Stepdog (22 page)

W
e'd be meeting Jay and Cody at the motorcycle clubhouse at noon, and “settling things.” According to Alex, this decision (declared by Alex and imposed upon Jay by Alex and his “brothers”) had been a rude surprise for Jay: when Alex first confronted him the day before, Jay had assumed Alex would “see things his way.”

“What
is
his way?” I asked as I put the breakfast plates into his dishwasher.

“Oh, the usual,” said Alex, which made me wonder what kind of friends he hung out with. “Faithless woman ruined my life, she should at least let me keep my dog.”

“But he spent about a year not even
trying
to get the dog back, why did it suddenly become so important to him?”

Alex grinned. “It was always important to him, but he finally acted because
you
showed up, brother.”

What an eejit I was, I should have realized: “It's not the dog he wants back. It's
Sara
.”

Alex shook his head. “Nah. Or if he does, it's just to punish her for dumping him. He genuinely wants the dog back.” He nudged
me out of the way, to rearrange some things in the dishwasher. Accountants are fussy that way. “See, he's got this vision of the life he feels he was
entitled
to. Sara ruined the vision by walking out on him, but the one part he feels he can resuscitate is the part where his faithful dog is curled up at his feet every night. He'll never get any of the rest of it back, but he can still have
that
.” Satisfied, he smacked the dishwasher door closed.

“Why doesn't he just get another dog?”

“If Cody had died, or run off, he'd do that,” Alex said. “But Cody was
stolen
.” He clapped his hand on the counter; the dachshunds jumped. “In his eyes, I mean. And when something vital is stolen, what does a man do?” Now he clapped me on the shoulder. “He
gets it back
. You're just the poor chump who showed up and gave him a way to do it. In a weird way he's sort of grateful to you.”

I groaned. Alex laughed.

“We have a couple hours. Go back to bed and take a nap.”

That was the best suggestion anyone had ever made to me in the history of suggestions (not including Sara's suggestion we get married, but then again that wasn't a suggestion, it was an instruction).

I left a message for Dougie telling him I hadn't fallen into the East River after leaving him, and promising to be in touch for real as soon as possible. I called Sara, apologized, and briefly updated her. Then I slept a deep and blissfully dreamless sleep—without any dogs—and awoke a couple of hours later alone in the guest room. I took a moment to collect myself, then stripped the bed because I try to be a considerate guest even when my host has practically poisoned me with alcohol. I came back out into the living room.

Where I met Alex Craggs, Badass Biker Dude.

From the waist down not much had changed, although I didn't remember the heavy biker boots from last night. His collared shirt had been ditched for a red T-shirt, a black leather vest, wraparound shades, and a red bandanna tied over his close-cropped hair. The vest had a circular patch on the front; he was turning away from me as I emerged, so I got the full rotational view. The back had the same patch, much larger, and emblazoned around it, the words
SOUTHERN RIDERS MC
. The patch seemed to show two flags crossed into an
X,
but don't quote me—I was too distracted by
LANCER
(as he was named on his vest) standing in Alex's living room.

Here's an important detail: it was not at all ridiculous. Despite his beaming grin, he was, frankly, a little scary. And he seemed fine with that. His sound track was
not
Neil Diamond. It was Johnny Rebel.

“Wow,” I said, respectfully.

“Exactly,” he said. “Let's go.”

We went outside and he took his bike out of the garage—it was a great and glorious thing, and if I knew a damn thing about such machines, I could rattle off all kinds of impressive stats, but the information Alex gave me went in one ear, through my still-hungover brain, and out the other ear. As vehicles go, it looked like a large robotic insect that could probably set half the neighborhood on fire.

With him in the vanguard and me following in the puny MINI, we headed off about three miles down the road, to the motorcycle club's clubhouse. Alex's home away from home. (Sound track: Lynyrd Skynyrd.) A neat, white cinder-block building baking in
the sun, set back from the road next to a grass-and-dirt parking lot. It was almost perfectly nondescript except for two things.

