The Dogfather

by Conant, Susan

  Drama queen no more, Carla was in a panic. “No! No! Anthony! He’ll be buried alive! He’ll fall six feet under! No!”

  Guarini caught my eye and pointed a finger at me.

  You see? Good help isn’t hard to find. Without pausing to beg anyone’s pardon, I pushed my way to Carla and in a Don Corleone tone spoke to the men who restrained her. “Take her far away.”

  My black corduroy dress was one I’d never liked. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn it. The dog treats in the pockets had held up well; the liver had been freeze-dried to begin with. I crushed a couple of morsels and rubbed my hands together to coat them with what I hoped would be the irresistible scent of meat. As Guarini’s men led Carla away, the little dog, Anthony, quit his prancing to watch her departure. Calmly and quietly, I managed to block his view of his retreating mistress. Anthony stood on his four tiny paws in the exact center of the coffin. If I’d tried to grab him, he’d probably have evaded my grasp, run, and ended up falling underground. Still, I had to suppress the impulse to snatch at him as well as the urge to look him straight in the eye and try to boss him around. Instead, I slowly reached out and placed a bit of liver about a foot from the end of the coffin. I kept my hand there, palm up, motionless, as if I’d forgotten to remove it. Murmuring to myself in happy, almost inaudible, tones, I fixed my gaze on the liver. Old trainer’s trick: To get a dog to move from one place to another, instead of staring at the dog, stare at the place you want him to go. Never having had the opportunity to wise up to dog trainer wiles, Anthony danced across the coffin and lowered his nose to the liver. The hand I’d so carefully and so casually left there wrapped itself firmly around Anthony’s belly. “Gotcha,” I said. “Good dog.”

  Thus ended both my capture of Anthony and the funeral rites of Joseph Cortiniglia. I didn’t wait to watch as the Last of the Cave People—except one, his sister Jeannine—was lowered into the earth. Joey’s widow, Carla, probably should’ve seen her husband out, but she was busy getting her dog back. Carla was gratifyingly profuse in her thanks. She said that whenever Anthony got away from her, all he did was run away; never once had she been able to catch him. “Have I, Anthony? You’re too fast for Mummy, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Anthony doesn’t like to come when Mummy calls...”

  My stomach turned. I like dogs: great and small, including really small. The one who made me queasy was Carla, who was holding Anthony out in front of her and babbling at him as if he were a stuffed animal or a figurine. The poor dog was lucky that Carla hadn’t made him wear a dress.

  “We’ve been a naughty boy today, haven’t we? We got our lovely new velvet suit all wet and messy, so we couldn’t wear it.”

  In the hope of being rescued from Carla, I looked toward the tombstone behind which Al Favuzza had taken shelter from the discussion of bodies and ground. But Guarini appeared at my elbow. “Good,” he said.

  “I aim to please.”

  Carla cut me off by bursting into tears and wailing self-evident truths about Joey: He was gone. He was really gone. We’d never see him again. Then she switched to bawling about her gratitude to Enzio. She didn’t know what she’d do without him. He was a good man. He was a wonderful man. He was a man with a sense of family.

  Then she did a rear-choked encore of her song about me. “This lady’s a genius! If she hadn’t’ve been there, Anthony... well, it would’ve been awful. Anthony won’t listen to a word I say.”

  Guarini’s response horrified me. “Holly can fix that,” he assured Carla. He eyed me.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I’d be delighted.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Where’ve you been? A Mafia funeral?” Rita thought she was joking.

  As my dear friend as well as my second-floor tenant, Rita knew all about my phobia. Come to think of it, as a clinical psychologist, Rita undoubtedly knew my whole inner life better than I did. She’d been walking down Appleton Street toward our shared driveway when Guarini’s limo had dropped me off. For once, I’d been anything but happy to see her, mainly because psychotherapy was not just her profession, but her calling in life; she always felt spiritually compelled to ask personal questions and was constitutionally incapable of believing that something—anything—could be none of her damned business. When Zap had stopped the limo, Al Favuzza had stepped out and held the door for me. Even more than Guarini himself or any of his other henchmen, Al Favuzza looked like a mobster. He looked more like a mobster than he did like a vampire, and that’s saying something. Naked, right out of the shower, Favuzza probably looked as if he were carrying a concealed weapon. I wouldn’t have put it past him to do just that. Ugh. Let’s skip over the possibilities.

