A Pinch of Cool. Mary Leo

it was a fake smile. One of those pasted on things that used to drive her crazy when they were kids and he’d want to play soldier and she wanted to play anything but.

      Voodoo started barking. Nothing too loud, only it had a guttural sound that made her nervous just being in the van with him. She didn’t know what she was scared of most, Voodoo or the two guys on the stoop.

      Eric continued to lure her as he jumped out with his handheld professional-looking camcorder. “I don’t know if you should stay in there.”

      “Why?”

      “Well, sometimes Voodoo—”

      Suddenly the odor that she had gotten somewhat used to intensified.

      “Ohmigod!”

      She opened the door and leaped out of the van so fast the two guys sitting in front of the store stood up to watch. Eric filmed the whole thing.

      Fine!

      “What did you feed him? That’s awful!” Mya hissed.

      “Are you okay, lady?” one of the guys yelled from the stoop.

      Mya turned and said, “Fine. I’m fine. Thanks.” She pasted one of her own fake smiles on her face.

      “Like I said, when he’s gotta go, my boy’s gotta go.”

      Mya followed Eric to the back of the van while he opened the doors. “Just get the dog out here, and don’t take too long taping in there, ’cause I’m not going to last too long out here. This whole thing is insane.”

      “Great. I’ll only be a couple minutes.”

      Eric freed Voodoo from his cage. The dog already wore a body harness with a thick black strap to hold him. He completely ignored Mya and jumped on the ground and headed for the nearest tree. The two scary guys slowly stood up and made their way into the tavern. A woman crossed the street as soon as she spotted the dog and a teenage boy hightailed it up the sidewalk.

      Voodoo was like walking with a visible grenade. Everybody wanted to get out of your way.

      So much for tattoos and mean looks.

      “Here,” Eric said, handing her the leash. “You better hold on with both hands. He’s very strong.”

      Mya grabbed hold, wrapping the strap around one of her hands for extra strength. She figured as long as the creature didn’t really look at her, she would be all right.

      Eric went off happily taping the tavern, and even went inside, to apparently talk with the guys, while Mya held on to Voodoo.

      Okay, she could do this. There was no reason to be scared of this animal. Eric had said he was a puppy dog, and he had done his smelling thing, so he was used to her scent.

      Walking Voodoo didn’t have quite the same feel as walking a schnauzer, or even a golden lab. Having Voodoo on the end of your leash was like walking a tiger. You went where he led you, and at the moment that meant a tiny patch of dirt in front of a scrawny stick of a tree a few yards away from the van.

      As soon as he found his spot and marked it with his pee, he proceeded to take a dump. Mya looked away, wondering if there was a law in this neighborhood about cleaning up the mess. Of course, there was no way that she would even consider picking up whatever rot that dog emitted from his foul body.

      Suddenly there was a tug on the leash. Mya turned to check him out and watched as Voodoo tried to cover his dump with his hind legs. He sent leaves, grass and his rotten whatever all over the place, with some of it landing on the parked pick-up truck next to him. And as if that wasn’t enough, he lifted a leg and peed on the back tire.

      “Oh, my God!” was all Mya could say as Voodoo ran from the crime scene with Mya in tow. He headed right back to the van. But there was somebody yelling at her and obviously chasing them from behind. Mya was not about to look back; besides, she could barely keep up with Voodoo’s pace. But whoever was chasing them sounded very male, very big and enormously angry.

      Eric suddenly appeared in front of the tavern, took one look at the situation and hurried to the back of his van. He opened one of the doors just as Voodoo leaped inside. Mya followed, tumbling in on top of him, then hitting the floor with a thud. There was something wet and yellow under Mya’s hands. She desperately tried not to notice, but it was almost too much for her to assimilate. She told herself to relax, as long as it wasn’t acid, she would be fine.

      Eric closed the door, ran around to the front, jumped in and took off squealing as if they had just robbed that tavern and they were on the lam in some crazy movie.

      Bonnie and Clyde and Voodoo.

      When Mya looked up, Voodoo was staring right at her, obviously excited and waiting for a pat on the head for being such a good dog. She couldn’t even think of touching him.

      Then, as if he could hear her thoughts, he shook his head and saliva slapped her right in the face.

      She sat up, wiped the spittle from her cheek and calmly proceeded to remove one of Eric’s obviously expensive video cameras from its case. A very nice Panasonic DVCPRO Camcorder, to be precise.

      This should get me home.

      ERIC DROVE THE VAN while Mya scooted herself to the front. She knelt down behind him and said, in a matter-of-fact voice, “If you don’t take me home right this minute, I’ll throw your frickin’ camera right out the frickin’ window.”

      Eric glanced at her through his mirror. Sure enough she was holding his best camera up for ransom. It reminded him of when she threatened him with his boom box.

      The girl still had spunk, he had to give her that.

      “I know you’re a little upset, but—”

      “A little upset! I’m a whole lot upset and if I don’t get out of this stink-mobile pretty soon, there’s no telling what I might do.”

      Eric remembered the time she had thrown his favorite Transformer down the toilet, then flushed and grinned at him as the water washed over their feet from the overflowing bowl. They were both grounded for an entire month, but Mya never seemed to care about the punishment once she was on a track of getting even.

      Yeah, so maybe he had shaved Barbie’s head bald, and maybe it had been her favorite doll, but he couldn’t take all that incessant chattering all the time. The girl never shut up. Mya had been a vindictive child, but was she actually capable of throwing his camera out the window just because she wanted to go home? He gazed at her face once again through his mirror. She held the camera up next to the open passenger window.

      Damn straight she was.

      “All right. You win. I’ll take you home, just put my camera down. Gently.”

      “How do I know you’re telling the truth and you won’t make another stop at an even worse tavern?”

      “You have my word.”

      “And what’s that good for these days?”

      “Whatever you want. Dinner? A movie? My head on a platter.”

      “My mom’s house is all I’m interested in at the moment. I’ll take your head another time, thank you very much.”

      “We should be there in fifteen minutes, tops.”

      “Fine!”

      Mya put his camera back in the case. Eric was somewhat relieved, but now he knew she still had that ornery streak. Part of him thought it was cute, but the other part of him thought he needed to watch his step. The girl could blow at any minute.

      Eric watched as Mya stepped over the console and sank into the front seat. Her dress slid up her legs all the way to her red-and-white polka-dot panties and Eric flushed.

      Don’t get excited. She hates you right now.

      “And could you please call off your dog,” Mya said as Voodoo’s head came poking