“How’d you know that was going to be next, Jess?”
“What?”
“Asking you for my freedom.”
Chapter 82
That summer replacement show was stupid, Laurie thought as she clicked the television off. She brought her laptop to the couch, folded her legs under her, and scrolled through her e-mails. After deleting the junk ones, there were just a few from e-pals. Funny how that worked. People from your past who you really wouldn’t want to talk to on the phone or see in person became important enough to trade niceties with and have a digital conversation with. At least it was more personal than Facebook and having the whole Eastern Seaboard know your business.
On an impulse, she went to the site. She wanted to scream, “Hey, don’t you know the horrible things going on out there? Don’t you know how animals are suffering? Don’t you care about helping them? Can’t you try to do something about cruelty?” That’s what she wanted to write, but instead, on an impulse, she typed in “Hey, guys, did you know 9,000 healthy dogs and cats are put to sleep every day?”
Chapter 83
Elena’s toes touched the treetops. Her legs tapered to points as she stretched her feet straighter, reaching for the branches. They sliced through the air with a hum, engulfing her in the wind she created. Upside down, the sun, the leaves, the building spires streaked across the expanse of sky in a blur. Her legs thrust down, abruptly changing direction, like a rudder turning suddenly, skidding on the water. She was drowning in the dizzy froth. She screamed.
She relaxed her legs and as her speed slowed, the metal web of monkey bars, the silver chute, toddlers in the sandbox, and the slats of wooden benches converged on her, following her in reverse. Nausea surged in her chest. She came to a stop, slightly tilted in her seat. “Did you see how high I went? That was the highest I ever went…the highest anybody ever went,” Elena said excitedly.
“Yes, you were pretty high. Now start me.” Elena’s friend Diana held the chains of Elena’s swing steady.
“You can do it yourself. I did.”
“No, I need a good push. Come on, you promised.”
“I don’t feel like it,” Elena said. “Let’s go back.”
“That’s not fair. You went for a long time.”
“I did, didn’t I? Can you believe how high I got?”
“C’mon, please,” Diana whined, unimpressed.
“Okay, I’ll give you a push, but then let’s go back to my house. This is baby stuff.”
“There’s nothing to do,” Diana insisted. “You get any new clothes for Isabelle?”
“No.” Elena stood up and held the swing from behind. “Get on if you want me to push.” When Diana climbed on the swing, Elena walked backwards as far as she could, pulling the swing with her. “There’s things we could do. Like dress up, or we could play on the Xbox or something.”
“What’s Xbox?” Diana asked.
“It’s a TV game thing. I’ll show you. My brother got it.” Elena pushed and then let go, raising her hands higher, ready to push again when Diana swung back to her. “It’s fun.”
“Your brother lets you use it?” Diana’s voice trailed off as she gained momentum.
“No, not really. But it’s okay. He won’t know.”
“Harder, harder. What about your señora?”
“Oh, Señora Sanchez doesn’t pay attention. She does whatever I say.”
“What?” Diana shrieked.
“Never mind. When you come down, that’s what we’ll do.” Elena’s words rose and fell to the tempo of her friend’s swinging.
“Push me harder—harder!”
Their happy squeals filled the playground.
Chapter 84
“Ready, little girl?” Sabrina’s tail was so short it was hardly noticeable under her long fur, but there was no mistaking her answer to Jason’s question as her backside swayed with its vigorous wagging.
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little?”
Jason followed the sound of Chris’s voice to the open bathroom door and told his reflection, “I’m not taking any chances. Better safe than sorry.”
“That sounds like one of your AIDS group’s slogans,” Chris said.
“As an editor, don’t you think it’s a bit trite?”
“To say the least.” Chris twisted his mouth to the side, stretching his skin taut. He made short, scratchy strokes down his cheek with the razor.
“I’d worry all day. This way, she’s right there, where I can see her. Besides, she’s not at all in the way. And since your stakeout didn’t work—”
“I wasn’t even thinking about that,” Chris insisted. He held the razor under the faucet, shook the water off, and spoke to Jason through the mirror. “You’re probably confusing her. She’s used to being home. After all, the store is a strange place to her.”
“Wrong. She knows it’s mine. Everything there must smell of me. She made herself right at home after the first day. She doesn’t even bother getting up anymore every time the door opens and someone comes in.”
“Probably because it’s too hard for her to get up with her arthritis.”
“Oh, come on, she’s still young. Everybody has a little arthritis. She’s only seven. In dog years, she’s even younger than I am.”
“All I’m saying is that you’re changing her whole routine. She’ll get used to it, having company all day long. Then, at some point, you’ll stop taking her every day, and she’ll be miserable staying alone in the apartment.”
“You’re making a big to-do. She’s safer with me. I feel safer.”