  Adopting Rita’s tone, I said, “It’s a new hobby of mine. I’ve overcome my phobia. Now I flit from funeral to funeral without a twinge of the old panic. As you’ve no doubt observed, the transportation is nothing short of elegant, and I am becoming a connoisseur of floral tributes.”

  “I like your dress,” Rita said. “It’s so cheerful and springlike.” Rita wore a yellow linen suit with good shoes. She is so un-Cambridge. I’m one Cambridge type: denim and T-shirts. Another is ethnic: Peruvian hats. Another is expensive jersey drapery with chunky handcrafted jewelry. Rita is pure New York: style before comfort.

  I fingered the dowdy black corduroy. “ ‘April is the crudest month,’ you know.”

  “May I ask what you’ve been up to?”

  “A pun! May. April. Rita, how unlike you!”

  “You’re avoiding something. Black dress, Cadillac limousine. Bela Lugosi Meets the Godfather?”

  Rita’s professional time may truly be worth what she charges for it. “Do not mention any of this to Kevin. And do not tell Steve, either. Don’t tell anyone. You want some coffee? Lunch?”

  One of Rita’s patients had canceled, so she had time to accept my invitation. When I’d let the dogs out into the fenced yard, made coffee, seated Rita at my kitchen table, and spread it with sandwich fixings, I told her the entire story of my association with Enzio Guarini. I wasn’t about to waste the free availability of Rita’s expensive therapeutic ear by spilling anything less than the full, absolute truth. I omitted not one single thing... except the small matter of Joey Cortiniglia’s manner of death. Guarini had told me that it hadn’t happened. Therefore, it hadn’t.

  Rita isn’t normally the kind of therapist—or friend— who limits herself to um-ing and nodding and asking how you feel about things. Consequently, I was surprised when she asked how I felt. To be specific, she said, “Enzio Guarini is a notorious criminal. He is a racketeer and a loan shark and a multiple murderer, for a start, and the only reason he’s out of jail is corruption in the Boston office of the FBI. How do you feel about accepting money from a person like that?”

  “Rita, I am helping him with his puppy. You make it sound as though I’ve switched from dog training to contract killing. What I am is Dog, Incorporated, not Murder, Incorporated,” In case you, too, wondered, let me state that as a matter of pride, I hadn’t taken Guarini’s money. “Since when did you become so big on inducing guilt?”

  “Holly, that’s blood money. It’s ill-gotten gains.”

  I chose not to tell Rita that I was a volunteer. “Rita, my car is falling to pieces. It is a hazard and an embarrassment. I have two big dogs to feed, not to mention myself.”

  “Such martyrdom! And when did you suddenly start earning a living by training other people’s dogs?”

  “I’ve helped people with their dogs before.”

  “People who adopted dogs from Malamute Rescue. Do you charge those people?”

  “No, but I’ve coached people who were starting to show in obedience.”

  “A handful of times.”

  “I am perfectly qualified.”

  “Of course you are. This isn’t a matter of qualifications. It’s a matter of ethics. Holly, why would you have anything to do with scum like Enzio Guarini?”

  “I’m scared to death of him.”

&n
bsp; “Talk to Kevin.”

  “No! Look, Rita, I can handle this. I have a plan. I just go along with Guarini. I train his puppy, Frey. I help Guarini to work with Frey. Guarini actually knows a lot about dogs. It’s just that the puppy has more energy than he does, and Guarini’s approach is old-fashioned. When it comes to puppy training, he’s out of date.”

  “I wonder why that is,” Rita said snidely.

  I ignored the remark. “And once the puppy is shaped up, that’s that. I’m done. I never have to see Guarini again.”

  “And that’s why you’ve just come from a funeral.”

  “You want me to stay phobic? Here before your psychotherapeutic eyes, the forces of mental health are triumphing over neurosis, and your only response is to be negative and critical?”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do. And do not mention any of this to Steve.”

  “Speaking of—”

  “Rita, I have to tell you, his puppy is so beautiful. He’s called Sammy. He looks so much like Rowdy you can hardly believe it.”

  “I was starting to ask about Steve. ”

  “Rita, Steve is a real dog person. If you ask him how he is, he’ll tell you about his dogs.”

