Dick by Law (14 page)

 

*****

As the baseball bat hit the
living room
wall
beside the closed front door
, Simon ducked
to one side
a
nd threw up his arms to protect himself. In the first split-second of shock, he wondered who was coming for him now,
who was trying to kill him.

I
n the next split-second, he saw who was swi
nging the bat
.

"Chip!" Simon put up his hands. "It's me!
Hey, Chip!"

"Shit!" Chip had just pulled back the bat for a second
swing...and he relaxed, letting it fall at his side. "Simon! Thank God I missed!"

Sudd
enly, someone outside
the house
tugged open the front door, and the noise from Dickfest surged into the room. Simon shot out a hand and grabbed the knob,
fi
ght
ing
for control with whoeve
r was on the other side
. A
fter a moment's struggle, he finally wrenched
the door shut again. As soon as it
closed, Simon l
ocked it tight, then turned and blew out his breath.

"So, Chip," he said. "Ever have one of those days?"

Chip clawed at his green-tipped hair. He looked pretty bedraggled. "Now might be a good time for that raise
I've been after."

"Now might
also
be a good time
for you to tell me
where the fuck the
cops
are!
Surely
, you've already
called
them about this!" He hiked a thumb at the madness on the other side of the front door.

Chip stepped back, looking hurt.
"Of course we did!
Hours ago!
But guess what?
Apparently
, there are some real
dicks
in the police de
partment.
"

"They said they're not
coming
?" said Simon.

"
Actually, they promised they
were
." Chip gestured at the window. "I think they're
out there
with the
other
dicks."

"Shit." Simon closed his eyes. "Where's everyone else?"

"Josie and Ishi are in the kitchen," said Chip. "Ankha's gone."

"She went home?"

"For good
.
"
Chip
tugged at the collar of his
black bowling shirt with the red flames along the bottom half
. "She quit."

Simon
gaped in disbelief. "Ankha
quit
? Since
when
?"

"Since two hours into the Festivus of Dicks out there," said Chip. "She said something about getting away from the craziness.
Her resignation's on the coffee table."

"Oh, man." Simon held his head in his hands and stumbled toward the recliner. "I need to sit down."

"I hear ya', Sime." Chip
leaned the baseball bat against the wall and
threw himself down on the sofa. "Maybe you should've stayed out of town for another day, huh?"

Simon grabbed Ankha's resignation from the coffee table and slumped into the recliner to read it. "
Geez, Ankha. A little advance
warning
would've been nice."

"Somebody painted the word 'pussy' all over her car," said Chip. "And they gave her
so
much shit on her way in this morning. They
gave
all
of us
shit
."

"I'll call her." Simon tossed the letter on the table. "She'll come back."

"Is Ishi leaving too, Boss?" said Chip. "She mentioned something about going to Japan."

"She
what
?"

"Whoops." Chip stiffened. "I figured you knew."

Without another word,
Simon launched himself out of the chair.
As he headed for the kitchen, he felt like everything was falling apart, like the ground itself could open up and swallow him
whole
at any moment.

What a day.

"Ishi?" When Simon plunged through the doorway, he saw her sitting at the kitchen table
with Josie.
The mood in the room was grim.
"Ishi, what's wrong?"

"It's my father." Ishi's eyes were red. She looked like she'd been crying.
"He's demanding I come home."

Josie got up from the table. "I'll leave you guys alone." She
gave
Simon's shoulder
a quick squeeze
on her way out the door.

Simon sat down a
t the table in her place. "He's
demanding
? Why's that?"

"He says I'm dishonoring him," said Ishi. "Ruining his career.
The pro-dick movement is really taking off in Japan.
Other
mangaka
have put out
manga
making fun of me--
Sweet Queen Dicktamer
instead of
Sweet Bean Liontamer
--and it
's making him look bad
. His publisher's about to cut him loose."

"
That's not
your
fault," said Simon.

"He demands I come home to Japan so he can formally disown me." Ishi rubbed her eyes and shook her head. "
I'm supposed to leave tomorrow."

Panic swelled in Simon's chest. "
Y
ou're
not
going
, are you
?"

"I don't
want
to," said Ishi. "
I've been a massive
failure
to him
since I became a courtroom artist instead of following
in
his
footsteps
. Now he wants to
disown
me?
"
She let out a heavy sigh
. "But I don't want to
ruin
him. I don't want to
hurt
him."

"Don't go." Simon took her hand. "You haven't done anything wrong.
If he's such a big shot, I'm sure he can work it out
on his own
without humiliating you."

