Dog On It Read online

  “There’s nothing definite at this stage,” Bernie said. “Do you have any enemies?”

  “Me?” said Cynthia.

  “Or business rivals?”

  Now she was wringing her hands. “I don’t think of them as rivals, but—”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Keefer said. “You design e-cards. He’s talking about real business.”

  Cynthia’s hands separated, balled into fists. There was a silence. Then Bernie spoke. “And you’re a developer, Mr. Keefer?”

  “I own Pinnacle Peak Homes at Puma Wells,” Keefer said. “Competitors come with the territory. But we don’t kidnap each other’s kids. And if all you’ve got is speculation, you have no right to alarm us like this.”

  “This is just speculation?” said Cynthia.

  “You can call it that,” Bernie said. “But it’s based on information we’ve developed, mostly concerning Madison’s movements last Wednesday—the night she supposedly went to the movies.” He started telling the whole story. The sound of his voice grew fainter. I got all warm and fuzzy, right on the edge of dozing off. I heard Keefer say, as though from a great distance, “Have you run this theory past the police?” Bernie answered from even farther away, “Not yet. She’s already on the wire anyway, and besides . . .” Then I was over the edge, sinking into dreamland.

  When I awoke, Bernie and I were alone. He was sitting at the desk, holding a check. I squeezed out from under, stretched my front legs way forward, bringing my jaw almost down to the floor, butt up high. That felt great.

  Bernie looked down at me. “That didn’t go so well,” he said. He waved the check. “Two grand.” What was wrong with that? A grand was always nice, and two grand was nicer. “The problem is Keefer wrote it. They’re co-clients now. I would have preferred sticking with her. He’s so . . .”

  Whatever Bernie was planning to say about Keefer, I wanted to know, but at that moment the doorbell rang. We went and opened up. There stood Charlie, wearing his backpack.

  “Hi, Daddy. Hey, Chet.”

  The window of a car parked on the street slid down, and Leda looked out. “Have him back by two tomorrow,” she said. “No later.” Looking past her, I could see Malcolm the boyfriend behind the wheel, talking on a cell phone. I barked. Why the hell not? It was good to see the boyfriend glance over. He was scared of me and my kind, I could tell right away.

  Charlie came in. I gave his face a nice lick. He said, “Oooo,” and made a funny twisted smile. “I’m ready for camping,” he said.

  “Camping?” said Bernie.

  “You promised.”

  “Then let’s get packed.”

  We packed the tent, the sleeping bags, the air mattresses, the air pump, the pegs, the wooden mallet, a cooler full of food and drinks.

  “Anything we’re forgetting?” Bernie said.

  “Matches,” said Charlie.

  Bernie laughed. My tail knocked something off the coffee table. I tried to slow it down.

  It was getting dark by the time we left the house. Bernie opened the slider, and we carried all the gear—the mallet was my responsibility—into the backyard. There we set up the tent, pounded in the pegs, pumped up the mattresses, unrolled the sleeping bags. We had two kinds of camping: the kind where we got into the car and drove into the desert, and this kind. Charlie liked this kind better, especially when he missed a real bed in the middle of the night.

  Bernie piled rocks in a circle, threw on some wood, made a fire. Charlie grilled sausages on the end of a stick, his face glowing from the flames. Bernie had two, Charlie one, me two, and later the third, right out of the package when no one was looking, because it was there. Then came roasted marshmallows, which I didn’t touch. Love the skins, but there’s some trick to swallowing the gooey insides that I’ve never mastered.

  The fire burned low. Bernie sang a song called “Rawhide.” Charlie joined in. Me, too, with the high-pitched woo-woo I can do if I get my nose pointed right up at the sky.

  “Time to turn in, pardners,” Bernie said.

  He and Charlie went into the tent. I curled up by the dying fire, gazing at the coals. There was a bit of talking in the tent, then silence. Ah, camping. I closed my eyes.

  And was almost asleep when I heard barking far away. I’d heard that bark before, the distant she-bark from the other night. This time it went on and on. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sleepy anymore, more like wide awake. On my feet, in fact, and standing by the back gate, the entry to the canyon. Locked, of course, and high, maybe Bernie’s height or taller. But did I mention my leaping ability? A moment later, or possibly less, I found myself on the other side of the gate.

