Free Gator Aide by Jessica Speart

her for the moment. “I’ll see what I can do.” Turning on his heel, he left the hall.
    “You do that!” Dolores barked after him. With Gunter out of the way, Fifi turned her attention back to me, baring her teeth in a warning growl. Swaying toward me, Dolores considerately placed her hand over the dog’s snout to keep me from being torn to bits.
    “I’m a goddamn prisoner in my own home. There’s always somebody spying on me.” Dolores pulled back, contemplating me with glazed eyes before leaning in once again. “So, you’re new in town, huh? Good. Someone Hill hasn’t bought off yet. We can’t talk now, but come back tomorrow for lunch. We’ll talk then.” Dolores hiccuped a trail of good bourbon. “I’ll get Vincent to let you in.”
    Southern Comfort promises. My pulse raced as Gunter returned, holding a glass filled with bourbon and ice.
    “I suggest you drink this upstairs.” He handed Dolores the glass, his tone holding a thinly veiled threat as he grabbed her once again by the arm.
    In a well-timed move, Dolores let go of the dog’s muzzle so that Fifi lunged like a cobra striking at its prey, zeroing in to lock her teeth into Gunter’s outstretched hand. For a moment the two froze in place, like a piece of performance art, until Gunter reached for Fifi’s muzzle to try and pry her jaw loose. The dog just held on tight, digging deeper into his flesh with a determined growl. Gunter cursed under his breath as he clamped his free hand tightly around Fifi’s throat. As he cut off the dog’s air supply, Dolores brought the standoff to an abrupt end by rapping Fifi on the nose, and then striking a well-placed kick to Gunter’s shins with the heel of her shoe. Releasing the hand with a look of triumph, Fifi came away with a chunk of flesh as blood ran from Gunter’s wound.
    “Someone is going to kill that damn dog someday.” Ripping a handkerchief from his pocket, Gunter tightened it around the gash in an attempt to stop the spurt of blood that covered his hand and the cuff of his shirt.
    “You just make sure that doesn’t happen, Gunter, or believe me, you’ll have a lot worse than Fifi to deal with.” Dolores held her drink in a rock-steady hand, having not spilled one drop during the melee. “You’ll have me on your German ass, and that’s something you don’t even want to think about.”
    There was no time to imagine how Dolores could possibly be worse than Fifi on the prowl, as the door to the inner sanctum opened and Hillard and Santou walked out.
    “You’re a good man, Jake. I knew I could count on ya to understand. And don’t you worry none. Once I get into office, that job is yours, and that’s a promise.” Ignoring both Gunter’s bloody hand and Fifi’s reddened muzzle, Hillard bounded over to me. “You remember my offer now, honey. Don’t be a stranger, ya hear? I just might have a place in my administration for a gal like yourself. It’s high time we had us a head of wildlife for whatever wildlife it is we got here in this city.”
    Hillard once more felt comfortable enough to address me with endearments. I took this as a sign that their meeting had gone well. As for “head of wildlife,” I was pretty sure he meant local dogcatcher to clean up whatever mess might be made. So far, there seemed to be plenty of them.
    “So, how’d it go with Dolores Williams? I see that she was in her usual stewed state.” Santou sounded awfully chipper.
    “Gee, I don’t know. What can you expect to get from a woman who’s drunk and has her hands full with a psychotic dog? But enough about me. How was your private meeting with Hillard? He certainly seemed satisfied with the outcome.” I had given Santou more than enough information for today, and had come to the decision that unless we played this straight, we might as well each work on our own. “What was all that about making me leave the room?”
    Santou grinned. “It’s known as Southern manners,
c
hèr
e
. There are