|
Bitey Vs. The Singing Senators
Bitey ©2003, Susan McNerney
“It’s disturbing, isn’t it?” That would be Turnblow talking. Not the brightest dog you’ve ever met, but he had great fur. And he was loyal. In my line of work you learn to prize loyalty above all else.
“Yeah.” I had to agree. Three hours now without a signal. No phone call, not a scent, nothing. We were on the trail of The Singing Senators, but that trail had gone cold. Night was drawing near, and the dinner bowl was empty. All in all, a crappy day.
The name is Bitey, Bitey Rodan. I carry a bone.
“You know” said Turnblow, nibbling on a Marrow-Bone Bacon Flavored treat. “I don’t think the Singing Senators are still around. That’s the word on the street.”
Damn that Turnblow. My stomach is starting to sound like a garbage pail full of cats, and I know without asking that he’s got nothing to share.
He made his point, though. He fetched me the paper, a two year old copy of the Washington Times. There it was in black and white.
Having burned both his Republican bridges and his Republican colleagues, Vermont's Jim Jeffords has also effectively sent the Singing Senators, that do-wopping, bow-tied, senatorial excursion into four-part Republican harmony which left listeners in varying degrees of slack-jawed amazement, up in smoke. In other words, it just got a little easier to be a Republican again.
Yeah, that sounded pretty final to me. What the hell – there’s no denying I’ve been napping on the job. No excuses. It’s been a bad decade so far.
The Singing Senators - we used to call them Motley Crooners – seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Trent ‘Vacant’ Lott, James ‘The Traitor’ Jeffords, Larry ‘Whozat’ Craig, and John ‘Johnny Law’ Ashcroft had created quite a ruckus on Capitol Hill in their time, terrifying junior lawmakers by unexpectedly breaking into their Oak Ridge Boys imitations whenever a piece of legislation they didn’t care for would come to the floor. ‘Elvira’, indeed.
But where were those illegal MP3s coming from if not the SS? My client didn’t want to hear excuses, he wanted results. Music piracy is destroying the industry, that’s what he told me, and then he played me some of the clips: I'll Fly Away, God Bless America, and Dig a Little Deeper. God did I ever howl.
“Listen buddy,” I tell him, “Two of those songs are in the public domain, and the third isn’t going to bring down the house anywhere.” But he was right, I was missing the point. This was an inside job, and someone was getting their bread buttered on both sides.
So I call up my buddy Drudge, see if maybe I can cash in a favor. Perhaps, he tells me. So I wait. And wait. I’m about to give up when the special line rings.
“Bitey. Matt here. I think I got your guy.”
“Talk to me Drudge.”
“Two words for you, Bitey. The Smoking Gun.”
“That’s three words, Drudge, but thanks.” I knew what he was saying. I was just afraid of what I’d find, but as awkward as my little paws are, I had the site pulled up quicker than you can say ‘You’ve got mail.’
There it was. An illegal MP3 by The Attorney General. My tail stiffened. He’s playing on both sides of the chess board, and I don’t have a pawn. I see that Turnblow has slipped out the door. Suddenly I need a drink more than I need dinner. Suddenly I don’t need dinner at all. I can use the work, but shit, I’m just a little dog. I can see a million ways this case can go wrong, badly wrong. What does The Patriot Act say about canines, anyway? | 
