Norman Partridge - The Ten-Ounce Siesta

The Chihuahua didn’t bark. It coughed.

“It’s the secondhand smoke.” The girl sucked on a Marlboro. “I can’t quit. Spike’s the one who suffers, though. The poor little muchacho probably has lung cancer. He’s been coughing like this for a week.”

Jack Baddalach stared at the Chihuahua cradled in the girl’s arms. There wasn’t enough meat on the little sucker’s bones to fill a Taco Bell burrito, but it looked pretty happy wrapped in a private Cloud of Marlboro smoke. Its goggle-eyed head bobbled back and forth between the girl’s breasts. Her breasts were a lot bigger than the dog’s head. If the dog was dying, it had picked one hell of a way to go.

“Do dogs get lung cancer?” the girl asked.

A handful of girls stood behind her, but they didn’t answer. They looked at Jack, waiting for him to do the job.

Jack looked at them. They were about a thousand miles away from the mental group portrait he’d imagined when he took Freddy G’s call.

Cerebral rewind cued the soundbite in Jack’s brain, transmitted through the casino owner’s gravelly Mafioso voice: Fly to the coast. We'll have one of our drivers waiting with a limo. The two of you go to my daughter’s house in Palm Springs. Pick up my granddaughter’s pet Chihuahua. She’s coming to Vegas with a bunch of her friends for a bachelorette party. One of ’em’s getting married and they want to watch a bunch of steroid puppies shake their moneymakers or some such shit. Anyway, my granddaughter’s got a Chihuahua transport problem. She can fly but the doggy can’t. It’s sick or something, and she don’t let it out of her sight ’cause she ain’t done that since her Grandpa Freddy give it to her on her sweet sixteenth birthday. So I gotta put on my thinkin’ cap and find a way to keep my grandbaby happy even though I ain’t got time for this shit. But that ain’t no problemo grande, Jack, ’cause I’ll pay you to have time for it. .

Listening to Freddy G’s encapsulation of the situation. Jack had expected Palm Springs debutantes deluxe. But that wasn’t what he was getting. Uh-uh. Because the semi-enchanting female tableau standing tough before him was a study in torn jeans, black mascara, tattoos, and the very latest in trashcut hairstyles.

Jack shook his head. Man oh man, even punk rock had gone mainstream in the age of raging ennui. No surprise there. After all, Johnny Thunders had been dead a long time and Macy’s needed something to accentuate that new summer line. This year it was basic black, way too tight, and way too expensive. Not that Jack Baddalach was a safety-pin purist. He didn’t care one way or the other. Hell, he listened to Dean Martin records.

The Chihuahua coughed again, reminding Jack that he wasn’t one of those erudite hipsters who slagged records for Spin Magazine.

“Dogs,” the girl repeated. “Can they get lung cancer?”

“I don’t know.” Jack paused. “I mean, I guess they could. But I’m sure that’s not what’s wrong with your dog. He’s probably just got a cold.”

“Grandpa said you were a veterinarian. But you don’t sound like a vet.”

Jack nodded, because who knew what kind of bullshit Freddy G had given his granddaughter. “Sure. I’m a vet. But I work with tigers. Those white ones at the Mirage, just down the road from your granddad’s casino.”

“Which one are you?”

“Huh?”

“Siegfried or Roy?”

She laughed and so did Jack. He kind of liked the way she laughed. The way she talked, too, the way her words crackled over him in that smoky voice she had. And he especially liked the way she gave it right back to him when he dished the sarcasm her way.

“The name’s Jack Baddalach,” he said. “I’m what you might call a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”

“I never even heard of you.”

“Oh, you will. I’m a comer in the white tiger business. Why, just last month Cat Fancy Magazine called me a man to watch.”

Jack winked.

“Shit.” The girl smirked bright and bloody, because her lipstick was a little smeared. “Bullshit.” Southern California sun catching spiked blond hair that was jet-black at the roots. “White tiger bullshit.” She passed the Chihuahua to Jack, the tattooed rattler on her left arm wriggling like some neon nightmare. “If you’re a vet. I’m Sheena, Queen of the Fucking Jungle.”

Jack took the dog and returned the girl’s smirk. “The truth is that I’m kind of a troubleshooter for your grandpa. I may not look like much, but I’ll get your dog to Vegas.”

“Normally I’d take him on the plane with me. It’s just a short flight. But with the way he’s coughing and everything, and the way his nose is running. . Well, I don’t want his ears to get fucked up on an airplane. I had that happen to me once, and it took the Cramps live to clear ’em out.”

“Don’t you worry about it.” Jack shot a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the waiting limo. “Your granddad fixed me up with one of the best drivers in LA, or so the guy claims. We’ll put the pedal to the metal, take Spike straight to Dr. Newman, and I’ll bet you green money that he’ll be fast asleep in your suite at the Casbah before you and your girlfriends get your club crawl into first gear.”

“Is Newman good?”

“Best vet in Vegas. Your granddad had him checked out. Newman handles all the stars. I read about him in the paper one time. He spayed Wayne Newton’s bitch.”

“And what’d he do to Wayne?" The girl laughed. Her breasts danced a little rhumba beneath a tight white T-shirt that said sweet cheery love. It looked like her breasts were penned up in a black lace brassiere, if Jack Baddalach was any judge. Not that he was paying an inordinate amount of attention. He only looked because, hey, the awful truth was that men always look.

But truth be told. Jack had another woman on his mind. And the woman who was on his mind wasn’t anything like this girl. For one thing, the woman on Jack Baddalach’s mind would never in a million years wear a T-shirt that said Sweet Cherry anything -

The girl’s arms were around him quite suddenly, pulling him close. Jack felt the undeniable warmth of Sweet Cherry Love penning the Chihuahua between her chest and his. She came closer.

Jack figured he’d better say something, and quick.

Her lips touched his.

So Jack couldn’t say anything. Because he was kissing this girl and thinking of another one, and it was all pretty damn complicated and-

Her mouth was open. And then so was his.

The Chihuahua coughed between them.

“I like the way you look at me,” the girl said.

Jack shrugged. He’d finally thought of something to say, only it was a little late; “Be careful. I’m just the hired help.”

The way she held on, it didn’t seem like she was the careful type.

One of her girlfriends swore. Another one giggled.

“My name’s Angel.” The girl whispered the words in Jack’s left ear. He managed to keep a straight face. Spike panted against his chest. Angel’s hands drifted away, traveling south before they gave him up, her right hand lingering on a bulge beneath his coat.

“You expecting trouble?”

“It’s not a gun.” Jack drew back his coat and showed her the leather holster strapped to his belt. “All I’m packing is a cellular phone.”

She opened her purse. Took out a tube of lipstick. Opened it. Held it against her arm.

“What’s your number?”

Jack gave it to her. Surprised, even as he opened his mouth.

She wrote it in red, on the neon scales of a tattooed rattlesnake.