I cut him off. “I’ve lost interest in moral questions.”
“I beg you. You’re the only dog I respect. You have always been the wisest of the pack, the one with the best nose . . .” I let him talk. It seemed that Korzybski, his handler, had pocketed some powder. Not one or two small bags—three big kilos of China white. “We’re talking heroin, Visko, Satan’s flour, the Big Shit . . .” He kept shaking his large head as if he wanted to rid himself of it; he was panting, yipping, and I was afraid he would start howling right in the middle of the pagoda. “What should I do, Visko? I’m the only one who knows he buried those bags in his garden.”
Poor Zucotic. Personally, I had nothing against him, but he belonged to another planet, a planet whose gravitational pull I no longer felt. I, Viskovitz, was floating on a different astral plane. How could I explain it to him?
“I understand your state of mind, Zuco, but you’re wasting your time talking about this with me. I stopped believing in your values years ago. Then I stopped believing in values in general, and finally I even stopped believing in believing. After which I began to dissolve into the universe . . . you can’t ask the air you breathe for advice, Zuco.”
“Damn it, living here really isn’t good for you, you old wolf.”
There wasn’t much thirst for understanding in his voice. I looked at him with tenderness and ended the conversation. “I have to go now, I hope you can find peace.” I turned my back and retraced my steps. When I reached the top of the stairs, I turned around and saw he was gone. Luckily he had left quietly, but from the smell I judged that what was dripping down the temple’s steps wasn’t holy water.
I went back and rejoined the brotherhood, sitting still and focusing my thoughts, but my mind was now disturbed by a memory. The memory of a time when I had worn a badge and been decorated for valor and vigilance, a time when I had loved a beautiful Alsatian and that Alsatian had been killed. No, this was not the day I would find the peace of nirvana.
A week had gone by. In the purifying calm of the Sangha, through the awareness of breathing and the undisturbed and detached contemplation of body and mind, I proceeded along the clear path that led to Liberation. When introducing us to the techniques of Clear Comprehension, Skittles had said to us: “In your transient body I will show you the world, the dawning of the world, the extinction of the world and the path that leads to the extinction of the world.” I, Viskovitz, was progressing along that path. At first sight Skittles—a white toy poodle with remnants of a continental clip from his younger days—did not strike one as a fully accomplished spiritual guide. But whoever had the good fortune of being the recipient of his teachings, and resting in the serenity of his gaze, knew he found himself before a holy animal, a steady and imperturbable guide. We had never seen him wag his tail.
I was therefore proceeding beyond the Five Attachments toward the Seven Factors of Illumination, and I was on the verge of grasping the Four Noble Truths when . . .
. . . I caught the scent of a bitch in the air, of an Alsatian. I concentrated on the anupasati, but the scent grew. It continued to grow until it engulfed me, and then it yipped—
“Viskovitz?”
I huffed crossly and opened my eyes on her little face. How long since I’d been this close to an Alsatian? Two years. Since Ljuba’s death. It was better that way. Why seek such an ephemeral pleasure again? I looked at her vaguely. I don’t give much importance to appearances. She had a dolichocephalic snout with tawny fur, white at the masseter and the throttle; erect ears, abundant lips, a slightly ovine stop, a prominent stipes and a nose like a brown truffle. Her mantle was a smoky, brownish red, almost pink in the undercoat. Her loin was arched, her rump oblique; she was long in the shoulder, with straight nates, tight belly, chiseled hocks, full chest, wide-set stifles, perpendicular pasterns. It really was, cynologically speaking, a body that was superb in its proportions and the arrangement of its parts, exemplary in its conformation and profile.
Certainly a bitch of important genealogy and high breeding. About a year and a half old, judging by her canines.
“Viskovitz,” I confirmed.
“I’m Detective Lara, from Narcotics.”
She smelled my bud and I returned the favor. It’s surprising, the amount of information you can get with your nose right in there. You can sniff a soul’s slightest vibrations or, if you have more material inclinations, find out everything about the hormonal cycle. I recognized the clear signs of the pre-estrus. This bitch, sexually speaking, was a time bomb.
“What can I do for the law?”
