A Dangerous Fiction

by Barbara Rogan

  It was a book that shouldn’t have worked but did, because the dogs’ qualities—loyalty, bravery, rivalry, pack discipline—mirrored similar qualities in Gordon’s comrades-at-arms and brothers, and because the author was as astute an observer of men as of dogs. The composite of all the stories added up to a sort of pointillist self-portrait: hence the well-conceived title, which we kept.

  The book was an original but difficult to categorize; it garnered more compliments and fewer offers than any I’d ever handled. Nothing but pure bullheadedness compelled me to keep going until, finally, my twentieth submission struck gold.

  It seemed as if I’d cast my bread upon the waters and it had come back to me in the form of a four-legged guardian angel. I was touched by Gordon’s generosity and tempted to accept. As a lonely child, I’d longed for a dog but wasn’t allowed to have one. Thwarted desires never really go away; they just burrow in deeper.

  It was impossible, though. I couldn’t take care of a dog, and I told Gordon so.

  “You’ve got it backward,” he said. “The dog takes care of you.”

  “I can’t accept.”

  “You need him. And I need you to keep doing what you do, instead of looking over your shoulder. A trained dog’s the best security there is. Any other weapon can be taken away and turned against you, but nobody turns a dog against his master.”

  I thought about the night Sam Spade emerged from the shadows and grabbed my arm. I looked at Mingus, who had finished exploring and settled on the floor beside Gordon’s chair. In response to my gaze, the dog thumped his tail and panted, baring long white fangs. He was as big as a wolf.

  “But I’m not his master,” I said.

  “He’s a professional. He’ll work for you.”

  “I’ve never owned a dog in my life.”

  “I won’t leave until I’m satisfied you can handle him. You’re not afraid, and that’s a start.”

  • • •

  We left the office and walked to Central Park. Gordon made me hold the leash, and I began to enjoy the way the rush-hour crowd parted before us. Clearly Mingus had the Moses touch. Nevertheless, I still intended to refuse Gordon’s generous but impractical offer. I wasn’t Mingus’s mistress and thus had no authority or control over him. That he walked so calmly beside me, sitting when we stopped for lights, I put down to Gordon’s presence at my side . . . his silent presence. Gordon didn’t speak once the whole way to the park. Like many writers I’d known (Hugo having been the great exception, he was as shy and taciturn in speech as he was eloquent on paper.

  In the quiet, enclosed haven of Strawberry Fields, Gordon took the leash and put Mingus through his paces. Then he taught me the command words and hand signals and gave the leash to me. We practiced sit, down, stay, come, and heel over and over while Gordon called out corrections, not to the dog but to me. At first I felt overmatched. Mingus was not only big but muscular, an armored tank on legs. He obeyed me, I felt, on sufferance only, or by way of obeying Gordon. And yet the longer we practiced, the more responsive he became, until he seemed almost to anticipate my commands. When I walked, he kept pace; when I stopped he sat by my side; when I called him he came. He clearly enjoyed the routine, throwing himself into it so that his movements seemed to flow from my will and extend its reach.

  Gordon’s instructions grew less and less frequent. After an hour or so, he said, “Not bad. I’m getting hungry.”

  “Me too,” I said. “How about you, Mingus? Are you hungry?”

  “He’s a dog; he’s always hungry. Come on, I’ll buy you a hot dog.”

  We headed back toward the ball fields. I offered Gordon the leash. He shook his head. “German shepherds need to bond with their handlers to work for them. Normally that’s a process that takes weeks or months. We don’t have that, so we’re going to take some shortcuts. From now on, this dog is attached to you at the hip. Where you go, he goes. Every necessity of his life—food, water, shelter, affection—has to come from you alone.”

  “But I have to work. I have to go into the office every day.”

  “Of course. He goes with you. What good would he do sitting at home?”

  We reached the hot dog cart and stood on line behind a couple of young boys in baseball uniforms. “Wow,” said one of them, “cool dog! Can I pet him?”

  I looked at Gordon, who nodded.

