Connections (24 page)

Christopher Barrett rubbed his thumb along the binding of the
Publishers Weekly
that was opened across his thighs. He rolled his head a few times to loosen his neck muscles and stretched his legs out in front of him. He didn’t even realize that his eyes were closed until the crinkling of the magazine jolted him as Sabrina jumped into his lap. Her paws slid on the glossy pages as she crawled onto his chest. He pretended she knocked him over and as he lay back, loudly exaggerating his wounds and fending her off, the periodical fell onto the floor. “Sure. I don’t blame you. It’s only the Fall Announcement issue anyway.”

“Hah, you’ve been reading that for weeks. Atta-girl, go get him,” Jason cheered from the sidelines, swiveling around in the desk chair to watch the wrestling match. “He doesn’t like dogs, Sabrina, so get him good.”

“Hey, don’t tell her that.”

“Well, it’s true. You told me that.”

“When?”

“When we first met. And she was still a puppy, practically. Remember? You said you were a cat person, and you didn’t think you’d ever be able to live with a dog!”

“Maybe I was talking about you.” Christopher’s laugh turned into a shout as he pushed Sabrina away. “Hey, cut it out! For a little girl, you play rough!”

“See, she still listens to me. And she probably remembers that you didn’t like her back then.”

“Sure, I did. I was just a little afraid.”

“Come on; she was young. And she was so tiny.”

“I know. But I had never had a dog. Maybe I was afraid of getting involved with her, which would mean getting really involved with you. That was a long time ago.” Chris hugged Sabrina with his arms and hugged Jason with his eyes. “Almost finished?”

“Naw.” Jason slapped the pile of papers he had been working on. “I guess I should send out a reminder to all the tenants that they should sign the no-buy pledges even if they’re going to buy.”

“No matter how many times you tell them, they don’t understand.”

“I know. And I hate to leave this.” Jason pointed to the stack of letter-size folders with correspondence and notes on recruiting new volunteers for SAVE. “The building conversion seems so insignificant when people are suffering and dying.”

“Don’t start getting depressed now. You’re doing more than your share. You can’t help everyone.”

“I know, but I wish I could.”

“And look what you’re doing for that old Italian dame.”

“Miss Bassetti? What am I doing for her?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Chris teased. “Just what
are
you doing for her?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Jason stood up and tucked his shirt tighter into his chinos, brightening up. “In fact, you
would
know if you would come with me.”

“Not on your life.”

“Why? She’s really terrific. I’m surprised you don’t remember her. She was always out on the street, walking her Poodle. Talking to everyone. She’s not an old-lady type. She’s funny, smart. She knows the score.”

“You trying to score with her?”

“C’mon, Chris.” Jason picked up a folder to swat him, but Sabrina curled her lips over her teeth and yelped softly.

“See? You’re upsetting her. She doesn’t want to have to bite you, but she’s telling you she will if she has to, to protect me.”

“Okay. No more teasing. Sabrina, it’s all right. I’m not going to hit him. And if I did, you wouldn’t dare bite me, would you?” Jason cooed to her.

Sabrina leaped from Christopher’s chest to Jason’s outstretched hands.

“Really, Chris, if we could get to the bottom of this thing about her, the blackmail or extortion or whatever you want to call it, I’d feel better.”

“Do you really think the old lady can help?”

“Well, I told you, she’s smart. And she’s in touch with some guy who’s involved. He’s not with the police department, but he has some connection with them or the mayor.”

“How’d he get into it?”

“He’s doing a study or something about scams against the elderly. That’s how it started. The one victim was seventy-five or eighty years old—Miss Bassetti’s friend—so the police thought it was a scam against old people, because it was easy. Miss Bassetti was going to call the guy at the department and tell him about Sabrina. Anyway, I’m curious about the pictures she took.”

“You don’t really expect to recognize anybody, do you?”

“Ya never know. It should be interesting. And she promised a bowl of spaghetti with homemade sauce. Please.”

“Well…but what about her?” Chris pointed his chin at Sabrina. “I thought we agreed not to leave her alone anymore. Just in case.”

“She was invited too, so if you come with me, we’ll take her.”

“Okay, give me a minute to change. Besides, I wanna meet the new Alfred Stieglitz. Alfreda.”

Twilight sifted down through the trees, covering the ground in a gauze of deepening purple. The heaviness of the heat had evaporated with the sun’s sinking behind the Hudson, and a ripple of air moved through the branches now, the leaves fanning their cracked limbs. Blackness settled like dust, ending the brief transition from day to night.

Kola watched the stragglers of homeless who had claimed the plot between the northern end of the reservoir and the tennis courts, just before the 97
^th
Street Transverse. They came from their doorways and railroad terminals and street corners and subway stations to spend the night with comrades who shared their fate, secure in the safety of their numbers from the muggers and perverts who were said to roam the park, looking for victims. They parked their sacks of belongings and their shopping carts of goods and old baby carriages teeming with clothes and, like birds building nests, constructed tents and beds from cartons and bags and newspapers and discarded coats.

