“Careful, Seth,” Tonica warned him as the old man walked by. “You’re tougher, but she’s meaner.”
He snorted again and disappeared through the kitchen doorway.
As though annoyed by their distraction, Penny pushed at Tonica again, and used claws this time, based on his yelp.
“C’mon, Teddy.” She was laughing now. “You don’t stand a chance against her.”
“She just wants me to refill the kibble bowl,” he said, scooping the little tabby up and petting her. Penny rested her head against his arm and seemed to loosen all her bones, melting against him.
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. Look, I’ve got to get back to work, clients wait on no lunch break, and you guys need to open. I’ll call later and we can discuss a plan, right?”
“Yeah.” He was reluctant, still, but he’d go along and they both knew it. Curiosity might be a feline trait, but humans had it, too, in buckets. “Yeah, all right. But if we’re doing this, I’m taking lead. You may know more about research, but getting people to admit to possible wrongdoings—or even knowing about wrongdoings—is different from sorting through records. There’s more chance of offending someone or pissing them off so much they shut us down, and talking to people is still my strong point, not yours.”
“Absolutely,” she said with a straight face. That had been the hook she’d used to get him on board in the first place; the fact that he now thought it was his own idea meant she’d done her job right. “I’ll call our client and let her know we’re on the job.”
On that note, she left, putting an extra swing of confidence in her walk. At least until she was on the other side of the door, and walking down the block toward her apartment. Only then did she let some of that confident front fade. She’d known he’d give in. They were alike that much, at least: the idea of something unknown, something hidden, was too tempting to resist. But this was Tonica, and for every way she knew to manipulate him, he knew as many ways to manipulate her, and she thought sometimes they spent more time trying to figure each other out than they did actually conversing. She never knew where he was going to fall during an argument.
Of course, she admitted with a faint smirk, that was also half the fun.
* * *
Humans looked down, and they looked side to side, but they rarely if ever looked up. Penny went high, not so much following Georgie’s human home as accompanying her, unseen. While the human went into the building where she lived, Penny went up a less direct route, finally leaping down onto the fire escape outside the apartment window just as the front door opened.
Penny waited until the human finished greeting Georgie and went into the smaller room, and then let her paw scrape at the window, once.
Georgie was at the window instantly. “Hi.”
“He agreed,” she said.
“Good!” There was a pause. “To what?”
“Georgie . . .” Penny stopped to think. No, she hadn’t told the dog what she had overheard the humans saying in the Busy Place, the night before. Rather than explain, she plowed on as though Georgie had simply forgotten. “A human came to see them yesterday, asked them to look at the shelter. They are going to investigate.”
“Humans know there’s something wrong, too? Of course humans would know.”
Penny was less confident in human knowledge, but in this case it seemed they were all on the same scent. “They know something’s wrong, but not what.”
“Well, neither do we,” Georgie pointed out. “Yet.” All they knew was that there were people in the shelter when there shouldn’t be, and things—noises and smells—that made the residents uncomfortable.
“We need to find out,” Penny said. “We need to talk to the ones in the shelter. Rumor isn’t enough; it can get mangled and chewed along the way.” Georgie couldn’t do that; her human didn’t let her wander alone. That would be her job, then.
“We can be helpful?” Georgie liked that idea. “We can help save the Old Place, too!”
There was a noise from the other room, and Georgie trotted off to investigate, sticking her head through the doorway. Her curling tail wagged once, shaking her entire backside, and then she came back to the window.
“She’s on the phone,” the shar-pei reported. “Talking to someone else. A meeting, tomorrow. About the Old Place.”
“Good.” Humans would do what they did, and she would do what she could, to keep them on the right trail. “You need to make them take you with them, listen to what they say,” Penny said, thinking hard. “And let me know where you go, and when.” Last time she had not been able to put a paw on them for hours at a time, and she hadn’t liked that.