First: the pair of large flags hanging limp in the hot still air on either side of the door. One was the traditional American flag. The other was the flag of the Confederacy. It still reminded me of a Union Jack, and so despite Alex's suggestions the night before equating the southern and Irish struggles for freedom from oppression, my reaction to the flag was kneejerk rejection. Roddy Doyle was right. We were the blacks of Europe, not the rednecks.

The second feature of the place that kept it from being nondescript were the forty-odd parked motorcycles surrounding it, and forty-odd bikers milling around them. Many of the bikes were marked with the decal of the club, all gleaming bright in the sun and reviving my hangover headache. Most of the bikers—unlike Alex—looked the traditional role of Biker Guy, with ponytails and at least a little facial hair (meaning about as much as me, that morning). They all wore varieties of his regalia: the vest, at least, and usually the red T below it. Jeans, boots, sometimes bandannas. While generally strapping blokes, they were all sizes and shapes, but pretty much only one color and definitely only one gender (and surely only one acknowledged sexual orientation). The place was whiter than a Dublin pub in the 1970s.

Alex rode his bike into the lot and parked it with the rest of the metallic herd. I parked across the country lane from the clubhouse . . . right behind the white Lexus SUV with Massachusetts plates. I punched the passenger seat a couple of times to let off some steam, but that made my head hurt, so I stopped. Took a deep breath. I promised myself not to jump the prick.

Alex summoned me across the road. I got out of the MINI,
sweating bullets. I was half the weight of the average biker, driving a car that had less power than most of their bikes. I left the window down in case the testosterone levels catapulted me back across the road and I needed to dive for shelter. Crossed the lane . . . and there, between a row of bikes and the entrance to the clubhouse, was Cody.

My heart raced, seeing her. “Hey, Cody! Cody girl!” I shouted, my voice cracking in my throat. She turned and saw me. Two things happened to her body at once: first, she began to joyfully rush toward me; second, she began to wag her tail so hard that the sideways action halfway canceled out the forward action, and so she came galumphing toward me with an odd camel-like gait, sweeping the ground behind her with her tail. I ran to her, collapsed to my knees on the packed dirt, threw my arms around her. I'd never squeezed that dog so hard.

She raised her chin, her tongue darting briefly in and out of her mouth with her Little Match Girl kisses, as if sipping some unseen Essence of Rory. I rubbed her ears and her muzzle and her chest and wanted to just pick her up and run away. “Hey, Cody,” I said. “Cody! So sorry about all this, girl. Let's go.” I stood up. In response to the word and gesture together, she scrambled up to her feet, her attention trained devotedly on my face to see what we were doing next. It's dazzling, what that devoted stare can do when you have spent a few days thinking you'll never see it again. I'd have offered her my liver for dessert if she wanted it, I was that relieved that she was near me. She had never looked so happy to see me, but that was probably just my imagination. I'm sure that pox had been spoiling her rotten.

After our initial moment of joyful reunion, she looked around
for Sara. She saw the MINI. Heedless of the lane, she galloped toward it, tail wagging wildly, panting expectantly.

“Cody, wait!” I called in a panic. I heard footsteps start running toward the car from behind me.

Eagerly she jumped up, forelegs grappling at the open window, like a little kid grasping for a treat from the ice-cream man. I ran across the street and opened the door. She scrambled in excitedly, looked around as if expecting Sara was maybe hidden in there, clambered into the back and sniffed at her bed, and then curled up and lay down on it, looking very happy. Seeing her in a familiar place, seeing her where she should have been all along, I released a little cry of relief. Then I took a deep breath to keep from tearing up in front of all the manly men.

I turned back toward the clubhouse. Alex was trotting toward me. Behind him was Jay. It was the first time I'd seen him in person since he'd taken her. He looked ridiculous here in his long black coat, surrounded by all the bikers—and yet somehow the ruined-baron dignity was still intact. Fucker. “Well, there you go,” I said, calling out to him across the row of bikes. “Nice try, wanker, we'll just be going now. Thanks for your hospitality, Alex.” I turned back to the car to get inside, but Alex had reached me. He casually grabbed me around the shoulders and pivoted me away from the vehicle, as if I were a Bunraku puppet and he was the puppeteer.

