Tonight I'd had over forty calls, picked up thirty-two animals, and had had to euthanize twenty-seven before I could go home. The paperwork had taken me until three.
I'd barely walked in the door when I'd had to kill six three-day-old kittens with feline distemper. Then I did seven healthy mixed shepherds whose time had run out. We gave animals four days more than most places, so we were always cramped for space.
Around six-thirty I picked up three seriously injured strays (no collars, no tags) hit by cars in less than an hour. One of them had been neatly eviscerated. She looked at me gratefully as I talked soothingly to her, then pushed the plunger.
At nine, Linda, the night manager, said they couldn't hold the old stray hound any longer. I'd picked her up ten days ago. In spite of our posters, and ads in the Post, no one had claimed her. I loved her, but couldn't take her. My cat, Alfred, had died last year at seventeen, and I'd euthanized my fifteen-year-old Dobie, Dove, just six months ago, but my landlord had slapped a "no animals" clause on me before Dove got cold.
The hound licked our hands when Linda and I came to get her. She left this earth no doubt wondering where her people were.
At ten-fifteen I killed three raccoons we'd trapped, and one small brown bat who'd had his wings shattered by a terrified second-string Redskins linebacker wielding a broom. Each would have to be checked for rabies.
But the worst thing that'd happened tonight was that damned puppy. Even hours later, I found it hard to think about him. I'd chased his mother for half an hour, finally cornering her in an alley. She was nothing but drab fur, bones, and big nipples.
She led me to the nest where I found her pup safe and warm in a tumble of rags, paper and trash. He was fat and plush, about two weeks old, eyes just barely open—mixed beagle, mostly. I picked the trash off him . . . then I saw it.
It made me sick, and after ten years on the job, not much got to me. He must've crawled through one of those plastic six-pack holders right after he was born. His head and right front leg were through one of the rings, and he was wearing it like a bizarre bandolier across his pudgy chest. Once in it, he couldn't get out, and he'd grown—but the plastic hadn't. The ring was sawing him neatly in half. Exposed muscles glistened red and swollen . . . organs clearly visible. If I'd cut the damned thing, his entrails would've fallen out. All I could think of was Linda's favorite saying . . . there are worse things than death.
I put mom in the van, then sat in the alley, finding the tiny vein by the light of the street lamp, in spite of the danger. Clean needles pull junkies out of the woodwork, crazed cockroaches after sugar, and I'd been beaten and held up at gunpoint before for them. But I couldn't let his mom watch.
Both mom and I cried all the way back to the shelter. You'd have thought it was my first week on the job. At least she'd have a warm bed for a week and an endless supply of food. Then I'd probably have to do her. It killed me to think that those seven days would probably be the best in her short, bitter life.
I remembered all this and swallowed hard. I lived with ghosts each night. In my lap was that puppy with the ring; I could feel him squirm on my legs. At my feet the old hound wagged her tail. The mixed Shepherds and sick kittens watched me sadly. The raccoons stared. On my shoulder crouched the little bat. Every night I brought a crowd home—the ghosts of all the animals I killed. Every night for ten years.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate my job, but I didn't love it, either. It was something I had to do because I loved animals. Someone had to kill the thousands of sick, injured and unwanted animals discarded annually, and who better than someone who loved them? I know. You love animals and you couldn't do it—well, that's why I had to.
While I was thinking this, the old werewolf touched me on the shoulder, nearly scaring me to death. He was hanging onto the overhead bar, staring at me. His expression was kindly, but I fingered my flashlight. I'd had to use it as a weapon before.
"You've had a hard night, haven't you, bubeleh?" he said in a sober, gravely voice that was laced with a thick, Old World accent. It was the last thing I'd expected. A Jewish werewolf? In New York, maybe, but D.C.?
His unexpected sympathy hit me hard; tears welled up. I couldn't speak for fear I'd start bawling with ten years' backlogged heartache, so I just nodded. Here was this old man, homeless from the look of him, comforting me. I took a deep breath, glanced away, trying to pull myself together. That's when I noticed the number tattooed on the underside of his hairy arm as he held the bar. It was the old, faded, concentration camp number survivors of the Holocaust wear.
