Dog Bites Man (8 page)

"Indian. Means red-blooded, no?" Genc said with a grin.

"Yeah, that's what they say."

J
ack Gullighy broke his 9 a.m. routine twice a week and had breakfast with the Hoaglands at the mansion. After Wambli's murder, the subject was raised gingerly each time.

"Anything new about the Incident?" Jack usually would ask. (The "Incident" had become their neutral shorthand for the shooting, though Edna had wanted to call it "Operation Blockhead.") For three weeks the answer came back "No," and finally one morning Gullighy cautiously told Eldon, "Looks like you're in the clear."

That same day, at City Hall, Gullighy, as was his usual practice, held a meeting with Betsy Twinsett, the mayor's principal scheduler. Betsy was what would have been called, in a less sensitive time, a sweet young thing. Pretty, pert and blonde, she had been recommended to Eldon by her father (a campaign contributor), and since she had asked for only a modest salary (which appealed to the mayor's sense of thrift), he had hired her.

Betsy had a small office at City Hall, just big enough for a desk and one file cabinet, and was charged with processing the invitations, requests for appearances by the mayor and other claims on his time that arrived by the score each day. Conscientious to a fault, she toiled through the mounds of correspondence and, as she worked, gently dislodged blonde hair from her face with a little blow that sounded as if she were exhaling cigarette smoke (a cute tick that was much admired). The only problem was that, only three years out of Smith, she was not as sophisticated as she might be; she was not suspicious or cynical by nature, and for her to smell a rat it had to be very dead and very pungent.

Eldon had asked Jack, the great connecter-upper, informally to oversee her performance. He did this in a friendly meeting each Wednesday morning. His supervision had paid off. Betsy, for example, had been thrilled when the manager for Vito Mombelli, the internationally renowned tenor, had proposed that his client receive the Handel Medallion, the city's highest award for cultural achievement. As a quid pro quo, Mombelli would be willing to give a recital at Gracie Mansion.

Gullighy had had to dampen his young charge's enthusiasm by pointing out that the rakish Mombelli had been pursued for years, in court and out, by a young woman calling herself Vera Mombelli who claimed that he was her father. (Met security had started years before to keep an eye out for her, as she was known to stand and scream "Papa!" during ovations for her putative father.) The paternity rap had never been pinned on the tenor, but Jack had visions of a blazing
Post-News
headline along the lines of "Opera Buffa at Gracie: Vito Sings, Vera Squawks." Receiving this information, Betsy had blown her hair back, and Mombelli's chances for a medallion along with it.

This morning, as Gullighy shuffled through the stack of invitations and proposals Betsy had assembled for him, one in particular caught his eye. A letter from something called the Coalition for Animal Welfare requested that Eldon host a celebration on the upcoming feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4, to focus attention on "the need for continuing vigilance in the battle for animal rights." The leaders of the organizations making up the coalition would attend the event, on the lawn of the mansion, each bringing along his or her own pet or an animal "temporarily adopted for the day."

While chances of the Incident ever being exposed had lessened,
Gullighy saw in this proposal a chance to employ his principle of Preemptive Prophylaxis, marking the mayor as a friend of animals, with photo ops of Eldon holding a cat or stroking a dog.

He asked Betsy what she thought, and she was enthusiastic. "Neat! Little kittens and puppies on that beautiful green lawn."

"We're talking October, kid. What if it rains?"

"A rain date?"

"Yeah, I suppose. Couldn't do it with a backup tent, I guess. Too smelly."

Then Betsy, a dutiful Episcopalian, remembered that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine had an annual St. Francis fete, at which an amazing menagerie of pets were blessed by the rector. She told Gullighy of this.

"That's all right, sweetie. I'll get the cardinal behind our shindig—he has first call on St. Francis, don't you agree?"

"I'm not a theologian," she replied, blowing back a blonde lock.

"I thought not. Leave it to me, honey."

Jack leaned back in his chair (as best he could in Betsy's tiny office) and focused seriously on the proposal, looking, as he always did, for hidden land mines and leaving aside for the moment the rector of St. John the Divine. Mentally he debated the pros and cons. The letter before him had been signed by a prominent board member of the Zoological Society. He did not know all the outfits listed on the letterhead, but there certainly were respectable ones, like the New York branch of the ASPCA and the Humane Society.

