Skulldoggery (10 page)

“Well,” said Hester at last, “I have had to think and act for everybody from the beginning, and it’s now apparent that I must think and act for myself. In the meanwhile, let’s hope that neither Quinn nor Crump gets hungry enough to eat oatmeal cookies.”

A
PPARENTLY NEITHER
Quinn nor Crump did. Indeed, the only threat to the life of either developed naturally from their dispute over the autopsy. The former was threatened by apoplexy, and the latter was threatened by the former. Crump, however, was superb. Under the most intense pressure, his adamantine resistance to the butchery of Mrs. Crump remained unshaken, and Quinn was eventually forced to capitulate. Unprepared to commit himself to the dark suspicions that would have hauled in the cops and a court order, he put the blame on Mrs. Crump’s heart after all, and was thus deprived of a look at her liver and the chance to make a substantial contribution to the sum of medical knowledge.

On the whole, Crump took the passing of his mate with remarkable fortitude. It may be said, in fact, that he blossomed. An observant cynic would have said that he seemed to be relieved of a burden. It’s true that he behaved decorously so long as Mrs. Crump was laid out in the house, preserved for visitors in embalming fluid, but she had no sooner been transferred permanently to the cemetery than Crump emerged from his autumnal bud. There was a touch of spryness in his walk, an added sparkle to his eye. The very next morning after the last rites, he showed up in the park wearing a new sports coat with a giant check and a pair of pants with an ivy league cut. On the bench, while Senorita Fogarty frolicked on the grass at the end of her leash, he even exchanged with Hester sly nudges of the knee.

This was the same day that Junior came a cropper in the garden house. His duty there had been sporadic at best. It was onerous and unproductive, and he skipped it as often as he thought he could get away with it, which was more and more frequently as the days passed. Inasmuch as nothing was ever observed that seemed to him the least significant, all his reports were substantially the same, and it was a simple matter, he discovered, to falsify them. The passing of Mrs. Crump had made him hopeful that his espionage could be discontinued with official sanction, but he was given to understand by Hester, to whom he reported, that Mrs. Crump, alive or dead, was hardly a factor in the private sex life of Senorita and Crump’s stud.

“It must be private,” said Junior, “because I’ve never seen any sign of it. If you want to know what I think, I think Crump’s stud is an imposter.”

“Don’t be absurd. How could be a stud be an imposter? It’s against nature.”

“Well, a stud is supposed to do only one thing that I know of, and I’ve never seen him do it. I’ve never even seen him
try.
A stud that doesn’t act like a stud must be an imposter, that’s all I can say.”

He offered this as an irrefutable conclusion, having thought it through by the rules of logic in the form of a syllogism, but Hester was neither convinced nor impressed.

“How do you know he doesn’t try?” she said.

“I didn’t say he doesn’t. I said I’ve never
seen
him.”

“Maybe he’s just waiting until Senorita Fogarty is ready.”

“Damn it, you used to claim that Senorita is
always ready.
You know you did. It’s in her blood or something.”

“I’ve remembered since that dogs have certain times, regardless of blood. They’re different from humans that way.”

“However they are, I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life trying to find out. Anyhow, I’ll bet that Lester got all excited and made a mistake about the whole thing. I don’t believe there’s any stud there, or ever was one.”

“You’re trying to evade your plain duty, that’s all. Of course there’s a stud. Lester saw Crump bringing him home in a cage. Why on earth would you claim that there isn’t one?”

“I’ve told you and told you. Because I’ve never seen one.”

“You said you’ve never seen him trying. Are you saying now that you’ve never seen him
at all?
“

“That’s what.”

“Junior, you make no sense whatever. First you say baldly that Crumps stud is an imposter, and then you say that he doesn’t even exist How can he be an imposter if he doesn’t exist?”

“Well, I don’t want to get into any debate about it, because I wouldn’t have a chance, and I know it. All I can say is that it’s damn odd, to say the least, that old Crump never ties the stud out in the backyard with Senorita Fogarty.”

