#fascinating specimens

[fireflywritesgt]

Dogs of War

Part 46 of my story! Read the index and content warnings here. Frankie goes to a speakeasy in this because it's the 20s and people just Did Shit back then.

The tiny man blinked at Harry.

Harry blinked back at the tiny man.

It was the same drunken patron he had encountered on the beach earlier at Calloway’s. Harry knew exactly what the little man was doing there and exactly how he got there, he just didn’t like the answer.

The man was sitting inside a rusty bucket in a banged up Ford Model T that Danny had believed to be Frankie’s, which was parked just outside of the Maple Leaf Tavern. Harry had looked in to inspect it only to be greeted by the man in the patchy suit.

He lowered the bucket down to the ground and gingerly turned it on its side. Slowly but surely the man stumbled out, and under his breath Harry could just hear him say,

“I gotta stop drinking.”

Quickly Harry set the bucket back onto the seat where he’d found it. The vehicle itself looked like a rolling death trap that was easily ten years old or more, and how Frankie got anywhere in it Harry didn’t know, for it wobbled and shook if he so much as touched it.

As reconnaissance went, Harry chalked this one up to a win.

Danny was off on his own scouting mission inside. Like any respectable illegal watering hole post Prohibition, the MLT was no piece of cake to get into. Even Harry knew that you had to have the right code word to get in and know the right people by extension – or have a little friend who could do all the heavy lifting for you.

Not that he and Danny were friends, Harry reminded himself.

He circled around to the front of the building. By the looks of its boarded up windows and door it may as well have been closed. The real entrance, Harry had been told, was around the back. For now he waited by the crack in the window where Danny had slipped in.

He didn’t have to wait long. Soon Danny limped out to greet him.

“The password is Romeo.” He said.

“Romeo? I wouldn’t have guessed that one.”

Harry reached out for Danny and put him in his pocket, then headed towards the back.

“You were right about that automobile. I found a miniature inside and let him out.”

“So if that machine’s here, then Frankie’s here.” Danny rambled. “All we gotta do it keep our eye on him and make sure he doesn’t slip away from us.”

Harry nodded. It sounded easy enough in theory.

Danny ducked into Harry’s front pocket when he knocked thrice on the back door, and a cock-eyed old man with a single tombstone of a tooth opened it and sized him up.

“Last week's winner?”

It was in this moment that Harry started to worry how well he would fit in at this fine establishment. He preferred the university library to the counter of a bar, and even back during his days as a soldier he only drank on special occasions.

Passchendaele had been one such occasion. He had been afforded two ounces of rum at dawn and two ounces at dusk, with extra awarded to anyone who went above the call of duty.

Harry had never earned an extra ounce.

“Romeo.” He said.

Wrapped in bandages and halfway drenched in lake water, Harry must have done a fine enough job of fitting in for the doorman ushered him through without question.

“Okay, find someplace to sit down where nobody will see you.” Danny said.

The first thing he was greeted with when he descended the stairs into the main bar was a wall of cigar smoke so thick that it made even his eyes water, which made excellent camouflage. With time he could discern the outlines of the tables and booths that dotted the room, and when the smoke finally cleared enough for him to see his hand in front of his face another fixture came into view. It was something hanging on the wall, a taxidermy mount of sorts.

As he drew closer and squinted he was able to piece together what it was. Initially he had expected it might be a moose or an elk or at the very least a white-tailed deer. When he neared it he realized that the thing lacked antlers completely, and finally he was able to see the thing for what it was: the head of a coyote, forever frozen in an ugly grimace with its tongue lolling out.

There were two leaderboards on either side of it, and Romeo’s name was at the top of the leftmost one. There were a number of Shakespearian names on there, mixed in with names like Thresher or Razor or Gunner. The rightmost one had names like Samson the Striker or Beat-down LeBrun. He was far too nervous to ask the bartender what either of them were for.

Framing all of this was a series of hockey sticks crossed into an X shape, which reminded Harry of what Lorraine had said about the fighting that was supposed to take place there.

He could only hope that it had been hyperbole. The bar was calm enough for now, and Harry ordered himself a beer of questionable brand and origin in the most casual fashion he could muster, then sat down at a table near what he could only hope was a well-positioned support beam. He could see that it was made of raw lumber, as was most of the wood that held up the building, and it obscured his seat from most of the other patrons quite nicely. The longer he sat there the more it sank in just how out of place he was. Harry had been to bars like these before, and every time he went something about them had made him want to crawl out of his skin. He was too afraid to open the beer bottle, let alone drink from it.

“How’s that Mabel treatin’ ya?” Asked a voice from the corner to another patron.

“I think it’s about time I found a second wife.” The other fellow answered.

They were sitting at a poker table of five men in total at the back of the bar, and all of them, Harry could tell, were out of town farmers who were there on business. Harry knew the type and it gave him some insight into what about this place was so unsettling to him.

Inevitably, whenever Harry had walked into these kinds of places in days past, he had needed to perform. To compensate. To prove himself manly enough. Granted, it wasn’t terribly often that people questioned his manhood on account of his size, but there was one topic that never failed to get the other farm boys looking sideways at him, and that was the topic of women.

He watched as the eldest man at the table pulled out a wooden box full of poker chips and two decks of cards.

“Talk to Frankie, maybe you can buy yourself a tiny one.” The eldest man laughed.

