The Dog Walker – Chapter Four

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I didn’t think I was supposed to dog walk this same area until the end of time, but Dusty never told me to stop, and as long as I showed up to work on time she didn’t complain. Of course, she never gave me any scratch behind the ears for a job well done, but maybe she wanted to keep me from sinking into a state of self-congratulatory complacency. 

I might find a humorless Benjamin or two in my morning envelope – a dude whose inscrutable expression Dusty seemed to make a conscious effort to mimic, but never a note saying Okay, we’ve milked the lakeside dry, time to move on.

So I went about my business, walking Bruno around those same old neighborhoods. With that damn mailman breathing down my neck.

One morning, while driving out to my first stop, I approached the home of the old lady who had been my first victim. Normally I passed the house without a second glance, too afraid of what I might see there, I suppose. I didn’t know what exactly I feared – perhaps some evidence I had hastened her along to her demise. Would old Beelzebub himself be there giving me a thumbs up, spewing sulfur from his nostrils as he rocked on the porch swing? Would the grim reaper be sitting by Satan’s side, sharing a forty ouncer with his homie? I wouldn’t be surprised by anything.

I tried my best to scurry by without looking up, but on that morning a small car was idling in the street in front, with two people inside. It was an older, unkempt model, some kind of Hyundai with dents on the back bumper. Alongside the dents, I saw faded rectangular and circular spots where bumper stickers had been scraped off, exposing the unfaded paint beneath. 

I didn’t want to risk hitting the idling car by going around it, so I waited while a young woman got out and rushed toward the old lady’s front porch.

The heavily tattooed girl had a nose ring, and her dark hair was streaked with purple. Her lower parts were barely covered with a pair of tight shorts from which her ass was struggling to make a jailbreak, and across her full breasts she wore a black T-shirt that read Chinga La Migra. I think my tongue flopped as low as Bruno’s when she dashed across the street. Although a little butter-faced, the girl had a smoking body, and I must confess she got my testicles humming.

When the purple-striped vixen saw me she hesitated a moment, before realizing who I was by the markings on the van. She winked devilishly in my direction, which made the boys tingle even more eagerly, then rushed toward the old lady’s door and retrieved two packages the size and shape of laptop containers, before disappearing with her cargo into the rusty rattletrap, which sped away as fast as it could go without squealing the tires.

I paused to ponder what I had just seen. I felt every bit a drooling dog as Bruno, being practically knocked off my seat by this half naked girl showing up at the house I had just reported a couple days ago. I was astounded this chick and her accomplice were robbing the place right out from under the nose of the old lady. Or were they? 

I considered the notion a moment then dismissed it. That untethered ass had made it to the door and back in a slick purple streak. There was no way she could have broken down the door, jacked the old lady’s shit, then run away that fucking fast. And why would the antiquated old dame have brand new laptops on hand, still in the box? She looked like the type for which a rabbit ear TV represented her high water mark of technology. If she had even been introduced to email, a son or grandchild probably had to come help her open it.

I drove off toward my first parking spot, trying to shake those tits and ass out of my head, lest I be forced to break away somewhere and fap to take off the edge. As I fiddled with the knob on my focus, not the one in my pants, I experienced an epiphany, a sort of dog-walking Damascus-road moment. The scales had not completely fallen from my eyes, but I had solved one part of the groovy mystery behind Dusty’s operation. 

The old lady’s porch was a dump site, where expensive items were delivered then retrieved later. This was why I was out walking the dog, and probably later flogging the dog to the fantasized image of that curvaceous, purple-painted minx. Dusty had me on the lookout for drop points where her cohorts could retrieve merchandise later with little or no interference, like the homes of little old ladies who couldn’t move fast enough to beat their porch invaders to the door, or weren’t even aware their doorsteps were being hijacked, stuck as they were in a technological stone age where operating a cell phone, much less a doorbell cam, was a major head-scratcher.

Okay, so the muddled image was starting to gain clarity, but I still had questions. Somebody had to pay for the pricey merchandise sent to these neglected, unswept, cobwebby doors. For the scheme to be profitable, it must involve very little overhead. Nobody was going to buy a laptop off the back of a truck unless the price was significantly reduced. There would be no money in it for Dusty and her minions unless their investment was practically zero.

Where was that seed money coming from?

I contemplated these things while Bruno and I made our regular rounds around Lake Christie, just a boy and his dog out for a little exercise, taking the pleasant cool breeze off the water.

Bruno remained more listless than the day before, his paws dragging a little, his jowls drooping closer to the ground. 

Then, as the shadows lengthened and we called it a day, I drove by the house occupied by that lovely pair of disembodied eyes. Bruno must have caught her ghostly scent through the open window, because he began howling like a rabid hound out of hell.

“Come on big fella,” I said. “There’s no point going over there.”

I tried to slip past ghost-eye’s house, but the dog had other plans. He sprung into the passenger compartment with such force he knocked my hand off the steering wheel. I swerved a little, and as I fought for control Bruno lunged toward the half open window. For a moment I was afraid he was going to leap out, so I eased the van to the curb and applied the brakes.

