Free The Long Good Boy by Carol Lea Benjamin Page A

For the time being, I’m your right-hand man. I’m the one you’re counting on, to find out what I can, to keep you and your friends alive.”
    â€œWhat you need him for? You got your own dog.”
    â€œThere’s a cat port at Keller’s,” I began, telling her how Chip and I showed up to buy two pork chops. She stepped closer and leaned toward me. “My dog’s way too big to fit through it. But yours, he’s perfect. I bet he’s smaller than the cat that uses it. What I’m going to do is start at the bathroom window next door to Keller’s, and as fast as I can, I’m going to teach Clint to open the lock so I can get in the window—”
    â€œBut you already got in, by the skylight.”
    â€œJust listen. After he knows the lock, I back him up, say to the door of the bathroom, and teach him to go from there, close the toilet seat, hop up on top of it, nudge the lock open, see? Then we back up some more, to the stairs, then, eventually, to the place where the cat port is in Keller’s. The place next door doesn’t have one, so I’m going to have to teach him to go through one at home.”
    Chi Chi looked confused. “You have a cat?”
    â€œNo, but I can approximate a port for him and teach him to go back and forth.”
    She nodded, looking down at Clint, then back up at me. “You know how to do all that stuff?”
    I nodded.
    â€œI thought you was a detective, a private eye is what we was tol’.”
    â€œI am. But I used to be a dog trainer, before I got married.”
    â€œYou liked it, dog training?”
    I nodded. “Very much.”
    â€œThen why you stop doing it? Your husband rather you do this, run around with hookers in the middle of the night with dust bunnies in your hair?”
    â€œNo. No more husband. And I don’t know why I didn’t go back to dog training. I just didn’t. But now I can use what I know to teach Clint how to unlock the window for me.”
    â€œThen one evening when they’re closed, he goes in and follows the route you taught him, lets you in, right?”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œThen how you going to get into that window, once he opens it for you?”
    â€œI haven’t decided yet. There are a number of possibilities.”
    â€œYou afraid of heights, am I correct?”
    I nodded.
    â€œI thought so. Not exactly a plus in your line of work.”
    â€œNo one’s perfect,” I said.
    â€œSpeak for yourself, bitch.”
    I was worried about that very hole in my plan myself, but even if Clint were a genius, it would still take time to teach him everything he had to do. So I had a few days to figure out how to get myself into Keller’s via that small bathroom window.
    â€œI could give you something,” she said, as if she’d been reading my mind.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI could give you something, you could climb down from the roof into the window, you wouldn’t feel no fear.”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    She looked confused again. “Something out there to help you, you don’t want it?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “The only something I want is him.”
    â€œWhen?” she said.
    â€œThe sooner the better.”
    Chi Chi unzipped her jacket and lifted Clint out, handing him to me.
    â€œHe likes chicken,” she said, “but only the white meat. And no cheese. It gives him gas.”
    â€œI’ll take good care of him,” I told her.
    â€œHe eats grapes,” she said, “but you gots to take the skin off first.”
    We could hear them before we saw them, two hookers, arm in arm, coming around the corner.
    â€œHold on to your wallet,” Chi Chi said. “The one on the left, the redhead, that’s Alice. She goes to the gym every day.” Chi Chi rolled her eyes. “She says, you work the streets, you better be able to protect yourself. Only,