The Dogfather (22 page)

“Thank you,” I said. Then I got Frey, and the thugs drove off.

The training session with Frey went well. Not to brag or anything, but Guarini had reason to be grateful to me. In general, I’m a good dog trainer. With a gun to my head, I’m brilliant, and Frey was a bright, alert, hardworking little guy. When the puppy boys, Frey and Sammy, had their outside play time, I was careful not to give them the opportunity to practice aggressive behavior. But I didn’t have to intervene once. “I am very proud of both of you,” I told the puppies. And meant it.

When Zap arrived to pick up Frey, the little elkhound was zonked out on a blanket in a corner of the kitchen, and Sammy was prancing around with his tail in the air, the devil in his eyes, and Rowdy’s favorite fleece chewman in his mouth. He greeted Zap by depositing the toy at his feet. The welcome was pure Rowdy.

Zap, damn him, destroyed my delight by demanding, “How much you want for this one?”

Red hair runs in my family. Leah has it. The color skipped me, but I got the temper. It snapped. “Stop it! Sammy is not for sale. Rowdy and Kimi are not for sale. Mr. Wookie was not for sale. Stop trying to buy people’s dogs! It’s... it’s...” I groped for the right word and, ridiculously, sputtered, “It’s
inappropriate!"

“This one ain't yours.”

“Sammy belongs to a friend of mine, and he’s Rowdy’s son, and that makes him close enough to being mine. If you want a dog, go to a breeder or a shelter, but stop trying to buy dogs that already belong to other people!”

Zap remained impassive. He took Frey and left. At a guess, once outside my door, he muttered obscene retorts, but I didn’t hear them and didn’t care.

After checking on Kevin’s condition—still serious—I devoted the afternoon to earning a living. My unpaid puppy training for Guarini had cut into my writing time, so I resisted the lure of beautiful spring weather and shut myself in my study with no company except the computer and Tracker the cat. Allowing myself only short breaks to refill my coffee cup and take Sammy out, I finished a column for
Dog’s Life.
For that same esteemed publication, I also wrote a new-product review of (incredibly) dog litter. Whenever I imagine that all this dog lunacy has gone as far as it possibly can, it exceeds the limits of my imagination. Cat litter for dogs. Dear God! Not for malamutes, I should add. Not
yet.
Not that I know of, anyway.

Starting at about five-thirty, I fed all three dogs, took Sammy out briefly, puttered around, made myself a salad, ate it, and decided to take Rowdy and Kimi for a walk. By most people’s standards, they hadn’t been neglected lately, but Rowdy and Kimi weren’t most people, and they were used to a lot of attention. Because of Deitz’s threat, I felt apprehensive about taking the dogs out, but also because of Deitz, I felt apprehensive at home, too, and the dogs needed the kind of sustained exercise they didn’t get from short dashes in my small yard. I reminded myself that the sun hadn’t set; Deitz and Mazolla wouldn’t try to grab or injure my dogs on city streets in the remains of daylight.

Little Sammy simply had to stay home; I couldn’t safely manage Rowdy, Kimi, and the puppy. I expected to feel guilty about deserting him, but when I leashed the big dogs and peered into Sammy’s crate in the kitchen, he was curled up asleep with his head resting on Rowdy’s chewman. To avoid awakening him, I led Rowdy and Kimi out, and gently pulled the door shut.

The spring day lingered. I wore a short-sleeved T-shirt and enjoyed the sensation of mild air on my bare arms. To malamutes, ideal weather is five below with a fierce wind. In winter, Rowdy and Kimi will pause during our walks to savor the icy gusts. That night, we headed briskly down Appleton Street, crossed Huron Avenue, and continued uphill. Moving at a fast, confident pace somehow gave me confidence about the dogs’ safety. When we reached the fancy part of Appleton Street, the gigantic houses with their manicured yards seemed to radiate the sense that nothing terrible could happen amidst such beauty and opulence. Glancing around, I kept telling myself that I was admiring my surroundings and not scanning for the approach of clean-cut men in innocent-looking cars. I eventually realized that I’d unconsciously headed in the direction of Mount Auburn Hospital. Kevin was allowed visits only from close family members, and no matter how human Rowdy and Kimi were in my eyes, they’d never fool the ICU staff into mistaking them for a Dennehy brother and sister. Although it felt comforting and secure to walk in Kevin’s direction, I made the dogs turn around as twilight began to change to night, and I set a fast pace toward home.