“Well, if it’s safety you’re thinking about”—Chris examined up close a nick he’d made with the razor—“it seems to me that nobody can actually get in here. But anybody can walk into the store and hold you up or threaten you.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I want her with me.” Jason went into the foyer, picked up his keys, and bent to clip the leash onto Sabrina’s collar. “C’mon. Daddy’s gonna be late.”
“Je-sus,” Chris muttered.
“You’re forgetting one thing!” Jason yelled down the hallway before he stormed out. “She’s my dog.” On the other side of the door, he added quietly, “And it’s my life, goddammit.”
Chapter 85
Ken blackened the rules on his yellow pad and used a ruler to draw vertical lines, making a chart. He inserted a few numbers and then doodled a stick flower in the margin, turning the petals into ears, adding a body and a tail. He still couldn’t believe the figures. There must be an error.
Bernie had agreed with him when Ken called him from the lobby of One Police Plaza. Now, Ken replayed the morning’s conversation in his head while he filled a crude ceramic mug with his potent brew.
“You musta read it wrong,” Bernie had said.
“No, I looked it up twice. In the stats. And then in the Crime Comparison Report.”
“It doesn’t seem possible.”
“That’s what it said. A seventy percent increase in animals stolen in the country every year. But nobody has the exact number. How come we don’t hear about them? They don’t even make the papers.”
“Eh.” Bernie had seemed to shrug through the phone. “Penny-ante stuff. They sell ’em for twenty, twenty-five bucks to laboratories, research centers. Sometimes the owners are lucky. They post little signs in the neighborhood and offer a reward. If the guy can make more returning the dog before he sells it, he does.”
“But Christ, what’s worse? They use ’em as bait to train fighting dogs. Or sell them to puppy mills to be breeders. If they look like pedigreeds—”
“I didn’t realize it was such a big business,” Bernie had said. “You sure?”
“Must be. The records don’t lie. Hell, the records don’t exist. They don’t even have a handle on the ones that are reported. What about all the ones that weren’t reported? You know what’s so terrible about it? It’s, like, the six million dead. The number is too big. You can’t fathom it. Or thi
nk of them as six million individual lives. It’s incomprehensible. We’re talking here about thousands of broken hearts. People looking for their pets, not knowing their fate. Little children crying for their dogs.”
“C’mon, in a city this size, with the crime rate we have, who you think’s gonna worry about some kid missing his dog?”
“That’s one thing. Stealing it to sell it, as if it’s a gold chain or a hubcap or a car radio. But the old lady thing, that’s different.”
“Why?”
“Taking it for ransom,” Ken had explained. “They play on a person’s grief. Especially an old one.”
“Aw, buddy, sure. But there’s not much you can do about it, so don’t get an ulcer over it.”
“I’ll only get an ulcer if I don’t do anything about it.”
Chapter 86
It was 7:25 when Laurie got home. “Everybody alive?” She tentatively opened the bathroom door where she had locked up Megabyte to separate her new boarder from the other two. An orange flurry streaked past her. She went inside and sat on the edge of the bed, untied her sneakers, threw her socks into the corner, and stroked Oscar absentmindedly. She leaned back on her elbows, stretched her legs off the mattress, and flexed her ankles. She was exhausted and weak from the heat. Felix seemed to fall out of the ceiling, he pounced on her leg with such force. “And where have you been hiding, love?” She wiggled her toes, teasing him as he walked down her shin to swipe at them. He dug into her skin like a tiger clutching a tree limb. Then Megabyte came to the doorway and Felix hissed angrily at her—and at Laurie for bringing the intruder home. He crouched menacingly.
She took off her dress and then hurled her bra after her socks. “Ooh, that feels good.” She raised her breasts and patted the dampness where the stiff underwire had confined her. She changed into a long T-shirt. “Who’s hungry?” She walked into the kitchen, barefoot, and poured herself a glass of Malbec from the bottle she had left standing on the counter. Felix slithered against her, the caress thrusting his back to a peak. He meowed loudly. Laurie liked to believe he was showing his contentment and affection, but she knew better—he was whining his impatience because she was taking so long with his dinner. She mixed some canned food, disguised as tuna fish, into the healthy brand.
She made a face as she took a sip of the wine. She swished it around her mouth before forcing it down, the bitterness stinging her tongue and cheeks. “Yuck.” She shook her head. “Too hot to leave out in this weather.”
The three plastic bowls clattered on the linoleum when she put them down on the floor. Laurie went into the living room, relieved that there’d be no fighting for a while, at least until they finished dinner. She struggled with the window latch and then pushed the rough frame up, holding her hand in front of it to test for a breeze. She stretched out on the couch with the mail. What a life. I must be doing something wrong, she thought absently. She fell fast asleep.
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