Dog Bites Man

by James Duffy

"All in uniform, I assume."

  "No, there are plainclothes agents as well."

  Who could sneak up on Eldon unannounced, Miller thought.

  . . .

  Once the ASPCA chairman was off the phone, Miller checked his McKinney's Annotated New York Laws and found that Livingston's description of the law had been accurate. The legal authority for the society's agents to make arrests went back to the 1860s. He decided not to alert Eldon to the potential hazard of arrest—poor fellow, he was besieged enough already. But he did call the head of the mayor's security detail.

  "I don't know how you identify them, but you should keep the humane law enforcement agents away from the mayor. They want to arrest him."

  "Don't worry, Mr. Miller, we can spot them. They all look like beagles."

  If that were only true, Miller wished.

  . . .

  Three days after the cow incident, Amber Sweetwater returned to Gracie Mansion with an unidentified, slightly chubby young man. Each one carried two suitcases, which she explained to the guard, with whom she was on friendly terms, were to take away her remaining belongings. The sentry suspected nothing, though he did think it odd when the pair went by his booth only a few minutes later, without the suitcases.

  Soon after Amber and her friend departed, Edna Hoagland startled the sentry and the household staff with her screaming. The cause was soon apparent, as the mansion was overrun with tiny mice. Trying to calm herself, she called Eldon at the office. Normally she relayed any message through a staff member or waited until she met up with her husband in person; it somehow seemed improper to her to interrupt official city business with (usually trivial) personal matters. But this time she called and asked to be put through to him.

  "Eldon, I don't know what to do! You have no idea what it's like up here!"

  "My dear, what on earth is the matter? Where are you?"

  "I'm at the mansion. And someone has let loose hundreds of mice—all over the house."

  "Good God."

  "The housekeeper and one of the guards are beating them back with brooms, but they're everywhere. I'm going to call the Health Department unless you've got a better idea."

  Eldon felt helpless. What was he supposed to do? As husband? As mayor of the City of New York? What could he do?

  "That sounds right—"

  Eldon was interrupted by a muffled cry. "One of them just started to crawl up my leg," Edna shouted. "It's like a bad sciencefiction movie. Only it's real."

  "Let us call the Health Department from down here. Have them send up an emergency crew right away. You stay calm—or better yet, go somewhere for lunch."

  "These animal crazies are going to be the death of us, Eldon. They really are."

  "Our ALA friends?"

  "Yes. They left a note downstairs. 'Today Gracie Mansion, tomorrow the World. The Animal Liberation Army.' "

  "How the hell did they get inside?"

  "I mean to find out."

  The Health Department squad arrived and after reconnoitering the invading mouse army, advised Edna to vacate the premises. "What we'll do isn't going to be pretty, ma'am," she was told.

  "That's all right. I'm a doctor," she said but then reconsidered and decided to leave. Before doing so, she questioned the guard in the outside sentry booth, who told her about Amber Sweetwater, her pudgy companion and the suitcases.

  The mice, stolen as it turned out by the ALA from a laboratory at Rockefeller University, had been in the suitcases, but the tiny creatures had not made any impression on the metal detector at the gate.

  . . .

  That week's Surveyor, under Scoop's byline, carried a story about "animal terrorist" tactics, past and promised, directed against Mayor Hoagland. The story detailed the plans for the Wambli rally but also gave accounts of both the cow and mice episodes at Gracie.

  These latter descriptions intrigued Jack Gullighy. No other publication had mentioned the errant bovine or the scurrying rodents. Especially in the case of The Post-News, eager for any scintilla of a story embarrassing to Eldon, it seemed likely that the ALA had not alerted the press to their doings. So how did The Surveyor come by the stories? It appeared to Gullighy that its reporter had been uncomfortably close to the action, if not a part of it. And Rice fitted the description given by the Gracie sentry of the fellow carrying two of the mice-filled suitcases.

  He placed a call to Justin Boyd.

  "I see you're still on the animal rights beat."

  "Absolutely. Best running story we've ever had—and it ain't over yet."

  "How well I know," Gullighy said. "But tell me, Justin, is it not possible your man Rice is a bit too close to the situation?"

