A Breath of Dead Air (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Book 8)

“
I
don’t think
that’s true, Jer.” Johnny shook his head decidedly, to add emphasis to his words.

“It is,” Jerry riposted. “Dogs are the dumbest species on the planet.”

“Uh-uh.”

The two men were standing side by side, Johnny putting the finishing touches on a fluffy poodle’s funky new hairdo, Jerry shampooing a cheeky chihuahua that kept sneezing on his hand.

“Lemme give you a for instance,” Jerry continued, intent on winning this debate. “Dogs can’t even pee or poo on their own. They need a human to help them do their business. How dumb is that, huh?”

“Dogs
can
pee and poo on their own. No, they really can.”

“Well, if that’s true, why do they need to be walked? Just tell me that.”

“Because…” Johnny didn’t know the answer to that one. He simply knew in his heart of hearts that dogs were smart enough to pee and poo on their own. “I’ll have to look it up,” he concluded quite lamely.

“In that dog bible of yours, I’ll bet,” Jerry scoffed.

“That’s right,” Johnny said huffily. He put down his pair of scissors and ceremoniously picked up a voluminous tome placed on the vanity.
The Ultimate Dog Owner’s Guide
by Friedemann Smolikowski was a thousand-page manual on everything canine and had become Johnny’s bible of late. He flicked through the index, mumbling, “Pee, pee, pee… Ah, here we are…” He quickly flipped to the page indicated and tapped the book, a note of triumph in his voice. “There’s an entire chapter on ‘How to prevent indoor doo-doo surprises’! So dogs do shit where they eat, Jer!”

Jerry rolled his eyes. “Which proves my point, you dumb-ass.”

Johnny opened his lips to retort, but unable to find a good repartee, quickly closed his mouth with a click and returned his focus to the poodle. The dog was giving him a mournful look in the mirror as more and more fluffy clouds of hair drifted to the floor. For even though Johnny talked the talk and walked the walk of a pet groomer, it wasn’t his chosen profession by far, and neither was it Jerry’s.

Jerry Vale and Johnny Carew were career criminals, currently doing their court-ordered community service at Petra’s Pet Parlor, located in the pleasant hamlet of Happy Bays on Long Island’s South Shore. At the pinnacle of their criminal past, they’d donned the guise of Pet Bandits and abducted Moe, the mayor of Happy Bays’s pet parrot. In punishment for this ghastly deed, Judge Lockhart, that staunch keeper of the peace, had sentenced them to three months community service.

Johnny, a mountain of a man with a shiny, round face and sunny disposition, had embraced his fate and had even grown fond of the little creatures he now coiffed from nine to five on a daily basis. Jerry, on the other hand, a sallow-faced grinch built like a grasshopper, still resented the judge’s verdict and detested in equal measure Happy Bays, Petra Pearce, her damned Pet Parlor and every beast that wiggled its tail or wrinkled its nose.

Johnny worried about Jerry. Ever since they’d gone from pet thieves to pet groomers well on their way to rehabilitation, Jerry’s mood had soured to such an extent he’d almost become insufferable. The two men, financially in dire straits, shared a court-ordered room at the Happy Bays Inn. Then Johnny’s moonlike face brightened. He’d suddenly been blessed with a bright idea. “Say, Jer, why don’t we get a doggie of our own? That way we can get to know all there is to know about the species and use that newfound knowledge in our chosen profession.”

Jerry gave him a dirty look that easily matched the dirty looks he’d awarded the chihuahua in his care. “For one thing: we never chose this profession, you moron. And for another, I won’t be seen dead with a dog.”

“But you’re being seen with dogs all the time,” Johnny pointed out.

Jerry emitted a low gurgling sound of annoyance. “Well, that’s different, isn’t it? We’re in prison. You don’t see me wearing my orange jumpsuit once I’m sprung from the joint, do you?”

Johnny thought about this for a moment. He failed to see the connection between orange jumpsuits and getting a doggie. Getting a doggie could be just what the doctor ordered. It would cement their newfound professional bliss and put their lives back on track. Having been a criminal for as long as he could remember, he now saw that the straight and narrow had its perks. Crime doesn’t pay, his Grammy had always said, and maybe she had a point. In his case, crime certainly hadn’t paid, as he hadn’t a cent to his name, and neither did Jerry.

“I still think we should get a dog, and as it happens I have one in mind,” he continued, snipping a goodish chunk of fur from his victim’s ear with a flourish.

Jerry rolled his eyes. “Christ, enough about dogs already. Isn’t it enough we have to spend our days surrounded by the foul beasts?”

Their initial sentence of three months had recently been extended when they’d tried to abduct Chazz Falcone’s Pomeranian. After being chased all over town, Spot had promptly keeled over and croaked, and Chazz, incidentally Johnny and Jerry’s former employer, had been compelled to exchange the old Spot for a new Spot, quite unoriginally called Spot 2. Chazz, not one to hold a grudge, had been coming into the shop to have the second iteration of Spot groomed, and Johnny had taken a liking to it.

That furry face, those trusty eyes, and that sweet disposition had touched the ex-criminal’s heart, and now he wanted a dog just like that. Not just for himself, but also to cheer up Jerry and bring some light into their dreary lives. And since deep down inside he still possessed a criminal bent, he felt that they shouldn’t just get any old dog, they should get
that
dog. Spot 2. Chazz owed them, being singlehandedly responsible for their downfall.

