A Dirty Job Chapter 14

14BARKING MADCharlie unresolveded the door and Lily breezed by. Jane state you have two huge black dogs up here. I need to see.Lily, wait, Charlie called, further she was crossways the living room and into Sophies room before he could stop her. There was a low growl and she came suffering come pop of the closet.Oh my fucking God, dude, she verbalise around a huge grin. They are so cool. Where did you get them?I didnt get them anyplace. They were just here.Charlie joined Lily just verbotenside the door to Sophies room. She glum and grabbed his arm. Are they, similar, instruments of your d saph transaction or al close tothing?Lily, I thought we agreed that we wouldnt talk about that.And they had. In fact, Lily had been non bad(p) about it. Since shed first found out about him beingness a Death Merchant, shed hardly brought it up at all. Shed also gone on to graduate from high school without getting a major criminal commemorate and enroll in the Culinary Institute, the up side of which was that she actually wore her white chef s coat, checked pants, and term of enlistmentber clogs to work, which tended to soften her makeup and h st precipitate, which remained s perpetuallye, dark, and a petite scary.Sophie giggled and rolled oer against one of the hounds. They had been licking her and she was coered with hellish dog spit. Her hair was plastered into a dozen unlikely spikes, making her appear a little like a wide-eyed Anim character.Sophie saw Lily in the doorway and waved. Goggie, Ily. Goggie, she said.Hi, Sophie. Yes, those are nice doggies, Lily said, then to Charlie What are you expiration to do?I dont exist what to do. They wont let me undecomposed her.Thats good, then. Theyre here to protect her.Charlie nodded. I take they are. Something happened last night. You complete how the Great Big Book talks about the others? I imagine one of them came afterward her last night, and these guys showed up.Im impressed. Id think youd be more than f reaked out.Charlie didnt unavoidableness to tell her that he was worn out from freaking out the day before about his little female child killing an old human race with the news program kitty. Lily already knew too much, and it was obvious now that whatever lay below was risk of exposureous. I guess I should be, solely they arent here to hurt her. I need to go check the library in Berkeley, see if theres anything about them there. I need to get Sophie away from them.Lily laughed. Yeah, thats deprivation to happen. Look, I have work and school today, nevertheless Ill go do your research for you tomorrow. In the reckontime you can try to make friends with them.I dont want to make friends with them.Lily looked at the hounds, one of whom Sophie was pounding on with her little fists as she laughed gleefully, then looked back at Charlie. Yes, you do.Yeah, I guess I do, Charlie said. Have you ever seen a dog that size before?There are no dogs that size.What do you call those, then?T hose arent dogs, Asher, those are hellhounds.How do you know that?I know that because before I started learning about herbs and reductions and stuff, I spent my free time reading about the dark side, and those guys come up from time to time.If we know that, then what are you going to do research on?Im going to try to find out what sent them. She patted his shoulder. I have to go open the shop. You go make nice with the goggies.What do I feed them?Purina Hellhound Chow.They make that?What do you think?Kay, Charlie said.It took a brace of hours, but after Sophie started look like diaper surprise, one of the devil dogs nosed her toward Charlie as if to separate, Clean her up and bring her back. Charlie could feel them watching him as he changed his lady friend, grateful that useable diapers didnt require pins. If hed accidentally poked Sophie with a pin, he was original one of the hellhounds would have bitten his head off. They watched him carefully as he moved her to the breakfa st bar, and sat on either side of her high chair as he gave her breakfast.As an experiment, he made an extra piece of toast and tossed it to one of the hounds. It snapped it out of the air and licked its chops once, eye now locked on Charlie and the footle of bread. So Charlie toasted four more slices and the hounds alternately snapped individually out of the air so swiftly that Charlie wasnt sure he didnt see more or less sort of vapor from the pressure of their jaws clamping d cause.So, youre hellish beasts from another dimension, and you like toast. Okay.Then, as Charlie started to toast four more slices, he stopped, feeling stupid. You dont rattling care if its toasted, do you? He flipped a slice of bread to the closest of the dogs, who snapped it out of the air. Okay, that go forth speed things up. Charlie fed them the remainder of the loaf of bread. He spread a few slices with a thick coat of peanut butter, which did nothing whatsoever, then a half dozen more he spread wi th lemon dishwasher gel, which appeared to have no ill effect except that it made them burp neat, aquamarine-colored bubbles.Go walk, Daddy, Sophie said.No walk today, sweetie. I think well just stay right here in the apartment and try to figure out our new pals.Charlie got Sophie out of her chair, wiped the jelly off her face and out of her hair, then sat down with her