  Bark bark. I followed the sound. I was on high alert, had never felt so strong in my life. This was going to be great! The barking led me not into the open canyon but around the house, onto our street and down the hill, away from Iggy’s place.

  I’d only passed a few houses when I noticed a parked car with two men sitting in the front seat. It was dark, the nearest streetlight at the corner, but I can see at night, no problem. And what did I see? The man in the passenger seat had fair hair, massive cheekbones, tiny ears. I knew this man, oh but yes. What else? His window was open, and his arm rested on the door frame. I couldn’t remember everything Bernie had said, but I knew one thing: the perp.

  I charged, sprang, clamped down on his elbow.

  The perp cried out. The man behind the wheel said, “Boris? What the—” The driver saw me, reached down, came up with a gun, a fat gun of a kind I’d seen before, back in K-9 school: Taser. Then came a little popping sound, and something light hit my neck. The instant it did, a fiery pain went jolting back and forth through my body.

  I fell on the ground, twitching. I wanted to bark, bark for Bernie, camping so close by, but I couldn’t. The car doors opened. The trunk popped up. Boris and the driver—a dark little guy with eyebrows that joined in the middle—jumped out, picked me up, threw me in the trunk.

  Thud. The lid slammed shut. I couldn’t see a thing. The car started moving. I went crazy in that tiny space, crashing around. I couldn’t even stand up! Bernie! Bernie!

  The car was going fast now. I heard a whimpering sound, realized it was me. Very bad. I wasn’t even hurting anymore.

  I lay down and tried to be quiet. After a while I detected a smell I knew, very faint, almost at the limit of what I could do: a smell of young human female, with hints of honey, cherry, and a kind of sun-colored flower I sometimes saw along roadsides. Madison had been here before me.

  nine

  My night vision is good, so good that whether it’s day or night doesn’t make much difference, but now, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t see a thing. I didn’t like it at all. There were plenty of smells beside Madison’s: oily smells, rubbery smells, rotting-garbage smells. And sounds, too, high-pitched and whimpering. After a while, I realized that was me. Again? I got that to stop. Then came quivering, and I stopped that, too. I just lay there in total darkness. But what good would that do, just lying there, waiting?

  I stuck out a front paw, touched one side of the trunk. Was scratching at it a good idea? Scratching at things was pretty much always a good idea, to my way of thinking. I scratched, felt some kind of carpet-type material. I scratched some more, soon had all four paws involved, digging my claws in deep, ripping out all kinds of stuff—hard stuff, soft stuff, maybe even some wires. A tiny spark flew by; then everything went dark again. I didn’t know why, but the tiny spark seemed like a good thing to me. I scratched harder.

  The brakes squealed. The car stopped, so suddenly I went crashing into the front wall of the trunk. A door slammed, and another. Then I heard footsteps, coming close. The car made popping metallic sounds. Above them, I could also hear the wind, a high whine.

  A man spoke. “What in hell this is?”

  “Well, Boris, looks like the taillights went blooey,” said another man. I recognized his voice: the little driver whose eyebrows met in the middle.

  �
��Blooey?” said Boris.

  “You know. In the crapper.”

  “This I am seeing,” Boris said. “I am questioning why—maintenance of car is your responsibility.” Or something like that. Boris was hard to understand.

  “They were workin’ this morning,” the driver said. I heard a tap-tap, maybe the driver’s hand on a taillight cover. “Dog must of done it.”

  “The dog broke the lights, you are asking me to believe?”

  “You heard ’im bangin’ around in there.”

  “Dogs breaking taillights, Harold?” said Boris. “Is not logic.”

  “Huh?” said Harold.

  I didn’t get it, either.

  “Wan’ me to pop the trunk?” Harold said.

  That I got. I squirmed over onto my belly, pressed my paws down under me, crouched, all ready. This was my chance! There was going to be a moment when the lid went up and—

  “No,” said Boris. “Not now. At ranch, we pop.”

  “Your call,” said Harold. “But what are we gonna do about the damn dog?”

  “I am not knowing,” said Boris. “This dog is trouble.”

