A Hell of a Dog (19 page)

Boris grunted, appeased by what she'd added.

Audrey asked Tracy to bring Jeff up, but she declined, saying that Jeff had always told her absolutely everything he required for total happiness. She was clinging on so tight, I had to wonder exactly which beans she was afraid Jeff would spill.

Boris was sitting quietly now, stroking Sasha's neck. How easily he'd gone into a rage, I thought. And then I had a psychic revelation of my own. For just a moment, there was a picture in my head, the way you remember a snippet of a dream before it blows away as quickly as it came. I saw a hand, maybe Boris's hand, leaning down on that small shelf in the hotel bathrooms, the one they leave the extra towels on, the one that Alan Cooper had put the radio on so that he could listen to music while he soaked in the tub.

Bucky had brought Alexi to the stage and had gone back to his seat.

“I can't understand a word he's saying,” Audrey said. “Does anyone here speak Russian?”

But before Boris got the chance to volunteer, her hands were up, stopping the laughter and letting us know we should remain in our places. “This is the time for me to explain how psychic communication with animals works. Or more accurately, how it doesn't work. It doesn't work in words, so language differences never become language barriers. The communication is done in pictures, things the dog imagines and sends to you and things you imagine and the dog picks up. I'll ask you to close your eyes now—no, not you, Alexi, you can keep your eyes open.”

There was laughter again. I looked around and saw everyone smiling, eyes closed. Audrey had won them over. Even Boris had his eyes closed.

I closed my eyes and waited for Audrey's voice to tell me what to do, but before she said a word, another picture came, an awful picture, Rick Shelbert turning pale as he struggled for air.

I opened my eyes and thought about what Chip had said when I'd told him I'd been late because I'd stopped to powder my nose.

You didn't do a very good job
.

He was right. I hadn't.

I had been hired to prevent the loss of life, and yet two people were dead. I thought about the elevator falling, the people not being warned. Maybe once things were set in motion, there was no way to stop them. Maybe all I could do, like the police, was make sure that whoever was doing this would be found out, that we could have the small but important satisfaction of knowing who and why. But that wasn't enough. There had to be an end to this.

“Is there an image in your mind now?”

Her voice seemed to be coming from very far away.

“If you have a companion animal with you, change the image so that you are picturing something pleasant that includes your pet, taking him for a walk in the park, feeding him a favorite treat, or playing a game he likes. One image. And hold that image. Now see if your pet starts to react in any way, but don't open your eyes yet. Wait until you're sure he's got it.”

Dashiell wasn't impressed. He was lying on his side, snoring lightly. But sitting there and watching Audrey bonding with Alexi, I was formulating a mental image that got me excited, a way that, starting tonight, I could do my job better, a way, I hoped, to interfere with fate and prevent the next senseless killing.

20

I'VE BEEN HEARING RUMORS ABOUT YOU

“Ante up, people,” Woody said, breaking the seal on the deck and shuffling. “Ante. From the Latin, meaning ‘before.' Come on, Boris. You know the American saying, A fool and his money are soon parted. Let's go here.”

I tossed my chip and heard the satisfying sound of plastic against plastic as each of my cohorts did the same, the chips landing on each other and then sliding off onto the green felt cover of the round table I'd asked Jimmy to have brought to my room after dinner.

I'd gone out for the supplies myself, not wanting to leave the selection of junk food to an amateur. Boris had volunteered to supply the cigars. He'd brought vodka too, not knowing that I'd had the same idea. We had enough booze to fill a kiddie pool.

I waited until all my cards were in front of me before picking them up.

The other women had declined my proposition, each making her own lame excuse for not spending the night in a cloud of smoke. I didn't care. It was the men I was after. If they were all together playing poker, I hoped they'd all be alive in the morning. Because even without the sort of hard evidence that was needed to change anyone's opinion about what had happened to two of our male speakers, the knot in my stomach was telling me these cleverly orchestrated episodes were not accidents.