“Okay boy, take it easy. We’ll go take a look, okay?”

I swear Bruno understood my words, because he calmed down. I had no further doubt who walked who in this relationship. I turned the van around and parked it, within a short walking distance of that spectral abode where human sensory organs took on a life of their own, independent of the flesh and bone that spawned them.

I put Bruno back on his leash, and he tugged me along toward the big front window again. There he propped himself up with his paws on the window ledge and peered into those unshaded, empty hallways, his tongue wagging energetically, as if his canine eyes, or more likely his nose, were privy to secrets that completely escaped me. I peeked in along with him, but this time saw nothing. I confess I was a little disappointed.

From then on, Bruno and I made our pilgrimage there at the end of every work day. Even if we weren’t working in the immediate vicinity of the scrap yard for decommissioned eyeballs, Bruno would whimper and whine until I dropped by, only to see nothing. Unless Bruno’s secret senses counted as second sight.

Just a day or two after spotting purple-haired girl I got a note on the van’s dashboard saying we were changing neighborhoods. The envelope included a map of some streets southwest of Lake Christie, not more than half a mile away.

That was okay with me, because it seemed we had pretty much milked the old neighborhood dry. It was getting boring going back there every day with no real prospect for fresh leads. Dusty had not gotten snippy with me again after the first day, so I assumed I was performing to her expectations. Not that I cared whether the fat bitch approved of me or not, I just wanted to keep the Benjis rolling in.

I was an old hand at this by now, developing a keen eye for residences that were more hotels than homes, where the marginal occupants might be working three jobs in the gig economy to make the mortgage, and couldn’t afford kiddies to tuck into bed. The new American way. On the first day in the new neighborhood I phoned in three promising prospects. I felt pretty sure further cultivation would bear good fruit. 

Nobody was around to suspect us of any wrongdoing. I felt pretty confident we had seamlessly blended into this new area without arousing suspicion. Until, around five pm, that is, when I saw that mail truck looming in the distance.

By this time I had memorized the vehicle number. This was not another mailman driving a similar truck. It was the same grumpy old fart who had been dogging my paw prints from the beginning.

Gramps was either growing more bold, or more sure of his convictions. In the past he would roam around in the distance like a wolf stalking the fringes of a buffalo herd, uncertain whether to attack. But on this day he did a U turn, pulled up right alongside, rolled down the window, then spoke to me for the first time. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

He was just a mailman, not a cop, but the grizzled and gray old dude, eroded on the outside by decades in the sun, still had an authoritative air. Unlike a cop, he spoke with a certain paternal, patient quality, as if correction, not punishment, was his ultimate aim. 

I felt a certain amount of squirming in my bowels, like when you see the red and blue lights flash in your rearview while you’re blazed.

“I’m just walking the dog, sir,” I said. I really didn’t have to talk to him at all, but he had something of the hound dog himself, and would track my trail to the ends of the earth if I didn’t put a stop to this now.

I gestured to the logo on the side of the van. 

“I work for this dog walking company.”

Then I flashed my award-winning smile. My charm usually worked on everyone, but not on him, because his frozen expression never unthawed.

“Uh huh,” he responded with a skeptical sneer. “You walk that same damn dog every day, all day long. Dogs need exercise, but you’re walking that poor dog to death. Doesn’t your company have any more clients, that you walk the same dog all the time?”

Dusty had coached me on what to say in such situations. I forced down a trembling stammer and recalled my lessons.

“Well sir,” I said respectfully, “I just walk the dogs they assign me. I don’t have any input into the scheduling. They give me dogs, and I walk them. My boss tells me some dog owners have deep pockets and rambunctious dogs. These rich people want their dogs to be tired out by the time they get home from work, so they pay us to walk them all day. Is there something wrong with that?”

The mailman leaned back in the chair of his postal vehicle, and the look on his stoic face didn’t reveal if he was proud or pissed.

“That’s a very impressive speech, young man,” he answered, “and also well rehearsed. I applaud you on your diction. For that reason, I’ll let you get by with a warning.”

“A warning?” Since when did mailmen give fucking warnings?

The mailman unbuckled himself, then leaned over to the passenger side of his vehicle.

I felt uncharacteristically intimidated, but Bruno experienced no such pangs. He scooted up to the driver’s compartment, turned his fuzzy face toward the mailman, then started whimpering and scratching at the door until I let him out. Once freed he went over to the mailman, who obligingly opened the door of the postal truck, whereby Bruno hopped in and curled up at his feet among mail buckets. 

Well that’s weird. Damn dog is supposed to be on my team.

“Look son,” the mailman said, as he scratched Bruno behind his floppy ears. “I’ve driven around the block enough to figure out how this goddam game works. Your Dusty Dogwalker is just a front for organized crime. Here’s how the operation works, in case you haven’t figured it out. Your employer operates on multiple levels. First she gets people with pocket scanners, commonly known as RFID skimmers, or flippers, to steal credit card numbers from completely unsuspecting people, standing in the checkout line of the supermarket, convenience store or ball game with their wallet in their back pocket, completely oblivious anyone can rob their bank data this way. Pickpocketing in the digital age, I guess you could say. These thieves then give the stolen card numbers to your quote unquote employer, who dispatches you to search for promising merchandise drop sites, using your dog walking gig as a pretext.”

