The Dogfather

by Conant, Susan

  When Steve got out of his van, I moved into his arms in a way I hadn’t done for ages. Possibly by accident, Kimi didn’t step between us. Steve rested his head on mine and breathed into my hair. He held me so tightly that I felt surrounded by his strength. He had the same clean smell I’d always loved. Men’s cologne was something he’d never used. Now that his mother was dead, no one would give him any ever again. All her ill-chosen presents would stop: the hideous sweaters he donated unworn to charity, the incompetently embroidered wall hangings depicting dogs and cats suffering from what Steve always maintained were easily diagnosable afflictions. He’d miss the unintended amusement her gifts had provided. He might even miss her cooking: the lime gelatine salads with fake mayonnaise, the canned-soup casseroles, and the other specialties of the house that I’d slipped to her dog whenever I’d visited. Could the true cause of her death have been that dreadful food?

  “She was really a good mother,” I said. “She loved you a lot. She adored you.” Consequently, she must have hated everything about Steve’s marriage to the rotten, if beautiful, Anita, but I didn’t say so.

  “She always liked you, Holly.”

  “I liked her, too. Steve, I am so sorry.” Unaccountably, Kimi had refrained from barging in on the tenderest moment Steve and I had shared since he’d married the human fiend. Even now, observing an exchange that didn’t include her, Kimi continued to sit on the asphalt, but broke her silence by emitting one loud, musical, and highly expressive syllable: Whoooooooo. Her breath control is stupendous; she should give voice lessons. Steve recognized this particular monosyllabic outpouring as a vocalization that Kimi reserved for special people and special occasions. When he laughed in reply, it was with Kimi and not at her.

  Beautiful.

  Except that Steve also turned to look in Kimi’s direction and thus saw the demolished floral arrangement I’d dropped next to the trash barrels. With regard to divine punishment in the form of bad luck, let me say that although I’d recently been guilty of moral compromises in my dealings with Enzio Guarini, I had always tried to be a good person—hardworking, kind to animals, and except in the lamentable cases of Mary Wood and Harry Howland, loyal to human friends. For whatever reason, Heaven did not reward me at this crucial moment by celestially burning out the flood lights mounted over the back door of my house. On the contrary, the floods lived up to their name by washing light all over the ruined flowers and all over Steve’s face. When I’d kicked that basket, I hadn’t merely tapped it with my foot; I’d smashed it to pieces. The basket lay on its side. Crushed blossoms and broken stems protruded from rips in the plastic wrapping. I might just as well have driven my foot into Steve’s solar plexus and deposited him in the garbage. His face didn’t fall; it plummeted. Then all expression left it.

  “You have every reason to feel bitter,” he said as calmly and slowly as usual. “I don’t blame you. You know, I ordered those this morning, and with everything that’s happened, I’d forgotten. It was a stupid thing to do. I should’ve known better.”

  “Steve—”

  “Don’t.” He opened the door to the rear of the van, climbed in, and emerged with Sammy in his arms. Handing the puppy to me, he said, “Holly, don’t. You had every reason. If you want, Sammy can stay with—”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m leaving my van here for you. There’s no point in having it sit at the airport. I’ll take a cab.”

  “I’ll drive you to Logan.”

  He shook his head.

  Let me at least drive you home.”

  But he just handed me his keys and walked away.

  CHAPTER 26

  All that malarkey about love and warm puppies makes me want to throw up. Adult dogs give and receive love just as warmly as puppies do. The love I shared with Rowdy and Kimi was intense and profound. Right now, the last thing I needed was the emotional equivalent of a deep-muscle massage inflicted on painful bruises. Sammy tickled my injuries. He did his puppy-cute best to brush them lightly away.

  By now, I’d examined and opened the florist’s envelope that had accompanied the flowers. The basket had come from a Cambridge florist, not from Carla Cortiniglia’s shop. The message inside the card had consisted of one word, the sender’s name: Steve. A shaking chill had run through me. I’d turned on the oil burner and set the thermometer to seventy degrees. Then I’d made hot cocoa, wrapped myself in a blanket, and, after crating Rowdy and Kimi, let Sammy loose in the kitchen, where he skittered over to the running shoes I’d left by the bedroom door. He grabbed one, shook it hard, and paraded around with it dangling from his mouth. I know better than to confuse a puppy by letting him think that any shoe is a toy; shoes should be off limits. Now, instead of substituting a dog toy for the shoes, I let myself wallow in the healing here-and-now of Sammy’s delight. Zen Buddhism is hot in Cambridge. It’s half religion and half competitive sport. I meditate for two hours a day loses to Well, I meditate for three hours a day and sometimes four. The Buddhistically ambitious spend entire weekends at retreat centers in the Berkshires where they rack up scores of eight, ten, or twelve hours a day and return to Cambridge to lord it over the lazy Buddhists who wasted Saturday and Sunday sleeping late and mowing the lawn. If I’m ever hauled up before the Harvard Square Court of Meditation Enforcement and charged with failing to own one of those zillion-dollar meditation cushions, I’m sure to get off because I practice my own Zen. Now I no longer was—but was lost in Sammy’s rapture with that old shoe.

