H o u n d 
Kevin Wolf

Please send comments, questions or critiques
concerning this story to Kevin Wolf at
reg_slape@hotmail.com.
©Copyright 2001
Kevin Wolf

Walden Hound was a thick, geometric shape of a man, all straight
lines and sharp angles, and despite his large build gone slightly to
seed with age and his fondness for oversized, rumpled clothing, he
had the look of an object that would cut you if you handled it too
delicately. He wore a black eye-patch. The socket beneath that
patch, the left one, was an empty, blasted crater of scar tissue. The
back of his skull was mostly steel, and the hair back there grew in
shock-white patches.
.38 caliber round, point-blank, in and out. The doctors said he’d
lost too much brain tissue to function-to speak, to walk, even to
live. At this very moment, he was proving them wrong.
He stubbed his cigarette out, exhaled slowly, and regarded the
man across the sidewalk table through the resultant smoke-cloud.
“The joke,” he said, “is that when you get shot in the head, it makes
you think.” He smiled, tight-lipped and blank-eyed. “That’s from
some movie with Kevin Kline, he played this philanderer who got
his comeuppance.” His voice was breathy and medium-pitched, and
the cadence of his speaking was unhurried.
“Good movie?”
“I don’t know. The line was in all the previews, I never saw
it...my point is, it’s true. For fifteen years, I’ve done nothing but
think. I think so much sometimes I have trouble getting to sleep
because I can’t get my brain to shut up. Ever have that problem?”
The other man was sipping coffee from a tiny blue cup. He was
sipping it patiently, but there was no patience present in his
posture, his eyes, or the set of his jaw. The gold watch on his left
wrist had been checked surreptitiously (he thought) several times in
the six minutes of this meeting that had transpired so far. “No,” he
said.
“Never?”
“No.”
“Hm. Fast sleeper, then?”
“Yes.”
“And heavy? Do you wake easily?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Huh.” Hound raised a glass filled with ice-water and drank from
it. His eye did not waver from its target. A waitress, very blonde,
thin and regal, came by to ask if everything was going okay. The
impatient man who never had trouble sleeping asked for the check
and took a very large sip of coffee. Hound put his water glass back
on the mosaic-topped table and wiped a finger neatly across his
lips. “You’re in a hurry. You’d like me to get to the point.”
“If you could.”
“It’s an irony of success, don’t you think?” With thick, callused,
clumsy-looking fingers, Hound snapped open a beaten stainlesssteel
cigarette case and removed a gold-monogrammed cigarette
with no apparent lack of dexterity. “You’ve finally achieved a level
of wealth and authority that, you have imagined for so long, will
allow you to write your own schedule, but with that wealth has
come inflated responsibility...it’s a contradiction, you see. Success
does not buy freedom. Success is a trap.”
The man whose suit had cost more than Walden Hound’s car was
now allowing an expression to bleed across his immaculately
maintained visage of detached superiority. It was an amused,
indulgent, but slightly fearful expression, as if Walden were a crazy
old man belaboring his visitor with tall tales and addressing him by
the name of a dead son. “A trap?”
“Yes. I was once very successful in many of the ways that you are
now. I ran a major detective firm, maybe two dozen guys on the
payroll. We didn’t do just peep jobs, you understand, or background
checks for nervous brides-to-be, or security work for paranoids.
There was police-liaison stuff too, big cases. I had money, cars, and
specialty cigarettes stamped with gold foil monograms...” He smiled
ruefully, lit up such a cigarette, and dragged deeply. “My sole
remaining affectation from that time,” he smokily confessed.
The other man had drained his coffee, eaten his biscotti, and was
now in the process of withdrawing a credit card from his wallet. “I
really need to get going, “he announced. The regal, and apparently
psychic, waitress appeared with the bill, took the card, and retreated
back into the coffee shop.
“The bitch can wait, Trotter” Hound grunted.
Del Trotter’s mouth fell slightly open, and his eyes blinked
asynchronously. “Pardon me?”