on the couch to read to her from the Chronicles cl female genitalsified ads, which was where he plied a large part of his business, other than the Death stuff. But no sooner had he settled into a rhythm than one of the hellhounds came over, took his arm in its mouth, and dragged him into his bedroom, tied(p) as he protested, swore, and smacked it in the head with a side table lamp. The big dog let him go, then stood staring at Charlies date book like it had been sprayed with beef gravy.What? Charlie said, but then he saw. Somehow, in all the excitement, he hadnt noticed a new name in the book. Look, the number is t hirty. I have a whole month to find this one. allow for me alone. Charlie also noticed in passing that engraved on the hellhounds great silver collar was the name ALVIN.Alvin? Thats the stupidest name Ive ever heard.Charlie went back to the couch, and the dog dragged him back into the bedroom, this time by the foot. As they went through the door Charlie reached for his sword-cane. When Alvin dropped him Charlie leapt to his feet and drew the blade. The big dog rolled over on his back and whimpered. His companion appeared at the door, panting. (Mohammed was the hounds name, gibe to the plate on the collar.) Charlie considered his options. He had always felt the sword-cane a pretty formidable weapon, had even been willing to take on the sewer harpies with it, but it occurred to him that these animals had on the face of it wiped the floor with one of those other creatures of darkness and had no problem sitting down and eating a loaf of soapy toast a couple of hours later. In short, he was out of his league. They wanted him to go retrieve the soul vessel, he would retrieve the soul vessel. But he wasnt leaving his darling daughter alone with them. Alvin is still a stupid name, he said, sheathing the sword.When Mrs. Korjev arrived, Charlie had put Sophie down for her nap, and a dark pile of hellhounds was napping by her crib snoring great clouds of lemony-fresh dog breath into the air. It was probably part of Charlies rising rascal nature, but he let Mrs. Korjev enter Sophies room with only the warning that the little misfire had a couple of new pets. He suppressed a snicker as the great Cossack grandmother backed out of the room swearing in Russian.Is giant dogs in there.Yes, there are.But not like normal giant dog. They are like extra-giant, black animal, they are Like harbour? Charlie suggested.No, I wasnt going to say bear, Mr. Smart-Alec. Not like bear. Like volf, only bigger, stronger Like bear? Charlie ventured.You make your mother ashamed when you a re mean, Charlie Asher.Not like bear? Charlie asked.Is not important now. I am just surprised. Vladlena is old woman with weak heart, but you go have good laugh and I will sit with Sophie and huge dogs.Thank you, Mrs. Korjev, their names are Alvin and Mohammed. Its on their collars.You have food for them?There are some steaks in the freezer. Just give each one of them a couple and stand back.How they like steaks done?I think frozen will be fine, they eat like Mrs. Korjev raised a finger in warning it lined it up with a large mole on the side of her nose and looked as if she was sighting down a weapon. like horses. They eat like horses, Charlie said.Mrs. Ling did not take her introduction to Alvin and Mohammed with quite the composure of her Russian neighbor. Aiiiiieeeeeeeeee Giant shiksas shitting, exclaimed Mrs. Ling as she ran down the dorm after Charlie. Come back Shiksas shittingIndeed, Charlie returned to the apartment to find great steaming baguettes of poo strewn about the living room. Alvin and Mohammed were flanking the door to Sophies room like massive Chinese foo dogs at the temple gates, looking not so fierce as shamefaced and contrite.Bad dogs, Charlie said. Scaring Mrs. Ling. Bad dogs. He considered for a moment trying to rub their noses in their offense, but short of bringing in a backhoe and chaining them to it, he wasnt sure that he could make that happen. I mean it, you guys, he added, in an particularly stern voice.Im sorry, Mrs. Ling, Charlie said to the diminutive matron. These are Alvin and Mohammed. I should have been more specific when I said Id gotten new pets for Sophie. Actually, he had been vague on purpose, hoping for some sort of hysterical reaction. Not that he authentically wanted to frighten the old lady, its just that Beta Males are seldom ever in a position to frighten anyone physically, so when they get the opportunity, they sometimes lose their sense of judgment.Is okay, said Mrs. Ling, staring at the hellhounds. She s eemed distracted, mainly because she was. Having recovered from the initial shock, she was doing the math in her head a rapid-fire abacus clicking off the weight and volume of each pony-sized canine, and dividing him into chops, steaks, ribs, and packages of stew totality.Youll be all right, then? Charlie asked.You not be late, okay? said Mrs. Ling. I want to go to Sears and look at chest freezer today. You have power saw I can borrow.Power saw? Well, no, but Im sure Ray has one he can lend you. Ill be back in a couple of hours, Charlie said. But let me clean this up first. He headed to the basement in take tos of finding the char shovel that his father had once kept there.As they parted ways that day, both Charlie and Mrs. Ling were