Dog Dish of Doom, page 22
“Let’s go, guys,” I told the dogs. “Sam has to earn his keep.” I’d have put money on the counter but Sam would have been mad at me later; he never lets me pay at Cool Beans. He thinks we have a special relationship. He’s probably right, but not in the way he thinks.
He smiled at me on the way out and I considered that maybe he was right in the way he thought, but I was wrong. Nah. That couldn’t be it.
On the street, I picked up the conversation I was having with Steve and Eydie. “Bruno is a big dog,” I said. “If someone wants to take him somewhere far away, like Taylor said, they’re not going to put him in a carrier and take him on a plane. He could be put in with the cargo, but the people who are taking him know exactly how valuable he is, and they’re not going to want to let him out of their sight or let the TSA see him at the gate. He’s way bigger than a bottle of shampoo.”
I stopped because Eydie had business to see to, and waited until she was done, looking elsewhere. Eydie is a private dog. She deserves to have her dignity.
“So if you’re transporting a large, valuable dog, how do you do that?” I concentrated my gaze on Steve, who was investigating a piece of grass that obviously held some olfactory interest. “You’re not driving him to wherever you’re going. Too easy to be stopped by the police in whatever state you happen to be traveling, because the NYPD will put out a bulletin with a picture of Bruno, and he’s hard to miss.”
Eydie walked back to the pavement, I did what a good citizen should do, and then we moved on.
“You probably can’t transport him by train; he’s big and noticeable so you can’t transport him by car. A truck seems awfully showy, not to mention that it isn’t very efficient and has the same hazards as a car by way of getting seen by the cops.” Eydie seemed uninterested, but Steve was pondering the possibilities, mostly about an area of the street where someone had dropped a piece of fried chicken. Two months ago. Steve’s nose has a long memory.
I stopped walking. There was only one possibility left. “They’re taking Bruno away by sea,” I said, not even pretending to talk to the dogs anymore. “That’s what’s going on. So six fifty-five isn’t the time. Taylor wouldn’t tell me to remember the time, and she’d just say five minutes to seven. What can six fifty-five be?”
We started walking again. “A ship. Can six fifty-five be a ship?” I got out my phone. Normally I wouldn’t think about trying to look something up while I was walking the dogs; it’s too easy to get distracted, the dogs can walk into a problem (like the street), and besides, I’m holding two leashes attached to animals who like to move at their own clip. But this time it seemed important enough to risk it.
I considered trying to Google a ship numbered six fifty-five, but it was too awkward and clumsy. My thumbs were far too busy holding on to the leashes. I could see what I was doing, but I couldn’t do it accurately, so I checked the time. It was just late enough that I wouldn’t be that annoying boss who thinks you’re always at their beck and call.
I called Consuelo.
“What’s up with Bruno?” she asked by way of greeting. It wasn’t just the urgency of the current situation that made her sort of abrupt either. Consuelo truly believes that we have a fast-moving, dynamic business that’s always bustling, like on television. What we really have is a fairly busy talent agency for animals that’s paying the bills so far and lives paycheck to paycheck. Like in life.
“That’s what I’m calling about. See if you can find a ship leaving from the tri-state area today whose number is six fifty-five.”
“Ships have numbers?” Consuelo asked.
“Who am I, Captain Horatio Hornblower? I don’t know. I know there’s a number that we’re supposed to remember and it’s six fifty-five. It has to do with Bruno being taken away, and I think it’s a boat.”
“A ship.”
“Sure. Whatever.” I could already hear Consuelo clacking away on her keyboard, and she was still at home. In the background I heard Diego asking his mother what she was doing.
“I’m looking up a ship called six fifty-five,” she said, distracted.
“That’s a stupid name for a ship,” Dee answered.
“I don’t name them,” his mother told him.
“Why are you looking for that?”
We were about a block from the house, and as much as I love Consuelo and Diego, their witty banter was not getting me any closer to finding Bruno. “Hey,” I said into the phone. “Remember me?”
