Chihuahua Confidential (16 page)

“What?” Nacho looked confused. He looked at me and then at Jimmy G.

“The package, man,” said Jimmy G. “Jimmy G's been trying to find the package!”

“You weren't supposed to come down to L.A. to get it, you idiot!”

“What? And not collect the money you owe Jimmy G?”

“Are you still going on about that? I told you a million times, I don't owe you nothing.”

“What were you saying, Geri?” Pepe asked, kicking up a bunch of grass to cover his leavings.

“Look who's here, Geri!” Jimmy G said, wrapping his arm around the guy's shoulder and pushing him toward me. “My old buddy from my platoon, Nacho. We called him that because he ate Nacho Cheese Doritos all day long!”

“Is that Princess?” I asked Pepe. The dog at the end of the leash didn't look like the proud creature I had last seen in Caprice's arms. This dog had matted fur and was a splotchy brown color.

Pepe bounded over to her. The dog let out a high-pitched whine and struggled against the leash, rushing forward to meet Pepe. They had a quick consultation, nose to nose, then nose to tail. Nacho spun around, trying to keep Pepe away from her.

“Hey, lady, watch your dog,” he said. “Don't you know he's supposed to be on a leash?”

“
Sí
, it is Princess, but she has been mistreated,” Pepe said, trotting back to me. “See how they have tried to alter her appearance!”

“So, Nacho is the dognapper,” I said. I didn't mean to say it so loud, but both Jimmy G and Nacho heard me.

“Dognapper?” said Jimmy G.

“You know her?” said Nacho, looking back and forth between me and Jimmy G.

“Yeah! She's in disguise, but she's my Gal Friday.”

“Associate!” I said.

Nacho took a few steps back and managed to break Jimmy G's hold. He picked up Princess and held her tight against his chest. “Take one more step and I'll break her neck.”

We all froze—that is, all except Princess and Pepe. Princess twisted her head around and nipped Nacho's hand just as Pepe charged around and sank his teeth into Nacho's ankle.

“Ow! Ow!” He dropped Princess, who was still attached to the leash, and kicked at Pepe, who deftly avoided the blow.

I had to do something, so I smacked him on the head with Caprice's purse.

“Ow!” He doubled over.

I saw Jimmy G reach for the gun he kept in a shoulder holster, but Nacho grabbed Princess, holding her by the neck.

“Back off or I'll snap her little neck!” Then he took off running. Princess twisted and turned in his grip, but he held her in such a way, she couldn't bite him again.

“Princess!” Pepe and I screamed at the same time.

Jimmy G sprinted after him, yelling, “Give it up, Nacho! You never could outrun Jimmy G!”

“Come, we must save her!” shouted Pepe. He took off running and I followed as quickly as I could.

We must have been quite a sight—Nacho huffing and puffing with Princess held out in front of him, Jimmy G in his bright green sports jacket and fedora waving his pistol, a small white Chihuahua at his heels, and me bringing up the rear, wearing a sparkly silver dress, high heels, and sunglasses.

“Call the police!” I screamed to no one in particular. All I got in return were stunned expressions from various onlookers. Possibly everyone thought we were a guerrilla art troupe. I saw people snapping photos. Good! There would be evidence if we didn't manage to snag Princess.

Nacho reached the fenced-in area surrounding the biggest of the tar pits and began circling around it. We all followed. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught glimpses of the tableaux inside the chain-link fence. A huge woolly mammoth trumpeting as it was dragged down into the pit. Another mammoth sinking to its knees with the fangs of a saber-toothed tiger embedded in its neck.

After completing a circuit of the tar pit, Nacho headed off, with Princess still clutched to his chest, toward a circular structure. He disappeared inside it, followed by Jimmy G, then Pepe, and eventually me. As they ran in, onlookers ran out. I saw the words O
BSERVATION
P
IT
over the door as I rushed in after them.

The structure was open inside, with overhead lights and wooden scaffolding that surrounded a pit some twenty feet in diameter. Nacho and Princess were on the far side of it, with Jimmy G advancing on them from the left and Pepe coming at them from the right.

“Nowhere to run, Nacho! Give it up!” yelled my boss.

Pepe growled—a
real
growl, no doubt channeling a dire wolf—and stalked toward Nacho, his fangs bared.

Princess, seeing her opportunity, struggled wildly. Nacho was distracted and lost his grip on her. She managed to wriggle out of his grasp, but in the process she went tumbling over the edge of the barrier. There was a splat as she landed in the tar pit below.

“Princess!” I shouted, and looked around for a way to reach her.

“What the hell's going on up there?” I heard a voice coming from the pit.

