Brute Strength (17 page)

So, the next morning, when Gabrielle decided that we finally had time to implement the ill-conceived plan to conduct a mock consumer-satisfaction survey, I thought of Sammy and tried to show comparable good grace in accepting the reality of having been outranked. As Sammy was no match for Kimi, so I was no match for the combined forces of Gabrielle and Betty, especially Betty, who was, of course, the human incarnation of Kimi.

‘Now,' said Gabrielle, who was seated at the kitchen table with the new corded phone and a great pile of papers in front of her, ‘while you and Steve were taking your walk yesterday, I called Betty, and we've come up with a list of survey questions. We also decided that the tactic to take is newest first. Betty pointed out that it's unlikely that this dreadful man is someone who's been harboring a grudge for months or years. It's probably someone who was rejected shortly before the calls started. And we think it's one of your applicants, or that's our working hypothesis. You're the one he called first, and he bothered to find out Vinnie's name.'

‘Would you like some coffee?' I asked in the first of my efforts at delay.

‘No, I don't think so. Thank you, but we want to sound professional, don't we.' The tag was not a question. ‘We don't want kitchen sounds in the background.'

‘What about dog noises? Rowdy and India are in the yard. India might bark.' The noisiest of the dogs, Molly, was crated upstairs in Gabrielle's room; and Sammy and Lady were at work with Steve. The only dog loose in the kitchen was my radical feminist, Kimi, whose strong presence was intended to remind me to stand up for myself if the mock survey became more than I could tolerate. ‘And if someone comes to the door, Kimi might
woo-woo
.'

‘That'll just lend verisimilitude,' Gabrielle said. ‘After all, the survey does have to do with dogs.'

‘I thought that you were supposed to represent a market-research company.'

‘Specializing in dogs. So, first of all, we have to make sure that this number doesn't show up on anyone's caller ID.'

‘There's a code for that. We'll have to enter it before every call.' Even though Kimi's dark, intelligent eyes were on me, I dutifully entered the code. ‘But, look, Gabrielle, you have to understand that I am far from sure that I'll recognize the voice. When I got that call, the kitchen was full of people, and then when he started asking for Vinnie—'

Gabrielle smiled sweetly. ‘Just do your best.' She pressed the speakerphone button. Over the sound of the dial tone, she said, ‘Since Betty and I think that the most likely culprit is one of
your
applicants, we're starting with your recent ones.' She picked up the application on top of one of the piles. ‘Irving Jensen. What's this you've written here? I have a little trouble reading your writing.'

‘So do I.' I took a quick look at the application and at the notes I'd scrawled on it. ‘Oh, he was impossible! He doesn't believe in fences, he wants an intact dog, and he said he'd owned lots of dogs, but he didn't give a vet reference, and the reason, according to him, was that all the dogs were healthy. And on top of that, he swore at me.'

‘A propensity for obscenity.' She took back the application and dialed Jensen's number.

A man answered.

‘Good morning,' said Gabrielle in a voice higher and lighter than her own throaty, seductive alto. ‘This is Gail with Canine Consumer Satisfaction. May I speak to Irving Jensen, please?'

‘This is him. We don't want none.'

‘I'm calling to find out whether you were satisfied with your recent experience with Alaskan Malamute Rescue. Were you treated courteously by the organization's representative?'

‘We already got one.'

‘A malamute?'

‘My daughter come home with some damned little yapper.'

In gracious tones, Gabrielle asked, in an effort to keep Jensen talking, ‘And what kind of little dog is it?'

‘One of them bitchin' frizzies. Pisses all over the place.'

Gabrielle's expression was as severe as I'd ever seen it. ‘Bichon frise. I see.'

By then, I was shaking my head, mouthing ‘no', and gesturing to Gabrielle to hang up.

‘Well, Mr Jensen, thank you for your time. Goodbye.' She ended the call. ‘What a dreadful man! Bitchin' frizzy, indeed!'

‘I hate to tell you, but I've heard it before, presumably as a joke. A bad joke. Anyway, he's not the one. I didn't think I'd be able to tell anything, but I'm positive. For one thing, I notice grammatical errors. I'm a writer. “My daughter come home”? And Jensen sounds . . . he sounds coarse. The caller was obscene, eventually, but he didn't sound coarse.'

