Read Frank Sinatra in a Blender for Free Online Page A

with him, but he was a guy I knew I could trust. He’d done hard time in the can and I respected that. Between Tony and his partner Doyle, they had their ears close to the street. They were plugged in.
    Frank was sniffing everything and trying to saturate as many foreign objects as possible with his Yorkshire piss. He pissed on an old newspaper that was covered with other dogs’ piss. He pissed on the handle of a shovel. He pissed on a brick. He pissed on top of another dog’s old turd or perhaps it was his own. He even pissed on the seat of a little kid’s Big Wheel. I would’ve told him to stop but I knew he wouldn’t listen. Frank was just expressing himself and that was an idea I could get behind.
    “Let’s go.” I whistled. Frank brushed past me in hurry to climb the stairs. If there was one true pleasure in Frank’s life it was stair climbing. His favorites were the stairs to my office/apartment. And Frank’s goal was to conquer them with as much speed and enthusiasm as his legs were capable of producing. He was a master of ascension, but coming back down had always been a problem. I coaxed him every chance I got, but Frank did things his own way. Generally I just carried the little guy.
    The drunk I’d put on earlier was all but a distant memory. As I took each step, I tried to wrap my head around this case.
    Frank waited by the door. Tail wagging. Snorting. If he could talk he’d tell me to hurry up, so I could throw a beer can full of kibble on the floor next to my desk.
    “I’m comin’,” I told him. He barked twice, snorted once, peeled out. Frank was ready and willing to take on the whole world if he didn’t get food.
    We entered my muddled office and I stared at its dismal state. I never had time to clean. As I succumbed to the comfort of my chair behind the desk, I knew I wouldn’t have time today either.
    Frank barked, told me he was waiting.
    I said, “Yeah, I hear you already.” I flipped on the little radio at the edge of my desk and we listened to some jazz.
    I crossed the room and poured a beer can full of food in his Converse. Frank jumped, ran two complete circles around both me and the shoe, then he bit the end of my pants leg and gave it a dominant tug.
    “Calm down you little shit.”
    I kicked at him, nudged him away with my foot, something he didn’t like, and he bit my shoe about as hard as he could. Snorted then peeled out. Frank took one good spring and landed on the Converse. He fought me for it, driving his snout deep into the cavernous depths of the shoe, giving it the business. He snatched a piece of kibble then ran to his place in front of my desk and dropped it. He looked up at me, growled, daring me to take it. Then he turned when I came near him and ate the kibble with his back toward me.
    “You’re a cantankerous little son-of-bitch.” I dropped to one knee and stroked his back but he turned with swift reflexes, barked twice, and told me not to fuck with him while he was eating.
    I saw a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream while I was down there, half full, sprawled on a bed of cigarette butts and ashes that’d been ground into carpet.
    “Well, looky here,” I said to Frank, but he was too busy eating.
    I stood tall, held the bottle to the light and gave it a shake. I unscrewed the lid and knocked back a series of vigorous chugs.
    •••••
     
    Montgomery’s was a steakhouse in South County where the cheapest steak cost thirty dollars. As bad as Sid craved a porterhouse, he didn’t have the time to go inside. Mr. Parker was livid and he cursed the tweaker. He wanted to kill Telly, regardless of the outcome. That’d been Parker’s plan all along. Use him as the driver and then shoot him; leave his body in the back of the truck.
    Now there was a different asshole in the back of the truck. They were roaming down a thoroughfare of unknown possibilities and too many roads led back to Mr. Parker.
    Joe Parker was a businessman, thief, and gambler. If anything