Sick Puppy

by Carl Hiaasen

  "See? Balls."

  "Why don't you have him lie down again. Mr. Spree."

  "Down, boy," Twilly said obediently.

  "Would you like us to go ahead and neuter him?"

  "I'm not the one you should be asking," said Twilly.

  "We've got a special this month on cats and dogs," the receptionist told him. "You get a twenty-five-dollar rebate from the Humane Society."

  "Is that twenty-five per testicle?"

  "No, Mr. Spree."

  Twilly sensed the Lab gazing up at him. "Cats and dogs only?"

  "That's right."

  "Too bad."

  The receptionist ignored his last remark. A tall frizzy-haired woman in a pink lab coat came out to collect McGuinn. Twilly followed her to an examination room and together they hoisted the dog onto a stainless-steel table. In came the veterinarian, a slightly built fellow in his sixties. He had a reddish gray mustache and wore thick-rimmed eyeglasses, and he didn't say much. He listened to McGuinn's heartbeat, palpated his abdomen and examined the sutures.

  Without looking up, the doctor asked, "What was the reason for the surgery?"

  Twilly said, "I don't know." Desie had promised to tell him, but never did.

  "I don't understand. Isn't this your dog?"

  "Actually, I just found him a few days ago."

  "Then how do you know his name?"

  "I had to call him something besides 'boy.' "

  The veterinarian turned and eyed Twilly dubiously. Twilly made up a story about finding the Labrador wandering the shoulder of Interstate 75 near Sarasota. He assured the veterinarian he was taking an advertisement in the local newspaper, in the hopes of locating the dog's owner.

  "No rabies tags?" the veterinarian asked. "No, sir."

  "No collar?"

  "Nope," Twilly said. The collar and the tag were in the car.

  "A dog like this—it seems hard to believe. This animal has champion bloodlines."

  "I sure wouldn't know about that."

  The veterinarian stroked McGuinn's snout. "Somebody cared enough to take him in for surgery. Doesn't make any sense they'd abandon him afterward. Not to me, it doesn't."

  Twilly shrugged. "Humans are hard to figure. The point is, I care about him, too. Otherwise I wouldn't be here."

  "No, I suppose not."

  "I got worried when he stopped eating."

  "Yes, it's good you brought him in." The veterinarian lifted McGuinn's upper lip and peered at the pale gums. "Mr. Spree, do you mind waiting in the other room?"

  Twilly returned to the reception area and took a seat across from two maternal-looking women, each with an obese cat on her lap. Next to Twilly sat a sharp-featured man clutching a brushed leather valise, from which a small shaggy head—no larger than an apple—would emerge intermittently. Its moist brown eyes would dart edgily about the room until the man whispered something, and then the tiny canine head would pop out of sight.

  The sharp-featured man noticed Twilly staring, then pulled the valise protectively to his chest. Abruptly he got up and moved three chairs away.

  "So," Twilly said affably, "what's your hamster's name?"

  The young man snatched up a veterinary magazine and pretended to read. The other pet owners seemed equally disinclined to chat. Twilly assumed they disapproved of his attire—he was shirtless and barefoot, and wore only a pair of old chinos. The rest of his clothes were at a laundromat down the street.

  "Ah well," he said, and folded his arms. Before long he fell asleep and, as always, did not dream. He awoke to see the face of the frizzy-haired woman in the pink lab coat.

  "Mr. Spree? Mr. Spree?"

  "Yes. Sorry."

  "Dr. Whitcomb needs to see you right away."

  Twilly rose so fast, it made him wobbly. "Is something wrong?" he asked the woman in pink.

  "Please. Come right now."

  The dog predated Desirata. It was a gift from Dag Magnusson, president of the Magnusson Phosphate Company, who knew that Palmer Stoat loved to hunt. Dag Magnusson had purchased the dog from a breeder of field-trial champion Labradors in Hibbing, Minnesota. The one selected by Dag Magnusson was the pick of the litter and cost fifteen hundred dollars. Stoat named him Boodle as an inside joke, although the dog technically wasn't a bribe but rather a reward for arranging one.