“The bitch, Mr. Trotter, can wait.” Hound’s posture, facial
expression, and unflinching stare had not changed in the slightest,
but something about him now projected a cold, sweaty aura of
menace. Trotter could feel it in the quickening of his pulse and in
the tightening of his scrotum. “The bitch I refer to is your mistress,
Debra Calandrino, a woman you met at a leadership seminar you
attended three years ago. The two of you were attracted to each
other’s embrace of success and, no doubt, rampant narcissism. You
have been rendevouzing at a series of hotel rooms to engage in acts
of adultery and sodomy for about seven months, now. The fateful
incident that forever altered the nature of your relationship occurred
in her car following an especially heated tennis match at the private
club you both attend.”
A long silence passed. Hound allowed his gaze to wander from
Trotter long enough to follow a shapely pair of legs down the
sidewalk. By the time they came back to the philanderer, Trotter
seemed to have lost thirty pounds in as many seconds. He was
hollow-chested, slouching, withdrawn, waxy. “How...” His voice was
a pinched whine. “How do you...Oh, my God.” The last words were
spoken as a suddenly realized, horrifying fact. Trotter reached for
the complimentary water he had not touched once and swallowed
half of it in a gulp. Then, he exhaled heavily, put the glass down,
and straightened his posture. “You work for Paul Calandrino, don’t
you?” He put his hands on the table, folded them, and adopted a
solemn expression. He was ready to negotiate. “What do you want?”
Hound smoked quietly, basking in the sun, blowing carcinogens
into the gentle mid-summer breeze. “You misunderstand,” he said
after an agonizingly long time. “I work for nobody.” Trotter opened
his mouth, and Hound raised a hand to quiet him. “You were going,
a couple minutes ago, to ask me how I know. I was trying to
explain this to you earlier.” A long drag, an extended exhalation,
and then, a deep, clean breath of air. “I think. I think all of the time.
When I watch movies, I’m so acutely aware of the artifice that it
makes it very difficult to enjoy myself. I rewrite novels as I read
them. I see people interacting on the street and I make logical
extrapolations based upon observed behavior, statistical factors, and
my own intuition.
“Six days ago, I witnessed, by chance, you and Mrs. Calandrino
exit a taxicab in front of the Rembrandt Hotel together. That you
were lovers was plainly obvious, as was the illicit nature of that
love. Two conversations, one with a bellhop, another with a maid,
and the expenditure of forty dollars in ‘tips’, and I knew the names
you registered under, and what time you left the next day. Calls to
other major downtown hotels established your pattern. Following
both you and Mrs. Calandrino for a day established your individual
patterns, marital statuses, and club memberships. More bribes at
your club, your places of business-it’s really quite amazing what the
serving class is willing to spill for surprisingly little compensationand
I had the outline of the complete picture.” He killed the
cigarette and ground it out. “The details came to me this morning,
around 4:25, after a long, sleepless night. I’m quite pleased to see
that I got all of them right.”
Trotter soaked all of this in. The waitress returned with the credit
card and a slip for Trotter to sign. He scrawled his name
mechanically, added in a generous tip for her, and she departed
without a cheery sign-off. Perhaps the two men, staring at each
other so intensely, disturbed her.
Hound took another small sip of water and wiped his lips with
the same neat, single-fingered gesture. “My doctor’s theory is that
the bullet that took out my left eye and a sizable portion of my
brain dislodged something, some sort of blockage, a system of
checks and balances up there, whatever it is that keeps the average
man from utilizing the full potential of his brain. He believes that
this system exists to keep us from going insane. If the brain works
at full bore all the time, when does a man sleep? When does he
enjoy a quiet breakfast over the Sunday comics? Where lies his
solace? Mine, as it so happens, lies in sex, as it does with many
men. However, given my condition, I find it necessary to engage in
it for extended periods of time and on a fairly regular basis. This
keeps me sane.”
“It’s not working,” Del Trotter muttered.
Walden Hound gave a nod to indicate that he knew Trotter was
going to say that. “I no longer embrace success, as you measure it. I
have embraced what you would call abject failure. I have no
income, drive a lousy car, and live in a comfortably-furnished but
drab studio apartment. I have allies but no friends. I have sex
partners but no soul-mate. However, I still find the means to smoke
my gold foil-stamped cigarettes, and I am free at any time to do
whatever I want, to whomever I want, and for whatever reason. I
know an independence that you can only dream of, and I decided
not too long ago to use this independence in the best way I know
how.”