  Nirvana, even puppy-induced nirvana, is impermanent. Before bed, I checked the locks on all the windows, and double-locked and bolted the doors. Paradoxically, the small acts of precaution raised my fears for Rowdy and Kimi. Nonetheless, I remained in Sammy’s thrall and slept deeply. In the morning, even before my first cup of coffee, I called Mrs. Dennehy. Kevin had done well in surgery and survived the night. His condition, she reported, had been upgraded from grave to serious. “I’m praying for Kevin, and I hope you are, too,” she said severely.

  It was the guilt-inducing tone of her voice that sent me to the worldwide web that morning. Specifically, I went to the FBI site, from which I captured three photos of Blackie Lanigan. Capture, as you probably know and as I’d explained to Kevin, refers to downloading images from web sites and has nothing to do with capturing criminals, except in this case, obviously. Once having captured Blackie in that limited sense, I printed all three portraits on glossy paper. Mrs. Dennehy had informed me that Kevin was in Intensive Care and not allowed visitors. When the ban was lifted, I’d have presents ready for him. If it was lifted? If he lived to have it... I didn’t want to think about that.

  Another intolerable thought was that by now Guarini must’ve heard and interpreted Zap’s account of dropping me off yesterday: the men lounging by the anonymous-iooking car, my panicked response. I considered the possibility of concocting a story for Guarini, but decided that it was more dangerous to lie to him than it was to tell the truth. Frey was due to arrive for a training session at any moment. What if his owner delivered the little elk-hound in person? If he did, I’d let Guarini take the initiative. If he asked about the men, I’d tell him who they were and what they’d wanted. If Guarini believed me, I might even plead for protection for my dogs.

  Guarini himself didn’t bring Frey to me, but the puppy’s arrival broke the usual pattern. Instead of being chauffeured in the Zap-driven limousine, Frey was escorted by Favuzza as well as by Zap in the silver Suburban that had served as Joey Cortiniglia’s first hearse. I’d seen the big car off and on since then and had assumed that it belonged to Guarini or to one of his enterprises and was a company car. Yes, as in “bad company.” I was taking out the trash when the Suburban drove up with Zap at the wheel and Al Favuzza in the passenger seat. The exterior of the car was clean, but the dashboard was littered with fast-food wrappers, and the backseat was piled with debris. On top of a jacket I recognized as Al Favuzza’s, a tabloid newspaper proclaimed that Hitler’s nose had been cloned an
d had sprouted a moustache. In his crate in the rear, Frey was barking loudly.

  Zap, who must’ve noticed that my eyes were on the junk in the car, said, “All this shit’s Al’s.”

  Favuzza told him to shut up. To me, Favuzza said, “I heard you had visitors.”

  “Unwelcome visitors,” I said.

  “Mr. G. says if they give you a hard time, you let him know.”

  “Thank you,” I said. Then I got Frey, and the thugs drove off.

  The training session with Frey went well. Not to brag or anything, but Guarini had reason to be grateful to me. In general, I’m a good dog trainer. With a gun to my head, I’m brilliant, and Frey was a bright, alert, hardworking little guy. When the puppy boys, Frey and Sammy, had their outside play time, I was careful not to give them the opportunity to practice aggressive behavior. But I didn’t have to intervene once. “I am very proud of both of you,” I told the puppies. And meant it.

  When Zap arrived to pick up Frey, the little elkhound was zonked out on a blanket in a corner of the kitchen, and Sammy was prancing around with his tail in the air, the devil in his eyes, and Rowdy’s favorite fleece chewman in his mouth. He greeted Zap by depositing the toy at his feet. The welcome was pure Rowdy.

  Zap, damn him, destroyed my delight by demanding, “How much you want for this one?”

