“An ambulance went by. Maybe a car accident. How are you feeling?”
“All right. You didn’t hear anything?”
“Not with the television going and all. Want some tea or something?”
“No thanks.” She looked at the file of papers in his hands. “I wish you weren’t going tomorrow.”
“This one’s supposed to take only two days. I’ll call you at night and Chief Michaels said he’d have patrols up this street frequently. What’s there to be afraid of, anyway? I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for everything.”
“Yeah, I’m going mad.”
“Come on, Clara.”
“You don’t believe me though, do you?” She searched his face for a revelation of truth.
“Of course I do. I told you, it must have been a stray.”
“But you said dogs don’t do that—go into other dogs’ houses so quickly after the first dog has died. You said the vet said ...”
“I’m sorry I told you that. Look, they’re animals. They can’t be programmed like machines. They do unpredictable things, just like people.”
“That’s not what you thought before, Sid.” She looked down at Bobby, who had his hand on his shoulder. “Are you having pain again, honey?” she asked. Without answering, he got up and embraced her around the legs. “Come into the kitchen,” she said. “I’ll give you an aspirin.”
“Well I just can’t cancel on this,” Sid said, following them into the kitchen. “All the preparation has been done, schedules changed, people set up for meetings...”
“I didn’t say you should cancel anything,” Clara said.
“Not in so many words, but...”
“Look, I’m just being silly. Humor me. Ignore me.” She reached into the cabinet for the aspirin. “Here,
honey,” she said, handing one to Bobby. He made a face. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“Take it, champ,” Sid told him. The little boy plucked the pill reluctantly from his mother’s opened hand and swallowed it quickly with the water chaser.
Clara looked at Sid. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Come back into the living room and watch some television,” he said, putting his arm around her. “There’s a good movie coming on. It’ll get your mind off things.”
“All right,” she said. She was beside him on the couch when the ambulance went by again. “I wonder what it was.” Then she added, “They didn’t have their siren going.”
“So?”
“Means it doesn’t matter how soon they get to the hospital,” she concluded.
Sid’s eyes widened with the realization. When the police car stopped and the spotlight was turned on, the whole family went to the living room window.
“Just like the chief promised,” Sid said. “He wasn’t bulling me.”
“What’s he looking for, Daddy? King?” Bobby asked.
“No, not King. I told you, King’s dead. They’re looking for another dog that looks like King.”
“Why do they have to look for him?”
“Because he’s a stray dog, a dog nobody cares about, a dog somebody left or abandoned.”
“I told him that, Daddy,” Lisa said. “I told him all of that, but he doesn’t want to believe me.”
“He will after a while. Right, champ?” Sid said. He rubbed the top of Bobby’s head and looked out as the police car started away. “Lisa, how about some popcorn?” he said.
“Yeah,” Bobby said excitedly, “with butter and salt.”
“Okay.” She shot a quick look at Clara. “I’m going to do it all by myself, Mom.”
“Okay with me. These two could keep you cooking and cleaning all day and night. Maybe something happened to Mr. Strasser,” she whispered to Sid.
“I was thinking that.”
“I wish there was a way to find out.”
“I’m sure we will,” he said.
She embraced herself.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s smooch on the couch.”
“What’s smooch?” Bobby asked. Clara laughed for the first time all day.
After Lisa made the popcorn, they sat contentedly, the four of them huddled near each other, as magnetically attracted to the warmth and closeness of one another as they were to the glow and the movement on the television screen. The kids were absorbed by the movie, but both Clara and Sid were looking through the set, their eyes turned inward to their own thoughts. It still seemed like a bad dream. Only a short while ago, King was in here with them, his head down on his front legs as he slept beside Bobby. From time to time, Sid looked to the floor expectantly, almost as though he believed he would find the dog there.
But the place on the rug was empty and the doghouse was hollow and threatening, looming out there like some terrifying reminder—the tomb of a vampire, the deserted house of a ghost. He felt like getting up, taking his sledgehammer, and smashing it to bits. He regretted that he would leave tomorrow with it still there. Clara’s story haunted him. Sure, she could have imagined it, just as Bobby could have imagined what he said he had seen. Clara could have been influenced by Bobby’s tale. Adults could be influenced by children. Kids were always planting things in their parents’ minds, things about school and teachers and about other kids.