Would the cardinal go along with the idea? We'll have to find out. But why should he object? (Besides, if he approves, it would help heal the tiny scar left when Eldon had politely declined to in
tervene in a fight over landmarking a Bronx parish church that the cardinal wished to close—and sell.)

The Jews? Americans United for the Separation of Church and State? The Muslims? (Others had not yet detected Muslims on their political radar; Gullighy had.) Hell, we're talking St. Francis, for Chrissake, Jack thought, not Torquemada. The white male angle? Maybe have to include St. Clare as well.

The more he thought about it, the more CAW's proposal appealed. Caw? Caw? Isn't that what crows say? Oh, well. They had thought up the acronym, he hadn't.

And it suddenly occurred to him that the festival might be an occasion for softening up new campaign contributors. Pet shop owners? Professional dog breeders? Cat food makers? This could be brilliant.

"Betsy, let me take this one," he finally said, putting the CAW letter in his pocket. He could let the proposal go through channels, via Betsy, but she would be unable to explain the Preemptive Prophylaxis benefits to her boss. "I'll talk to Eldon about it."

The good-natured Twinsett was not offended by Jack's usurpation, and the two turned to consider the other proposals on the agenda.

.    .    .

Before the next breakfast meeting, Jack checked with the Chancery Office. His pal, Msgr. George McGinty, gave his approval (after a quick check with the cardinal). The only condition was that His Eminence would expect to be invited. He also pacified the annoyed rector of St. John's, who did not at all like moving the date of his own animal love-in to the Sunday before St. Fran
cis's feast, as Gullighy proposed. But an ironclad commitment on the latter's part to produce an appearance by the mayor at whatever future event the rector designated persuaded him.

And Jack had another bright idea. Why shouldn't Eldon and Edna have a pet of their own? A lovable and irresistible bowser. The mutt could make its debut at the festival—more pictures, more publicity, more touchy-feely goodwill. No more "offing" a helpless dog.

By the time of the next breakfast meeting, Jack had not yet thought up a name for the mayor's prospective house pet, but his enthusiasm for his exercise in P.P. had not diminished. Unfortunately, he found the First Couple in an extremely grumpy mood that did not lift, so he asked what was bothering them.

"Amber," Edna snapped.

"Amber? You mean your hippie servant girl?"

"Yes! She brought us our coffee this morning
in her bare feet."

"Now, Edna," her husband temporized. "It's not as if she made the coffee with her feet. You know, ground the beans between her toes."

"Eldon, you just do not understand that she's impossible. If outsiders saw her in action, they'd say we were crazy."

"Do you think we're crazy, Jack?" the mayor asked.

Gullighy thought fast to avoid taking sides.

"Yes," he said. "Truly crazy. But for entirely different reasons than keeping Amber."

His jape broke the tension and he quickly started to present his "two-parter" for their consideration. He told them first that they needed to get a pet, probably a dog. And second, the mayor should host the St. Francis Festival.

Gullighy got so carried away with his enthusiasm that he did
not notice—a real lapse for him—the lines hardening in Eldon's face, his lips pursed tight, his eyes narrowing.

"So there it is," Jack said, concluding his rhapsody. "What do you think?" He sipped his coffee with deep pleasure, waiting for the expected congratulations.

"No and no!" Eldon roared. "Never, never, never!"

"Why?" Jack asked, startled.

"Yes, why, dear? We have to do public events—that's why I trimmed my practice, remember? This sounds as harmless as you'll find."

"I'll say it again. Never, never, never. We've never had a goddam pet. Christ, we never even had a goddam child. But that's a different story."

"The subject never came up," Edna said. "The pet, I mean."

"Goddam right it didn't. You don't know it, Edna, but I'll tell you right now, and I'll tell you, Jack, I hate dogs. Hate, loathe and despise them!"

Neither Edna nor Jack spoke, waiting for the tirade to continue.

