Dog Tags (2 page)

T
HE MAN WAS PROVING TOUGH TO WAIT OUT.

He stood near the front of the bar for over an hour, all the while under the watchful eye of Billy and Milo, though Billy
was across the street, and out of the man’s line of sight.

Milo looked over at Billy as if to say,
Let’s get this show on the road.
Occasionally, passersby would approach Milo, often clucking about how terrible it was for someone to have left their dog
tied up like that. Milo would give a low growl, not menacing enough for them to call animal control, but powerful enough to
make them walk away.

But Billy was not changing targets. He instinctively knew the man would do something that would put what he was protecting
in a place where they could get to it. And with what he knew about this man, it could be very valuable.

So Billy and Milo waited until past midnight, which qualified as the wee hours of the morning by New Jersey standards. There
weren’t many cars going by, but Billy noticed that the man watched each one as it approached. He was meeting someone arriving
by car.

If Billy’s instincts were right, the upcoming meeting was to pass whatever was in the man’s inside jacket pocket to the person
he was
meeting. If that was the case, Milo would have first dibs on it. If not, then Milo would probably just take the man’s watch
and be done with it. Either way, it would be a profitable night, and revenge would be sweet.

At twelve twenty, a Mercedes came down the street from the north, driving more slowly than normal. Billy tensed as it pulled
over to the curb about thirty yards past the bar. The man Billy had been watching looked toward the car, nodded almost imperceptibly,
and started walking in that direction.

The man walked past Milo, who did not look at him but was instead looking toward Billy, waiting for a signal. Billy just held
one hand in the air, palm facing Milo, the signal to wait.

The driver of the car pulled his car to the corner and got out, leaving the door open. He walked a short distance toward the
bar and then stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the man to reach him. Billy could see that the driver was tall, maybe six
foot five. Billy moved closer to them, almost to where Milo was, about thirty feet from the driver of the car.

If the men greeted each other, it was inaudible to Billy, and they didn’t shake hands. They stood together for two or three
minutes, though Billy could not hear them talking.

The man from the bar started to reach into his jacket to take out whatever he had been protecting all this time. Billy moved
closer, straining to see. Even in the darkness, he could clearly make out a thick envelope. The man started to hand it to
the driver.

Billy gave Milo the signal to spring into action, and the dog reacted instantly. He raced toward the men just as the driver
was himself taking something out of his own pocket. The glint off it sent a jolt of panic through Billy; it was a gun.

Billy never carried a gun himself; to do so would be to inflate any possible burglary charge to armed robbery. Instead he
ran toward the men, though his prosthetic leg hampered the speed at which he could move.

“Erskine!”

Milo was by this time launching himself into the air, intent on grabbing the envelope now held by the driver. Just before
he arrived, the man from the bar took a brief, frightened step back, and then a gunshot rang out. He was blown farther backward
by the force of the bullet.

Milo’s perfectly timed jump allowed him to grab the envelope from the driver’s hand and take off down the street. The driver
was clearly stunned, and it took a few moments for him to gather himself and point the gun toward the fleeing Milo.

As he started to pull the trigger, Billy reached him and grabbed for the gun. It fired as they were both holding it, and the
bullet went off target. The driver wrestled with Billy for the gun, but Billy carried the day with a well-placed knee to the
groin.

The man grunted in pain and staggered toward his car. Billy considered chasing him, but opted instead to quickly glance at
the license plate, memorizing the number, and then went over to try to help the man who had been shot.

He put the gun on the ground and felt the man’s neck for a pulse, but there was none. Three men appeared from nowhere and
fanned out into the area. Billy had been the first to arrive at a lot of crime scenes, and he knew with certainty that these
were not city or state cops. But he had no idea who they were.

By this point, a crowd of people was starting to gather, and Billy yelled, “Somebody call nine-one-one! Hurry! Get an ambulance
here!” He said this even though his substantial experience with gunshot victims made it clear to him that they hadn’t invented
the ambulance or doctors that could help this guy.

Within a few minutes local police cars and ambulances arrived, and the men who had gotten there first seemed to melt away.
This gave Billy time to look around for Milo, but he was nowhere to be found.

When homicide detective Roger Naylor showed up, he took command of the crime scene. Naylor heard what the officers who were
already there had to say, and then walked over to Billy. They had known each other for years.

“Hey, Billy. They tell me you’re a witness?”

“Unfortunately.”

Naylor nodded. “You know the drill. Hang out until we can question you, and you’ll need to make a statement.”

Naylor didn’t wait for a response; he just walked over to the area where the forensics people were doing their work. Billy
noticed that detectives were questioning other witnesses, probably patrons from the bar.

It was almost an hour before Naylor came back to Billy, along with another detective and two patrolmen. It wasn’t the waiting
that bothered Billy; it was not knowing where Milo was. The sound of the gunshot at that close a range had undoubtedly spooked
him, of that he was certain.

“Can we get this over with?” asked Billy.

“I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that,” Naylor said. “We’re going to have to do this down at the station.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re under arrest,” Naylor said as he and the patrolmen took out their weapons. “Stand and place your hands against
the wall.”

“D
O YOU HAVE THE RING
?” The minister’s question takes me by surprise, because I was waiting for the part where he asks if anybody knows any reason
why the marriage shouldn’t take place. Could it be that only movie ministers use that line?

I rise smoothly to the occasion and take the ring out of my pocket, and then hand it to Kevin. In doing so I am graceful but
deliberate, focused but with the apparent calm assurance of someone who has been taking things out of his pocket for years.
It is a standout performance.

