This Dog for Hire (22 page)

We slid Magritte onto my lap. He barely opened his eyes. His tail curled partly and then relaxed again. He was back to sleep before Dennis was out of sight.

Dennis came back, carrying a five-pound bag of Nutro Max kibble.

“He really loves this shit. You'll still take him, Rachel, won't you? It's too late for me to make other plans.”

“Of course. Did you get Marjorie?”

“Thank God, I got Chris, the kennel manager. She's going to tell Marjorie. This way Marjorie won't be alone when she hears. I gave Chris the number of the hospital, and the number here. She has my number at home, of course, in case there's anything I can do. I said that. In spite of everything. I mean, Marjorie didn't do anything wrong. Except marry badly.”

I barely listened as Dennis told me how much food to give Magritte, and when. He gave me his hotel number in Boston, just in case I had a problem with Magritte. At the dinner break, I insisted he go out and sit someplace nice for dinner and eat something other than a greasy hot dog. After he left, I walked around the benching area with Magritte, got myself a greasy hot dog, and went back to Magritte's bench to eat.

As it got closer to the groups, people began coming in who had been at home or in their cars when they had heard about Gil on the news. The story spread quickly around the benching area. I was glad I had finished my hot dog before hearing all that talk about heart attacks and everyone's theory on why.

“He was a smoker, you know,” a short guy with thick glasses said.

“Weight's not everything,” a really fat man said, “it has more to do with how many high-density lipids you have, whatever a lipid is anyway.”

“All that running in the ring,” a young man with long, blond hair holding a black-and-white whippet said, “you'd think heart disease would be the
last
thing a handler would get.”

A woman in red said that
Live at Five
had reported that Gil had fallen in the ring at 12:11 and had arrested at 12:14, in the ambulance. They mentioned Clifford, of course, and went on to dub Ch. Ceci N'Est Pas un Chien “the bad luck dog.” They had showed his picture, but hadn't had one of Gil. Now when people passed where I sat with Magritte, they did so silently, shaking their heads. Or they were careful to look anywhere but at us. Poor Ceci!

At eight Dennis and I went to his box seats to watch the evening judging, Magritte with us. I had gotten my coat from the coat check on the way so that after Best in Show I could make a hasty exit. I draped the coat over Magritte so that he could curl up on my lap and still be out of sight Too many people were staring. Besides, there were TV cameras and press photographers everywhere, and I didn't want to see my own face on TV or in the paper. They'd probably dub me the bad luck bitch and report that I had once married outside the species.

As if they were perfect!

I wasn't sure why we were staying. We no longer cared who'd win, and considering the circumstances, Magritte could have gotten excused, but leaving would require energy, and energy was something neither of us had.

Dennis finally left right before Best in Show. I stayed; I was there already, and it seemed as good a place to be as any. With Magritte asleep under my coat on Dennis's vacated seat, I watched Mark Threlfall handle the springer spaniel Ch. Salilyn's Condor to the win.

I even stayed in my place to watch all the reporters and photographers rushing out onto the floor to take pictures of the pretty springer with his huge blue ribbon and sterling silver Tiffany trophy, his humans behind him, beaming.

For just a moment, I let myself think about how much Dennis would have loved to have stood there with Magritte, and I got so sad, I nearly cried.

The Garden was half empty by the time I woke Magritte and walked him toward the ladies' room. Crates full of dogs, stacked three high on dollies like doggy apartment houses, were being wheeled out by grim-faced handlers. Better luck next time, I wanted to say. But I didn't say anything. I thought they were pretty lucky already.
They
were still alive.

I was only paying enough attention to where I was going not to step in some dog's “accident” and not to trip over a leash, an empty dolly, or a very short dog, when something in front of me slapped my brain awake.

I saw him from the back, only his shoulders were too narrow, his feet too slim.

It wasn't a him. It was a her.

She was wearing a long camel coat, her hair tucked neatly into a black beret so that I couldn't tell what color it was or if it was long or short.