"You never peddled papers in Minnesota. I did. The
Minnea
polis Star.
Forty below zero, ninety degrees in the shade. Didn't matter—I was out there every day. Eighty-six customers. And I swear, seventy of them had a dog. Now, I suppose, they'd all have guns, but back in my day it was dogs, dogs, dogs. Little yippie ones that just made you nervous. And big monsters that threatened your goddam life. Leap up on you and lick your face. Revolting! And every so often, bite. 'Oh, Skippy didn't mean it,' the idiots would say, when Skippy had just tried to take a substantial chunk out of my ass. They'd call up and complain when I left the paper on the sidewalk to avoid a confrontation. 'That Hoagland boy's not doing his job,' they'd tell the guy who bossed the paperboys.
'He leaves the paper anyplace but on the porch.' Then I'd catch hell, 'cause no one would believe their precious animal had endangered my life.

"And I don't like cats either. Stick their rear ends in your face when you hold them and try to be friendly—"

"I had no idea, dear," Edna said quietly. "You've certainly kept this a secret from me all these years. Maybe it explains the Incident."

"It may."

Jack seized on the mention of the Incident to explain how pet ownership and the festival were wise P.P. He expounded his thoughts on the festival again, albeit more quietly. And brought in the contributions angle, making nice with the cardinal and every other makeweight he could think of.

"As for the pet, Amber could take care of it," he added, he thought as a joke.

"That's not a good idea," Edna said flatly. Had Jack lost her support?

In the end, after Eldon had calmed down, he realized that Gullighy probably had one decent idea—the festival.

"All right, you win," he said. "We'll honor St. Francis and the animal nuts. But no beasts in this house. Not now, not ever. And don't expect me to pet a single creature at your lawn party."

"When you die, can we put a dead dog in your pyramid?" Gullighy asked.

"Not funny, Jack. Not funny at all."

S
coop Rice lay on the bed in his fourth-floor studio apartment on 87th Street. It was a walk-up and a remarkably inexpensive one, subject to the city's tangled rent stabilization laws. He had come by it serendipitously, on the basis of a meeting with the one Harvard professor he had gotten to know well (not through classes, but as the result of an interview for
The Crimson
), Albert La Falce.

La Falce had fled Harvard at roughly the same time Scoop had, in almost as dishonorable circumstances. He had been threatened with a sexual harassment suit by an English Department coed and had felt it expedient to accept a teaching offer from New York University.

Scoop, brand-new to New York and lonely, had encountered his professor friend in an East Side singles bar called Squiggles. Both were presumably looking for the same thing, hoping to find a young woman looking for a sympathetic brother type (Scoop) or a daddy (La Falce). Spying each other amid the crush, each discreetly ignored the other's salacious quest and insisted that he was there simply to have a quiet nightcap (this yelled over Donna Summer projected at full volume). Shouting, Scoop related his difficulty in finding an affordable apartment; he had already confronted the reality that his budget would most likely support only a sordid pad in an ancient Lower East Side tenement largely occupied by Chinese illegals.

La Falce could not help bragging that he, by comparison, was
comfortably set up in a penthouse apartment owned by NYU on Washington Square Park. But he had help to offer.

"I made a mistake," the professor said. "I rented this little studio on Eighty-seventh Street because I thought I needed a place to write. But with my wonderful new apartment and my office at NYU, I really don't need it. Would it suit you?"

It did, and the rent was affordable. So Scoop took it eagerly, though he couldn't help but wonder why his middle-aged friend thought that he needed a separate pad so inconveniently located from the university downtown. A love nest, perhaps? For a nestling who had decided not to roost? Scoop's suspicions were confirmed when his benefactor cautioned him that he was never to mention his "writing hideaway" if and when he should ever encounter Mrs. La Falce.

As he lay uncomfortably in the summer heat (no air-conditioning) he reflected on
l'affaire
Wambli, wondering how he would ever get to the bottom of the mystery. The Pulitzer Prize or any other award seemed remote. As a good child of the nineties, he decided to look to the Internet for help.

Clad in his underwear and sweating, he turned on his outdated notebook ("outdated" meaning it was six months old) and searched Sue Nation Brandberg's name on the Web. He found it on an impressive array of donors' lists and charity committees but unearthed nothing more personal or revealing. He was impressed with the causes she (and Harry before her) had supported; they seemed intelligent and worthwhile choices.

Scoop did notice that her name had begun to appear in connection with groups involved with animals, starting with the Humane Society. He correctly guessed that this new interest coincided with the acquisition of Wambli.

Giving up, he got dressed and visited once again the scene of the crime. He had been there several times already, hoping that some brilliant Holmesian insight would occur to him as he viewed the apartment building, the sidewalk and the curb. Why hadn't the killers left a bullet lying in the gutter or some other identifying clue?