Although Harry’s ears perked up at the name he still fought to keep himself from gagging at the sound of those words. He averted his eyes and…

“…I see him! Over by the wall!” He whispered to Danny.

Through the fog of cigar smoke a familiar figure emerged. It was Frankie Van Assen, slouched over with his hands buried in the pockets of his big, grey coat. On closer inspection Harry noted that the boy appeared outright feral, not only on account of his worn boots and his trousers that came up short at the ankle, but in mannerism as well. He was slinking around the perimeter with his head down low and his nose stuck out like an animal scoping out prey.

Carefully, and with no small amount of help from the strategically placed pillar, he reached into his pocket and set Danny on the table so he could see.

“Good eye.” Said Danny. “This kid’s a real handful. I saw him around the Sunnyside dance hall once throwing eggs at the dancers. He got real interested in that chandelier where the tinies like to dance, so if he’s snatching, it explains why.”

“What on Earth is he even doing here!? Someone ought to tell his mother.” Whispered Harry through bared teeth.

“Probably doesn’t have one.” Danny shrugged. “I’ve been trying to steer him straight, but the kid moves fast. I call him the Flying Dutchman for how fast he can run. Don’t let him catch sight of either of us, got it? We don’t wanna spook him.”

Harry nodded.

Soon it became clear what Frankie was on the hunt for. Slumped over the counter slept a patron who was the size of a Holstein heifer. Harry hunched over and kept his head down as he watched the boy creep past the sleeping man in a way that seemed almost innocuous to those who weren’t paying attention. Few people were, and Harry followed along in fascination as Frankie slid two fingers into the man’s back pocket and pulled out something small and rectangular that he couldn’t quite see.

The sleeping man snorted and shifted his head, and even Harry grew tense as the boy quickened his pace and strode across the room to the safety of the wall. Fate seemed to smile upon the boy, for the man kept snoring away. Harry watched Frankie’s eyes widen as he examined his prize – whatever he had snatched must have been something good.

“This kid lives to steal, huh?” Said Danny.

He could only hope that Frankie wouldn’t set his sights on Danny. Harry tried to cup a hand over him, only for Danny to push it away.

The boy’s kleptomania was sated for the moment, it seemed, for instead of creeping their way Frankie puffed himself up and made a beeline for the patriarch of the poker table. When Harry strained his ears he could vaguely pick up the sound of his voice, and he noted that Frankie Van Assen talked like a Canadian youth who was doing his best to convince everyone he was part of the Chicago Outfit.

The only person in the room who was remotely convinced of it was Frankie Van Assen.

“Hey pal. How much’ll this get me?” The boy asked.

The man with the chips, a solid fifty years the boy’s senior who was still dressed like a frontiersman forty years past, took one look at the two coins the boy held out and chuckled. Harry watched in real time as Frankie’s shoulders deflated along with his ego. The boy stood and shivered before the poker table for a moment, then his fingers twitched and his hand flew into his pocket.

“I’ll throw in this as well.” Frankie said, with a hint of reluctance, as he held up the card he had just pickpocketed. “It’s a Bert Corbeau rookie card. Toronto Saint Pats. This’s gotta be worth something, right?”

Harry’s jaw grew tense at the sight. There were some things that good Canadian citizens simply did not do, and stealing another man’s hockey card and trading it in for poker chips was one of them – even Harry knew that. He had to look away, and found himself hunching over in frustration.

He couldn’t help but look back when a chorus of laughter rang from the table.

“Was this from an old sweepstake or something?” Asked the keeper of the poker chips.

The man rose up, snatched the card from Frankie’s hand, and held it out of the boy’s reach when he fought to get it back.

“I remember that one. Shoulda bet the skates, they’d be worth way more than this piece of junk.”

Frankie skidded back as the older man effortlessly shoved him off. Harry couldn’t help but pity him. He looked like a newborn baby next to this table of middle-aged poker players. Each one of the older men sat about as though they were members of some high council of manhood as they appraised Frankie from head to toe.

Frankie’s voice had barely broken. He looked as though he were built out of toothpicks. Nonetheless he puffed himself back up again and said,

“Hey, you don’t know that! Could be worth a lot someday. Could be worth—twenty thousand, easy!”

“Aw, let him play.” Said a more merciful councilor. “Get him a beer, too. Kid’s gotta grow up someday.”

Frankie glowed as the guardian of the chips, with his stone-cold poker face, nodded at the boy, reached into the wooden box, and produced two white poker chips. In exchange he took the coins and the hockey card and put them into a metal tackle box that held the pot. Frankie walked forward and took a seat farthest right, and from the awe on his face he may as well have just become a newly-confirmed member of the Church of Masculinity.

Harry clenched his hands and resisted the urge to stand up and drag the boy straight out of the building.

“Can’t we do something about this? He’s way too young to be here.” He whispered to Danny.

The likes of Frankie was the exact thing Ontario’s prohibition laws had sought to prevent. How ironic it was that a decade on they had solved absolutely nothing. Danny, who was now lounging in the empty ash tray with his splinted leg stuck out, coolly observed the scene.

“Then he might not lead us to his boss. Do you really wanna take that chance?” He said.

Harry didn’t. Deep down he knew that this was the way of the world. He couldn’t save Joe and Frankie at the same time. Nonetheless, in his mind he was imagining himself in a better universe. One where he took the boy to a medical office and put a phone receiver in his hand and gave him an honest job and taught him to say please and thank you.

“Take off your coat, Van Asshole! Stay a while!” Said one of the men at the table.