counting on Sophies history of high pet finiteity to quickly solve their respective poop and soup problems. Such, however, was not to be the case.When several weeks passed with no ill personal effects on the hellhounds, Charlie accepted the possibi lity that these readiness, indeed, be the only pets that could survive Sophies attention. He was tempted, many times, to call Minty Fresh and ask his advice, but since his last call might have caused the hellhounds to appear in the first place, he resisted the urge.Lilys research trips yielded little moreThey talk about them all through time, Lily said, profession from the Berkeley library on her cell phone. Mostly its about how they like to chase blues singers, and evidently theres a German robot soccer team called the Hellhounds, but I dont think thats relevant. The thing that comes up again and again, in a dozen cultures, is that they guard the passage between the living and the dead.Well, that makes sense, Charlie said. I guess. It doesnt say where that passage is, does it? What BART place?No, Asher, it doesnt. But I found this book by a nun who had been excommunicated in the 1890s, isnt that cool? This library is amazing. They have like nine million books.Yes, thats great, L ily, what did the ex-nun say?She had found all the references for hellhounds, and the thing they all seemed to agree on was they serve directly the ruler of the Underworld.She was Catholic and she called it the Underworld?Well, they threw her out of the Church for writing this book, but yeah, thats what she said.She didnt have a number we could call in case they got lost.Im over here on my day off, Asher, trying to do you a favor. Are you going to keep being a smart-ass about it?No, Im sorry, Lily. Go on.Thats it. Its not like theres a care-and-feeding guide. Mostly, the research implies that having hellhounds around is a bad thing.Whats the title of this book, The Complete picket to the Fucking Obvious?Youre paying me for this, you know? Time and travel. Sorry. Yes. So I should try to get rid of them.They eat quite a little, Asher. Whos riding the duh train now?So, with that, Charlie determined that he needed to take an active role in ridding himself of the monstrous canines.Sin ce the only thing about the hellhounds that he could be sure of was that they would go anywhere he took Sophie, he brought them along on their trip to the San Francisco Zoo, and left them locked in the van with the engine running and a shop-vac hose run from the exhaust tube-shaped structure through the vent window. After what he considered to be an extraordinarily successful tour of the zoo, in which not a single animal shuffled off the mortal coil under the delighted eye of his daughter, Charlie returned to the van to find two very stoned, but otherwise unharmed hellhounds who were burping a burnt tractile vapor after having eaten his seat covers.Various experiments revealed that Alvin and Mohammed were not only immune to most poisons, but they rather liked the taste of bug spray and thence licked all the paint off the baseboards in Charlies apartment in the week following the exterminators quarterly service.As time wore on, Charlie tried to measure the danger of having the gia nt canines around against the damage that would be done to Sophies psyche from witnessing their demise, as she was obviously becoming attached to them, so he backed off the more direct attacks on them and stopped throwing Snausages in preceding of the number 90 crosstown express bus. (This decision was also made easy when the city of San Francisco peril to sue Charlie if his dogs wrecked another bus.)Direct attacks, in fact, were difficult for Charlie (as the only true Beta Male martial art was based entirely on the kindness of strangers), so he turned on the hellhounds the awesome power of the Beta Male kung fu of passive aggression.He started conservatively, taking them for a ride over to the East Bay in the van, luring them onto the Oakland mudflats with a rack of beef ribs, then driving away quickly, only to find them waiting in the apartment when he returned, having covered the entire living room with a patina of drying mud. He then tried an even more indirect approach cratin g up the hounds and air-freighting them to Korea in the hope they would find themselves in an entre, only to find that they actually made it back to the shop before he had time to sweep the dog hair out of his apartment.He thought that perhaps he might use their own natural instincts to chase them away, after he read on the Internet that the nerve of mountain lion urine was sometimes sprinkled on shrubs and flowers to keep dogs from urinating on them. After a fairly exhaustive search through the phone book, he ultimately found the number of an outdoorsmans supply store in South San Francisco that was a certified mountain-lion whizz dealer.Sure, we carry cougar urine, the guy said. He sounded like he was wearing a buckskin jacket and had a big beard, but Charlie might have just been projecting.And thats supposed to keep dogs away? Charlie asked.Works like a charm. Dogs, deer, and rabbits. How much do you need?I dont know, maybe ten gallons.There was a pause, and Charlie was sure h e could hear the guy picking flecks of elk meat out of his beard. We sell it in one-, two-, and five-ounce