Dog Bites Man (12 page)

T
he night
The Surveyor
came out, Scoop stopped in at Elaine's for a nightcap. Several of his journalism buddies were there. They'd had dinner and a good deal of wine, and now were quietly sipping whiskey, waiting for the evening to evaporate. The new arrival brought them to life. The comments ran like this:

"Scoop! Where's G? Thought you'd bring him around for a glass of slivovitz, or whatever the hell Kosovo freedom fighters drink."

"Never met a member of the KLA. Was looking forward to it."

"You really think you got a story there? Your man G wasn't stepping on your hind leg?"

"The squaw princess is going to have your ass if you're wrong."

"Scoop, you didn't make this one up, did you? That's a no-no—even for Justin Boyd, though don't hold me to that."

Scoop took the kidding in good grace but realized now more than ever that he really had to uncover all the facts and write "30" to the story.

.    .    .

Jack Gullighy was coming from lunch with a friend and (had he not been working for the mayor) potential client—a newly minted computer billionaire who thought he might like to run for the Senate in Colorado—when he spied the "Hush-Hush Park Avenue Mystery" headline on a newsstand copy of
The Surveyor.
He grabbed it up and devoured the story, ignoring the gentle admoni
tion of the Middle Eastern newsdealer that reading unpurchased publications was not permitted.

Jack slammed down the one-dollar cover price and continued reading as he walked along, attracting dark looks from the two people he jostled while turning to the breakover page. His reading concluded, he found a quiet recess in the lobby of an office building he passed, pulled out his cell phone and called Mayor Hoagland's hot line (something he had previously done perhaps twice in the time he'd been associated with the mayor).

Eldon himself answered and Gullighy told him straight off that he "mustn't panic," though the slight quiver in his voice did not inspire calm.

"What the hell are you talking about?" the mayor asked, perplexed.

Gullighy described the story and read parts of it aloud, over an undercurrent of small groans from the other end of the phone. "You
must not
panic," he exhorted again. "There's no mention of you or your heavies, no hint that they're on your trail. Quite the contrary, it seems. It was gangsters, Eldon, gangsters who did the dirty deed. And that dog walker's clearly afraid of talking. So shut up and stay cool."

"I'll try, Jack," the mayor said weakly.

.    .    .

Tommy Braddock and Gene Fasco were on duty that night, waiting for the mayor and Mrs. Hoagland to emerge from a dinner at their friend Wendy's. Braddock walked around the corner to get coffee at a deli for the two of them when he, too, saw
The Surveyor
headline. He bought the paper with his coffee but refrained from
looking at it until back in the safety of the mayor's car. He scanned the story quickly and then read excerpts to Fasco, much as Gullighy had done with the mayor.

"So that
Shouesh! Shouesh!
was Albanian. Interesting," Fasco said, trying to remain calm.

"Forget the language. Brother, don't you feel some hot breath on the back of your neck?" Braddock asked him.

"Yeah. Hot, ugly dog breath."

.    .    .

Brendon Proctor did not much resemble the stereotypical trusts and estates lawyer. He did not have a slick appearance, a comforting baritone voice or a wardrobe of elegant Savile Row suits. Instead he was bumpy and roundish, balding with unruly tufts of hair surrounding a shiny bare spot, and a high, almost squeaky, rapid-fire voice. Not to mention an undistinguished wardrobe of suits and shirts that always seemed to be rumpled and often spotted, too tight or too loose.

His lack of superficial charm notwithstanding, he was the trusted lawyer and confidant of an impressive stable of wealthy clients, who saw beneath the surface a lawyer of high intelligence and ingenuity. And when he conferred with them as clients, speaking rapidly and flapping his hands, they realized, appreciatively, that the hyperexuberance he displayed was all directed to understanding and solving their special problems.

