Dog Bites Man

by James Duffy

  Then Rice came up with an idea for an article that pleased both Boyd and Ethan Meyner greatly. To the great surprise of Wall Street, Meredith, Mead & Co., one of the country's most distinguished investment banking houses, merged with Canby, Schnell & Co., a wire house with a wide network of retail customers and a déclassé reputation. Rice, like every other phone user living in Manhattan's more affluent zip codes, received frequent cold calls from stockbrokers promising untold riches to those wise enough to open accounts with them. None were more ubiquitous or persistent than the phone jockeys for Canby, Schnell (which had continued to use its household-word name after the merger). Rice, who had roomed at Harvard with a son of a Meredith, Mead partner, could not believe that that old-line, not to say stuffy, firm had anything to do with the churning, hard-sell tactics of its newly acquired Canby, Schnell division.

  With the cooperation of Meyner, he put his suspicion to the test. Meyner found a friend who was a long-standing investment client of Meredith, Mead and persuaded him to furnish a list of his holdings. The publisher turned these over to Rice, who posed as a new customer to Canby, Schnell and submitted the list of Meredith, Mead–approved investments for evaluation. Needless to say, the Canby, Schnell assessment was that the customer had not been served well; allocations between debt and equity and among industry sectors were wrongheaded; decisions to buy and sell were ill timed. In other words, Canby, Schnell could do better by this customer than his sleepy existing broker, whosoever that might be.

  Faces in the affected shops were crimson when Freddie's story appeared. Meyner and Boyd were jubilant. That jubilation increased a week later when the head of the Canby, Schnell division resigned "to pursue other interests" and the establishment dailies covering the story had to make begrudging reference to Rice's Surveyor piece when speculating on the reasons for the resignation.

  Scoop was roundly congratulated by his new friends at Elaine's on the Meredith story. To them it was a perfect job—an original idea, a devastating conclusion arrived at by clever legwork, a tweak (actually a purpling, hard pinch) to an iconic institution.

  As the weeks went by, the irregulars at the restaurant kept asking Scoop (they now called him that to his face) what he was going to do for an encore. He tried to act appropriately mysterious, but the truth was he had not come close to sniffing out a new opportunity.

  It was while he was in the doldrums that Boyd called him in. "You know who Sue Nation Brandberg is?" he asked.

  "Yeah," Freddie replied. He had done his homework on the local celebrities, and besides, as an aficionado of the ballet, he had noticed in the programs a reference to the Harry and Sue Brandberg Toe Shoe Fund (little realizing that its genesis was a real story of the sort Justin Boyd would relish).

  "Good. Her dog is dead. There may be a story in it."

  Scoop's heart sank. He had heard his new friends at Elaine's scoffing at journalism "out there," where one might be relegated to covering the story of a cat stranded up a tree.

  Boyd saw the look of disappointment on his young reporter's face and quickly added that "the dog was shot."

  More like it, Rice thought. But as his editor recounted the details, "about Wombat, or Woo-woo or some such name," he found himself wondering how on earth he could track down the three black-suited killers. Again, his doubt showed in his expression.

  "It's a tricky business, too. I promised Sue we wouldn't blow the cover of her alien houseboy. I've been mulling that over and I think the best approach is for you to interview the fellow, let him tell you what he knows. We'll peg him as an anonymous source who came to you out of the blue. I'll get Sue to give you a big 'No comment' and we'll go with the mysterious-anonymous-source story. His name is Gink, or some such, but we'll just call him 'G.'"

  Scoop still looked dubious. It seemed to him that his boss was being a trifle manipulative. Was this what hardheaded editors did?

  "I'll call Sue and set you up with the immigrant."

  . . .

  It was arranged that Scoop would call at 62nd Street the next afternoon. Sue would be conveniently out, but Genc would meet him there. When he rang the bell, a young man slightly older than he opened the door. They shook hands stiffly, and Genc led him to the drawing room upstairs.

  Rice took in the scene: highly tasteful modern and contemporary art all around, except for a perfectly ghastly oil painting of a black dog over the mantel.

  "That the deceased?" Scoop asked, pointing to the picture.

  "Deceased?"

  "The dead dog."

  "Ya, that's him. There, too," Genc said, indicating two silver frames on a side table. Freddie picked up one and noted that "Wambli" was engraved in script across the top.

