Hound Dog Blues Read Online Free PDF Page A

told them their neighbor didn’t have King.
    “ We aren’t going to do anything, Yogi. I’ll see what Bobby suggests, okay? Just give me some time. I’ll find King, I swear I will. No one will keep him too long.” Without strangling him , she added silently, but knew better than to even hint at that fate.
    He looked relieved. “Okay. So you’ll go down to Trumble’s house to look for him, too?”
    She hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go down there. If she’s got him, I’ll call Bobby. So you stay here and don’t go back down there.”
    “Sure.”
    “And don’t go next door, either,” she added, a little suspicious at his quick capitulation. “Promise me.”
    “I promise, Harley. I won’t go next door.”
    “Next door being Mrs. Sherman’s old house—say it.”
    A little peeved, he repeated it just as she insisted, and she gave a satisfied nod. Now she’d committed herself to one more visit to Mrs. Trumble, but it saved a bushel of trouble.
    When she drove up, a big black Lincoln was parked in the driveway leading to Mrs. Trumble’s one-car garage in the back yard of the house, and Harley sat indecisively for several moments. The old lady had been unpleasant enough alone. With reinforcements, she could get downright nasty. Maybe now wasn’t such a good time. Jeez, what a coward she was, afraid to face a little old lady with a hefty swing.
    Well, maybe a trip to Bobby first to find out if charges had been filed was the best course of action for the moment. It beat the heck out of dodging a broom.
    “You gotta be kidding.”
    Bobby Baroni looked at her like she was nuts. It was a look with which she was familiar, and Harley patiently tapped a finger on the sheet of paper.
    “The person who sent this is serious.”
    Bobby smoothed out the paper she’d brought in to the West precinct on Union Avenue. It was crudely done with letters clipped out of newspapers and magazines, a parody of every bad TV program ever shown. “This is stupid,” he said, the expert opinion of a Memphis detective.
    “Not to Diva and Yogi.”
    “Yeah, well, your family’s never been wrapped too tight.”
    “Is that an official opinion?”
    Bobby gave her another “you gotta be kidding” look and forbore an answer. Just as well. She pretty much knew some people suspected her parents were kooks. And Bobby Baroni was in the unique position to confirm that suspicion. After all, he’d practically lived at her house when they were horny adolescents, despite his strict Catholic parents’ every effort to keep him home.
    “So, Mrs. Trumble hasn’t filed any charges against Yogi?” she asked.
    “Not since the last time. He hasn’t been down there again, has he?”
    Ignoring that, she said, “Look, Bobby, Yogi’s threatening to track down the person who has King. Do you really want to risk the mayhem he could cause if he runs amuck?”
    “Shit.” Bobby looked disgusted. And a little bit worried. “How serious can this be if they aren’t asking for anything?”
    “But they are. Look.” She dragged a finger over the pasted words in the first line:
    BrINg WHaT YOU KnOw We WaNT Or ThE DoG diEs
    “So what the hell do they want?”
    “Damned if I know. Yogi says he doesn’t know either.”
    “Bring it where? Harley, this letter doesn’t say anything. It was probably written by kids, or someone who knows that the dog’s missing and is trying to get something from your parents.”
    “Like what? Jeez, Bobby, what could they have that anyone could possibly want?”
    “Not a damn thing that I can think of, unless they’re growing opium in the back yard, too.” A pointed reference to the fact that he knew about the wacky weed growing beside the tomatoes. “But it’s probably just a way to get rid of the dog. It could be any of your neighbors.”
    “True enough. But what about this?”
    She plucked a wad of black and white dog hair from the envelope. Bobby sneezed. She’d forgotten about his allergies.
    There