Gaits of Heaven (24 page)

“Never,” said George. “Barbara, if there were anything I could do…”

“Such as what? To the best of my knowledge, even the best intentions won’t restore life to the dead, George.”

“What I’ve been wondering,” I said hesitantly, “is whether there’s a possibility of redemption. And room for some compromise. Barbara, maybe if you agreed to some new policy about the squirrels at your feeders. Tolerate them? Even feed them. And George, you just said that if there were anything you could do…well, I wonder whether the two of you might be able to think of something.”

George said, “Barbara, you need new bird feeders. With baffles. And we can get squirrel feeders. It’s what I should’ve done instead.”

Barbara looked eager to speak. The second George finished, she said with great emphasis, “Urban wildlife.” She paused and then repeated the phrase in a tone of surprise and wonder as if it were a treasure she had discovered and was eager to display.
Look what I’ve found! Urban wildlife!
“George, the urban wildlife groups always need volunteers. In fact, I’ve thought about volunteering, not just donating, but—”

George rose from his bench, stood in front of Barbara, and held out both hands.

She took them in hers. “We could,” she said. “We could both volunteer.” Tears were running down her cheeks. George began to sob.

I know when to disappear. I did.

In my eagerness to give the reconciling couple the privacy
they needed, I made straight for the steps to the deck. Only as I entered the family room did I realize that I’d given no thought to where I was going. In any case, I couldn’t stay where I was. Wyeth was slumped down in one of the big leather chairs, and Peter York, Missy Zinn, and Caprice were engaged in an intense discussion. As I passed through the room, I caught only fragments.

“…no reason the two of you ever need…,” Missy was saying. Then Caprice spoke angrily about the trip to Russia that Ted and Wyeth were to take in July.

It happens now and then that two dogs in the same household or kennel come to hate the sight of each other so violently that they must be kept completely apart. At a guess, this group would offer the recommendation that Caprice and Wyeth have no contact with each other. I gave the matter only a moment’s thought. My attention belonged elsewhere, as did I.

By
elsewhere
, I refer, of course, to dogs and specifically to Sammy and Lady, who had suddenly started to make noise. Pointers can and do bark in the normal fashion usually rendered as
woof-woof
or
ruff-ruff
. Alaskan malamutes are capable of barking, but they also produce yips and growls and howls, weirdly feline purrs, and the long strings of syllables that malamute fanciers refer to as “talking” because intonation marks these utterances as assertions, questions, exclamations, interjections, or commands. The most characteristic malamute syllable,
woo
, attains its maximum aesthetic potential when emitted repeatedly and operatically in an ecstatic
woo-woo-woo-woo
!

At the moment, Sammy was not delivering himself of the malamute
Ode to Joy
. He was speaking rather than singing, but I couldn’t tell what he meant.
Something’s up
, perhaps? Lady was adding high-pitched, nervous barks that expressed agitation, excitement, or fear. I was more puzzled than alarmed. Both dogs were crated. Steve’s van was locked. It was hard to imagine what was triggering the outburst. Another dog? Maybe a loose dog had decided to sniff around the van or even jump on it. In any case, the dogs needed to be quiet. Peter and Missy were already throwing me questioning glances.

I hurried out of the family room and through the kitchen, where the prescribing physicians were meeting. Vee Foote was once again shaking a pill from a prescription bottle into her hand. “Dander,” she explained in a thick voice.

“Vee, are you sure you’re not overdoing it?” Quinn Youngman asked. He began to say something about antihistamines.

When I’d passed through the front hall and reached the porch, I paused for a second not only to put on my shoes but to prop the door open with someone’s leather clog so that I wouldn’t lock myself out. From my vantage point, I saw no sign of a roving dog or of anyone or anything else near Steve’s van, but my view was blocked by the gigantic Lexus and the BMW in Ted’s cobblestoned parking area.

“Hey, guys!” I called out as I rushed down the stairs. “Enough! I’m coming.” I wasn’t worried. My only concern was that the dogs were annoying people; I want my dogs to be a source of pleasure to everyone or, failing that, to refrain from being a source of even the slightest displeasure. By the time I was in back of the van, the dogs were silent. I stopped for a second to get the keys out of my pocket and heard what sounded like a woman’s voice coming from inside the van. The radio? The van was old, but the radio worked. It had certainly never turned itself on.