And yet, he couldn’t help believing her. Clara wasn’t easily impressed. She was an intelligent and perceptive person who was usually very stable and strong. He remembered the time Lisa had stuck her hand through the storm door window, cutting her wrist dangerously near the artery. Clara had wrapped it quickly, calmed the girl down, and taken her to the emergency room at the hospital, all within half an hour. Afterward, she was mentally exhausted, but he was proud of her. He wondered if he would have been as cool and as organized if it had happened in front of him.
“You kids should start out for bed,” Clara announced when the commercial came on. Both groaned, but neither put up any real resistance. They were tired. “Come on, I’ll set out your pajamas, Bobby,” Clara said, getting up. Sid watched the three of them go off toward the bathroom and bedrooms. Then he got up and went to the window again. The moon had gone behind some clouds and without it, it was too dark to see anything. Even the silhouettes of trees seemed swallowed by the inky night.
He thought about the ambulance and the police patrol car and went to the telephone. The dispatcher at the police station was a female. She seemed to know all about him, which was something that impressed Sid.
“Officer Clark is making the rounds on your street tonight, Mr. Kaufman. He’ll be on his second sweep shortly.”
“He’s seen nothing?”
“No sir.”
“Er, there was an ambulance by here tonight,” Sid began.
“Yes sir, for Mr. Strasser.”
“Oh, I thought so. How is he?”
“I’m afraid he’s dead, sir.”
“Dead.” It was as though he had been slapped sharply at the back of his head. A mixture of hot and cold traveled down his spine. “How ...”
“We don’t know any details yet, Mr. Kaufman, and the chief is still up at the hospital.”
“I see. Thank you,” he said, hanging up the receiver slowly. For a split second he considered calling his boss and getting out of tomorrow’s job, but he really didn’t have any substantial reason for it and he knew how difficult it was to postpone an observation after everyone concerned had been prepared.
He went back to the living room and then to the kids’ bedrooms when Clara called to tell him they were ready to be kissed good night. He was thankful that Bobby didn’t talk about the dog; his son’s mind was on the surprise Sid had promised to bring him when he returned. Lisa nearly brought him to tears with her remarks.
“Don’t worry, Daddy,” she said. “I’ll take care of Bobby and keep him from thinking about King.”
“Good girl.”
“And Mommy too,” she said. He laughed, but thought how perceptive children really were.
“I love you, baby,” he said. Clara was waiting in the living room.
“I heard you on the phone,” she said before he took his seat beside her.
“You little spy.” He smiled, knowing she sensed trouble.
“Who were you talking to?”
“I just checked things out with the police. They’re going to make another sweep down this street soon.”
“Did you ask about the ambulance?” He hesitated. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Uh huh.”
“And?”
“It was Ken Strasser.” He turned to her. “He’s dead.”
“Oh no. What happened? Heart?”
“She didn’t know any details.”
“My God! It’s like something terrible has descended onto this street.”
“Now Clara, you can’t let your imagination run wild. Mr. Strasser was into his eighties and . . .”
“It’s not imagination.”
“I know,” he said quickly.
“I’m tired too,” she said abruptly. “I want to go to bed.”
“All right.” He turned off the television, checked the lock on the front door, and turned off the living room lights. He followed her to the bedroom, darkness falling behind them in the house. Now the only light was the small lamp by the side of their bed. When they were beside each other, she snuggled up to him and embraced him. He put his arm around her shoulders and she pressed the side of her face against his chest. They lay like that for a long moment, both silent.
“He was just down here the other day,” she said.
“He stopped during his walk and talked to King. King never barked at him. Did you ever notice that?”