“Can’t. I’m a cold mortal.” Frankie said. “I wear my long johns well into June.”

He was met with another round of snickers.

“And guys, it’s Van Assen. It’s a place in the Netherlands. It's Dutch." He explained to the table of indifferent men. “I get it, it’s funny as hell, everyone loves to say my name, but can we just appreciate for a minute that there’s languages other than English out there?”

“We’re in Canada, Frank. We speak English here.” Said another player in a tone one would use with a small child.

The boy’s poker face faltered at the sound of the name Frank. A smile lit up his face like a flash of lightning and then disappeared just as quickly.

“Yeah, well, my boss doesn’t. Not always.” Said Frankie. “He’s a pretty big guy, y’know. If you talk smack about the French people, he’ll cut off our liquor supply.”

 “Oh yeah? He’s that powerful eh?” Asked one of the men.

Harry’s attention was drawn to the ash tray by a scuttling sound. He looked down to see that Danny had hopped to his feet.

“Yeah! Lessard’s got everything. You want booze? You want guns? You want dogs? Tinies? He’s got it. He’s a scary guy. You don’t wanna mess with him.” Frankie insisted.

Frankie appeared to be doing well enough at the game all things considered. His stack of chips had quickly multiplied after the first round. When it was over, a hand the size of Frankie’s face reached out and handed him a pint. He swilled as much of it down as he could, then made a face, then drank some more and asked for another.

“Speaking of dogs, how’s Romeo? You think he’s gonna win another match?” Was the next question the chip-keeper had for Frankie.

“Romeo’s retiring.” The boy said bluntly.

Now Harry knew the meaning behind the leaderboard, and his heart sank into the pit of his stomach.

“Retiring!? You can’t retire a dog like that! You should do the honourable thing and fight him until the bitter end!”

“Oh, I’ll fight him ‘til the end, but he’s gotta sire puppies first.” Said Frankie, sounding uneasy.

“Give the puppies better names.” Another player advised him. “What kinda girly name is Romeo for a fighter?”

Frankie turned red and stared into his cards.

“Well, my dog beat up your dog so what’s it to ya’?”

Although Frankie was inhaling booze, Harry could see that he was stacking up chips all the same. As Harry watched it all unfold, all he could do was sit there and hate the bar and these men and what they were doing to this little boy and his dog.

“Dog fighter, huh? Makes sense. Where there’s dog fighting, there’s tiny fighting…” Danny said, much to Harry’s horror.

He was leaning against Harry’s still unopened beer bottle with a hand in his pocket, his good leg crossed over his splinted one. Harry could only admire the indifference with which Danny observed the scene as Frankie was handed a cigar. Every man at the table laughed when the boy took one puff of it and teared up.

Harry’s stomach was turning. He could only hope that Joe wasn’t in the care of Frankie’s boss. If this was how the boy who snatched him was living, he didn’t want to think about what they were doing to Joe.

“You should learn to fight too by the looks of ya’. What’s that on your head? You get a girlfriend or something?” Another player asked Frankie.

“What!? No! Some crazy bird at the park went and hit me. I wasn’t even doin’ nothin’.” Frankie replied, and Harry had no doubt in his mind that Frankie had indeed been doing something.

“Crazy isn’t always a bad thing, Frank.” Frankie clutched his cards to his chest when the man who kept the chips put an arm around him as though he were the wise old uncle the boy had never had. “What you wanna do is find a normal woman who can cook and clean for ya’…” He began as the men at the table all nodded in agreement. “That’s the gal you keep at home, makes your sandwiches and everything...”

Harry could tell from the sight of him that Frankie was feeling the same discomfort Harry had whenever the topic of women came up.

“Watch his hands.” Danny said.

Squinting, Harry could see that Frankie was slipping something out of his sleeve while the table was distracted by the patriarch’s soliloquy.

“…and then ya’ get a crazy girl on the side who can-”

The poker player was cut off by a loud banging sound in the background.

 “WHO TOOK MY LUCKY CARD, YA FOOKS!?”

The voice from the counter shook the room so badly it nearly felled the lumber that held the building up. Fitting, Harry thought, for the speaker looked every part a log driver. It was the fellow Frankie had pickpocketed earlier, who was now fumbling about in his pockets for his lost card.

The entire bar felt silent, then flinched as the man at the counter pounded on the table a second time.

“MY BERT CORBEAU ROOKIE CARD!? WHO TOOK IT EH? YA STUPID FOOK-HEADS!”

Every single pair of eyes migrated towards Frankie Van Assen, who had a different card hanging halfway out of his sleeve.

The patriarch’s poker face twisted into a look of disgust, and he snatched the boy by the arm, wrestled him from the table, and threw him straight at the log-driver.

“I reckon the culprit’s right here, bud! Looks like he’s cheatin’ our card game too for good measure.” He said.

The log-driver wasted no time in barging towards Frankie, who was tripping over his own coat in a frantic attempt to escape. The boy’s rumrunner façade swiftly evaporated as he cowered before his assailant and he slipped into a dialect best described as low Canadian, one that Harry had seen come out many a time during tense situations back in Manitoba.

“Easy there, buddy, easy! It’s all just a big misunderstanding-eh-there-bud? We all root for the same team here buddy, don’t we? We just got the same card Isweartogod-” He stammered.