Kola didn’t know any one of them, but she knew all of them, by the foul cloud of stale urine and stale breath and stale sweat that hung over them. By the slow gaits that brought them at dusk. By the backs crooked from the bundles they dragged with then.

They didn’t speak to each other as they entered the colony, claimed their reserved spaces, and busied themselves preparing for the night. But once they were comfortably organized, they acknowledged a neighbor with a nod, or offered a bottle, or an extra shoe, or a smoothed-out cigarette butt—like cowboys sitting around a campfire during a cattle drive in the Old West, swapping stories and smokes and songs.

After Clifford’s scare the other night—a teenager had ridden across his towel and tried to swipe his bag—he had decided it would be better to be near other people. When he wandered into the camp early the next day and hesitantly stretched out, a grisly-looking figure had appeared from behind a boulder to yell at him that it was his spot. Clifford had found a different spot. And because the others didn’t mind his being there, and even had offered him food and tips on surviving on the streets, he returned. But whenever that crusty man ambled in, which hadn’t been often, he grumbled that no boys or dogs should be allowed. Clifford learned to ignore him, as the rest of them did.

“Hey, Kola, look what I got.” She moved closer, sat next to him on the towel striped with a narrow band of tire dirt, and watched him unwrap the large rawhide bone he had been saving until the old one was chewed up. Her thick tail twitched steadily under her as he finally broke the packaging and tried to pull the hard plastic off. Kola couldn’t contain her eagerness; she stood, her tail plumed straight above her like a rich, full feather. Once the bone was in her mouth, she lay down, contentedly exercising her gums and sharpening her teeth, as her master’s body leaned against her reassuringly.

“You and your damn mutt!” The raised foot high over Clifford’s head was as much a surprise as the shrill war cry. More than the weapon, more than the venom in his shriek, maybe more than the threat to her beloved companion, the words “Damn Mutt” stirred a memory deep in Kola. A memory of her terrible life between being the happy Beauty and the trustworthy Rowan, a life of fear and hunger and anger, when “Damn Mutt” was the only name she was called. A time of hatred for the owner of an appliance store in White Plains.

Before Clifford could react by rolling out of the way, before the foot, momentum gathered behind it, could even start its descent, Kola had sprung. In one dazzling bolt of lightning, a streak so fast her tan spots ran into her white fur, in one graceful movement, Kola knocked him down and clamped her jaws around his neck.

Felix was cornered. His spine stretched like a rubber band, and just before it could snap, it pulled up into a perfect arch, his back suspended in an inverted V. As he raised his paw to box, a raspy warning hissed from his throat.

“Gotcha!” Laurie picked him up and put him in the bedroom, closing the door quickly so he couldn’t get out. “You big phony! You wouldn’t dare scratch me.” She stomped around the apartment looking for Oscar. “Oscar, here we go. Come on out, wherever you are.” Laurie couldn’t find her. She peeked in the closet, in back of the couch, under the chair, and behind the toilet, calling to her. “I’m just trying to help you guys. Come on out.” She finally found Oscar wedged between the top of the refrigerator and the cabinet over it. She scooped her up and opened the bedroom door just enough to shove her in.

As soon as the carrier came out, they always hid. She should have corralled them first but hadn’t thought of it. She only wanted to get Megabyte into it and take her back to the office. Nobody could say she hadn’t tried. But it just wasn’t working. The constant fighting was too much for her. She remembered how Felix and Oscar had been in the beginning. At each other’s throats. Everybody had told her to wait it out; they would get used to each other. She would never have believed that they’d be friends, yet here they were, almost inseparable. They wouldn’t admit it, but they were.

Given enough time, they’d probably accept Megabyte too, but Laurie decided she either was getting too old or too involved with the computer or her job. She just didn’t have the patience to come home every night and try to keep three cats separated. Besides, Megabyte had been perfectly content in the office. She should have left well enough alone. Her nerves were on edge, and they’d all be better off if she brought Megabyte back.

It wasn’t hard to catch her then, meowing against the crack of the bedroom door. The answering wails sounded like they were from long-lost lovers rather than rivals, so Laurie had a second’s hesitation about her decision. But she grabbed her, pushed her into the carrier, and stuck her fingers in the holes to reassure her—of what she didn’t know, but it made her feel more two-faced.

Once on Queens Boulevard, the long staircase up to the elevated subway looked especially high in the 88-degree heat with 73-percent humidity. On the spur of the moment, when a cab stopped for the light right in front of her as she waited to cross, Laurie decided to splurge. Besides, traffic going into the city at this hour on a weeknight shouldn’t be too heavy or too expensive.

