This Dog for Hire (21 page)

He stacked Magritte and stood again to face him, a piece of bait held shoulder height in his hand, seizing Magritte's attention with it, teasing him into leaning forward so that his shoulder assembly would be bent rather than straight, so that he'd be literally and figuratively up on his toes, so that his neck would look graceful, so that he might even look good enough to win. Gil kept smacking his lips to remind the little dog precisely how yummy the treat would taste when he had finally earned it.

Finally the judge asked each handler in turn to take the dog around once more in the prescribed pattern while the rest of the handlers kept their dogs in line, pretty, stacked, and waiting, some letting them chew on the bait as they held it in their fingers, others moving the bait in a mesmerizing pattern as if to say, See what you'll get if you do this right.

Gil was third in line. I watched him look back and forth between the dog-and-handler team moving across the ring and Magritte, making sure his own dog's attention was still crisp. Gil's face was shining with perspiration, and I noticed that twice he swapped Magritte's lead back and forth so that he could wipe his hands on a handkerchief. Finally, it was their turn. I felt something small as a bit of paper flutter and rise in my chest.

First the judge examined Magritte on the table, feeling his body, making sure there were two testicles, both fully descended into the scrotum, checking his bite, and looking carefully at his quizzical expression. Afterward, he was placed back on the mat and Gil was asked to take him around.

Gil began gaiting Magritte down the far side of the ring, going quickly at first in a well-practiced lope, his eyes on Magritte as he ran. When he got to the side opposite the judge, he turned, as the two handlers before him had, crossing in front of where Addie and Poppy sat, Magritte trotting beautifully between Gil and the judge.

With all eyes on him and Magritte, Gil approached the final turn that would have taken him diagonally back toward the judge, whose body language revealed her keen interest. (This, after all, was serious
business
.)

Gil never made the turn.

Instead, face flushed pink, he slowed his pace. And stopped. For no apparent reason, or so it seemed, he lost his balance, going down hard onto his right knee, the knuckles of his right hand bracing him on the floor.

There was a gasp from the crowd and, almost immediately, the nervous laughter of people grateful that what has happened to someone else hasn't happened to them.

We sat waiting for Gil to get up, grin sheepishly, put a crease back in his pants, put a snap into the lead, and continue like a trooper. After all, Morgan Gilmore wasn't the first handler to slip and fall in the ring. Nor would he be the last.

But he didn't stand up.

He lifted his right hand to his collar and scratched at it, as if he were a dog. It was almost comical, until his left leg skidded sideways and, with all the grace of a forty-pound sack of Eukanuba tipping over, Morgan Gilmore, now the color of skim milk, pitched forward, facedown, onto the mat.

25

Everyone Wants to Win, You See

There was an enormous cry from the crowd, people who had been seated standing up. I felt my catalog slide off my lap and heard it land with a dull thud at my feet.

Then it was all movement again, not dogs and handlers going around, but the judge, the steward, and a rush of uniformed security guards, all surrounding Gil so densely that in a moment he was no longer visible to the crowd. One of the security guards stood on the outside of the circle, speaking urgently into his walkie-talkie.

Magritte was outside the circle, too, the end of his leash apparently still in Gilmore's hand, because twice he pulled to get away—basenjis do not take interruptions lightly—and twice he failed. He sat instead, a major no-no in the ring, his back to where his handler was down and surrounded by noisy strangers.

I heard the walkie-talkie crackle.

Magritte was frantic. He wasn't looking anxiously from side to side the way a German shepherd or a Dobie would. He was in an almost Zenlike trance, staring straight ahead. Except for one pretty white paw raised and doing the dog paddle in a heart-wrenching gesture of supplication, he was still. But I could see that his sides moved in and out too rapidly, and he was opening and closing his mouth as if biting the air.

Two men in white came running into the ring with a stretcher. Between the judge's legs and the steward's, I saw one of the technicians bend and take Gil's pulse at the neck. They closed ranks even more after that, moving quickly and efficiently while we all stood and waited to hear what had happened, having somehow forgotten the basics of breathing.