"I know you're right!" Ishi jumped up from her chair and paced across the kitchen. "It's just...it's just..."

"What?"

When Ishi faced him, there were tears in her eyes. "
I think part of me hopes we might still be able to work things out. How
screwed up
is
that
?"

Simon went to her and took her in his arms. "Not screwed up at all."

"Oh, Simon." Ishi buried her face in his shoulder. "I wish we could get away from it all. Just for a while."

Simon stroked her dark, silky hair. "So do I," he said, and he meant it.
A
fter the day he'd been having, he wanted to get away more than anything.

He hated how things had gone, how
Horne Shaw
and the dicks had been kicking his ass. It was starting to wear him down.

Maybe Buck had been right. Maybe he needed to
drop under the radar for a while and reassess his plan.

Or maybe he just needed to make a bold move.

"I wish we had somewhere else to go," said Ishi. "Anywhere else but here."

Just then, Simon spotted a flyer taped to the kitchen window from outside. It was a brightly colored ad for the
First International Dicklympics.

For the first time all day, Simon smiled.
Horne Shaw
would be at the Dicklympics, crowning the World's Biggest Dick.

What better place for Simon to make a bold move and regain the upper hand?

"I think I have an idea," said Simon. "I think I know where we can go."

Ishi leaned back and looked at him
, her gaze streaming with hope
. "Where? Tell me where."

Simon
smiled and touched her face
. "How would you like to go to Bermuda?"

*****

Chapter 3
1

130 Million Years Ago

China

Grip watched as the two killer dinosaurs cackled and fought over the red-feathered body of the creature they'd just murdered. Maybe, in their feeding frenzy, they would kill each other over the corpse of their prey.

But Grip hoped not. It had taken him days of running hard
through the forest
to track down these two, and he was looking forward to taking care of them himself.

They were two of the
six
dinosaurs who'd murdered his family. The pack had split up, and these were the first two he'd found.

Hunkered down in the
nearby brush
,
Grip watched carefully,
staying downwind so the
killers
wouldn't sniff him out. He knew how fierce they could be, and he wanted to pick his moment of greatest advantage.

Besides which, they were bigger than he'd expected.
Based o
n the scents he'd been tracking, Grip had thought they'd be about three times his size. Instead, they were more like
five
times bigger than he was
,
bigger than any creature he'd ever brought down before.

But Grip was determined to find a way. Down among the ferns, he watched and sniffed and listened for the killers' weak spots.
H
e lay perfectly silent and still as a stone,
but
the brain in his canine head buzzed like a beehive, processing sensory information and computing a plan.

One
of the killers had a brown hide with white spots; the other had jagged green and gold stripes. Their coloration might have been different, but they had one thing in common: pure viciousness
.
Fighting over the meat of the
red-feathered creature they'd killed, t
hey hissed and bit and kicked each other with razor-sharp claws. They might have
killed
the creature
together, but they
clearly
didn't plan on
sharing
it.

One killer slashed the other's chest with his heel claw, drawing blood. The victim shrieked in pain and rage, then sprang at his attacker with finger claws extended. Both dinosaurs ended up on the ground, thrashing and howling in a ball of
whipping tails,
flashing fangs
, and slashing claws
.

As the two fought an all-out battle, Grip thought about jumping into the fray, taking advantage of the chaos...but he changed his mind. The dinosaurs might have been fighting each other at that moment, but Grip knew they'd team up against him as soon as he intervened.

Suddenly,
the white-spotted
dinosaur
unleashed a fierce fusillade of slashing blows. The
green-and-gold striped
dinosaur
fell away, bleeding and screeching.

The victorious spotted dinosaur claimed his prize, howling as he scooped up the red-feathered creature. Saliva poured from his chin as he sniffed the corpse--and then he gulped it down, feathers and all.

The
striped
dinosaur wailed but did not leap up and continue the fight. For the moment, at least, he was beaten.

The spotted dinosaur rubbed it in by hopping over and belching loudly in his face.

Down in the brush, Grip raised his upper lip and snarled silently. The s
pott
ed dinosaur turned in his direction as if he'd heard him...then returned his attention to tormenting his companion.

And Grip continued to wait. He watched the two killers squawk and squabble, and he watched the
forest
darken as the sun went down.

The dinosaurs hunkered down under trees, warbling their night-time song. Framed in silver moonlight, they craned their necks around to face backward and rested their chins in the meat along their spines.

As the night bugs chirped and chittered
and distant dog-things howled
, Grip's heart beat faster. He knew it was almost time
for his revenge to begin
.

 

*****