Harry was sitting at the edge of his seat. The boy’s neck was thin as a chicken’s and the log-driver’s cinderblock of a hand was reaching right for it. Should the man snap it they would have no chance of getting to Joe. Harry felt his fingers curl around the neck of the bottle on the table and, without thinking, he launched it in the direction of the log-driver’s head, nearly sending Danny flying along with it. It bounced right off the back of the man’s skull and rolled across the uneven floor, leaking everywhere.

As the log-driver stopped in his tracks, from down on the table he heard Danny say,

“Oh, no. Nice going, doc! You had to blow our cover!”

The log-driver, stunned, slowly turned around to face them as the rest of the bar watched with bated breath. It was the least natural position Harry Avery had ever been in. His job back in the day had been to defuse Georgie’s fights, not start any of his own!

He knew he had to say something to distract the man from using Frankie as a punching bag, but he couldn’t think of what. He lacked a metaphorical dog in this very literal fight: his own province had no team, and he had only ever played hockey as a pastime – the esoteric ways of the average hockey fan were a mystery to him! Regardless, he did his best to make something up, and make it up quick.

He tried to act natural as electricity filled the air, and from his place halfway across the bar, with shoulders squared, in his native Manitoban twang he shouted,

“SAINT PATS ARE A BUNCHA LOSERS! GET A REAL TEAM LIKE THE MONTREAL MAROONS, BUDDY!”

It was the most incendiary thing he could think to say in a bar full of Torontonians, and every set of eyes locked onto him like the scopes of German snipers.

Every set of eyes except for one, of course. The nickname Danny had given Frankie had been an apt one, and the Flying Dutchman took this opportunity to snatch the tackle box of money and bolt, diving straight through his adversary’s legs and out the door to freedom. The other five men at the poker table scrambled after him, only for one of them to be taken out by a thrown shot glass that had been intended for either Harry or Frankie – Harry himself wasn’t sure.

That was when the log-driver accelerated towards him and took his first swing. Harry stumbled back out of his chair and the log-driver picked it up, then made a worthy attempt at bashing it over Harry’s head. Harry caught it and tried to wrestle it from him with all his strength. Meanwhile, in the background, the man from the poker table who had been downed by the shot glass got up, grabbed one of the hockey sticks from the wall, and ran off in search of revenge. He swung the stick at the nearest person he could find, who swung their own hockey stick back, and soon a hockey game truly was on the verge of breaking out. At bare minimum the scene was now a full-blown brawl.

Finally the log-driver’s grip loosened on the chair. Harry pulled on it as hard as he could, and when it flew backwards and hit a boarded window Harry was able to land a well-timed punch to the log-driver’s jaw. Harry looked down in search of Danny, and his heart nearly stopped when he couldn’t see him anywhere.

The log-driver took two more swings which Harry blocked and returned in good measure.

He dodged another punch to the face and shoved his opponent backwards, then looked back down to see that Danny was still there, much to his relief. He was laying all the way back with his arms folded over his head, propped up on the edge of the ash tray. Something about the look on Danny’s face perturbed him. It was as if the man were ogling him.

“Are you going to be any help at all here?” He asked Danny.

“I’d rather enjoy the view.” Danny replied.

Then a second shot glass exploded against the nearby pillar, and Harry could see that one of the stick-wielding patrons was now slap-shotting them around the room while the poor bartender cowered in the distance. Another patron returned fire. Through all the chaos and smoke Harry spotted a narrow path towards the door.

“Come on.” He said.

He grabbed Danny and ducked, then shoved the table over and dashed straight ahead with all the speed his adrenaline could afford him. The log-driver, who had put all his weight into his fists, whirled and toppled over when his punch failed to land, collided with the falling table, then fell right into the line of fire of a whiskey glass that struck him clean in the temples and finally brought the man down.

“Why would Lorraine go here!?” Harry huffed as he raced out the door.

“Free entertainment!” Said Danny from his front pocket.

Much to Harry’s relief, Frankie’s automobile was still there. The boy was begging it to start as the four remaining poker players from the bar surrounded it like a pack of baboons. Two of them were trying to climb straight into it.

“Come on! Come on! Come on!” Frankie sobbed through the window.

Before Harry could react there was a pop, a bang, and a plume of black smoke. Then, like a blessing from above, the engine started and the automobile whirled backwards, shaking the angry men off. Harry was right in its path and dashed away to safety.

“Get to the bike!” Danny ordered.

Harry obeyed and raced all the way over to the secluded spot where he had parked it out of fear of thieves - a choice he now regretted. He could see that he had company as he kicked off the bike, for it turned out that one of the poker players was in possession of a Model TT pickup truck. He was ferrying the other four in pursuit of Frankie, and one of those four passengers in turn was in possession of a shotgun.

“Stay behind those guys. You don’t wanna get in the line of fire.” Was Danny’s advice.

“Would you quit backseat driving?” Harry complained in response.

Harry tried his best to follow Danny’s advice nonetheless, and tires screeched as the vehicles zig-zagged through Danforth, then Cabbagetown and down Bloor. Harry couldn’t help but quickly overtake the pickup truck, and when they turned a series of tight corners he almost lost it in the darkness. Then one of the passengers in the truck kindly fired off a shotgun round from behind him, nearly taking Harry’s other ear off and frightening the sleeping congregation of the Ossington Avenue Baptist Church awake in the process.

He worried for Danny in his pocket in spite of the fact that he knew Danny would be telling him I-told-you-so if he could speak. He was clocking 65 miles an hour. He had only taken Joe up to 30 out of mercy.