  “Say hi, Mingus,” I said, and the big dog wagged his tail and licked the sticky hand held out to him.

  “He’s great with kids,” Gordon said with paternal pride.

  “I can’t believe he was a police dog. He seems so gentle.”

  “A well-trained dog turns it on and off like a switch. Mingus was one of the elite, a SWAT team dog.”

  “How did he come to be with you?”

  “His handler got sick and had to retire. Mingus was six, too old to reassign, and the handler couldn’t keep him. So he came back to me.” Seeing my puzzlement, he added, “He’s one of mine. I bred this fellow out of the best bitch and stud I ever owned.”

  “I’m not sure I want a dog with a pedigree better than my own.”

  Gordon laughed. “It’s just a loan, till this thing gets sorted out. After that, Mingus comes back home to his well-earned retirement in the country.”

  Now was the time to tell him that Mingus couldn’t stay. But we’d reached the front of the line, and Gordon was ordering: five hot dogs, two with the works, and three bottles of water. The vendor gave us a cardboard tray. We sat on a nearby bench to eat, and Mingus sat beside me, eyes politely averted from the food.

  “Shouldn’t we feed him?” I asked Gordon.

  “You will, but not yet. Alphas eat first.”

  I ate quickly, not just for Mingus’s sake but because I was hungry; and that hot dog with sauerkraut tasted better than the fancy dinner I’d just had with Teddy Pendragon. When I finished, Gordon had me break off a piece of meat and offer it to Mingus. The dog ignored the food and looked intently at Gordon.

  “Chow time,” he said, and suddenly the meat was gone, swallowed whole. “Chow time’s the release phrase. Dog’s trained not to eat without it. Protects him from poisoning.”

  I went on feeding Mingus by hand, piece by piece. I never felt his teeth touch my hand; he used his lips to pluck the pieces from my palm. When the food was gone, he licked my hand clean, then nosed one of the water bottles.

  “He’s thirsty,” I said. “But we don’t have a bowl.”

  “Cup your hands.” Gordon poured water into my hands and Mingus lapped it up. We continued until one of the bottles was empty. I wiped my hands on his ruff.

  “Nice job,” Gordon said, “You’re a natural, Jo.”

  “Funny—that’s what I told you, remember?”

  “I’m not likely to forget it. You sure you never had a dog, maybe as a kid?”

  “I brought a stray home once,” I said incautiously.

  “What happened?”

  What happened was that she’d taken the leash to me, dear old Grandma, buckle end flailing. That was a bad one, and the reason that I can’t wear low-backed gowns or bathing suits.

  “It didn’t work out,” I said. “Look, Gordon, as much as I appreciate the offer—”

  “We’re not done yet. Ready?” Without waiting for an answer, he gathered up the wrappers and bottles and carried them back to the cart. I watched him take a cell phone from his pocket and make a call. Mingus stayed by my side but never took his eyes off his master. When Gordon came back, he took the leash.

  We started back the way we’d come. It was dusk now, and a breeze carried the scent of grass and honeysuckle. Gordon said, “Any German shepherd is going to have a deterrent effect, but Mingus is trained to do a lot more than that. Chances are you’ll never have to deploy him, but you need to know how.”

  We’d reached the lake abutting Strawberry Fields. Gordon looke
d around, and I followed his gaze. There was no one nearby except a bearded man, homeless, I presumed, because he seemed to be wearing everything he owned. He trailed us by twenty yards, moving stiffly, like a zombie in a horror flick. I sensed movement and glanced down. Mingus had stiffened to attention and was staring at the stranger.

  Gordon unsnapped the dog’s leash and pointed at the bearded man. “Watch!”

  Mingus tore through space like a bullet. Inches before colliding with the man, he stopped short and barked fiercely up at his face.

  The man froze. Mingus continued to bark, sharp staccato barks that clearly said how much he’d like to take this confrontation to the next level.

  “Out!” Gordon yelled. “Mingus, come.” Instantly the dog turned and ran back to us. “Well done, dog.”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I said, my heart racing. “Please tell me that guy’s with you.”