  "Mrs. Brandberg thought he is beautiful," Genc offered. Scoop tried to detect whether he agreed, but could not. As far as he could tell, the dog had not been beautiful at all. The picture in the silver frame showed a medium-sized jet-black animal with an ugly pug face and a white streak down his chest. He had seen more attractive skunks.

  "What kind is he?"

  "She tell me, but I probably not have it right. I think maybe Staffordshire?"

  "Got me."

  "She buy from the monks."

  "Monks?"

  "Ya. Upstate somewhere."

  "Can we go to the scene of the crime?" Freddie asked.

  "Okay."

  . . .

  "Your name is Genc, right?"

  Genc nodded.

  "But I'm supposed to call you 'G.'"

  "G?"

  "To preserve your anonymity. You're an immigrant, right? Without a green card?"

  Genc nodded again, this time warily.

  "Where you from?"

  "Albania."

  "Albania! Not Kosovo?"

  "I have cousins in Kosovo, or did have. But I lived in Tirana. In Albania."

  "You in the army over there?"

  "Sure. Eighteen months. Every guy is unless you buy your way out."

  "Pretty tough over there, right?"

  "Ya. Not good situation."

  Genc stopped outside 818 Fifth. "Here we are. Wambli was pissing right here," Genc explained, pointing down at the curb. "Beside a black car parked there. Then this guy came out the door. There. 'Move! Move!' he said to me, or something like that. But I couldn't pull the dog away while he was pissing, you know?

  "Then this other guy, who stagger, stagger, and step on Wambli's leg. So he turned around and bit the guy. I would do that, too. Then the first guy pulls gun and starts shooting. Bam! Bam! I get the hell out."

  "I was told there was a third man."

  "Ya. He was shooting, too. I turned around and saw him just before I jump the fence."

  While they had been conversing at the curb, a doorman had been watching from inside the front door. Scoop approached him.

  "We were just talking about the shooting that took place out here on Monday. What do you know about it?" Scoop said.

  "I'm sorry, sir, I don't know what you're talking about," the doorman said icily.

  Scoop persisted. "A shooting. It happened about midnight last Monday. A dog was killed."

  "I know nothing about such a thing, sir."

  "What about the night doorman? He must have known about it and talked it over with the rest of you."

  "Sir, I'm sorry. We do not have shootings here."

  It was clear no information, if the man had any, was going to be forthcoming. But before he left, Scoop foisted his Surveyor business card on the recalcitrant.

  . . .

  Scoop walked back to Sue's with Genc.

  "What made you think it was gangsters who shot Wambli?" Scoop asked.

  Genc took his hands out of his jeans pockets and shrugged.

  "That's what gangsters do."

  "Shoot dogs?"

  "Sure. In my country. Shoot dogs, people, horses, anything."

  "Maybe they were policemen. Policemen have guns," Scoop offered.

  "Nah. No uniforms. No badges. No sign on their car."r />
  They were stumped.

  "Say, Mr. Rice—"

  "Scoop."

  "Scoop. Okay. So, Scoop, what means word 'squaw'?"

  "Squaw? That's a lady Indian. Or female Native American."

  "Native American?"

  "That's the PC term for 'Indian.'"

  "PC? Personal computer?" Genc asked brightly, trying to comprehend.

  "No. Forget it. 'Native American' and 'Indian' mean the same thing. And 'squaw' is the female of the species. Why?"

  "Oh, a deliveryman came yesterday and I guess Miszu"—then he corrected himself quickly—"I mean Mrs. Brandberg, gave him too small a tip. I heard him say, 'That damn squaw,' when he went out the door."

  "She is that technically, I guess. A squaw. Indian. Native American."

  "Indian. Means red-blooded, no?" Genc said with a grin.

  "Yeah, that's what they say."

  TEN

  Jack Gullighy broke his 9 a.m. routine twice a week and had breakfast with the Hoaglands at the mansion. After Wambli's murder, the subject was raised gingerly each time.

  "Anything new about the Incident?" Jack usually would ask. (The "Incident" had become their neutral shorthand for the shooting, though Edna had wanted to call it "Operation Blockhead.") For three weeks the answer came back "No," and finally one morning Gullighy cautiously told Eldon, "Looks like you're in the clear."

