Good Bite, Sweet Prince

Good Bite, Sweet Prince
a Prince story by Stephen Brooke
 

People did notice I had more money. Not a lot. Getting it from an offshore account—a secret offshore account—to my pocket was a convoluted process. Fortunately, the jinn who had put it there had given me some tips.

Dodging taxes is as old as taxes themselves, and the ancient demon certainly knew some  dodges. On the other hand, it was hardly up to date on modern tax codes. My own meager knowledge came from being a seasonal employee for one of the big income tax preparation companies. I did a lot of temp work like that.

No more! From now on, I was a  full-time beagle mom. It was Prince’s money, after all, and I intended to take good care of both.

Prince was my talking dog. That, too, was the work of that jinn, which had been released from its prison by Prince. Prince just thought it was a chew-toy but the demon was grateful anyway. The beagle’s first of three wishes was to be able to talk—talk human, that is. Money was an afterthought for the third wish. Prince had no sense about that sort of thing.

He had no real sense of time either. Each morning he asked if we were moving that day. When I told him ‘no,’ he accepted it without question. And if I were to say ‘next week’ or ‘next month’ he would still ask me the next day. We were going to move, though. The wheels had been set in motion. We could get out this miserable apartment.

We were about to do that, briefly, right now. “Walkies?” I called.

“Must you do that?” replied Prince. But he was as eager to get out of the place as I, and was willing to wear a leash for appearance sake. He didn’t like it much but saw the sense of it. We would go a couple blocks to the park, maybe dawdle there a while. Despite his new language skills, Prince remained interested in talking dog with his fellow canines.

We went down to the alley behind my place—our place, I should say—a narrow corridor of locked doors and overflowing trashcans. Prince liked to sniff at each of  those.

“Anchovies? Humans actually put those on pizza?” he remarked.

“I would think you’d like that.”

“Sure, but I’m a dog. Who’s that?”

A figure had stepped out a darkened doorway. A ski mask covered his face. Green, it was—the mask, not the face. 

“I don’t like the way this guy smells. All scared and belligerent at the same time, like chihuahuas I’ve known. Hmm, that’s Dwayne, isn’t it? Why is his face covered up?”

I was willing to take Prince’s word on the man’s identity. The size and shape seemed right. I probably shouldn’t let Dwayne know he was recognized. “Hush,” I whispered. Dwayne shouldn’t know about my talking beagle either.

“Gimme the purse,” he growled. Dwayne was obviously trying to disguise his voice.
But a mugging? No one had bothered me before and I had lived here a while. It must have gotten around that Lauren Sellers had money now. There was probably a little too much of it in my bag. I kind of liked having it—and having it with me.

No big deal if I lost some, though. There was plenty more where it came from. The Cayman Islands, in other words. And Dwayne did have a knife, of sorts.

Prince reared up to paw at the man’s leg, looking for all the world like an innocent pooch who wanted to be petted.

“Down, boy. No time for—hey!”

Prince had chomped down on his leg. Hard, I’m pretty sure. As Dwayne stumbled back, I swung my bag and caught him on the side of the head. The pocket knife went skittering across cracked pavement.

“You should know better, Dwayne,” I told him. I figured it was safe to use the name now.

“Yes, you really should,” agreed Prince. Our would-be mugger stared at him a few dazed seconds before wheeling and running off down the alley.

“We do need to get out of this neighborhood,” I said to Prince.

“Yes,” agreed the beagle. “Today?”