"You shouldn't work so hard, a nice girl like you," the old man rumbled, still smiling. "Goodnight, Therese." Therese. Not Theresa. Everybody said Theresa. Then he got off the bus.
I was still shaking my head as I stepped down onto Morris Road. I didn't believe in monsters . . . just like I didn't believe in ghosts . . . but when I thought of that old man, all I saw was a werewolf. A kindly Jewish werewolf . . . right. Sure.
I walked home, the ghosts of twenty-seven animals trailing behind me, wondering whether there'd been a full moon tonight.
▼▼▼
"Hey, Tee, good to see you," the cop said the next night, as he opened my van door. Joseph WhiteCrane was a K-9 cop with Metro police. The shelter often supplied Metro with dogs, and Joe's dog, Chief, a big white shepherd, had been one of my finds. Joe was part Sioux, part Hispanic, and part Irish. About 5'8", he wasn't handsome, with his hooked nose and pock-marked face, but his dark skin, black hair and ice-black eyes were magnetic, fiercely alive. Inside, Joe was a red-tailed hawk.
A good night's sleep had erased any lingering willies I had over my odd delusion on the bus. I felt secure being back at work dealing with my normal run of real-life horrors.
"I just got the call," I said. "You impound a dog?" Drug dealers often protected themselves with bad dogs, so it wasn't unusual to be called to a crime scene to pick up animals. But this didn't look like a drug bust—for one thing, the coroner's wagon was sitting next to Joe's car. Inside the car, Chief lunged and whirled, frantically barking.
We were in the business district, the fourteen-hundred block of I Street, so at this time of night, there weren't many bystanders. Besides the handful of street people and hookers gawking at the crime scene, there were a few businessmen who must've been in the local club that served lunch to the clericals during the day, and topless shows to the bosses at night.
"No dog for you tonight—at least, not yet," Joe said, then looked at me, frowning. "What's that smell?"
I'd been hoping he wouldn't notice. "Gasoline and burnt hair. Some kids cooked a cat. I found her tied by her tail to a lamppost, still smoldering . . . and screaming." I rubbed my hands on my pants, feeling bits of her still stuck to me. Her skin had sloughed off when I hit the vein.
Joe looked away, knowing better than to show any sympathy. "Well, like you say, there's worse things than death. Look, we need an expert opinion. An old guy's been killed, maybe by animals. We called the zoo, and nothing's loose. Would you look at the body and tell the coroner what you think of the wounds?"
I nodded. After the barbecued cat, nothing could bother me. At first, the coroner only wanted to show me the bites on the arms, but finally Joe convinced him to uncover the corpse. Damn right, there's worse things than death. The man's throat was torn out, but the coroner said he survived that, only to endure the rest without being able to scream. His chest was torn open ... his heart ripped out.
"I've seen feral dogs do stuff like this to each other," I said, "but, eat just the heart? Weird." I stared at the bites. "Big jaws, wide muzzles, almost flat-faced."
"Pack of pit bulls?" Joe asked.
"Maybe ... or bull mastiffs. How big are the paw prints?"
Joe and the coroner looked at each other. "No paw prints," the cop said finally.
"Come on. This guy had to bleed like a fountain."
"Footprints," Joe said. "The victim's. Nothing else."
"Are you guys sharin
g this with the press?" I asked quietly.
Joe shrugged. "Don't know."
"C'mon, give a poor working girl a break," I urged. "Remember the rabies outbreak? The city'll go nuts if the media talks up a crazed pack of killer dogs."
Joe smiled. "I'll talk to the captain. We might be able to keep this on low profile until we know more about the victim."
As we left the coroner's wagon, I saw Joe's still-frantic dog. "What's wrong with Chief? I've never seen him like this."
The cop shrugged. "He's been crazy since we got here. Let's take him out. You got your pole?"
"Yeah." I retrieved the aluminum rabies pole with its plastic-covered cable loop that enabled me to snag animals and hold them at a distance.
Joe put Chief on a short lead and let him out. The dog was high- strung, hackles up, whining. Normally, the big shepherd was as steady as a brick.
