Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff Page A

are always with you.
    —Your Pookie Bear
    “A tool box,” Blackjack said, and would have snickered had he been capable of it. “What a touching gift.”
    “What?” Luther asked.
    “Never mind. I have a feeling this truck is leaving town, though. Who knows, maybe it’ll even take us closer to your Heaven.”
    “I think it will,” Luther replied.
    VII.
    “We have them!” Dragon said triumphantly as he led the others into the web of curving streets known as the Maze. “How far do you think, Lucrezia?”
    “Not far,” the bitch assured him. “Smells like they got just deep enough in to get lost.”
    “We have them!” Dragon repeated, quickening his pace. “We have them!”
    The sound of an approaching engine grew behind them. Dragon charged onward, oblivious to it, but Perdurabo turned to see what was coming.
    “Hey Dragon . . .” he said.
    “The cat’s going to be the only problem,” the Wolfhound briefed them on the run. “We’ll fall on it from all sides and kill it straight out. . . .”
    “Dragon, I think . . .”
    “. . . the mange shouldn’t put up much of a fight. We can take our time with him. I’m going to—”
    “Oh, hell!” Perdurabo exclaimed, as a white van came roaring into view. “ ‘Catchers! ‘Catchers!”
    “What?”
    Dragon finally turned to look, but it was almost too late to do anything.
    VIII.
    “Say hey, Dante, look at that!”
    The glassy-eyed, battle-scarred, World-War-II-veteran-turned-dogcatcher hunched over the steering wheel and grinned at what had just been pointed out to him.
    “Hah-um,” he said.
    “Five dogs, Dante!” his companion went on gleefully. “Five, and not asingle collar! That beats shit out of a stray cat-and-dog pair any day of the week in my book!”
    “Hah-um.”
    “Check out that big one in the front, there. Ain’t he a beauty? Virgil’s gonna have himself a happy fit when he sees what we brought in.”
    Dante’s companion, still in his teens, reached behind his seat like a kid rummaging under the Christmas tree and brought out a pistol with the word “Lethe” stamped on the grip. Placing the pistol on the dash, he reached behind again and brought out a rifle, similarly stamped. Neither the pistol nor the rifle were supposed to be used except in emergencies—and certainly not while the van was in motion—but to the young and the shell-shocked life is a continual emergency.
    “Hold her steady, Dante!” the rifleman cried, leaning out the passenger window.
    “Hah-um.”
    “Whooooo-haaah!” He pulled the trigger, and a small dart struck the closest dog in the flank. Perdurabo, whose name meant “I will endure to the end,” stumbled more from shock than from the immediate effects of the tranquilizer, and was crushed under the front wheels of the van.
    “Hah- um! ” Dante cried triumphantly.
    “Oops,” said the rifleman, sounding a bit more concerned. “I don’t know if Virgil’s going to like that.” Then, with renewed spirit: “But what the hell! This is fun, ain’t it, Dante?”
    “Hah-um!!!”
    “All right, good buddy. Floor it!”
    Dante floored it. As the van accelerated he began to hum La Forza del Destino.
    IX.
    “Raaq’s near!”
    “Jesus, Luther, don’t worry about it. We’re moving. Nothing can get at us now—not unless Purebreds can fly.”
    The flatbed moved steadily along, bouncing with the occasional pothole but otherwise riding smoothly. Then without warning it slowed, as a weak barking reached their ears.
    “That sounds like Dragon,” Luther said.
    “Jesus,” the Manx repeated. “Wait a minute! Luther, don’t!”
    But Luther had already crawled out from under the tarpaulin. He lifted his head up high enough to see over the side of the flatbed.
    He hardly knew how to react to what he saw. It was as if some great avenging angel had come tearing through here, leaving ruin in its wake.

    Farthest up the street, Perdurabo lay dead like a torn rag doll. Perhaps fifteen yards in front of him was