Georgie tilted her wrinkled head and widened her eyes in confusion. “How? The things I’m learning with the trainer are good, but how can I tell you we’re going somewhere I don’t know?”
That was a good question.
Georgie perked up, like she’d just heard someone call her name. “If you let him collar you, put on a leash, maybe you can come, too!”
Penny didn’t even dignify that with a response.
“Go with Herself,” she said instead. “Listen to everything they say, and remember it!”
“What are you going to do?”
“Theodore’s at the Busy Place tonight,” she said. “I’m going back there.”
With that, Penny put her paw up at the window screen, touching Georgie’s nose through the mesh, and then leaped gracefully down the fire escape landings onto the sidewalk. Back on the ground, she paused briefly to groom her tail, her ears cocked to anything happening around her, or if Georgie might call her back for some reason. Then, satisfied everything was as it should be, she headed back downtown to keep an eye on her own human.
They were not going to get in trouble without her, this time.
* * *
After confirming with their new client, Ginny called her partner. He didn’t answer, of course: Mary’s would be open by now, and he didn’t answer the phone when he was working.
The recorded message telling her to leave a message beeped at her, and she started talking. “Teddy.” It still felt odd calling him that, when she still mostly thought of him as Tonica. “Hey, it’s Ginny. So, I spoke with Nora and she wants us to come in tomorrow morning, meet her at the shelter before it opens. I know you don’t do mornings but it was either that or wait a couple of days until you were off shift, or me go on my own, and neither one of those sounded ideal, so suck it up.” She could almost see his expression at that. “So I’ll see you tomorrow, ten a.m. sharp, at the shelter?” She paused, and the answering machine beeped to indicate that she was out of time before she could think of what else she wanted to say.
“Damn. They should have a ‘please hold while you gather your thoughts’ option on these things.”
Part of her wanted to dive into researching the new job right away, but they really needed to talk to Nora first, to get a better sense of what was going on; blind searches could turn up interesting things, but she wouldn’t know if they were useful yet, not without some background info. Besides, she had other things that needed attention now, no matter what new gigs fell into her lap. She was in the final phase of one job, helping a single dad arrange a birthday party for his seven-year-old twins. Not exactly a mental challenge, but a job was a job, and the guy was paying for 100 percent of her skills and time. Normally she was good at ignoring distractions, but today . . . Maybe it was the thought of the dogs in the shelter, at risk because someone got greedy, but she couldn’t stop thinking about this job.
“Enough. Focus.”
Silence fell on the apartment save for the soft clicking of the keyboard, Ginny’s pen scratching on paper, and the muffled sound of Georgie moving around in the other room. Part of her awareness identified the distinct sounds of dog-nails clicking on hardwood floors, sighs and thumps and the occasional rattle-slurp when Georgie hit the water bowl, or looked for new treats miraculously appearing in her food dish. These were familia
r, comforting sounds now, a steady accompaniment while she worked.
After a few hours, Ginny pushed away from the desk, stretching her arms over her head until she heard her back crack properly. She glanced at the display on her computer, and frowned. It was almost five o’clock—she’d gotten her focus back, and then some, apparently. On the plus side, the birthday party was wrapped up, and her in-box was, at least for the moment, at zero.
“Hey Georgie-girl,” she called. “Do you need to go for a walk?”
The usual happy clatter of claws on the bare floor didn’t meet her query. Ginny frowned. Usually Georgie came and slept under her desk while she worked, but the dog hadn’t come in with her. Except for poking her head in briefly a while back, in fact, she hadn’t seen the dog since she came back from Mary’s. That was unusual—it was a decent-sized apartment, but not that large.
“Georgie?”
She got up and walked out of the second bedroom she used as an office, into the main living area. Georgie was at the window, her paws up on the sill, looking out intently.
“Are there squirrels on the fire escape again, baby?”