Scoop had returned to 818 Fifth Avenue to try to break through the reserve of the doorman who had brushed him off so summarily the first time. With a $50 subvention from the modest slush fund Boyd had provided, the employee identified himself as Everson and his reticence became less pronounced. While still denying any knowledge of a shooting, he confirmed that there was a doorman/night watchman on duty at 818 Fifth every night, all night. Unfortunately the fellow on duty on the fateful evening had been fired for drinking on the job.

Everson said he would try to get the man's name and address, which he subsequently did and passed on to Scoop in a phone call. The miscreant was one Cornelius Barry and he lived in the Bronx.

It took Scoop a week to get in touch with Barry, who had been visiting relatives in Pennsylvania. But a meeting was arranged and Scoop, unfamiliar as he was with the Bronx, managed to find the shabby row house where Barry lived only with difficulty.

Barry was not taciturn but was beerily incoherent when Scoop tried to question him.

"Do you remember the night of August sixteenth?" Scoop asked. To aid the man's memory, he showed him the calendar in his engagement book.

"The nights were all pretty much the same to me. But I think that was a night when the mayor came to visit his friend Mr. Swansea. Yeah, a Monday."

"Do you know why? Was there a party?"

"No, no party. Mayor Hoagland came every so often to see Mr. Swansea. Somebody said they were friends from college.

"Nice guy, the mayor," Barry added, as he helped himself to another Budweiser. "Always very polite and with a smile for you. Unlike some of the others." ("The others" turned out to be a surly Mick Jagger and a cross, unknown mother whose three young children had trashed the lobby.)

"You know, there was supposed to be a shooting outside 818 Fifth that night."

"Shooting? First I've heard of it."

"Yeah, three guys shot a dog."

"Pfft. Someone's been pulling your leg, my boy."

"I don't think so. I've talked with a witness to the incident. You didn't hear gunshots? See three guys in black suits? Hear a dying dog? See his body?"

"Nah. I'd sure remember that."

Scoop had his doubts. He decided to quiz Barry on his own movements.

"Were you on duty there full-time?"

"Until the bloody bastards fired me."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Was I on duty? What do you think? Of course! When Cornelius Barry has a job to do, he does it!"

"So you never left the front door that whole evening?"

"Oh, well, of course I did. Man has to spend a penny every so often, you know. And I occasionally, but very occasionally, mind you, took a break down in the basement for a cigarette. You want one, by the way?"

Scoop declined.

As Barry lit up and coughed a deep smoker's cough, Scoop pressed the matter of the man's absences.

"So, Mr. Barry, you might have been on a break when the dog killers came out of the building and the shooting took place?"

"No dog killing, boy. I tell you."

Scoop pressed for a direct answer, but Barry interrupted. "Mr. Rice, you're a newspaperman, you said?"

"Yessir."

"Looking for a dead dog."

"And the men who killed him."

"Well, I'm sorry I can't be more help to you. What newspaper did you say it was?"

"The Surveyor."

"Never heard of it."

"It's new. A weekly. In Manhattan."

Which won't be in business very long if all sources are like Cornelius Barry, Scoop thought as he took his leave. A dry hole, or more accurately perhaps, a keg filled with beer.

.    .    .

Scoop was depressed that Barry had been unable to answer his sharp investigative questions. His next tack was to get a list of the apartment owners at 818 Fifth from Everson. He knew that he would be prevented from roaming the building and knocking on doors, so he resorted to the phone.

More discouragement. In several cases servants with less than a full command of English answered and became totally confused when asked by a reporter about gunshots and a dead dog. Scoop gamely asked them to leave messages for their employers to call. None did.

Then there were those who banged down the receiver as soon as he said, "My name is Frederick Rice, from
The Surveyor."
Like many of his generation he did not say this in a straightforward, declarative way; his voice rose at the end of the phrase, making it sound as if he were asking if he
was
indeed Rice of
The Surveyor.
He was mystified by the unpopularity of his publication, not realizing that his opening gambit resembled that of the unbidden phone solicitors who had sparked his Canby, Schnell stockbroking story.

One of the recipients of Scoop's calls was Leaky Swansea, who answered the phone himself, at 7:30 in the evening, somewhat the worse for wear (there had been two preprandial martinis). The conversation was not illuminating.

