Other People's Pets

by R. L. Maizes

  When she enters the shop, a buzzer sounds. Sponges, ammonia, and paper towel rolls line metal shelves. Scrub and toilet brushes hang from steel hooks. Paper plates, plastic cups, bowls, and storage containers nest. Christmas ornaments sparkle in a large wood bin. Toys fill another: dolls with painted-on lashes, cars with etched-on doors. A freezer case advertises ice cream. The single checkout lane is empty, red shopping baskets rising in a perfect column next to it. La La doesn’t see any customers.

  From the back emerges the man she assumes is the fence. His eyes bulge, a hazard, perhaps, of examining other people’s property over the years. An ink stain blots the seam of his shirt pocket, and a shock of black hair rises from his egg-shaped head.

  “I’m Zev’s daughter,” La La says. Her father called ahead.

  The man, who goes by the name Raven, takes in her loose coat and swollen duffel, performs some inner calculation, and says, “This way.”

  La La follows him into a storeroom. Amid stock matching the merchandise in the front, computers and tablets rise in an oven-size box. A second box has swallowed designer clothing and purses. Sitting at a large metal table, Raven pushes aside overseas shipping labels. La La empties her duffel and pockets.

  He takes the Longines in his reddened hands and studies it, then presses it to his ear. A real Longines is so finely calibrated it barely ticks. In his hooked palm, he weighs the watch. Too light means fake. Putting on a pair of black-rimmed glasses, he examines the manufacturer’s stamp. La La performed the same tests in the car, wanting to know the value of what she stole. “How’s Zev?” he asks, examining the TAG Heuer.

  Zev told Raven about his arrest because the fence would have figured it out on his own or learned about it from other contacts. La La was surprised Raven was willing to put himself in the middle of a situation that had become hot. “He’s okay,” she says.

  Raven sets the watch down. “I can give you three fifty for both.”

  So that’s why the fence agreed. Knowing she’s desperate, he plans to squeeze her. Even used the watches are worth over a thousand. “Make it four hundred.”

  “Someone else might give you more. If you could find someone else. Of course, that could take some time.”

  She’s at his mercy, and he knows it. “Fine.”

  He offers three hundred for the jewelry after looking at the pieces through a loupe. It’s less than a quarter of what they’re worth.

  “I’ll sell them on Craigslist,” she says, hoping he’ll come back with a higher offer.

  “Suit yourself.” He hands them back. Craigslist is risky. Zev never used it, but she needs more cash.

  They agree on fifty for the coat, one thirty for the clothing.

  It’s been forty-five minutes since she left the house. She imagines the mother in the photo returning home and noticing the open window. She’ll rush to her dresser, then call the police. Someone might have seen La La’s car. The police could be running the plates now.

  Raven disappears into another room.

  When a skinny orange cat hops onto the table, La La’s belly growls. If they’re not overfeeding their animals, they’re starving them. The cat stretches his back leg until it’s level with his body, an ice skater’s pose. He rubs his wet nose against La La’s knuckles. Petting him, La La feels ribs protruding and briefly forgets her own danger. “Hold on,” she says. Retrieving a can of cat food from her veterinary bag, she pulls off the top and sets the can on the carpet. The cat jumps down after it.

  The fence returns and hands La La cash. He sniffs. “What’s that smell?”

  “I had a can of cat food,” La La says. “Thought he would like it.”

  “Don’t fucking feed him again.”

  La La tucks the cash into her purse. “Have a good day,” she says, nearly adding, “Kitty.”

  In a mall parking lot, she photographs the jewelry, switches on her phone’s mobile hotspot, and opens her computer. Uploading the images to Craigslist, she asks for half of what she could get if she were willing to wait but still twice what the fence offered.

  Within five minutes, a woman named Rochelle e-mails, offering five hundred dollars for the diamond studs and the ring. They agree to meet at a coffee shop in fifteen minutes. It’s twelve o’clock.

