Dead and Doggone

by Dead

  to the problem of getting good help these days. Lf today's housecleaner or bartender is tomorrow's

  partner in Ropes and Grey or assistant professor of French at Princeton, the inherent

  socioeconomic inequalities of the master-servant relationship don't weigh so heavily on your

  conscience as they might otherwise.

  Once Ray and Lynne and I started talking about dogs — what else? — I forgot to imagine Rowdy,

  and we met lots of other people who wanted to talk about dogs, too. Lots of people? There are fifty-

  two million dogs in the United States, thirty-three million households with at least one dog, and

  eighty-eight million people in those households. See? Lots, and plenty at Mimi's party, particularly

  because it had a high concentration of animal lovers.

  I met one exception, a fat little man. He was one of four people I met that evening who told me

  how much better they'd felt since they'd been on antidepressants. The first thing I asked him was if

  he had a dog, but he said no. Then he told me he was a psychologist and that he was doing research

  on thinking about morals.

  "Oh," I said. "So that got you interested in the ordinance, regulating laboratories."

  "Thinking about thinking about it, as it were," he said.

  "What?"

  "In reasoning about moral values," he said. "How does one justify one's choices? In what

  cognitive context does one adopt a moral stance? On what basis does one create that context?" He

  added knowingly, as if passing along insider information, "Because one does create it, you know."

  Actually, until then, I hadn't even been sure he could put the letters y, o, and u together and

  pronounce them.

  "One gives a shit," I said. Emily Post would have given me a nonqualifying score and a ladylike

  boot out of the ring.

  After that, I was glad to run into Reggie Cox. You could count on Reggie to say "one" because he didn't mean two or three. Libby was with him. They weren't wearing red jackets or carrying trays of

  food, and the pointers weren't anywhere in sight, so I assumed they weren't there to work.

  "I'm so glad to see you," I said. "I just met the biggest jerk."

  "Stick around," Reggie said.

  Libby laughed. "Actually, we can't stay, I'm due back upstairs, and Reggie's got Ed's study."

  I must have looked puzzled.

  "We're nicer than off-duty cops," she said. "We blend better. Mimi doesn't know half these

  people, We're the security force. Part of it. Don't look so shocked. We know you're honest."

  "I'm not shocked," I said. "I just hadn't thought about it."

  "See?" Libby said. "You're honest. See you later."

  "Hi, Libby, Reggie," Ron said, stepping toward us, then as they walked away, "Bye," He had on a dark suit, and I could smell some powerful after-shave. "See? Mimi invites them. You see how nice

  she is?"

  "They're here to work," I whispered to him. "They make sure no one steals anything."

  "She has to worry about that, I guess, When you get called to work here, someone's usually

  around. But you don't feel like they really think you're going to steal anything. Somebody's just

  always in and out, you know? Doesn't bother me he way it does some people. Pete didn't like it. He

  thought hey didn't trust him."

  "Pete Quigley?"

  "Yeah. Sissy's kid. You know. He was here when I took care of the vent pipe."

  "Oh. Doing finishes?"

  "Have you had too much to drink?"

  "No. I heard that's what he calls it. He doesn't paint. He does finishes."

  "Well, he was painting when I saw him," Ron said. "And he thought they didn't trust him,

  because he was painting in the den where the fishing rods are, and they kept watching over him.

  Mimi has a thing about her husband's fishing rods." Rita once explained to me what Freud had to

  say about people having things about things like that. "Even though most of them are just junk, like

  I told you. Like that disposal."

  "Maybe it was because of Sissy," I said. "That he didn't like the idea of being watched. Because

  she did take things. Or that's what people say."

  This may be an opportune moment to point out again that just as my dogs never jump on people,

  Ron and I never gossip.

  "Yeah? And Pete's sort of a mama's boy," Ron said. "Maybe he thought if they knew about her or

  something, that's why they didn't trust him. But it wasn't like they acted funny. It didn't bother me.

  Lots of people are worse."

  "I heard what Sissy took was dog stuff," I said. "I heard she took leashes and grooming

  equipment. According to Libby, those shears were hers, the ones. . . you know. She says Sissy took

  them from her, a while ago. Apparently they were sitting there in Sissy's tack box. And you know

  what's weird? Libby keeps asking me when I think she can have them back. Who'd want them?"

  "With somebody's blood all dripping down them?"

  "Well, you could wash them. But even so."

  "You know, she has fits," Ron said.

  "Who?"

  "Libby. Pete told me."

  "Seizures? Epilepsy?"

  "Yeah."

  "That wouldn't make her want the scissors back. It doesn't do anything to your personality.

  Mostly what it does is embarrass you, if it happens in public. But how did Pete Quigley know?”

  "From the drugstore," Ron said. "Libby had a fight with his mother about it, because one day

  Libby showed up, and his mother asked, I don't know, if she's had any fits lately or something, and

  someone was there. She doesn't want people to know and everything, so she told Sissy to shut up.

  Pete said Libby was really mad."

  "How did Sissy find out?"

  "Libby takes medicine for it, and she'd been buying it there."

