Chasing Stanley (23 page)

Jason looked uncertain as he pushed a cup of coffee across to her. Delilah lifted the coffee to her lips. The brew was delicious, and the aroma calmed her as she prepared to say the words she'd been rehearsing all morning.

“Look, I want to apologize to you,” Jason said. “I was pissed about something that happened after the game, and I took it out on you. That wasn't right.”

Delilah's mouth fell open.

Jason leaned across the table, concerned. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Delilah replied, trying to blink away the dazed and happy feeling of having been beaten to the punch.

“Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

Delilah nodded.

“I thought so,” said Jason, sounding regretful. “As soon as the cab dropped you off at your apartment, I thought,
You moron, what did you do that for?
It won't happen again, I promise.”

Too warm now, Delilah shed her coat. His apology made her feel confident.

“What happened after the game?” she ventured.

Jason absently fingered his stitches. “My coach is benching me next game. Said I have to learn discipline.”

Delilah bristled. “I think your brother's the one who needs to learn discipline.”

“I'll tell my coach you said that.”

“Are you and Eric speaking?”

Jason looked perplexed. “Why wouldn't we be?”

“You made each other
bleed
, Jason!”

“It's part of the game, Delilah,” Jason replied matter-of-factly, taking a gulp of coffee. “It's nothing personal.”

Delilah tried to imagine beating the hell out of Marcus in the dog park and then the two of them rolling along as if nothing had happened, but couldn't.

“So, I was thinking.” Jason sat up straighter, and his eyes seemed to brighten. Delilah loved when he was enthusiastic about something; his entire being became animated. “Since we bailed on drinks with my friends the other night, what if we all go out to dinner Friday night?”

Delilah pulled out her PalmPilot and studied it. “I can't. I'm boarding three dogs this weekend.”

“What about the following weekend?”

Delilah shook her head. “Four dogs, two of them puppies.”

Delilah watched Jason's grip tighten around his coffee mug. “Can't Marcus spot you one night?”

“Marcus resigned. He got a part in a show!”

“That's great. I guess.” Jason fiddled with the teaspoon on the table before him. “I mean, it's great. For him.”

“Jason, you need to understand: I run my own business, and I'm not in a financial position to turn down work. And until I find someone to replace Marcus, I'm basically tied to my business morning, noon, and night.”

Jason nodded like he understood, but his rigid posture said otherwise. “How long will it be before you replace Marcus?”

“I don't know. I can't hire just anyone.”

Jason laughed curtly. “No offense, but how hard can it be to find someone to walk dogs?”

“Piece of cake
,” Jason murmured to himself as he walked down West Seventy-eighth Street to fetch his first dog of the day. Granted, the list of instructions Delilah gave him seemed more complicated than the plans for the D-day invasion, but he was pretty sure he could handle it.

He came to the first address on the list, a neo-Gothic building complete with grinning Friars' heads and the odd gargoyle. There were three dogs waiting for him here.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Jason was surprised to be stopped by the doorman, a behemoth of a man with jowls Hitchcock would envy. For a moment, Jason felt stupid; he assumed he'd be able to just breeze into the building and pick up the dogs.

“Hi, I'm Jason Mitchell. I'm here to pick up”—he glanced down at his instruction sheet—“Quigley, Miranda, and Luscious.”

The doorman eyed him suspiciously. “Where's Marcus?”

“He landed a part in a show.”

“May I see some ID, please, sir?”

Annoyed, Jason fumbled for his wallet, producing his driver's license as well as one of Delilah's business cards. The doorman looked at the license, then Jason. The license, then Jason. His gaze was suspicious as he handed the license back to Jason.

“Any particular reason you're walking around with a Minnesota driver's license?”

It's all part of my big dog scam. I'm going to kidnap them and sell them to Garrison Keillor.
“I just moved here from Minnesota,” Jason explained patiently. “I play for the New York Blades?”

The doorman sniffed. “I'm afraid I don't follow sports, sir.”

