Stud Rites (17 page)

”Z-Rocks,” I said, ”is perfectly decent, and you know it. She’s just not in any condition to be here.”

”She is not outstanding,” Betty ruthlessly proclaimed. ”She is ordinary. And
ordinary
does not go Best of Breed at a national specialty.” Betty paused. ”Even under James Hunnewell. I don’t know what Timmy was thinking.”

”Daphne is a much better bitch,” I said, naming a frequent competitor at New England shows. ”She moves a lot better, and she’s always beautifully presented.”

”She usually beats your male,” Betty observed. ”She usually beats most of the other males, too,” I replied sharply.

”If it’s any comfort to you, Daphne’ll get her comeuppance tomorrow, because Casey’s here, and she won’t beat him.” Casey: Williwaw’s Kodiak Cub. I’d seen dozens of photos of the beautiful, top-winning sable dog, but I’d never seen him in the ring. Casey was supposed to be a great competitor, a master showman.

A masculine hoot interrupted any further speculation about Casey and Best of Breed. ”Duke! Hey, Duke, come on over and take a look, man! They got your baby pictures here!”

Startled, Betty and I turned around and stared at by far the largest group our rescue booth had ever drawn. At least thirty people were clustered around the booth. I briefly lost my mind. After all our pleas, our sob stories, our reasoned arguments, our cold presentations of fact, our appeals to conscience, finally! This overwhelming show of support. The crowd was utterly staggering.

But Betty was not taken in. She was also not pleased. ”Gary Galvin has gone and done it again!”

Yes, the video monitor.

”Don’t complain!” I whispered. ”They’re here! That’s progress.”

When Betty and I had worked our way close enough in to get a good view of the screen, I realized that what we were watching had been converted to video from a film taken with an old home-movie camera held by an amateur hand. I couldn’t begin to guess the date of the show. When it comes to men’s clothing, I can tell a zoot suit from white tie, and I know whether Steve is wearing jeans or scrubs, but that’s about it. In some vague way, the judge’s suit—or maybe he wore a coat and tie?—looked old-fashioned. His hair was short. In contrast, by today’s standards, Duke Sylvia’s was long, and he had sideburns. But, oh my! Funny whiskers and all, the young Duke Sylvia was smooth. He was as good a handler as his knock-out dog deserved.

”Comet,” Betty told me, eyes on the screen.

The dog in the grainy footage was tremendously powerful and consummately agile, as if he’d been sired by a linebacker out of a prima ballerina. Northpole’s Comet: He leaped out of the jumpy black-and-white footage with such vigor and style that you could hardly believe he was dead.

The camera lingered on Comet. Then, as if fighting to move away, it jerked along the line of dogs in the long-ago ring.

Even then, whenever this was, Duke had been much too skilled a handler to outdo his superlative dog. Duke moved almost as well as Comet, and that’s a compliment to Duke.

”Hey, Duke, when is this?” someone asked.

”Don’t know.”

”Aw, come on. Who’d you handle him for?”

”Elsa Van Dine,” someone said. ”Elsa would’ve loved to see this. Goddamn shame.”

”Duke handled him for everyone,” contributed someone else. ”Himself, among others.”

I hadn’t known. ”Duke, you owned Comet?” I was wildly jealous.

”Co-owned,” Duke said. ”For a while.”

With a whoop and holler, a man I didn’t know darted to the monitor and pressed some buttons. ”Whoo-ee! Gotcha, Duke! Texas handling! And the kid didn’t have a clue.”