  That same day, at City Hall, Gullighy, as was his usual practice, held a meeting with Betsy Twinsett, the mayor's principal scheduler. Betsy was what would have been called, in a less sensitive time, a sweet young thing. Pretty, pert and blonde, she had been recommended to Eldon by her father (a campaign contributor), and since she had asked for only a modest salary (which appealed to the mayor's sense of thrift), he had hired her.

  Betsy had a small office at City Hall, just big enough for a desk and one file cabinet, and was charged with processing the invitations, requests for appearances by the mayor and other claims on his time that arrived by the score each day. Conscientious to a fault, she toiled through the mounds of correspondence and, as she worked, gently dislodged blonde hair from her face with a little blow that sounded as if she were exhaling cigarette smoke (a cute tick that was much admired). The only problem was that, only three years out of Smith, she was not as sophisticated as she might be; she was not suspicious or cynical by nature, and for her to smell a rat it had to be very dead and very pungent.

  Eldon had asked Jack, the great connecter-upper, informally to oversee her performance. He did this in a friendly meeting each Wednesday morning. His supervision had paid off. Betsy, for example, had been thrilled when the manager for Vito Mombelli, the internationally renowned tenor, had proposed that his client receive the Handel Medallion, the city's highest award for cultural achievement. As a quid pro quo, Mombelli would be willing to give a recital at Gracie Mansion.

  Gullighy had had to dampen his young charge's enthusiasm by pointing out that the rakish Mombelli had been pursued for years, in court and out, by a young woman calling herself Vera Mombelli who claimed that he was her father. (Met security had started years before to keep an eye out for her, as she was known to stand and scream "Papa!" during ovations for her putative father.) The paternity rap had never been pinned on the tenor, but Jack had visions of a blazing Post-News headline along the lines of "Opera Buffa at Gracie: Vito Sings, Vera Squawks." Receiving this information, Betsy had blown her hair back, and Mombelli's chances for a medallion along with it.

  This morning, as Gullighy shuffled through the stack of invitations and proposals Betsy had assembled for him, one in particular caught his eye. A letter from something called the Coalition for Animal Welfare requested that Eldon host a celebration on the upcoming feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4, to focus attention on "the need for continuing vigilance in the battle for animal rights." The leaders of the organizations making up the coalition would attend the event, on the lawn of the mansion, each bringing along his or her own pet or an animal "temporarily adopted for the day."

  While chances of the Incident ever being exposed had lessened, Gullighy saw in this proposal a chance to employ his principle of Preemptive Prophylaxis, marking the mayor as a friend of animals, with photo ops of Eldon holding a cat or stroking a dog.

  He asked Betsy what she thought, and she was enthusiastic. "Neat! Little kittens and puppies on that beautiful green lawn."

  "We're talking October, kid. What if it rains?"

  "A rain date?"

  "Yeah, I suppose. Couldn't do it with a backup tent, I guess. Too smelly."

  Then Betsy, a dutiful Episcopalian, remembered that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine had an annual St. Francis fete, at which an amazing menagerie of pets were blessed by the rector. She told Gullighy of this.

  "That's all right, sweetie. I'll get the cardinal behind our shindig—he has first call on St. Francis, don't you agree?"

  "I'm not a theologian," she replied, blowing back a blonde lock.

  "I thought not. Leave it to me, honey."

  Jack leaned back in his chair (as best he could in Betsy's tiny office) and focused seriously on the proposal, looking, as he always did, for hidden land mines and leaving aside for the moment the rector of St. John the Divine. Mentally he debated the pros and cons. The letter before him had been signed by a prominent board member of the Zoological Society. He did not know all the outfits listed on the letterhead, but there certainly were respectable ones, like the New York branch of the ASPCA and the Humane Society.

  Would the cardinal go along with the idea? We'll have to find out. But why should he object? (Besides, if he approves, it would help heal the tiny scar left when Eldon had politely declined to intervene in a fight over landmarking a Bronx parish church that the cardinal wished to close—and sell.)

  The Jews? Americans United for the Separation of Church and State? The Muslims? (Others had not yet detected Muslims on their political radar; Gullighy had.) Hell, we're talking St. Francis, for Chrissake, Jack thought, not Torquemada. The white male angle? Maybe have to include St. Clare as well.