“One of our agents, Detective Zucotic, has been absent for about a week. According to reliable sources, before his disappearance he was trying to establish contact with you, Viskovitz,” she yelped, in a shrill little voice, almost peevish. Her eyes continued to roam over the bald patches in my coat. “If I really am talking to the former special agent Viskovitz—”
“Visko, for the pure of heart.”
“I confess, I was expecting something different. I’ve been hearing about the feats of Investigator Viskovitz since I was a puppy, about your legendary nose, about your prowess, and now . . .” She certainly wasn’t making an effort to hide her disappointment.
“Now you, too, will have a story to tell.”
“Well. It wouldn’t be a good ending to the story,” she said. “Our hero done in by mange and ticks, reduced to picking through the garbage.”
“It’s called a bum’s life, Officer. But some prefer it to a leash and muzzle.” I briefly told her what Zucotic had said to me. I had a certain amount of experience smelling trouble, and I advised her to steer clear of this mess.
“I’m certain that Agent Zucotic will have done his duty till the end. I intend to do mine,” she barked.
I was dazzled by such dedication, initiative and contempt for danger, but I couldn’t help thinking that there was some hormonal itch behind her excursion out of the kennel. In one way or another, this bitch was a danger to the purity of my soul. I gave a grunt of dismissal.
As she turned her tergum she let loose a blast of hormones. You didn’t have to be a psychic to know that there were plenty more where those came from. I looked at her, perplexed, while she sniffed the air in search of something she couldn’t find. How could anyone be so naive?
“It’s not in the air that you will find Zucotic’s scent, Detective,” I heard myself say. “Those kinds of traces, air scent, come from an animal’s sudoriferous glands, apocritic and eccritic. They only last a few minutes. What you’re interested in is the ground scent, the smell of contact left by hairs and skin particles on the ground. Or, better still, urine traces: those are the ones that last longer, several days if it doesn’t rain and there isn’t too much evaporation.”
“I know how to follow a scent!” she growled, baring her beautiful teeth.
I gently took her to the step where Zucotic had pissed. Once again her smell hit me. It was clear that this bitch was ovulating, and pretty soon her scent would be all over Chinatown.
“For the friendship that ties me to Zucotic . . . it’s probably better if I join this investigation, Officer,” I yelped. “I think my, uh, cover could come in handy.”
She howled something that did not penetrate my blocked nervous system, but she didn’t seem to be objecting.
Trailing Zucotic was not hard for me, and while doing that I could easily chat with Lara. Or rather, listen to her tell me about herself in her piercing bark, in a state of excitement that was getting harder and harder to control. She wanted to have a career, she said, but not to satisfy her vanity. She was an idealist and she wanted to correct the evils of this world: the docking of tails, ear amputations, puppy mills, castration, municipal pounds. Her highbrow bloodline did not stop her from hating racial discrimination, pedigrees, standards of purity, dog shows. At times it was like hearing Ljuba again, when she, too, was this young and this filled with dreams and hormones. Since she wanted to have a career, I thought it would be appropr
iate, on the way, to teach her the ABCs of her trade, the first rudiments of tracking. I explained backtracking, off-tracking and crosstracking, and the transfer from one surface to another: asphalt, dust, lawn. I told her that once in a while it is necessary to use the mouth, where the vomero-nasal gland is, which is connected to the olfactory bulb. I pointed it out to her by sliding my tongue over hers, and already I was letting myself drift toward the folds of her coat when—
“Those little animals. Aren’t they delicious?” she barked. It was her first trip out of the kennel, and she couldn’t get over being amazed by the wonders of this world.
“They’re rats,” I explained to her. “And that evocative hill is a dump.” Two rats were working on some bones. Cursing, they slunk away.
Having abandoned her attempts at professional behavior, yelping happily, Lara began to suck those bones and then buried them. Fascinated, I watched her wag her tail. How could anyone be that young? I took advantage of the break to scratch about in the garbage. It’s not as depressing as it looks. There are pieces of garbage that can enrich your diet. Lara came up to me with a big thighbone in her mouth.