After the ceremony we head into the main ballroom for dinner. There is a DJ who plays music way too loud and spends most of
his time begging people to go out on the dance floor.

Dancing, other than slow dancing, makes absolutely no sense to me. I don’t understand the enjoyment anyone could get from
standing in one place and wildly gyrating. If it’s such a blast, do these people turn on the radio when they’re alone at home
and start doing contortions? I don’t think so.

So if they only do it in public, it must be because they’re being watched by other people. They clearly think they look good
doing it.
They don’t. If rooms like this were ringed with mirrors, 95 percent of all dancing would be eliminated.

This kind of dancing also violates my space-alien principle. I judge things by the measure of whether aliens, landing on earth
for the first time, would observe something and deem it stupid. And unless the aliens were from the Planet Bozo, dancing would
land squarely in the “stupid” category.

But Laurie likes to dance, so I cave in about once every four songs. I do this because I’m a terrific guy, and because I think
on some level that it will increase my chances of having sex when we get home. Sex would also look stupid to aliens, but who
cares what they think? They’re aliens, are we going to let them run our lives?

Sitting at our table are Vince Sanders, Willie and Sondra Miller, Pete Stanton and his wife, Donna, and Edna Silver. Vince,
Pete, and Willie are my three best friends in the world, with the notable exceptions of Laurie and Tara, my golden retriever.

Pete is a lieutenant on the Paterson, New Jersey, police force, which is where I grew up and where Laurie and I live. Willie
is a former client and my partner in the Tara Foundation, a dog-rescue operation that we run.

Edna is what I used to call my secretary, but she now refers to herself as my administrative assistant. She’s in her sixties,
though she’d never admit it, and has occasionally talked of retirement. Since she doesn’t do any actual work, I’ve got a hunch
that her retirement isn’t imminent.

“You going to write this up for tomorrow?” I ask Vince, the editor of the local newspaper. I’m sure Kevin would like it, but
he’d never ask Vince, who can be rather disagreeable approximately 100 percent of the time.

“This wedding? Only if somebody gets murdered on the dance floor.”

As the evening is nearing an end, Kevin comes over and says, “I just want to thank you again for being my best man.”

“It was an honor. And I thought I handled the whole ring thing flawlessly.”

He smiles. “Yes, you did.”

“So, are you guys going to stay in your house, or move?” Kevin has a small house in Fair Lawn, where they have been living.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he says. “We’re going to move to Bangladesh.”

I do a double take. “Bangladesh? Is there a Bangladesh, New Jersey?”

“No, I’m talking about the real Bangladesh. Andy, I should have told you this earlier, but Kelly and I are leaving the country.
She’s going to practice medicine where people really need her, and I’m going to offer whatever services I can.”

I’m having trouble getting this to compute. “Bangladesh?”

He nods. “Bangladesh.”

“You know how hot it is there? You can throw a Wiffle ball and hit the sun. The cement sweats.”

“I know.”

It’s an amazingly selfless thing that they’re doing, and since it doesn’t seem like I can talk him out of it, I might as well
try being gracious. “That’s incredible, Kevin. Really remarkable.”

“Thanks for understanding,” he says.

“Really, I totally admire it, but aren’t there other, closer Deshes that you could go to? Maybe a Desh with plumbing?”

“We’ve researched it pretty well,” he says. “And since we haven’t taken on a client in six months…”

“We’ll be okay.” I smile. “Edna will just pick up the slack.”

“If you need help, you should bring Eddie Lynch in. I think he’s left already, or I would introduce you.”

“I met him. He’s a real room brightener. When are you leaving?”

“A week from Wednesday.”

“So this is the last time I’m going to see you?”

He nods. “You want to hug good-bye?”

I smile, because Kevin knows I’m not a big fan of guy-hugs. “No, but Laurie will want to.”

“Good,” he says. “She was my first choice anyway.”

On the way home I tell Laurie about Kevin’s decision. “I know,” she says. “I think it’s wonderful.”

“He told you tonight?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No… maybe two months ago. He asked me not to tell you.”

“I can’t believe he told you before me,” I say.

“He told pretty much everybody before you,” she says. “I think he was afraid you’d be disappointed in him.”

This is annoying me no end. “For devoting his life to helping people? I’d be disappointed with that?”

“I’m not sure I’d put it that way,” she says.

“How would you put it?”

She thinks for a few moments, then smiles. “I guess I would put it that way.”

As we get near the George Washington Bridge, I get off the Palisades Interstate Parkway and take city streets to Route 4.
Like everybody else who lives in northern New Jersey, I wear my knowledge of back streets and shortcuts in the area near the
bridge as a badge of honor.

Suckers take highways.

We’re on Lemoyne Avenue in Fort Lee when we see flashing lights from at least five police cars down a side street.

“I wonder what that’s about,” says Laurie. As an ex-cop, I think
she’d like to help out in whatever is going down. As a non-ex-cop, I want to get home and go to bed.

My point of view changes when I see that there are three animal control trucks intermingled with the police cars. As a certified
animal lunatic, I want to know what could provoke such a massive government response.

“Let’s check this out,” I say.

Having seen the animal control trucks, Laurie knows exactly why I’m interested. “Why, you think a bunch of Chihuahuas might
have broken into a PetSmart?”

The incident must have just begun, because the police have not yet set up a perimeter. Laurie and I get out of the car and
walk right into the middle of it. She recognizes one of the cops and asks what’s going on.