‘Scratch Irving Jensen. The poor bichon! I hope his daughter is better than he is.'

‘I hope so, too.' My surprising certainty about Jensen boosted my confidence in what I'd previously seen as a loopy enterprise. ‘Who's next?'

‘A couple. Don and Diane Di Bartolomeo.' She handed me the application.

‘He actually might have it in for me. The wife was the one I talked to. The husband, Don, was the one who wanted a malamute. The wife, Diane, said that he could get any medium-sized dog that didn't shed. That's why she agreed to a malamute. I broke the news.'

Again, I blocked our number from displaying on caller ID, and Gabrielle dialed. To her obvious disappointment, a woman answered. Even so, Gabrielle ran through the same introduction she'd used before.

‘Were we treated courteously?' asked Mrs Di Bartolomeo. ‘Well, frankly, no. I can't say that I find it courteous to be told that a dog would be better off dead than in our home. I find that highly insulting.'

‘Let me make sure I understand. The, uh, representative threatened to—'

‘Not in so many words. And not that it matters now.'

I was rolling my eyes and mouthing, ‘I told her no such thing!'

Gabrielle asked, ‘So, you've changed your mind about wanting a malamute?'

‘Not at all! We found a wonderful, knowledgeable breeder. She explained that the rescue person didn't know what she was talking about. Malamutes come in all different sizes, you see, and the puppy we're getting is going to be a medium-sized dog. He won't get to be more than forty or at most fifty pounds. And they don't shed anything like what that rescue woman said, either.'

I mouthed, ‘Who?'

‘Why, that's wonderful,' Gabrielle said. ‘I'm very happy for you. This breeder sounds like a gem.'

‘Oh, she is!'

‘I wonder if she's someone I happen to know.'

‘Her name is Pippy Neff. She is
very
well known.'

‘Well, the best of luck with your puppy! And thank you for your time.'

When Gabrielle had hung up, I said, ‘At most fifty pounds! And for a male! Damn Pippy! Yes, once in a while there's a malamute bitch that small, but hardly ever. And not from Pippy's lines.' I removed a dog hair that had somehow ended up in my mouth. ‘And shedding! Well, let the Di Bartolomeos find out for themselves. They had a dog that was killed by a car, and the husband lied about it on his application, but who knows? Maybe they'll turn out to be great owners. Once the puppy grows up, maybe they'll love him and forgive him for being a big hairy dog. And keep him on leash.'

Gabrielle then placed a couple of other calls, reached answering machines, and did not, of course, leave messages. We took a coffee break and resumed.

‘Next is Flood. Eldon,' she said.

‘With the farm stand. He was interested in one of the dogs on our website, Thunder. Anyway, according to Mr Flood, he has a special gift with dogs, and my problem is that I just don't train 'em right. That's why I have to use a leash and why I need a fence. But I was perfectly polite to him. I probably told him that this was the wrong breed for his situation. I think maybe he did hang up on me. I'm pretty sure he didn't swear at me, though.'

‘The perfect gentleman.'

‘I've talked to worse. Well, his application said that he had a farm when it's a farm stand, but that's no big deal. I looked at the website for the farm stand. It does exist. He has a wife, Lucinda. Anyway, he didn't really lie about anything, at least that I know about.'

‘Bully for him. Ready?'

I nodded. Gabrielle dialed, and a machine answered the call. ‘Thank you for calling Flood Farm.' The voice was a man's. ‘We are open Wednesday through Sunday from ten to six until May 15. After May 15, we are open seven days a week. For directions, press . . .'

By then, I was sitting upright and pointing a finger at the phone. Gabrielle hung up.

‘I'm not positive,' I cautioned. ‘But he could be the one. What I'm sure of is that we can't rule him out.'

‘Well, it's just too bad that this is May fifth. We'll have to wait until Wednesday to take a little drive into the country and stop at a farm stand. What on earth do they sell at this time of year? Radishes? What else is ready?'