“I needed to sharpen my teeth. Now I’m operational. Do you think we’ll be able to find Agent Zucotic’s trail in the midst of all these smells?”
How could anyone be so naive?
I explained to her that it would not be necessary, that Agent Zucotic was what she was carrying in her mouth and who, thighbone aside, had already been buried.
Zucotic’s death had not surprised me nor upset me. For me it was simply a chance to meditate over the laws of karma, the wheel of samsara and the transitoriness of the citta. Death was everywhere. And in every instance I, Viskovitz, died and was reborn with the universe. But for Detective Lara, that discovery had been devastating; her delicate emotional equilibrium had given way and she had started to howl as if she had been hit by a truck. She went on for hours.
I did my best to comfort her. While I explained to her that it is from death that life begins, and that in this place, in these streets, death was celebrated with life, I slipped around her, rested one paw on her coccyx and with the other lifted myself on her haunch . . .
With a jerk, she jumped forward.
“But of course! Korzybski! He’s the killer,” she barked. “Quickly, let’s get moving. His house isn’t far, and maybe we’ll be able to catch him with the loot. I won’t rest until I nail that bastard.” She immediately set off at a trot toward Alameda and the residential section, swinging her hips.
“Where do you think you’re going in that state? Don’t you know that it won’t take a minute for all the dogs in the neighborhood to be all over you?” I hadn’t gotten the words out of my mouth when three hoods showed up with tough-guy smiles pasted on their mugs. A foxhound, a mastiff and a miniature schnauzer.
“Boy oh boy, get a load of her!” the schnauzer barked.
“What do they want, Viskovitz?”
“Guess.”
“Tell them I’m on the job.”
“A job is just what we’re looking for, sweetheart,” the foxhound sneered.
“You heard the lady. Beat it!”
“Why don’t you take a powder, Gramps,” the mastiff snarled.
It was clear that calm reasoning wouldn’t do the trick. Nor would it be enough to show my teeth. I took care of the schnauzer with a swift kick, then sank my teeth in the foxhound’s hind parts and was shaking him when the mastiff got me from behind. He was younger and bigger than me—at least a foot taller at the withers—and it would have been a lousy evening if I hadn’t been a master in the art of Bushido, the Way of the Warrior. I faked the gunsel onto his back and I laid into him with my teeth. The foxhound had already slipped away. I was bleeding from an ear and I was saddened, because I hate violence.
Lara had disappeared. But not her scent. I began to gallop and caught up with her. We were now in front of Korzybski’s place, a house measuring too many square feet for a K-9 cop to afford. I was exhausted.
“You’re bleeding, Visko.” It was the first time she had called me that. “You were so brave.” She began to lick my wounds. Long, hot, lingering licks.
It seemed to me that there was only one way to find peace. One day, I said to myself, I’ll be able to rise above those crude material attachments, but for the time being, go with the flow . . . wasn’t that the Way of Tao after all? I was already hovering by her tail when BANG! The gunshot came from Korzybski’s house.
With a start, Lara bounded forward.
“Quick, Visko, we can’t let them get away!”
“Stop. They’re armed,” I objected. But her beautiful hindquarters had already disappeared behind the fence. It was the perfect time to turn tail and save my hide.
Another shot rang out.
Cursing, I jumped into the yard. I found an open window and tumbled into the house.
Sergeant Korzybski’s body lay in its own blood on the kitchen floor. He had a third eye on his forehead and another little hole at heart level. As if that wasn’t enough, Lara was barking in his face. By the holes in the wall I judged that the damage had been done by a .45. I poked my nose around and did not like what I smelled. The two killers were short, small-boned, judging by the volume and width of their scent’s dispersion cone. Their breath stank of chow mein. And there was the odor of a fresh tattoo, the dye was cannubia purple. You could bet that the two hired killers belonged to the Red Dragon Triad, the most powerful in Chinatown. It was another good reason to consider the case closed.
We heard the roar of an engine starting, and naturally, Lara launched herself after the car, a gray Mercedes. I followed her, since we never would have been able to catch up to them anyway. Once even she figured this out, I explained to her that it was not wise to follow live tracks right in the middle of a highway, and I steered her into a public park where it was quieter. It was sunset, and there were roses.