  Red hair runs in my family. Leah has it. The color skipped me, but I got the temper. It snapped. “Stop it! Sammy is not for sale. Rowdy and Kimi are not for sale. Mr. Wookie was not for sale. Stop trying to buy people’s dogs! It’s... it’s...” I groped for the right word and, ridiculously, sputtered, “It’s inappropriate!"

  “This one ain't yours.”

  “Sammy belongs to a friend of mine, and he’s Rowdy’s son, and that makes him close enough to being mine. If you want a dog, go to a breeder or a shelter, but stop trying to buy dogs that already belong to other people!”

  Zap remained impassive. He took Frey and left. At a guess, once outside my door, he muttered obscene retorts, but I didn’t hear them and didn’t care.

  After checking on Kevin’s condition—still serious—I devoted the afternoon to earning a living. My unpaid puppy training for Guarini had cut into my writing time, so I resisted the lure of beautiful spring weather and shut myself in my study with no company except the computer and Tracker the cat. Allowing myself only short breaks to refill my coffee cup and take Sammy out, I finished a column for Dog’s Life. For that same esteemed publication, I also wrote a new-product review of (incredibly) dog litter. Whenever I imagine that all this dog lunacy has gone as far as it possibly can, it exceeds the limits of my imagination. Cat litter for dogs. Dear God! Not for malamutes, I should add. Not yet. Not that I know of, anyway.

  Starting at about five-thirty, I fed all three dogs, took Sammy out briefly, puttered around, made myself a salad, ate it, and decided to take Rowdy and Kimi for a walk. By most people’s standards, they hadn’t been neglected lately, but Rowdy and Kimi weren’t most people, and they were used to a lot of attention. Because of Deitz’s threat, I felt apprehensive about taking the dogs out, but also because of Deitz, I felt apprehensive at home, too, and the dogs needed the kind of sustained exercise they didn’t get from short dashes in my small yard. I reminded myself that the sun hadn’t set; Deitz and Mazolla wouldn’t try to grab or injure my dogs on city streets in the remains of daylight.

  Little Sammy simply had to stay home; I couldn’t safely manage Rowdy, Kimi, and the puppy. I expected to feel guilty about deserting him, but when I leashed the big dogs and peered into Sammy’s crate in the kitchen, he was curled up asleep with his head resting on Rowdy’s chewman. To avoid awakening him, I led Rowdy and Kimi out, and gently pulled the door shut.

  The spring day lingered. I wore a short-sleeved T-shirt and enjoyed the sensation of mild air on my bare arms. To malamutes, ideal weather is five below with a fierce wind. In winter, Rowdy and Kimi will pause during our walks to savor the icy gusts. That night, we headed briskly down Appleton Street, crossed Huron Avenue, and continued uphill. Moving at a fast, confident pace somehow gave me confidence about the dogs’ safety. When we reached the fancy part of Appleton Street, the gigantic houses with their manicured yards seemed to radiate the sense that nothing terrible could happen amidst such beauty and opulence. Glancing around, I kept telling myself that I was admiring my surroundings and not scanning for the approach of clean-cut men in innocent-looking cars. I eventually realized that I’d unconsciously headed in the direction of Mount Auburn Hospital. Kevin was allowed visits only from close family members, and no matter how human Rowdy and Kimi were in my eyes, they’d never fool the ICU staff into mistaking them for a Dennehy brother and sister. Although it felt comforting and secure to walk in Kevin’s direction, I made the dogs turn around as twilight began to change to night, and I set a fast pace toward home.

  When we got there, Sammy was gone.

  CHAPTER 27

  The door of Sammy’s empty crate stood open. On the off chance that I’d failed to fasten it properly or that Sammy had somehow managed to open the door, I called to him and, with increasing urgency, searched the house. Sammy was a jaunty extrovert, not the kind of puppy who’d hole up in some hiding spot, especially once he heard my voice. He wasn’t behind the headboard of my bed, a favorite place of Kimi’s when she made off with greasy pizza cartons and other booty. I looked not only for the living Sammy but for his body. Puppies can stick their heads in small spaces, panic, writhe, and strangle. There was no sign of Sammy at all, not a puddle on the floor, not a puppy-destroyed object. Also missing was the toy I’d left in Sammy’s crate, the fleece chewman that was a favorite of Rowdy’s. In daring to take Rowdy and Kimi for a walk, I’d focused my fears on the wrong dogs in the wrong place; while Rowdy and Kimi had been out with me, Sammy had been stolen from my house.