I looked over the wooden railing and saw two men, about fifteen feet below, who were kneeling on boards that ringed the pit. They were evidently digging fossils out of the hardened edges around the tar pool at the bottom.

“Oww! Damn!” I glanced up again and saw Pepe biting into Nacho's ankle as Jimmy G put him in a headlock.

Pepe jumped back just as Nacho twisted away and tumbled into the pit.

“Hey!” said one of the archeologists, jumping back as he was splattered with tar. “You could have just damaged fossils that are millennia old.”

Nacho didn't seem to care. He was trying to extricate himself from the tar. He was in up to his knees, and every time he tried to lift his leg, we could hear a horrible sucking sound.

One of the archaeologists had managed to scoop out the struggling dog. I scrambled halfway down the ladder that led into the pit, and he handed her up to me. She was half covered with tar and whimpering, I think, with embarrassment.

“It's OK,” I told her as I carried her up the ladder. “We'll get you back to Caprice.” Pepe came running over. He must have told her the same thing, I think, because she stopped whimpering.

“Call the police!” said one of the archaeologists.

“Get the dog back to the car,” my boss ordered. “Jimmy G will help get the bastard out and meet you there.”

“We are not leaving without Siren Song!” said Pepe.

“I don't think she's here,” I said. “He only brought one dog.” I leaned over the edge of the pit. “Do you have Siren Song?” I asked.

“Up yours!” he said.

“I will find her,” said Pepe. “Take me back to where we first met with him and I will track backward.”

I carried the tar-splattered Princess as we headed back to the Giant Sloth where we had first met Nacho. Pepe began sniffing the ground, zigzagging back and forth as he traced Nacho's path to the parking lot.

“This is it!” said Pepe, pausing in front of a white van that had backed into the parking space so the rear doors faced the park. I looked at the side and saw the words H
OLLYWOOD
P
ARCEL
S
ERVICE
painted in blue.

“Oh my God!” I said. “It's the van they used to make deliveries to the studio.”

“This is the van they used to kidnap Siren Song!” said Pepe. “I can smell her from here.” He jumped, trying to reach the back doors. “Geri, help me. Open the door!”

It was one of those vans with two rear doors, each one with a window. I set Princess down, grabbed a handle, and pulled it open. As the door swung open, Pepe jumped inside. At the same time, I saw the silhouette of someone's head in the driver's seat. What had I been thinking? Of course Nacho would bring backup, just like I had.

“Pepe! Watch out!” I said. “There's someone in the van!”

But it was too late. The driver had seen me and turned the key in the ignition. Meanwhile, Pepe was sniffing along the metal floor of the van. There was no sign of Siren Song, although there was a big plastic dog carrier in the back. Perhaps she was inside that.

The van jolted forward, and I saw Pepe slip on the metal floor. His claws couldn't get any traction. Then the van zoomed out of the parking lot with Pepe in it.

No way was I going to lose my dog. I picked up Princess and ran for the red Ferrari. I pulled out of the parking lot in time to see the white van taking a left and heading down the street. I wasn't sure if the driver had seen me. But just in case, I pulled off the wig and the sunglasses, thinking that might fool them. Princess cowered in the passenger seat. She was a sorry sight, all dirty and spotted with tar.

The Ferrari was fast and I was able to keep the van in sight. One of the van's rear doors was swinging open and I could see Pepe sliding back and forth in the cargo area as it wove through traffic at high speed. I'd never driven so fast on a surface street—thank God for the Ferrari.

I managed to keep up with the van for the first few miles, almost clipping a car or two in the process. One time the van braked, then sped up abruptly, causing Pepe to slide precariously close to the edge of its open back door. His forelegs were thrust stiffly out in front of him as he barely stopped himself from tumbling out onto the street. I don't know if he saw me or not, as I was about four car lengths back, but his normally bulging eyes bulged out even farther and his mouth opened wide like he was saying, “Help!”

The van took a hard right turn—took it so fast that I thought it would roll over. This caused the rear door to swing shut and stay shut. At least Pepe wouldn't be able to fall out now, I thought, following at such speed that my car fishtailed a bit as I came out of it and hit the gas again. (Where were the cops when you needed them?)

Then, much to my relief, the van slowed to a normal speed and obeyed all the traffic laws and lights for the next five or six miles. My guess was that the driver bolted away from the Tar Pits in a panic when I tried to enter the van but finally slowed down when he thought it was safe—which meant he must not be aware that I was following him.

At one red light, I stopped only a couple feet behind the van. I wanted to jump out of the car, run up to the van, yank the door open, and rescue Pepe. But no sooner had I tried to unbuckle my seat belt than the light changed and we took off again.

Damn. Damn! When would they stop for good? And where would that be?

