This Dog for Hire

by Carol Lea Benjamin

  To try again.

  Gotta do it.

  He had followed me into the ladies’ room. He had whistled then, too, whistled for Magritte, witness to murder.

  My, I thought, studying his portrait, what big feet you’ve got.

  Feet I’d know anywhere.

  That is to say, feet whose size I’d know anywhere.

  To the right of those big feet, there was even a title, neatly printed: big shit-eating sissy.

  For once, without his head torn off.

  33

  Dead Ahead

  I knew that Peter could have been at the opening before I learned that he had been there. I had learned that during one of yesterday’s many phone calls.

  “Mrs. Cole?” I had said when a woman answered.

  “Yes. To whom am I speaking, please?” A voice like a dried magnolia petal, brittle yet still fragrant.

  “This is Elaine Boynton, Clifford’s friend. I was so sad to hear about Clifford.”

  “Well, of course you were, my dear. It was such shocking news, such tragic news.”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you close with my son?”

  “Yes. And so I feel just terrible that I missed the memorial service.”

  “There was no service, Elaine.”

  “Really?”

  “Why, yes. Clifford’s brother, Peter, said he thought Clifford wouldn’t want any sort of a fuss, wouldn’t want to make his friends drag all the way down to Virginia. He said it wasn’t necessary.”

  “He said that?”

  “Well, it was basketball season, Elaine. His weekends belonged to the team. Don’t even call me, Mother, he said to me. I’ll call you when I get the chance. Both my sons are busy, busy men.”

  My bet was she didn’t know Peter had moved out, had no number to call him at.

  “Do you call your mother, Elaine?”

  “She’s, uh, gone,” I said.

  “I am so sorry, my dear. Was there a service for her?”

  “Yes. A small, private one.”

  “I see. Well, I do feel that family and friends need the closure of a service. Don’t you agree, my dear?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Don’t you think Clifford’s friends would come to Virginia for a small service, once the weather gets a little kinder?”

  “I’m sure they would.”

  “I’m so pleased to hear that, Elaine. I would like to meet my son’s friends.”

  “I understand. I was wondering where I could send a donation in Clifford’s name. Does the family have a preference?”

  “Well, now, of course Clifford hadn’t voiced such a preference. He was so very young.” There was silence for a moment. “I’m sure any charity you pick would be just fine.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, my dear. Thank you for your affection for my son.”

  Ma son, she’d said. Delicate as a tank. I wondered if degaying the loft had more to do with Cliff’s problems than his mother’s.

  More to the point, Peter had lied to Dennis about the service and had come to the opening to make bloody sure he hadn’t missed anything when he removed the offensive canvases from the loft. He had taken les and mor and tossed the empty stretcher in back of the closet. Perhaps he’d taken another painting out, an older one, and hung it on the empty nail. He’d taken the significant panel of big shit-eating sissy. And he’d taken a portrait of himself, a portrait where his mouth was twisted and cruel, his eyes cold, his cheeks even more red and doughy than they looked under the unflattering lights of Madison Square Garden. That last one I’d seen when I watched the rest of the slides I had retrieved from B & H. It was called helen, the name gay men use for an old queen. It turns out it wasn’t only his sons that Peter had gone back to rescue. It was himself.

  My guess was that the only record of these paintings would be the slides that Clifford meticulously took and filed of all his work. I was so grateful he had done that. The slides of the missing paintings were enough by themselves to make me suspect Peter.

  And my day on the telephone had all but eliminated everyone else.

  I’d found out from Louis that like so many other SoHo galleries, the Cahill Gallery had come close to folding when the art-buying frenzy of the eighties had ended so abruptly, but because Veronica has the scruples of a scorpion—his words—she’d managed, mostly with manufactured hype, to keep afloat. Now they were just making as much as they could out of what Louis had inherited.

  “Can you blame us, Rachel?” he’d asked me.