  The more he thought about it, the more CAW's proposal appealed. Caw? Caw? Isn't that what crows say? Oh, well. They had thought up the acronym, he hadn't.

  And it suddenly occurred to him that the festival might be an occasion for softening up new campaign contributors. Pet shop owners? Professional dog breeders? Cat food makers? This could be brilliant.

  "Betsy, let me take this one," he finally said, putting the CAW letter in his pocket. He could let the proposal go through channels, via Betsy, but she would be unable to explain the Preemptive Prophylaxis benefits to her boss. "I'll talk to Eldon about it."

  The good-natured Twinsett was not offended by Jack's usurpation, and the two turned to consider the other proposals on the agenda.

  . . .

  Before the next breakfast meeting, Jack checked with the Chancery Office. His pal, Msgr. George McGinty, gave his approval (after a quick check with the cardinal). The only condition was that His Eminence would expect to be invited. He also pacified the annoyed rector of St. John's, who did not at all like moving the date of his own animal love-in to the Sunday before St. Francis's feast, as Gullighy proposed. But an ironclad commitment on the latter's part to produce an appearance by the mayor at whatever future event the rector designated persuaded him.

  And Jack had another bright idea. Why shouldn't Eldon and Edna have a pet of their own? A lovable and irresistible bowser. The mutt could make its debut at the festival—more pictures, more publicity, more touchy-feely goodwill. No more "offing" a helpless dog.

  By the time of the next breakfast meeting, Jack had not yet thought up a name for the mayor's prospective house pet, but his enthusiasm for his exercise in P.P. had not diminished. Unfortunately, he found the First Couple in an extremely grumpy mood that did not lift, so he asked what was bothering them.

  "Amber," Edna snapped.

  "Amber? You mean your hippie servant girl?"

  "Yes!
She brought us our coffee this morning in her bare feet."

  "Now, Edna," her husband temporized. "It's not as if she made the coffee with her feet. You know, ground the beans between her toes."

  "Eldon, you just do not understand that she's impossible. If outsiders saw her in action, they'd say we were crazy."

  "Do you think we're crazy, Jack?" the mayor asked.

  Gullighy thought fast to avoid taking sides.

  "Yes," he said. "Truly crazy. But for entirely different reasons than keeping Amber."

  His jape broke the tension and he quickly started to present his "two-parter" for their consideration. He told them first that they needed to get a pet, probably a dog. And second, the mayor should host the St. Francis Festival.

  Gullighy got so carried away with his enthusiasm that he did not notice—a real lapse for him—the lines hardening in Eldon's face, his lips pursed tight, his eyes narrowing.

  "So there it is," Jack said, concluding his rhapsody. "What do you think?" He sipped his coffee with deep pleasure, waiting for the expected congratulations.

  "No and no!" Eldon roared. "Never, never, never!"

  "Why?" Jack asked, startled.

  "Yes, why, dear? We have to do public events—that's why I trimmed my practice, remember? This sounds as harmless as you'll find."

  "I'll say it again. Never, never, never. We've never had a goddam pet. Christ, we never even had a goddam child. But that's a different story."

  "The subject never came up," Edna said. "The pet, I mean."

  "Goddam right it didn't. You don't know it, Edna, but I'll tell you right now, and I'll tell you, Jack, I hate dogs. Hate, loathe and despise them!"

  Neither Edna nor Jack spoke, waiting for the tirade to continue.

  "You never peddled papers in Minnesota. I did. The Minneapolis Star. Forty below zero, ninety degrees in the shade. Didn't matter—I was out there every day. Eighty-six customers. And I swear, seventy of them had a dog. Now, I suppose, they'd all have guns, but back in my day it was dogs, dogs, dogs. Little yippie ones that just made you nervous. And big monsters that threatened your goddam life. Leap up on you and lick your face. Revolting! And every so often, bite. 'Oh, Skippy didn't mean it,' the idiots would say, when Skippy had just tried to take a substantial chunk out of my ass. They'd call up and complain when I left the paper on the sidewalk to avoid a confrontation. 'That Hoagland boy's not doing his job,' they'd tell the guy who bossed the paperboys. 'He leaves the paper anyplace but on the porch.' Then I'd catch hell, 'cause no one would believe their precious animal had endangered my life.