“That's not how it works, brother,” he said, cheerfully admonishing. “We haven't started yet. We're just balancing the scale here, getting her used to both of you again. You need to start on equal footing so that her choice is not determined by excitement or distraction.”

I shrugged him off me. “Why should we start on equal foot
ing? We're not
on
equal footing. We shouldn't be on
any
footing. We shouldn't
be
here. I should be halfway to L.A. with Cody in my car.”

“It's actually your
wife's
car,” called out Jay. “And, oh yes, your
wife's
dog.”

I clenched my fists and jaws and neck and shoulders and it was a miracle I kept myself from sprinting across the road and decking him. “I'll be dug out of you, ya pox bottle!” I threatened. Alex stuck out a large, cautionary arm across my chest to keep me contained. “Someday,” I informed Jay. “Just you wait, pal. You are going to scream for mercy while I rip out your fingernails. Then I'll push you off a fucking cliff.”

“Your green card's still conditional,” Jay said calmly. “Be a good boy.”

I had to turn in circles, fists clenched so tight I almost sprained some hand muscles. My entire upper body shook with the rage. I heard Alex say (but he sounded amused), “Jonathan, buddy, don't be an asshole, okay?” He gave me a moment to go through my convulsions, then firmly propelled me back across the road, and called Cody out of the car because I refused to. She came trotting over beside him, looking delighted that two of her favorite people—Rory! Jonathan!—were in the same place! And both smelled of bacon! That dog was having a really great day.

Alex ordered her to sit, and obediently she did so, between Jay and me, in a patch of dirt outside the clubhouse, looking back and forth between us, very happy. Being close to Jay without leveling him took all my willpower.

The sun was bright and the day was beautiful, nature so big and magnificent, and all of us so small and dull in comparison
that it was hard to believe we piddling mortals were doing anything of consequence. It was just a little disagreement about a dog. No biggie. I'd heard Sara's version, I'd heard Alex's, but now I needed to hear it from ground zero: “Why did you do this?” I demanded.

“Do what, get my dog back?” Jay answered. “An opportunity presented itself. I took it.”

“She's not your dog,” I insisted.

He gave me a mildly contemptuous look. “Of course she is. Sara forfeited her right to ownership.”

“How?”

He gave me a lofty smile.
“The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth
—”

“Oh, for fuck's sake, don't quote Shakespeare to an actor,” I groaned. “That's
tacky
. Anyhow Hamlet was—”

“Save it for the after-party, guys,” Alex said. “We're not here to
chat
. We're here for Cody. So. You may both touch her.” We both immediately reached out to put a hand on top of Cody's head. I got there first, and gave Jay a childish, angry look of triumph. He peaceably moved his hand to her muzzle and began to rub along her nose. Cody, blissed out by two of her people patting her at once, flopped into tarty-dog pose.

So we competed to put a hand on her belly first. Again, I won. Jay, looking unperturbed, began to gently rub her face again. I studied his expression. He really loved this dog. Arsehole.

But he really loved her. Maybe not as much as Sara loved her, but more, in truth, than I did. It wasn't as if she'd suffer, spending her life with him instead of with Sara. She'd be grand no matter what happened, as much as I didn't want to admit it and Sara
would never believe it. There was no bad outcome for Cody here. Only for me.

“Here's how it works,” said Alex, like a presenter on a game show. “You will both rise on my order and walk into the clubhouse. Jonathan, you'll move to the right of the door; Rory, you'll go to the left. Turn your faces to the wall so the dog cannot read your expressions. I'll bring her in. Neither of you is to call or make any kind of visual or audio sign at all.
At all
. If you try to pull a fast one, the other guy wins immediate possession. We see where she decides to go. Might take her a while. She might get distracted. But we just wait. Got it?”

“That's a thick-stupid way to make a decision,” I protested.

“Nice way to talk to someone who made you such an awesome breakfast,” said Alex with a grin. “Once she's made her decision, we will all abide by it.”

“What does that mean?” I demanded. “If she happens to wander over to Jay, I just go on to Los Angeles and tell Sara to forget about her?”