Dogs by Nancy Kress Page A

it.”
    They drove in silence, Jess wondering: What had all that been about in there? Yes, she hadn’t told him upfront about her dog. Yes, years of Billy had made him suspicious of even simple omissions because they usually meant greater omissions. Yes, he realized that his insistence on deputizing her, just to get back at an officious politician and an M.D., who made him feel inferior, had been childish, and the realization made him feel dumb. But all that wasn’t really it. The problem was that Jess was attracted to her, and not only was she married, but he didn’t want to be attracted to anybody. Not since Elizabeth, not ever again.
    â€œWhat is this place?” Tessa said as he stopped the truck at the road. “I don’t see a house.”
    â€œIt’s back there.” Jess waved at the faint dirt track leading back from a battered mailbox. “Here is the place we meet my partner.”
    She looked confused, as well she might. A very dirty white van pulled up, Billy at the wheel with a man beside him. From the van, unlike Jess’s truck, came howling and barking. Billy jumped out, grinning. “Hey, Jess, how you doing so far? This is Ken Pilton from Flatsburgh, he’s a new vet. Hey, Tessa.”
    Through the truck window Tessa gave Billy a do-I-know-you look. He didn’t know her but obviously had heard about her, and that was enough for Billy. Ken Pilton, a nervous and bespectacled man in his early twenties, got out behind Billy. Jess took one look at him and made his decision. “Okay, Dr. Pilton, you stay here. You, too, Tessa—stay with the truck. We’ll take the van. If we need you to do anything we’ll call, so keep near the radio. If we don't come out in ten minutes, notify Sheriff DiBella. You got that?”
    Pilton nodded. Tessa looked stony. Jess got behind the wheel.
    Billy said, “You really think ol’ Vic’s going to open fire? He’s nuts but he ain’t that nuts.”
    â€œAre you positive about that?”
    â€œNo. Damn, if he lets those Rottweilers loose on us I’m gonna just purely enjoy plugging them. You remember when one of them mauled his girlfriend, that brunette waitress, last year?”
    â€œI remember,” Jess said. “Put on your helmet, Billy.”
    In full gear, they pulled up to Victor Balonov’s ramshackle house. Rumors about Balonov formed one of Tyler’s chief entertainments. A Russian immigrant, he was supposed to be former KGB, supposed to have tried to assassinate President Clinton in 1994, supposed to have been descended from tsarist royalty. Six four, three hundred pounds, he spoke broken English at the top of his lungs. The fish-and-game boys had arrested him twice for shooting deer out of season. At the second arrest, Balonov had set a Rottweiler on Sam Fields, which is how Jess became involved. The county list showed Balonov as owning two more Rottweilers, but Jess wouldn’t have been surprised to find one, or three, or ten.
    The dogs were clearly audible in the basement of the house. Jess and Billy waited in the van for Balonov to appear. When he didn’t, they called out, then waited some more.
    â€œMaybe the dogs got him already,” Billy said.
    â€œMaybe.” It would solve a lot of problems. Finally Jess called through his bullhorn in his most soothing voice—although it was hard to sound soothing through a bullhorn—“Mr. Balonov, I’m Jess Langstrom from Animal Control. Please come out so we can talk to you.”
    Victor Balonov, in a parka suitable for crossing the Siberian tundra, finally appeared on the porch. Negligently, as if an afterthought, a twelve-gauge shotgun dangled from his right hand. From inside the van Jess repeated, “Mr. Balonov, I’m Jess Langstrom from Animal Control, and as you probably know we have orders from the government to bring in all dogs until this quarantine is over. Your animals will be well