The truck honked. Steve looked up. Three or four feet up, some guy in the passenger seat was gesturing for Steve to roll down his window. Steve did. “Yes?”
The passenger was a kid, about eighteen or twenty. His baseball cap was on backward. “Yo, man,” he said. “You got, like, half a dog hanging off your back bumper.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah. Did you drive over it? On purpose, like?”
“No. The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” Then, under his breath. “I guess I did shoot a couple though.”
“There’s blood all over your fuckin’ door too, man. You get in a assident or something?”
“Nope. Dog fight.” Something occurred to him. “Hey, is there a vet around here?”
The kid looked at him like he was crazy. “Man, ain’t no vet gonna help that dog. He’s cut in half, yo!”
“It’s not for him,” Steve said. “It’s for her.”
“What?”
Steve jerked his thumb at the backseat. The kid leaned out and down, peeping. “Whoa!” Then, to the driver, “Hey, Frank, that guy got a fucking lion in his cab!”
The driver leaned forward. “Say whaaaaat? Lean back, I can’t—”
Maybe you should work harder on keeping a low profile, fugitive boy.
“Holy shit!” the driver said. “I know you! You that guy from Fox News!”
“Nope!” Steve said. “Not me! I get that a lot, though! Ha-ha!” This goddamn light is taking forever. He considered running it, just to get away from the kids in the truck. Nah. Bad idea. Instead he rolled up the window—this actually helped; it was crusty with dog slobber—and pretended to study the strip-mall sign a quarter mile up. He squinted. There was a Bi-Lo, a Walmart, some restaurant called Monsieur Taco—What the fuck?—and the Black Path Animal Hospital.
Steve considered. He figured it was about 50/50 that the guys in the truck would call 911. He needed to get off the road, fast. On the other hand, there’s Naga. She was nibbling at her bandages. They were saturated, dripping. The suppository had helped, but it wouldn’t last.
The light turned green.
“Fuck it,” he said. “ ‘The true Buddhist will not be a moral and intellectual coward.’ ” He waited for the guys in the truck to roll away, then pulled in behind them. Half a block later he turned left into the strip mall, badly. The cab was a Chrysler Voyager minivan, a four-cylinder. It had a lot less power than his plumbing truck. Steve misjudged the gap to an oncoming BMW, obliging its driver to screech to a halt. She and Steve exchanged one-finger salutes. Naga lifted her head up again and roared. That startled him enough that he hopped the curb, clipped a hedge, and nearly T-boned a truck full of landscapers pulling out of the McDonald’s drive-thru. “Aaagh!”
Naga roared again.
“Shut up! I’m driving!”
In the rearview, Naga gave him a reproachful look. Steve slowed to a walking speed and crossed the rest of the parking lot carefully, looking both ways at junctions, finally coasting to a stop in front of a vet. A sign out front read GET KITTY A FLEA DIP!
“Wait here,” Steve said to Naga. “I’ll be right back.” He put the pistol in the back waistband of his sweatpants and pulled his concert shirt down over it. Walking around the back of the taxi, he saw that there was indeed half of a dog dangling from the tailpipe. It was too bloody to be sure, but he thought it might have been the chocolate Lab that had latched onto his window. Maybe it got wedged under the muffler somehow? He vaguely remembered bumps in the road as he pulled out of Garrison Oaks.
Thinking that the veterinarian might not approve, he spent a second trying to get the corpse a little more out of sight, but it was both deeply, deeply disgusting and wedged solidly in place. When gall rose in his throat he gave up, wiped his hand on the back of his sweats, and limped to the office.
The waiting room had a tile floor and smelled like cat food. A fussy-looking man in a bow tie held a Yorkshire terrier on a short leash. Opposite him a middle-aged hippie sat with a cat carrier on her lap.
Steve leaned against the receptionist’s desk, his hands crusty with dried blood. “I need to see one of the doctors.” Panting. “It’s urgent.”
The Yorkie, small and immaculate, barked at him.
“You’ll need to fill this out,” the receptionist said, eyeing him cautiously. “And I’m afraid these two people are both ahead of you. Do you have an appointment?”