“Like I said, I know just the right dog for us, Jer.” And he looked up keenly when the doorbell rang and Chazz waltzed in, Spot 2 in his arms.

Alarmed, Jerry followed his partner’s gaze, and was shaking his head even before his lips formed the words, “Oh, no. No no no no no. No way!”

“Oh, yes,” Johnny breathed enthusiastically, licking his lips.

“Are you nuts?!”

“He owes us, Jer.”

Jerry couldn’t argue that particular point. If Chazz Falcone hadn’t terminated their employment, they wouldn’t have been induced to pick up their old thieving habits. And if they hadn’t been caught trying to steal Chazz’s dog, their community service would have been done with by now. Still he shook his head decidedly. “We’re not stealing that dog.”

“Yes, we are.” Johnny dropped his voice to a whisper. “We need this, Jer. We need that dog to bring the sunshine back into our lives.”

Exactly why this was so, he couldn’t say. If a psychologist had been present, the shrink would have waxed eloquently on the necessity of restoring the two men’s wounded pride by getting some of their own back. But since Johnny wasn’t a psychologist in any way, shape or form, all he could do was repeat, like a parrot, “We’re going to get that dog.”

“Oh no, we’re not,” hissed Jerry.

“We’re going to steal Spot 2 and replace him with Spot 3.”

Jerry waved his arms. “Have you lost your mind?!”

Johnny snipped another chunk of fur from the hapless poodle at his mercy. “It’s very simple, Jer. As long as Chazz don’t know his dog got stolen he won’t call the cops. So all we need to do is make sure he won’t find out, see? So we take one dog, put another in its place, and we’re home free!”

“And where do you propose we get this Spot 3?”

Johnny shrugged. “We steal him, of course.”

Jerry eyed him for a long time, his face displaying utter disbelief. He seemed to feel his fellow Pet Bandit had lost whatever mental capacity he had left. But Johnny beamed. It was a brilliant plan, he knew. Foolproof, even. But before Jerry could offer his opinion, Chazz walked up and shoved Spot 2 into Johnny’s hands.

“Trim and shave, and make it snappy, will ya? I haven’t got all day.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Falcone,” Johnny said deferentially.

“And check his nose. I don’t like the color of his mucus.”

“Will do, Mr. Falcone,” Johnny said, a strange gleam in his eye.

Ignoring the gleam, the billionaire stalked off. Johnny nuzzled the doggie’s coat, feeling this was a sign from God. Jerry watched on, shaking his head and muttering strange oaths under his breath.

He didn’t seem to share his partner’s sentiment.

* * *

C
hazz
, a tubby man in his late fifties with a face like a halibut, wasn’t paying attention, for if he had, he would have probably snatched Spot 2 from his former employee’s grasp without a moment’s delay. The reason he came to worship at the altar of Petra’s Pet Shop on a weekly basis was pure and simple superstition. His pastor, the Reverend Gherkin, had long ago extolled to him the virtues of forgiveness. And even though his first instinct when learning that Johnny and Jerry were indirectly responsible for his Pomeranian’s demise was to skin them alive, then submerge their sorry carcasses in a vat of boiling oil, he’d stomped down on this vengeful impulse, and embraced absolution.

For he’d seen the true chain of events that had led to this moment.

If he hadn’t fired those two idiots, they’d never have returned to a life of crime, and had been compelled to steal Spot. So, conversely, if he kept Johnny and Jerry in business, Spot 2’s life was safe. It was superstition, pure and simple, but he didn’t care. So once a week he dropped by Petra’s, insisting Johnny or Jerry personally oversee Spot 2’s grooming. That way the mutt’s safety was guaranteed, as was Chazz’s peace of mind.

He seated himself and picked up his iPhone. A message from his best friend and fellow billionaire tycoon Grover Calypso caught his eye. ‘Get a load of this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ the message said, and contained a link to a newspaper article. With a frown, Chazz clicked the link. The moment he saw the headline, his bushy brows shot up into his orange combover.

The dopey mug of Bomer Calypso, his son-in-law, was featured on the front page of the New York Chronicle, grinning like the dumb brick he was, under a headline that read in big, bold lettering, ‘Fraud Caught!’

As he feverishly scanned the article, his mood plummeted to the depths. Apparently, his daughter Charlene’s dimwitted husband had been caught with his hands in the company till, and had been arrested for embezzlement. Wall Street was agog at the news, and CalypsoCo stock was trading at an all-time low.

What a disaster! He should have known. Charlene and Bomer’s Central Park wedding had been marred by an incident with a monkey which had escaped the zoo. At the time he’d felt it was a particularly bad omen, and now it turned out he was right!

He quickly rose from the plastic chair. He needed to return to New York on the double. He purposely strode up to Johnny, snatched Spot 2 from the man’s sausage fingers without a word, and stalked from the store, the Pomeranian in his arms, and his phone pressed against his ear.

As a consequence, he didn’t catch the look of disappointment on Johnny’s face, nor the look of worry on Jerry’s. If he had, this story might have taken a different turn. But as it was, he was already on the phone with Grover Calypso and devising ways and means of getting his son-in-law out of prison before he reached his BMW. Moments later he was hurtling along the expressway back to New York, more pressing matters on his mind than the color of Spot 2’s mucus.