6. Doolittle On the Docks

Chapter six

Doolittle On the Docks

T his felt like a stupendously bad idea. Bad. Bad. Bad. What the hell did K expect to find? We'd picked up a car from the motor pool and headed out, but I could tell we wouldn't find whatever K wanted to find driving down Port Tampa Drive simply because there wasn't anything there. Trees, Palmettos, Palms, shrubs, and an occasional break in the vegetation to see some shipping yards with their giant orange skeletal things that moved the containers on and off the barges. Those big square-like things made me think of a praying mantis for some reason, though they weren't shaped like that. There were also occasional warehouse buildings, but those were behind fences. It would be extremely obvious that we didn't belong there.

Surprisingly, at the end of the long ass road to nowhere, we found a park. At least we could use that as an excuse to be somewhere we weren't supposed to be if it came down to it—the old we're lost and looking for the park bullshit. And said park was practically empty, with only one older guy out on the short beach area, walking his dog, but that perked K up. "Hey. Why don't you go talk to the dog? I can ask the owner some questions and you can get some K9 intel?"

"No."

"No? But that's your thing."

"Dogs are horrible, K. You have no idea."

"What?" He was completely incredulous. He had no idea. "I love dogs." He bounced around in his seat like he was ready to burst out and hug the first mutt he saw. Yuck. "And he looks so sweet."

"Don't do that with your voice."

K glared at me. "Are you even human?"

"Maybe not. But seriously. Dogs hate me, and we won't get any info from it." I put the car in gear and tapped the gas. "Let's go."

K pouted as we drove away from the park. There was nothing else out here except the air base, and we did not need to mess with the military.

"Hey, wait. Look at that."

"What?"

"Back up and slow down."

Instead of backing up, I pulled to the side of the road and turned around. As we drove back down Picnic Island Boulevard, I spotted what K had on the first drive-by. An easily missed driveway up to another shipping business, but this one wasn't marked by signs announcing who the company was. All the others had shrubs and undergrowth cut back enough to see the parking lot for employees, a building or two and, more importantly, the sign blazed with the company name. But not this one. It was small, so that could have been the reason for the difference, but I had a feeling it wasn't.

We couldn't get a good view of what was there through the trees or from the road. Plus, it would look super suspicious for us to park on the side of the road or, worse, drive in there. I passed the opening and stopped a little way up the road at the huge operation with the giant Florida Gas Transmission sign. I parked in a public area, all too aware of the no-trespassing signs posted all over the fencing.

"What are we doing?"

"Getting ops. Come on." We got out of the car and walked around. At least K had on better shoes, tennis shoes, so not perfect, but they'd hold up better than loafers. I'd have to get him a good pair of boots, but for now, we could work with what we had.

K followed me around, close to my side. "What?" he asked again, but I shushed him.

Finally, up closer to the buildings and fencing we couldn't get behind, I found what I wanted. "Hey. Hey, bird. Come here a second."

"What da fuck you want?" The pigeon cooed at me, but I heard the hostility behind his seemingly soothing noises.

"Want to make a deal?"

"Deal? What deal?" The bird flew closer with a flutter of wings and coos, landing on the ground close to the fence but still behind it.

"Uh…I need someone to take a look at that place." I pointed toward the secretive port. "Across the street, the one hidden behind all the bushes and stuff."

The pigeon bobbed its head and stared up at me with his beady eyes. "Easy enough. What do I get?"

I squatted to get closer to his level. "What do you want?"

"Bread."

"Money?" What would a bird do with money? Probably buy bread…

"What? No. Bread, moron. Food. Capiche?"

"I got it. Sure. We can do that. There's gotta be a store close."

"Yeah, yeah. I can show you the store."

"See what's going on there first." I pointed again, and the bird flew up and over the trees without another word.

K tugged my shirtsleeve. "Is he coming back?"

"Yes, and hopefully, with some info we can use." I was surprised our exchange had gone so well. Normally, animals didn't care for me. I could only assume it was the promise of bread.

We waited. And waited. "He may have been sidetracked. Short attention span, small brain, and all that." I shrugged.

K sighed.

But another flutter of wings had us looking up and…

Splat.

The little shit did exactly that. Thankfully, on my shoulder and not my face, but fuck. "I could have roast pigeon for dinner tonight, you know."

"Ha! You'd have to catch me first. And you don't fly motherfucker."

"Wow. What a mouth on this bird." I shook my head and glared at K, daring him to laugh at me. He sucked his lips into his mouth, obviously holding it in.

"Where's my bread?"

"What did you see?"

"People." The bird was eyeing K's sneakers and going in for a peck.

I shoved K back and squatted again. "Hey. That's not enough, bird."

"I don't know what you want. What are you looking for?"

"You hang out here, right. On the docks." I waved my hand around. "Was there anything different or unusual about the place?"

"Yeah. People. All milling around like chickens. The roosters were making them go in the boxes."

After I relayed what the bird said, K squatted beside me. "That sounds suspicious, Doolittle." He nudged my shoulder. "Ask him how many and what they looked like."

"I think that's too much to expect."

"They were like him. Like this one." The bird pecked K's sneaker. "All scrawny chickens. Now bread."

K tried to scoot away and fell on his ass. "Why's he doing that?"

"He says the people look like you. Small and scrawny."

"I'm not—"

"Shush. Thanks, bird. We have to go to the store for bread. Can you follow our car?"

"Duh."

"Let's go."

We climbed in the car, and I headed back to the residential area that wasn't terribly far from the dog park. "See if there's a store we can get bread." I started whistling as I drove, not sure if I liked where this was going, but at least it was more exciting than sitting in a bar.