Proctor had for years been Harry Brandberg's lawyer and now managed Sue's legal affairs. This particular afternoon he did not look forward to the prospect of tea with her. Despite his outward show of enthusiasm, after 40 years as a trusts and estates lawyer
with the old-line firm of Chase & Ward he was becoming weary of hand-holding rich widows. Most, like Sue, preferred to confer about their affairs at home; whether office settings frightened them or merely gave them the feeling that they were less in control, he had never figured out.

Transmitting wealth from person to person and generation to generation, with a minimum of fuss and taxation, was Proctor's specialty. But he often also served as the discreet intermediary, when necessary, between his clients and the less elutriated members of the bar expert in such coarser specialties as divorce and immigration law.

Today he was such an intermediary, and he did not relish giving Sue bad news. Especially since she had implied rather strongly that if he did not solve this particular problem to her satisfaction he might not have the luxury of solving others, and charging her for doing so.

Once inside the Brandberg residence, seated across from the portrait of Wambli, he hemmed and hawed and finally came to the point: there seemed no legal way of keeping Genc Serreqi in the country. Granted he was an electrical engineer, an occupation much in demand amid the construction boom around the nation, but that cut no ice with the immigration authorities. Nor did the fact that he came from an impoverished, troubled Eastern European country. The naked fact was that he had overstayed the term of his tourist visa and was now illegal and subject to deportation.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Brendon," Sue told him. "I expected more. Some imagination, or some pressure applied in the right places."

"I can't change the law, Sue."

"Isn't there
anything
that can be done?
Any
way to keep Genc here?"

"I'm afraid not, my dear."

"Thank you, Brendon. Thank you very much," Sue said coldly, abruptly getting up and making clear that the interview was over, along perhaps with Brendon's tenure as her legal adviser.

Then, just as he reached the door, Proctor turned back to his client. "Of course, Sue, there is one way. But it's too ridiculous even to mention."

"Well, what is it?"

"You're an American citizen. You could marry him."

.    .    .

Alone once again, Sue poured herself a drink. Marriage. What a preposterous idea! A man a quarter of a century younger than she.

But then she thought of OOOH! SHPIRT! How she would miss those passionate shouts if Genc had to leave the country. Maybe, just maybe. . . . No it was absurd. She'd be subject to subversive ridicule. Or would she? she mused. If people laughed, they would have to do so surreptitiously, lest they cause her to stop the flow of her many benefactions.

Could she bear mean, behind-the-back cattiness? Or perhaps more to the point, could she bear lonely nights without those screams of OOOH! SHPIRT!?

Absurd as the idea was, she'd have to think about it.

.    .    .

Two days later, Sue called Betsy Twinsett's office and asked if she could bring a guest to the St. Francis Festival. Not for a moment
realizing how she was directing fate, Ms. Twinsett said yes, by all means.

So Sue would surface Genc, on a very public occasion. Just to see how it went.

.    .    .

The day of the St. Francis Festival, Mayor Hoagland tried to hurry through the day's business at City Hall so that he could meet at home with Gullighy and Betsy for a final run-through before the great affair occurred. The concentration required also took his mind off what he was certain would be a distasteful event, at least for him. It was times like this that made him long for the surface tranquillity of the university.

He did stop hurrying when he met with Lucille Barnes, the chairperson of the City Art Commission. He had called her in because he wanted to discuss what he saw as a problem—the care of the numerous works of art in City Hall.

"Lucille," he greeted the costume-jeweled blonde, "I've been thinking. We've got a terribly valuable collection of art here in this building, do we not?"

"Absolutely, Mr. Mayor. Some of the paintings are next to priceless."

"What I thought. Are they properly insured, do you know?"

"Oh yes, we've seen to that."

"And what about caring for our patrimony—cleaning the canvases, that sort of thing?"

Ms. Barnes sighed. "Oh, Eldon, I know. Some of our pieces are in terrible shape. But we just don't have the money to do what's necessary."