  La La waits at a table until twelve thirty. She considers giving up on Rochelle, who might have changed her mind. But she hates to lose the sale, and perhaps the woman has only been delayed. Or maybe she’s the owner, and the police are on their way. Returning to her car, La La stakes out the coffee shop. Her knee bounces, knocking against the steering column because the seat strains so far forward to allow her feet to reach the pedals. She runs through treatment protocols for animal viruses: parvovirus, herpes virus, picornavirus, paramyxovirus, rhabdovirus, retrovirus, influenza virus, vesicular stomatitis.

  At one, a woman wearing a puffy lavender coat arrives and glances inside the coffee shop. Hoping it’s Rochelle and that she is who she says she is, La La meets her at the door. The woman’s mouth is large and lipsticked, a waxy, unsettling peach. She apologizes for the delay, explaining she had trouble getting a cash advance on her credit card.

  La La chooses a table next to a window. When she lays out the pieces, the diamonds sparkle in the sunlight. Rochelle examines them through a loupe. La La wonders if she works for a jeweler. “The quality is good,” Rochelle says. As she fingers the studs, her mouth cracks open with desire.

  Though grateful for it now, La La doesn’t get the obsession with diamonds. Chemical compounds with refractive properties, admittedly pretty, but hardly worth the fortunes spent on them. The tiny engagement ring Clem gave her is perfect. If he had bought her something showy, she’d have been insulted.

  “Earth to lady selling diamonds. Whose did you say these were?”

  “Mine.”

  “That’s strange.”

  A wave of heat rolls over La La. “Why?”

  “Your ears aren’t pierced.”

  Fuck. A rookie mistake, and La La’s hardly a rookie. But she is nervous.

  Rochelle removes her rectangular topaz earrings and inserts the studs.

  Beneath the table, La La wipes her palms on her coat and reminds herself the buyer wants to believe her lies, preferring them to the truth, which she could guess without much difficulty. “I planned to pierce them,” La La says. “But I changed my mind. I’m afraid of needles.”

  “I see.” Rochelle counts out four hundred-dollar bills. “I know we agreed on five, but since you can’t use them, maybe you’ll take four.” Lipstick clumps in the corners of her mouth.

  La La is tempted to pack up the jewelry and leave, but O’Bannon expects her, and she wants to give him as much cash as she can. “Make it four fifty.”

  Smiling, the woman adds two twenties and a ten to the stack.

  As La La marks the bills with a counterfeit detection pen, Rochelle says, “You should do it.”

  La La doesn’t look up. “Do what?”

  “Pierce your ears. It only hurts for a second.”

  The lines remain amber, and La La slips the money into her wallet.

  * * *

  La La perches on a fabric chair, thinking how much friendlier O’Bannon’s waiting room would be if the seat swiveled. Dark Berber carpet, chrome light fixtures, and a gray couch complete the pessimistic décor, and it’s a relief when the lawyer appears and accompanies her to his office.

  After she lays two thousand dollars on his desk—the housekeeper’s money, what she made that day, and all of her savings—he counts it and sweeps it into a drawer. She wonders if he’ll tell his partners about it, or if he’s like most people, dishonest when the opportunity arises. It’s far less than he asked for.

  As he taps his lips, the corners of his mouth sink. “I’m not running a charity.”

  “I’ll get the rest.”

  He plucks a stress ball from the top of a stack of papers and kneads it.

  La La unbuttons her coat. “Can you keep him out of pr
ison?”

  “I’m only talking to you because your father thinks you should know what’s going on since you’re paying.”

  “Can you?”

  “Doubtful.”

  “If Claude Thomas is in a coma, how do the police even know anything was taken?”

  “The house belongs to his son, Sean Thomas. He was away at the time of the burglary. When he returned, he told the police his silver and cash were missing.”

  “What about the fact that Zev saved Claude Thomas’s life? Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  The lawyer rolls the ball between his palms. “He didn’t save anyone’s life, because he wasn’t in the house. Zev’s phone was stolen a few hours earlier, and the thief left it on the counter.”

  “My father said that?”

  “Your father doesn’t want to go to prison. A friend of Zev’s will testify he was with your father, watching TV, the morning of the burglary.”