"Think he can smell those dogs?" I asked.
Joe shrugged. "If we spot 'em, we're going to catch them from a distance." He patted the pistol resting on his hip.
Chief pulled Joe for a few blocks, then turned up an alley. Suddenly, he rounded on a doorway, barking furiously. A huddled form was hiding in the shadows. I moved closer. Gray eyes, silver hair, muddy overcoat . . . the old man from the bus . . . and damn it, he still looked like a werewolf!
"Easy, Chief, easy!" Joe said to the frenzied dog. "Hey, Grandfather, what're you doing here?"
"Resting, officer," he muttered tiredly. "Please, to hold your dog! Ach, Therese, tell him not to loose the dog!"
"You know this guy?" Joe asked me.
Something made me nod my head. "Grandfather," I said, using Joe's term, "It's not safe here. A man's been killed nearby. Did you see or hear anything?"
"Tsk, tsk." He shook his head. "Killed? Such a world!" "Let us take you to the D Street shelter," Joe offered.
"In the same car with such a dog? Thank you, no."
I gazed at the old man—he seemed exhausted, weary to his soul, and my heart went out to him. Usually I only felt this kind of concern for animals, but ... he was different. "Have you had anything to eat tonight, Grandfather? A hot meal?"
He smiled. "Say 'zeyde,' Therese. Yes. I've had a good, hot meal. Not kosher, but . . . how nice you should worry."
I wasn't sure I believed him. Impulsively, I shoved three dollars into his pocket. "Then this is for breakfast, Zeyde."
Joe and I walked back to my van. We had to drag Chief the whole way.
"So, is Zeyde his name?" I wondered to Joe.
He shook his head. "Means 'grandfather.' It's Yiddish."
Joe would know that. He was a mine of cultural knowledge. "What does 'bubeleh' mean?"
" 'Grandchild. It's an endearment." Joe paused. "Did you smell anything when you got near him?"
"Me? All I can smell is that poor cat. Why?"
Joe glanced back towards the alley. "I thought I caught a whiff of blood. Didn't see any, though. Might've been why Chief was so spooked. Could've been his breath."
I looked at Joe, my eyes wide. "His breath?"
"Lots of street people are sick . . . ulcers, whatever."
Oh, I thought, embarrassed by my weird thoughts.
▼▼▼
The next day was Friday, and by eleven forty-five p.m., Linda was helping me do my twentieth kill of the night. It was a full grown dobie, weighing thirty pounds. Should've weighed eighty. The people said they'd run out of dog food and couldn't afford more, so they just stopped feeding him. He couldn't even stand. Only his eyes looked alive.
Linda took him in her arms. "Hey, pretty dog," she crooned, petting him, her blond curls falling around her face. We ribbed Linda for looking like Jane Fonda. Lovely, quick and clever . . . inside she was a gray fox.
After filling the syringe, I turned to the dog. He had no muscles left, just hair, skin and bones. I'd found him tied in a closet, dumped like a pair of old shoes. He turned his liquid brown eyes on me and they were full of trust, ready to love again, in spite of everything he'd been through. Suddenly I saw Zeyde, ribs jutting, in the concentration camp.
"Tee, you okay?" Linda asked.
I swallowed. "Listen . . . uh, can we keep this one?"
She sighed tiredly. "He needs his own pen, vet care, it'd be six months before he'd be adoptable."
It was suddenly very important for me to save this dog. "I can't kill this one," I said, tightly. "He's so damned hungry."
Linda shook her head. "If we started saving every starvation case, we'd be packed to the rafters. . . ." She must've seen something in my face then, something she recognized, because she stopped, giving in. "I don't know why I let you talk me into these things. We'll put a bed behind my desk—"
The phone rang, and she nodded at me to get it as she went to settle the dog in her office and fetch him some food.
"D.C. Animal Control, Officer Norris."
"It's Joe," a familiar deep voice said. "The guy that got killed by those dogs was on the Federal Witness Protection Program. We just got the word."
"Weird," I said. "Some kind of Mafia snitch?"
"Weirder," Joe said. "He was a former Nazi. Did some favors for the State Department at the end of the war. Homicide's calling it a random wild dog attack."