"Well, I propose to fix that. I'll make available whatever you need from my contingency fund. But I think you should get on with the job, before things crack and crumble some more. Could you start right away?"

"We'd probably do the cleaning and restoration at the Met. I'd have to check to see how busy they are."

"Will you do that? Tell them I'm very concerned about this. And Lucille, do you agree with me that our biggest treasures are those up in the Governor's Suite? Those Trumbull portraits of Jay and Hamilton and Washington, the Vanderlyn, the Sully and so on?"

"Absolutely, no question."

"So I would start by taking them down and shipping them up to the Met just as fast as possible. And what about those two huge chandeliers up there? They within your jurisdiction? Yes? Then I'd replace them temporarily and get them cleaned, and probably rewired."

"Mr. Mayor, this comes as a very pleasant surprise. We've been urging refurbishment like this for years."

"Well, now that Governor Foote's using those quarters—for the purpose they were originally intended—I think the art up there should be in tip-top shape."

"I'm delighted, Mr. Mayor, just delighted. And I guess I'm going to see you at the mansion in a little while."

"Yes."

A good piece of work, Eldon thought. Let the Honorable Randy Randy look at the bare walls. Perhaps by candlelight.

.    .    .

Back at Gracie, Betsy Twinsett handed the mayor, Edna and Jack Gullighy copies of the final invitation roster.

Eldon swallowed hard when he once again came to Sue Nation Brandberg's name. "Who's the guest?" he asked, seeing Betsy's penciled notation by her name.

"She didn't say," Betsy said.

"Some pretty boy, no doubt," the mayor noted.

"What are you wearing to this event?" Edna asked her husband.

Before he could answer, Gullighy had an inspiration.

"You know, Eldon, what would be great? Show your humanity? Informality?"

"No, what?"

"Why don't you wear Bermuda shorts? It's a beautiful day, not too cool. Lighten things up, stress the informality."

"Are you out of your mind?" Edna said. "Remember that
The
Surveyor—"
She stopped quickly, suddenly realizing that the innocent Betsy was present.

But Jack got the message, remembering the reference to the man with tooth marks in his calf walking around free in New York. "Forget it, forget it."

"I think shorts would be cute," Betsy added. "A real cool touch. Surprise everybody, Mr. Mayor. Do it!"

"I'm wearing the dark business suit I've got on. End of subject."

No one was prepared to argue, so Eldon turned to another matter.

"Gene Fasco and Tommy Braddock came uptown with me. I assume they're on duty all afternoon. Call them in here."

The two detectives were found and came into the living room.

"Boys, this damn festival is going to be a mess, I'm sure of it.
Dogs and cats crapping all over the place, people tripping on leashes and so on and so on. Why I ever agreed to do this I don't know. But let me get one thing straight—I want you boys beside me the whole time. I don't want to have to pet any dog, any cat or any of God's other goddam creatures. I don't want little Nippy jumping up on me.

"In other words, just make believe those animals are terrorists and keep them away from me. Understood?"

Fasco and Braddock nodded dutifully.

"Okay, I'm going to shave. Then into battle."

A
t four o'clock on October 4th, the feast of Saint Francis, a bright sun seemed to bode well for the festival. The mayor and his wife, flanked (as directed) by Fasco and Braddock, came down the front steps. They walked to the far edge of the property, the East River in the background, where they could see the arrivals as they came around the side of the mansion onto the immaculately kept lawn. The three bars were in place, rows of glasses gleaming on white tablecloths. Interspersed were tables covered with trays of canapés. It was a movie set for a proper English garden party.

The good-looking young wait staff, both men and women wearing white jackets, maroon shirts and green neckties, waited in anticipation. Almost all were aspiring actors (the remainder were playwrights and novelists) waiting for their big break, which, if it came, was likely to be a supporting role in a soap opera or a detergent commercial.

Arriving guests had their names checked off at a table next to the sentry booth on the York Avenue side, then passed by two uniformed policemen who scrutinized them discreetly.