  Marjorie Gilmore had clued me in on Doc. He was Herbert Hanover, Ph. D., founder and owner of Hanover Cryogenics. Frozen semen. He not only stood to lose a lot with Gil gone, he and Gil were both at the Illinois State Veterinary Conference when Clifford was killed. So Gil was already dead when I found out he had a perfect alibi.

  I had ruled out Michael Neary, the dog walker. He was only seventeen. And Addie and Poppy; had they tried to off Gil or Magritte with tainted liver, they would have jeopardized Orion. Anyway, they’re dog people. They might have gone after Gil, but never Magritte.

  In my back-to-basics mode of yesterday, I had even called information to see if Clifford’s number was listed.

  “I don’t have a listing for a Clifford,” the operator had said, “but under new listings, there’s a Peter Cole.”

  That was interesting.

  I called and heard his raspy voice on his answering machine, one of those no-name, covert messages—you know: “You have reached 989-2486. Please leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  As if there were a person alive on the planet who didn’t know to wait for the tone by now.

  Next I called poor, shapeless Linda Cole, in Woodcliff Lake. Of course she didn’t tell me he’d moved out. Why should she have? Who was I that she should tell me her sad story?

  Whether or not he actually was abusing his boys would be her problem. And theirs, of course.

  My problem was that I needed proof.

  He had been so clever.

  He had asked Dennis for a key, when in fact he co-owned the loft with his brother. I had discovered this by dropping in at the real estate office around the corner and checking the Real Estate Directory of Manhattan, volume two, which listed the owners of the loft as Cole, C., and Cole, P. D. Banks prefer steady income to lump sums of money, which, as anyone knows, can disappear. In fact, they are sometimes “placed” in the buyer’s bank account by a rich, understanding relative and, subsequent to approval, “re-placed” back in the owner’s account. A secure job always has more weight with the bank.

  He had removed, and probably destroyed, the paintings Clifford made to shame him. I remembered that when I had looked at Cliffs will, the codicils had been out of order. Peter must have checked the will to see where Cliff’s paintings were going. He’d need to know that. But he couldn’t have taken them that night. He had to return the key to Haber’s, and even rolled up, the painting would have been noticed. No matter. That is, until he learned about the show. Then he had to act fast.

  But he didn’t know that Clifford kept a meticulous record of all his paintings by taking color transparencies of them.

  Neither did he know that Clifford’s therapy sessions had all been taped.

  I was sitting on the floor in the big, bare, empty studio, hugging my dog now, Magritte curled and asleep at my side.

  He knew when Clifford went to therapy, when he wouldn’t be home, when he could use his key, whistle for Magritte, take him away to use as bait to get his brother out onto the pier, to make it look like the sort of crime no one would bust his ass to solve.

  Peter had evidently used a voice-changing telephone, ninety bucks from Sharper Image. Probably bought it, used it, and tossed it. Made his voice sound higher, like a woman’s voice, to disguise his identity and maybe even to make it all sound less threatening to his brother.

  But only a person who had never lost his heart to a dog cou
ld think that any scenario that put that relationship in jeopardy could sound less threatening. Less threatening than what—nuclear holocaust?

  “I have Magritte.” Three little words.

  Sticks and stones will break your bones, they chanted in the schoolyard when I was a kid, but words will never harm you. Another of the lies I grew up on.

  What did Clifford do while he waited? What did he think?

  When did he write and hide the letter?

  Why had he hidden the tape? Had he planned that after he got Magritte back he would take it to the police?

  Did he get the message in time to get to the bank before it closed? Of course, with Select Checking, he could have gotten the thousand from the ATM by making two withdrawals of five hundred each. He had noted the amount he had taken out, not how it had been retrieved.

  I laid my face on Dashiell’s neck, breathing in the comforting smell of dog, and closed my eyes.

  Frantic. He must have been frantic, wandering from room to room—everywhere he looked, Magritte wasn’t there.

  Finally, it was time to go. He felt the money, a small lump, in his pocket. Not as much as it would be for a person. After all, Magritte was only a dog. That’s what the police would have said. Louis would have said that, too.