A pause informed Trotter that he was expected to say something.
“What way is that?” he asked.
“I make people’s lives better.” He reached under the lapel of his
rumpled, oversized coat. Trotter flinched, visions of wise-guy
rubouts from a thousand mob movies flashing. Hound withdrew
from his inside coat pocket not a gun, but a large, thick manila
envelope, folded over and rubber-banded. He put it on the bistro
table. It looked heavy. “In here is a gun,” Hound said carefully.
Trotter moaned. “I’m not going to shoot you with it, it’s all wrapped
up. There’s a piece of paper inside with an address written on it.”
He was speaking very forcefully now, nailing Trotter with his words,
forcing him to absorb them. “Living at that address is a man named
Lionel Shaker. His friends call him ‘Shakes’. Lionel Shaker’s wife
runs a day-care business out of their home, watches maybe six or
seven neighborhood kids. You with me, Del? You look like you’re
zoning.”
Trotter snapped to. “Yes, sir.”
“Shakes watches the kids sometimes when his wife, Linda, is out
getting groceries or whatnot. Shakes likes to take his favorite girls
into the bedroom and show them pornographic movies and play
make-believe with them. Do you understand?”
“Oh, God...”
“They don’t watch kids on the weekends, so that’s when you
make your move. Linda Shaker is completely innocent. She goes out
Sundays to play bridge at her sister’s house. Lionel usually engages
in acts of rigorous self-abuse while she’s out. This will be your
opportunity. The gun is a .22 auto. In the envelope is a silencer.
Screw the silencer to the barrel of the .22, just like in the movies.
Enter the Shaker residence through the back door, which is always
unlocked during the day, go through the kitchen, down the hallway,
and through the last door on the right. Empty the magazine into
Lionel Shaker and leave the way you came.” Hound stood up. “If
you’re fast and avoid the temptation to skulk around like somebody
about to commit murder, the neighbors won’t notice you, the shots
won’t be heard, and when the news comes out in a couple days
that Shakes was diddling nine-year olds, nobody will care that he’s
gone.”
Del Trotter stared up at him, then looked at the bulging envelope.
He started shivering.
“I don’t think I need to tell you,” Hound said, “that if Shakes
doesn’t buy it this Sunday, Paul Calandrino will be presented,
anonymously, with graphic evidence that you’ve been slipping Little
Trotter up his lovely wife’s backside-a practice, by the way, that you
are putting to an end as of this moment. If you ever see her again
outside of the occasional coincidental meeting at your club, it won’t
matter if Shakes is in the ground or not. Goodbye, Mr. Trotter. It has
been very pleasant having coffee with you. I’m sorry I mislead your
secretary regarding my identity.” He touched Del Trotter’s shoulder
with a surprising tenderness, then turned away, produced another
monogrammed cigarette, and fired up.
Walden Hound walked the half-block to his illegally parked, rustcolored
Impala. He pulled a parking ticket off of the wiper,
analyzed the handwriting of the officer who had written it, folded it,
and put it away for later consideration. He got in, entered traffic,
and drove for seven minutes, pulling eventually into the valet
parking lane of the Hotel Denmark, a three-star enterprise with a
sterling reputation for service and discretion. The valet, a frecklefaced
girl named Denise who was, Hound observed, currently
menstruating, took his key from him. He dropped his half-smoked
fag on the sidewalk and stepped on it, then mounted the three front
steps, pushed through a revolving door, and walked onto a red-andgold
flecked, wall-to-wall carpet. He noted that the person who had
vacuumed the carpet last had been angry and in a hurry to finish.
He saw that the handsome young male bellhop loitering at the front
desk was flirting with a similarly handsome young male guest. The
young male guest was heterosexual and taking the flirting well
outwardly while seething with horror internally. Interesting.
He walked past two dozen more people on the way to the
elevator, watching, deducing, extrapolating. His head was pounding
by the time he made it to the (thankfully empty) elevator. He leaned
against the wall, watched the numbers go ding, and exited on the
fifth floor.