Texas handling:
trying to draw the judge’s attention to your dog’s good points by running your hand over them. It’s no more common in Texas than it is anywhere else. It is my theory, however, that the term originated when the novice handler of a Dandie Dinmont tried the ploy on the Only Law West of the Pecos, the legendary Roy Bean, the Hanging Judge, a terrier man himself. Bean resented the insulting effort to manipulate his opinion and swiftly dealt with the offender in his accustomed fashion—swift hanging. When news of the barbaric incident reached New York, horrified officials at the American Kennel Club dispatched an indignant letter to Judge Bean. The power to
suspend for life,
they explained, was the exclusive prerogative of the board of directors of the AKC. West of the Pecos or not, Judge Bean had acted in gross excess of his authority. In a postscript, the letter pointed out that the phrase ordinarily referred not to stringing up exhibitors in their entirety, but to suspending their AKC privileges. A man of action, the judge shot back the famous two-word reply that now hangs, appropriately enough, in the AKC’s offices:
”Same difference.”
Just kidding. Have I digressed?

Anyway, even in the old days, Duke Sylvia had been much too polished to practice Texas handling in its crude form. What the old tape captured was a common twist. Here’s how it went. The dogs were lined up, and the judge was temporarily out of the picture as the dog just before Comet gaited to the far end of the ring. Comet, I should note, had an outstanding front, a strong chest and big-boned legs that contrasted with the somewhat weaker front of the dog just beyond him, a dog with a junior handler, a kid. Making sure that the junior handler beyond him was watching—and, I assume, that the judge wasn’t—sideburned Duke made a quicker-than-the-eye move, a quick flick of his hand to Comet’s chest. I followed the rest of the sequence. As the judge went over Comet, Duke’s hands went nowhere near his dog, who acted as the ideal co-conspirator in his handler’s scheme by projecting the image of the canine know-it-all who can display his own virtues just fine, thank you, with no help from the human nuisance tagging along at the wrong end of the show lead. When the judge approached the next dog, the junior handler did what he’d just seen the master before him do: He ran a hand over his dog’s chest, thus simultaneously calling attention to a weak point, insulting the judge, and drawing the judge’s wrath. The film was silent. The judge’s deadly ire, however, was visible on his enraged face.

The manipulated junior handler: Timmy Oliver. The judge: James Hunnewell.

IN SIGNING UP for Friday night’s Alaskan malamute luau, we’d been given the standard dog-club-banquet choice of London broil, chicken cordon bleu, or baked scrod. Upscale is prime rib, chicken Kiev, or broiled swordfish. Downscale is beneath me. I won’t join an organization that offers nothing but creamed table scraps and peas on tough patty shells.

By the time Leah and I arrived, the Lagoon was packed with people milling around, sipping drinks, and chatting. In the background, Hawaiian guitar Muzak twanged what I eventually decoded as ”Time Is on My Side.” I ordered a Scotch for me and a diet cola for Leah. Soon after a saronged waitress brought the drinks, people began to settle at the tables.

After lingering to watch the old film of Comet, I’d joined Gary and a couple of other rescue people in helping Betty to move the most valuable auction items to her room. Then Leah and I had fed and walked the dogs, taken quick showers, and changed into new black dresses that we’d kept in plastic bags, but had to de-fur anyway. We’d shopped for the dresses together. For the first three hours, Leah had rejected every suggestion I’d made. In her view, every bright solid color made her look like a bridesmaid. Flowing garments were maternity dresses. Anything with a waistline reminded her of Scarlett O’Hara. According to Leah, a gray tweed suit turned me into a dowager. In navy blue, we were flight attendants. When I finally persuaded her to try on a pretty flowered print, she gave the mirror one disgusted glance and cried, ”Oh God!
Little House on the Prairie.!”
The plain black dress that she eventually picked for herself was so short that only my frazzled exhaustion prevented me from telling her that it made her look like an Olympic figure skater who’d just suffered a death in the family. She costumed me as an Italian widow. On our way to the Lagoon, Leah remarked that we looked extremely sophisticated. ”You know, Holly,” Leah advised, ”men really do like black.”