The earliest visitors were largely distinguished presbyters from the most established of CAW's constituents—the ASPCA, the Humane Society, the Animal Hospital. Among them were

Mr. and Mrs. Stuyvesant Duncan and Spotty (a Dalmatian)

Mr. Emerson Brown and Trixie (a calico)

Mr. and Mrs. Max Gunther and Horace (a Pekinese)

Mrs. Henrietta Pelton Tomkins with Flossie (a Maltese in a Vuitton carryall)

Dr. George Englund with Pepsi (a dachshund)

Mr. Carlyle Dawson (unaccompanied)

Mr. and Mrs. Northrup Jaspers with MacBeth (a collie)

And so it went.

Bearers of old New York names and possessors of old money, they were the sort who made it a practice to be prompt. Not being members of more vocal and conspicuous minorities (though the city's demographics had actually made them a minority) regularly asked to Gracie Mansion functions, they were glad to have been invited. Many had not met the mayor and they were pleased to do that, too.

The men mostly wore flannel slacks and tweed jackets, the women unpretentious woolens and single strands of pearls. If it was not an English garden party it was a tailgate picnic at a Harvard or Yale football game.

Eldon greeted the guests politely, air-kissing the ladies he knew but shying away from the pets, which, to his surprise, were behaving in an exemplary manner. Edna was more forthcoming and remarked on the cuteness or size or other redeeming qualities of the animals.

The decorum was broken for a few moments when Commissioner Lucille Barnes made her entrance, a brightly colored parrot, called Manfred, perched on her shoulder. The dogs yipped and the lone cat then present arched its back, but the owners succeeded in shushing them.

A cordon of three press photographers and as many reporters,
plus a single television crew, came to life when 90-year-old Victoria Lawrence, the acknowledged doyenne of New York society, came around the corner with Stephen, her Airedale. Wearing gloves and a hat (the only woman so attired), she had some trouble controlling Stephen as she crossed the lawn—in part because the dog was on a long, retractable leash, in part because of her mature and slightly unsteady gait. (Her limousine driver had helped her get a grip on the handle of the leash and propelled her forward in the direction of the party, hoping for the best.)

In midfield, Stephen pulled on his leash and lunged for the single cat, the fat calico, Trixie. A waiter tripped over the dog's leash as he tried to separate the two brawling animals. Order was restored and the hapless Samaritan was helped to his feet—and Mrs. Lawrence was kept on hers—by the timely intervention of three of the guests. As this mishap occurred, Jack Gullighy passed by the mayor, who gave him an I-told-you-so look.

The crowd gradually expanded, with more colorfully and less conservatively dressed arrivals. Gullighy, surveying the crowd, correctly sized up the latecomers as the likely money supporters of animal-related charity events, rather than the more traditional trustees and directors. The differences were reflected in the women's dress—chic designer versus Smith College—and in the sometimes flamboyant garb of the accompanying pets: leads and collars decorated with flowers and ribbons, even a tiny jacket or two (despite the Indian summer weather).

An even more amazing splash was made by a young man, apparently under the misapprehension that the event was a costume party, who came dressed as an organ-grinder with a small rhesus monkey on a chain. The fellow didn't have a hand organ, but he
did have an accordion, which it turned out he was quite adept at playing, as the monkey dutifully sought contributions (unsuccessfully in this crowd) with a tin cup.

A much needed racial seeding came when Estes Broadwood, a black assemblyman from Queens, came in with his black rottweiler. Broadwood was that rarity, a Republican legislator from the city, and had been asked in accordance with Eldon's nonpartisan, nonvindictive invitation policy for Gracie events. He embraced the mayor—the two genuinely liked each other—and the photographers snapped the bipartisan hug. (Eldon was especially pleased at this. After Eldon's vaporizing of Otis Townsend in the mayoralty race, Broadwood was conceded to be the ranking Republican in the metropolitan area. The picture, if it ran, would surely spoil Randilynn Foote's breakfast the next day.)