  Gordon just smiled. “Let’s keep walking.” He ordered Mingus to heel but didn’t reattach the leash. After a few steps, I heard a loud cry behind us and spun around. The bearded man was lumbering toward us, waving a stick and shouting incoherently.

  “Pack in!” Gordon said, pointing, and Mingus disappeared in a blur of silent motion. When I saw him next he was leaping on the bearded man, clamping his jaws on the arm with the stick. I heard the impact, a solid whomp. The man spun around and fell to the ground, Mingus still attached to his arm.

  “Out!” Gordon called, trotting toward them. I stayed where I was, watching. Mingus released his grip but stood guard until Gordon reached them. Gordon reached out a hand and hauled the bearded man to his feet. They shook hands, and the victim patted his mauler on the head.

  They came back to me, and Gordon introduced his helper, who I then saw was wearing a heavily padded jacket.

  “This dog’s out of my league,” I said.

  “He’s powerful,” Gordon said. “A German shepherd has a bite force of two hundred and forty pounds, more than most sharks. He can immobilize any attacker, armed or not. The dogs are trained to go for the gun arm, and at the speed they move, ninety-nine times out of a hundred the perp never even gets a shot off. But Mingus will never attack on his own, only on command or if you are attacked. Imagine Fred here had been your stalker, coming at you with a weapon.”

  I imagined it without difficulty. I pictured Mingus flying through the air and nailing Sam Spade to the sidewalk; I pictured him sinking his fangs into the stalker’s arm, and I tested for guilt. None came. As Huck Finn said, there’s folks you can sivilize, and folks you just can’t.

  “I’ll take him,” I said.

  Chapter 11

  By ten I was in my pajamas, reading in bed with Mingus snoozing on the rug beside me. Hugo had slept naked, and I did as well while we were married. It hadn’t come naturally at first, for I’d been raised by a woman who got dressed under her nightgown and taught me to do the same. But I grew to enjoy the caress of fine cotton sheets and the freedom from restraint, which spilled over into our lovemaking. Many mornings I woke to find Hugo propped on an elbow, gazing at me, tracing the line from hip to shoulder first with his fingertips, then with his lips. When he died I bought flannel pajamas, the bulkier the better.

  The intercom buzzed. “It’s a Detective Cullen,” the doorman said.

  “Wait ten minutes, then send him up.” I threw on jeans and a T-shirt and checked myself in a mirror. Then I did a quick run-through of the living room, gathering up as many photos of Hugo as I could and tossing them into my bedroom. “Daunting,” Jean-Paul had called them, but that wasn’t the reason. The photos were personal, and with Tommy there needed to be boundaries.

  The doorbell rang. I opened the door with Mingus at my side. Tommy, dressed in a blue suit and holding my laptop, took a quick step back. “You have a dog.”

  “On loan from a client. Name’s Mingus.”

  They eyed each other; then the man extended a cautious hand, and the dog sniffed it in the same spirit. “Can we talk?” Tommy asked.

  “Come on in.” I led him into the living room. He stopped in the center and looked around. I saw the room through his eyes: spacious and high-ceilinged, with tall bookshelves full of first editions and treasures from our travels, a massive fireplace, windows overlooking the park, and French doors to the terrace. “Nice digs,” he said. “I see you landed on your feet.”

  “Better than on my ass.” It was meant as a joke, but it fell flat. What was he doing here, anyway? Without Max to buffer the encounter, Tommy’s presence in my home felt disturbing and incongruous. Mingus’s, on the other hand, was comforting. Before he left, Gordon Hayes had insisted that I practice siccing the dog on his assistant. At first I’d resisted. When I finally gave the command, Mingus flew like an arrow and brought the man down. It should have felt bad, loosing a dog on a fellow human being; it should have felt wrong. What I felt instead was pure elation. All that power, all that strength at my command! The feeling was illogical, of course. I couldn’t deploy the dog against the sort of invisible online stalker Sam Spade had evolved into. I couldn’t even sic him on Teddy Pendragon, much as I’d like to. But at least, with Mingus by my side, no one was going to lay hands on me.

