Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn

Author:Spencer Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Atria Books

EIGHTEEN

* * *

I’m a human being,” Nevins said. “Sometimes you gotta take a piss, orders or no orders.”

Whoa! Taking a piss made you a human being? It just so happens I’m an expert in this area, having taken pisses Nevins could only dream of. He needed to do some rethinking, and pronto.

“You know the point where you just can’t hang on?” Nevins said. “When you’re gonna piss your pants the next second?”

Say one thing for Nevins: some rethinking on his part required, yes, but he had a way of holding my interest. His line of talk made you want to hear more, or at least that was how it worked on me. Pants are not a factor in my case, of course. I wear a black collar for dress-up, and used to have a brown one for every day, now replaced by one made of gator hide, which still gives off the faintest whiff of gator, reminding me always of the scariest night of my life, maybe something we can go into another time.

“Bottom line,” Bernie said. “You abandoned your post.”

“Kind of judgmental, how you put that,” said Nevins.

“Judgmental would be having you shot at dawn,” Bernie said.

Nevins got an angry look on his face, like he was about to do something crazy. He dabbed at his bloody nose instead.

Bernie’s voice softened a bit. “So you went to the nearest men’s room.”

Nevins nodded.

“Which, as I remember, is past the elevators on the left.”

Nevins nodded again.

“And then?”

“I went back. Couldn’t a been more than ninety seconds. Twenty seconds there, twenty seconds back, plus fifty for pissing, max. The longest I’ve ever done was forty-seven.”

“You time your pisses?” Bernie said.

My ears were up as high as they could go. I’d never heard anything as fascinating, and never even expected to.

“Not now,” Nevins said. “This was back in the academy. We had a competition. One guy did a minute nineteen.”

“He should have his prostate checked,” Bernie said.

“Huh?” said Nevins.

“Never mind,” Bernie said. “You’re back at your post.”

“Yeah,” said Nevins. “Everything how I left it, tape still up, door closed, and then I hear a sound from inside.”

“Not from behind you, as you told Soares,” Bernie said.

“Ain’t that obvious by now?” said Nevins.

“Nailing it down’s a big part of what we do,” Bernie said. “Next?”

“Next? What would you adone?”

“Called for backup.”

Nevins snorted. Pigs are the best snorters, in my experience, but it’s always nice when a human takes a shot at it, and I was enjoying the moment when Nevins almost knocked me off my feet, not so easy to do, my balancing skills being off the charts, according to Bernie. “Pussy,” Nevins said.

“You calling me a pussy? Bernie said.

The room went quiet. Nevins gave Bernie a long look, then turned away. “Naw,” he said.

The right answer. Nothing catlike about Bernie. There’s only one creature out there that he reminds me of. I think you know.

“So instead of following procedure, you opened the door.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And?”

“Stepped inside. And then it’s like I said before—I felt this rush of air behind my head, and next thing, I was out like a light.

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