  A friend in the same line of work, La La guesses, and maybe not the most credible witness.

  “At the preliminary hearing I’ll get to cross-examine the cops about how careful they were in handling the phone to preserve fingerprint evidence,” O’Bannon says.

  La La hates for Zev’s heroism to be erased. But she’s not paying O’Bannon to second-guess him. On a shelf behind the lawyer, the Colorado penal code stands next to a volume on criminal procedure.

  For as long as Elissa lived with La La and Zev, their house overflowed with books. Paperback mysteries topped hardcover biographies in bookcases that climbed to the ceiling. Dog-eared true-crime books obscured her mother’s nightstand.

  One night, proud to have put on her pajamas by herself, La La asked Elissa to read Madeline to her.

  Her mother lay in a recliner, absorbed in a book of her own. “If you didn’t keep me running all day, I might have the energy,” she said, turning a page. “‘Mom, I’m thirsty,’ ‘Mom, I’m hungry,’ ‘Mom, my dress tore.’ Jesus, La La, you’re exhausting.”

  La La shakes off the memory. “How can they threaten to charge Zev with murder if Claude Thomas dies? My father didn’t try to kill anyone. The guy had a stroke. My father tried to save him.”

  “Even if your father was there, which he wasn’t, and tried to save the guy, legally it could still be murder. The prosecutor is relying on something called the felony murder rule. If you accidentally kill someone while committing a violent felony, like burglary, you can be charged with murder. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. No one’s being charged with murder while Thomas is alive. If it comes to that, we’ll fight it.”

  “Maybe Thomas had the stroke before the burglar even got there. Maybe a good Samaritan just found him in distress and called for help.”

  “Good Samaritan. I’ll have to remember that one,” O’Bannon says. “Unfortunately, Thomas yelled something that triggered his Amazon Echo to turn on. The device recorded him screaming at a burglar.”

  “Fuck.”

  “That about sums it up.” O’Bannon stands, indicating the visit is over.

  * * *

  At a hobby shop, La La buys the electric train set Zev asked for. He’s never been interested in that kind of thing, but he must need something to keep him busy now that he’s trapped in the house. She picks up groceries, too, the Pop-Tarts, microwaved burritos, and frozen pizzas that are all Zev eats since La La went to college. So different from her fiancé, who only wants food that’s fresh, organic, and fair trade. But maybe a difference is what she’s after.

  Zev and Mo greet La La in the living room, the cat butting her leg. As always, Zev’s hair is combed neatly, but he’s cut it himself, and the bangs slope downward, like a graph of falling temperatures. She hands him half of the bags and carries the rest into the kitchen.

  “I want to hear everything,” Zev says, as he unpacks the food. If she’s determined to return to that life, the least he can do is give her advice, maybe keep her from making a deadly mistake. He asks her about the neighborhood where she worked, the exterior and interior of the property.

  La La lifts Mo into her arms. She starts to tell Zev about the hamster, but he interrupts. “For God’s sake, don’t waste time with that. You’ll get caught.” It’s one thing to quiet a watchdog, another thing to set up an animal hospital inside a house. Even if she’s willing to take such stupid risks for herself, she ought to think about him. “I don’t understand you.”

  “He needed my help.”

  “I need your help. Forget the goddamn animals.”

  La La looks at Mo. “She can hear you, you know.”

  “How much did you make?” When she tells him, he says, “You would have done twice as good if you concentrated on stealing.” He asks what she took. “Good that you left that computer behind,” he says. Things have changed since she was younger. People are meaner, more likely to empty a magazine into your chest. There’s no punishment for killing a burglar. Those who do become heroes, their faces broadcast on the evening news. When he realizes he’s been holding open the door to the freezer, he closes it and rubs his hands together. He hopes she gets luckier than he did. Because in the end, no matter how careful you are, your fate is determined by luck. Look at him. Worked for years without getting caught only to get tripped up doing the right thing. If that isn’t bad luck, he doesn’t know what is. He’s learned his lesson. If he gets off, he’ll never try to help anyone again.