Somebody was in the hall, running a key-card repeatedly through
the reader of room “511”, to no avail. It was a man in his late fifties,
graying hair, tweed vest, smart tie. He was holding a box wrapped
with birthday paper, a card on top of it. Meeting his much younger
lover for some afternoon delight, Hound surmised. Sexy lingerie in
the box? Perhaps, although this man had the look of an intellectual,
a man as much into his own brain as into college-age flesh. Books,
then. Erotica. Anaïs Nin?
Hound nodded at the man. “Goddamn card,” the man said,
flushed red.
Hound passed by, stopped a couple doors down, and knocked
on “515”. It opened up without delay, and a beautiful woman in her
late thirties greeted him with a look of profound relief on her face.
“God, am I glad to see you,” she exhaled. “Get in here.”
He got in there. She was still dressed in her business clothes. She
sat on the bed and took her black pumps off, rubbed her feet on
the floor, and purred. “I am so sore,” she announced. “Running all
day.”
He took off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair. His eyes
swept around the room, taking in the art, the subtle lighting, the
discreetly located bathroom door, the single bed. “Nice room.”
“Not the worst I’ve ever been in. How’d it go?”
“Good.” He sat in the chair he’d put his coat over, then pulled a
piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. He pointed at the bedside
table. “Toss me that pen.” He snatched it from the air, spread the
paper on the writing table next to him, and marked off two names
from a list. The two names were:
Debra Calandrino
Becky Millerson
The woman got up from the bed, came over to him, and glanced
down at the paper, which Hound made no effort to conceal.
“What’s this, a ritual?” He didn’t answer. “My handsome good
Samaritan. Who is...” She squinted. His handwriting, never easy to
read, was even more illegible with a line drawn through it. “Becky
Millerson?”
“A nine-year old girl who doesn’t want to play make-believe
anymore,” he responded cryptically. He folded the paper up, put it
away, and lay the pen down.
“So, how did it really go?”
“Fine.”
“Was he mad?”
“At first.”
“You didn’t lay on the bullshit too thick, did you?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you use Paul as a lever?”
“Of course.”
“But Paul knows I screw around.”
“Did you ever tell Trotter that?”
“You know I didn’t.” She grinned at him, and he found a moment
of solace in that grin-her white teeth, smooth red lips, dimples...he
lost his breath. She raised her skirt, hitched a leg over his lap, and
mounted him. “This is more fun with clothes off,” she observed.
“Hm.” She kissed him. His blood thundered. The lightning-fast
realizations slowed, the firing and chattering in his brain began to
subside. It was a feeling comparable, perhaps superior, to the
orgasm that was in his immediate future.
She smoothed a hand through his hair, allowing her fingers to
pass over the scarred part of his skull, not put off by it. “Thank you
for doing this for me, Wald. I appreciate it.”
“I know,” he said into her breasts.
“Del was beautiful, and a great lay, but...he was starting to get
weird.”
“I know.”
“It was getting too rough...” She began to unbuttoned his shirt. He
ran his hands over her thighs. Though his calluses caught on her
hose, his touch was as delicate as a child’s. “I didn’t know how to
get rid of him. He was scaring me a little bit. He wanted to do
it...you know...that way all the time.”
“I know.” His groping grew frenzied, his breathing husky and
erratic. She unzipped his pants, reached down to grip him. He
tugged at her underwear. Some shifting, clumsy balancing and
giggling, and Hound’s head dropped back against the chair, his
mouth falling open as she lowered onto him. “Oh, yeah,” he
grunted, “that’s the medicine.”
Debra Calandrino unfastened her bra, presented her breasts to
Hound’s clutching hands. “Wald?” she gasped, holding onto his shirt 
for dear life as he bucked beneath her, seemingly a man possessed.
“Wald? Am I going to see you again after th-oh, God...” She had to
stop speaking for a moment. “Um...anyway, am I? Wald?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered, his hands all over her, his body on
fire, his mind a clear, beautiful blank. He started grinning. “I just
don’t know, baby.”