“No, but I guess he sensed the old man was no danger. That dog—” He stopped himself. He had started to say that dog was pretty smart. He
was
smart, dammit, and well-trained and well-fed and loved. . . . “Maybe, maybe when I’m in Boston, I’ll have a chance to talk to someone who knows more about these things.” He expected Clara to chastise him at any moment, to bawl him out for still lingering on it. But she surprised him.
“Good,” she said. “I want to know now,” she said. “I want to understand.”
He kissed her, held her tightly, and then put out the
small night light. Darkness dropped over them like a black shroud.
Downstairs, he awoke from his sleep abruptly. It was as though the same darkness that had fallen around Sid and Clara had come crashing down around him. He raised his head slowly and listened to the silence. Moving his gaze from one end of the ceiling to the next, he slowly inspected the floor above the signs of life. It was as though he could see through walls, but it was only his superior sense of hearing that guided him. He concluded that the people were gone from this side of the house, and he rose up from the carpet. He had been so still that when he finally did lift his body, he looked like some stuffed animal magically come to life. He paused and then moved cautiously to the foot of the stairs.
On the street outside, Leon Clark paused in his patrol car and snapped on the spotlight. He ran the beam along the edges of the woods and down the shoulder of the road to the start of the Kaufmans’ front lawn. Then he edged the car forward and directed a beam of light to the side of the house, keeping it low so as not to shine it into an upstairs window. Some light did spill through the basement window.
Inside, he was already on the first step by the time the policeman’s light pierced the darkness. He growled instinctively. He did not continue up the stairs after the light was gone. He remembered the previous patrol car and the light that it had shone.
So he retreated from the steps and went back to his comfortable place on the carpet. He spread himself out, listened keenly, and then lowered his head. He was satisfied that for the time being there was no immediate danger. In a few moments he was asleep again.
Upstairs, Sid had difficulty falling asleep. Clara was already deep in slumber. He recognized that for her, sleep was an escape, a panacea. He was jealous of it; he wished he could get the same quick relief. But he couldn’t. Instead, he lay there battling against an ominous feeling of danger. It made no sense to him. There was no one battering at their door. All was quiet; all was still. And yet, it was that same quiet and stillness that unnerved him. Was it his imagination or were all the sounds that he had grown used to gone tonight?
He decided it was his imagination and he turned over to press his face into the pillow. When he closed his eyes, he saw King standing defiantly and confidently over Bobby’s folded body. He couldn’t shake the image from his mind until he suddenly realized what it was he saw in the dog’s eyes. There wasn’t any fear; there wasn’t any hate. There wasn’t even any recognition. It was as though the dog were in a trance, as though the dog had been hypnotized.
That’s why King was so gentle when the police arrived; he wasn’t aware of what he had done!
H
ARRY
M
ICHAELS
C
OULDN’T
remember a time when he had gone up to the Community General Hospital and not seen the emergency room packed with people. It frightened him. The year-round population in Sullivan County wasn’t that big. Someone once told him more people worked within the World Trade Center in New York City than lived in the entire county, yet there was all this sickness, all these accidents, all this confusion and pain. He imagined that working in the emergency room could distort a person’s view of the world. It seemed more like a battleground.
He went out to the waiting area, got himself a cup of coffee from the machine, and then went to a pay phone and called Jenny. As he expected, she was quite sarcastic, but he enjoyed it. In fact, he’d made the phone call because he needed to hear her caustic wit.
“Well, maybe I’ll wrap everything up and bring it to you. I’m sure we can eat our dinner off a small table in the waiting room. They won’t mind.”
“You’d just better go on without me, Jenny.”
“I suppose you’re right. If I didn’t like eating alone, I’d be half the size. Johnny called. I told him he should call person-to-person whenever he wants to speak to his father. In the long run, he’d save money.”
“What’d he say?”
“Dottie’s pregnant.”
“Again?”
“You should sound prouder, Harry. It means another grandchild.”
“But on his salary ... four children?”
“That’s what happens when the husband is home more than he’s away, Harry. We’re lucky we had two. I guess I shoulda thanked old Chief Stark for giving you an hour off here and there.”
“All right, Jenny. I’ll be home as soon as I finish up here.”