An elegant man, tall, thin, in his sixties, a flush across his cheeks as if he'd been running, appeared center ring. He lifted his hands and rode them down once, then twice, through the air, signaling us to sit, which we did, as tractable as the dogs in the ring, still frozen in show pose as they had been before Gil fell. Poised, calm, and eloquent, he began to speak.

“There's no reason at all to be alarmed. Mr.—”

He paused, and the steward whispered in his ear.

“Mr. Gilmore has fainted.”

He smiled and looked down at his expensive, polished shoes. “As many of you know, and others can guess, this is tense, hard work.”

He smiled again.

“Everyone wants to win, you see.”

There was the laughter of recognition from a dozen or so in the audience.

With one long-fingered hand, the gentleman in center ring smoothed his trim, white mustache, his starched white collar, his red silk tie.

“There's absolutely nothing to be concerned about.”

Again, his hands rode down the air in front of him.

I turned to look at Dennis, who was whispering with the steward, right at the place where the handlers enter the ring.

“Please,” the man with white hair said. “Keep your seats, ladies and gentlemen, so that we may continue with the judging.”

I looked up in the stands in time to see Doc's back as he tore up the steps to the third tier.

When the speaker's hands returned to his sides, I could see they were trembling. Yet he soothed us with his voice, jollied us with gentle dog show humor, and when he had finished speaking and had nodded to the judge, we saw that Gil was no longer lying there. He had been circled, hidden, and spirited away.

I saw the judge nod and gesture for the handlers to take the dogs around. And there was Aggie, in her aqua sweater and thick-soled dog show shoes, standing in third place, Magritte at the end of the lead, high-collared and nearly choking. The ten handlers popped the ten leads and, along with ten basenjis, just as before, began to run around the ring.

I turned to my left, then my right. People had opened their catalogs to the hound group, to the basenjis. They sat quietly, pens poised to mark the win, as if Morgan Gilmore had never been there, had never teased and baited his client's dog into posing for the judge, had never gaited him across the garish green indoor-outdoor carpet, praying for a win, had never fallen, face pale, struggling for air, and then been carried away, as if he were an injured player at a football game.

Morgan Gilmore, in his cowboy boots and string tie.

Was I the only one wondering if he was alive or dead?

I practically knocked over my chair getting out of it, pushing my way to get into the aisle where I could move. I was going to go get Dennis, but decided against it. Instead, I ran for the medical office, which was tucked away deep under the stands across from the basenji ring.

I moved as quickly as I could, sideswiping several people and spilling at least one woman's bathtub-size soda, but never stopping to apologize. This was New York. I didn't have to.

The security guard standing in the exit tunnel tried to stop me, but when I told him the man who had just been carried past him on a stretcher was my handler, reluctantly he let me go by.

I know. I know. I just wish to hell I knew what a handbasket was.

Cheering and screaming echoed down the tunnel after me from one of the larger rings. Perhaps one of the harriers or an Ibizan had just taken the breed, making everyone but his owner and handler absolutely positive the judge was as blind as a mole.

Good sportsmanship, like chivalry, had gone the way of fins on Buicks.

Even before I got to the medical office, I heard the engine of the ambulance and turned to run for the ramp where it stayed parked and ready for emergencies. I saw the back of it going down the dank, dark ramp, where smokers more law-abiding than Doc gathered periodically to turn the area into a gigantic ashtray.

I heard the faint wail of the siren as the ambulance hit the street and listened to that lonely sound until it was out of earshot, and other noises, the closer sounds of the Garden, were all I could distinguish.

When I turned around, I saw the security guard with the walkie-talkie who had called for the stretcher.

“He's my handler. Where are they taking him?”

I lied so emotionally, I almost believed myself.

“They go to St. Vincent's, lady. You can call there later.”

He turned away and, hands linked behind his back, rocked a little on his heels.

“Was he conscious, awake?”