I sat next to Chip. Boris was across from me, which is exactly where I wanted him, in full view, and Woody sat at my right, Bucky sat at Chip's left, and Martyn, who had been the only voice of dissent in the group but gave in and came anyway, was sitting between Woody and Boris.

I took a look at my cards. “In,” I said. I tossed in a five-dollar chip, the last of the big spenders.

“Call,” Chip said.

“Call.” Bucky picked up a chip with two fat fingers and tossed it into the pot.

“Boris calls.”

There were two more pings as Martyn and Woody pitched a chip each toward the pot, nobody going out on a limb just yet.

“How many?” Woody asked.

“I'll play these.”

“Two,” Chip said. He peeled off a couple of cards and tossed them to Woody. Woody sent two back, only the three golden retriever puppies showing. I'm nothing if not appropriate.

“One,” Bucky said, trying to look inscrutable.

Boris held his cards from above, his fingers coming down over the top like ivy growing over a stone wall. “Three.”

“Three?”

“You heard Boris,” he said, looking irritated now.

“One,” Martyn said. “No, make that two.”

“I'm taking one,” Woody said. Then he turned to look at me and waited.

Well, let him, I thought. I wasn't here to play cards.

“Weird week, isn't it?” I said, easing in slowly.

Rhonda had gotten up on the bed. She was snoring even louder than Dashiell does.

“In or out?” Woody asked.

“A full house beats a flush, right?” I asked.

Woody slapped his cards down on the table and picked up a cigar.

“It's just that it's been a while,” I said, having too much fun now to stop. “I only wanted to be sure.”

They were all staring.

“Never mind,” I told them, dropping two chips into the pot without bothering to look at my cards again. Hell, with my love life, who had to check my cards in the first place? Anyway, my ploy worked. I had their attention. “So here's what I was thinking—”

“Broads,” Bucky said, holding the cards close to his chest. “Let one sit in on a poker game, and what do you have? A quilting bee. Yadda, yadda, yadda, all night long.” He dropped his free hand to his lap and was moving it rhythmically. I hoped he was petting Angelo, but there was always that other possibility.

“Hasn't it occurred to anyone but me that two fatal accidents mean this isn't a coincidence?”

“It is unusual,” Martyn said, “losing two of our major players like this. But the police said—”

“No, listen,” I said, “think about dog training, you know, when a client calls you up with a string of coincidences, a shopping list of all the dog's bad behavior, and they don't see any connection between, say, the growling and the urinating on the arm of the sofa. But it's always connected. It's never a case of—” I stopped and looked around the table. Bucky was rearranging his cards. Boris was staring across the table. Chip had turned sideways to get a better view of me. Woody was doing the same, except from the other side. And Martyn, who a moment ago had seemed interested and concerned, now looked as if he had gone on an out-of-body trip, imagining himself, perhaps, in a better place, or with a less irritating group of people. I picked up my vodka and tossed it down in one gulp. “Coincidence,” I said.

“It is a bit of a stretch,” Woody said, looking not at me now but at the others.

“Call,” Chip said, tossing in two chips.

“Heavy,” I said. “What do you have, Pressman, a pair of threes?”

Bucky laid down his cards and pitched three chips into the pot. “See you and raise you,” he said. “Female hysteria is what it is. Always imagining more than there is.”

“Maybe Bucky imagines more than there is in his hand,” Boris said. “I look at you. I raise you,” he said, picking up four chips and tossing them in.

“Fold,” Martyn said, laying down his hand and taking one of the fat cigars Boris had put on the table. He slipped off the band, cut off the tip of the cigar, and reached across the table for matches.

I didn't care where this went now. I wanted them to know someone was looking at this differently than the police, that it wasn't just going down as smoothly as ice-cold vodka. I thought maybe it needed one more touch to get the message across.

“Think what you want, Bucky,” I said, “but who says you won't be the next one to have an
accident?
”

“Maybe Bucky causes accidents,” Boris said, and even though I'd felt like smacking him in the past, just then I could have kissed the man.