“Do you know what I think? I think you don’t even know who is tied in the backyard and who isn’t. Uncle Homer has said several times that you’re doing nothing in that garden house but taking after-lunch naps, and now I’m compelled to agree, although I have held out all along for giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

This was so near the truth, even though slightly exaggerated, that Junior was prompted immediately to swear to its falsity.

“Father’s nothing but a damn liar,” he said, “and that’s a fact. He’s always saying things like that about me for no good reason, and I’m tired of it.”

“All right. You needn’t get so belligerent about it. It has just occurred to me that Mrs. Crump may have been responsible for the stud’s absence from the backyard.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Mrs. Crump, you will recall, was delicate about sex and things like that. In fact, she was literally a mass of inhibitions. She would certainly have felt that the proper place for intimacy was in the house, and probably in a certain room with the blinds pulled and the door and all the windows locked.”

“That’s true, all right. Mrs. Crump was unreasonable in such matters.”

“Crump himself, however, may be something else entirely. I have cause to know that he has recently been shedding inhibitions like mad, and there’s no reason to believe that he would impose restrictions on Senorita Fogarty that he ignores himself.”

“What cause?” said Junior, getting directly to the crux.

“Never mind what cause. It is sufficient to know that Crump will probably alter the established routine and put Senorita and the stud in the backyard together. Therefore, Junior, it is more important than ever that you remain on duty. I’ll expect you to be at your post tomorrow afternoon as usual.”

“I don’t want to go. It gets damn dull in that garden house.”

“Junior, you will resort to anything to get out of doing your part. You will go whether you want to or not, or suffer the consequences. And stay awake. I warn you that I may decide to make a surprise inspection, and it will be too bad if I find you taking a nap.”

And so, under such duress, Junior had appeared in good time, shortly after lunch, at the iron picket fence at the rear of Grandfather’s property. He vaulted the fence and scooted across the yard to a huge oak tree some fifteen feet away, where he took cover. After loitering behind the trunk for a few minutes, to determine if he had been observed or not, he made a dash for the garden house, perhaps another ten feet up the yard, and plunged through its narrow entrance into its murky, octagonal protection. The garden house was small and gave Junior an uneasy sense of claustrophobia, as well as a strong feeling, should someone appear suddenly in the entrance, of being caught like a rat in a trap. He had tried once to estimate the interior dimensions, but this had quickly become far too complex for someone who didn’t have the least idea of how to compute the area of an octagon, and he had given it up in favor of napping, which was less demanding.

The walls of the garden house were constructed of diagonal slats that crossed each other in a fancy style to give the effect of loose weaving. This created little diamond-shaped apertures through which light filtered, but it was impossible for anyone outside to see anyone inside. Moreover, if the eye was applied closely to an appropriate aperture, a good view could be had of the back of the house and of the yard between. It was, in brief, an ideal post for a spy, and Junior, eye to aperture, spied in good faith for fully ten minutes.

After five, Crump appeared with Senorita Fogarty on a leash. He fastened the leash to something that had been driven into the ground, and returned to the house. Senorita watered the grass and lay down in the sunshine. Junior watched and waited, expecting Crump to return, but Crump didn’t. Neither Crump nor Crump’s stud. If Crump was adopting the attitude of a libertine, as Hester had implied, he had obviously not yet reached the point of granting equal license to Chihuahuas.

Well, it was clearly another dry run. In spite of Hester’s unreasonable insistance, nothing was to be gained from looking through holes at nothing. He had come against his better judgment, which had been vindicated, and no one could fairly say that he had failed to do his part. Besides, his back was beginning to ache from bending over to spy. He straightened and stretched and sat down on a seat that was nothing more than some boards, braced beneath, that had been fitted and attached to seven of the octagon’s eight sides. The seat was far from comfortable, and pretty soon he decided to lie down for a minute or two, assuming that even Hester would not object to such a minor relaxation of discipline. Each section of the seat was too short to permit stretching out straight, and so he had to bend in the middle to lie at an angle, his legs along one side of the octagon and his trunk along another. To accomplish this, he had to lie on his left side, and it just happened that he was a left-side-sleeper. The position affected him like a soporific, and in less than three minutes, in spite of petty discomforts and the threat of a surprise inspection, he was digesting his lunch and whistling through his nose in perfect peace.

