Carver’s Dog

Her name was Marguerita Carmella Yoshiro. Dantine found her in a cafeteria on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. She sat alone at a table, hollow black eyes staring a hole in the fading yellow wallpaper, a cup of coffee and a slice of cold peach pie untouched on the table before her.

For six months Dantine scoured the globe, arduously following up on every tip and lead arriving at the home office in Berlin. He regretted the incident in Tokyo but he was careful to make the deaths appear accidental; so far the Japanese authorities didn’t appear to be thinking otherwise.

He stood quietly in the doorway of the cafeteria, wrapped in the warm embrace of sunshine flooding through the plate glass windows. Marguerita had let her short black hair grow past her shoulders. She was wearing a simple white cotton blouse, ill-fitting jeans, and a pair of pink, fuzzy house slippers. She did not recognize Dantine when he dropped into the chair across from her.

“Marguerita,” Dantine said softly, his eyes misting. “It’s time to go back.”

Her eyes drifted away from the yellow wallpaper to meet Dantine’s gaze. She moved her lips to speak but instead of words issuing forth, she emitted the loud bugle-like note of a whooping crane.

The coyote sniffed at the calcified pine cone. It tickled his nose.

“Leave the goddamn pine cone alone!” the wolf ordered, his downy white-gray mane bristling in the hot, dry wind. He loved the way the wind carressed his fur on days like this. “You think I’m lying to you, don’t you? This is a prevarication? A canard?”

“Don’t use big words,” the coyote growled, exposing a crooked incisor. His belly growled. He hadn’t enjoyed even a mere morsel in two days. “I warned you about that. And, no, for your information I don’t think you’re lying to me. I simply don’t believe that humans do that. Period. End of discussion.”

“I’ve seen it, asshole! I’ve looked in their windows at night while you were digging through their trash cans.”

“Oh sure,” the coyote frowned and sighed, poking with his snout at a rusted Pepsi can, “make it all about class and social issues now.”

“Send lawyers, guns and money …” Warren growled, strumming the Stratocaster.

“… the shit has hit the fan,” Hunter crooned.

Warren put down the guitar and the two men had a grand, long laugh, the first time for both of them in quite awhile. Hunter popped open a Bud 16-ouncer and presented it to Warren.

“Hey, you sing better now than you did when you were alive.”

Warren took a long drink of the cold and frothy beer. “Thanks. I noticed that too.”

“They took you too soon, man.” Hunter popped open another Bud.

“Well, what can you do? You left way too soon as well, you know.”

“Shit! I did that myself.”

Warren nodded sadly. “That’s why I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Last place I thought I’d be. In any event, your singing’s improved … vastly.”

Warren ran his bony fingers through the stubble that decorated his chin. “And you? Getting any writing done?”

“Hell no,” Thompson groused. “God won’t let me have a typewriter, thinks I’ll make fun of him.” 

Previously in Random Flash Fiction: Stalker, Motivated

He was sitting alone at the bar, sipping a bittersweet Manhattan. The woman appeared as if from vapor, her right hand thrust into an oversized blue canvas bag, dark black sunglasses shielding her eyes.

“I’m your number one fan,” she whispered in his ear. “Now carefully get up off the stool and walk with me to the door. Do exactly as I say. There’s a gun in my bag.”

See also: Stalked and A Sexual Obsession With Soup Pots

Previously: Forty-Two

Butch carried his latte to the front patio of Starbucks, trying carefully not to spill a drop but still managing to get a dark smudge on his brown loafer. He settled into the hard iron chair at the glass table next to Conrad.

“See the game last night?” Conrad stared wistfully into the traffic whisking by on Wilshire Boulevard.

“Dodgers, 11-2. Saw it. I got confused a few times though.”

Conrad sipped his bitter coffee. He had been trying to cut back on sugar. “What confused you?”

“It was Jackie Robinson Day, so everyone on the field was wearing number 42.”

“Couldn’t tell the players apart.”

“Exactly.”

They sat in silence for several moments, ingesting their jolts of caffeine and meditating on the chariots of chromium and steel roaring up and down the boulevard, ferrying warriors to mundane jobs and day care and the grocery store, the mall and the chiropractors office, the gym and the golf course. Humans on the move like swarming ants.

“You know what would be freaky?” Butch lazily said. “To be like a major league ball player and forced this one day of the year to wear a number other than your own number, which also happened to be your lucky number.”

Butch had Conrad’s full attention now. “And he gives in and wears the number and then goes on a losing streak after that –”

“– a star player, cursed.”

“And only love can break the spell!” Conrad jumped out of his seat.

Butch beamed. “Brother, I think we got a screenplay here.”