Night Dogs by Kent Anderson

Author:Kent Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781448135066
Publisher: Random House

SIXTEEN

IT WAS QUIET for a Friday night. After the usual rash of late afternoon burglary reports and a false alarm at a bank, the radio was quiet, and Hanson was finishing the last of the backed-up crime reports, a typical burglary. The couple had come home from work and found their home violated.

Doing paperwork for the insurance company, part of the overall economy most people didn’t know about, Hanson thought as he filled in the serial number of a stolen TV that would never be found.

The burglars sold the stuff to fences who re-sold it out of the trunks of their cars to people who couldn’t afford to buy it in stores. The burglars bought their heroin with the money from the fence, and the heroin dealers put the money into cars and clothes, jewelry and TV sets. Some of what the dealers bought was stolen too, but they bought a lot of it from local stores who were glad to make the sales. Then the people who could afford insurance paid higher rates to finance the whole cycle. He looked out at a fire-gutted house, the windows boarded with plywood.

But most of the people on district Five Sixty Two couldn’t afford insurance. They just lost what little they had. To assholes, he thought, signing his name on the report and putting his pen into his shirt pocket.

The radio silence was almost annoying, like a night without music. He liked the rhythm of a busy radio, keeping track of car-stops and radio calls in the surrounding districts. He fingered the mugshots in his breast pocket, the most current, the ones wanted for recent felonies. Sometimes, he thought that the photos were like mojos, like he had a grip on the souls of the people in the photos.

Dana swung the car south, to the boundary of the district, then east. A whore on the corner watched the car, her hands on her hips. “Let’s say hello to Rita,” Hanson said, and Dana pulled to the curb. She was wearing an orange vinyl mini-skirt that matched her lipstick.

“Hey, Rita,” Hanson called to her, “what’s happening?”

She glared at him, tapping the rainbow striped high heels that laced all the way up to her knees.

“Nothin’ happinin’, Hanson.” She looked to her right, then to her left. “Nothing gonna happen either,” she said, “with the police around. You know what I mean? What you want?”

“We’re lonely.”

“Everybody lonely,” she said, looking at her watch.

“Okay,” Hanson said, “see you later,” as Dana pulled away.

“A lot later,” she said.

Dana laughed. “You’re a real charmer. Just like on TV. Even the whores are in love with you. Charmed her right out of her socks.”

“She’s trying to conceal her real feelings for me. That was just an act so you wouldn’t know. Rita, Oh Ree-tah,” he sang, “Come fly with me to Brazil!”

They drove through the alleys, the hissing radio turned low, lights off, watching and listening. But all they heard was the crunch and pop of the tires over gravel and broken glass.

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