He glanced behind him to see that the heavy truck had fallen far into the distance, and the passenger with the shotgun was discharging it rapidly into the air out of frustration. The shotgun rounds attracted the unwelcome sound of the police, who were approaching neither by foot, or by horse, or by car, but by motorcycle. The police bike’s head lamp was swiftly gaining on them, and Harry knew that if they stopped him he would have no chance of keeping up with Frankie. Harry himself had never seen the inside of a jail cell, and he wasn't about to make his first trip that night.

Harry knew his motorcycles, and he knew that the Toronto PD was particular to Henderson bikes. They could hit 100 miles an hour at top speed and easily overtake his Hendee, but for one key detail: each police motorcycle was also equipped with a heavy sidecar.  As they neared the city limits, Harry knew they were also a stone’s throw away from the Henderson’s greatest weakness, and the bane of every motorcyclist in existence. That weakness was uneven ground.

Harry had a secret weapon. Born and raised on horseback in Fuck-it, Manitoba, he knew how to ride a dirt road better than he did a paved one. He took a gamble then turned down a narrow, unpaved side road, temporarily leaving Frankie. Then he slowed down and loosened his grip on the bars, then kissed the speed up to as much as he could get away with, noting when the bike started to squirrel. It was in that goldilocks zone that he was able to maintain some semblance of control over the bike, though his teeth did chatter so hard they nearly fell out of his head.

The police’s Henderson wasn’t so lucky. The weight of the side car combined with a healthy dose of gravel soon sent both officers flying into a ditch when they tried to replicate his turn.

Now he was faced with the question of how to get back to the main road. He could see the faintest outline of the Model T as it raced across the horizon with only a cornfield to separate them.

Harry slowed the bike to a stop.

“Danny?”

“What?”

“I’m about to make a very irresponsible decision as a motorcyclist, and if we die, I want you to know that I’m sorry.”

He turned the bike towards the cornfield and walked it inside. Corn was grown in rows that a motorbike could theoretically run through, and as the saying went it was supposed to be knee high by the fourth of July. The corn in this particular field was a little taller than that, but the path left by the harvester had formed a perfect track for him to follow.

Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he revved the engine and sped into the darkness. The leaves of the corn husks whipped across his face as the bike practically bounced along the uneven terrain. For a moment Harry couldn’t tell if the bike was even vertical - or running on solid ground for that matter - then he hit a steep slope and for a brief moment he became airborne before landing back on the main road again and swerving in Frankie’s direction. After the chaos of the field, riding on the regular dirt of the main road felt like a cake walk in comparison.

As Harry gained on the Model T he noted that the automobile was fishtailing as the boy, who was clearly unpleasantly buzzed from his time at the bar, made his best attempt to drive straight. Frankie had slowed down considerably since they had lost the truck, his nerves presumably at ease, and it wasn’t long before they passed through Downsview and, right when Harry had convinced himself the chase would never end, slowed to a halt at a farmhouse somewhere between Toronto and Woodbridge, on a lot surrounded by a thick section of forest. Exactly where on the map it was Harry could only guess.

He slowed the Hendee to a halt and watched the automobile snake in beside the building, then leaned his bike up against the nearest tree he could find. He dismounted slowly it and stood still for a moment as he waited for the feeling to return to his legs.

It was still dark out, though just barely. Danny was thrashing around in his front pocket and it wasn’t long before he climbed up for air.

“You should start charging tinies scraps for a ride like that, Henry. It’d be good business.” He gasped.

The miniature pulled on his crumpled hat and shook himself to his senses.

Beside the house, Frankie was doing the same thing. The boy sat in the car for a solid ten minutes before he was put together enough to stumble out. When he did, he promptly threw up and then lugged the tackle box out of the automobile. In the glow of the headlights, Harry watched as Frankie took the hockey card out of the box, kissed it once, twice, three times, then killed the engine and raced into the house, leaving the box full of money behind.

“So now what?” Harry asked the detective as he pulled him all the way out of his pocket.

Danny scratched his head. The frantic barking of a dog rang out in the background.

“We shouldn’t go in there guns blazing, especially if the place is full of fighting dogs. You heard what the kid said at the bar. If this Lessard guy is that dangerous, we don’t wanna get on his bad side.” Danny said.

“Then what do we do?” Harry whispered impatiently.

“We take out that automobile first.” Danny said.

Harry looked at him in confusion.

“That kid’s car trouble gave me an idea.” He continued. “If things go bad in there, we can slow ‘em down if we disable it completely.”

“Do you think it’ll get that bad?” Asked Harry.

“After what that kid was saying at the bar, it wouldn’t hurt to play it safe.” Danny argued.

Harry himself wasn’t so sure. The boy could just as well be lying and they could be wasting precious time in turn – if Joe was even in there at all.

“Do you know what a fuel line is?” Danny asked him.

Harry rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I know what a fuel line is.” Harry said.

“Do you know where to find one in a Model T?” Was Danny’s next question, and it gave Harry pause. “…no? Okay, I’ll show you.”

“And how am I supposed to see it in pitch darkness?”

“Guess you won’t, but I will. I always forget you giants can’t see in the dark. Now follow my lead...”

-

“Not like that. Not like that! NOT LIKE THA-oh, okay, you got it.”