bottles.Well, thats not going to do it, Charlie said. Cant you get me like a large economy size preferably from a cougar thats been fed nothing but dog for a couple of months? I assume that this is domesticated cougar pee, right? I mean you dont go out in the wild and collect it yourself.No, sir, I believe they get it from zoos.The wild stuff is probably better, huh? Charlie asked. If you can get it, I mean? I dont mean you personally. I wasnt implying that you were out in the wild following a mountain lion around with a measuring cup. I meant a professional howdy? The bearded buckskin-sounding guy had hung up.So Charlie sent Ray over to South San Francisco in the van to buy up all the cougar whizz they had, but in the end it achieved nothing other than making the whole second floor of Charlies building smell like a cat box.When it appeared that even the most passive-aggress ive attempts would not work, Charlie resorted to the ultimate Beta Male attack, which was to tolerate Alvin and Mohammeds presence, but to resent the hell out of them and drop snide remarks whenever he had the chance.Feeding the hellhounds was like shoveling coal into two ravenous steam engines Charlie started having fifty pounds of dog food delivered every two days to keep up with them, which they, in turn, converted to massive torpedoes of poo that they dropped in the streets and alleys around Ashers Secondhand like they were staging their own doggie blitzkrieg on the neighborhood.The upside of their presence was that Charlie went for months on end without hearing a chirrup from the storm drains or seeing an ominous raven shadow on a wall when he was retrieving a soul vessel. And to that end, the death dealing, the hounds served their purpose as well, for whenever a new name appeared in his date book, the hounds would drag Charlie to the calendar every morning until he returned with the soul object, so he went two days without missing or being late for a retrieval. The big dogs, of course, accompanied Charlie and Sophie on their walks, which had resumed once Charlie was sure that Sophie had her special language skill under control. The hounds, spot certainly the largest dogs that anyone had ever seen, were not so large as to be unbelievable, and everywhere they went, Charlie was asked what breed they were. Tired of trying to explain, he would simply say, Theyre hellhounds, and when asked where he got them, he would reply, They just showed up in my daughters room one night and wouldnt go away, after which people not only thought him a liar, but an ass as well. So he modified his response to Theyre Irish hellhounds, which for some reason, people accepted immediately (except for one Irish football fan in a North Beach restaurant who said, Im Irish and those things arent bloody Irish. To which Charlie replied, Black Irish. The football fan nodded as if he kn ew that all along and added to the waitress, Can I get another fookin pint o here before I dry up and blow away, lass?)In a way, Charlie started to enjoy the notoriety of being the guy with the cute little girl and the two giant dogs. When you have to maintain a secret identity, you cant help but relish a little public attention. And Charlie did, until the day he and Sophie were stopped on a side street on Russian Hill by a bearded man in a long cotton caftan and a weave hat. Sophie was old enough by then to do a lot of her own walking, although Charlie kept a piggyback kid sling with him so he could carry her when she got tired (but more often he would just balance her era she rode on the back of Alvin or Mohammed).The bearded man passed a little too closely to Sophie and Mohammed growled and imposed himself between the man and the child.Mohammed, get back here, Charlie said. It turned out the hellhounds could be apt, especially if you only told them to do things they were going to do anyway. (Eat, Alvin. Good boy. Poop now. Excellent.)Why do you call this dog Mohammed? asked the bearded man.Because thats his name.You should not have called this dog Mohammed.I didnt call the dog Mohammed, Charlie said. His name was Mohammed when I got him. It was on his collar.It is blasphemy to call a dog Mohammed.I tried calling him something else, but he doesnt listen. Watch. Steve, bite this mans leg? See, nothing. Spot, bite off this mans leg. Nothing. I might as well be speaking Farsi. You see where Im going with this?Well, I have named my dog Jesus. How do you feel about that?Well, then Im sorry, I didnt realize youd lost your dog.I have not lost my dog.Really? I saw these flyers all over town with Have You Found Jesus? on them. It must be another dog named Jesus. Was there a retaliate? A reward helps, you know. Charlie noted that more and more lately, he had a hard time resisting the urge to fuck with people, especially when they insisted upon behaving like idiots. I do not have a dog named Jesus and that doesnt annoying you because you are a godless infidel.No, really, you can not name your dog anything you want and it wont bother me. But, yes, I am a godless infidel. At least thats how I voted in the last election. Charlie grinned at him.Death to the infidel Death to the infidel said the bearded man in response to Charlies irresistible charm. He danced around shaking his fist in the Death Merchants face, which scared Sophie so that she