  He crossed West Street, the wind going through his clothes, and finally he heard him, heard Magritte, and his heart lifted like a piece of paper caught in a gust, swirling and joyous. He never saw the car, sitting there, motor off, he only heard Magritte. He began to run.

  Peter sat across the seat waiting, watching out the back window of the rented car.

  I had even found out where yesterday, by calling all the rental places as Mrs. Peter Cole, complaining I was over-charged. Thrifty Auto Rental, West Ninety-fifth Street, walking distance from his new apartment, assured me the bill was correct.

  “We have the AMEX receipt, Mrs. Cole,” they told me. “Shall I send you a copy?”

  Difficult to rent a car without a credit card. Difficult to use a fake name when you need the credit card and driver’s license.

  Still, he’d planned so carefully. He knew he couldn’t use his own car. Clifford would have recognized it. Had to think it out, think it through, find a way to stop the little shit-eating sissy from destroying his life. He had his name to think about, his reputation, his job. He had sons to protect.

  His sons. How he missed them. There was another one who took things the wrong way, Linda, that cow, making a big deal over everything, couldn’t even let him love his own kids in his own way, seeing faults in every little thing. Forcing him out.

  The way his brother had forced him into this. Threatened him.

  Both of them. Family! Well, fuck that noise.

  It wasn’t that he liked the idea of killing his brother, shit, he was no pervert, he wouldn’t enjoy doing this, it just had to be done, Clifford running amok like he was, painting him as some old faggot, some helen, in a fucking dress, for God’s sake, what would people think, and how would he earn a living, right, great, working with adolescent boys after those pictures were in everyone’s face, his luck, the shit would end up in some museum, and then he looked up, and saw that his brother had passed the car, he was on the pier now, running, running toward that stupid dog of his, damn thing would be the death of him, and you know, he couldn’t help it, he had to laugh at his own joke.

  It’s his own damn fault, the little shit, he just wouldn’t let it go. I told him, Drop it already, I told him, that’s how boys play, crying in the restaurant, his eyes all red, as if he were some girl, what would people think.

  After the impact, he hit the brake.

  Safe, he thought. I’m safe. Then, looking over his shoulder, he backed off the pier and was gone.

  The car was coming out backward, quick as it went in, and Billy Pittsburgh ducked down, down, down, under his blanket and lay still as snow, stayed that way so long, maybe he fell back to sleep again.

  When dawn broke, the gulls woke Billy, and, wrapped in his blanket, dragging his bag of bottles and cans, he walked partway out onto the pier, saw the dog was gone, saw the young white man lying on his back; and he turned around fast as he could, knew just where he could take what he knew, trade it for some coffee, a place to sit and drink it out of the weather.

  Turning his back to the wind, he headed for Tenth Street, for the Sixth Precinct, passing on his way the wrought-iron gate that led down the passageway that opened into the garden in which my cottage sat and in which I lay warm as the coffee cup he’d soon be holding in his hands, sleeping like spoons with my dog.

  I don’t know how long I sat there brooding, but it was dark out, time to go. I had seen a leather backpack in Clifford’s bedroom closet. I took the significant audio- and videotapes and the box of slides I had picked up at B & H, put them in the backpack, and locked up the dark loft.

  Walking home from Clifford Cole’s sad, empty loft to my own cozy cottage, I kept trying to figure out exactly how I could make sure that Peter Cole would get his just reward. I had to get him. Had to.

  Though I did not want to be the one to have to tell Adrienne Wynton Cole that she had lost both her sons.

  Still, it had to be done.

  That he deserved to be got, I had little doubt. But so far all the evidence was circumstantial, none of it conclusive. I had to be sure that if he was charged, the charges would stick, because nowadays people got away with all kinds of murder.

