by Alan Lee
Perhaps it was the posture of lowering oneself to their level.
Courtney and Georgina spent half a minute letting the other know how highly she was valued and then we ventured deeper into the hospital.
“A beautiful boxer,” she said. She remained a tall and trim vet with shoulder length brown hair dyed blond and eyes a fraction too wide, as though surprised or impressed. I picked Georgina up and set her on the examination table. “Just perfect, yes she is. Yes she is. You two are ideal together, Mackenzie, like a commercial. I’d buy whatever you’re selling. Gonna tell me what I’m looking for, big guy?”
“No,” I said. “Render unto her the most thorough inspection possible and tell me if you see anything spectacular or amiss.”
Georgina submitted to the examination with grace and dignity and enthusiasm.
“She’s eating?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What do you feed her?”
“Not beer and donuts, that’s for sure.”
“Drinking plenty of water?”
“Yes.”
“Breathing fine? Energy is good? Have you witnessed bowl movements?”
“I have; best thirty seconds of my day. Healthy dog poop, no doubt.”
“You brought a sample?”
I handed her the brown bag, inside of which there was a sealed plastic bag, inside of which there was a small sealed Tupperware container, inside of which there was a small stool sample, which was gross.
She and Georgina talked about some things, checking hearing and alertness. She and Georgina trotted around the room. She checked the skin on her belly—Georgina’s belly—and looked in her eyes and ears and nose, and she pulled her lips up and looked at her teeth, which was also gross. She palpated the legs and lymph nodes and abdomen. With a stethoscope she auscultated the heart and lungs, talking softly to herself.
Courtney took x-rays while I made soothing sounds for the sake of the canine and she used an ultrasound wand to look everywhere else. I watched the garbled feed on the monitor as she pointed out organs and I learned nothing.
After forty-five minutes of rigorous scrutiny, and after the stool was witnessed under a microscope, Country set Georgina upright, gave her a treat and pronounced, “Healthiest three-year-old boxer imaginable. I love her to pieces and she’s got a sweet temperament. Patient and calm and she adores you. So what gives? Ulysses Steinbeck ordered all this?”
“No. He doesn’t know I have the dog yet. Before I tell him, I was hoping you’d find something.”
Courtney Farmer looked at me as if I had mange. “Find something? Give me more details. Like what?”
“A tumor worth two million dollars? Pot of gold in her intestines? A femur shaped like a skeleton key? I don’t know. Do you see any indications of trauma? She was wounded when Ulysses first got her.”
“No. I see nothing but a perfect dog.”
I sighed and patted Georgina. “She’s a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit.”
“Maybe it’s you who needs his head examined, not her.”
“A bizarre diagnosis, doctor. But potentially accurate.”
Georgina laid on her side on my passenger seat as though the doctor’s visit exhausted her. Head down, eyes closed. I drove her home, the winter sunlight blinking through the window and turning her fur aureate.
I patted her for the duration, experiencing an odd form of guilt.
Farmer was right—this was an exceptional dog, seemed to me. Put up with a lot, no complaints, obeyed all the rules, wasn’t shedding. A puzzle piece she may be, but also more than that. And impossibly likable.
We parked in my driveway and idled, and I scratched at her ribs, burrowing my fingers beneath the fur and rubbing against skin and ribs, and scratched and scratched, and she was pleased. I got her shoulder and her neck and her chest and her haunch, and she laid without moving in the sparkling sun and soaking the heated seat’s warmth. The light came through in such a way that she reflected the brilliance but also absorbed it, and as I scratched her fur I could see skin under the dense growth. I rubbed the side of her abdomen this way and that, parting the fur like a wave.
During such a wave I saw markings on her skin but the fur immediately closed overtop. So brief it could be imagination. Scar from the old wound? I placed both hands on her and used my thumbs to draw the fur aside. Her hairs were short and stiff and uncooperative, but she didn’t mind.
