This Dog for Hire (20 page)

I checked my watch. “He's going up at eleven-thirty,” I said. “Are you going to watch him in the ring?”

“Eleven-thirty,” he repeated to himself. “I wasn't going to stay, but I guess I shouldn't miss that. Where would I go?”

Despite the fact that he had a catalog and could have looked it up himself, I told him the ring number.

He nodded, then turned and made his way through the folds of humanity clogging the aisle, stopping and squatting low to look inside the other basenji crates as he had done with Magritte.

“Here he is. So what's the big deal!”

There were two women in front of Magritte's crate now, one tall and thick, built like a tree, hair shorn short in front, the rest pulled back and tied with a scarf, the other short and soft and round with breasts that began under her chin and ended somewhere around her pillowlike stomach. The tall one clutched her catalog to her chest. The other kept methodically pulling pieces of rice cake from her pocket and putting them into her mouth.

“This
is
Magritte, isn't it?” the short one said.

I nodded. I was going to have a neck like a nose tackle by the end of the show.

“The
News
says he's a shoo-in,” she said, a real edge in her voice. There was a thin mustache on her upper lip that she apparently hadn't had time to wax or bleach.

The tall woman checked her catalog and then bent to look into Magritte's crate.

“Orion has a better ear set,” she said to no one in particular.

“They say he'll take Best in Show,” the short woman said.

Her skin was doughy and pale, with small scabs on her cheeks. Her short, curly hair was dyed aubergine. I've always thought that color looked better where it belonged, on an eggplant.

“Well, he hasn't taken the breed yet,” I said. “There are lots of other good dogs here today.”

“But none as brave and
famous
as this one,” she said, sarcasm dripping off her tongue along with a fine spray of rice cake.

In 1984 rumor had it that the Newfoundland Ch. Seaward's Blackbeard would take Best in Show before he had even drooled and rolled his way into the Garden to compete in the breed. And he did. But that kind of successful second-guessing was rare, and even though some people assumed BIS was already a done deal at this show, I wasn't one of them. I refused to make assumptions about Magritte's chances.

I supposed they had a basenji entered and didn't care for the edge Magritte had picked up when he lost his owner and gained Veronica Cahill's publicist. I was going to ask which dog was theirs, but not wanting another rice cake shower, I decided not to. Instead I picked up Gil's catalog, hoping they'd take the hint and go away.

You wouldn't have to be a detective to figure out which dog was theirs. Ch. Turkon's Heavenly Hunter, a male, four years old. That would make them Poppy O'Neal and Addie Turkic But which was which I couldn't say.

Once they had moved on, Poppy or Addie leaving a trail of puffed rice, like Hansel or Gretel in the woods, I got up to stretch, then stood up on the bench where I had been sitting to see if I could spot Gil. It was getting close to the time for Magritte to go get brushed, go potty, and present himself ringside. But Gil was not to be seen.

I remembered a story Chip had once told me about a famous handler. She had arranged to show a boxer the owner thought had great potential but was herself unable to win a major with. The handler met the owner and dog outside the ring the very moment the dogs were called. The owner had been standing and waiting, afraid the handler wouldn't show. The dog, absorbing all her anxiety, stood next to her, his head low, his tail down. As the handler took the leash, not saying a word to either of them, the dog's head came up, giving his neck an elegant arch, his dark eyes danced, his tiny, docked tail shot straight up and began beating rapidly from side to side. He won the breed, finishing his championship, and later on, with the same handler holding the leash, all know-how and confidence, he took the group.

If Magritte took the breed today, wouldn't it be a bittersweet victory? Like Clifford's soaring career, you'd have to wonder if all the great press, the sympathy, the sheer drama of recent events, would have made for a win that in the normal course of events wouldn't have happened.

I saw Gil approaching from the opposite way he had left. He was walking with another man, who was small and thin, his hair and skin the same dead-looking steely gray, a cigarette apparently stuck onto his dry lower lip despite the fact that there was no smoking allowed and that this was announced over loudspeakers with predictable regularity.