  “I brought your laptop,” Tommy said, handing it over. “Figured you could use it.”

  “That was nice of you.” I gestured to the couch and took a facing seat. Mingus positioned himself between us, watching Tommy. “What did you find?”

  “No spyware. Clean as a whistle.”

  His knees were jiggling. He’s nervous too, I thought, and somehow that made me calmer. “He wouldn’t have needed spyware if he grabbed my laptop in Santa Fe. He could have copied the whole hard drive.”

  “Sam Spade?”

  “Who else?”

  Tommy shrugged. “Someone who knew about your stalker and saw an opportunity to get away with some shit.”

  “What a devious mind you have, Detective.”

  “Tell me something, Jo. What would happen if you quit the agency?”

  “That’s never going to happen.”

  “But if you did,” he insisted.

  “The agency’s mine. I could sell it, but it’s more likely that I’d come to some arrangement with the agents who work for me.”

  “That would be Harriet Peagoody?”

  “At the moment she’s the only other agent. But Harriet would never—”

  “Why not? You stole the business out from under her, isn’t that how she sees it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Why do you think none of her clients got hit?”

  “Because whoever did this was targeting me. Do you have any reason to accuse Harriet?”

  “Apart from motive and opportunity?” Tommy asked. I didn’t answer. He sighed. “We’re looking for Sam Spade. Your secretary gave us a long list of rejected writers, and we’re working our way through it. But you have to consider the possibility that whoever sent those e-mails is someone close to you, personally or professionally. Someone with a grudge who lacks the guts to confront you head-on.”

  Charlie came to mind. After I fired him, he’d launched a campaign of nasty rumors and attacks on industry websites. But there was a big difference between coming after me and striking at my clients, and I still couldn’t believe he’d cross that line.

  “Maybe Charlie,” I said reluctantly, “but I know you already talked to him. He called my office, pissed as hell. Said you guys gave him a hard time.”

  “Yeah,” said Tommy, stone-faced, “we took turns water-boarding him. Who else is mad at you? Who’ve you hurt?”

  “No one.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Come on, now, darlin’. We both know that’s not true.”

  Who’s talking, I wondered, Detective Cullen or my old friend Tommy? He had a way of sliding from one to the other that kept me a step behind, struggling to adjust. A t
actic, I thought, and hardened my heart against him. “Do not call me darling,” I said coldly. “And isn’t it time you eighty-sixed the drawl? You’ve lived here as long as I have.”

  “There’s some might say you’ve overcompensated.”

  “Tell me something, Tommy. How did it happen that of all the detectives in New York City, you were the one assigned to my case?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “No, really: isn’t it an amazing coincidence?”

  “You’re suspecting me now? That’s good; you’re getting the mind-set. It’s time to take off the rose-tinted glasses, Jo, and use those gorgeous eyes for something other than flirting.”

  “Flirting?” I said, outraged. “Is that what you think I’ve been doing?”

  “Can’t help yourself, can you?” he said. “But don’t worry about me. Once bitten, twice shy.”

  • • •

  “You look chipper,” my secretary said as I entered the office the next morning. Her face fell as the dog followed me in. “Don’t tell me you’re keeping that thing.”

  “Just for a while.”

  Mouth pursed, she busied herself squaring a batch of message slips.

  “Do you not like dogs, Lorna?”

  “Filthy animals. If it makes you feel safer, fine by me. Just don’t expect me to walk it.”

  “Morning, Jo,” Jean-Paul said. “Hey, buddy,” he said to Mingus, who nosed him as thoroughly as a cop patting down a suspect.

  Chloe emerged from Harriet’s office and said, “I see you’ve been replaced, Jean-Paul.” There was an edge to her voice and a look on her face that made me wonder if something had happened between them. But if it had, Jean-Paul seemed clueless.

  “Supplemented,” he answered cheerily. “Dogs can’t go everywhere. I’m still available anytime Jo needs me.”

  “She’s already got an Alsatian; why would she want a lapdog?”