The Dinner Guest - Chapter 25: Abito in "On a Leash"

I thought Miami was fucked up, but it turns out that place has nothing on New Orleans.

It was Day 2 of my stakeout on the house Lola went into and so far I'd seen my share of weird shit.

Even though I was hiding in the bushes, I still ended up bumming two packs worth of smokes to about 40 dudes who said they were in something called Rebirth Brass Band. And from the house, a naked retard dude came crashing into my hiding spot.

"Assitez-moi!" he groaned. He looked sad and helpless, but he was jeopardizing my position.

"Get out of here, you freak," I said, giving him a kick.

He started running down the street and the house door flew open. Standing there was a mustached man holding a taser and a butterfly net.

"Ou est vous, my slow little man?" he called out down the street.

It didn't take him long to round up the retard and march him back inside.

"Come back and you can look at my comics," he told the guy. "You like Tin Tin?"

Near the end of the second day, my wrist communicator started ringing. Uh oh, this was never good.

I flipped open the screen and saw the face of the Lieutenant back at the station staring at me.

"Where the hell are you, Abito? If I had a Tyberian nickel for every time you went off the radar, I wouldn't need to wait for my shitty pension."

The boss didn't look happy, but what else was new. In his defense, it was sometimes tough to tell. Robot pandas just look sad sometimes.

"What the hell happened in Miami? I'm getting reports pouring in of dead children."

Damn. I guess it was too much to hope he'd never hear of that.

"It was that bastard McGruff," I lied. "The psycho when crazy and did some damage before I took him down."

"It's a mess, Abito, and I'm getting tired of cleaning those up. Where the hell are you now?"

"L.T., I'm hot on the trail of the space witch. It's taken me to an Earth settlement called New Orleans."

The giant panda laughed.

"Well, I'll be fucked. For a crappy-ass detective sometimes you get lucky. I was calling to reassign you to a new case in that city."

I was shocked. After everything that happened, I was getting yanked.

"Boss, I'm still trying to find Karl. This is the only lead I got and you know this is personal. If you take this from me now, you might as well take my badge."

"Quit with the dramatics, you asshole. I get enough of that from my ex-wife. There's a bigger problem you need to deal with first."

I sighed and asked him what my orders were.

"We're getting tips about an intergalactic diamond smuggling operation and the ringleader is in New Orleans. Take him down."

"What's his name?" I asked the boss.

"I'm sending over coordinates to his jewelry shop," he paused. "You may have heard of him. He's known simply as The Jew."

I did know the name. And I knew things were going to get messy again.