He laughed, not quite hysterical. “It’s kind of an emergency. Have you got a stretcher? A big stretcher?”
“Emergency?”
“Ohhh, yeah.” He rocked his head up and down. “Big-time.”
“It’s OK,” said the woman with the cat carrier. “I’m not in a hurry.” The guy with the Yorkie gave her a dour look.
“Gimme a sec,” the receptionist said. She picked up the phone. “Hey, Jer? We got a guy up here with an emergency. Can you grab Allie and bring the stretcher? Thanks.”
“No,” Steve said sincerely, “thank you. Really.” He almost added “And I’m sorry,” then thought better of it. He was sorry, though. He thought that the rest of the afternoon was liable to suck for everyone in the room.
A moment later two youngish women in green scrubs trotted up. One of them carried a good-sized stretcher. “Where is he? It’s your dog, right?”
“Umm…she’s in the car,” Steve said. “This way.”
They followed him out. In the parking lot he saw that the guys in the jacked-up black truck had circled back. They idled in the parking lot in front of Walmart, watching, the rumble of their monster truck faint but still audible. Steve groaned.
“What’s wrong?” the taller vet tech asked.
“Nothing. My foot is sore.” His foot actually did hurt. “She’s over here.” He opened the sliding door of the minivan and stepped back behind the women. Naga raised her head, groggy but interested.
“Holy cow!” the shorter one said.
“Is that a lion?”
“Ha-ha! We get that a lot. She’s actually a Labradoodle. We just shaved her like a lion. Pretty funny, huh?”
The two of them peered at Naga. Steve held his breath. The tall tech said, “We”—she pointed at the shorter tech—“are veterinary students. You understand that, right?”
“Yeah,” said the shorter one, nodding. “Bullshit.” They both turned around to look at him. “What do you think we are, idi—Oh.”
Now Steve was holding the empty pistol, not pointing it at anyone. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You hold the stretcher,” he said. “I’ll lift her out. She’s not going to hurt anyone. Neither am I. She’s lost a lot of blood. We’re going to take her in there to the doctor, then you two can go.”
The techs absorbed this.
“I mean it,” Steve said. “Everything will be fine. I just need some help, is all. Will you guys help me? Please?” C’mon, c’mon…
They considered.
“No fucking way,” said the short one. She looked at her partner for confirmation.
The tall tech was studying Naga. “You drove here with a lion in the back of your cab?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“How do you know she’s not going to bite?”
“I just do. Look, she’s in a bad way. I hate doing this to you, but…”
The tall tech was studying him now. Steve held his breath.
After a moment, she said, “How about if we carry the lion and you hold her—her?—head.”
“That works!” Steve said. “I’m going to get in the taxi now.”
“OK, mister,” said the short tech, much too sincerely.
“You try to run and I’ll kneecap you,” Steve said, waggling the empty pistol. “I mean it. I’m a marksman. I got a silver medal in the ’92 Olympics. The shot won’t kill you, but it’ll hurt for the rest of your life.”
Thwarted, she flashed a fake smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He stepped into the cab. “I’m going to put the gun away now.” He tucke
d it away. “There. You won’t even see it again unless you try to run.”
“Good to know,” said the tall tech.
“OK, get the stretcher ready.”
The two techs looked at the lion, then at each other. “OK,” the tall one said. “Yeah.” She probed Steve with her eyes. “You hold her head, right?”
“I hold her head.”
She nodded at the other tech. They lifted the stretcher to a horizontal position.
Steve smiled at them. “Thanks,” he said. “Really.” He stepped around them into the cab. “Hey, Naga,” he said. “Hey, big girl. Almost there, sweetie.” He patted her fur, made a show of checking her bandage.
The techs watched this, wide-eyed. “Dude, I don’t think you should—”
“Shh!” As gently as he was able, he slid his arms under Naga. Naga rumbled a little but did not resist. He muscled her off the seat. She was very heavy. What he managed was not so much a carry as one controlled fall onto the floor of the cab and another onto the stretcher. I must have been jacked-up out of my mind to get her out of the house.