Jason rolled his eyes. Even the doormen in New York had attitude.

“I'm a hockey player.”

“And you walk dogs because—?”

Who did this guy think he was? Columbo? “I'm helping my
girlfriend
.” Jason punched a finger at Delilah's card. “Delilah Gould? Owner of the Bed and Biscuit?”

“I'm familiar with Miss Gould, sir.” Appeased, he motioned for Jason to proceed.

“Thank you.”

Taking the elevator up to the nineteenth floor, Jason double-checked his instructions: “Quigley's apartment is the one on the left. Don't forget: you have to pet him five times and say ‘Quigley, you da man' before giving him a biscuit and putting him on the leash.” Jason frowned as he fumbled in his coat pocket for the key to the apartment.

He opened the door to find the little pug sitting there, eagerly waiting. “Hey, guy.” Jason went to put the leash on him and Quigley backed up, beginning to growl. Loudly. Jason sighed. “You're really going to make me do this, aren't you?” Glancing around to make sure no one was there to see, he quickly petted Quigley five times then whispered, “You da man,” producing a biscuit from his pocket. Quigley happily devoured the treat while Jason attached his leash to his collar.

“One down, two to go.” Keeping Quigley on his left as Delilah instructed, Jason proceeded down to eleven to collect “Miranda, a high-strung Irish setter. She'll be in a crate to your left as you open the door. Give her one pink pill from the mantlepiece before you leave the apartment.” Jason shoved the instructions back in his pocket.

Whistling confidently, Jason opened the door to Miranda's apartment. Upon seeing him, Miranda began barking loudly, throwing herself against the side of the crate.

“Um . . .” Jason looked down at Quigley. “You stay here.”

He dropped Quigley's leash, grabbed a pill off the mantelpiece, and crept toward the crate as if stalking wild game. The closer he got, the louder Miranda barked. “It's okay, girl,” Jason soothed. He opened the crate, and Miranda shot out, sliding across her owner's teak floor with a yelp. Scrambling to regain her balance, she legged it away from Jason as fast as she could. Jason followed, cornering her in the kitchen. Despite her desperate, nonstop barking, he somehow managed to grab her head and slide the pill as far down her throat as he could, holding her muzzle the way he did with Stan so she wouldn't spit it up.

Jason patted her head. “See, that wasn't so hard.” Attaching Miranda's leash to her collar, he led his reluctant charge back out to the living room. Quigley had vanished.

“Shit.” Jason looked down at Miranda. “I—you stay here.”

He dropped her leash and slipped out into the hall, closing the door behind him. Miranda resumed barking madly. Jason stood in the vestibule, completely perplexed. No Quigley. He reentered the apartment, where Miranda was now wildly chasing her tail. High strung? The dog was crazy.

“It's okay, girl,” Jason assured her absently on his way back to the kitchen. No Quigley. He checked all four bedrooms. No Quigley. Finally he ventured into the bathroom. Quigley stood in the tub, quivering.

“What the—?”

It was clear Quigley had no idea how he'd managed to wind up in the tub, and he had no intention of hopping back out. Annoyed, Jason lifted him up and led him back out into the living room, where Miranda had vomited up her pill before resuming her tail chasing.

“Goddammit!”

Overwhelmed, Jason tore Delilah's now crumpled instructions from the pocket of his coat. There it was, clear as day but blithely ignored: “Make sure you give Miranda some water after her pill.”

“Sorry,” Jason muttered to Miranda, stomping into the kitchen a third time for some paper towels with which to clean up the dog puke. Less than ten minutes into the job, and already he'd screwed things up. Good thing Quigley and Miranda couldn't rat him out to Delilah.

He had no problems with Luscious, an Australian shepherd, but there were still three more dogs to fetch from two other buildings. Jason had seen Delilah walk up to twelve dogs at the same time, so he had no doubt six would be a stroll in the park. He was wrong.