“I couldn't say, lady. They had an oxygen mask on him, so he wasn't saying nothing to nobody.” He looked around, stepped closer, took a meaty hand, and patted his chest. “Looks to me like it was his heart,” he whispered. “All that running, all that tension. Don't you worry now,” he said, patting my arm lightly. “They'll fix him up, your friend.”

I headed back to ring three, to find Dennis.

Orion was stacked on the table the judge used to examine the basenjis individually, and she was baiting him herself, to see his expression. He was a beautifully made little boy, but not as flashy as Magritte.

“How'd Magritte do?” I asked. When in Rome. The only heart problems at a dog show are the breaks and tears you get from losing. There's no world news here. No family obligations, holiday blues, overdue bills. There are only dogs, and the question of who will win and who will lose.

“Not so hot,” he said. “Aggie had him choked so short his front feet barely skimmed the ground. How's Gil?”

“They took him to St. Vincent's. The security guard said it looked like a heart attack. I don't know how bad it is. Maybe you can call later. How did Aggie come to take Magritte?”

“You know these show people. All that counts is that the dog gets his shot. They don't care
what
happened to Gil. Well, neither do I,” he said. “Anyway, she volunteered. I went to get him, and she was already talking to the steward. I figured, oh”—he sighed—“let him have his chance.”

We stayed ringside, standing across from Louis and Veronica, watching each of the basenjis in turn get examined on the table and then gait in the pattern Gil had nearly completed before he fell. I tugged at Dennis's sleeve and told him to bring Magritte after the judging and meet me back in the benching area. His mouth opened, I guess to ask me why I was leaving, but then he turned back to the ring, figuring I probably wouldn't tell him anyway.

Gilmore's coat was still behind Magritte's crate, his calendar beneath it. I opened it to the front, where compulsive people fill in the lines under “In case of emergency, call.” He had: “Marjorie Gilmore,” and an address the same as the one above. I checked my watch. It was still too soon to call and find out my husband's condition.

I took Gil's stuff, including the crate, to the medical office and signed Dennis's name on the receipt they gave me. I went to the pay phones and left a message for Marty Shapiro to make sure he'd remember to walk Dashiell. Then I got a huge Coke. Since I had miles to go before I'd sleep, caffeine seemed a good idea.

Dennis looked downcast coming down the aisle, carrying Magritte under one arm. “He made the cut, but he didn't win,” he said. “Aggie can't handle the way Gil can.”

Maybe Gil was right. Leave the showing to the pros.

“Where's the crate and all Gil's stuff?”

“I turned everything in to the medical office. I figured it was only a matter of time before they'd think to come for it. I looked in his calendar first and got his wife's name. I can use that to call the hospital, try to find out how he is.”

“Magritte is supposed to stay until eight-thirty. Where are you going to keep him?”

I patted my lap.

Dennis sat next to me, but he held on to Magritte.

“Do you think I should call Marjorie and tell her?”

“Maybe we should call the hospital first, see how he's doing.”

He nodded, glad, I figured, not to have to do anything.

We sat quietly, Magritte asleep on Dennis's lap. After a while I went to call St. Vincent's, and on the way to the pay phones I decided that instead of making things more complicated, I would simply tell the truth.

“I'm sorry, Ms. Alexander,” the attending from the ER said, in a voice more weary than sad. “He arrested in the ambulance, on the way here. Everything was done that could have been done. We weren't able to get him back.”

He paused, but I said nothing.

“Would you like us to try to contact Mrs. Gilmore, or would Mr. Keaton prefer to do that?”

“Thank you, but we'll take care of it,” I said.

I headed back to the benching area to tell Dennis.

26

You'll Only Have Yourself to Blame

“What was it? His heart?” Dennis asked, his pale complexion looking gray under the harsh lights.

“I guess. He just said he arrested in the ambulance and they weren't able to resuscitate him.”

“Well, that's that,” he said. “You know, it's difficult to feel happy, even satisfied. I wanted to kill him myself, Rachel. Now that he's dead, I just feel, well, nothing. Empty. I'll go call Marjorie.”