And it hadn’t this time. When I reached the side of the van, I saw that the sliding door was open about three inches and that the interior lights were on. I had locked that door. I
knew
I had. Could Steve have inexplicably left his veterinary meeting and for some unknown reason decided to come here to Ted’s and…? The explanation made no sense. And a set of keys dangled from the lock in the van’s door. Steve never left his keys in the lock. I slid open the door to discover the last person I expected to see, namely, Steve’s horrible ex-wife, Anita the Fiend, who was kneeling on the floor in front of Lady’s crate. Anita, who hated this van, despised dogs, and really had it in for helpless little Lady!

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.

She turned to face me, and even before she spoke, I realized that there was something wrong with her. Well, there had to be. She hated dogs, yet here she was in Steve’s van with two of our dogs. But she looked peculiar, too. Her eyes had that brightness I’d noticed when I’d seen her in the afternoon, and her long blond hair was wild and tangled. She was dressed entirely in white: white silk shell, white canvas pants, white shoes with three-inch heels. Even I, with my limited fashion sense, saw that the dressy sleeveless top and the high heels didn’t go with the casual pants. Furthermore, although the evening was cool, the silk shell had sweat stains at the armpits. It’s said of tall, slim, beautiful, fashionable women like Anita that they look like models. Anita really did; she always looked ready to be photographed for
Vogue
. Or she always had.

When she spoke, her speech was so rapid that I had to listen closely to understand her. “I’m thinking about getting a dog. A dog! I’m seeing them with new eyes. The eyes have it! The ayes! Ai-ai-ai! With green eyes, like Steve’s. How lucky that I kept his keys! On key and off key. Tequila. Steve doesn’t like it. But he loves me. He lusts after me. I’m beautiful, you see. I have the face that launched a thousand ships. Helen! Why the hell didn’t my parents name me Helen? From now on, I am Helen of Troy. No! A hair dryer! It’s a brand of hair dryer. I don’t need it. My hair is beautiful as it is. It reaches out to catch the vibrations of the universe.”

To my horror, Anita turned back to face Lady’s crate and fiddled with the latch. Lady, I should explain, was in the kind of solid plastic crate you see at airports. It’s common for dogs to show marked preferences for one kind of crate or another. Lady liked the security of an opaque crate. Sammy tolerated plastic crates, but he greatly preferred the kind of open metal crate he was in now. His crate latch was a simple horizontal bar that slid back and forth, but Lady’s crate had a more complicated vertical latch that I hoped would defeat Anita. It did not. She had, after all, been married to a veterinarian. She opened the crate, reached in, grabbed Lady by the collar, and dragged her out. Lady’s eyes were huge with fear, and she was trembling all over.

“Hey, Lady,” I said gently. “It’s okay.” To Anita, I said, in the same soft tone, “Now, maybe you could explain what you’re doing here.”

“Everything!” Anita cried. “There’s so much to be done! And I have the strength and talent for all of it!” She bestowed a big smile on me. “Where’s Steve? Need to see Steve. Gorgeous Steve!”

Sammy, who’d been standing in his crate, chose that moment to bang the door with one of his big snowshoe paws.

“What a beautiful one this is!” Anita exclaimed. “Stunning!”

Maintaining her grip on Lady’s collar, she rose to her feet and opened Sammy’s crate. He came bounding out. While Anita’s attention was diverted, I closed the van door to prevent the dogs from escaping. The van was now crowded. The five crates occupied a fair amount of space; there’d been just enough room for Anita, Lady, and me. The addition of Sammy squished us together. The confinement made me a little claustrophobic; in every way, I needed room to maneuver, and here I was, squeezed against the back of the passenger seat with no way to get between Anita and the dogs. I could’ve moved to the front of the van, and I could even have slid open the door and stepped out, but what about Lady and Sammy? I couldn’t abandon them to a madwoman, especially to a madwoman who, when sane, hated dogs as fiercely as Anita did. Everything about her was strange and driven and frighteningly unpredictable. What if she kicked Lady? What if she somehow provoked Sammy and then accused him of attacking her? What if she…?

Damn! What if Rowdy were here instead of Sammy! For all his exuberance and playfulness, Rowdy was a mature, well-trained dog. As Phyllis had said of her beloved Monty, he was defined. Furthermore, Rowdy was a certified therapy dog. If it somehow became expedient for me to give a hand signal, Rowdy would understand and obey it. On visits to nursing homes, he’d become accustomed to erratic behavior. He’d take Anita’s frenzied manner in stride. If she snatched at his ears, shoved against him, or even fell on him, Rowdy would remain calm while accurately assessing the situation and doing his cool best to protect Lady and me. But Sammy? Sweet, rambunctious, baby-brained Sammy? I didn’t know.