  “So if I want to hear how he is, I need to ask about his dogs? So, how are Steve’s dogs?”

  “Fine. The puppy is wonderful. Steve called early this morning to say that he’d introduced the puppy to India, and things went well. Lady wasn’t an issue. She accepted Sammy right away.”

  “Does there exist a way for me to find out how Steve is?”

  “His dogs are fine. There’s your answer. If they’re fine, he’s fine. He’s crazy about the puppy. Therefore, he’s more than fine.”

  “Steve’s dogs were fine last summer. And last fall. He wasn’t.”

  “The core of his being was. He’d just been temporarily led astray by bad companions. Or one bad companion.”

  “Whom he married.”

  “I said he was led astray. He was led far astray.”

  “I don’t want to force you to talk about things you’re uncomfortable talking about. I just hope you’re dealing with them in your own way. When is his divorce going to be final?”

  “I don’t know. And my own way of dealing with things is via dogs, and that’s Steve’s way, too.”

  Rita rolled her eyes.

  “Look, Rita, I know I sound defensive.”

  She waved her hands in the air in a gesture of brushing my words aside. “Not at all.”

  “Spare me the sarcasm. Look, if I’d listened to you, none of it would’ve happened. You told me over and over that I was taking Steve for granted. You told me that the consistent message I gave him was that my dogs came first and that he got whatever time and energy were left over. You quoted the song: ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find!”’

  “A good man is hard to find,” Rita said.

  “I know that. Now.”

  “And?”

  “And how things are with Steve and me is fragile. Delicate. We are heartbreakingly considerate of each other. We are afraid of intruding. All the old comfort is gone, except that we still know each other so well. Also, weirdly enough, we have fun together. At least we did at Logan when we picked up Sammy. And I know you’re going to say that anyone can have fun, but—”

  “Not so! Fun is a good sign. Laughter is good for you.”

  “Didn’t Nietzsche say something about laughter and the death of the soul?”

  “Nietzsche,” said Rita, “was crazy. That’s my professional opinion. Besides, Nietzsche is dead.”

  So, of course, was Joey Cortiniglia, as reported in a short paragraph buried (sorry) in the middle of that day’s newspaper, which I skimmed after Rita returned to the miserable task of sitting in her office listening to people whine. Here’s what the paper said:

  REPUTED MOB ASSOCIATE DIES

  Joseph “Little Joey” Cortiniglia (36) died of a heart attack on Tuesday. Cortiniglia was rumored to have ties to recently released alleged organized crime boss Enzio Guarini. Cortiniglia had been convicted only once, for running a dice game. Guarini refused comment on Cortiniglia’s death except to say that Cortiniglia was a respectable citizen and businessman. Cortiniglia headed a pest control company in Munford.

  So there you have it: the official story of Joey’s death from what I knew damn well to be a reported, reputed, rumored, alleged, thoroughly fictitious, fabricated, and imaginary heart attack. In a peculiar way, Guarini had once again gotten away with murder.

  CHAPTER 9

  That night, I dreamed that my beat-up old Bronco was parked in the middle of a vast stretch of otherwise empty blacktop. Rowdy and Kimi were hitched to its undercarriage. Just as in real life, they were gnawing on big beef bones. Prone on the asphalt, I raised what felt like a heavy hand to my head. My fingers encountered a big, wet bullet hole. Both dogs stopped chewing and stared at me, their eyes brimming with trust. I awoke with the realization that the head with the bullet hole could have been mine instead of Joey’s. I absolutely had to rid myself of the Mob. The sooner I transformed Frey into the perfect canine companion, the sooner I’d be free of Guarini.

  The boss had been right to be wary of public places. Furthermore, what had felt like his senseless prohibition on puppy kindergarten now seemed sensible. Somehow, I’d have to socialize and train Frey without becoming a Sicilian message to Enzio Guarini. As I finished my second cup of morning coffee, I jotted down an intensive training plan for Frey. Rowdy and Kimi, seeing my edginess, watched me with the same trust I’d felt from them in the dream. With regard to dog training, their trust was well placed. I told them so. “When it comes to people,” I said, “I’m perfectly likely to bungle things, but I do know how to train dogs. No public places? We’ll create them here. No puppy kindergarten? We’ll do our own.” I picked up the phone and called Steve at his clinic. “How you doing?” I asked.