At this point another young man, sanely dressed in a shirt and unstructured jacket and carrying what appeared to be a violin case, passed the sentry booth. Once inside, he stripped off his jacket and shirt, opened the violin case, and produced a good-sized boa. He draped the snake around his heavily tattooed chest and plunged into the party. The assembled quadrupeds were properly intimidated, as were most of the bipeds.

He was followed, more sedately, by the cardinal, utilizing the invitation exacted from Jack Gullighy as a condition for his episcopal acquiescence to the festival.

New Yorkers were still getting to know Virgilio Cardinal Lazaro, named archbishop of New York by the pope two years earlier and a prince of the church a year later. In contrast to the tall, serious Irish prelates the city had become used to, Lazaro was more compact and had been born in the Philippines. Brought to the States
by his parents, he had later become a priest and spent his entire career within the archdiocese.

His appointment to a post that Irish-Americans thought belonged to them by entitlement had caused many resentments, not only among the Irish but among the Italians as well, who thought it was about time they had an archbishop, too. (The cultural cross-currents were confounded by the fact that Cardinal Lazaro spoke with what could only be described as a brogue; he had learned English in a Philippine missionary school where the teachers were Irish Christian Brothers.) But despite the mild discord his appointment had caused, he was becoming more and more a popular figure: jolly and outgoing yet gentle, manifestly intelligent and tolerant.

The prelate was dressed in simple black clerical garb, though one of his more ostentatious predecessors might have worn full regalia, given the St. Francis connection. His round gold-filled glasses and his pectoral cross gleamed as he approached the mayor, accompanied by his secretary and Gullighy's friend, Monsignor McGinty.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Mrs. Hoagland," he said, eschewing the first-name informality common to his predecessors. "Beautiful day you have."

"I assume you prayed for it," the mayor replied, smiling.

"You don't have a pet," Edna remarked.

"No, only Monsignor McGinty." The secretary gave a tight smile and the First Couple laughed.

"You don't have a pet, you have a flock," Eldon noted.

"Quite true, my son. But I do have pets. As I believe St. Francis himself said 'all creatures great and small.'"

The group was joined by Rabbi Harlan Friedman, who presided over a Reform Jewish synagogue in Manhattan. Middle-aged and as affable as the cardinal, he was widely respected in the Jewish community—he somehow managed to avoid the internecine rancor that often beset his rabbinical colleagues—and in wider circles as well. His straightforward liberalism, articulated splendidly but not stridently, appealed to New Yorkers.

A confidant of the mayor's and a friend of Cardinal Lazaro, he was greeted enthusiastically.

"Your Eminence, St. Francis was a Jew, you know," he said to his fellow cleric. The two men had an easy rapport, as became two powerful figures of goodwill in a highly pluralistic city.

"Yes, Harlan. If you say so. And Jesus Christ was a Filipino, I suppose," the cardinal retorted.

"I'd always understood they were both Buddhists," the mayor added. "But I went to a very strange Sunday school."

Busily conversing with the two clergymen, Eldon did not notice the entrance of Sue Nation Brandberg with an Armanied Genc, but no animal, at her side. The knowing in the crowd, having read
The Surveyor,
took this to mean that her dog had indeed been murdered. And speculated whether the buff stud at her side had taken its place as her pet.

Genc had not wanted to come—too public an exposure for an illegal. Sue had assured him that her lawyers were well on the way to a solution of his problem and also indicated, by the tone of her voice, that it was a command performance. So there he was, surfaced in polite society for the first time. To those she talked with she introduced him very properly as Genc Serreqi. She used no identifying description other than "my friend," but one or two deduced that he might be the mysterious "G."