“You and man’s best friend here slave around in the hot sun to locate places matching the specifications – perhaps a vacant house, an old lady’s front porch, or a residence occupied by upwardly mobile go-getters who are never home. From there your boss orders very expensive items on the Internet with the stolen credit card data, then ships them to the addresses you provide. After that, another team moves in to pick the stuff up. All of these are big ticket items of course, to make the effort worthwhile. The stolen goods then get shopped on a dark web website, and everybody gets a cut. Your boss gets the biggest cut, of course, and takes the least risk. Does that shock you?”

It didn’t shock me, but it was damn good work if you could get it.

“Your boss has his or her fingers all over the place, running people in every settlement between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. I know, I chat online with my own partners in crime along the map. Maybe the boss only makes ten percent per transaction, but when you consider dozens of operations going at once ten percent per adds up to tens of thousands per week. You get what seems to be a decent payday for a broke college student used to making fifteen bucks an hour at Taco Bell, but the boss is the real winner. Meanwhile, you get exploited and put your ass on the line for a potential arrest record, while the boss hides in an office and rakes it in.”

As I listened to the mailman’s sermon. I felt detached from myself and from reality, as if abducted by aliens or standing before the throne on judgement day. What’s the difference? I considered myself a supreme bullshitter, way ahead of my peers in my ability to think and talk on my feet, but something about this dude’s righteous, straightforward manner left me flabbergasted and a little ashamed.

I managed to hold in my bowels there in the defendant’s chair, but I think I did piss myself a bit. The mailman must have sensed my discomfort, because the sternness of his expression softened, and a faint smile made his stone face more palatable.

“Look, I’m no fan of the cops, so don’t worry, I’m not going to blow the whistle on you without firing a warning shot first. But I’m an old school mailman who protects his postal customers. I don’t like to see you or anybody preying on helpless old ladies, even if Mrs. Lewis is a mean old bitch who used to call and complain about me over any pretext, back when she was younger and full of piss and vinegar. However, although you might think using vacant houses as dump sites is a victimless crime, it still means somebody who actually worked for a living, not stole for a living, got their credit card number jacked. As someone who has worked overtime, ten to twelve hour days and mostly six days a week for the past thirty five years, the concept of something for nothing deeply offends me. This is why I can’t even condone using the porches of these 24/7 urban professionals. They mean nothing to me because I never see them, but this is my backyard, and you and your dog just can’t walk in and shit in my backyard.”

The old mailman shook his head sadly, then allowed me a moment of silent contemplation, a sort of come to Jesus moment, before wrapping up his sermon. 

“The real victims, son,” he concluded, “are working people busting their asses from dawn to midnight, getting up with the chickens and going to bed with the coyotes, trying to measure up to the American dream. I cannot tolerate you preying upon these good, honest people. I understand your reasons for getting involved in this shitshow, but you’ve got to get out of it. The way I see it, you can do so of your own volition, prompted by your conscience, or I can wait to see whether your dog walking activity has ceased or not, then call the cops. You pick.”

At that point, the crusty old mailman opened the door for Bruno, who obediently returned and sat on his haunches outside the dog walking van. The dog gazed after the mailman sadly as he drove away.

I felt ashamed and a little brow beaten, as if Grandpa had just put me over his knee. But this only lasted a second, because I did not easily kowtow to authority. After the mailman drove off, I immediately started fuming and grousing there beside the van.

Who did that old fucker think he was, trying to tell me what to do? Why couldn’t he just worry about his silly mail, and leave people alone who were struggling to make a living? I had high school friends who worked two jobs and still slept in their cars. They were the ones being fleeced by business owners, the types who lived in these same neighborhoods I patrolled, who were little better than thieves themselves. Folks who possessed excess got it by exploiting poor fuckers at the bottom. Their ill gotten treasure troves must be stacked to the ceiling, if Dusty could charge three or four high price electronic devices before the bank got wise. If they lost a few thousand here or there they wouldn’t miss it much, and they might avoid theft altogether if they padded the paychecks of their exhausted employees a little more.

I was no Karl Marx calling for working people to lose their chains, and I wasn’t stupid either. I knew I couldn’t keep working this neighborhood just to stick it to that old crank. The mailman was on to me, and his threat weighed heavily upon my shoulders. I was in a pretty rigorous academic program, on my way to a cushy job post-graduation, poised to become one of these same indifferent, look the other way, not in my back yard fuckwads I had just denounced in my previous thought bubble.

I didn’t stop to ponder my hypocrisy. It would be stupid to stand against injustice, when my future prospects could be derailed by handcuffs. So I picked up the phone to tell Dusty to move me to another place, somewhere the mailmen weren’t so observant, or so goddam sanctimonious. 

“What’s up?” Dusty said, three rings after I dialed her secret number.

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