"Mr. Swansea? My name is Frederick Rice, from
The Sur
veyor
[?]
"

"If you say so."

"Sir, I wonder if—"

"I'm already a subscriber, though I don't know why."

"No, no. I wanted to ask if you had heard any strange noises on the night of August sixteenth. Gunshots? A dog being shot? I'm a—"

Leaky slammed down the receiver, but not before Scoop heard him bellow the word "nutcase."

.    .    .

On a whim, Scoop turned back to the Internet. Why not try to find out more about Wambli, the Staffordshire terrier? As always, he was overwhelmed at the outset, the Alta Vista search engine informing him that there were 2,580,842 Web references to "dogs." "Refine your search," Alta Vista wisely advised, which he did, seek
ing entries for "Staffordshire terriers." The quest was agonizing as he spent hours downloading pages describing the lovable virtues of individual pets. These were usually accompanied by pictures, which came up on his screen extremely slowly, with each animal shown seeming more nasty-featured than the last.

There was also much confusion, since three dog breeds seemed to be related (and maybe, depending on how you looked at it, were actually the same). The American Kennel Club said one thing, the Union Kennel Club another. There was the American Staffordshire terrier, the Staffordshire bull terrier and the American pit bull terrier. All, Scoop thought, unspeakably ugly, just as he had thought when he'd seen Sue's pictures of Wambli. Stocky creatures with silly tiny ears and big feet.

But once he got to the term "pit bull" Scoop knew his hours before the tiny screen might have paid off. Hysterical owners screamed that many municipalities had banned them or were about to, giving rise to wails about unfair "breed-specific legislation" that not only was unfair to well-behaved pit bulls but, some of the more strident owners argued, was downright unconstitutional.

"You can't legislate against blacks, or women, or Jews or homos," an owner in Texas screamed from his site. "How can you legislate against a whole species of dog?"

Well, the owners could howl but the public certainly knew all about pit bulls, whether they were Staffies, Amstaffs or just plain APBTs (American pit bull terriers). And even the dogs' defenders on the Web implied by negative implication that these animals are creatures capable of doing great damage: they have "great strength for their size" and "strong jaws," and they are "muscular" and have "tenacity." They are "very territorial" when dealing with other
dogs—and presumably strangers who interrupt their bodily functions.

Those less enthusiastic about pit bulls pointed out that they were the canine of choice of drug dealers and street gangs, that their jaws locked when they bit, and that they had "biting power" of "1,600 pounds per square inch" of size (though it was unclear how that statistic had been arrived at).

As usual, one could not tell which of these megabytes of information were true and which were false or made up. But one thing was certain, Scoop thought jubilantly: darling Wambli had had the capacity to sink his muscular, tenacious jaws into his hapless victim's flesh.

Sweet Wambli, my ass, Scoop crowed to himself. More like the Park Avenue Pit Bull!

Proud of his character research on Wambli, Scoop nonetheless realized he was far from a solution. Like a good, determined reporter, perhaps he should go back and go over old ground again. To that end, he decided to ask Genc out for an evening. Perhaps over a few drinks at Squiggles some new fact would come out.

Genc was hesitant when Scoop called but did agree to meet him at Squiggles at ten o'clock the next night, adding that he couldn't stay out too late. This seemed odd to Scoop, who could stay up until any hour and often did, but he let the remark pass.

Squiggles was booming when Scoop arrived, followed almost at once by Genc. It was a Thursday night, so the place was packed with young careerists eager to drink as much of the world's supply of tequila as possible, having only to face a Casual Friday at work the next day.

Genc—how did he know?—was dressed perfectly for the pretumescent crowd: tight T-shirt over his comfortably bulging
physique (the shirt with DAYTONA BODY WORKS imprinted on the front), white Levi's (Scoop stole an envious peek at the telltale leather label in the back: 30' waist, 35' length) and Michael Jordan Airlift sneakers. Scoop, on the other hand, had learned long ago to wear what the GAP charitably called "loose-fitting" khakis, realizing that with his chubby frame tight jeans would make him look like a rifle-toting foot soldier in the American Nazi Party.

They managed to squeeze behind a small table at the rear of the dark saloon.

"What'll you have?" Scoop asked. "I'm having a margarita. Allmargarita evening. Margarita drink, margherita pizza."