“—should go up. After today,” the little man said in his gravelly voice as they got near enough for me to hear them.

“Without a doubt,” Gil said. “You can bank on it.” He smiled at me but didn't bother to introduce me to the little man, who ignored me so completely at first that I thought perhaps he hadn't seen me sitting next to Magritte's crate. When he finally took notice of me, he merely tossed me a hard stare, then turned back to Gil.

Gil reached in and took Magritte out of his crate, tucked him snugly under his arm, picked up his tack box, checked his other pocket for a show lead and his armband with Magritte's number on it, pulling them each out and then carefully replacing them, and headed for the grooming area, the little man at his side, me trailing behind like an obedient puppy.

“The chances are good. Is that what you're saying?” the gray man said, one eye closed to let the smoke drift by.

“Excellent,” Gil answered. He found his spot, put Magritte up on the table, and, taking a brush out of the tack box, began to brush him. “You just leave it to me, Doc.”

Doc reflected on what he had heard, standing next to the grooming table and puffing on the stub of his cigarette. When it finally got too small to smoke, he held it between two dry yellow fingers, took another from his pocket, popped it into his mouth, lit it with the stub, and despite the fact that there were dogs all over the place, dropped the stub on the floor without bothering to step on it. “I'll be ringside,” he said.

After Doc had left, Gil reached into the tack box and took out an electric nail grinder. Magritte backed up a step, but the noose on the grooming table kept him from retreating any farther. Like every other dog I've ever met, he hated having his nails done. Gil plugged in the grinder, reached into his jacket pocket, felt around, and came up with a piece of dried liver. Magritte's tail began to wag, but to his dismay, the treat went not toward his own mouth but into Gil's. Liver Lips began to make a series of revolting slurping sounds, making me wonder if in another incarnation he had been a construction worker. He turned on the grinder and, lifting one paw at a time, began to work on Magritte's nails. When he finished the last foot, he leaned his face right into Magritte's and let the dog ever so gently take the moistened piece of liver from between his lips. Here was a man who truly lived up to his nickname.

That finished, Gil went on with the rest of Magritte's grooming routine, wiping him down briskly with a mitt to bring out the shine in his coat, powdering and wiping off his paws, and finally, spraying Show Foot paw tack on his pads to prevent him from slipping in the ring.

“Make yourself useful,” he said, handing me the tack box. He hoisted Magritte and headed for the nearest exercise pen, the doggy bathroom, where we silently waited our turn on line, standing in the red cedar chips that spilled out as each satisfied customer emerged. The chain-link pens were hung with plastic sheeting, not for privacy, though an occasional dog
did
care, but to protect passersby from getting what in my neighborhood is called a golden shower.

When Magritte had finished, Gil lifted him again. The crowds were much too formidable to walk a small dog through the benching area and onto the floor where the judging took place.

Gil pushed his way through a constantly reappearing wall of people, me following along behind as usual. We stopped at Magritte's bench, where I dropped off the tack box and Gil handed me Magritte just long enough to strap on his bait pouch and secure his armband with a single rubber band around the middle. After pushing and shoving for another two minutes, we were finally ringside.

24

For No Apparent Reason

Gil went around to the side just below the stands, where only handlers with their dogs were allowed. We had arrived ringside just as the basset hounds were finishing up, so, having manners more suitable for the IRT than any place above-ground, I elbowed and kneed my way around to the far side, where there was a single row of padded red folding chairs, and snagged one. Of course, there were plenty of seats in the stands, but those didn't place viewers nearly as close as they'd be sitting or standing ringside on the Garden floor.

Within moments, the basset people were replaced by basenji fanciers, catalogs open, ready to mark the wins.

Poppy and Addie were on the end of the row, to my left, funereal expressions on their faces. Beyond them, down the left side, I spotted Dennis. He was standing against the lavender velvet rope that demarcated the parameters of the ring, staring straight ahead.

When I turned to scan the opposite side, I saw the object of Dennis's gaze: Louis Lane, standing so close to his companion you'd have trouble slipping a foil-wrapped latex condom between them.

