Dirty Harry 09 - The Killing Connection Read Online Free PDF Page A

the unseasonal rainfall was a cue to go crazy. He ran up and down the inclines like a pup possessed, champing at the circular neck bit. In no mood for this kind of levity, Trevor jerked irritably on the leash, giving himself a certain sadistic satisfaction but unable to diminish his pet’s enthusiasm.
    “That’s it,” Samuels muttered miserably. “That’s all the chance you get,” he told the dog. “We’re not out here for fun, damn it.”
    He dug his heels in and pulled the dog back, trying to turn around. The animal would have none of it. At that moment, a gust of wind pushed by, catching the weak underside of the umbrella and turning half of it inside out.
    The rain splashed on the side of Samuel’s face and the umbrella tried to leap out of his hand. Swearing, the middle-aged man brought up his other hand to steady the umbrella, only to have the terrier pull the leashed hand back.
    “Damn it!” Samuels yelled, jerking the hand back, causing the dog to choke. “Stop pulling on me, you stupid dog.”
    But the dog would still have none of it. He continued to exert pressure on the leash, trying to continue forward. “Jesus H. Christ!” Samuels barked, only to have the dog do the same. “Jesus,” he repeated, turning in place, trying to cover up from the bombarding water.
    As he twisted and turned, his right foot smacked into a patch of slick mud, causing his shoe to slide. “Christ!” he screamed, falling.
    He slammed face first into the sodden ground, both the umbrella handle and the leash flying out of his hands. The umbrella was caught in the wind and went rolling off in one direction while the freed dog went galloping off in the other.
    “Oh Jesus,” Samuels breathed, pushing himself out of the muck, looking at his dirt covered coat and shirt front. “Oh Christ,” he concluded, feeling the rain pounding down hard on his sparse hair. Only after he took an assessment of his ruined suit did he fully realize that the dog had gone running off for parts unknown.
    Getting up and trotting in the direction the canine had disappeared, Samuels tried to spot his pet in the early morning greyness. “Oscar!” he called. “Oscar, get back here you bad dog!” The name was his little joke. Being as fastidious as Felix Ungar in “The Odd Couple” it was natural that he would name his crazy, disruptive pet Oscar Madison.
    “Oscar, you get back here this minute!” Samuels shouted miserably. In the distance he could hear the terrier barking in reply. He followed the sound, carefully navigating the treacherously soaked ground. He kept moving until he came to the lip of a steep hill—an incline that had been practically turned into a mud waterfall by the rain.
    “Oscar?” he called out in trepidation. The barking reply came from the very bottom of the valley, just as he had feared. “You get up here this instant!” the man demanded, as if expecting the dog to comply. He stood and waited, getting no further reply.
    “You hear me?” he asked, when the dog did not appear after a few seconds. Again, the dog did not seem to come running or bark back. “Oscar, are you crazy or something?” he demanded of the gloom more than anything else. “It’s terrible out here. I’m getting soaked! Please, baby, let’s go home and I’ll give you a nice Milk Bone.”
    Just as he finished speaking, he saw the dim outline of the terrier tortuously making its way back up the gooey hill.
    “That’s the boy,” Samuels urged him on. “Come to Poppa now so we can get out of this awful rain. Come on home so you can get a nice Liver Snap.” The words seemed to make the canine double its efforts.
    The man’s inviting smile grew harder the closer the dog got, his teeth clamping down on each other and his lips curling back.
    “Come on, Oscar, that’s the baby. You can do it. Just a couple of feet more. That’s the way.” As the terrier got closer, Samuels could see that he had changed from his greyish-white color to a