She took a step and turned toward me so that I could see not only her profile but her companion as well.

It was Veronica Cahill, bending her long, graceful neck so that Louis Lane could take the white silk scarf he had been carrying for her around his neck and put it around her own.

Too bad the case was closed, I thought as Magritte and I continued on our way to the ladies' room. It would have been deliciously satisfying to pin something on those two.

I still had questions I couldn't answer. There was one less now. It had been Veronica Cahill who had come to the loft to remove the tape from Clifford Cole's answering machine. Her perfume had made me sneeze a second time when she had come to see Magritte in the benching area. And one more. Why?

Suddenly I found myself thinking about Beatrice and the time I had gotten stitches on my arm right after getting my first two-wheeler.

“Don't touch those,” she'd said as I poked around under the bandage. “Leave well enough alone.”

“They're my stitches,” I told her, “and I'll do as I please with them.”

“In that case,” she said, turning her back toward the sink and away from me, “whatever happens, you'll only have yourself to blame.”

Maybe the case was closed for Dennis, but I never had learned to leave well enough alone.

27

You Can Send Your Dog

The Cruciform ladies' room, swinging doors on two sides, was nearly empty when I walked in, schlepping my heavy coat, Magritte, and Magritte's Nutro Max. Two handlers, armbands still in place, were at the sinks washing their hands. The aisle where the stalls were was deserted. There was no line of patient, chatting women, making friends while waiting their turn, no purses visible on the floor of the stippled gray stalls, no ugly crepe-soled, laced-up dog show shoes, facing forward, visible under the doors, no cries for toilet paper, hands fishing around in the neighboring stall, no toilets flushing, no one humming, laughing, or sobbing because their dog hadn't taken Best, no nothing. When the handlers left, Magritte and I were alone.

I went two-thirds of the way down the aisle, hoping for a cleaner stall that way, took Magritte in with me, hung my coat on the hook, and propped the bag of dog food against the front left pilaster. The moment I sat, Magritte on my lap and licking at my face, I heard the door open, the one on the side that led to the benching area, the one I had used.

I was doing nothing but wishing I had thought to use the handicapped stall at the far end of the aisle, where I could have put Magritte on the floor and peed in peace, when I heard the sound of stall doors opening and closing, one, then the next, then the next, coming toward me.

I wondered if they were about to close the Garden and wanted to make sure they weren't locking anyone in the john, but I checked my watch and it was much too early. I was sure the cleaning staff would be here for hours.

Maybe the first few stalls were out of toilet paper. It was late in the day, after all.

Two more doors opened and closed, getting closer to me.

Maybe she had inadvertently left her coat on the hook behind the door and was looking for it.

I don't know why, but I leaned carefully forward and picked up the bag of dog food, squeezing it onto my lap in front of Magritte. I lifted my legs, too, stretching them straight out in front of me and bracing myself with my feet against the door.

Then the oddest thing happened. The doors stopped banging open and everything was very quiet. Too quiet. Until the lady began to whistle, a sweet, clear little tune, just four notes, a pause, then those same four notes again.

As if she were calling a dog.

And again, four notes, a pause, the same four notes, only an octave higher now, the sound echoing off the tiles, reminding me just how empty this place was so late in the day, and how isolated.

Magritte stiffened, his hackles going up. And he growled, a low rumble in his throat I could feel as I quickly hooked his collar with two fingers just in time to prevent him from jumping down and disappearing under the door.

When he discovered he wasn't free to do as he pleased, he began to whine.

Suddenly the bathroom doors opened again, this time from the side that led to the passageway under the stands. I heard a woman's voice.

“God, it's late. Even the bathroom's deserted.”

Immediately the door to the stall next to me opened and closed. Only this time, the lady who had lost her coat was in the stall.

“Do you have a comb? Dotty, a comb? Thanks.”

