The Dogfather

by Conant, Susan

  Guarini and I spoke regularly on the phone, and Frey was now housebroken, but until the evening I’m about to describe, Guarini had managed to avoid almost every training session. The results were predictable. When Frey and I worked alone together, the puppy was absolutely terrific. According to Guarini, however, the puppy wouldn’t listen to a word he said. Furthermore, because Guarini had forbidden me to take Frey out in public, the puppy had no experience with ordinary sights, scents, arid sounds. It’s a tribute to my love of dogs and my fear of Guarini that I’d dated to argue with the boss. In one of our phone consultations, I’d said, “Yes, there’s a slight health risk in taking him places, but it’s also risky to keep him isolated from the real world. The last time Frey was here, when I was taking him back to your car, someone rode by on a bicycle, and he was startled and scared. He needs to get used to bicycles and kids and crowds and so on. And I’m warning you. If I keep training him with food and you don’t, he’s going to watch me and obey me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop that except tell you what you already know, which is that if you want Frey to be your dog, you need to train him, too.”

  Guarini’s first response had been to ask who was riding the bicycle.

  “Some woman,” I’d said. “Cambridge type. She’s irrelevant. The point is that Frey needs to get used to bicycles and strangers and everything else. He needs socialization.”

  It’s a tribute to Guarini’s love of dogs that he listened to me at all. He rejected my advice that he take Frey to puppy kindergarten class. Offering no explanation, he refused to let me take Frey myself. Guarini did, however, submit to my badgering by agreeing to meet me where we were now, behind the mall at the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge. After Guarini and I had gone back and forth about locations, we’d settled on the area between Danehy Park and the rear of the mall, just behind Loaves and Fishes, which would be easy to mistake for a natural-foods supermarket, but is actually a religious institution whose followers subscribe to the belief that they’ll be poisoned if they eat anything from an ordinary supermarket. Danehy Park, in contrast, is no temple of purity. It used to be a dump. It still has no mature trees. The mall is surrounded by blacktop, and the main parking lot is in front of the stores. There was nothing along the side of the building except a laundromat. The openness of the spot was probably why Guarini had agreed to it. You may recall that in remarking on the absence of foundation plantings at Guarini’s house, Joey Cortiniglia had said, “So’s no one can’t hide nowhere.” Well, no one couldn’t hide nowhere here, either.

  Although the Loaves and Fishes mall and the park are an easy walk from my house, I’d used my car so I could take Rowdy and Kimi for a walk in the park and then have a safe place to stash them while I worked with Guarini and Frey. Just as planned, when the dogs and I returned to the Bronco, Guarini was arriving with what struck me as a small army and probably was one in the literal sense of being a company of armed men. The two bodyguards towered over Guarini, who wore a tweed coat and one of those stupid-looking tweed hats. The hat was anything but cool, but the ebony cane more than compensated. As a dog trainer rather than a connoisseur of cool, I was happy to note that the coat, probably chosen to disguise dog hair, had capacious pockets well suited to hold the cheese, meat, and other dog treats I’d instructed Guarini to have with him. Zap the Driver had parked the limo between my decrepit Bronco and a shiny new silver Chevy Suburban. Lounging near the Texas Cadillac were Joey “The Neanderthal” Cortiniglia, as I thought of him, and Al “The Count” Favuzza, as the Boston papers and maybe even his friends referred to him. Everyone except Guarini wore what I came to think of as the Mob uniform: a zip-front nylon or cotton warm-up jacket in a solid, neutral color, trousers rather than jeans, and running shoes or loafers. The surprising and invariant feature of the uniform was that with the exception of an occasional pair of running shoes, every single piece of clothing worn by everyone but Guarini looked cheap.

  In retrospect, it seems to me that Joey Cortiniglia acted nervous. I can’t be sure. He and Favuzza kept looking around, but so did Zap and the bodyguards. Maybe all of them were just doing their job, which was, at the moment, to protect Guarini. Still, I have the vivid impression that Joey fidgeted and that his face was damp.

  I greeted Guarini, Zap, Joey, and Favuzza just as if they were normal human beings instead of organized-crime figures. Rowdy and Kimi outdid me by wagging their beautiful tails and sounding peals of woo-woo-woo, but they directed their salutation exclusively to the alpha figure, Guarini, and disregarded the lesser-ranking members of his pack. The only ones I ignored were the bodyguards.

