Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay, Gordon Carroll [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

though placing her hand on her lap. I expected the uniforms to show up any second. “Well, let me check here,” she said, tapping a few keys on the computer.

A door opened down the hall and a familiar face swaggered toward me wearing his traditional Men in Black suit and nearly black sunglasses. It was Governor Arnie’s big brother, the fifth guy from the limo, the one who had muscles on his muscles and that cute little goatee.

I smiled back at the receptionist again. “Never mind. I’ll ask him.” I reached under the back of my shirt, slipped out my handcuffs, slid them over my knuckles and turned, punching muscle head on the point of the chin. His huge head snapped back and then forward, his face stunned. I grabbed his wrist, keeping him from pulling out the gun.

That punch felt good. These people murdered a teenage boy, kidnapped his baby sister, shot her father, hurt my dog.

I hit him again on the exact same spot, a red line opening through the center of his goatee. His head shot back again, but this time his knees sagged and I grabbed him by the front of the shirt and jerked him forward. It was like pulling on a tree. His chest felt like a steel bulkhead.

“What floor is Door’s office on?”

He shook his head, his eyes rolling.

I hit him again, the metal of the cuffs opening the line wider. Blood dribbled out and pattered on the plush carpet. He almost went out, I had to use all my strength to keep him up.

“T — top floor,” he blubbered. His lips were stained red. He must have bit his tongue. That had to hurt. “Fif — fifteen. Fifteenth floor.” I let him drop, smiled at the beautiful receptionist and went to the elevator.

It was maybe the slowest elevator I’d ever been on. I kept the cuffs on my knuckles, expecting more trouble. I stopped on the fourteenth floor, slipped off and let the elevator continue on to the fifteenth. I went through a long section of cubicles filled with people talking on phones and joking around and getting coffee from the break room.

The stairwell was down the hallway and around the corner. People hardly noticed me. I went into the stairwell and up the stairs. I cracked the door on the fifteenth and saw a clear hallway. Slipping inside, I snuck up to the corner and spotted five security guards waiting. The bell dinged and the doors opened. I didn’t wait. I went the other way. Most office buildings hold to a circular design, but this was the master suite, the floor where the bigwigs worked. There were no cubicles, no gregarious workers talking and laughing and drinking coffee. There was a long reception area by the elevator where the guards were standing, and a series of doors branching off from both ends, running the length of the hallways. The walls were adorned with floor to ceiling sized posters of what I assumed were their best games, displayed in ornate frames that cost more than my house, car and office building combined. I went to the farthest end of the hall and opened a door with a gold plate on it that read Louis Hepperman Vice President. Inside was a man in a suit and tie, typing on a computer, behind a giant redwood desk. He looked up in surprise, taking off his glasses.

Hepperman, that was the guy that tried to cheat the boys out of Whack The Pig.

“Oops, wrong room, sorry,” I said, closing the door behind me and hurrying the width of the room to another door. It was a bathroom, the faucets on the sink shining gold. I grinned. “Oops, wrong again.”

“What’s going on?” said the man, standing.

“Oh, don’t get up,” I said, trying the next door; it opened into another hallway going back in the direction I’d come.

Hepperman picked up a cordless phone. I couldn’t have that, not before I found Doors. I went to the desk, grabbed up the base and pulled the cord from the wall. Hepperman looked at me like I was insane.

“Where’s Mr. Doors’ office?” I asked politely.

His mouth opened, his face turning red, but no words came out.

“You can just point,” I said, trying to be helpful.

“Get out of my office,” he yelled.

I threw the base of the phone into the hollow spot just below his sternum. It knocked the wind out of him and he fell back into his chair, dropping the phone from his hand. It clattered on the floor but didn’t come apart. High dollar equipment.

I was around the desk and on him before he could get his breath back. I gripped the tie and looped the tail around my fist. I pulled it tight, squeezing his throat closed and making his face far redder than it had been a moment ago. “Where did you say his office is?”

He gurgled out an answer I took to be the last office at the end of the hall. I removed the cuffs from my fist and locked both his hands behind his back around the leg of the desk. It looked like it weighed roughly the same as an actual redwood tree. I pulled off one of his shoes and stuffed his sock into his mouth. I wrapped the tie around his head to keep the sock in. Crude but effective. Besides, I didn’t think I would need that much time anyway. I went down the hallway, tried the doorknob, found it open and went in.

Roger Doors was on the phone, sitting behind a glass desk, with his back to me. He didn’t hear me enter. The walls behind and on both sides of him were tinted glass, looking out on a spectacular view of the nearby mountains. He wore a green, short sleeve shirt, faded jeans, and high end athletic shoes. It’s good to be the king. Only his palace was about to implode.

I locked both doors. He was carrying on