One dog wanted to go one way, one another. One would stop to pee, and the others would pull. Delilah claimed they knew the basic commands, but all appeared deaf when Jason used them. Maybe he wasn't using a forceful enough voice, but he felt kind of guilty, yelling at other people's dogs. More than once he had to stop to disentangle them from each other, as well as prevent them from wrapping themselves around his legs. He never knew one half hour could last so goddamn
long
. He was nearing the end of his first “shift” when Eric came strolling around the corner, a copy of the
Post
under his right arm and a steaming cup of coffee in his left. Naturally he stopped to savor the sight of Jason and his unruly charges.

“You know, all you need is a chariot and you could reenact
Ben Hur
.”

Jason shot him a withering look. Why was it that Eric always managed to materialize at the most inopportune times? Did he have a twin's sixth sense for these things? Or were these random meetings simply one of the drawbacks of living in the same neighborhood as a jerk?

“Having fun?” Eric continued as he fell into step with Jason.

“It's harder than it looks.” Jason glanced at his brother out of the corner of his eye. Three days on, patches of his face remained black and blue after their fight on the ice. “You look like shit.”

“Nice stitches,” Eric shot back.

Jason tugged gently on Luscious's leash, trying to get the dog to stop straining. It worked. “I'm being benched next game thanks to you, you asshole.”

Eric was unapologetic. “Hey, don't blame me for your lack of control.”

“That crap you said about Delilah—”

“Was meant to rile you, and it worked.” Eric's mouth twisted with scorn. “You're such an easy mark.”

“Only when it comes to my girlfriend.”

“Speaking of whom”—Eric gestured at the dogs taking up the sidewalk—“is she sick?”

“No, her assistant quit. I figure if I pick up some of the slack, she can find his replacement faster.” Jason frowned. “She won't go anywhere when she's boarding dogs, which is the case most weekends, apparently.”

Eric shrugged lightly. “I'll spot her for a couple of hours if she'll let me.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure, what the hell? How hard could it be to dog sit?”

“Famous last words.” Jason regarded Eric suspiciously. “Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?”

“I'm nice to you all the time, prick bag.”

Jason snorted.

“I am!” Eric looked indignant. “Hey, who saved your ass with Delilah's mother?”

“You're right. I stand corrected.” Jason nodded curtly at the imperious doorman as he delivered Quigley, Miranda, and Luscious back to their homes. “I'm heading over to Delilah's after this,” he told his brother. “Come with me, and we can present our case.”

 

 

Delilah knew it
was wicked, but she actually enjoyed picturing Jason being overrun by the dogs. She had no intention of sending him out again in Marcus's place. She just wanted him to see that proper dog walking wasn't something any idiot with a leash and a bag of biscuits could do.

She'd placed an ad in the paper for Marcus's replacement and had put out the word among her acquaintances at the dog park. The truth was, she didn't mind carrying the business on her own shoulders for a while. It was more important she find the right person than rush into hiring someone.

Jason materialized at her apartment half an hour late, with Eric in tow. Seeing the frazzled look on her lover's face, it took all Delilah's restraint not to burst out laughing.

“So, how was it?” she chirped.

Jason wearily raised his palms in surrender. “I apologize. It's not an easy job. You were right.”

“Thank you.”

“He did have me helping him at the end,” Eric pointed out.

“Yeah, you were a big help,” Jason jeered. He looked hopefully at Delilah. “Any bites?”

“Jason, I just put the word out today. It might take a while, you know.”

“Great.”

Delilah chose to ignore the note of displeasure in his voice.

“Well,” he continued with a cautious expression, “I might have a temporary solution. For one night, anyway.”

“What's that?”

Jason pointed at Eric.

“I don't understand,” said Delilah.

“Him.” Jason continued pointing at his brother. “He can watch the dogs one night.”

Delilah felt the color drain from her face. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“Hear me out.” Jason came to sit beside her. “All I want is for us to go out to dinner one night with my teammates. It'll be three hours, max. You're telling me Eric can't sit here watching TV for three hours? Especially if the dogs have all been walked before he arrives?”