Once we were in that cozy sanctuary, among the wood thrush and the smell of mint, I congratulated old Viskovitz. I stretched out on the fresh grass, and faced with that sunset, I was moved like a sentimental little hound.
Lara looked into my eyes and confessed, “Oh, Visko. I can’t resist. It’s my instinct, it’s stronger than me.”
“It’s only natural,” I cooed. “You’re a bitch in heat and I’m an attractive wolf . . . let yourself go.”
“Let myself go?”
“Right, sweetheart.”
With a start, Lara jumped forward and ran into the water and began swimming toward a stick that some guy had thrown in the lake. It was that instinct she was talking about. The atavistic and servile instinct to fetch. She retrieved the thing for the guy, and the gonzo threw it again even farther. And Lara went after it. What could I do? I dove in. When I reached her I was completely out of breath.
“See how good I am?” she barked. “I found it even underwater! No one beats me at retrieving. No stick has ever gotten away from me.”
How could anyone be so naive?
I explained to her that what she had in her mouth was not a stick but a .45-caliber Luger, eight shots in the clip and one in the chamber. And I explained that it wasn’t good for your health to carry the murder weapon back to the killer.
This time Lara managed to follow the car of the hired killers all the way into the heart of Chinatown, to the Garden of the Three Pagodas, where we’d started this little jaunt. The two guys had entered sacred ground and mingled with the faithful. At that point I had to warn my mate that we found ourselves before an especially sacred place, where a Tang, a Taoist temple, and a Si, a Buddhist temple, and a Miaw, a Confucian temple, had come together within the same perimeter. Every corner one could see had been built according to the most rigorous geomantic principles of feng shui. It was a place where you barked under your breath and you didn’t show up with a bitch in heat. But Lara wouldn’t listen to reason. She was convinced that the two men had the heroin Zucotic had died for, and she wanted to get it back at all costs.
When we caught up with the two killers, we found them in the company of another dozen gorillas in the Triad. There were some monks with them. They were carrying ceremonial umbrellas and a parade of offerings toward the principal altar of the Si, dedicated to Guan Hin, the goddess of forgiveness.
Inside those offerings there were kilos of China white.
I stopped Lara by grabbing her collar. It really wouldn’t do to disturb such a devout consortium of souls. Plus, dogs were not admitted to the presence of the Goddess.
“You’re well known here, Visko. You could try to attract the monks’ attention.”
I explained to her that even they were in cahoots with the Triad. That the drugs were hidden in the propitiatory offerings, in the wooden elephants and the porcelain dragons. And that the statues were then divvied up in the Chinese neighborhoods of other cities, always with the blessing of Guan Hin. The Triads were very generous with the divinity. They had to be if they wanted a place in heaven. The cash was in the red envelopes—and that was for the monks. I explained to her that this was none of my business. A guy can buy paradise any way he wants—even with an envelope filled with powder. Besides, the head monk was a dog lover.
“I love dogs, too, Visko, but I don’t go around dealing this stuff. Damn it. I can’t believe that you knew these things and didn’t notify headquarters.” She was overstimulated, she was shaking with indignation and nerves.
“A slice of the pie belongs to them, too, puppy,” I explained to her. “Korzybski made the mistake of biting off more than he could chew. He didn’t stick to the deal, and that’s why they wiped him out. Years ago, when I was still on the force, Agent Ljuba and I uncovered this trail together. I can assure you that nobody in Narcotics lifted a finger. And Ljuba paid with her life.”
“Ljuba. She was very beautiful, wasn’t she?”
“You can say that again. She was an alpha female.”
“We owe it to them, Visko.”
“Huh?”
“Listen. I might not be the best detective, but I am sure of one thing: I’m not going to leave this place until I’ve confiscated at least a sample of that stuff. I owe it to them. To Zucotic, and to Ljuba. And you’re going to help me, Viskovitz. Because you have a job to finish.” With an irresistible swirl, she brushed her fur on my loins and then stopped to look me in the eye. We understood each other.
You're an Animal, Viskovitz Page 8