covered her eyes and started to cry.Stop that, youre scaring my daughter.Death to the infidel Death to the infidelMohammed and Alvin quickly got bored watching the dance and sat down to wait for someone to tell them to eat the guy in the nightshirt.I mean it, Charlie said. You need to stop. He looked around, feeling embarrassed, but there was no one else on the street.Death to the infidel. Death to the infidel, sing the beard.Have you seen the size of these dogs, Mohammed?Death to hey, how did you know my n ame was Mohammed? Doesnt matter. Never mind. Death to the infidel. Death to the Wow, you certainly are brave, Charlie said, but shes a little girl and youre scaring her and you really need to stop that now.Death to the infidel Death to the infidelKitty Sophie said, uncovering her eyes and pointing at the man.Oh, honey, Charlie said. I thought we werent going to do that.Charlie slung Sophie up on his shoulders and walked on, leading the hellhounds away from the bearded dead man who lay in a peaceful heap on the sidewalk. He had stuffed the mans little woven hat in his pocket. It was glowing a dull red. Strangely, the bearded mans name wouldnt appear in Charlies date book until the next day.See, a sense of bodily fluid is important, Charlie said, making a goofy face over his shoulder at his daughter.Silly Daddy, Sophie said.Later, Charlie felt bad about his daughter using the kitty word as a weapon, and he felt that a decent father would try to give some sort of meaning to the exper ience teach some sort of lesson, so he sat Sophie down with a pair of stuffed bears, some tiny cups of invisible tea, a plate of imaginary cookies, and two giant hounds from hell, and had his first, heart-to-heart, father-daughter talk.Honey, you understand why Daddy told you not to ever do that again, right? Why people cant know that you can do that?Were antithetic than other people? Sophie said.Thats right, honey, because were different than other people, he said to the smartest, prettiest little girl in the world. And you know why that is, right?Because were Chinese and the White Devils cant be trusted?No, not because were Chinese.Because we are Russian, and in our hearts are much sorrow?No, there is not much sorrow in our hearts.Because we are strong, like bear?Yes, sweetie, thats it. Were different because were strong, like bear.I knew it. More tea, Daddy?Yes, Id love some more tea, Sophie.So, said the Emperor, I see you have experienced the multifarious ways in which a mans life is enriched by the company of a good brace of hounds.Charlie was sitting on the back step of the shop, pulling whole frozen chickens from a crate and tossing them to Alvin and Mohammed one at a time. Each chicken was snapped out of the air with so much force that the Emperor, and Bummer and Lazarus, who were crouched across the alley suspiciously eyeing the hellhounds, flinched as if a pistol was being fired nearby.Multifarious enrichment, Charlie said, tossing another chicken. That is exactly how Id describe it.There is no better, nor more loyal, friend than a good hound, said the Emperor.Charlie paused, having pulled not a chicken from the box, but a portable electric mixer. A friend indeed, he said, a friend indeed. Mohammed snapped down the mixer without even chewing two feet of cord hung from the side of his mouth.That doesnt hurt him? said the Emperor.Roughage, Charlie explained, throwing a frozen chicken chaser to Mohammed, who gulped it down with the rest of the mixer cord. Theyre not really my dogs. They belong to Sophie.A child needs a pet, said the Emperor. A companion to grow up with although these fellows seem to have done most of their growing.Charlie nodded, tossing the alternator from an cardinal Buick into Alvins eager jaws. There was a clanking and the dog belched, but his tail thumped against the Dumpster asking for more. Well, they have been her constant companions, Charlie said. At least now we have them trained so theyll just guard whatever building shes in. For a while they wouldnt leave her side. Bath time was a challenge.The Emperor said, I believe it was the poet he-goat Collins who wrote, No one here likes a wet dog.Yes, and he probably never had to get a squirming toddler and two four-hundred-pound dogs out of a bubble bath, either.But theyve mellowed, you say?They had to. Sophie started school. The teacher frowned on giant dogs in class. Charlie flipped an answering machine to Alvin, who crunched it up like a dog biscuit, shards of dog-spit-covered plastic raining down from his jaws.So what did you do?It took us a few days, and a lot of explaining, but I trained them to just sit outside the front door of the school.And the faculty relented?Well, I spray-paint them with that granite-texture spray paint every morning, then tell them to sit absolutely still on either side of the door. No one seems to notice them.And they obey? All day?Well, its just a half day right now, shes only in kindergarten. And you have to promise them a cookie.Theres always a price to be paid. The Emperor pulled a frozen chicken out of the box. May I?Please. Charlie waved him on.The Emperor tossed the chicken to Mohammed, who chomped it down in a single bite.My, that is satisfying, said the Emperor.Thats nothing, Charlie said. If you feed them mini propane cylinders they burp fire.