

“Bobby’s here?”

“Outside. He’s off-duty. And, uh, said he’d give me a ride if I needed one. So you can rest a little longer.”

Off-duty, my ass
, she thought. “Right. Your generosity humbles me. Go get him, tiger.”

Cami turned a lovely shade of pink and didn’t argue the point. Ah, romance was in the air. How sweet.

“Tell Bobby he owes me the Crime Stoppers cash.” Harley closed her eyes and snuggled deeper into the couch cushions.

Diva brought her a cup of herbal tea sweetened with honey, and pressed her cool hand on Harley’s forehead.

“You did well, Harley. I’m proud of you.”

She opened one eye to peer up at her mother. Steam rose from the teacup. In the midst of chaos, Diva seemed an oasis of serenity.

“How do you do that?” she asked, sitting up to take the tea.