But Consuelo was already relaying my information to her son, who started to laugh. “What’s so funny?” Consuelo and I asked at the same time.
“Six fifty-five isn’t the ship,” Diego said. “It’s probably the pier.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
By the time I made it into the house, unleashed Steve and Eydie, gave each of them a treat, and refreshed their water, Consuelo and (mostly) Diego had found Pier 655 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, not far from the Statue of Liberty (and if anyone asks you where Miss Liberty stands, you make sure to tell them she’s on Jersey soil). And Diego discovered that a ship, the La Paloma, was leaving that very day for a long trip indeed—to Taiwan. There was no way to find out if there was a large, scruffy-looking dog being brought aboard at this very moment on his way to make someone very rich.
I called Detective Rodriguez with my story and for once she did not treat me like the slightly loopy relation. “I looked up Tibetan mastiffs last night after you called,” she said. “And they’re really valuable, especially in Asia for some reason. So it might make sense.” She said she’d make some phone calls and find out if Bruno was listed as passenger or cargo on the La Paloma.
The ship was leaving in two hours, give or take. I figured my job as Bruno’s agent was to ensure that he showed up to the Palace Theater in New York for rehearsal promptly today. So I very gently woke my father (by texting him; Dad is always alert to the possibility that a gig might call) and told him the situation. He was in the kitchen in his robe a moment later.
“You’re going to the pier?” he asked. He knows me well and besides, I was putting on my sunglasses and a raincoat because it was sunny but I was going near the water. It made sense in my mind.
“I figure I have to know what the deal is, and besides, I haven’t gotten Louise to initial the changes in Bruno’s contract yet,” I explained. “I’d be a bad agent if I didn’t cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s.”
“You’re nosy,” he said, stifling a yawn. “You want me to come with?”
“No, I want you to watch the dogs and I want you to finish your auditions so we can stop having the senior tour of American Idol in my living room every day.”
Dad waved a hand dismissively. “Auditions are over,” he said. “We’re making our choices now.” That’s what producers say when they want to stall you.
“Make them here,” I told him. “I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“I notice no consideration is being given to whether I have to worry about you.”
“That’s correct.”
Without a word Dad went back into his bedroom and emerged seconds later. He extended his hand.
There was a gun in it.
“Take this,” he said. “It’s not much, but it’ll look like something if there’s trouble.”
I hadn’t even known my father owned a gun. “I’m not taking that,” I said. “I don’t know anything about using it. Do you even have a permit for that thing?”
He looked at me oddly. “Of course not. It’s a prop pistol, Kay. You’ve seen it a thousand times.”
I had, too. In one of the jealous-husband sketches he and Mom used to do (without me at all, for which I was eternally grateful), he’d used the gun to blow black powder all over his own face at a crucial moment. Audiences laughed at the cheap joke, as they usually do. Audiences tend to be good-natured and will applaud the familiar.
I took the pistol from his hand. It wasn’t as heavy as a real gun, but it would do. “I’m not going to use it,” I said warily.
“That’s okay. Just have it. I’ll feel better.” Dad reached over and touched my hand. “Do something for an old man.” He looked up at me and his eyes moistened.
“That’s from the candy-shop sketch,” I said. “You can’t con me, old man.”
Dad hugged me, and that was real. “What’s this ‘old man’ stuff, lady?” he said.
I took the gun.
* * *
It took a while to find Pier 655 at Port Elizabeth; three people I asked for directions told me there was no such number. But it existed, I found finally, about a quarter mile from where I’d parked my car with the GPS device that had informed me in no uncertain terms that I had reached my destination before I’d started my ten-minute walk to … my destination.