When she walked over to the window, there was nothing on the fire escape except the remains of this summer’s failed attempt to grow herbs, and Georgie was looking up at her with those big brown eyes that always made Ginny feel like she was Best Human Ever.
She knelt down and kissed the top of Georgie’s square head. The dog’s fur felt like peach fuzz, warm and bristly. “Keeping the homestead safe, huh? I love you, puppy-dog.”
A blue-black tongue licked the tip of her nose in reply, and Ginny laughed, hugging the dog. “What did I do without you? Come on, we’ll have a walk and get some fresh air. And tonight we’ve got training session! You going to be good for Bobby?”
Georgie didn’t bark, but she managed a low woof that Ginny took to be agreement.
“Getting you from that shelter was one of the best things I’ve done in years,” she said, resting her chin on top of Georgie’s warm, blunt head. “I won’t let them get into trouble now. I promise.”
Georgie woofed again and leaned against her, as though to give either comfort or support.
3
Ginny had, once upon a time, stayed out late most nights, and then relied on an alarm clock to wake up. Now, more often than not, she was in bed before midnight and woke up a few minutes before 6 a.m. under the weight of a heavy doggy stare, Georgie’s paws perched on the edge of the bed, her brown eyes intent on Ginny’s face until the human’s eyes opened. Then the stubby, curled tail would start wagging, and a blue-black tongue would wash Ginny’s face until, defeated by cute, she was willing to get out of bed and take Georgie for a walk.
That Friday morning was a textbook case of Life, Now.
“All right, all right,” Ginny said, pushing the dog away halfheartedly. “Enough with the tenderizing. I’m awake, I’m getting up, see?” She swung her feet over the side of the bed and hit the floor, trying to decide which need was more pressing: the bathroom, or the coffee machine. The bathroom won.
Georgie had quickly learned that the bathroom was a human-only space—mainly because there wasn’t enough room in there for both human and dog. But she was waiting when Ginny came out, and accompanied her mistress to the kitchen, where caffeine waited.
“Georgie, at ease.”
That was the command Bobby had been working on with them last night. Because of Georgie’s protective instincts, and her solid build, the trainer decided that the shar-pei could benefit from a few commands beyond the basics. “At ease” was supposed to keep Georgie from wandering off or getting distracted, without being as imperative a “do not move” command as “stay.”
It all seemed horribly complicated to Ginny, and Georgie hadn’t quite gotten it yet, so Ginny kept an eye on her as she went about making breakfast. For the moment, at least, the dog was perfectly content to sit and watch her.
Her cell phone, which she’d left on the counter to charge the night before, was blinking. She had a message. Pouring the coffee one-handed, she tapped the screen to see what was up.
Time-stamped 2:10, the text was from Tonica, confirming the appointment with Nora, and saying he’d swing by to pick her up at 9:45 a.m. Ginny, her brain still not entirely awake, stared at the message and then shrugged. Since his apartment was a couple of towns away, she figured it made sense for him to swing by, and arriving together would make for a more professional appearance. Fifteen minutes should be enough time, barely, to get from here to there in time for a 10 a.m. meeting.
“He’d better not be late,” she said out loud. At the sound of her voice, Georgie gave up on “at ease” and made an impatient dance, the sound of her claws on the wooden floor conveying her impatience.
“All right, sweetie,” Ginny said, putting down her phone. Getting up from “at ease” if Georgie felt the need was part of the training, so she didn’t repeat the command. Besides, the dog was right: it was walk-time. “Half a cup so I don’t walk into anything, and then we can go. Get your leash. Leash!”
Georgie disappeared to get her leash from where it hung on a peg by the door. By the time she returned, pink lead in her mouth, Ginny judged that she could get dressed and leave the apartment without being a menace to herself or the rest of humanity.
“Good girl,” she praised Georgie, snapping the leash to her collar. “Now stay here a minute, let me just throw on my sneakers, and we’ll go.”