  Deitz had threatened Rowdy and Kimi, not Sammy. The person who’d had his eye on the puppy was Zap. I remembered the expressionless mask of Zap’s face when I’d delivered my diatribe about his efforts to buy people’s dogs. I’d imagined that once he was out of my hearing, he’d snarl and curse. Zap’s reaction, I now thought, hadn’t consisted of violent retorts. Zap wasn’t exactly a man of words. I’d dissed him. In retaliation, he’d stolen Sammy.

  Adrenaline made my heart pound and my brain zing. Five minutes on-line told me that Zappardino was, indeed, an unusual name. The web site showed one Zappardino in East Boston and one—aha!—at 57 George Street in Munford. In seconds, I had the address and a printed map of the neighborhood together with driving directions. Zap was stupid, but not stupid enough to let Guarini know he’d stolen a puppy that could easily be traced to me. On our recent shopping trip, Zap had told me that he lived with his mother. I was betting that he’d taken Sammy home to dear old avocado-less Mom.

  Preparing to steal the puppy back, I dressed like a cat burglar. Cat, indeed! Absurd! Anyway, I replaced my T-shirt with a black turtleneck and added an old black denim jacket with oversized pockets. My equipment consisted of a leash, a mini flashlight, a small hammer, and the most non-Cambridge of objects, a handgun. I grew up in rural Maine, where firearms were ordinary, almost ubiquitous, household possessions, like eggbeaters and screwdrivers; the question wasn’t why you’d own such a thing but why you wouldn’t. My Smith & Wesson Ladysmith had been a gift from my father. I know how to use it. I store it safely. But please do not tell my neighbors about it. I’m enough of a misfit here already.

  Steve’s van needed no preparation. I put Rowdy and Kimi into Lady’s and India’s crates. Typically, despite his mother’s death, Steve had left me a full tank of gas. To reach Munford, I didn’t have to consult the driving directions, and although night had fallen, I had no trouble finding George Street, home of someone listed as L. Zap-pardino, who was, I hoped, Zap’s mother. Closely spaced multifamily houses lined the narrow one-way street. Some houses had driveways, but off-street parking was limited, and cars were parked along both sides. A few residents had followe
d the practice of reserving the spots in front of their houses with traffic cones, trash barrels, or lawn chairs. In winter, lots of people throughout Greater Boston lay claim in this fashion to spaces they’ve shoveled, but you occasionally see parking turf staked out year round. The custom was popular on George Street. In front of number 57, a tattered aluminum chaise longue occupied an otherwise empty spot on the right-hand side of the street. A block ahead, also on the right-hand side, I found a space big enough for the van. I parked, shut off the engine, stowed my equipment in the capacious pockets of my jacket, carefully locked the van, and set off on foot toward what I thought must be Zap’s house. When I’d gone no more than twenty or thirty feet, headlights appeared down George Street, and a big car approached. I stopped. So did the car. The driver’s door opened. A figure stepped out into the street, ran around the car, moved the chaise longue to the sidewalk, returned to the car, and parked it—directly in front of number 57. Immediately, the driver got out, went up the front walk, and ascended a short flight of stairs to a small porch with a light mounted over two doors. Resisting the urge to dash forward, I settled for long, rapid strides. In seconds, I was close enough to have a clear view of the big car and its driver. The car was the familiar silver Suburban. Plainly visible under the porch light was Zap, who turned a key in the lock of the left-hand door and vanished into the house. Sammy wasn’t with him.

  With no hesitation, I cut between two parked cars and ran down the street to the Suburban. Speed was all I had going for me, speed and the bit of luck that consisted of the Zappardino family’s evident habit of keeping every blind and curtain in the house tightly shut. The porch light at the Zappardinos’ house seemed to brighten and almost to shine right at me as I approached the Suburban, but that same light let me see that neither Al Favuzza nor anyone else occupied the passenger seat of the Suburban. I didn’t waste time creeping around the big car and peering into the back. When I reached the driver’s side door, I already had a grip on the hammer I’d brought and was about to raise it and smash the window when Zap’s behavior registered on me: He’d been in a big hurry. I tried the car door. It was unlocked. But when I’d opened it only an inch or two, I heard what sounded like the banging of a storm door from a nearby house. Just how nearby? Ducking down, I peered through the Suburban’s windows. The Zappardinos’ porch was just as it had been; no one was there, and both front doors were closed. But the false alarm scared me. If Zap had left the car door unlocked, he intended to be right back. I had no time.