A scene from Donald Westlake's next novel.

What chu lookin' at, bitch?

This from today's Times.

Three officers were grazed by bullets yesterday morning, when the police fired more than two dozen shots at a pit bull that had locked its jaws around a fourth officer’s leg in a Bronx building.

That's right, you had one cop whirling around a Bronx hallway (which you know is as narrow as George Bush's reading list) with the dog latched onto his calf, and he's screaming "Shoot the son-of-a-bitch!" or words to that effect, and the other cops are popping off rounds like it was a Baghdad wedding.

Twenty-six shots were fired at Red, the pit bull. Nine hit the dog. The others skinned the legs of the police officers who danced a 40 caliber rag in the gathering gunsmoke.

Red, who according to the Times, was 12 years old and weighed about 45 pounds, died at the scene.

The officers died later of embarrassment.

“The shooting was justified,” the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said yesterday. “As with any police shooting, the tactics employed, including the number of shots fired, will be examined by the firearms review board.” There will be no autopsy of the dog as the nine bullet holes seemed to rule out sudden death due to illness.

The dog's owner said the officers were in pursuit of a teenage boy they saw smoking marijuana on the stairwell when Red got between the cops and the kid. The kid got away, but not before losing his buzz.

Red was described by neighbors as "a good dog who was kinda quiet and kept to himself pretty much."