On the stretcher, Naga raised her head and squinted at the two techs. They blinked back at her, smiling and clearly terrified.
“Get her head,” the tall tech said. She spoke with exaggerated gentleness. “Mmm-kay?”
“Step back a little,” Steve said. “I can’t—”
They backed away from the cab a foot or so.
He hopped out, grunting at a lightning strike of pain from his bad ankle. He slid one arm under Naga’s raised head and lay the other hand over her cheek, patted her muzzle. I couldn’t possibly hold her if she decided she wanted to do something, but it might give them a second to get away. Together they waddled across the parking lot and into the waiting room.
“We need a room…right…now,” the tall tech said.
The receptionist gasped, jerked up out of her chair, dropped her pen. “Room, ah…Room Two.”
“Coming through.”
“Dude, that’s a lion,” the hippie with the cat carrier said conversationally. Steve ignored her. The guy with the bow tie stood up and bolted out the front door. A moment later his Yorkie followed.
“What’s going on—” came a woman’s voice from the back of the office. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, my.”
“Are you the doctor?”
She opened her mouth, shut it again.
Steve didn’t really blame her. “It’s OK,” he said. “Naga’s not going to hurt anybody.”
She considered this. “Yeah, OK. I’m Dr. Alsace. Is she—what’s wrong with her?”
“Dogs,” Steve said. “We got in a fight with some dogs. They tore up her leg pretty bad. I think they nicked an artery. She’s had two, um, transfusions, but I can’t get the bleeding stopped.”
“Is she restrained?”
“No,” Steve said, “but she won’t hurt you.”
“You can’t know that. I’m not doing anything until that animal is restrained.”
“OK. Fine. Get whatever. I’ll put it on her.” He was thinking of a muzzle, or maybe some sort of straps.
“He’s got a gun,” the short tech said.
“I’ll be leaving now,” the woman with the cat carrier said.
“Sorry,” Steve said. “I can’t let you do that. And I do have a gun. I’m not here to hurt anyone, I swear, but I need help.” In his mind’s eye he saw Jack, trapped forever in darkness. His cheek stung with Celia’s slap. He looked at the doctor, pleading.
Dr. Alsace pursed her lips, thinking it over. “OK,” she said finally. “Two conditions. First, you let everyone here go. Second, you jab the injured lion with the syringe.”
Such was Steve’s gratitude that he was rendered mute. He said nothing. He nodded. The doctor made a shooing motion. The woman with the cat carrier ducked out. After a moment the receptionist followed. She turned to the techs. “You guys too.”
“I’ll stay,” the tall one said.
“Jerri, you don’t have to—”
“I’ll stay. Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Everyone looked at the other tech. “You guys have fun,” she said. Steve took her end of the stretcher. She bolted.
“OK.” The doctor turned her attention to her patient. “Let’s get her into Room Two. She’s not full-grown. Any idea how old?”
Steve shook his head.
“Weight?”
“I lifted her, but it was all I could do. Two hundred, maybe?”
“I’d say two twenty-five, easy.” She paused. “You lifted her? Alone?”
“She helped, a little.” Still holding the stretcher he dipped his shoulder, pantomiming. “Fireman’s carry.”
“Oh-kay. So…what are you, a trainer, or—” She shook her head. “Never mind. Later.” Inside the exam room they lay the stretcher on the table. “Jerri, go to the Merck and see what kind of dosage we need for a two-hundred-fifty-pound lion.”
“Ketamine and xylazine?”
The doctor wrinkled her face. “Unless you know better? This is my first lion.”
“That’s what we used last summer. I’m on it.”
“We’ll also need an ET tube. Biggest we’ve got.”
Naga’s hind paws dangled off the end of the table. She lifted her head, looked around the room, rumbled. The doctor jumped back a bit.
“It’s OK,” Steve said. He patted Naga’s neck. “Nothing to be scared of.”
The tech—Jerri—returned a couple of minutes later bearing a big syringe and a bag full of plastic tubes. She handed it to the doctor.