Harry nearly took a face full of gasoline when the fuel came spilling out of the line. Danny had been perched on his forehead of all places and stepped over his left eyeball in order to dodge it. Harry wasn’t so lucky, and his right shoulder was doused in gasoline where he lay underneath the automobile. He dragged himself out from under it and sighed.

When he had left home that morning he hadn’t expected he would be going out for a rip, let alone sabotaging a snatcher’s car. The pain of the burns was still tormenting him all the while and some sad, self-pitying part of himself wanted to go home, take some morphine, and try again later. It was a luxury, he knew, to even be able to go home – a luxury Joe didn’t have – and the guilt of those thoughts spurred him forward just as they had during the war.

“Okay, genius, now what?” He whispered.

“We invoke Dennis Calloway and talk our way in.” Danny’s voice came from below the automobile’s front axle. “Are you any good at lying?”

Harry scooped him up and placed him back into his pocket.

“I guess we’ll find out.” He said.

Harry was good enough at lying to himself. That had to count for something.

With his burn wounds still throbbing he headed in the direction of the front door. He was still ten feet away from it when a dog started barking, and from that moment Harry knew there was no going back. He stopped nonetheless to collect himself. The door loomed before him all the while, like a gateway to some forbidden world.

He cleared his throat and knocked. He couldn’t tell from sound alone if there was a dog lunging for him on the other side of it or a full-blown wolf, but whatever it was he didn’t want to be in the way of its teeth. He tried not to think of how easily a creature like that could devour a miniature, and he could only hope that Lessard wasn’t as dangerous. Then the dog began to whimper and Harry could hear scratching sounds as someone behind the door pulled it back.

When the door swung open it wasn’t Lessard, but Frankie who answered. The boy had dark circles under his eyes, and he was holding a strange concoction that rivaled the stench of the gasoline on Harry’s shirt. Before Frankie could even open his mouth Harry asked,

“Is your boss home?”

He did his best to look menacing as he stepped past the threshold and pushed his way into the house. The bandages and the lake water and the corn leaves and the gasoline all worked their magic, for Frankie shied back at the sight of him. The dog sitting behind the boy was snarling at him all the while, and in the dim light Harry couldn’t make out what breed it was.

“I… uh… maybe.” Frankie answered.

He squinted.

“Wait. Have I seen you somewhere?”

It seemed that the boy hadn’t quite figured out that Harry had followed him there. He saw his opportunity and he took it.

“I’m a friend of Dennis Calloway’s. It’s an emergency.” Harry said quickly as he felt the tip of Danny’s hairpin dig into his chest. “The uh… the police are after me and I need to use his phone.”

Frankie took a swig of his concoction and forcefully swallowed it down. The boy seemed too tired to challenge Harry’s story, for all he said was,

“One sec. Romeo, guard.”

Frankie pointed the dog behind him to a box on a side table, then disappeared from the foyer into a pitch black hallway of the house. Frankie seemed to have excellent night vision of his own, Harry noted.

He let the door close behind him, and Romeo’s hackles rose as he did so. The dog seemed to be growling at a sound coming from inside the box. Out of morbid curiosity, Harry felt around for it and held it in his hands. He could feel something inside of it, something moving. Wishing he too had night vision, he strained his eyes to get a closer look and-

His eyes snapped shut when the hallway light flicked on and momentarily blinded him.

“Sir? What is the meaning of this?”

Quickly Harry placed the box back on the table without giving it a second look, then turned his attention to the hulking figure that filled the narrow hallway.

The man before him stood two inches taller than Harry’s six-foot-three and was about twice as wide. He looked more like a doctor or a politician than any sort of criminal, Harry noted from his fine clothes and shiny wristwatch, and Harry almost would have been fooled were it not for the fact that the man’s shirt sleeves were rolled up and crossed over his chest. There on his arms were a series of criss-crossing white scars, some as long as the man’s arms themselves.

Leashes, muzzles and wooden clubs all hung on hooks in the hallway behind him, and from the sight of it Harry knew exactly what sort of person he was dealing with. Nevertheless, Harry extended a hand and gave him a courteous smile. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

“Mr. Lessard! I’ve heard so much about you.” He said.

When the man reached out to shake his hand, he nearly crushed it.

“I’m a friend of Dennis Calloway’s. I got into a spot of trouble with the police and I need to use your phone.” He repeated.

As Lessard tilted his head back and looked down his nose as if to appraise him Harry could only hope that his story would sound convincing. He was covered in bandages and reeked of gasoline – that had to help sell the story. 

“And your name, sir?” Asked Lessard.

“I’m doctor-“ Harry began out of habit, then stopped himself. “Moore. Doctor Moore.”

Lessard’s eyebrows rose, though only by a small margin.

“A doctor? You are with the labs?”

Harry studied Lessard’s face as Frankie pushed past him and into a sunroom with an old sofa. There was no indication to Harry what the right answer was, though Danny was squirming so intensely he feared the snatcher might catch sight of it. He shrank back and said,

“Yes, sir. I uh… I had an accident at the lab. The police got there and-”

Danny’s pin dug into Harry again.

“Don’t overexplain!” He heard the detective scold him from his pocket.

Lessard's brow furrowed at the sound, and Harry feared for the sake of both his life and Danny's that Lessard hadn't heard him. Then a voice from the other room momentarily distracted the three of them.

“Aww, c’mon. Lemme sleep!”

It was Frankie. He was standing helplessly before the couch which was now occupied by Romeo. Harry could now see that the dog in question was a large and stout creature with docked ears and boxy jaws, all covered in scars. The dog tucked his wagging stump of a tail under his body and licked his lips when Frankie tried to move him, but still refused to budge.