  "Dogging the story for all it's worth, if that's what you mean."

  "Dogging, hmm. 'Badgering,' I think, would be a better word."

  "Ha! Ha! To what do I owe this amusing call?"

  "Justin, there were two people who staged that mouse attack on Gracie Mansion. My hunch is that your man Rice was one of them."

  "So? Let's just say he was tipped off and was on the spot."

  "Fine. But he was seen carrying suitcases full of mice into the mansion."

  "So?"

  "So he wasn't reporting. He was creating a story."

  "Oh, Jack, come, come. Such niceties!"

  "Let me give you a hypothetical. Vietnam. The Ho Chi Minh Trail. Reporter goes out with a patrol. Quiet. No news. Reporter, who is armed, starts shooting. Next day reports on a fierce gun battle. Ethical?"

  "Why not? There was a gun battle, right?"

  "But the reporter started it!"

  "As I say, Jack, niceties. A story is a story, regardless of who instigated it. You fellows are getting too uptight down there at City Hall. Stay loose, my boy!"

  Gullighy slammed down the phone. "Unscrupulous limey bastard!" he shouted, but there was no one around to hear him.

  TWENTY-THREE

  As the day for the Wambli rally drew nearer, Eldon Hoagland was nearly exhausted: berated in the press and on local TV, threatened with arrest, harassed in his own home by stray creatures, followed all over town by that silly-looking balloon dog. And even his Web site had been spammed with hundreds of identical messages, all repeating over and over: dogkillerdogkillerdogkiller . . . Nonetheless he persevered, convinced he was in the midst of a bad dream that would pass.

  The day before the big event, he and Gullighy were briefed by Danny Stephens, the police commissioner, and Chief Inspector Whitehall, head of the department's Intelligence Division.

  The Post-News had been predicting for days that the intensity of the demonstration would reach at least 9.5 on the Richter scale, and now Whitehall was not contradicting the newspaper's hysteria.

  "There appears to be tremendous support for this rally, if the traffic on the ALA Web site can be believed. All the fringies will be turning out, of course, but it's not only them: the pit bulls' breeder association—or Staffordshire terriers, or whatever they are—something called the Vegetarian League of America and God knows who else."

  "You're omitting another group, Inspector," the commissioner interjected.

  Whitehall was embarrassed but told the mayor that the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association would be turning out as well.

  "They're ticked off at the suspension I gave Fasco and Braddock," the commissioner explained.

  "Does that mean we won't have police protection tomorrow?" Gullighy inquired.

  "No, it's not a strike. Just a show of solidarity by off-duty cops."

  "You fellows have any good news?" Eldon asked.

  "None that comes to mind," Stephens said. "You know, Mr. Mayor, you really ought to let us block off the plaza out front—and the park as well. Make the demonstrators get behind barricades on the streets facing the park."

  "No, Danny, unless you tell me you can't control the crowd in the park, I want to let them in there. When my trial comes up in the World Court, I don't want suppression of free speech added to the charges."

 
"We can handle it. We'll let them in the park, and spill over into Park Place and lower Broadway. We won't let them storm the steps of City Hall or block the Brooklyn Bridge. We'll also stagger the barricades, so that we can keep the various groups separate. You know the hours we agreed on—two-thirty to four. No sound system, but they can use bullhorns."

  "By the way, sir, I assume you will plan to stay away from here tomorrow afternoon," Whitehall said.

  "Not on your life! I'm going to be right in this office, at work, tending to business."

  "That's up to you."

  . . .

  Scoop Rice planned to be at the rally, even though it was taking place on his deadline day. Boyd was delighted at the timing, even if it meant keeping the paper open later than usual; it meant the weekly Surveyor could do a fast-breaking color story to compete with the dailies. He wanted it multihued and personally expressed his confidence that Scoop could do the job.

  But Rice got sidetracked early that morning, with a call at his apartment from Genc.

  "I have very great favor to ask. Sue has thrown me out. Can I come and stay with you—for a couple of days, or until they send me back to Albania?"

  "How can they do that? I thought your marriage sewed everything up."

  "It is very complicated, Scoop. Can I come over and talk with you?"