At this point the organ-grinder/accordionist was playing "O Sole Mio" and several of the bystanders, having drunk heartily of the barely palatable (but free) Long Island wine—Ronkonkoma red and Whalebone white—and eaten copiously of the much more flavorsome Eatable Edibles hors d'oeuvres, joined in singing. The animals by and large were quiet and content. It was shaping up as a merry afternoon.

Then, like the appearance of the wicked fairy in
Sleeping Beauty,
the tone suddenly changed. The catalyst was the approach of six seemingly innocuous twenty- and thirty-somethings, neat in button-downs and khakis, except for one girl in what appeared to be farmer's overalls. Their names were on the list, under the aegis of Friends of Animals, and the guards had thought nothing of their attaché cases and what they took to be an advertising portfolio, innocent accoutrements to the uniforms of young professionals. They were wrong. Before one could say abracadabra, they had moved to a corner of the lawn and set up a visual display of photographs and leaflets. The pictures were provocative: vivid depictions of vivisections, hunting traps and other beastly cruelties. A large sign screamed MEAT IS MURDER, the letters red and dripping with blood-red paint. And a poster board headed NO MORE ANIMAL EMBRYO EXPERIMENTS contained a lengthy text.

Before people realized the import of the incursion, one myopic young man with a small goatee began leafleting the crowd on behalf of the group's organization, the Animal Liberation Army. The gist of his handout was the brutality and cruelty of keeping a pet—or a companion animal, as he put it. As the recipients of the pamphlet, mostly owners with their leashed beloveds beside them, realized its import, they turned on the crusader and a shouting match ensued. Cries of "Moron" and "Creep" were met with ri
postes of "Neuter your dog!" and "Slaveholder!" The last brought an outraged Assemblyman Broadwood into the fray, and at least for a moment, it seemed as if his rottweiler—his presumed slave—would take an emancipated chunk from the ALA proselytizer. The TV crew recorded the increasingly angry exchanges, which ended only when the young man, perhaps thinking (rightly) that he was in danger of grievous bodily harm, retreated to the company of his comrades.

At the same time this confrontation was taking place, one of his colleagues, the girl in the rustic farmer's getup, accosted a petite blonde waitress and asked her what was in the canapés on the tray she was passing.

"Delicious foie gras," she replied innocently. "On slices of apples. Try one."

"Are you kidding?" the ALAer shrieked. "Do you know how they make foie gras? How they force huge tubes of food down geese's throats to enlarge their livers? Sister, I pity you." She seemed about to upend the waitress's tray when an irate gent came between them. He conspicuously picked up a canapé and stuffed it down, followed quickly by a second, glaring at the protester the whole time. "Delicious!" he proclaimed loudly, through a mouthful of the offending substance. His adversary moved off in disgust.

The mayor, some distance away, was unaware of these scuffles. He was busy working the crowd, flanked by his omnipresent bodyguards, and actually seemed to be relaxing. Approaching Commissioner Barnes, her parrot perched on her shoulder, he asked, "Polly want a cracker?" in the artificial high voice he might have used to speak to an infant. They were the first words he had uttered to a nonhuman all afternoon.

For his pains, the parrot cackled back, "Noaw . . . Polly want crack! Crack! Crack!"

Ms. Barnes explained with amusement that it was believed that her Manfred had once belonged to a narcotics peddler.

Meanwhile Dr. Englund, a research professor at Rockefeller University, led his dachshund, Pepsi, to a bush at the end of the property so that the dog could take what the professor discreetly called a "pee." (No Boydisms for him.) Returning, he passed the ALA's setup and, as a world-class, Noble Prize–winning embryologist, fixed on the embryology display. Having been the recipient of hate mail—and a couple of ugly threats—for his own animal research, he was irate; he also knew the cost to the university of the increased security such threats required. Mild mannered by nature, he had kept his laboratory work and his abiding love for Pepsi in separate compartments of his formidable brain. But now he exploded, forcefully informing the army members that their protest was wrongheaded, that advances in his field required animal experimentation and that the animals under his care—more often mice than dogs—were treated humanely.