  Dag Magnusson had sought out Stoat because a Magnusson mine in Polk County was about to be shut down by the EPA for polluting a community lake with chemical runoff. The chemical was so vile that it exterminated all life-forms larger than amoebas, and the government was contemplating a whopping six-figure fine against Magnusson Phosphate, in addition to padlocking the facility. The situation was so politically touchy—and the lake so odiferously befouled—that not even the sluttiest congressman could be induced to intervene.

  So Palmer Stoat tried another approach. He put Dag Magnusson in touch with a regional EPA administrator who was known to have a weak spot for trout fishing. Dag Magnusson invited the EPA man to accompany him on a trip to a private stretch of blue-ribbon river in western Montana, and it was there the lucky fellow nailed his first twenty-inch rainbow. The fish had barely stopped flopping when the EPA quietly began settling its differences with Magnusson Phosphate, which ultimately agreed to pay a $3,900 fine and erect large warning signs on the shores of the poisoned lake in Polk County. Dag Magnusson was delighted with the outcome, and decided that Palmer Stoat deserved something more than his customarily exorbitant fee.

  Hence the dog. Stoat's wife at the time (his second) protested, but to no avail. The wife's name was Abbie, and she had no patience for puppy piddle or puppy poop. Few humans are able to resist the spunky charms of a six-week-old Labrador retriever, but Abbie could and did. She was resolutely not, by her own admission, "an animal person." She felt that anything with fur belonged on a hanger, not under the dining room table licking her pedicured toes. Abbie's attitude toward the puppy was so glacially resentful that it alarmed her husband, who was amused, if not smitten, by his rambunctious new pooch. Palmer Stoat had been mentally compiling reasons to divorce Abbie, and her aversion to Boodle immediately vaulted to the top of his list (replacing, temporarily, her aversion to oral-genital contact).

  In the end, Stoat was able to turn his wife's dislike of the puppy to his own legal advantage. One evening he returned home from Tallahassee to find Abbie hysterically flogging the young dog with a rolled-up copy of Women's Wear Daily. Boodle was nearly a year old and already ninety-plus pounds, so he wasn't the least bit harmed or even unnerved by Abbie's outburst (and failed to make a connection between the spanking and the coral red Rossetti sling-back that had become his newest chew toy). The dog thought Abbie was playing, and throughout the attack he kept wagging his truncheon-like tail in appreciation of the rare display of attention. Palmer Stoat burst into the laundry room and wrested the rolled-up fashion magazine from his wife's fist. Within a week he presented her with divorce papers. Abbie signed without a fight, rather than face the lurid accusations of animal cruelty that her husband had vowed to publicize.

  After she was gone, Stoat briefly set out to make a hunting dog of his blood-champion Lab. Boodle proved excellent at fetching but not so good at retrieving. He could find a downed mallard in the thickest cattails but invariably he kept swimming. By the time Stoat and his hunting companions chased down the dog, there was too little remaining of the bedraggled game bird to cook. Stoat went through half a dozen Labrador trainers before giving up on Boodle; the retrieval talents for which his canine lineage was famous obviously had skipped a generation. Stoat consigned the dog to household-protection duties, for which he seemed well suited, given his daunting size and midnight blackness.

  So Boodle had settled in as lord of the manor. Stoat was undeniably fond of the animal, and enjoyed the company on those rare nights he wasn't away traveling, or drinking at Swain's. To his delight Stoat also discovered that, unlike the vanquished Abbie, most women adored large huggable dogs and were attracted to men who owned the
m. Boodle (Palmer Stoat would brag to his buddies) turned out to be a "big-time chick magnet." Certainly it had worked on Desie, who'd fallen instantly for the dog. Naively she had regarded Boodle's exuberantly sunny disposition as a positive reflection on his master. Such a happy pooch, she reasoned, could only have been raised by a patient, caring, unselfish man. Desie believed you could tell as much about a potential suitor from his pet as from his automobile, wardrobe and CD collection. Boodle being a riotously content and gentle dog, it seemed unthinkable that Palmer Stoat could be a conniving shitweasel.