  Mystified but intrigued, Scoop said yes. An hour later a disheveled Genc was knocking at his door.

  "I'm in the middle of great fuckup," he explained. "Sue gave me the bounce last night. I've been wandering the street ever since."

  "What happened?"

  "I left a wife back in Tirana. And she's here in New York. She saw a picture of Sue and me leaving City Hall after the wedding and flew over here two days ago. She came to the house yesterday and made very loud mess."

  "How the hell did she find you?"

  "I wrote her a couple of times from Sue's. Though I told her she must never write to me there."

  "Does she want you back?"

  "Yes. We had a big quarrel before I came to America. I said it was the only way for me. She said no, she wanted to stay in Albania. I came anyway. Were we finished? I don't know. I told her I would come back for her, but she said she might not be waiting. It was open."

  "So you didn't divorce her?"

  "No divorce. Now she wants me to come back. But she wants money from Sue to keep quiet. A lot of money."

  "How much?"

  "Twenty thousand dollars."

  Scoop found this a modest price but did not say so.

  "Sue said no with much force and made her leave. Then she had at me good. Made me get out with only the clothes on my back and two hundred dollars I had saved."

  "Jesus, Genc, I'm sorry. What can I do?"

  "I need a place to stay for a couple of days." He looked around the tiny studio and then allowed that he would be happy to sleep on the floor.

  "I think it will all work out," he told Scoop. "Sue will get over her angriness. And she's got the money to pay Greta off. I think she will do that. She likes having me around."

  "And Greta will go home—alone?"

  "I think so."

  "Your wife—your first wife, Greta—can she be bought off for so little money? And stay bought?"

  "Yes. Twenty thousand American dollars is large money in Tirana."

  "And you'll stay on with Sue?"

  "Yes. At least until I get my green card."

  "I don't know, Genc. It's a pretty dicey situation."

  Scoop tried to be sympathetic and helpful, but he had very little experience of marital quarrels, let alone bigamous ones.

  "What you going to do next?"

  "If you let me, I will stay here. Let my wives calm down for a day, maybe two."

  "Then?"

  "Then I will see them both and we make a deal. Money for Greta and a plane ticket home."

  "Where is wife number one now?"

  "She's at the Brandywine Hotel. Down on Twenty-eighth Street."

  "What about Sue?"

  "Give me time and I'll try to make up with her. I know how." Genc smiled for the first time in the conversation.

  "Okay. You can stay. It's not much, but make yourself at home. Let me find my extra key."

  Finding it, he left to go to The Surveyor.

  . . .

  Poor guy, Scoop thought on the bus ride downtown. At the office, there was a message to see Justin Boyd.

  Boyd wanted to talk about the multihued color story he had in mind.

  "This rally should be a Christmas pudding, Scoop. I want you to eat every morsel—and leave nothing but crumbs for The Times and The Post-News. I want every poster, every shout about Hoagland. I want details on every grab-ass thing the animal righters say and do. It will be a three-ring circus, and I want you to tell what happens in every ring. Got it?"

  "Yes sir. I'll do my best."

  "I wonder what Mrs. Brandberg and her child bridegroom will be doing this afternoon. You might check in with them, for more color."

  "Matter of fact I happen to know there's some trouble there."

  "Oh?"

  Scoop told his boss about the sudden appearance of Genc's first wife and the consequences that followed.

  "Holy Jehoshaphat, man! Forget about the rally! Do you know where this wronged woman is?"

  "Um, I think so."

  "Then cherchez la femme! Get her on the record about her two-timing husband. Ho! Ho! Sue Nation Brandberg a bigamist! And who performed the ceremony? Why, none other than our dear mayor. Trying to pacify her, to keep her quiet. Yes! Yes! Smoking the peace pipe and performing an illegal marriage to stop her very public bitching. Scoop, you're brilliant. If you carry this one off, we'll eat the bloody dailies for lunch once again."

  Scoop protested, if mildly.

  "Couple of things, Justin. Genc has become a friend of mine and I don't want to put him in jeopardy."

  "Friend he may be, but he's a bigamist. Your public—our public—has a right to know that."