  Proving the point I’d made to Rita, he said, “Sammy is quite a character.” Steve went on to report that India was mothering Sammy and that Lady was afraid of him. Steve and I agreed that since Lady was afraid of everything, her reaction was normal, at least for her.

  "What’ve you been up to?” he asked with an attempt at casualness.

  “Up to?” I replied, thinking of Guarini. “Nothing! Nothing at all! Not a thing. Not one thing.” Coming to my senses, I said, “Actually, I’m training a puppy who needs socialization, and it occurred to me”—a gross understatement—“that I could do a sort of mini puppy class here with him and Sammy. Basic socialization. Puppy play. Fun stuff. Very carefully supervised. I don’t believe in leaving puppies free to practice bad behavior. You interested?”

  After making sure that Frey had been thoroughly vet checked and was free of contagious diseases and up to date on his shots, Steve eagerly accepted the invitation.

  Next I called Guarini, who again told me what good work I’d done with Carla’s coffin-dancing little fiend, Anthony.

  “Elementary,” I said modestly. “I have a new plan for Frey. The story is that a friend of mine has a malamute puppy, younger than Frey, and I want to get the puppies together here. It’s a great opportunity to socialize Frey.” Guarini agreed. The plan was that on prescheduled weekday mornings, Steve or one of his assistants would drop Sammy off here. At ten, Frey would arrive. He’d stay for two hours of puppy play and training before being limoed home. I’d then return Sammy to Steve’s, or keep him with me. Steve would never run into Guarini’s men. In the two hours Frey was with me, I could do multiple brief training sessions with him. And, of course, I’d get to spend time with Rowdy’s little son. Perfect! For the rest of the day, I puppy-proofed the house, set up crates, and assembled supplies. While I was at it, I put together a puppy-training lesson plan for Guarini to use with Frey.

  Holly’s Puppy School opened its door the next morning when Sammy the malamute barged into my kitchen right on schedule. Rowdy and Kimi were in their crates in my bedroom. Why? Because
when it comes to malamutes, true love means deep understanding, which means profound mistrust; I intended to introduce Rowdy and Kimi to Sammy one grown-up dog at a time, very gradually and very carefully. First, the big dogs would get used to the scent of Sammy in their house, as they were doing this morning.

  Sammy busied himself distributing that scent. His baby tail waving in the air, Sammy bounded and bounced from room to room, corner to corner, lingering to sniff and paw, then eagerly returning to the adventure of puppy-mapping this brand new territory. Every puppy is Neil Armstrong, and the planet Earth is every puppy’s moon.

  Sammy’s partner in exploration, Frey, arrived on schedule at ten, delivered by Zap, who failed to recognize Sammy as the puppy he’d seen at Logan and asked how much I wanted for him. When I’d sent Zap on his way, my little pupils got a ten-minute recess in the fenced yard, during which time I sat on the steps and watched the boys play. At first, Frey hid under a bush, but Sammy lured him out and before long, the two were the picture of busyness as they engaged in hide-and-go-seek without the hide, in other words, tearing around for the joy of tearing around. Except to work on housebreaking by offering praise and treats for going outside (“Good puppy!”), I didn’t have to step in at all. The mistake Guarini had made in trying to housebreak Frey had been the common one of letting him out. To house-train a puppy, you don’t just let him out. You take him out so you’re right there to reinforce the desired behavior.

  After recess, Sammy had nap time in a pint-size crate, while I worked with Frey on the fundamentals of canine civilization: come, sit, down, stay. Guarini’s pup and I practiced off leash in my kitchen, in my living room, and in my fenced yard; and on leash in my driveway. As I told Frey, he was brilliant, excellent, wonderful; he was my good dog, my good puppy, my good Frey. He learned quickly, and, in so doing, he was rapidly going to break my ties to his master. The puppies then got another run in the yard. When I’d crated the little ones, Rowdy and Kimi got to go outside. After returning the big dogs to their crates, I again worked with Frey, and then he and Sammy tore around. Finally, I leashed Frey, took him into the yard, and in calm, rewarding circumstances, introduced him to startling stimuli: a bicycle and a bicycle horn. Back in the house, Frey met Tracker, my cat.