  Although Desie's view of her husband had grown darker after their marriage, her affection for the dog had deepened. Now Boodle/McGuinn was in the custody of a disturbed young man who might or might not prove to be a maniac, and Desie couldn't convince her husband that it was true. Several days passed before the envelope arrived via Federal Express late one afternoon. Desie wondered what Twilly Spree possibly could have sent that would "make a believer" of her doubting husband. A photograph of the dog, she guessed; the dog depicted in obvious jeopardy. But how—tethered to a railroad crossing? Tied up with a revolver pressed to his head? Desie cringed at the possibilities.

  Palmer's flight from Tallahassee was late, so he didn't arrive home until half past eleven, after Desie was in bed. She heard him go into the den, where she'd left the package; heard him open the top drawer of his desk, where he kept the gold-plated scissors. For several moments she heard nothing else, and then came a quavering bleat that didn't sound anything like her husband, though it was.

  Desie ran to the den and found him standing away from the desk, pointing spasmodically with the scissors.

  "What is it, Palmer?"

  "Eeeaaaaaahhh!" he cried.

  Desie stepped forward to see what was in the FedEx envelope. At first she thought it was just a sock, a thin, shiny wrinkled black sock, but that wouldn't make any sense. Desie picked up the velvety thing and suddenly it looked familiar, and then she let out a cry of her own.

  It was the severed ear of a dog, a large dog. A large black Labrador.

  Desie dropped the thing, and it landed like a dead bat on the pale carpet. "Jesus!" she gasped.

  Her flushed and trembling husband bolted for the bathroom. Desie pounded furiously on the door. "Now do you believe me?" she shouted over the roar of retching. "How about it. Palmer? Do you believe me now, you smart-assed sonofabitch?"

  9

  Twilly missed McGuinn. Missed the sound of his panting, the musky warmth of his fur.

  It's only a dog, he thought. I got through my whole childhood without so much as a goldfish for a pet, so why all the guilt over a damn dog?

  For two days Twilly Spree drove, scouting the likeliest locations. Okeechobee Road in west Dade. Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Dixie Highway in North Miami. U.S. 1 from Kendall Drive to Florida City. And all the time he was missing McGuinn.

  I'm going soft, Twilly grumbled. I'm definitely slipping here.

  On the third day, after finally finding what he needed, he returned to the veterinary clinic. The frizzy-haired lady in pink met him in the reception area and took him to Dr. Whitcomb's private office. The veterinarian, who was on the telephone, motioned Twilly to a chair. The lady in pink closed the door on her way out.

  As soon as Dr. Whitcomb hung up, Twilly said: "Well?"

  "Yes. You ought to have a look." The veterinarian took a small round object from the top drawer. He handed it to Twilly, who rolled it in the palm of his hand. Seeing the object on an X ray was one thing; holding it was something else, a handful of guilt.

  It was a glass eye from the stuffed head of an animal.

  "And you've got no idea," Dr. Whitcomb was saying, "how your dog came to ingest something like this?"

  "Beats me," Twilly lied. "I told you, I just found him a few days ago."

  "Labs'll eat just about anything," the doctor remarked.

  "Evidently."

  Now Twilly knew the truth: He was the one responsible for the dog's sickness. If he hadn't removed the eyeballs from Palmer Stoat's taxidermy, McGuinn wouldn't have found the damn things and swallowed them.

  Twilly wondered why Desie hadn't told him. He might've returned the dog to Stoat if he'd known the truth about the surgery. Now he felt purely rotten.

  "A glass eye," Dr. Whitcomb was saying, "imagine that."

  "And it got stuck inside him?"

  "Basically, yes. Pretty far down the chute, too."

  Twilly said, "God. The poor guy needed another operation?"

  "No, Mr. Spree. A laxative."

  The door swung open and McGuinn clambered into the office, trailing his leash. Excitedly he whirled around twice before burrowing his snout in Twilly's crotch, the customary Labrador greeting.

  "A very potent laxative," Dr. Whitcomb added, "and plenty of it."

  Twilly found himself hugging the dog fiercely. He could feel McGuinn's tongue, as thick as a cow's, lathering his right ear.

  "You sure he'll be OK?"

  "Fine," said Dr. Whitcomb, "but pretty soon he'll need those staples taken out of his belly."

  From a damp crumple of cash Twilly counted out a thousand dollars in fifties, which he handed to the veterinarian.