  “Then why don’t we shoot him right now, leave him by the side of the road?”

  “Hmmm,” said Boris. There was a pause. Then he continued, “Mr. Gulagov is master of logic. He will make decision.”

  Their footsteps moved away, crunch crunch. The doors opened and closed. And then we were on the move again. I scratched around for a little bit, but nothing happened. I lay down. The ride got bumpy.

  Time passed, a long time, it seemed to me, a bumpy time of total darkness with no new sounds or smells. I kept my eyes open even though there was nothing to see. Important to stay alert, to be ready at all times. Bernie had a saying: something—couldn’t remember exactly what—depended on preparation. My mind wandered over to Bernie. Did I mention his smell? The very nicest of any human I’d ever come across—actually, a bit doglike in some ways. Yes, that good. Nothing like mine, of course. Mine is the best. Hard to describe my smell: a mix of old leather, salt and pepper, mink coats—I know about mink coats on account of Bernie had one, his grandma’s, that he gave to Leda—and a soupçon—a favorite word of Bernie’s, meaning, I think, a tiny drop of soup: in my case, cream of tomato. I remembered the first time I smelled Bernie, back in K-9 school. This was just before the unfortunate—

  The car came to a stop. The doors opened and closed. I got in my crouch, ready to spring. But nothing happened. Yes, there were footsteps, but they moved away. After that, silence except for the wind, very faint.

  What was going on? I was ready, all set to spring, to attack, to fight my way out, but there’d be none of that until the trunk popped open. What could I do? Nothing came to mind. Except: Bernie.

  I waited, and waited some more. Had to be prepared, had to stay alert. Bernie would have been proud of me, how long I stayed prepared and alert before my eyelids got very heavy.

  Squeak. Thump. Where was I? What was—

  The trunk was open, the lid still vibrating. They’d popped it! I could hear it going sprong-sprong but couldn’t see—all this blinding daylight was flooding in. But I could smell, and smell plenty: men, all nasty. Now! I sprang toward the light.

  Then came confusion: metallic gleams, human faces, a hard landing. I bounded forward and thudded right into something solid. What was this? I’d leaped into a—

  Clang.

  A cage? A cage. Oh no.

  I wheeled around, my eyes adjusting, too late. Boris slid the bolt into place, locking the door. I hurled myself against the bars, barking in fury, shaking the cage, but for nothing. After a while I just stood there, growling, looking out.

  Three men were looking in: Boris, Harold the driver, and a short but very powerful guy with a thick neck, thick arms and legs, and a shaved head.

  The third man spoke. “A fine animal,” he said. The way he talked reminded me a little of Boris, but less strange.

  “You think so, boss?” said Harold.

  “He has given me lots of troubles, Mr. Gulagov,” said Boris. “Even he was biting my arm.” He held up his arm. “Look—Band-Aids.”

  Mr. Gulagov didn’t look at Boris’s arm. He was looking at me. His eyes were small and colorless, also in shadow under his heavy brow. “Perhaps we could train him.”

  “To do what?” said Harold.

  “Fight other dogs, what else?” Mr. Gulagov said. “There is good dogfighting in Mexico, I believe. I have contemplated investing.”

  “Is money in that?” said Boris.

  “Where you find gambling, you find money,” said Mr. Gulagov. “Remember this lesson, Boris.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll remember, too,” said Harold.

  Mr. Gulagov paid Harold no attention. He was gazing at me. “Yes, a fine animal. Get him some bones.”

  “Bones?” said Harold.

  “For rewarding.”

  “Rewarding?” said Boris. “He is enemy.”

  Mr. Gulagov smiled. He had huge teeth for a human, and bright, the brightest I’d ever seen. “You watch, Boris. I will make him friend.”

  “With bones?”

  “Sure, bones, but not only bones. We have reward, we have punishment. This is math, Boris. Reward plus punishment equals loyalty.”

  “The dog’s going to be loyal to you?”

  “One hundred percent,” said Mr. Gulagov. “He will live and die for me. But first we must give him a name.”

  “I think he already has one,” said Harold, “there, stamped on his coll—”

  Mr. Gulagov gave the driver a look; the driver went silent. “We will call him Stalin.”