  "Oh, right. But isn't that supposed to be confidential? I mean, pharmacists don't tell people what

  the customers are being treated for, do they? I never thought about it. I'd hate that."

  "Yeah." Ron loved the idea. "You're walking down the street and the druggist passes by and says,

  'Hey, how the hemorrhoids doing'! Shrunk up any lately?' Oh, boy."

  "I wonder if her husband knew she did that. I have the feeling he wouldn't have liked it. Maybe that's why he killed her. I mean, if he did. He struck me as a guy who takes a lot of pride in his

  profession. He sort of apologized because the store was still open after what happened to her. He

  said people relied on him. I was surprised. I don't know why. Maybe because the place looks like

  such a dump from the outside."

  "A far cry from this." He looked around.

  "Most places are. But, you know, I see what you meant about the house. It's not that it isn't

  attractive. It just isn't designed to impress you. I guess I would have expected silver and crystal all

  over the place or something."

  "Yeah. If you think about it, what's there to steal?"

  There weren't a lot of knickknacks. The smallest things I could see were candle holders, but there

  were lighted candles in them. Lifting them unobtrusively would have required some accomplished

  legerdemain. The downstairs bathroom bad a Paul Klee drawing on the wall. Maybe the frame was

  bolted to the plaster. I hadn't tried to remove it.

  "I don't know," I said, "but you want to know something else weird?" I told him about the printer Libby had offered me. "It seems to me that makes them strange security."

  "Yeah," he said. "Reggie's kind of a strange guy, too. You know he's from Maine?"

  "That doesn't make him strange. I'm
from Maine, too. Maine is a perfectly ordinary place to come

  from. It's a good place to come from."

  Ron thought that was pretty funny. "It took me a while to do the disposal, and while I was doing

  it, the maid told me all about him." Didn't I tell you about good help? Would a Harvard student

  have gossiped to the plumber? Then again, maybe the maid was one.

  "What did she say?" I asked.

  "Mimi inherited him; He started out as her husband's guide, fishing and hunting."

  "I heard that somewhere. But is he a real guide? He has a Maine guide's license?" If so, I was

  impressed. That's my home-state equivalent of having a book published by Harvard University

  Press.

  "I don't know," Ron said. "Anyway, he ended up here. You know he lives in the house? There's an

  apartment. And he'd shovel the walks, and drive Mr. Nichols around, do odd jobs, clean up after the

  dogs. He shovels all the walks around here. Asked me about doing ours, at the library, and asked

  about keeping an eye on the place, like nights and stuff, when it's empty."

  "That's a step down from being a Maine guide."

  "Probably pays better," Ron said. "And he still did that, too, when the old man was alive. Drove

  him on fishing trips. He was the one with him when he kicked the bucket."

  "I haven't forgotten about that," I said quietly. "Bee stings. My fault. Allergies. Right." I cringed at the memory.

  A tall, gray-haired man standing near us turned to me and said quietly, "Forgive me. I'm

  intruding. You're allergic? To bee stings?"

  "No. Not to anything," I said. "Especially dogs."

  "Sorry," he said. "I thought I heard you mention it."

  "We were talking about Mr. Nichols," Ron announced, then lowered his voice. Finally. "That's

  how he died."

  "I know," the man said. "He was my patient. That's why I spoke up. There's a bit of a controversy

  about that kind of thing, you know. You see somebody walking down the street, and you can tell at a

  glance that he has some disease or other, do you march up to him and say, 'Hello, there. You look

  like someone with Addison's disease'? Or whatever it is."

  "I suppose that could be a little unwelcome," I said.

  "Yes, it could be. But on the other hand, what if he doesn't know? What if he's not being treated?

  That could be worse. And I seldom do it." He lowered his voice. "But Ed Nichols was a friend of

  mine."

  Plumbing is a direct profession. If somebody tells Ron that a bathroom fixture has broken, he has

  to ask which one. It doesn't embarrass him. "What happened?" he asked.

  "Ed hated the allergy," the doctor said. "Hated it. Thought it was unmanly. Denied it. I saw him a

  week before and wrote him a prescription for a new kit, and he paid no attention whatsoever. It was

  summer, June it was, and I knew he was going fishing. That's why I, uh, accost people now. If he'd

  had the kit with him, he'd be here right now."

  "That wasn't your fault," I said.

  "If I'd scared the life out of him the way I should have, he'd have had the kit," the doctor said.

  "Education is a medical responsibility. I've learned a hard lesson."

  By that point, I'd assumed that the fund-raiser was going to be what it had been so far, a party,

  but Reggie, apparently on temporary leave from guard duty, started asking everyone around us to

  move into the living room, and I noticed Libby across the room doing the same thing.

  All of us fit easily into the living room, if that’s what you call a room that holds a couple of

  hundred people. There weren't seats for all of us, but Cambridge people don't mind sitting on the

  floor. Some of them do yoga. Some like to pre- tend they're still kids. Some think it's good for their

  backs. Sissy wasn't the only hypochondriac in Cambridge, which is, among other things, a city of

  spinal hypochondriacs, or maybe half the population has genuine back trouble from all the years of

  hunching over books and computers. Whatever the reason, at parties and meetings in Cambridge,

  you'll see a room half full of empty chairs and people all over the floor.