  "No, Mr. Spree, this is way too much."

  "It is not."

  "But—"

  "Don't argue, just take it. Maybe next time somebody can't afford to pay, then... "

  "That's a good idea," said Dr. Whitcomb. "Thank you."

  He followed Twilly and McGuinn to the parking lot, where the dog methodically peed on the tires of five late-model cars, including the doctor's.

  "Can I ask a favor?" the veterinarian said. "It's about that fake eyeball. Mr. Spree, would you mind if I kept it for my collection?"

  "That depends," said Twilly, "on the collection."

  "Weird Things Dogs Eat," Dr. Whitcomb said. "I've got doorstops, earrings, fountain pens, cigarette lighters, car keys. This one Lab—Rachel was her name—she swallowed a cellular phone! And here's the funny part: It kept ringing inside her stomach. That's how her owners figured out what'd happened."

  Twilly reached into his shirt for Palmer Stoat's Cape buffalo eye. He tossed it underhand to the veterinarian. "It's all yours, Doc."

  Dr. Whitcomb looked amused as he fingered the glossy orb. "Crazy dog. How'd you suppose he got hold of something like this?"

  Twilly shrugged. "Crazy damn dog," he said.

  Why couldn't he stop thinking of Desie?

  Her neck, in particular—the pale snowy slope between her pearl-spangled earlobe and her collarbone. Twilly had a grand weakness for the female neck. The last time he'd seen one as alluring as Desie's, it nearly got him killed.

  The neck had been attached to a woman named Lucy, and Twilly didn't know about the pharmaceuticals and the booze and the bipolar disorder. All he knew was that Lucy had an indisputably fabulous neck, and that she freely let him nuzzle her there. She was also nice enough to have sex with him, which meant he quickly fell in love with her and moved in. They had known each other sixteen days. Lucy, it turned out, was not well. She took lots of self-prescribed medicine and washed it down with Bombay gin. Some nights she was the happiest person on the planet, a joy to behold. And some nights she was a skank monster, violent and paranoid and gun-crazy. Twilly had never known a woman so fond of handguns. Lucy owned several, mostly semi-automatics. "My father was a policeman," she would say by way of explanation. Whenever Twilly came across one of Lucy's firearms, he would secretly take it from the house and throw it down a nearby manhole. But she always seemed to have another at the ready; where she hid all those guns was a mystery. Sometimes she shot at the telephone; sometimes it was the television. Once she shot the bagel toaster while Twilly was fixing breakfast. Another time she shot out her personal computer because one of her drug connections had e-mailed to say he was out of Percocet. That was the same afternoon she ran next door and shot her neighbor's scarlet macaw for squawking during her naptime (Lucy needed lots of na
ps). The police took Lucy downtown but no charges were filed, since she promptly reimbursed the grief-stricken bird owner and agreed to undergo counseling. There the therapists found Lucy to be a model of stability—engaging and self-aware and repentant. Happy, too. One of the happiest patients they'd ever seen. But of course they didn't have to live with her.

  To Lucy's credit, she never purposely tried to shoot Twilly, although on several occasions she nearly hit him by accident. For all her vast gun-handling experience, she was a surprisingly lousy shot. Yet during fourteen hair-raising weeks under the same roof, Twilly's fear of taking a bullet was outweighed by his neck-nuzzling lust. It was, he realized later, another appalling example of his own deficient judgment.

  Twilly never knew which Lucy was coming through the front door until he leaned down to kiss her neck, which was the first thing he always did. If it was Happy Lucy, she would sigh and press close against him. If it was Bipolar Lucy, she would shove him away and beeline for the medicine cabinet, and then the gin. Later a loaded handgun or two might appear. Most boyfriends would have wisely bolted after the first drunken shooting episode, but Twilly stayed. He was infatuated with the Happy Lucy. He truly believed he could mend her. Whenever Bipolar Lucy surfaced, Twilly declined to do the sensible thing, which was run like a scalded gerbil. Instead he hovered at the scene, endeavoring to soothe and coax and communicate. He was always trying to talk Lucy down; he dearly wanted to be the one to catch her when she fell. And that's how he nearly died.