  “Stalin? Like the guy who—”

  “This name sends a message,” said Mr. Gulagov. He lit a fat cigar, talked around it. “Bring Stalin around to the barn.”

  All that went by quickly, hard to understand. But loyal to that guy? Never. And my name was Chet, pure and simple.

  They all walked away, toward some buildings. We’d gone to a ranch once, me, Bernie, Charlie, Leda—did I already mention that? This place reminded me a little of the ranch, except everything was all run-down, and there were no horses around; I knew that right away from the lack of horse smell. Beyond the buildings rose a steep rocky hill, very high, with cactuses poking up here and there. And other than the hill, nothing: just desert all around, plus the wind, making a high-pitched sound like it was blowing hard, even though I couldn’t feel any wind on my coat.

  A motor started up, and out from behind one of the buildings came Harold at the wheel of a yellow forklift. I knew forklifts from a case of warehouse theft Bernie and I had cracked a while back. The forklift came close up and stopped. Then, with a little whine, the forks slid down. The truck moved even closer, getting the forks right under the cage. Harold’s face was very near. I didn’t like that face with its single heavy eyebrow, not one bit.

  “Easy there, Stalin,” Harold said.

  I didn’t think for a moment, just took off and flew at him. I forgot all about the cage until I crashed into it and fell to the floor. After that, I was a little woozy, barely aware of Harold’s laughter.

  We rolled slowly toward the buildings—a long, low house, a barn, some sheds—their wooden sides cracked, the paint peeled off, a broken window or two. Harold headed around the barn, lowered the cage, backed away, drove off.

  It was very quiet. The sun rose higher. The heat rose, too. I couldn’t smell water, not in the cage, not anywhere. I was pretty thirsty. I paced back and forth. Saliva started leaking out of my mouth, even foaming a little. I lay down. That was when I noticed a big black hole at the base of the rocky hill across the way, with a pair of rusty train tracks leading in. I knew what that was: a mine. Bernie had a thing about old abandoned mines in the desert. We’d explored lots, and one thing I knew—how cool they were inside. That stayed on my mind as the day grew hotter and hotter.

  The sun sank behind the hill. The air cooled down, but that didn’t
help my thirst. My tongue felt thick and dry, a strange thing, like it wasn’t part of me. Long shadows appeared. The sky grew dimmer.

  All at once I smelled water, a clean, lovely smell with hints of rock and metal. Then I heard footsteps. I rose.

  Mr. Gulagov appeared from around the corner of the barn. He carried a big bowl. Water slopped over the sides. He stopped in front of the cage, set the bowl on the ground. I almost could have stuck my tongue through the bars and lapped some up; it was the tiniest bit too far away.

  He looked down at me. “Hello, Stalin. How is life treating you?”

  I didn’t do anything, didn’t move a muscle, didn’t make a sound. My name wasn’t Stalin.

  “You and I will be good friends, Stalin,” Mr. Gulagov said. “It’s a little warm out here. Are you thirsty?”

  I stayed still.

  “Here is water. We have well water at this old mine, nice and cold.” He toed the bowl; a tiny wave of water broke over the side. “Want some nice cold water? I can move it closer, no problem. All you have to do is one simple thing—sit.” He paused. “Ready? Stalin, sit.”

  I remained standing.

  “Sit.”

  I stood a little taller.

  “Don’t disappoint me, Stalin. You must have been trained. You must know ‘sit.’”

  What I knew was between me and Bernie.

  “There’s something you will soon learn from me—I do not tolerate disobedience. And I always win.” His voice rose, and his face got flushed. “Sit! Sit! Sit, you stupid cur.”

  No chance.

  Mr. Gulagov kicked over the water bowl and stomped away. When he was out of sight, I stuck my tongue through the bars and licked up some of the moist dirt.

  ten

  I was lying down, my tongue hanging out. I started to pant, couldn’t stop. My mind drifted back to the one time I’d seen snow. This was on a hike Bernie and I had taken in some mountains, not exactly sure where. First there’d been a long ride in the car. Then we’d started walking, up and up, and all of a sudden, white stuff covered the ground. What a surprise! White stuff, everywhere. I zigzagged around.