In fact, Sammy surprised me: gently shoving his way between Anita and Lady, he used his massive body to create a protective barrier between the menace and her probable victim. Did Sammy know that Anita would then let go of Lady’s collar? Kimi would have predicted the result; if malamute chess ever catches on, she’ll be a grand master. Sammy, I thought, lacked her capacity to foresee the result of each move. Still, Lady was now free. Better yet, she was on my side of Sammy and out of Anita’s immediate range.

Totally misinterpreting Sammy’s shove, Anita cried, “You see? He knows I’m beautiful. All creatures respond to astounding physical perfection.”

The more fools they
, I thought. Then I reconsidered. What about my own reaction to the beauty of dogs and especially to the physical perfection of my own? But at the moment, Sammy’s stunning appearance was the least of his virtues. As Anita fixed him with an unblinking stare, I unobtrusively reached into my pocket, extracted a leash, and snapped it onto Lady’s collar. One dog under my control! One dog safe from escape and thus safe from traffic. If I could get a leash on Sammy, I could slide open the door, and the dogs and I could bolt. Lady was now pressed hard against me, her entire body vibrating with fear. I had to get her out. I’d been carrying only one leash. A half dozen others hung from pegs at the rear of the van, beyond the crates, beyond Anita, hopelessly far away.

Sammy had distracted Anita. In the hope of doing the same and with the dim hope of making Anita decide to leave, I said, “Anita, is there some reason you’re at Ted Green’s house? What made you come here?”

Kimi might have predicted Anita’s reaction. I’m not Kimi; I didn’t. Far from being harmlessly distracted, Anita abruptly shifted from euphoria to rage. She was talking so fast that I missed most of what she said. One word that I did catch was
kickbacks
. Her attitude to Sammy changed with her mood. “Get off!” she yelled. “Get off!” She bent down. I couldn’t imagine why she’d want to grab his feet.

The last time I’d spoken, Anita had reacted so wildly that I was afraid to speak aloud. Instead of calling Sammy, I silently patted my thigh. He took one step toward me. If he’d only move next to me, I could transfer the leash from Lady’s collar to his, hold Lady by her collar, and get the three of us out of this increasingly hellish van. If need be, I’d hold Sammy by his collar alone, but I was far from sure that I’d have the strength to maintain my grip if he took a dive out of the van, as he’d be likely to do. As I was trying to work out a plan either to get both dogs back in their crates, or to coax Lady to exit first so I could block the door and force Sammy to leave slowly, Anita stood up. In her hand were perhaps four sheets of paper. I’d been wrong. She hadn’t been after Sammy’s feet; her object had been the papers on which he’d been standing.

In her glee at having retrieved the papers, she shook them rapidly back and forth. “No one cheats Anita Fairley!” she crowed.

Sammy was fascinated; he was tantalized; he was impelled to respond. Bouncing with happy excitement, he bit into the papers Anita was waving right in front of his face.

“Goddamned dog!” she shrieked.

Lady was huddled next to me, but Sammy was still close to Anita, who moved her right foot backward and eyed Sammy in a way that terrified me. I’d once seen Anita kick Lady, and I could see exactly what was coming now.

No one cheats Anita Fairley, huh? Well, no one but no one under any circumstances kicks Holly Winter’s dog!

Taking a lesson from Rowdy and now from his son, I barged forward and wedged myself between Anita and Sammy. With Lady’s leash still in one hand, I filled my other hand with liver treats from my pocket. “Sammy, trade! Trade, buddy! Oh what a good boy! Good dog!” Giving Anita no time to think and no time to act, I hurled treats into Sammy’s crate. He went after them, and I latched the door.

“Step to the back of this van, Anita, or I tear up these papers,” I said.

She obeyed. I’d had a little practice in getting creatures to do that, of course. Losing no time, I crated Lady and stationed myself in front of the two occupied crates. Now that the dogs were safe, I’d have been happy to hand over the papers that Anita had determined to keep safe, but she’d taken yet another abrupt shift and was now raging at Ted Green. “Big phony! Cheat! CHIRP, CHIRP, CHIRP!”

For a second, I thought that she’d switched to birds. Then I made the connection.

“You’ve been there,” I said. “To CHIRP. The Center for—”

Before I could even remember the name of the place, Anita, still clutching her precious papers, flew past me, slid open the door, and ran off.

I removed the keys that she’d left in the door and locked us in.

“Good riddance to her!” I told the dogs. “Both of you handled yourselves with admirable grace. Lady, you were frightened, but you didn’t panic. Sammy, you are your father’s son in every way.” I gave each dog a frozen Kong. “Now, I have to check on things, but you are going to be fine. I’ll be back as soon as humanly possible. Then we’ll go home. Anita isn’t going to bother us anymore.”