  Mimi's dress looked fantastically expensive. All around the neckline and down the sleeves were

  dozens of little pleats, and the skirt was pleated, too. It was dark green, and, as usual, I couldn't

  quite place the fabric. It wasn't cotton, and it sure wasn't rayon or polyester.

  "Isn't she something," Ron sighed.

  The speaker she introduced was a lanky blond guy in a light tan corduroy suit, but denim leaves

  an indelible mark. After years in jeans, you wear anything else as if it's a costume. I couldn't have

  been the only person there who dreaded listening to him or the only person relieved to be spared

  most of the details. His presentation concentrated on the aims of the organization. He talked about

  the Harman principles, which call for minimizing the amount of animal research, restricting it as

  much as possible to research on serious medical problems, and treating animals humanely. A

  flaming radical, huh? And, as I'd gathered from the brochures, the ordinance, while a lot better

  than nothing, was insipid. If the ordinance passed, institutions doing animal research would have

  to register with the city, but they could still do vivisection. And let's not forget that research on

  mascara and floor wax is, after all, research. Every year, more than fifty thousand animals are

  subjects in experimental research. Does that seem like a lot of animals? That's only in Cambridge.

  After his talk, people asked a lot of questions, of course.

  One of the questions was mine. Like Popeye, I am what I am. "How many of these animals are

  dogs?"

  "Good question," he said. I'm sure a lot of people didn't think so. I don't want mice to suffer,

  either, but, to me, it's not the same. He went on. "But I can't answer it because so many labs won't

  release their research protocols. What I can tell you, for one thing, is that fewer than five percent of

  the lab animals in Cambridge get any government inspection."

  "So, basically, researchers can do anything they want, and they can do it in secret," someone

  added.

  “That's what the ordinance is about," Mimi said.

  His talk wasn't so bad, after all. It was all positive. Think about the Harman principles. Think

  about the ordinance. Think about the future. It didn't get to me until I was back home standing at

  the bathroom sink, removing the eyeliner that had probably been tested on rabbits and wondering

  how I was ever going to find Clyde. If he'd ended up in a lab, it wasn't necessarily in Cambridge.

  And if he was in a lab in Cambridge, he was one of fifty thousand or so. No, not that many. Fifty

  thousand a year, the guy had said. Lots of those animals were dead already.

  Then I started going through the bathroom shelves throwing out anything that might have been

  tested on animals, which meant anything not made by Avon. I ended up with almost nothing left

  except a bottle of Avon Skin So Soft bath oil, which is not only ethical but effective, as any

  malamute handler will tell you. Diluted half and half with water and sprayed on, it gives a nice

  shine, and repels ticks and fleas, too.

  -18-

  One of my favorite books is called How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend. It was written by the Monks

  of New Skete. Although I agree with most of what the monks say, there are a couple of exceptions.

  For instance, according to the monks, your dog should sleep i
n your bedroom because it's good for

  the dog's mental health. For Rowdy and me, it was the other way around. Rowdy would've slept

  anywhere. The floor by the bay window in my bedroom was his favorite spot mainly because he was

  used to it, and he was used to it because I sleep better when I'm breathing a dog's scent and basking

  in his undemanding presence. Once in a while, I'd heard Rowdy purr in his sleep almost like a

  gigantic house cat, but he'd never snored, and I always took off his collar so the tags wouldn't jingle.

  He didn't purr or bat at me with his paws that night. It was Clyde who kept me awake, the new

  father of five pups, according to the message on my machine. Wolves aren't like cats. In the wild,

  the whole wolf pack, including the father, helps to take care of the pups. Cats. A lab at MIT was still

  doing a famous series of experiments on kittens and cats. The researchers sewed their eyes shut.

  My tax money was helping fund that. A few years earlier, my tax money — yours, too, of course —

  had almost paid for another great experiment. A delightful group of human beings at a place

  endearingly called the Wound Laboratory — it's near Washington, D.C. — I had the charming idea

  of studying tissue damage. To do that you need damaged tissue, right? You'd think the Department

  of Defense, which runs the place, would keep surplus damaged tissue lying around, but evidently

  not, because these bastards — pardon me, biomedical researchers — planned to get it by firing

  bullets into dogs and cats. Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, stopped that experiment.

  That's a true story. Look it up. What hadn't Weinberger stopped? What had no one stopped? Where

  was Clyde? Sometime around three A.M., I remembered reading an article written by a doctor. It

  was about his medical training. He described a laboratory exercise in which he'd had to vivisect a

  dog that was supposed to be anesthetized, but the dog kept waking up and howling. Just reflexes,

  he'd been told. He'd known better. Boston has lots of medical schools. Where the hell was Clyde?

  At seven, I was knocking on Marty and Matt Gerson's door. Since puppies wake up early, I'd

  thought that little Jason or Justin might, too, and I was right. He was sitting in a little seat that

  hooked onto the kitchen table, dropping what looked like Cheerios onto the floor. Marty said they