Thus Crump caught him. Alerted by a thin whinney while he was in the act of retrieving Senorita Fogarty, Crump followed the sound to its source, and there was Junior, as described, and pathetically vulnerable. A sharp rap on the shin brought him up instantly to the dreadful apparition of Crump in the entrance. Crump was holding at the ready position some kind of wicked weapon that looked like a giant corkscrew, and it took several seconds of adjustment before Junior recognized it as the special stake, available at pet shops and department stores everywhere, to which Senorita Fogarty’s leash was secured when she was put out to graze.

“Get up!” said Crump. “Get up and out, you young son of a bitch!”

Crump’s choice of terms had the adhesive effect of pulling Junior together. Such strong language, he felt, was wholly indefensible, and it put him, somehow, in a more favorable position. It was not that Junior was particularly sensitive about insults to Aunt Madge. It was merely that there were certain folk, after all, who lacked the status to be insulting. Crump, in short, had gone too far.

“Who are you calling a son of a bitch, you
old
son of a bitch?” he said.

“You know who. You’re who. What are you doing in my garden house?”

“Your garden house! Crump, you are an intolerable old scoundrel, and that’s for sure. It’s Grandfather’s garden house, and I have a perfect right to take a nap in it if I please.”

“Not while it’s in my custody, you don’t. You’re trespassing, that’s what, and if you don’t get out at once, I’ll run you through.”

He brandished the giant corkscrew, and Junior, having no desire to be opened like a bottle of champagne, backed away and began to sidle around the octagon. Out and away was what he wanted, and he had some idea of slipping past Crump and getting there as fast as possible.

“Back off, Crump!” he said. “Stab me with that infernal thing, and you’ll be in more trouble than you can handle.”

“You’re a spy, that’s what you are. You came here to spy on me, and I know it. I’ve got the right to stab a spy on my own property.”

Junior, now in position to spurt past Crump and escape, did not linger to debate either rights or ownership. With a sudden shout, calculated to distract Crump and disrupt any planned attack, he spurted and escaped. Vaulting the back fence, he trotted around the block to the street that passed in front of Grandfather’s house, thankful to be free and unperforated. He was not yet out of danger, however, for along the sidewalk, walking swiftly from the direction of Grandfather’s house, came Hester. Junior did not see her until they had come almost together at the corner, and so it was too late to retreat and take cover, as he would have otherwise have done. She was carrying, he noticed, a large leather handbag that seemed to be bulging with something.

“Junior,” she said, “why are you trotting around the block? Aren’t you supposed to be on duty in the garden house? Go to your post at once.”

“I’ve been there,” he said.

“Well, then, go back.”

“I can’t. Crump caught me, and I was lucky to escape with my life.”

“In my opinion, it would have been no great loss to anybody if you hadn’t. How did he happen to catch you? Were you sleeping again?”

“Not at all,” he said, making a King’s X behind his back. “Crump slipped up behind me, the crafty old devil, and had me cornered before I knew it.”

“Junior, I might have known that you would make a mess of things. You are incapable of completing the simplest assignment successfully. Well, you are of no use here any longer, and so you had just as well come along with me.”

He fell in beside her, and they walked along. Her treatment of him had not been nearly so severe as he had feared, and she appeared to be, actually, in quite a good humor.

“What are you doing here?” he said. “Were you on the way to inspect me?”

“No. I went to Crump’s, but he didn’t answer. I guess he was out in the back yard.”

“Why would you go to Crump’s?”

“Why not? Crump and I are on very good terms these days.”

“Oh, come off, Hester. Crump is not on good terms with anyone.”

“That’s what you think.”

“What did you want to see him about?”

“If you must know, I wanted to try to hook something out of his kitchen. When he didn’t answer the door, I simply took the opportunity to walk in and help myself.”

“What did you hook?”

“I’m not telling.”

“Where is it? In your bag?”

“Yes, it is,” she said, “and it’s becoming quite heavy. Junior, if you had any manners, you’d offer to carry it for me.”

“Give it to me,” he said.

He took her bag, and pretty soon she took his arm. It made him feel as if they were conspirators, which they were, or lovers, which, unfortunately, they weren’t.