“Hey!” Lessard snapped. “What have I been telling you? Don’t show weakness. Get a club and correct him.”

Harry grimaced and glanced at his shoes.

“I-Is there a phone I could borrow, Mr. Lessard?” He said.

“Yes, yes, come with me.” Lessard sighed.

Harry glanced back out of morbid curiosity as he left, and to his relief he saw that Frankie had sunk to the floor and curled up there instead of following his boss’s orders.

It really was as though Harry had been sucked into an alternate world. Lessard opened the door behind him and led him down a room filled with two rows of cages with all the coolness of a realtor showing a home. A cacophony of barking rose from inside each one, and as Lessard passed by through the narrow aisle that separated them Harry could see that every single dog inside every single cage growled at the snatcher and started snapping.

“Excuse the noise. These ones are not broken yet.”

Harry was shaking with anger. The only thing he wanted to see broken was the back of Mr. Lessard’s skull.

He followed Mr. Lessard down a leftward turn into a room so dark that Harry couldn’t be certain if he was going to reach a phone or end up dead in the man’s basement. Then Lessard pulled a string and turned on the light. This was another room of cages, most of them empty. At first glance Harry couldn’t see what was inside of them, but when he drew closer he froze in shock.

Down at the far end were two cages of tiny people. One cage to his left held a small crowd of them, most of whom were men, though in the middle a mother protectively clutched her son and dealt a blow to Harry’s heart. Another cage to his right held five young girls. The former and the latter were labeled Low Value and High Value, respectively. He had forgotten all about Lessard when he reached them, and to his disappointment he saw no sign of Joe.

“They are nice, aren’t they?” Said Mr. Lessard of the five caged girls Harry was looking at in a tone that absolutely sickened him. “Five hundred dollars each.”

“Five hundred?”

It was more than Harry’s mortgage payment. It was enough to be a down payment on Harry’s entire house! Who on god’s green Earth, Harry wondered, was going to buy a miniature for five hundred dollars?

As Harry hunched over the cage he felt Danny tumble out of his pocket. He crouched right over top of him with panic written into every muscle of his face. Danny simply held a finger to his lips then limped behind the table leg.

The floor creaked as Lessard approached.

“The telephone is over here.” The snatcher said.

“…right.” Said Harry.

Lessard was looming over him suspiciously now, and Harry leapt up to meet him at eye level. Having no better idea of what to say, he landed on,

“Say, it’s awfully hot in here, isn’t it? You don’t mind if I just-”

Harry gave Lessard no time to answer. He slipped his jacket off and tossed it on the table, making sure one sleeve reached the floor when it landed. It obscured the table leg Danny was hiding behind nicely.

“-there.” Harry smiled.

Lessard was looking at Harry the same way the other men at the bar had looked at him whenever the topic of women came up.

“You mentioned you had a phone? Over here? Let’s go over here.” Harry stammered.

He led the bewildered criminal over to the candlestick phone in the side office.

“I’m very bad at technology, Mr. Lessard. Could you show me how to use this?”

“You are a doctor aren’t you? Can’t you figure it out?” Lessard glared at him.

“I-I’m afraid this must be one of those French models. The ones we use at the office are different.”

Lessard grumbled and picked up the receiver. As he did so Harry glanced over his shoulder and saw that the five girls in the High Value cage had formed a human ladder. One of them was messing with the hinge for some reason.

His attention was pulled away when Lessard shoved the receiver in his hand.

“Who are you calling?” He grunted.

”Um, before we get to that – ” he drew Lessard’s attention to the telephone directory “– does our lab have your updated address? I thought I did but then—”

Harry tried to keep his eyes off of the cage. With the help of the suit jacket Danny had joined the girls on the outside and he was using the hairpin as a lever to dismantle the hinge.

“—I had to get this one from Dennis.”

The sound of the pin hitting the floor rang through the room. Lessard moved to look, but Harry stood in his way with the telephone directory in hand.

"Is it this one, Mr. Lessard?"

“Yes, yes, it is the same address as always! Ostie! Would you just make the call and get out of here!?” Lessard roared.

Mr. Lessard stormed back towards the phone and threw the receiver into his hands.

“…of course.” Harry said.

A small amount of relief came over him when he turned his attention back to the other room and noted that the cage was now empty. Danny and the girls were nowhere to be seen.

“I just wanted to double check for our records…”

There was a clanking sound in the distance. Harry could only guess that it was the door on the Low Value cage swinging shut.

“What the hell…?” Lessard growled.  

Harry was already charged with adrenaline after the fight at the bar, and it became even worse when Lessard stomped out of the office and froze at the sight of the empty cages.

He turned to Harry with wild eyes.

“How did-”

That was the exact second Harry could keep his composure no longer. His fist collided with Lessard’s face in full force before the man could speak another word. The snatcher stumbled back into the table of cages and clutched his bleeding nose, then charged towards Harry, who landed a second and third punch. It was as if all the rage inside of Harry was being channeled through his hands. He couldn’t think coherently; his conscious mind was barely processing what he was doing as his farmhand fists kept wailing on Lessard, one strike after another, until Harry learned just how severely one man could beat another man.

When his fists were slick with blood, he stopped for a moment to appreciate just how badly he had mangled the snatcher’s face. Lessard shakily stumbled to his feet, showing Harry his palm with one bloody hand.

