A Hell of a Dog (10 page)

“Who's on after lunch?” Woody asked.

“Audrey,” Chip said.

I sank lower in my seat and concentrated on the stage as Beryl wrapped up.

“And that in addition to breed character, we as trainers must pay attention to individual differences, how bright a particular dog is, how quickly he responds, to the limitations and determinations of body type, to humor and how each dog expresses his own version of it, to the level of dominance in each individual, to stubbornness and tenacity above and beyond what is to be expected for a certain breed and whether we are dealing with an issue of character or a training problem. So you can see, dear friends, that the underlying factor is always the character of the particular dog you are training, how to understand and best approach it for a successful dog-and-human relationship.”

Then everyone was clapping, and Beryl was waving away the applause.

“Is there a question period?” Woody asked. “God, I hope not I'm starving.”

I pulled the program out of my jacket pocket, nearly dislodging the leopard bikinis along with it. “Weird. Sam put it at the end of the day, both speakers together.”

“She does that to keep it lively. Where's the lunch?” Woody asked.

“The Nixon Room,” I said.

“You're joking.”

“Right.”

But before I got the chance to tell him where the lunch was, the fat lady who had shushed us was at the end of the aisle, and we weren't going anywhere without her permission.

“You're speakers?” she asked.

“Guilty as charged,” Woody said. “Rachel Alexander, Chip Pressman, and I'm Woody Wright.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. That's when I noticed the point-and-shoot camera in her hand.

“Bucky's in the front, on the left side,” I told her, hoping once she'd left I could get out of the aisle and on with my life.

She looked over toward the front of the room, toward the crowd around Bucky, but she didn't stir. “But you're all on the program,” she said. “May I?” She held up the camera, and as we were about to lean together and say “cheese,” she held it out toward me. “Would you mind?” she asked.

I took her picture with Woody and then with Chip. I was about to hand the camera to Chip so that I could pose with her, too, but she was thanking them, and then she was off, leaning first to one side and then the other as she duck-walked down to the front to have her picture taken with the king of dog trainers.

“Lunch is in the Carter Café,” I told Woody. “I think we're eating in the garden. You coming, Pressman?”

“I'm going to take Betty out for a walk,” he said. “Want to join me?” He was staring at me the way Dashiell does when he has some desperate need he's trying to communicate. But the only need I was interested in just then was my own.

I needed answers. I needed to know who fell panting into Alan Cooper's arms last night. And then what? Did she steal away before dawn, unable to find her panties in the dark and too considerate to put on the light?

Or was she still there in the morning when Alan had slipped into the hot, soapy tub? And if so, considering the circumstances, what business was that of mine?

“Rachel?” he said.

“I can't. I have something really important I have to do,” I told him, because at least I was sure about the answer to my last question. Even if I weren't dying of curiosity, Sam's check had made it my business.

10

I STUCK MY HAND INTO MY POCKET

I ran up the stairs to my room. I needed some time to be alone and think. At twelve-thirty I took Dashiell for a walk around the neighborhood, dropped off the film I had shot on Sunday at the closest drugstore, and returned at one to hear Audrey's talk. A worried-looking Sam, standing outside the door, called me over.

“Audrey refuses to speak this afternoon. She says the vibes are too negative, because of Alan's accident.”

“Won't anyone else switch with her?”

“Yes, but I'm worried about all these last-minute changes. People expect to hear what's on the program.”

“Who's speaking in Audrey's place?”

“Rick said he would. He's very sweet. But he's such a boring speaker. I was hoping to slip him in later in the week.”

“It's after lunch, Sam, half the audience will fall asleep anyway. More than half if he's really dull.”

“Audrey would have kept them up. Even if you don't buy a word she says, she's so entertaining. And she gets everyone to participate.”

“You mean the whole audience will be sitting there with handkerchiefs over their heads, chanting?”

