A Breath of Dead Air (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Book 8) by Nic Saint Page B

messages the moment they’re posted?”
    He pushed the phone into Jerry’s face, and Jerry slapped it away. “I don’t care about your stupid app! I don’t want this mutt! Not for fifty, not for nuthin’!”
    “But doesn’t he look exactly like Chazz’s mutt, Jerry? Look at that furry face! Look at those sparkly eyes! Look at that toothy grin! This mutt’s that mutt’s spitting image!”
    “All dogs look the same, you moron,” Jerry grumbled. “Big hunks of fur with dumb looks on their stupid maps. Just like you!” he added peevishly.
    Johnny stared at him. Abuse rarely registered in that miniature brain of his. “Well, it’s too late now, Jer. I already told him to drop Spot 3 by the Inn.”
    This stopped Jerry short. “You did what?!”
    “Yep. He’s dropping him off later tonight. Now all we have to do is make the switch, and Spot 2 is ours, Jer! Ain’t that great?!”
    Jerry balled his hands into fists and pummeled Johnny’s upper arm, which was about as thick as his own leg. “You dumb-ass! This is how we got into this mess in the first place! Write him back and tell him the deal’s off!”
    Johnny looked stumped for a moment, which wasn’t that much different from his default expression. “Can’t do it, Jer.”
    “Why the hell not?”
    “I told you. He sent me one of ‘em self-destructing messages. It’s a new app, see?” He shoved the phone back in Jerry’s face, much to the latter’s chagrin. “You send a picture and within seconds it’s gone. Just like Mission Impossible! I don’t even know the guy’s name, only his handle. The New Pet Bandit, he calls himself. NPB®. Says he’s a really big fan of our work.”
    “And where did he get this Spot 3?” Jerry asked moodily, the onset of a severe headache starting to throb at his left temple.
    Johnny lifted his massive shoulders in a shrug. “Didn’t say. All he said was that the dog is called Pronto and that his owner ain’t gonna miss him.”
    “Great,” Jerry grumbled. “Some deadbeat probably mislaid his dog and the moment we put our hands on him he’s gonna call the cops on us.”
    “I think it’s just great, Jer,” Johnny said with a stupid grin. “We just switch Spot 2 with Spot 3—this Pronto mutt—and that’s it.” The big guy’s map was lighting up like a Christmas tree. “We’ll have come full circle, huh?”
    Jerry didn’t even understand what that meant, but he decided not to probe. His partner’s mind wasn’t equipped to handle heavy thinking, and neither was it equipped to handle stressful situations like figuring out how to get out of this mess. As usual, that was going to be Jerry’s task. And he was damned if he was going to return to the glory days of the Pet Bandits. Even though he hated his life right now, the way forward definitely wasn’t going back. Which meant returning this Pronto to his rightful owner, and staying the hell away from Spot 2.
    He wasn’t going to risk having their community service extended indefinitely when they only had a couple of weeks more to go. He had plans. Plans for a future that didn’t include Johnny Carew. Plans that would have him trod the straight and narrow from now on, unhindered by that moron, who just kept pushing him back into a life of crime.
    He glared at his soon-to-be-ex-partner. “We’re handing this Pronto pooch back to his rightful owner. And we’re not stealing Spot 2 and that’s final.”
    Johnny’s disappointment was painful to watch, but so would Judge Lockhart’s face when he learned the Pet Bandits had struck again.
    “We’re Pet Bandits no more. And the sooner you get that through that thick skull of yours, the better.”
    “But, Jerry!”
    He held up his hand as he started to walk away. “I’m done, Johnny!”
    He wanted to win back the heart of the woman who’d divorced him because of his thieving ways, but he wasn’t going to tell Johnny that, of course. No, very soon now he and his partner would go their separate