03:04
Episode 3: Dog Days Mechanix
Part 4
“I can’t believe you’d say something like that,” Laurel screeched. “Leeloo is sweet.”
Violet cradled her right hand in her left and glared at the dog. Leeloo lay on her pillow growling up at Violet. Laurel sat on the flower-print couch in the living room of her father’s house — her house.
“I was just thinking there is no way we are making any decent money from this job and selling that rat would make us a lot more than wiping its butt for a week.”
“Leeloo is not a rat.”
Laurel reached down and gently lifted the dog. It snuggled into the robot’s chest and turned its head up to lick her face. Laurel giggled and scratched Leeloo’s belly.
“Blech!” said Violet. “That’s just disgusting. Do you know what she does with her tongue?”
“Leeloo is perfectly clean. The schedule says she gets her teeth brushed every morning. You’re just jealous because she likes me.”
“I am not jealous of you, Laurel. That thing is just plain evil.” She held out her hand. “Look what it did to me.”
Laurel examined Violet’s hand.
“I can’t see anything.”
Violet looked at where Leeloo had broken the skin on her fingers. Because of her healing power the skin was already closed.
“God damned it! That thing drew blood.”
Laurel laughed. “I don’t believe you. Leeloo would never hurt anyone, would you sweetums?”
The dog continued licking Laurel’s face while Laurel squirmed and held her tight. Violet glared at the scene and stalked off into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator.
“What the hell happened to my beer?” she yelled.
The entire space was empty of everything else Violet had stocked Laurel’s house with since moving in. Instead there were stacks of transparent plastic containers, each labeled with a date and time and each containing a gruesome-looking lump of ground food.
“Leeloo’s food needed to be kept cold. I thought you wouldn’t mind since it was for a job.”
“You did that on purpose. You threw out all of my food just to piss me off.”
Laurel came into the kitchen still cuddling the dog. Leeloo began growling as soon as she sighted Violet.
“I did not,” protested Laurel. “Besides you have stuff in the cupboards.”
“I wanted a beer.” Violet folded her arms across her girlish chest and glared at the dog. “This had better be worth it.”
“Go out and get some stupid beer if you want some. No one’s stopping you.”
Violet only glared harder at her. Laurel smiled.
“Sorry. You don’t have any money, do you?”
They returned to the living room.
Laurel put Leeloo back on the pillow where the dog remained as if glued. Only longing looks towards Laurel interspersed with growls at Violet betrayed its desires.
“I’ll go get you some beer if you promise to be nice to Leeloo.”
Violet thought about the offer for a moment, pursed her lips and nodded. Leeloo chose that instant to bark.
“And you behave yourself little cutie,” she told it.
Leeloo lay down on her pillow in acknowledgment.
“And you be careful,” she told Violet.
“Of what? The dog? I won’t go near it.”
“No. Dog-nappers.”
Violet guffawed. “Dog-nappers? Aw jeeze, Laurel. No one wants to take the little bitch.”
“Bitterman said people might want to take Leeloo. That’s why Lynda hired us.”
Violet walked to her partner, put a gentle hand on her shoulder and ever so slightly nudged her towards the door.
“First, you and I are the baddest things around New Robbins Valley. That’s true. But Lynda hired us because we were free and Bitterman had a wad of cash that needed liberating.”
She nudged again and this time Laurel turned towards the door.
“Second, no one knows the dog is here so no one is going to come and get her.”
At this point Violet let go of Laurel’s shoulder, reached down to the knob of the front door and pulled it open letting in a blast of arctic-cold January air.
“And third, the only reason anyone would want to take Leeloo is to make more dogs,” she looked back at the tiny, ugly canine shivering on its pillow, “and if you ask me that bitch could use a little action.”
Violet gave Laurel one last nudge and the robot stepped out onto the front stoop.
“But someone could be after her. We should take this seriously.”
Violet smiled.
“I will give it all the consideration it deserves,” she told Laurel and closed the door.
Violet plopped down on the floral patterned couch and turned on Laurel’s TV with the remote. Leeloo growled at her.
“Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Blech.” She flipped through the channels. “Nothing. God, anything but Lost.” Finally after thirty channels she stopped.
“What is this?” she said to Leeloo. “It looks like something fun.”
It was a Japanese cartoon with two girl, one black haired and the other an unnatural red-head, dressed in little more than yellow bikinis, blasting their way through a story. Leeloo stopped growling at Violet and watched the show, choosing instead to growl every time the girls’ enormous black cat came on screen.
“This is more like it,” Violet said.
The doorbell rang.
“Jeez. If that’s the Jehovah’s I swear I’m gonna smack ‘em.”
She got up and opened the door to another blast of chilled atmosphere. A man dressed all in loose black clothing and wearing a black hood, hit Violet over the head with a three-foot section of concrete-filled gas pipe. Violet staggered back inside and fell over on the floor. The man came in followed by two more. Leeloo growled as deeply as she could and then jumped through the air to attack the man.