With careful manipulation I found the marking again. Multiple markings—it was a pale blue tattoo. I’d seen these before; vets used the same ink to indicate a neutered animal. But vets marked the animal’s belly, not the side. I shifted Georgina enough to get direct sunlight and pushed her fur aside. After enough iterations of the glimpses, the hidden marking resolved into patterns and I knew what I was looking at.
Numbers. Georgina Princess Steinbeck’s abdomen had been tattooed with at least ten numbers.
Chapter 21
Georgina remained placid on the warm seat for twenty minutes while I scrutinized her abdomen. The numbers were tiny and they’d grown distorted as she aged. Some of the numbers I had to guess at. Was that a 1 or a 7? Eventually my thumbs and eyes were raw, and I relented and sat up to examine my phone, where I’d written down my best guesses.
371612
-801716
Who on earth would tattoo a dog thusly?
Someone who didn’t care about dogs.
Someone like Ulysses. This was the key mentioned in his journal. These numbers were what his subconscious clawed at. He’d forgotten the dog, forgotten the numbers, but some part of him remembered the necessity of them.
Be nice if he could remember what the numbers symbolized but I bet he forgot. On some level, this was what I’d been hired to do.
I was supposed to parlay with him that afternoon, but I texted Rose Bridges and informed her I needed to delay the meeting.
A clue had surfaced, after all, and needed decoding. And I, Sherlock Holmes.
Georgina and I went walking and I thought.
I went to the gym to exercise and I contemplated.
I made a late lunch and I postulated.
I punched the numbers into Google and got nothing back. I subtracted them. I sent them to Manny. I translated the numbers into letters. Nothing. I changed the 1s into 7s and tried it again. I put it all on paper, including the name Georgina Princess. I rearranged, I deciphered, I codified.
I traveled to the city library and showed them to a librarian, but they made no sense even to an expert at the dewey decimal system. I called Whitney Potter and asked if the arrangement made sense to a physician, but they didn’t. I stopped by my bank but the manager indicated these weren’t routing or account numbers.
The numbers weren’t zip codes or telephone numbers. They weren’t patents. Potentially Bitcoins or some other blockchain currency, but it looked doubtful. Not credit card numbers, not social security numbers, not passport IDs.
That evening I stared at the numbers on a pad while I chopped onions and garlic for chili. The secret to my chili, as with many other things, was bacon. I sautéed the onions and garlic in bacon grease, emptied the pan into the pot with the beef and beans and tomato sauce and Rotel, and stirred and set the lid on top. I got a Dogfish Head brown, popped the top, and watched Georgina walk circles around Kix’s playpen and Kix try to keep up from within. They had a good thing going—Kix would throw plastic blocks and Georgina would bring them back, stick her mouth over the side, and release the block. Not hygienic, probably. But Courtney Farmer had let the dog lick her on the face and mouth—ew—so I didn’t panic.
Timothy August returned. He petted Georgina politely, and picked up Kix and they hugged one another and inquired after the other’s day. Then Kix was returned. Timothy hung his coat up and set his briefcase on the stairs. He clapped me on the shoulder and washed out his coffee mug before getting a scotch glass and pouring himself two fingers worth.
“Smells good,” he said, walking to his reading chair.
“Are you geocaching tomorrow? Too cold, in my learned opinion.”
“Did you say geocaching?”
“I did,” said Timothy August.
“That game where people hide treasures for each other under rocks and bears and so forth.”
“Correct.” He sat in the chair and drank scotch and closed his eyes. Kix called to him, and he smiled and waved and Kix waved back.
“Why would I be geocaching tomorrow?”
“Aren’t those the coordinates for Roanoke? On your notepad?”
I looked at the numbers. I looked at him. With keen insight sharpened from years in homicide and years more as a private investigator, I said, “Huh?”
“A science teacher at Crystal Spring Elementary is big into geocaching. He makes me listen to his exploits and look at the GPS coordinates on his map. I thought that’s what you had there. I must be mistaken.”