  “Where’s Frey?" I asked.

  Zap jabbed a thumb at the limo.

  “Let me just crate Rowdy and Kimi,” I said to Guarini, “and then we’ll get to work.”

  As I was opening the Bronco’s door, however, Joey offered to take care of the dogs so they wouldn’t have to be, as he phrased it, “locked up.” As he went on to explain, “Them dogs didn’t do nothing wrong.”

  Mindful that Guarini had recently been released from a federal pen and that the topic of incarceration was doubtless a sensitive one for Joey, too, I was inclined to accept his offer. After exchanging glances with Guarini and getting his nod of approval, I said to Joey, “Okay, but no matter what happens, hang on to their leashes. Don’t let go! And you’d better keep them away from other dogs. They’re usually all right, but if someone’s five-pound lap dog decides to tackle them, they won’t back down, so if you see another dog, walk in the opposite direction. Or put them in the car. I’ll leave it unlocked.”

  A glimmer of something weirdly reminiscent of intelligence crossed Joey’s face. “My wife’s got a little tiny dog,” he said.

  “They’re often very bright,” I remarked truthfully. “Very trainable.”

  “Not this one,” Joey said. “Not Anthony.”

  Favuzza snorted. Or maybe he intended to laugh. The sound was throaty and repulsive.

  “Be that as it may,” I said breezily, “don’t let my dogs get loose. We won’t be long. Frey is just a puppy, so we’re only going to do a short session. We’ll be in front of Loaves and Fishes or right around the corner at the end of the mall, so if you need any help with my dogs, just holler for me.” To Rowdy and Kimi, I delivered my usual farewell. “Be good dogs. I’ll be right back.”

  After I finished giving my orders, it was Guarini’s turn. Joey—and by implication, Rowdy and Kimi—were to stay right near where all of us were now. Favuzza was to patrol on foot; Guarini made an arc with his arm. Having finally retrieved Frey from the limo, Guarini told Zap to get in and drive around. These instructions struck me as vague, but the men seemed to understand. The bodyguards required no instructions; they were apparently on permanent orders to cover Guarini.

  As to Frey, let me quote one of the most oft-quoted statements ever made about the virtues of dogs, namely, “The more I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.” Those words are Charles de Gaulle’s, but he was quoting someone else. Anyway, in contrast to the vampirish Favuzza, the barely hominid Joey, the jaded Zap, the robotic bodyguards, and the deadly, although charming, Guarini, the elkhound puppy was a beautiful little gray fur ball of lovable, exuberant innocence. Imagine a wind-up toy in the form of a gray bear. Around Frey’s neck was a little red puppy collar. Attached to it was a six-foot red cotton leash that at the moment served as the target of Frey’s considerable energy. With a naughty glance at Guarini, the puppy grabbed the leash in his teeth, growled softly, and shook his pretend prey with the obvious intention of breaking its neck. From the human end of the leash, Guarini said, “Stop that! Frey, no! No, Frey! Bad dog!”

  “When we speak to Frey,” I said, “we are reinforcing his behavior. If we say his name, we are providing especially powerful positive reinforcement.”

  Royal we.

  At the sound of my voice, Frey quit the game. Bright puppy that he was, he knew that I had better games in mind.

  “Frey, sit!”
He sat. Instantly, I used my clicker and followed the sound with a treat, specifically, with one of the morsels of liver brownie that remained in my pocket. Smiling at the puppy, I stated the obvious, namely, that positive reinforcement works. Then I delivered the line about violence begetting violence and my pitch for gentle methods. “You brought the clicker I left at your house for you? And treats?”

  We were now next to the building, between the laundromat and the liquor store that’s next to Loaves and Fishes. If Guarini had forgotten to bring food, we could get some right around the corner. Same old same old! Dogs are easy to train: Provide positive reinforcement for the behavior you want and only for the behavior you want. What is positive reinforcement? Anything the dog likes. Result: good dog. But people? Damn!

  Guarini did, however, produce a clicker and a few pieces of puppy chow.

  “That’s good that you have the clicker,” I said. Positive reinforcement for the behavior you want, right?

  “The nuns used to use these things,” Guarini complained, “and not for positive reinforcement.”