There was, to my consternation, no patrol car from the NYPD in sight. Rodriguez had no doubt decided that any information coming from me must have been bogus or incorrect and had gone on to some more fruitful investigation, like Googling Louise Barclay’s high school graduation picture to send out as a means of identification. I considered canceling my membership in the Policeman’s Benevolent Association, and then remembered I’d taken it out so I could hand the card to any cops who pulled me over for speeding. You can’t get out of a ticket by showing your legs all the time. Or in my case, ever.
I reached into my raincoat pocket and felt for Dad’s prop gun. Not that I couldn’t feel its weight just walking around, but I’m compulsive about things like that. Don’t judge until you’ve walked a mile—or a quarter mile—in my shoes.
The La Paloma, as advertised, was docked at the pier, and it was considerably less grand than its name—or any other—would lead one to believe. It was a freighter, a container ship, one that is simply a flat surface with lots of plain boxes, usually twenty or forty feet in length, stacked one on top of another with absolutely no character whatsoever. Tom Hanks might have captained such a ship in that movie about the Somali pirates. Except this one had less charm.
Whoever was considering sending Bruno all the way to the other side of the planet on this ship truly did need to be arrested and locked up for a long time. And so did whoever killed Trent, I supposed.
The wind was a little chilly near the water. The collar of my raincoat flapped up into my face and momentarily obscured my view of the pier and the ship. When I pushed it back down again, there was a black SUV parked right near the La Paloma’s gangplank.
I was too far away to see who got out of the vehicle, but whoever it was led a dog out on a leash. A big brown dog.
As far away as I was, I couldn’t imagine that canine was anybody except Bruno. I quickened my step. I had to stop the move before Bruno was on the ship. I didn’t know why, but my feeling was that once he got on the La Paloma, Bruno was as good as Taiwanese.
I was maybe fifty yards from the pier and close to running, which I used to do for exercise and now do only when absolutely necessary. I could see the person holding Bruno’s leash was a man, but he was wearing a black trench coat and a hat, and between the two his face was not exactly featured.
The only thing I could think to do was yell, “Hey!” I kept running, although the years of not running were definitely showing in my speed and my ability to gulp down oxygen at the necessary rate to keep running. The guy leading Bruno to the gangplank did not look up.
Then the door on the opposite side of the SUV opened, and now I was close enough to see that Louise Barclay had gotten out and was walking toward the man holding Bruno’s leash. She reached him and patted Bruno on the head. He seemed generally unperturbed, as Bruno always was, and licked Louise’s hand. Even on the way to his own deportation, Bruno was determined to be amiable.
“Hey!” I shouted again. This time I was within earshot, and both Louise and the man looked up at the sound. And all of a sudden, I realized that drawing attention to myself might not have been the absolute best game plan available to me at this moment.
I also realized the man was Mike Goldberg.
He pointed at me, clearly asking Louise either what I was doing there or, in my mind more likely, who the hell I was. She responded, pointed at Bruno, and then put her hands on her hips like Wonder Woman. It didn’t have that much of an effect, but I appreciated the attempt at character.
By that point I had just about reached them at the pier, and my lungs had given up all hope. I was gulping in oxygen so hard and fast that it was amazing the sky didn’t actually disappear into my mouth. I couldn’t really speak. I looked at Louise and said, “Bruno. Taiwan.”
“You’re not going,” she replied. “We don’t have a ticket for you. It’s just Bruno.”
“You can’t do that.” Then I took a long pause to replenish my respiratory system. “You can’t send him away.”
“Yes, I can. I can do anything I want with him. He’s my dog. At least, until the papers are signed and he belongs to his new Taiwanese owners, the Aedo Corporation.”
A corporation? “You’re selling Bruno to a corporation?” Was the accounting department going to take him out for walks? How did that work?
“Enough.” Mike looked at his watch. “They’re sailing in fifteen minutes. We need to get him into a crate and get the documentation for the wire transfer.”
“Right,” Louise said. “You take him on board and I’ll be right there.”