  "As for the mayor, he certainly didn't know he was presiding over a bigamous marriage."

  "So what? Facts are facts, my boy. Here you have the chief magistrate of our great city aiding and abetting—presiding over—an illegal act. Isn't the public entitled to know when its mayor is breaking the law? Undermining the institution of marriage? Get real, young man. You're a reporter, please don't forget."

  "And what about Sue? Wasn't she, isn't she, a close friend? Isn't it fair to say you even dated her?"

  "You're getting into private territory, Scoop. As journalists we must avoid letting personal feelings get in the way of truth. Stop chewing on this and find that poor and wronged Albanian woman. Got it?"

  Scoop was getting it for the second time; again he agreed to carry out the great editor's wishes—with some reluctance.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Eldon came to work on October 20th through the City Hall entrance on the Chambers Street side. He took a look through a front window before settling into his office. The view was ominous: television camera dollies, miles of coaxial cable, a string of blue NYPD barricades scattered through the park, plus a large police communications trailer and two arrest vans. Already there was a phalanx of cops guarding the steps of City Hall, with other operatives communicating with God knows who on their cell phones.

  At lunchtime he was told that it would be difficult to order in lunch. Betsy Twinsett came to the rescue with a plate of macaroni and cheese defrosted in her microwave. The mayor pronounced it delicious.

  By two o'clock the Wambli balloon had appeared, this time accompanied by a band of ALAers and supporters carrying a black coffin-shaped box with a large WAMBLI R.I.P. sign attached to it. They, too, were talking intently on their cell phones. Could they be phoning up the police? The park was soon full: a group brought by bus, mostly wearing jeans and plaid shirts, and bearing the sign AMERICAN STAFFORDSHIRE DEFENDERS; a motley assortment, mostly men, and unmistakably off-duty cops, with such signs as JUSTICE FOR FASCO AND BRADD
OCK and SUSPEND HOAGLAND NOT THE COPS.

  A limousine pulled up and discharged a group of familiar-looking passengers—a pop singer, two grade-B actresses, a hero from one of the soaps. Plus Daniel Storey, an actor with a couple of modest movie successes, who, it was rumored, was torn between playing Hamlet and starting a campaign for the United States Senate seat that George McTavish would be vacating. Ralph Bernardo, the ALA leader, rushed over to greet them. Then came a yellow school bus, bringing a delegation of young blacks and Hispanics—the grassroots delegation assembled by Councilman Hayes—along with a collection of fearsome-looking pit bulls.

  They were not the only ones accompanied by canines. Several of the ALA supporters, looking like the professional dog walkers often seen on upper Manhattan streets, maneuvered a motley assortment of animals. They either were enthusiastic dog owners, had borrowed the mutts from friends or had rounded up strays. (The majority were strays, collected over several days and tethered in Bernardo's apartment.) All told, there were perhaps 150 creatures weaving among the legs of the protesters.

  The makers of a dog food called GROW-l, seizing an opportunity, had set up a trailer on the far side of Broadway and four teenagers eagerly foisted sample cans on passersby. Another entrepreneur operated what appeared to be a hot dog vending cart, selling something called cabbage sausages—no meat. There were few takers. A vendor of T-shirts, a picture of Wambli on the back and of Eldon with a large "X" over his face on the front, did better.

  Then there were the Veganettes, a troupe of girls tricked out like high school majorettes, offering carrot sticks and chanting, "Meat is poison." Not to mention a zaftig blonde, wearing a short skirt and a tight blouse over a part of her impressive décolletage, carrying a stick festooned with imitation sausages, flaccid and limp, and a placard reading MEAT MAKES YOU IMPOTENT.

  At three o'clock, a half hour into the official rally time, City Hall Park had overflowed and the crowd, still growing, began to fill up lower Broadway. A posse of cool black boys, emerging from the J&R music store, got caught up in the throng and began shouting Public Enemy's rap song "Fight the Power." Students at nearby Pace College, emerging from classes, also joined in. They had heard about the troubled sixties (even from their parents) and now delightedly joined in a genuine public disturbance, though most were not fully aware of what the commotion was about.