Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson Page A

stand, but she turned, walked down the hallway, and called back, “By the way, dumbass, did it ever occur to you that I golf?” She turned and disappeared.
    Henry stood and looked at me. “As your trusted Indian scout, it is important for me to warn you that you are now on perilously thin ice.”
    I grabbed my hat, lifted my jacket from the back of my chair, came around the desk, and followed her. “Vic . . .”
    Henry joined me in the hallway as she looked back, shaking her head. “I played in the Mike Schmidt Celebrity Tournament back in Philly.”
    “Vic.”
    “And won.”
    We followed her into the dispatch area, and I noticed my Indian scout was careful to stay behind me. Vic paused at the steps just long enough to turn back and gesture with her fist out, finger pointing down. “Can you hear this? No? Then let me turn it up for you.” She rotated her hand, and it was only then that I could see which finger it was—the South Philadelphia Municipal Bird.
    From beside the dispatcher’s desk, I watched as she sashayed out—the bell at the front door jangled viciously and the compression of the shock absorber most certainly had kept the heavy glass from shattering onto the sidewalk.
    Henry’s voice sounded behind me. “I do not mean to be critical, but if that is your recruiting technique . . .”
    I was about to answer when I glanced over and saw Ozzie Dobbs Jr. waiting on the bench, his eyes a little wide. “Hi, Ozzie.”
    He stood, looked down the steps, and then back to Ruby. “Your dispatcher said you were in a meeting.”
    I nodded. “I was.”
    “Oh.”
    I heard the motor in Vic’s unit fire up, and the tires squeal. “Ozzie, have you met Henry Standing Bear?”
    He immediately became all smiles and extended his hand nervously the way people do when the only Indians they’ve ever been around are sports mascots. “You’ve got the bar out near the reservation, the Red Horse?”
    The Cheyenne Nation smiled, suffering fools easily—hell, they’d been doing it for more than two hundred years. “Pony, the Red Pony.”
    I asked Henry if he wanted to have lunch with us, but he said he had things to attend to, including lobbying the Tribal Council about my daughter’s wedding. I thanked him and told him to keep me posted about his brother.
    My best buddy drifted down the hall, light on his feet like some great cat. He slipped back into my office and disappeared. I turned back to Ozzie. “Ready for lunch?”
    He looked more than a little uncomfortable. “Sure, but if you’re busy . . .”
    I pulled my jacket on and continued to listen as somebody, probably Vic, tore a strip off Fetterman Street. “Actually that was my other lunch date that just blew through here earlier, so it would appear that I am completely free.”
    “Great. Well . . .” He put his hat on, a snappy Gus type that added a good six inches to his height, and started for the steps. “I’ve only got an hour, so we better get going.”
    I shrugged at Ruby and Dog, who had raised his head to watch the action, and then followed Ozzie down the steps and past the photographs of the five previous sheriffs. Ruby’s voice trailed after me. “Isaac Bloomfield called and said your eye appointment with Andy Hall is at nine a.m. on Thursday.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah . . .”
    Ozzie had already crossed behind the courthouse and was approaching the concrete steps that descended diagonally toward Main Street, and he moved quickly. My foot was still worrying me, so I called out to him. “Ozzie, hold up.” He waited at the top of the shoveled steps. “I got a little torn up a couple of months ago, and I’m still not completely healed.”
    “Sorry about that.” He smiled, but I noticed his hands jiggled the change and car keys in his pockets. I guess he felt as though he should make some sort of conversation as we walked.
    “Boy, that deputy of yours is a real pip.”
    I nodded as we made our way down the steps. “Yes, she is.”
    “And