“You’re not taking him anywhere,” I said. I was running on fumes now, but that didn’t mean I had no gas left in the tank. Or maybe it did. I was really low on air. “He’s not your dog. You stole him. You don’t have any receipt for Bruno from a shelter or anywhere else. You have no right to put him on a ship all by himself and send him off to be the pet of a company.”
“He’s not a pet,” Mike chimed in. “He’s an investment.” Because clearly that was the part of what I’d said that was open to argument.
“Bruno is my dog,” Louise insisted, at least getting closer to the point. “He was Trent’s dog, and Trent’s dead, so now he’s my dog.”
“Trent’s dead because you two put a knife in his back,” I said. “You were the only one who had a key, and the door was locked from the inside. You were angry at Trent for having an affair with Taylor. You wanted all the money you could get for Bruno, and you didn’t want to split it with your husband, mostly because you were already cheating on him with your buddy Mike here.” At least some of that had to be true.
Except Louise started laughing. “Cheating with Mike?” she managed to push out through guffaws. “You’ve got to be kidding!” It was a terrible performance, and she had definitely been cheating with Mike.
Mike, for his part, had not tried to get Bruno on board the ship, and right now did not look especially amused.
“Taylor had a key,” he pointed out. Mike was doing his best to seize on the least of my accusations and refute them rather than to take on the big questions, like who killed Trent.
“Taylor’s the one who led me here,” I informed them, just to see the reaction. Mike looked mildly surprised, as if being told that his delectable dessert was actually gluten-free cheesecake. But Louise looked angry.
“Taylor?” she hissed.
Might as well play it up for all it was worth. “Sure. She called to let me know exactly what pier you’d be on and when. She felt bad for Bruno, didn’t want to see him be sent on such a long voyage all by himself to go live with people who didn’t even really like him. She wanted me to stop you.” At least, that was true of the Taylor in my head. The one walking around in the real world had probably just drunk dialed me and said any old thing that came into her mind.
Louise’s eyes turned mean. “You’re lying,” she said. Okay, she had me there. “Taylor didn’t care if Bruno was going to Taiwan. She just didn’t want me to get the money. She thinks it’s hers because she was sleeping with Trent. Like everybody else.”
Clearly, that was something I was supposed to have known (except for the “everybody else” part, which was a non sequitur I didn’t have time for right now). It was best in a negotiation like this to make sure any deficiencies in my case were downplayed. So I changed the conversation.
“The one thing I haven’t understood from the beginning is what Akra’s role in all this has been,” I said.
As it turned out, that was the wrong thing to say. Mike’s face drained of color, Louise’s seemed to lengthen and harden, and that wasn’t the worst part (although it should have been).
The worst part was that Mike was now leveling a gun at me. I was pretty sure it was a real one.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked.
“What do you know about Akra?” Mike demanded.
He had the gun in his right hand, which meant he’d had to switch Bruno’s leash into his left hand. Bruno looked up, saw Mike pointing the gun at me, and growled for only the second time I’d ever heard him do so.
“Don’t get Bruno mad,” I warned Mike.
“Put that thing away,” Louise insisted. “Someone will see it.”
“No.” Mike’s lips were right across his teeth. “I’m not taking the fall for Trent’s murder. I wasn’t anywhere near the apartment that night, and I would never have agreed to such a thing. But you bring Akra into the discussion, and that gets serious. She”—he pointed at me with the hand holding the leash—“knows too much.”
That was such a cliché, I almost laughed at him, but the gun in his hand wasn’t all that funny. I needed options. My right hand was deep into my raincoat pocket, holding the handle of Dad’s prop pistol. My mind, trying to process at least some of what was being said, was also attempting to determine if taking the gun out of my pocket helped or hurt my chances for survival.
I decided against it for the time being. Lead with your strength, I told myself.
“Bruno isn’t just a valuable commodity,” I said. Bruno growled at Mike again. That seemed good. I figured I’d say his name as much as possible to remind him who had always been on his side. “Bruno is contracted to appear on Broadway eight times a week, and Bruno is going to do just that. Right, Bruno?”