  “We’re not nuns. And you don’t have to use the clicker. The clicker is an event marker. It tells Frey exactly what we like. But you can just use food and praise. Just remember to give the food and the praise after Frey does what you want, not before. We’re not using food as a lure. A lure comes before the behavior.” Translating the distinction into my pupil’s own language, I said, “In other words, we’re not bribing him. We’re paying him off. But if we want the payoff to work, it has to be a really good payoff. Meat. Cheese.” Examining the kibble Guarini had shown me, I said, “This stuff isn’t going to get us the results we want.” As we strolled toward the front of the mall, I continued. “What we’ve got here are one-dollar bills. What we need are twenties. At least.” We’d now reached the liquor store at the corner of the mall. “But ones are better than nothing,” I said. “I’m going to run into Loaves and Fishes and get some cheese and beef. I’ll be right back. In the meantime, stay here and work with Frey. If he watches your face, click and treat. Or if someone goes by here with a shopping cart, and he’s calm, click and treat.” After muttering the slogan of this school of dog training (“Catch him doing something right!”), I dashed into Loaves and Fishes, made my way past the worshipers genuflecting in the aisles to read labels, and after waiting a while at the deli counter and then again at the checkout, bought a quarter-pound each of roast beef and sliced provolone. My own dogs prefer cheddar, but in case I haven’t mentioned it lately, let me remind you that Frey was growing up in an Italian family, hence the provolone.

  When I emerged from the store, Guarini, flanked by the bodyguards, was just where I’d left him. (Good capo!) Frey had his eyes on his master, and Guarini was not only clicking and treating, but smiling and saying, “Good dog!” Except to hand Guarini some beef, I didn’t interfere. Let me mention that it never crossed my mind that Guarini might have moved during my absence. Let me also note, however, that I’d been fooled more than once during the Open obedience group exercises when I’d left Rowdy on an apparently solid sit, marched out of sight with the other handlers, and returned to find him in the identical position—only to be told by the smirking judge that the spectators had gotten a big kick out of watching Rowdy break position, step forward, roll onto his back, wave his big paws in the air, return to the exact spot where I’d left him, and sit where I’d authoritatively commanded him to stay. Guarini’s eyes lacked the telltale gleam I’d come to recognize in Rowdy’s; absolutely nothing made me wonder whether Guarini might have budged. In any case, training Guarini to train his puppy immediately occupied all my attention, and now that Guarini was offering beef and cheese, the training held Frey’s rapt attention, too. I now realize that the dapper Guarini with his ebony walking stick, his noisy clicker, his adorable puppy, and his massive bodyguards must have been memorable. Had anyone—the police, for instance—sought witnesses to testify to Guarini’s presence, the task would’ve been easy. At the time, ignoring the occasional shopper who lingered to admire Frey, I concentrated on nodding approval to Guarini as he doled out clicks and treats.

  I’d said that the training session would be short. It was. Perhaps ten minutes elapsed from the moment I left Loaves and Fishes to the moment I announced that Frey had had enough. How long had it taken me to buy the beef and cheese? Ten minutes? I’d had to wait at the deli counter, and there’d been people ahead of me in the checkout line. Adding on the time it had taken to walk from the cars to the front of the mall, the total time since I’d left Joey Cortiniglia with my dogs was, say, twenty-five or thirty minutes. For the record, let me note that not once had I peered around the corner of the building to check on Rowdy and Kimi. I’d been busy. Besides, Joey Cortiniglia wasn’t big on brains, but he was brawny enough to hang on to two malamutes. Let me also mention that I hadn’t glimpsed the limo or Al Favuzza since we’d left them. Finally, the only people I saw who looked like mobsters were my own companions.

  So, maybe thirty minutes after I’d left Rowdy and Kimi with Joey, when the training session was over, Guarini, Frey, the bodyguards, and I rounded the corner of the mall at the liquor store. “Now,” I was saying, “if Frey is about to jump on you or someone else, you tell him, ‘Frey, sit,’ and when he does, click and... WHERE THE HELL ARE MY DOGS?”

  CHAPTER 4

  Even before I’d finished shouting, the bodyguards had formed a human barricade around Guarini. They sensed danger; their response was correct. My own first— and, I should note, incorrect—response was anger at Joey. My second was guilt. Rowdy and Kimi were the better half of myself. Why had I entrusted them to a Neanderthal, even a Neanderthal who worked for Enzio Guarini?

