Why does Molly lick the doona? He asked me as we sat on the couch. Who’s Molly, I thought. But it wasn’t the right time to ask. He was brandishing a gun and I’d only just handed over the suitcase with the money inside. I needed to stay sharp to get out of there alive.
I looked up at him. ‘You’re not really going to shoot me, are you?’ I implored. He lifted an arm and swung it around me. ‘Nah’, he drawled, tapping the suitcase on the coffee table in front of him with the gun in his other hand, ‘You’re too valuable.’ He grinned, his largely toothless smile doing nothing to set me at ease. He was still pointing the gun at me.
Out the window I could see a man in the garden playing with Lemmy, who was chasing the hose. I wished I hadn’t brought him with me now. A small cocker spaniel, Lemmy had done nothing to deserve being caught up in a situation where a violent man might kill his owner. There was no telling what would happen to Lemmy if I died. Although the man in the garden seemed to be enjoying his company so there was some chance he’d be looked after even if I wasn’t.
‘Why does Molly lick the doona?’ my companion restated his earlier question. ‘You’ve got a dog, surely you can tell me what’s going on here.’ His eyes slid sideways and he gestured with his head towards a large white dog occupying an arm chair covered in a colourful doona. The dog was licking the doona as though the pattern tasted of bacon – she couldn’t get enough of it.
‘I don’t know, man. Maybe she’s nervous? Or hot? After all today was forty degrees and it’s stinking in here. Does she have any water?’ I rose slowly from the couch, indicating that I was just going to check Molly out. I walked across the room and held my hand out for her to sniff. She sniffed, then licked my hand. I felt her nose, which was hot and dry. ‘Man, I think she’s really thirsty. You need to get her some water.’
‘Jerry’, the man with the gun yelled out the window at his colleague in the garden with Lemmy. ‘Use that hose to fill up a bucket and bring it in here.’ Seconds later Jerry appeared at the door carrying a bucket with Lemmy soaking at his heels. It was hard to stay worried with a drenched cocker spaniel in the room. ‘Give Molly some water.’ Jerry put the bucket on the floor in front of the white dog. She looked down, slid off the chair and stood over the bucket before lowering her head fully into it, shaking about and flicking water across the room. Then she drank, taking long gulping slurps for what seemed like ages as we sat and watched her.
‘I think she was just hot and thirsty’, I laughed nervously, ‘She’s clearly feeling better now.’ Lemmy came over and rubbed his wet snout against my leg. ‘Can we go now?’ I asked.
Molly’s owner looked from the suitcase on the table to the gun in his hand. He lent forward on the couch and slotted the gun down the back of his jeans. He looked at me. ‘I can’t kill a dog lover’ he growled, ‘Get out of here.’
‘Lemmy, come.’ I stood and walked shakily from the room and out of the house with my dog. At the front door I started running with Lemmy loping quickly behind me. How long would it be before they looked in the suitcase and realised only the top layer of notes was real?