“Exactly. Try sleeping with
that
going on. But it's not only that. She tells these sad, charming, funny stories about what the animals tell her is wrong with their lives. None of it is their own fault. It's all human error. People lap it up. It gives them somewhere to put their free-floating guilt. Anyway, now Rick has the afternoon, which means he and Beryl will be together for the question period. You know how
she
is, she's so overbearing, she won't let him say a word.”

“I wouldn't worry about it, Sam. It'll be good for Rick to tangle with Godzilla.”

I smiled wickedly at the thought. So did Sam.

“Maybe you're right,” she said. “At least
that
part will be lively. I know I'm fretting too much. It's just that talking to Elizabeth was so draining.”

“I can imagine. Any news about Alan?”

“Detective Flowers came back when Elizabeth was here, in case she had any questions. And she did. She wanted to know everything. Flowers was totally straight with her. She said that unfortunately Alan had been conscious during the mishap. That's what she called it, the mishap. She said the fall hadn't knocked him out. It only knocked the radio in.” She made a face. “She also said his hand was on the faucet, that he might have been trying to right himself and get back up, but that that was what made the current go through his heart. Otherwise he might have survived the shock.”

“So it was definitely an accident?” I asked her.

“What else?” she said, lowering her voice and looking at me seriously. “Rachel, you don't think—”

“No, no, it's just that he wasn't alone last night.”

“Who was?” she said. “And whatever difference could that make? Rachel, the man's dead. And everyone screws around at these things. It's expected, you know, it's one of the perks. People like to get away from the routines of their life. What harm does it do, a little flirting, a little fling at a seminar? It doesn't hurt anyone.”

“The way eating bacon out when you keep a kosher home doesn't count?” I said, a little edge in my voice perhaps. “Is that the theory? That God only watches when you're at your legal home address?”

What on earth was
I
so angry about? I wondered. No one was breaking down my door insisting I break any commandments with them. I was free to be just as moral—and lonely—as I pleased.

“People are unhappy, Rachel.”

Tell me about it, I thought, seeing again the look in Chip's eyes when I turned down his invitation for a walk in the park. He'd looked as sad as a shelter dog.

“They need a little treat once in a while,” she said, “a little pick-me-up. It doesn't destroy their life at home. No one takes it seriously.”

But some do, I thought. Some take it very seriously. Hadn't my own brother-in-law, burdened by guilt from his little pick-me-ups, confessed much too much to his unsuspecting wife, neatly transferring the anvil of pain from his shoulders to hers?

I stuck my hand into my pocket and for a moment wondered if one other person had taken things seriously, the person whose underwear was now in my hand.

“Sam, did you ever book Alan in Phoenix?”

“Phoenix? Yes, last fall, October. What makes you ask?”

“Oh, no special reason. It's just that I overheard Audrey talking about someone she'd been with in Phoenix that she might be with again here. That's all.”

“Rachel, it was an accident. That's what the police said. Please keep in mind that any other conclusion could ruin me. Anyway, most of them have been in Phoenix. What you heard, it didn't mean anything. And if you do find out who was there with Alan, then what?”

“I only wanted to return these,” I said, holding my pocket open so that Sam could see what was inside.

“
There
they are,” she said, slipping her hand into my pocket and gathering the bikinis into her fist.

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Anyway, don't the Chinese say, One pair of underwear is worth more than ten thousand words? What was there to add?

“Where'd you find them?” she asked, opening her purse and dropping them in. “Never mind. I don't want to know. Anyway, thanks, Rachel. I knew you'd earn your wages.”

I tried to imagine Sam and Alan, but it was as unthinkable and distasteful as trying to imagine one's parents having sex, which everyone knew only happened very early in their marriage, and only as many times as there were offspring.

“I'm grateful it was you who found them and not the police,” she whispered. “Can you imagine how much fun
that
interrogation would have been?”

She turned and held the door open for me. “Come along,” she said. “Rick is about to begin. It's nap time.” And with that she led the way, then continued on up to the stage to introduce him after I dropped off near the back and slid into an empty seat two rows behind Martyn Eliot and Cathy Powers, signaling Dashiell to lie down in front of me.