  Joey Cortiniglia was nowhere in sight. My Bronco and the silver Suburban were where we’d left them, facing away from us, my Bronco on the right, the Texas Cadillac on the left. The limo, which had been parked between the cars, was gone, as it was supposed to be; Guarini had told Zap to cruise around. Al Favuzza, who’d been assigned to foot patrol, was nowhere to be seen. Believe me, I looked, not for Favuzza, of course, but for my dogs. Joey, the big dope, must’ve decided to take them for a walk. He’d probably decided to let them make friends with some miniature canine fiend that they were now disemboweling. Damn it! Joey knew that my car was unlocked. If anything had happened, he should’ve put the dogs in the car.

  Maybe he had. I pounded across the blacktop. The bodyguards made no effort to stop me. They were, after all, Guarini’s guards and not mine. Guarini could’ve called out a warning to me. He didn’t. I might not have heeded it, anyway. I made directly for the Bronco and was running so fast when I reached it that I slammed my open palms against the rear window while simultaneously peering in at the dogs’ empty crates. If Rowdy had been loose in the car, he’d have put himself where, in his opinion, he naturally belonged in life as well as in vehicles: in the driver’s seat. But the entire damned car was filled with the absence of dogs.

  Listening for the distant, dreaded roar of a dog fight, I was startled when a low-pitched grinding noise drew my gaze to the passenger-side front bumper. Sticking out from under the car was a softly wagging malamute tail. I traced it to the rest of Kimi’s body. The grinding emanated from her jaws and from Rowdy’s. Kimi’s tail, the one I’d spotted first, was executing a lackadaisical wave instead of a vigorous thump because she was concentrating most of her energy on gnawing the hunk of bone she held between her forepaws. Still safely attached to her collar, her leather leash had been looped around a thick section of the undercarriage and snapped to her collar. Rowdy was identically hitched to the other side of the car. He, too, was occupied in chewing a large, fresh-looking bone. My dogs live a deprived life; they almost never get bones. Malamutes have tremendously powerful jaws. I’m always afraid that even comparatively safe bones like frozen raw knucklebones will break or splinter and that what’s intended to be a dog’s treat will result in intestinal surgery and a stay in a critical care unit.

  I sto
oped down near Rowdy and was about to ask him what the hell was going on when I finally noticed Joey Cortiniglia. And the gore. Joey’s caveman body was stretched out lengthwise just under the silver Suburban, feet toward the front of the big car. He lay on his back with his right arm visible—and visibly limp. Death hadn’t softened the prognathous thrust of his jaw. He’d been shot in the head. I have a strong stomach. I’ve whelped puppies, cleaned deep wounds, and mopped up reeking canine messes of every sort—liquid, semiformed, and solid. Enough said, except that I found myself sitting on the blacktop feeling not only queasy but disoriented, as if the dogs and I were trapped in a surrealist painting entitled Gangland Slaying with Woman and Malamutes. For a moment, I imagined that the bones Rowdy and Kimi were chewing had come from human legs.

  The next thing I knew, Enzio Guarini was talking to me. He informed me that I wasn’t here. “You tie up the dogs like that?”

  “Of course not. And I don’t give them bones. Malamutes—”

  Guarini interrupted. In a gentle voice that commanded obedience, he said very slowly, “Take them and go home. This didn’t happen.”

  By now, Favuzza was on the scene, Zap and the limo had returned, and two more men had appeared, gigantic twins so gargantuan and so identical that I had to wonder whether I was hallucinating double. As I followed orders by undoing the hard knots in the leather leads, unhitching the dogs, and putting them in their crates in the car, Guarini’s men went about the gruesome task of encasing Joey’s body in heavy green trash bags and loading it into the Suburban. The bodyguards, as always, remained silent. Zap, Favuzza, and the monstrous twins didn’t exactly whistle while they worked, but they did talk, and although I avoided the area between my Bronco and the Suburban, snatches of conversation reached me. Favuzza made his adenoidal snorting noise. “Blackie wouldn’t’ve hurt a dog. Somebody else would’ve shot them. And giving them bones is Blackie all over.” He then asked Zap a question I didn’t hear, and Zap replied that he’d looked everywhere. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the twins raise Joey’s body. After that, they seemed to concentrate on searching the Suburban. I heard one of them report to Guarini: “Nothing.”