Veronica was whispering in his ear. From where I was sitting, her features looked too big after all.

Especially her nose.

Doc was up in the stands. He looked as dehydrated and gray as if he had died ages ago but no one had bothered to bury him.

I spotted Aggie too, standing ringside, near where the handlers entered. She was wearing a fuzzy aqua sweater with little faux pearls sewn all over it, perhaps to coordinate with her faux hair color. Even from where I was sitting, it seemed she had put on her makeup with a steam shovel.

The judge, ready to begin, nodded to the steward, who signaled the handlers. Gil placed Magritte down onto the floor, gave ever so small a pop to the lead, and that quickly, Magritte came to life. The ten basenji contenders, led by their handlers, entered the ring to great applause from the ringside fanciers and lined up inches from where I sat, to be stacked in show pose as a group and then examined, one at a time, by the judge.

Watching Am Staffs, Goldens, shelties, or Chinese cresteds does not prepare you for the basenji ring. Wherever basenjis are, they need to be elsewhere. It's just their nature.

Three of the ten dogs simply tried not stopping when they got to the far side of the ring. Two continued on under the velvet rope until they were pulled back by their handlers. One put its paws on the rope, perhaps contemplating trying out for the circus that would be back at the Garden come spring.

After stretching like cats, deep into their backs, two of the dogs, a brindle and a tri, began batting at each other with their front paws. A lot of the dogs stood up against their handlers' legs, begging for food, and were simply pushed off with a small movement of the knee. But one, a black-and-white, added humping to the routine and annoyed his handler enough to get a smack on his rump.

Gil knelt next to Magritte, reaching into his jacket pocket and placing a piece of dried liver at the ready between his teeth, then lifting each of Magritte's freshly powdered white feet and replacing it carefully in just the position necessary to show off the dog's conformation at its best—level topline, straight forelegs with well-developed sinews, straight flexible pasterns, moderately well bent stifles, hocks well let down. Magritte did not move. Head high, tightly curled tail quivering with excitement, his farseeing dark eyes looking straight ahead, he remained poised and still, his wrinkled forehead giving him the intense, intelligent, brightly curious expression so characteristic of the breed.

After the judge walked down the group and back, stopping to study each dog in turn, she motioned for the handlers to take them around, and the merry-go-round began, handlers and dogs trotting swiftly around the ring. The judge's forehead became as wrinkled-looking as any basenji's as she studied the dogs in motion, looking for the quick, tireless gait deemed desirable in the breed.

Despite the fact that the basenjis were held so tight they were just short of choking, the fine little two tricolor dogs behind Magritte still managed to pull sharply into the center of the ring, breaking stride in the process. His handler gave him a sharp pop with the show lead, quickly getting his attention back. No matter. The damage had been done.

While I didn't actually
see
Gil flip or spit a piece of bait as he was moving Magritte nicely along, I couldn't swear he hadn't done just that.

I looked to the left and saw that Addie or Poppy's pasty complexion had turned even less healthy looking, and she was popping rice cakes into her mouth double-time. I checked the number on the handler's armband against the catalog listing. It had been Orion who had fallen for Gil's trick. And what an effective piece of work it was! Basenjis hunt by sight
and
scent. If Orion hadn't seen precisely where the liver had landed, he certainly could have found it by its odor, a property Gil always augmented by rehydrating the liver with his own saliva.

Gil had his back to me for the moment, but I noticed that right after the tri broke, his hand went fishing around in his jacket pocket and, finding nothing there, went into the small leather pouch he had fastened onto his belt only moments earlier in the benching area, the pouch in which he kept his supply of liver treats.

The judge signaled the handlers to stop. Once again, each knelt on the mat and fussed with his or her dog, stacking, brushing, baiting, trying to get each to show at his best.

Gil pulled out the small brush that was sticking out of his back pocket and ran it over Magritte's back. Then he stood and dramatically took a few strokes with the same brush in his own hair, showing oneness with his little charge.