Do they ever! As people began to seat themselves at the big round tables and to dip spoons into the fruit cocktails, Finn Adams approached me in a manner disconcertingly reminiscent of the demeanor of my mother’s most enthusiastic stud dog, Bertie. Bertie had to be restrained from leaping the fences to offer his valuable services to all takers free of charge instead of waiting for his carefully planned trysts with our own bitches and the occasional visits of paying guests. As Finn joined us, I devoutly wished Bertie were with me now. Bertie would have hated the whole idea of artificial insemination. Bertie had the perfect gentle, affectionate golden retriever temperament, but if he’d even begun to guess how Finn Adams earned his living, he’d have taken a chunk out of his ankle. Or perhaps elsewhere.

But Bertie was long dead. Leah was no help. When Finn suggested that we have dinner together, Leah smirked. I scanned desperately. At a nearby table sat Duke Sylvia. Next to him were two empty chairs. I threw Duke an imploring glance and held up two fingers. He nodded.

”Sorry,” I told Finn, gesturing in Duke’s direction, ”but we’ve already promised...”

Men really do like black. Duke seemed unusually glad to see me. He rose from his seat and pulled out the chair next to his. Leah took the place next to mine. Beyond her sat Timmy Oliver. Between Timmy and Karl Reilly, Freida’s son, was a seat that I assumed was being saved for Karl’s wife, Lucille, who turned out to be home with the flu. Pam Ritchie and Tiny DaSilva sat between Karl and Duke. How Duke had contrived to get Timmy seated alone with two empty places on one side and one on the other, I didn’t know, but I held Duke responsible. Wherever Duke sat automatically became the head of the table. A waiter showed up with two bottles of wine. After filling our glasses, he left both bottles in front of Duke. Then Finn Adams wandered along and, gesturing to the empty place between Timmy Oliver and Karl Reilly, got Duke’s unspoken permission to join us.

At the risk of sounding like the Camille Paglia of dogs, let me admit that I dearly love a true alpha male.

When Finn sat down, he exchanged introductions with Karl Reilly and with Pam and Tiny. He nodded politely to Leah and me and greeted Timmy Oliver, whom he obviously knew. To Duke, he said, ”Finn Adams. R.T.I.” Duke tipped his big lion’s head. I suppose Duke took it for granted that at a dog show, everyone knew who he was. I had the sense that in Finn’s case Duke was right.

At dog club banquets, the standard appetizer is fresh fruit cup. Upscale is with sherbet. Ours was without, but each of us did get a garnish of mint leaf. Duke picked up his spoon and ate a melon ball. Then the rest of us began. As we passed the baskets of rolls and the plates of butter, everyone agreed that, especially considering the circumstances, Mikki Muldoon was doing a very good job.

”Mikki always runs a tight ship,” Duke commented. ”She’s a real pro.”

As if to suggest that Freida Reilly wasn’t, Tiny turned to Karl and said, ”Your mother looks done in. She must be ready to drop.”

I didn’t really know Karl Reilly. What gave me a false sense of familiarity was Karl’s resemblance to a man who appeared in a lot of obscure-channel TV commercials for a local chain that sold cheap men’s suits. Whenever I saw Karl, I found myself expecting him to display his trouser cuffs and utter negative remarks about high-priced stores. Before Karl could respond to Tiny, however, Pam Ritchie said, ”Well, of course Freida’s showing the strain! Who wouldn’t be? It’s enough of a job to chair a national to begin with, never mind having your judge murdered. Exactly how do you expect her to look?”

In self-defense, or perhaps in defense of Freida’s qualifications for the hotly coveted place on the board, Tiny said, ”All I meant was that I, for one, don’t envy Freida one bit. All of us owe her a debt of gratitude for coping so magnificently with this terrible situation.”

”Of course we do! Karl, I hope your mother knows what a remarkable job everyone thinks she’s doing. Among other things, I expected to walk in here and find us stuck with an, uh, undercover cop at every table.” Pam’s eyes lingered on Finn Adams.

With a trace of his old charm, Finn smiled crookedly and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

”Hey, like he says,” Timmy Oliver said, ”he’s from R.T.I. We’ve been talking a little business. Besides, him and Holly go way back.”