‘Plants, garden supplies. You can visit their website if you want. Pies, Native American crafts, dried flowers, jam, stuff like that, and later on, fresh produce, probably pumpkins and then Christmas trees and wreaths.'

‘I find myself overcome with an acute longing for pie,' said Gabrielle. ‘And a Native American craft object, dried flowers, and jam.'

‘Gabrielle, I am not positive. All I said was that we can't rule him out. And we don't even know whether Eldon will be there on Wednesday.'

‘Of course we don't! But we'll find out.'

TWENTY-ONE

I
n case you wondered, I really did have the sense it could have been Eldon Flood who'd made the nasty call. Still, my statement that we couldn't rule him out had the happy effect of bringing the sham survey to a halt. Thus instead of having to spend the rest of Monday and all day Tuesday listening to Gabrielle ask people whether they'd been treated courteously by Malamute Rescue, I had the time to finish scraping the paint on the north side of the house and to complete the preparations assigned to me for Saturday's National Pet Week event at the armory. I called Max Crocker to confirm that he and Mukluk would help with the Malamute Rescue booth and to tell him that we still didn't have a cat-friendly rescue female for him. I did not, of course, add, ‘But I do have the right woman!'

The right woman, Rita, returned from the Cape looking more relaxed than she had since the unfortunate episode with Quinn Youngman. She went back to seeing her patients and agreed to help out on Saturday. Steve, bless him, solved the problem of taking Willie to a public event for which he was temperamentally unsuited by offering to handle Willie himself. Unlike Eldon Flood and lots of other people who bragged about possessing a special gift with dogs, Steve, the most unassuming of men, quietly exerted an almost hypnotic power over animals. It's possible that in some previous existence, he was a snake charmer, not that I've seen him with snakes, but something about his presence had a soothing effect on dogs and cats, including challenging ones like Willie. Even the ultimate challenge, my cat, Tracker, had trusted Steve from the moment I'd rescued her. In spite of all my efforts, she still occasionally hissed at me when I entered her abode, my office, but from the beginning, she'd purred for Steve and for Steve alone. Did Steve in fact cast a spell on animals? Maybe not. It's possible that animals trusted him for the simple reason that he was trustworthy. In any case, with his leash in Steve's capable hands, Willie would be trustworthy, too.

Late on Tuesday afternoon, Sammy and I went to Vanessa's so that he could dash around the yard with Ulla, who greeted me by plopping her rear onto the ground, raising a paw in a charming wave, and issuing melodious peals of
woo-woo-woo
readily translated into English as, ‘You are soooooooooo special!'

‘Ulla, you say that to all the girls. And boys. But you're pretty special yourself,' I told her.

While Ulla and Sammy chased each other and ran in giant figure eights, Vanessa and I chatted in the usual way that owners do while dogs play. She told me about the new car that her father was buying for her. ‘He spoils us rotten,' she commented.

‘My father is generous, too,' I said. ‘We're both lucky.'

‘But your father doesn't dwell on illness! He has other topics of conversation.'

‘Dogs,' I said. ‘And fishing.'

‘Better than everyone's ailments!'

After we'd talked about a couple of other things, Vanessa said that I was brave to use the high ladder and enterprising to do so much work myself.

‘
Enterprising
isn't Steve's word for it,' I said. ‘He thinks I'm a cheapskate, and he doesn't trust me to do everything to his satisfaction. Besides, he hates watching me up on the ladder. It's been a subject of some debate, but I know what I'm doing.'

When we switched to the topic of the National Pet Week event, I said that I'd seen posters and notices all over and that she was doing a great job of publicity. Vanessa thanked me and confirmed that she'd be managing the food table. ‘I've promised Ron I'll run it, but malamutes and food tables don't mix, so I've roped my family in.'

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘I'm afraid that the event has lost its momentum without Isaac. He was the driving force. He was the one who wanted the club to get whatever this award is from AKC.'

‘All the more reason to do it well,' Vanessa said.

As Sammy and I were leaving, we ran into Elizabeth and Persimmon, who were returning from a walk with Tom. Although the temperature was in the low seventies, Elizabeth wore a handwoven shawl, and Tom's neck was swathed in a wool scarf.