She composed the notice for the bulletin board as she settled back in her seat. “Adorable feline needs loving home.” But maybe Megabyte would be better off at the office. She wasn’t one of the half a million pet cats estimated to be living in New York City—Laurie recalled her latest entry—but Megabyte was doing okay. Who was to say that she needed to live in a regular home with regular people? She had a roof over her head, food, water, plenty of animals to play with or tease, and enough part-time affection from the staff to be okay. She wasn’t one of the twenty thousand strays that would be picked up by Animal Care & Control this year. No matter what Dr. P. threatened, she knew he’d never turn an unwanted animal over to them. She kept trying to convince herself that this was the right thing to do, but every time the wet little nose filled one of the holes in the carrier, Laurie winced with guilt.

Before she unlocked the door of Manhattan Veterinary Associates, the clamor of shrill barking and howling made Megabyte stoop in the carrier, alert and ready to stalk her attackers, even though she was unable to pace back and forth. Laurie stopped to listen, her key poised in front of the lock. The commotion could not be from her arrival; they couldn’t have even heard her yet. The dogs boarded in the basement were trying to defend themselves against an intruder.

Ken concentrated on sponging up the egg yolk with his whole-wheat toast, obviously savoring every morsel.

Rosa surveyed the moms sitting around her at the outdoor tables, some of them rocking baby carriages with one hand while eating with the other. Every time she passed Gracie Mews, it was mobbed, and there always seemed to be people waiting in the doorway for openings to be seated. But she had never been here herself. She was tickled when Ken led her here. She felt very special, eating at such a popular restaurant, even though it was just around the corner from her apartment.

“What’samatt…she doesn’t make-a you breakfast?” Rosa couldn’t help asking.

“Who?” His tongue reached for his chin to taste the last spot that had slid off the bread.

“Who? You know who. You girlfriend, who.”

“Who said I have a girlfriend?” He hid his smirk in the coffee cup.

“I can tell. What you think? I don’t know what’sa going on?”

“What do you think is going on?”

“Ah, c’mon.” Rosa slapped the table. “You think I’m dumb? You live all the way out on Long Island. You work downtown. You teach. So how come when I say I come to you office or come to you school, you gonna be in this neighborhood at this hour? She lives around here. And”—she pointed an accusatory finger at Ken—“you stayed there last night. Now, where does she live?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, you traipse all over town taking pictures of shady-looking characters and local dogs. You run across the city and back to check out leads, and now you bring me this evidence,” Ken tapped the edge of the envelope on the table. “So if you’re such a super detective, so you should have detected where she lives.”

“Hah! I was right, see? There is a girl. You admitted it. Finding out where she lives is easy. I just follow you.”

“You better not!” Ken’s boyish grin spread from his lips across his cheeks, wrinkling his eyes, making his nose look longer.

“I won’t…if you tell me about her.” Rosa reached over the dirty plates and playfully scratched Ken’s scalp, her fingers denting the hair between his curls.

“Okay, I’ll tell you all about Louise, but first”—he turned serious—“let’s talk about the letter.”

“Nice boys they are; he bring-a his boyfriend over. They act just like two people. I cook them spaghetti.” Rosa leaned closer, looked sideways around the coffee shop to make sure no one could hear her. She whispered, “Same instructions, practically. Same drop-off. Same MF.”

“MO,” he corrected, “modus operandi.”

“MF. Mother-effer. Must be somebody who knows that supermarket good. Maybe works there.”

Ken tried to suppress his smile. He’d have to tell Bernie that one: MF. “The other thing is, it knocks our theory about the elderly. ’Cause these two gays, they might be old, but they’re definitely not elderly.”

“Old? They’re about fifty-two, fifty-five.”

“Well, that’s old.”

“Ach. Not to me.”

“What’d you call old?”

“Someone older’n me, that’s sure. And don’t ask how old that is, ’cause a lady, she doesn’t have to tell.”

“Okay. Well, let’s call them middle-aged. So we got two victims now—”

“Two we know about,” Rosa interrupted.

“Right. Two we know about. One is middle-aged; one is elderly. One is homosexual. No connection so far. They both have older dogs they’re nuts about.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Why?”

“You could say that ’bout everybody who has a dog for a pet. At least everybody I know.”

“Maybe. One is a shop owner who looks like a good mark; the other’s a retired schoolteacher, living on a fixed income. Both live uptown, one on the East Side, one on the West Side. They both have to leave the money in the same supermarket.”

“What else?”

Ken shrugged and tilted his cup, waiting to catch the waitress’s attention as she hurried through the door to the outside seating area with a tray held high with one hand.

“I’m trying to think. We have to find something they have in common.”

“So, what about Louise?”

“What about her?”

“You really involved, like they say, or you just sleeping with her?”