When we got there, Sammy was gone.

CHAPTER 27

The door of Sammy’s empty crate stood open. On the off chance that I’d failed to fasten it properly or that Sammy had somehow managed to open the door, I called to him and, with increasing urgency, searched the house. Sammy was a jaunty extrovert, not the kind of puppy who’d hole up in some hiding spot, especially once he heard my voice. He wasn’t behind the headboard of my bed, a favorite place of Kimi’s when she made off with greasy pizza cartons and other booty. I looked not only for the living Sammy but for his body. Puppies can stick their heads in small spaces, panic, writhe, and strangle. There was no sign of Sammy at all, not a puddle on the floor, not a puppy-destroyed object. Also missing was the toy I’d left in Sammy’s crate, the fleece chewman that was a favorite of Rowdy’s. In daring to take Rowdy and Kimi for a walk, I’d focused my fears on the wrong dogs in the wrong place; while Rowdy and Kimi had been out with me, Sammy had been stolen from my house.

Deitz had threatened Rowdy and Kimi, not Sammy. The person who’d had his eye on the puppy was Zap. I remembered the expressionless mask of Zap’s face when I’d delivered my diatribe about his efforts to buy people’s dogs. I’d imagined that once he was out of my hearing, he’d snarl and curse. Zap’s reaction, I now thought, hadn’t consisted of violent retorts. Zap wasn’t exactly a man of words. I’d dissed him. In retaliation, he’d stolen Sammy.

Adrenaline made my heart pound and my brain zing. Five minutes on-line told me that Zappardino was, indeed, an unusual name. The web site showed one Zappardino in East Boston and one—aha!—at 57 George Street in Munford. In seconds, I had the address and a printed map of the neighborhood together with driving directions. Zap was stupid, but not stupid enough to let Guarini know he’d stolen a puppy that could easily be traced to me. On our recent shopping trip, Zap had told me that he lived with his mother. I was betting that he’d taken Sammy home to dear old avocado-less Mom.

Preparing to steal the puppy back, I dressed like a cat burglar. Cat, indeed! Absurd! Anyway, I replaced my T-shirt with a black turtleneck and added an old black denim jacket with oversized pockets. My equipment consisted of a leash, a mini flashlight, a small hammer, and the most non-Cambridge of objects, a handgun. I grew up in rural Maine, where firearms were ordinary, almost ubiquitous, household possessions, like eggbeaters and screwdrivers; the question wasn’t why you’d own such a thing but why you wouldn’t. My Smith & Wesson Ladysmith had been a gift from my father. I know how to use it. I store it safely. But please do not tell my neighbors about it. I’m enough of a misfit here already.

Steve’s van needed no preparation. I put Rowdy and Kimi into Lady’s and India’s crates. Typically, despite his mother’s death, Steve had left me a full tank of gas. To reach Munford, I didn’t have to consult the driving directions, and although night had fallen, I had no trouble finding George Street, home of someone listed as L. Zap-pardino, who was, I hoped, Zap’s mother. Closely spaced multifamily houses lined the narrow one-way street. Some houses had driveways, but off-street parking was limited, and cars were parked along both sides. A few residents had followed the practice of reserving the spots in front of their houses with traffic cones, trash barrels, or lawn chairs. In winter, lots of people throughout Greater Boston lay claim in this fashion to spaces they’ve shoveled, but you occasionally see parking turf staked out year round. The custom was popular on George Street. In front of number 57, a tattered aluminum chaise longue occupied an otherwise empty spot on the right-hand side of the street. A block ahead, also on the right-hand side, I found a space big enough for the van. I parked, shut off the engine, stowed my equipment in the capacious pockets of my jacket, carefully locked the van, and set off on foot toward what I thought must be Zap’s house. When I’d gone no more than twenty or thirty feet, headlights appeared down George Street, and a big car approached. I stopped. So did the car. The driver’s door opened. A figure stepped out into the street, ran around the car, moved the chaise longue to the sidewalk, returned to the car, and parked it—directly in front of number 57. Immediately, the driver got out, went up the front walk, and ascended a short flight of stairs to a small porch with a light mounted over two doors. Resisting the urge to dash forward, I settled for long, rapid strides. In seconds, I was close enough to have a clear view of the big car and its driver. The car was the familiar silver Suburban. Plainly visible under the porch light was Zap, who turned a key in the lock of the left-hand door and vanished into the house. Sammy wasn’t with him.