“Where is Joe Piccoli?” Harry demanded.

“I don’t know him.” Lessard said through blood and snot.

Harry threw him against the empty cages again, only for Lessard to stumble to his feet this time and sprint into the hallway full of dog cages.

This gave Harry an idea.

Calmly he walked into the hallway and started unlatching every single dog cage, starting with the dog named Juliet, then Mercutio and Tybalt and Laurence, all the way down an entire list of dramatis personae and ending with the one named Rosaline.

The dogs pulled back their lips and bayed for blood as they chased the star-crossed snatcher through the house with deadly precision. Lessard flew into the foyer, then Harry watched him clamber for the doorknob and scream as one of the dogs got him by the legs. Then the whole house shook as Lessard threw the door open and fell down the front steps with the dogs hot on his heels.

A Shakespeare quote came to Harry’s mind in that moment:

“Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war.”

The miniatures from the cages had assembled behind Harry’s feet, with Danny at the head. Harry turned around and looked at them. They looked up at him. He opened his mouth to speak and that’s when the entire crowd bolted away from him and never looked back.

“Where are they going? Is there something we can do?” He asked Danny.

Danny pulled out a cigarette.

“Harry, after what you giants did to those tinies, the best thing you can do is leave them alone.”

Harry nodded. He picked Danny up and carried him into the entryway. When he got there he could see that the dogs had run right past Frankie, who was wrestling Romeo back from the half-open door. He fumbled around in his right front pocket and swore as the dog barked at the commotion outside. The boy stood between Harry and the door, paper white with fear, and Romeo stepped in front of him at the sight of Harry and Danny.

“What.. what’re you guys…” Frankie gasped, and his eyes fell on Danny, who was calmly standing in Harry’s hands. “Randy!?” He said, presumably using a fake name of Danny's. “Oh no, not you…”

“Randy?” Harry murmured. “He doesn’t know you’re the guy from the movies?”

“You think this kid can afford a movie?” Danny replied.

He cleared his throat.

“Frank, look, you’re not in trouble. We’re just looking for our friend. His name’s Joe Piccoli.” Danny said.

“Joe P-Piccoli…?” Frankie echoed.

Frankie’s eyes darted back and forth from Harry and Danny back to the box.

“He’s… I mean I didn’t do anything.” The boy stammered. “The boss just said to-”

“Said what?” Danny pressed.

Frankie took two steps back in the direction of the door.

Romeo kept on snarling.

“Remember what I told you at Sunnyside about making good choices?” Danny continued. “We just need you to tell us where he went and-”

Frankie pointed a finger at the two of them before Danny could finish.

“GO GET ‘EM!” He cried, and darted to the box.

It was only now that Harry figured out what had been in that box. When Romeo leapt for him he had no choice but to run back into the room of empty cages while the Flying Dutchman sped out the front door. He slammed the door to the dogs’ room shut and Romeo collided with it and gnashed at the both of them.

Harry clutched Danny in his hand and heaved.

“See if there’s a back door.” Danny barked.

Harry scouted around and found a door opposite the one to the miniatures’ room labeled Fighters. In that room was a third set of cages, and Harry couldn't have been less surprised at what sort of miniatures were housed there.

They were some of the tallest and strongest miniatures Harry had ever seen, some taller than Danny. He could tell exactly which of them were the winners and which were the losers just by looking at their cages. The guys at the top lived in cushy cages with velvet curtains and satin pillows while the guys at the bottom sulked about and nursed broken noses and bruises.

The crowd of freed miniatures had already gotten there first.

“We’re leaving!?” Exclaimed one of the top fighters. “Why are we leaving!? I got a good thing goin' here!”

The rest of the miniatures didn’t seem to care. They were climbing the cages at lightning speed and unlatching each and every one. From the very top of the stack of cages they were able to reach the window sill and tear their way through the screen to freedom.

“They’re just going to run off into the wilderness like that?” He asked Danny.

“Yup. You can’t interfere with these things, Harry.” Danny said. “Half of them have been snatched before and know what they need to do to come back from it.”

“…huh.”

“We should follow their lead.” Danny added.

When the last of the miniatures was done piling out of the window it was Harry’s turn. He set Danny down, stepped back, then took an empty cage and bashed the entire window pane in with it. With the glass mostly gone he then ripped out the screen using the hole the miniatures had made as a start. He took Danny in one hand and carefully slid himself through the window with the rest of his limbs, nearly getting stuck at the widest point. Soon his shoes touched grass and he was back on the ground again at the rear of the house.

Sunlight peeked in over the trees as Harry raced to the side of the house, where he knew Frankie would be waiting. Sure enough the boy was already in the automobile, trying to make his daring escape. Just as the two had planned it fired up and then puttered to a halt again.

“This is it! Run and get him!” Danny shouted.

Harry ran at full speed towards Frankie, and Frankie leapt out of the other side of the automobile and ran full speed into the woods, then disappeared like a ghost. Harry followed suit, into brush that grew thicker and thicker until he could barely move.

Harry slowed his pace to a jog first and then to a trudge.

“So much for slowing him down.” He said.

“Then we’re just gonna have to track him!” Said Danny.

Cursing himself, Harry knew he had to do it. He had already gone to a bar, outrun the cops, and beaten a man half to death.  

What wouldn’t he do for Joe Piccoli?

Read the next part here!

[capplecat]

Also after I had that dream I made a video about it