Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,45
a plan.
Or, at least, the first step of one.
* * *
The vet’s office smells like animal. All kinds of animal, given that this is a farm vet. Horse musk and dog shit and cat piss and rabbit fear. A big poofy Persian cat that looks like Wilford Brimley stalks the counter. Back and forth, back and forth, occasionally pausing to survey his leonine domain. Then back to pacing. His domain isn’t much to look at. The waiting room has gray tile, some cracked. The walls are white popcorn. Ceiling, too. Everything cast in a swimmy fluorescent glow, lights occasionally buzzing and snapping like a bug-zapper.
The woman behind the counter is a dainty thing with knucklebones where her cheekbones should be; they bulge out like sharp corners. She says, for the second time, “I’m sorry, but the doctor’s with a patient.”
Atlanta frowns. “By doctor, you mean the vet. And by patient, you mean like, an iguana.”
“Veterinarians are doctors.”
“Okay.” She really didn’t know that. “When will Doctor—“ Atlanta leans left to get a look at the name on the door. “Ch… Chenna… Pro… Pra?”
“Chennapragada.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“She’s Indian.”
Atlanta says, “Like, an Indian—“ She taps a dot on her forehead, tap tap tap. “But not an Indian.” She opens her mouth round and pats the flat of her hand against it like a whooping Cherokee war cry but without the sound.
Miss Cheekbones scowls. “She’s from India, yes.”
“Okay.” Atlanta pauses. “Hey, was that racist?”
“What you just did?”
“Yeah, what I just did.”
“It was. A little.”
“Sorry. It’s just something my Momma does sometimes and she doesn’t know any better and so neither do I but I am trying to do better.” As to explain further: “I’m from the South.”
“It’s… it’s fine.”
“Not that you don’t have racists up here.” Miss Cheekbones says nothing. “I mean, you’re thick with them, honestly. Like termites in a rotten house.” Atlanta drums her fingers. “So, the doc? Free soon?”
The woman flits her gaze toward a boxy old CRT computer monitor. “Not until 2:30.”
“That’s like, two hours from now.”
“That’s her schedule. If you’d have called…”
“No, I’ll… I’ll wait.”
Atlanta goes and sits back down. Flips through some magazines. Allure—ugh, girls too skinny, skinny like those harsh knobby cheekbones. Field and Stream—really? There’s a magazine about fishing? Seems like there’s magazines for everything. Jogging. Walking. Knitting. She spies a Food Network magazine, thinks maybe to steal it and give it to her mother—either to teach the woman how to cook or instead to roll it up into a tube and swat the woman’s fool nose any time she reaches for a kitchen implement.
Like the cat, Atlanta gets up and paces the waiting room. Across the far wall is a corkboard and she goes over, starts perusing. John Deere tractor for sale. Free kittens, which Atlanta figures is about as redundant as it gets because who in their right mind would pay for a kitten (probably the same weirdos who read fishing magazines). Dog missing. Then another dog missing. A third. And fourth.
One’s a cairn terrier (“Pepper”). Another a Dachshund (“Oscar”). Third is a… Vizsla puppy, whatever that is (no name given). Third a Lab puppy (“Lucky”).
Three of the flyers have addresses.
And all three are up in Gallows Hill.
Atlanta’s heart leaps the same time her gut sinks.
She goes to the counter, reaches over—ignoring the protestations of Little Miss Cheekbones—and snatches a pen which she then uses to write the phone numbers on the inside of her arm.
“Here,” Atlanta says, tossing the pen back to the counter lady. “I don’t think I need to meet with the vet doctor anymore. Sorry again for being rude.”
* * *
Pepper: the man is icy like a frosted-over windshield, tells Atlanta over the phone that the dog was a show dog, a regional winner and a state winner once he’ll have her know, and he’ll pay whatever it takes to get the terrier back, and then he says his “partner” is the dog’s trainer and Atlanta thinks, oh, okay, he’s gay—which adds up because he seems buttoned tight and has a clipped and lispy voice but then she hears a woman’s voice in the background calling for the man and he ends the conversation with a sudden goodbye, cutting it short as if with a pair of scissors, snip, snip, click.
Oscar: the woman is destroyed, gibbering and blubbering and it’s clear suddenly this dog, this Dachshund, is not merely her dog but actually her “son,” to the point where through the tears she even refers to him as