Dr. Alsace checked the levels. “That’s it?”
“We were a little short of ketamine.”
The doctor raised her eyebrows.
“Just a little.”
“OK. It will have to do.” She looked at the lion, frowned, then handed Steve the syringe. “You ever given an injection before?”
“No.”
“Nothing to it. This goes in the muscle. Jab it in quick, then inject slowly. See if you can find a spot on the back leg, away from the wound.” She handed Steve the syringe, then backed up near the door. “Jerri…behind me.”
Steve looked at Naga’s hindquarter, found a spot with a good bit of muscle. He practiced jabbing. “Like this?”
The doctor nodded.
“It’s like jabbing an orange,” Jerri offered, from the hall.
“OK.” Steve blew out a breath, focused. “Here we go.” He stuck Naga in her hip. She lifted her head, bared her teeth. She roared.
Steve jumped back. The needle dangled from Naga’s hip. He held up a finger as if disciplining an unruly child. “Bad kitty! You be good!”
Slowly, her snarl faded. Steve took a step forward, then another. “This is going to make you feel better.” He laid his hand on the syringe.
Naga jerked up at his touch. With a wild yowl that made Steve’s bowels feel loose, she swatted his chest with her right forepaw. Her claws dug deep trenches into the meat of him. Steve jumped back, yelling. Naga sprang from the table, landed with her paws on his shoulders, bit him in the left arm. Somebody in the hall screamed.
Steve, weirdly unafraid, worked his hands up to chest level and pushed as hard as he could, ripping Naga from his chest along with a good bit of skin from his back and shoulder. Naga bounced off the wall.
Following an instinct he didn’t quite understand, Steve slapped the lion in the face. She didn’t bite or claw him, possibly too surprised to do so, but she roared again.
Steve roared back. “Go on! You want to end up dead? You’re still bleeding, asshole! Bite me all you want and you can bleed out in the parking lot! See if anyone lugs your huge ass to the zoo! Go on, see!” Drops of his blood fell to the floor and mingled with hers. They glared at each other. “Go on!”
After a while, Naga sank back against the wall. A second or two later she stopped snarling.
“Yeah,” Steve said. “I thought so.” He snatched the syringe up off the floor.
From behi
nd him, the vet’s voice. “I don’t think you should—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He walked up to Naga. She snarled again, long white teeth against pink healthy gums. I bet her capillary response is pretty good now. Ignoring the snarl, he pulled her unwounded right hip away from the wall and jabbed the needle in it. She roared again, a deep bass sound that rattled the windows.
“Shut. The fuck. Up!”
“Slowly,” Dr. Alsace said. Her voice was muffled. Steve glanced back. The door was mostly shut. She peeped in, only the top of her head showing.
He pushed the plunger in, one excruciating millimeter at a time. In a few seconds it was empty. Steve pulled the syringe out, tossed it aside.
Naga looked at him, confused.
“There,” Steve said, sarcastic. “Feel better now?”
Naga looked at him for a moment, then slumped. A moment later she laid her head down on the floor. Steve slumped too, back against the wall. His shoulder blades felt wet. He stood up straight again, turned and looked. Where he had leaned, there was a big bloodstain on the wall. He turned to the vet. “You guys got a Band-Aid?”
“Jerri, get me some gauze and some tape.”
Naga lay on the floor, semiconscious.
“I think you can get started now,” Steve said.
“Not yet. Give it about ten minutes.”
“Oh. OK. Am I bleeding bad?” He walked over to her and presented his back.
She examined it. “It’s not good. But I think it’s superficial. Probably leave some scars, though. You’re going to need stitches.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. I imagine someone will be along shortly to arrest me.”
“I don’t doubt it. That was about the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.” She paused. “Not un-brave, but very, very dumb. Is that your lion?”
“Not really. Kind of. We just met a couple of hours ago.”
She raised her eyebrows.
Steve shrugged. “It’s been an intense couple of hours.”
The vet looked at Naga. “She’s bleeding pretty bad. She probably wouldn’t have made it much longer.”