The Big Snip

chosen for The Year's Best Crime & Mystery Stories 2016

The Big Snip

by Thomas Pluck

first published in Dark City Lights, edited by Lawrence Block, from Three Rooms Press

When the new girl got in the van, all Sharon saw was a sunbaked skinny-ass white girl with chicken legs, and she wasn’t sure how long she’d last. Probably couldn’t lift more than fifty pounds, at least without complaining. She wore long sleeves and kept her nails trimmed to the quick, her dishwater hair tied back, tucked down the back of her shirt. Smelled like she’d just sneaked a cigarette.

Sharon gave her a week.

But she had lasted three, long enough for Sharon to call her by name.

“Good morning, Christina,” she said, and climbed into the passenger side. She placed two boxes of syringes and vials of Telazol on the floor between her feet. “First stop’s on Dyckman.”

Christina had a driver’s license, and wasn’t afraid to bully her way through traffic with the Neuter Scooter. They usually sent her fresh-faced white girls from Queens or Long Island, who couldn’t parallel park worth a damn. All pink and scrubbed and so full of love for animals that they’d eagerly serve three months spaying feral cats and snipping pit bull balls on the street before they were allowed to intern at the veterinary hospital.

True, in the operating rooms you had a sense of urgency, like on a medical TV show. Except instead of second-string Broadway actors playing the patients, you got pampered pets who probably ate better than you did.

The Neuter Scooter was the front lines, where you earned your bones at People Who Love Animals. Every morning, they drove the modified Econoline van to pet owners who’d signed up for an appointment to alter their dog or cat at the PWLA (pronounced Poola) subsidized rate. You had to work quick and follow procedure, handle dogs that the owners often barely new, plenty of “outdoor” pets and friendly strays, and cats who’d nuzzle your hand then flay your arm a moment later.