TKO, a Duffy Dombrowski Mystery by Tom Schreck

Author:Tom Schreck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, suspense, mystery, private eye, hardboiled, dog boxing
Publisher: Down & Out Books

I brought Al with me to the “Y” and took advantage of his low profile to sneak him past the front desk. The disinterested teenager knew I was a regular and didn’t look away from the TV as I waved to him. I had seen Smitty’s car was in the lot, like it always was, but I wasn’t ready to say hello yet. Smitty was a lot of things and in many ways a complex man, but he didn’t trouble himself with small talk. He didn’t care for bullshit ambiguity and I was ambivalent about just about everything going on in my life. He would look at me and I’d divert my eyes and stutter. For the time being, I decided to avoid him.

The “Y” was a sniffer’s paradise and the combination aromas of bad BO, talc, and liquid soap had Al a little over active. There was just a bit too much for him to process so by the time we go to the aerobics room he collapsed on a mat, rolled over on his back and started to snore with his four legs in the air.

It was five after eight and my karateka was no place to be found. Billy had never been less than a half an hour early for anything. When he was fifteen minutes late I started to worry and at a half an hour, I began to panic a little bit. Something was wrong.

While I sat there and grew more anxious it dawned on me that I knew very little about the kid. His dad was dead and his mother worked a lot, but I didn’t even know an address or a phone number. Whenever I gave him a lift he asked me to leave him a mile from his house so he could run home. I don’t know what that was all about, maybe he was embarrassed about his house or his mom. Shit, maybe he was embarrassed about me. Maybe he just wanted to run. I swear working in human services screws you up for life.

It wasn’t like I ever needed to contact him, God knows, Billy made himself available. At 8:45 I figured he wasn’t coming and I left the Y more than just a little nervous.

As we walked out Al pulled me all over the “Y”, once again overwhelmed with the sniffles. When we hit the parking lot he was like a burning man who had jumped in a swimming pool. He seemed to relax and say “Ahhh…” We walked past Smitty’s Olds and were headed toward the Eldorado and came up on the Mitchell and Harter’s SUV. At first, Al paused like he didn’t want to encounter the pit bull but then he proceeded over to it.

There was no barking, so the Pit bull probably didn’t take the ride that night. Al was back sniffing like a mad hound. He went up one side and down the other and then focused his attention on the back gate. He got up on his hind legs and sniffed all over the handle, pulled back and barked twice.

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