I leaned down and away from that side, careful not to dislodge Magritte and his food, until I could see the shoes of the lady who had finally found a stall to her liking.

I saw white leather sneakers.

Big white leather sneakers.

Facing the wrong way.

Unless she was about to throw up, the lady next to me was not using the john in the usual way.

I waited hopefully for the sound of retching.

No such luck. She was using the stall as a place to hide.

“So, where to next?” I heard from the area where the sinks were.

“I'm off to a cluster. The South, thank you. Isn't this New York weather something? How do they live here?”

I took another peek at those shoes.

My sister Lillian wears a size eleven, and these feet could make her look as if she were Cinderella.

In my neighborhood, no matter
what
someone is wearing, feet that big can mean only one thing. The person in the stall next to me was no lady.

A chill went through me that precluded nearly all bodily functions, including the one I was there for.

The sixth law of investigation work says, Don't get caught with your pants down.

Quietly putting Magritte and the food down for a moment on the side opposite Big Foot, in one move I covered my ass, literally at least, slipped into my coat, and, hoisting Magritte but ditching the bag of Nutro Max kibble in the stall, bolted out of the ladies' room, almost knocking down Dotty and her friend.

“What's
your
problem?” I heard behind me before the swinging door closed.

But I never stopped to answer. I ran down the moving escalator, Magritte now under my coat and snug against my chest, and kept running until I was on Seventh Avenue.

There were people everywhere, all waving frantically for cabs. Not wanting to stand around vying with the crowd for too few taxis while whoever had been in the bathroom got the chance to catch up, if indeed that was his agenda, I headed for Thirty-second Street.

Carrying Magritte, exhaustion pressing against the backs of my eyes, I turned the corner and began walking rapidly toward Eighth Avenue.

As I walked west, I was more and more alone. Except for a sense of peril I couldn't shake.

I stopped once and pretended to check my pockets, but I didn't see anyone else stop and wait, nor did I spot a particular person behind me or across the street that I remembered seeing near me earlier.

Still, I couldn't shed that funny feeling, one that made the hair on my arms stand up. I began to run.

When I reached Eighth Avenue, the wind was whipping around, blowing dirt off the street into my eyes. I stepped off the curb into the street, one hand on the outside of my coat propping up Magritte, who by now felt as heavy as a semi, the other up and out like a flagpole, hoping to attract a vacant cab.

Watching the empty street in front of me, I found myself wishing I had my attack-trained pit bull at my side so that I could feel smugly safe instead of terrified.

My imagination can really get out of hand when I'm this tired.

Why would I be followed if the man who had killed Clifford Cole was dead?

Hey, relax, I told myself. It was probably just a pervert in the john. New York is full of them.

Or some guy who couldn't read English, made a natural mistake.

“Not to worry,” I said out loud, to Magritte. “This case is closed as tight as a Brittany's lips.”

But the feeling of being followed stayed with me. Even when it's baseless, it can be more frightening than being followed.

When you are sure you are being followed, you can do something about it, step into a store, jump on a bus, get lost in a sea of humanity or traffic.

Except it was nearly midnight in a deserted part of the city. There were no open stores, no buses, no sea of humanity. There wasn't even a fucking cab.

Okay, still.

You can draw a gun. (Mine was home.)

You can turn around and shout, “I see you, you cowardly scumbag, hiding in the shadow of that building. What are you doing there, jerking off and thinking about your mother?”

You can pretend you're going home and lead him to the Sixth Precinct.

And, if there's absolutely no other choice, you can send your dog to talk some sense into the bastard.

Unless the only dog you happen to have with you at the time is a lousy basenji.

In which case you're nuked.

That's when I turned around again, just in time to catch the man who was hanging back partway down the block step quickly closer to the building line where he'd be less likely to be seen. I could see the fronts of his white sneakers shining in the moonlight.

I was just about to succumb to the most hideous feeling of helplessness, a feeling I loathe because it's always easier when you can actually do something, when a cab pulled up.