  34

  I Know Your Secret

  Magritte began to whine, anxious to run free in the garden. The lock on the gate seemed stuck—all these gates were so old—but I wiggled the key, and finally it clicked open. I unhooked the leads, and both dogs dashed on ahead down the narrow, unlit passageway. I locked the gate behind me and noticed how relieved and safe I always felt to be home.

  Except for the path, where it had been worn down by our feet, the garden was still covered with thick layers of snow, crusted hard on top so that there was a sound like crinkling cellophane when the dogs ran. It was a clear night. I stood still for a moment, looking up at the stars.

  It was quiet in the garden, the way it rarely is in New York. Even that hum that newcomers to the city are so conscious of, that unexplainable constant din of background noise, seemed to have abated. When Dashiell sneezed, it seemed as loud as a thunderclap.

  Inside, I toweled off the dogs, filled their water bowl, and made a fire. I thought about calling Dennis, but it was after eleven and I decided against it. It would be better to call him when I knew for sure what I was going to do.

  I thought about calling Peter Cole, too, but not then. I could call late the next morning, after he’d left for work, and leave a message on his answering machine. I could even use my own voice-changing telephone, if I could figure out which box in the basement it was in.

  I know your secret, I could say.

  Yeah.

  Meet me at the pier. You know which one, and you know when. Don’t tell anyone about this call, asshole, and bring five thousand dollars with you.

  The price has gone up, I could say.

  Right. I should wait alone on the Christopher Street pier at four in the morning for a guy who had already killed his own brother, like he’d have some compunction about eighty-sixing me.

  He’d probably just rent a car and drive over me a few dozen times, just to make sure I didn’t bother him again.

  Growing up is murder. I’m glad I never tried it.

  I decided to go to bed and figure it out in the morning, when I’d be seven or eight hours more mature.

  But when I got upstairs and was taking off my snow boots, Dashiell began to pace and whine, going over to the window, pushing his nose against the shutters so that they rattled, then coming back to me and catching my eye.

  I shut off the light, went over to the window, and, leaving the shutters closed, opened the slats so that I could see out. My bedroom window faced the main house, and as I looked across the deserted white garden, for just a m
oment I saw a flash of light.

  It could have been from a car passing on Tenth Street, the headlights momentarily lighting up the dark house. Except that this light didn’t flash across the house, appearing first in one room and then almost instantly the next, moving left to right from where I was, the way the one-way traffic did on Tenth Street. This light was only in the kitchen, nowhere else. It was an intense beam. The kind of light a flashlight makes.

  I looked down at Dashiell and saw that his hackles were up, so I relaced my Timberlands and, keeping the lights off and not bothering with a coat, left the cottage and headed for the Siegal house to see what was going on.

  I had only planned on taking Dashiell. Magritte was sleeping on my bed, and I had no reason to disturb him, but as usual he had ideas of his own. I felt him brush by me on the stairs, and he was first out the door, turning back toward us with his eyes afire, then play-bowing to Dashiell to start a game.

  But Dashiell wasn’t having any. His mind was elsewhere.

  I followed him across the winter yard, the elongated shadow of the big oak flat on the snow in front of us, then crawling up the bricks of Norma and Sheldon’s house.

  There was light on the third floor now. I saw it swing across the back bedroom Norma used as a study.

  I unlocked the back door as quietly as I could, pulled it open, and left it slightly ajar, going first, while I had the chance, toward the front of the house to find out where someone had gotten in. I signaled Dash to stay by me, but he kept looking toward the stairs. Still, he obeyed, and Magritte trotted alongside, stopping here and there to sniff the strange territory.

  It didn’t take a detective to see what had happened. One of the front ground-floor windows had been broken. But this time someone had used a glass cutter and a suction cup, silently cutting a circle near the lock rather than noisily smashing the whole window. Someone had planned this, had cased the house and returned with the necessary tools to do the job.

  My heart picked up its pace, knees high, arms pumping. If a heart could sweat, mine was sweating. I had thought I’d find another homeless person, some hapless creature just trying to find shelter from the cold. A homeless person with a glass cutter?