With no hesitation, I cut between two parked cars and ran down the street to the Suburban. Speed was all I had going for me, speed and the bit of luck that consisted of the Zappardino family’s evident habit of keeping every blind and curtain in the house tightly shut. The porch light at the Zappardinos’ house seemed to brighten and almost to shine right at me as I approached the Suburban, but that same light let me see that neither Al Favuzza nor anyone else occupied the passenger seat of the Suburban. I didn’t waste time creeping around the big car and peering into the back. When I reached the driver’s side door, I already had a grip on the hammer I’d brought and was about to raise it and smash the window when Zap’s behavior registered on me: He’d been in a big hurry. I tried the car door. It was unlocked. But when I’d opened it only an inch or two, I heard what sounded like the banging of a storm door from a nearby house. Just how nearby? Ducking down, I peered through the Suburban’s windows. The Zappardinos’ porch was just as it had been; no one was there, and both front doors were closed. But the false alarm scared me. If Zap had left the car door unlocked, he intended to be right back. I had
no
time.

I opened the car door and slipped in. Although Frey’s crate was visible at the back of the Suburban, Sammy was loose in the backseat of the car. The mess I’d noticed earlier hadn’t been cleaned up, and little Sammy was having a grand time. Even in the dim light, I could see that Al Favuzza’s jacket was ripped, and when I grabbed the wiggling little malamute, he kept his jaws locked on some treasure that he had no intention of leaving behind or surrendering to me. Without bothering to search for Rowdy’s purloined chewman, I got Sammy out of the Suburban, closed its door, clamped the puppy against me with both arms, and bolted down George Street.

Once inside Steve’s van, Sammy let his booty fall from his mouth. I’d had the vague impression that it was a magazine, but what dropped to the floor seemed to be loose sheets of paper. I didn’t bother to examine them, but tossed Sammy into his crate, started the engine, and drove off. All the way home, I kept checking the side mirrors in fear that someone was following me. No one was. On the contrary, someone was waiting for me at home. That someone was Enzio Guarini.

CHAPTER 28

Enzio Guarini’s Mobmobile occupied the parking spot on Appleton Street just beyond my driveway: the precise space where my Bronco had blown up. Pardon me. Had
been
blown up. Guarini’s limo was intact. In the parlance of dog people,
intact
is a loaded word. I’m using it accurately. Like everything else about Guarini, the limousine had the unneutered air of possessing the full complement of male equipment. But I digress. The limo’s headlights and taillights were off, and no interior illumination showed through the tinted glass windows.

Just as if the limo weren’t there, I pulled Steve’s van into the driveway, flipped on the inside lights, and examined Sammy and his crate for signs that he’d swallowed any sort of foreign object. Loose in the debris-packed Suburban, he might have eaten almost anything. Little Sammy shared none of my anxiety. He wiggled in my arms, licked my face, tugged at my shoelaces, stuck his nose in his father’s crate, and got a soft rumble in reply. The puppy crate was clean; Sammy had brought nothing up.

Still kneeling by the crate, I noticed the treasure that Sammy had carried in his mouth from the Suburban and dropped on the floor of the van. Now that the interior lights were on, I could see that the papers I’d glimpsed in the dark consisted of a glossy brochure and a letter printed on expensive business stationery. After a glance at the brochure, I knew exactly what it was and what it said, but I took a moment to read the letter in its entirety. The night was mild, the van was warm, and I was still wearing the denim jacket. Even so, a chill ran through me, not down my spine, either, but right down my throat to the pit of my stomach. The cause of the sensation was neither the contents of the letter nor the presence of Guarini’s limo. Rather, it was what I tried to convince myself was the meaningless coincidence of the two: Guarini’s car was
not
here because of the letter I’d just read. Yes, Enzio Guarini had the power to tap sources of information, but he was
not
clairvoyant. Until a few seconds ago, no one but little Sammy had known what he’d puppy-snatched from the Suburban, and he certainly didn’t understand its significance. I did. I knew who’d killed Joey Cortiniglia. And I knew why.