“There's been a slight change in the program,” Sam was saying. “This afternoon, we are lucky to have Rick Shelbert, dog behaviorist to the stars and author of
Positively Perfect
, talking about some of his most fascinating cases. Dr. Shelbert, as you know, has a Ph.D. in psychology and has been working with dog owners for twelve years. Let's give him a warm welcome.”

Dashiell lifted his head during the applause and put it back down as Rick approached the microphone, hoping perhaps to be first to fall asleep, but he didn't come close. Rick's Saint Bernard, Freud, who had been asleep near the chair in which Rick had been sitting during Sam's introduction, never woke up when his master moved. From where I sat, I couldn't be
positive
, but chances were good he was snoring and drooling too.

As Rick began, I noticed that not everyone was listening. Martyn seemed to be more engrossed in his conversation with Cathy than he was in what was happening on the stage.

In fact, I seemed to being having trouble concentrating on Rick myself. I thought the acoustics might be better if I moved up a row. But I thought that might be too obvious, so instead I leaned forward, resting my arms on the empty seat in front of me, then leaning my chin on the back of one hand.

“Her father left the family when she was just a kid, you see,” Martyn was saying. He was so wrapped up in Cathy he hadn't noticed me practically breathing down his neck. “It really messed her up badly.”

Cathy nodded as he spoke. She was pretty wrapped up herself.

“There's no way I could leave her at this time,” he said. “It would seem a repetition of her past, as if I were doing to her what her father had done, as if it were happening all over again.”

“How sad.”

I thought I detected a touch of sarcasm in Cathy's voice, but Martyn didn't seem to notice.

Rick was talking about a collie he'd worked with. The dog was afraid of men, so Rick had had the owner play a tape of men speaking and offer the dog bits of liver while it played.

“Next,” he said, “we took him out, and whenever a man came into view, we'd offer treats to the dog. Eventually we were able to get some men to offer the liver directly to the dog, so that he would begin to perceive male strangers as bearers of pleasant things—”

“She's in therapy,” Martyn was saying. “Perhaps in time—” He didn't bother to finish the sentence, leaving it to Cathy's imagination.

I leaned back and tried to concentrate on the stage.

Rick was talking about aggression now, first a problem with a shih tzu who hid under the bed and bit the bare feet of the boyfriend when he tried to get out of bed. Rick's suggestion was that the couple eschew sex for several weeks, during which the boyfriend was supposed to feed bits of dried liver to the dog whenever he came over. Sounded to me like a program most people would stick with.

“I don't know what's right anymore,” Martyn was saying.

Next was the case of the Doberman who tore the house to shreds whenever the owner went to work. Rick began to drone on about separation anxiety, saying he suggested the owner take a few weeks off from work and go through the motions of leaving without leaving, going to the coat closet and then returning to the couch with a treat for the dog, getting his coat out and then hanging it back up, offering a treat afterward, putting his coat on and then taking it off, giving the dog some more liver as he did. I felt my eyes starting to close, the way Freud's had the minute he got up on the stage. I thought if I fell asleep, chances were I'd drool, too. But I didn't fall asleep. I kept thinking of how sick this dog must have gotten eating all that desiccated liver.

“Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever have any happiness in my life,” Martyn was saying, his eyes appropriately downcast now.

Rick's guy was still going to the closet and sitting down, still giving treats but getting nowhere, certainly not out the door. I wondered why Rick didn't suggest a little obedience training and a shitload of exercise. How could anyone expect a young, strong, large animal to sit and do nothing all day long when he had only been out to relieve himself of the end product of digestion and not the purpose of it, to produce the energy with which to work and play? But he never did.

Rick had apparently finished with the Doberman. Now he was talking about a four-year-old pug who slept on the bed and growled at his owner whenever she rolled over during the night. I was waiting to hear him suggest the owner sleep with liver in her hands when I heard Cathy instead.