Georgie might not have the largest vocabulary, but she knew that “sneakers,” like “leash,” usually meant something good. She sat down on the floor, her backside quivering in excitement, and waited.
Ginny threw sweatpants and a long-sleeved tee over the tank and shorts she slept in, shoved her feet into socks and sneakers, and collected Georgie at the front door.
The air was cool and damp, promising that November was well and truly here, after a warmer-than-usual autumn. Human and dog both shivered and made short work of the morning obligations. Up and down the tree-lined block of her neighborhood, Ginny could see other human-and-canine pairs doing the same thing. She knew most of them by now—there was nothing like sharing a morning poo-walk for breaking the ice among neighbors—but nobody seemed in a mood for conversation today. It was too cold and damp, and still a workday morning. TGIF only went so far, and didn’t start this early.
Back in the apartment, Ginny unhooked the leash and put it back on the peg, and laughed as the dog made a beeline to the kitchen. Georgie knew what came after her morning walk. Ginny followed at a slower pace, filling Georgie’s food dish and adding fresh water before escaping into a hot shower to finish the process of waking up.
Ginny normally dressed well when she was spending the day in the office, under the theory that clothes were part of the professional mind-set, but knowing that they were going on a client call today made her go for lightweight wool slacks and a silk blouse that were a little nicer than usual, although still not too nice if she had to run, sit on the ground, or play with a shelter dog. Not that she expected to have to do any of those things, but better to be prepared than look like an idiot. She stared at herself in the mirror after gelling her curls into some kind of style, and decided that today some foundation would not be amiss. More than that, though, was above and beyond the call of duty.
In the kitchen, Georgie was scraping at her dish as though the sheer force of her tongue could somehow produce another scrap of food. The rattle of the dish against the tile floor made Ginny remember a phone call she’d been putting off for almost a week now.
When it came to business, she sat down and did it. When it came to this, there were few who could procrastinate better.
“Oh, hell. All right, do it now, it’s done,” she muttered, and—after checking the time—called her mother.
“Virginia?” Her mother, as always, answered on the first ring. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Mom. I was just calling to see what you wanted me to bring for Thanks
giving.”
It was a yearly tradition—her mother would then insist that Ginny didn’t need to do anything, that she had it all handled, etc., and in the end would call her a few days before in a panic with a list of all the things that still needed to be done. Since it was only the three of them, it usually wasn’t a big deal, but . . .
“Oh, Thanksgiving, oh, I didn’t tell you?”
Those were words that never ended well. “Tell me what?”
“Your aunt and uncle. They’re coming out. For Thanksgiving.”
Her aunt and uncle lived out of state, and the two families weren’t particularly close. She hadn’t seen them, or her cousins, in years. Literally years. “Why?”
Her mother sighed. “I don’t know. But it’s not going to be anything good.”
Ginny usually cringed at her mother’s blunt commentary—especially when it was directed at her—but in this case she had to agree. Their family communicated in emails and occasional birthday cards, not actual visits, and she was perfectly okay with that.
“So we’ll make more of whatever we make, and hide the booze. It’s only one day, right? They’re not planning to stay with you?”
“No, no.” Her mother sounded as though the idea would send her into a panic. Her parents had a nice apartment, but it wasn’t really set up for four people to stay there more than overnight. “I just . . . I don’t know what to do with them!”
Ginny sighed silently, knowing already where this was going. “Yeah, it’s okay, Mom. I’ll handle it. I’ll get a list of things they might want to see or do, and arrange it all.” She did it for other people, she could do it for family. Anything to keep her mother from freaking out.
“Oh, Virginia, I couldn’t—” her mother started, the relief clear in her voice.
“Mom, it’s what I do for a living,” and never mind that her parents still weren’t happy with that decision. “It’s okay. And I have to go now, okay? Client meeting this morning, gotta get ready.”
She ended the call, aware that her mother’s preoccupation with this invasion had saved her from the usual interrogation about her own life. A small gift, but she’d take it.
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