My fingers tightened on the phone, thinking how odd it was to run into a Nazi and a Holocaust survivor in the same night. "Think this has anything to do with Zeyde?" I asked, finally.
"Doubt it, but if you talk to him, call me."
I fought back an urge to ask Joe if there'd been a full moon last night. Joe would know.
"Be careful on the street tonight, Tee," Joe warned me.
"I'm always careful," I said defensively.
"The hell you are. I've seen you work. You take too many chances. I mean it, Tee."
"Yeah, yeah," I agreed impatiently. "Listen, I gotta go."
"Why can't you be nicer to that poor guy?" Linda asked, when I hung up the phone. "Every straight woman in this place would kill to have him pay them half the attention he gives you."
"Get off my back," I said, good-naturedly.
With real pleasure I watched the dobie inhale a small meal from a soft bed of worn blankets. You had to start them slow, tiny meals every two hours, to get their systems used to food again. Maybe it was time to look for an apartment that permitted pets, I thought as I walked out to the van.
I was startled out of my mental house-hunting when I found Zeyde waiting beside the vehicle, and had the sudden, uneasy feeling that my mentioning his name had conjured him up. Just like in the movies, the old werewolf silently appeared out of the humid night air.
I gave myself a mental shake, irritated with my silly obsession about this helpless old man. The shelter was only a few blocks from the Hecht Company warehouse. All the street people knew they had the best dumpster in the city. He must've been down there foraging, and was now on his way back downtown.
"Therese, bubeleh," he greeted me warmly, like we were old friends, "still working hard?"
"Still, Zeyde," I agreed. "What can I do for you? Had anything to eat tonight?"
"Such a nice girl to worry about an old man. I was just walking by . . . I recognized your van." He must've watched me and Joe return to it the night of the murder. He smiled, and I felt funny. Why was I worried about him? I had enough to be concerned about taking care of the city's unwanted animals. "This is where you work, this place?" He indicated the shelter.
"Yeah, this is it."
"So, why does a nice girl like you do such a hard, dangerous job, chasing animals in the street at night?"
I shrugged. "Someone's got to do it."
"But you could get hurt by such big dogs, bitten terrible!"
"Not me, Zeyde," I reassured him. "I don't get bitten. Not in eight years. Im good at this."
I found myself looking at the old mustard-colored cinderblock shelter. The huge walk-in refrigerator stuck out of its side garishly, all new stainless steel against the old block. That's where most of
my night's work ended up, in the walk-in, waiting for the Tenderers. Big, plastic barrels filled with rigid animals curled in a mockery of sleep.
Suddenly I was uncomfortably aware of the similarities between the shelter and a concentration camp. We warehoused animals until we had too many, then killed the sickest, weakest and oldest. Then we sent the bodies away to become soap and fertilizer. I didn't like thinking of myself as a humane Nazi.
"Ach, I've upset you, being the yenta, asking questions that are none of my business."
"Zeyde, I do this work because I have to, because I love animals . . .
I help them. . . ." At least, I ended their suffering. He gave me a sad look and nodded. I thought of the dobie now sleeping behind Linda's desk who'd never again be hungry or thirsty or cold. "I'm a complete vegan. I don't eat animals or wear any animal products."
He looked at me gently. "And people? You love them, too?"
I gritted my teeth. On a good day, I tolerated people. After a bad shift, after picking up too many animals like that dobie, I despised them. The only reason this job existed was because of the cruelty and indifference of people. But, even before the job, I'd never had close relationships. I still hadn't recovered from Dove or Alfred's death, but my dad died ten years before, and I couldn't even remember the date.
Then I thought of Joe. I knew how he felt about me, but I didn't want to care. "So, how long have you been on the streets?" I asked the old man, wanting to change the subject.
"Since the war," he admitted, with an odd smile.
"World War Two?" Surviving that long, homeless?
"They took everything," he said softly. "Parents, wife, children, grandchildren . . . our wealth, heritage . . . everything we were. Everything we would have been."
"Other people started over, remarried, rebuilt," I said.
The Ultimate Werewolf Page 22