My question was answered a few minutes later. We had entered a part of town that was mostly residential. The streets were lined with older apartment buildings. Many of the ground-floor windows had bars.

The van rolled to a stop in front of an apartment building that might have once been hot pink but was now a faded coral. It was L-shaped and three stories tall, with walkways that ran in front of every apartment door along each floor. The building had faded turquoise trim and doors. The name L
AGO
V
ISTA
A
PARTMENTS
stood out in cursive letters against a backdrop of river rock.

I parked about two cars back. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do, but I knew I had to get to Pepe. I could hear him yelling from inside the van. Although his words were muffled, the message was clear. He was furious.

Then I heard the car door slam. The driver jumped out of the van and went toward the apartment building. As soon as I saw him, I knew who it was. Hard to miss that porcupine hair or the vivid purple Hawaiian shirt.
Rodney Klamp!
The getaway driver was Rodney Klamp.

Without even looking back, he scrambled up the open stairs on the left side of the building. I watched him emerge on the second-floor walkway and enter an apartment about three doors down.

When I was sure he wasn't coming right back out, I jumped out of the car and ran to the van.

“Pepe!” I cried, and pulled open the rear door.

“Pepe!” I said with relief when I saw that he seemed unhurt.

“Pepe!” I cried for a third time when he bolted out of the van and, nose to the ground, made a beeline to the apartment building's stairs. “What are you doing?”

“I am hot on the scent of that lily-livered dognapper, that betrayer of
perros,
that scoundrel!” he said. He raced up to the second-floor landing, and I ran after him screaming, “Pepe!” yet again.

“I am coming for you, Rodney Klamp,” Pepe growled. “And when I find you, I will clamp my jaws around your leg like a juicy drumstick.”

I caught up with my dog just as he threw himself against the apartment door Rodney had entered.

I pulled my tiny avenger away from the door, but it was too late. The door jerked open and Rodney stuck his head out. “What the hell's going on out here?” he said.

“This!” yelled Pepe, barreling in at him.

I was right behind Pepe as he went through the door. I thought I heard another dog barking when I got inside the apartment, but was too distracted by my own dog attacking Rodney to give it much thought. Pepe aimed for Rodney's ankle and sank his teeth into his flesh. Rodney began hopping around and screaming. “Get it off of me!”

What to do? I wished I had some way to threaten Rodney, but I didn't own a gun. The police. I needed the police. I lunged for the phone I saw on the bar that divided the tiny kitchen from the living room.

I couldn't help noticing the décor. Left over from the fifties, like the apartment building. Nubbly beige drapes. Fake maple colonial-style dining table. A boxy brown sofa. Two suitcases by the front door.

“What the hell?” A young woman emerged from the back room. It was Jennifer, Caprice's personal assistant. She was dressed in jeans and a striped top, and she was carrying a small pet carrier. I realized that the barking I'd heard ever since we burst in was coming from that travel cage. It had to be Siren Song.

“Get it off me!” Rodney kept screaming, dancing around and trying to smack Pepe who was attached to his leg like a remora to a shark.

“What do you expect me to do?” asked Jennifer. “I don't even like dogs.”

I was scared for Pepe, but he seemed to be holding his own for the moment. So I decided to rescue Siren Song while I had the chance. I tried to grab the pet cage away from Jennifer. She held on.

“You can't have her,” she told me. “This Pomeranian is our movie money.”

“No, you idiot!” yelled Rodney, now trying to kick Pepe off of him like he was some kind of soccer ball. “Get it through your head—Siren Song's worthless. That bitch doesn't care about getting her damned dog back. Let her have the dog and help me!”

“Huh?” mumbled Jennifer. She hesitated for a moment, and I won our tug-of-war. But I hadn't expected her to let go so easily, and the pet carrier dropped to the floor. The cage door flew open on impact and out popped Siren Song. She seemed unharmed. She was a little bedraggled but otherwise in good shape. She headed toward Rodney, growling.

“I'm getting out of here,” said Jennifer. “I never should've gotten involved with you two idiots.”

“No, you're not going anywhere.” I got hold of her shoulders and tried to push her against the wall. She pushed back and we went down, rolling around under the dining room table. She was strong and wiry, and she had a lot more to lose than I did. She slapped me in the face, and I punched her in the nose, and she pulled my hair and I pulled her hair, and then she butted me in the jaw with her head. I flopped backward, hitting my head against the wall.

Jennifer scrambled to her feet. I tried to move, but my head swam and stars swirled through my field of vision. Jennifer jumped on top of me.

At about the same time, Rodney managed to kick Pepe free. My little white dog came flying through the air, hit the wall beside me, and, with a horrible crunching noise, fell to the ground, where he lay still and silent.