“Oh, perfect, Boris. Good American thinking. So what's the scenario, pally? Let me see if I can figure it out. I broke into Alan's room, unplugged his radio, carried it into his bathroom, placed it on the shelf over the tub, plugged it in, and then pulled the shelf out of the wall. How am I doing so far?” But it was a rhetorical question, my favorite kind. He held up a hand. There was more to come. “So what was Alan doing while I allegedly did all this, soaping his genitals?”

He looked around for support and found none.

“Great. This is great. So what did I do next? Will someone please tell me how I made Rick choke?”

When no one answered him, or came to his defense, he shot Boris a look and then picked up his cards again, rechecking them to see if his hand had improved in the interim.

Boris looked at me and winked. Then he picked up his shot glass and downed the contents, taking the sweating bottle out of the ice bucket and refilling his glass and mine before putting it back. Fortunately, my mother wasn't here to tsk-tsk about the drinking or tell my cohorts I'd always had an overactive imagination.

Woody picked up four chips and dropped them in the pot.

I threw in five more chips, raising it again, and waited.

“Are you going to call, or aren't you?” I asked when nothing happened.

“I fold,” Chip said.

Bucky slapped his cards onto the table and folded.

“Rachel has big hand,” Boris said. “Boris folds, too.”

I turned and looked at Woody.

“Fold,” he said.

“Cool,” I said, gathering in the chips and adding them to the pile in front of me.

“Starter's luck,” Boris said.

I picked up the cards and began shuffling, fanning them out left and then right to the melodious sound of chips hitting each other.

Suddenly Bucky gave me a concerned look, his face as wrinkled as a shar-pei's. “I meant to tell you, Rachel,” he said, picking up the cards as I dealt and slipping one between two others, “I've been hearing rumors about you for the past few years, since you dropped out of sight.”

He looked up at me now, to make sure he had my attention.

“They say you quit the business because you took a bite, and it scared you off.”

“Really? I heard the same story about you,” I told him, picking up my cards, giving them a look-see, then looking up at Bucky, grinning.

“What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, it's what everyone is saying, that you do all those commercials instead of working with clients because you lost your—”

“What a bunch of crap,” he said.

I looked down at my queens and grinned some more. I've always felt the concept of a poker face was a guy thing. I prefer the grin to the deadpan gaze, Julia Roberts rather than Robert Mitchum, rest his soul. It's better for the immune system.

“Who? Who said that?” Bucky shouted.

“Who do you think?” I asked him. There'd been too many years of Bucky's game, inventing some hideously damaging insult, then passing it on in front of other people as if he were your best friend shouldering an important but difficult message.

Beware the messenger.

Bucky looked back at his hand, quiet for the moment.

“Of course,” I added, “I tell anybody who bad-mouths you, whatever they are saying just isn't so. I tell them that you're a wonderful trainer, absolutely fearless, one of the best in the business, past, present, and future. And that you have huge balls.”

Even before Bucky looked up, surprised, Chip had kicked me in the foot.

“Isn't that what you told them about me?”

“Especially the part about the balls,” Chip muttered.

“Of course, I—”

“So, that's settled.” I flashed him the Kaminsky grin, a watt or two brighter than Julia's. “Let's play cards. In or out, suckers?”

Chip picked up a five-dollar chip and tossed it into the pot.

“Fold.” Bucky picked up his vodka, swallowed it, and slammed his glass down on the table. At the loud sound, Dashiell stood and barked, his tail straight out behind him. Then Betty stood, too. She gave him the eye. Dashiell's shoulders seemed to lift as his tail dropped. He went around to the far side of the bed and lay down with a sigh. There's nothing like the efficiency of an alpha bitch. I hoped I had just proven that, along with Betty.

I looked at Boris. “In or out?” I asked him. “Let's go, people. Are we playing cards here or quilting?”

I heard the ping of three chips, but I wasn't looking. I had just thought of another irritating coincidence. Maybe it was nothing, but at this point, I wanted to check out everything. I knocked back a second vodka, feeling it burn all the way down, and reached for a handful of potato chips. I had to do something to keep my strength up for all the running around I'd have to do the next day. In addition to everything else, I was on a panel in the afternoon.