I said, “What are the coordinates for Roanoke?”
“Thirty-seven point something, and negative eighty point something. Right? Isn’t that what you have written down?” He drank more scotch and closed his eyes again. “Or maybe ignore me, an old man yammering after a long day. I couldn’t find enough subs so I taught music class, and there’s not enough Glenlivet in the world.”
I glared some more at the numbers.
371612
-801716
I drew a dot after the 7 and after the 0.
37.1612
-80.1716
I opened my laptop and surfed to a website that mapped latitude and longitude, and I entered the coordinates. The map flickered and zoomed in on southwest Roanoke County.
Only five miles from the location of Ulysses’s car crash.
“Jiminy Christmas,” I said.
Dad opened his eyes. “Was I helpful?”
“You’re right. These are map coordinates. On Bent Mountain, near the site of his car accident.”
“I should be a sleuth. August and August, Father and Son Sleuthing Agency.”
“Want to hear the darnedest thing?”
“I do.”
“Georgina Princess Steinbeck. Her initials are GPS. Global Positioning. How about that.”
Kix laughed. Took you long enough.
Chapter 22
That night I sat upright in bed, ankles crossed, listening to Manny snore on my floor, and I made a list of things I didn’t know.
Why was Alex Steinbeck at the sight of her father’s crash, and why did she lie to the police about it?
Why had Steinbeck tattooed a puppy with GPS coordinates?
What was at that spot on the map? Because according to the satellite images, it was nothing but a massive expanse of forest.
Did this have anything to do with his mental breakdown? I mean, it sounded like something a crazy guy would do.
Who was the mysterious woman at the crash? Had to be a paramour. Or his ex-wife. Or his daughter’s friend. Or somebody I hadn’t met yet. Or Salma Hayek, which would be my first choice.
Was Colleen Gibbs as innocent as she seemed?
What about the shady and sudden trip to the casino? How did this factor into everything?
And the last question was, what was I being paid to do? The easiest answer—find the dog. Done! But Ulysses also requested I find out why the dog was important. Done! Mostly! Kinda!
Here you are, Ulysses, here’s the dog and here are the GPS coordinates tattooed on the dog’s ribcage. Have a nice life.
That wouldn’t work. He didn’t want the dog.
And he’d immediately ask me to divine the significance of the GPS coordinates.
So maybe I should do that.
It’s nice to have a purpose in life.
Georgina Princess Steinbeck whined in her sleep and sighed from her spot near the heating vent, two feet from Manny’s head. A curious characteristic of mine—lonely people and/or dogs sleep on my floor.
Downstairs, someone came in the front door. Locked it. That someone kicked off her heels and ascended the stairs.
Here comes the lady. O so light of foot,
Will ne’er wear out the everlasting hardwood.
She entered and her face blossomed with gladness and, stepping over Manny with her dainty bare feet, she laid two large aluminum briefcases on my mattress.
She said, “We’re rich,” and her chest, neck, and cheeks flushed.
These violent delights have violent ends.
I said, “The sale is finalized?”
“I signed everything Tom Garrett sent me and Marcus brought the money.” She inserted a key into the briefcases and they clicked and the lid opened. “Mackenzie, just look.”
Stacks and stacks of hundred dollar bills. Stacks and stacks of twenties. They overflowed the secure case and spilled onto my comforter.
Even I, conservative and spartan, experienced a rumble of pleonexia like thunder in my gut.
“The wildest part,” she said, caressing the cash, “is that I already spent ten thousand. And look what’s left.”
Manny murmured and shifted.
I said, “Did you purchase an entire season of box seats at the Salem Red Sox?”
“I did not, silly.”
“Then you wasted ten thousand.”
“I spent it on clothes, including many items best described as lavish lingerie.”
“As it turns out, you are a wise capitalist.”