  The stress of the day catching up to her, La La stifles a yawn.

  “Am I boring you?” Zev says.

  She massages Mo’s spine. She could use a cup of coffee, but he doesn’t have a pot going.

  * * *

  When she gets home, she changes into jeans that fit her and a button-down shirt, stashing her burglar’s clothes in the trunk of the Mercedes. She stretches out on the couch, the deception making her feel thick and sluggish, as if she has the flu. She worked hard to succeed in veterinary school, and now she’s separated herself from it, and from friends like Nat and professors she admires. In a year, she’ll return, she promises herself. But she knows things don’t always go according to plan. She groans, and Black, lying next to the couch, cocks his head. “It’ll work out,” she says, but the dog doesn’t look convinced.

  She shuts her eyes, and the next thing she knows, Clem is coming through the door.

  “Home early again?” he says.

  Sitting up, La La caresses Black’s head. “Why don’t people take better care of their animals?”

  Clem hangs his coat on a hook. “They take good care of them. They bring them to you, right?”

  “Not always.”

  “It’s like people who wait years to see me for back pain.”

  “It’s not like that.” At her change in tone, Black’s ears dart up. “Your clients choose to wait. Animals are at the mercy of their owners.”

  “Did something happen at the clinic?”

  “No.”

  Sitting next to her, Clem takes her hand and rubs her finger above the engagement ring. “How about we set a date? What do you think?”

  La La tries to swallow, but coughs instead.

  * * *

  Two and a half years earlier, in La Casa du Spaghetti, Clem ordered a carafe of the house cab-merlot and poured two glasses. La La had just finished her first year of veterinary school, and they were celebrating. He covered her small hands with his large ones on the red cotton tablecloth. “I can’t imagine my life without you,” he said. From his pocket, he withdrew a silk drawstring bag. He loosened the opening and plucked out a slim silver band with a tiny pear-shaped diamond in its center. “It was my grandmother’s.”

  There was so much Clem didn’t know about her and her family. Yet his impatience to claim her buoyed La La. She leaned forward and examined the ring he held out. “It’s perfect,” she said. She offered her finger, but Clem continued to talk.

  “You don’t think it’s too small?” His ears turned pink. “My grandfather was a junior loan officer in a bank. He’d been savi
ng for a year to buy a bigger diamond, but my grandmother got tired of waiting for him to propose and tried to break up with him. He had his eye on a certain stone, he explained. My grandmother said she wasn’t marrying a ring. The next day, they bought this and went straight from the jeweler’s to the courthouse.” Clem slipped the ring on La La’s finger. “I know school keeps you busy,” he said. “So we don’t have to get married until you graduate.”

  La La withdrew her hand. Perhaps she was making a mistake.

  Clem tightened the drawstring. “You don’t look happy.”

  “My father says marriage is for suckers. My mother wasn’t a big believer in it either, obviously. I don’t know what I think.” She wondered if Zev had given Elissa an engagement ring, and if he had, where it came from.

  “I would never leave you. Is that what you’re worried about?”

  La La wanted to believe him, but she knew people grew tired of one another.

  Clem pushed his chair away from the table. “Would it help if I got on all fours? Maybe then you’d know how I feel about you.”

  La La reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I guess I know already.”

  When they returned home from the restaurant, La La motioned for Clem to join her on the couch. “I need to tell you something.” Dusk’s soft light trailed into the house, illuminating yellow floral curtains the last tenants had left behind.

  Clem sat next to her and intertwined his fingers with hers. “What is it?”

  Her confession emerged as a rasp. “My father’s a burglar.”

  Clem’s face tilted the way Blue’s did when the dog was confused. La La imagined the apartment empty; Clem, the dogs, even the curtains gone. Only her and the waning light remaining.

  “You said he was a locksmith,” Clem said.

  “He is. And a burglar. I robbed homes with him when I was growing up.” She pulled off the ring and held it out to him, admiring it before it was gone.

  “Why did you wait until now to tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to lose you.” A muscle in her cheek twitched.