“I skipped work today, Mackenzie.” She perched on the side of the bed and rested her shoulder against mine. “Clients are mad at me. The windfall is already making me lazy and I can’t stop thinking about ways I want to waste a million. This is a disaster waiting to happen. No, this is a disaster already occurring, and in slow motion.”
“Should we spread it out and fool around on top?”
“I cannot imagine anything less hygienic. Is the cash arousing you?”
I said, “No, you arouse me. But I perceive it’s an aphrodisiac for you and I hope to benefit.”
“With Manny in the room?”
“And the dog.”
She smiled the smile of a women pleased with her husband’s pursuit, but unwilling to be caught for a few moments more. Patience and promise. She stood and looked down at the money and briefcase and thoughtfully sucked at her lower lip. “I need to dispose of this to my finance guy soon. I am unable to be trusted.”
“Probably wise.”
“But first I should invest in some Louboutin heels.”
“Almost certainly.”
“And a Gucci purse I’ve been eyeing since last year.”
“Where else would you keep all your money?” I said.
“Lynsey told me you helped her.”
“Lynsey?”
“A girl I know. Local prostitute. She said you protected her from Elton,” she said.
“Lynsey? Are you intentionally avoiding the D in her name?”
“Lynsey. Without the D.”
“Elton the felon,” I said. “I met him. Seems like the worst kind of pimp.”
“He is. I despise Elton. I want to kill him."
“He offer to take you on?”
“He suggested I could make a lot of money, yes.”
“Then I’ll kill him for you free of charge.”
Another fond look at the money, balanced in equipoise between greed and growth. She arranged the loose stacks of cash into the aluminum briefcases. The pressure spilled them out again, so she used one hand to push and the other to arrange and lower the lid, a delicate operation.
“Can I hire you tomorrow?” she said. “Your services as a private cop? To talk with Elton. Should take less than an hour.”
“Pimps aren’t entirely without function. The protection and collection services he provides are most likely genuine.”
She turned her attention to the other briefcase and said, “Wow, this is sexy. I like simply touching the stuff.” She ran her thumb over the end of a stack of hundreds, like a poker dea
ler shuffling cards. “I know Elton provides a service. But I propose he does more harm than good. Trust me, Mackenzie, this is my purview.”
“Happy to speak with Elton. No payment required.”
Finished packing, she set both cases on the floor and raised to look at me. Smiled a smile born of many joys. “None?”
“Well. Perhaps the aforementioned lingerie?” I said.
Thirty minutes later, as we drifted towards slumber, intertwined, she whispered against my shoulder, “Don’t divorce me yet, Mackenzie. I’m rich now.”
She was asleep seconds after.
Chapter 23
Elton the felon lived in an apartment downtown off Church, near the YMCA. It rained last night and puddles remained on the sidewalks but the air had warmed so my wait was bearable. He emerged from the locked lobby at 9:15am. Same sneakers, same baggy jeans, same cockeyed ball cap. With his left hand, he spoke into his phone. With his right, he fished out a pack of cigarettes.
I took the phone away from him and disconnected the call and said, “Ah man, they hung up on you.”
He dropped the pack of cigarettes. Essayed an expression of anger and disbelief at my stupidity. “The hell are you?” He said it like hay-el.
“We talk, Elton the felon, and then I return your phone.” I slid it into my pocket.
Elton had grown up rough. He bore the scars, even if they weren’t visible. I could probably recite his own major childhood events to him, I’d heard them so often from others; the abuse menu wasn’t that long. A hit or be hit world, that’s what he knew. It wasn’t fair to him as a child and it wasn’t fair now but sometimes we dealt with things that are instead of things that should be.
Elton hit me. Hit or be hit.
Candid videos of people fighting on the street are always awkward. It’s not like a boxing match where professionals generate nine hundred pounds of force, expertly placed. Videos of angry amateurs on the street show fighters throwing punch after punch, ineffectual, and neither man dropping. Because the hits don’t land and the punches lack stopping power and zeal. Eventually the guys are tired and distressed and they allow themselves to be separated.