The Long Good Boy (6 page)

One more thing to check at Keller's.

Outside, I headed east. Chi Chi just stood there watching me go. When I got to the corner, I turned back. She was still there, the wind pulling that blond hair across her face, hugging herself to keep Clint against her chest, her knees slightly bent, toes pointing in, looking small and lost.

5

I Cocked My Head

I closed my coat and headed home, the streets dark and deserted, only an occasional light on in the buildings I passed, some insomniac waiting for dawn, the way I sometimes did, or an unusually early riser, someone who went to the gym before work, had a crying baby, suffered from bouts of acid reflux. A small blue sedan pulled up near the corner of Greenwich and Charles Streets, and a squat, dark woman in a hooded sweatshirt and long parka got out, pulled a stack of the
New York Times
off the backseat, and headed for the lobby of the closest building. Other than that, I was alone, no one rushing off to work, walking the dog, reparking the car. Today and tomorrow, you could forget about the car. Monday you'd be out again, trying to snag a legal space, your life controlled by alternate-side-of-the-street parking regulations.

When I got back to Tenth Street, I unlocked the wrought-iron gate, closed it behind me, and unhooked Dashiell's leash, thinking about what I'd seen earlier, until I realized what was right in front of my eyes, Betty running to meet Dashiell, the door to the cottage ajar, and Chip standing on the top step. I'd forgotten he was coming over.

“How long have you been here?”

“Since midnight. I had a ten-o'clock in Chelsea. I tried your cell phone. Didn't you get my message?”

I shook my head. I hadn't looked.

We walked inside, and I told him about the call from Chi Chi, and some, but not all, of what the girls had told me in the park, leaving out, among other things, the part about the dog trainer who had given her my name. Not a problem. It couldn't have been Chip. We told each other everything.

Didn't we?

Then Chip was saying something, and I wasn't listening. I was thinking about all the things I'd never told him, starting with the cleaned-up story I'd just related, and segueing to other things, to the parts of myself I hadn't shared with anyone. Why had I thought, even for a minute, that Chip didn't also have parts of his life he kept to himself, secrets he wouldn't share, even with me? If I'd learned anything doing this work, it was that you never knew anybody, not even the people you thought you knew best.

The door was still open, the sky now the most incredible blue I'd ever seen.

“I can't stop trying to figure out how I'm going to get into Keller's,” I said, “without actually taking Chi Chi's place.”

“Good thinking.”

“What is?” I cocked my head, a result of living with dogs for so long.

“Not taking Chi Chi's place.”

“Oh, that. No kidding.” I looked at my watch. “I've got to get cleaned up and get back to work.”

“You just got home.”

“Well, you know what they say, a man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done. It's six-thirty. The market's open, and I have to try to buy a couple of pork chops for dinner.”

“I thought they only sold wholesale. Anyway, I'm working tonight—”

“Me, too,” I said, grinning. “And this morning.”

Now he was grinning, too. “Nick and Nora Charles?”

“Sure. If you have the time. I'll be ready in ten minutes.”

“Give me fifteen. I need a cup of coffee.”

“I'll make it seven,” I told him. “We'll get take-out and drink it on the way.”

6

Vinnie Looked Annoyed

There was a heavyset man in white, a transparent shower cap covering his hair, a hard hat over that, standing next to what looked like a semi full of dead pigs, its back doors open and facing the entrance to Keller's. A thinner man, his hair as black as tar, long, pointy nose, stood next to him taking notes on a clipboard.

We'd left the dogs home. I'd changed to a clean jacket and taken a purse, for God's sake. We approached the younger guy, the one with the clipboard, and smiled. He didn't. Perhaps it wasn't us. Perhaps it was the sudden, violent death of the manager that had him on edge.

“We were wondering if we could get some pork chops,” Chip said, trying to sound as nerdy as possible. “We've just moved in,” he said, pointing back behind him, as if we lived in one of the refrigerated plants across the street, “and we heard—”

“This is strictly wholesale.” The tag on his white coat said V. Esposito. “You want two pork chops, try D'Agostino's.”

“But we heard—”

“Ottomanelli's. Bleecker Street. Not here.”

“Vinnie,” the chunky guy called out. “You checking the order in or what?”

Vinnie shook his head, no way were we doing business with him, and walked away. Standing where we were, we could see partway into the first-floor, stainless-steel walls, giant vats for grinding meat or making sausages, several guys in white walking around in rubber boots and a hose snaking along one wall, for the afternoon cleanup. Two men from the truck were carrying in boxes. On a rack inside the truck, whole carcasses hung on hooks, like coats in the back of a classroom. At the bigger plants, on Washington Street, the apparatuses on which the carcasses were hung in the truck attached to the ones outside the market, and the meat rode inside the way clothes circle around at the dry cleaner, swinging ever so slightly from side to side as the machine sent them in for processing. Those places had permanent metal canopies that housed the moving hooks, not only to get the meat inside quickly and efficiently but so the butchers could work outside, rain or shine, in relative comfort. At Keller's, if it was raining, snowing, hotter than hell, you were out in the weather until the order got checked in, no two ways about it. Two more men came out from inside to help with the morning's delivery, a short, stocky young guy, kinky blond hair sticking out from under the net under his hard hat, and a dark guy with a sweet, round face he hadn't shaved in three days. I couldn't read their name tags.

We were still standing there when a tired-looking guy with a little mustache, a beret on his unnaturally dark hair, showed up, pulling a handcart. Vinnie nodded to him and bellowed to someone inside.

“Carl, bring out Charlie's order.”

Charlie looked at Chip and shrugged. “I tell him Charles.” He pronounced it
Sharl
. “He calls me Charlie.”

Chip opened his mouth. Vinnie looked annoyed. “He's buying for a restaurant. Hotels and restaurants, that's what we do. We don't sell to individuals.”

“This is so interesting,” I said. “Okay if we take a peek inside?”

Vinnie turned back to the truck to check off the next eight boxes. I took that as a yes and stepped closer to the door, careful to keep out of the way of the truckers. That's when I saw it, a small flap of heavy black rubber to the left of the door, hidden by the truck from where we stood. There was a trash can in front of it, to conceal it when the truck wasn't there, not something they wanted to advertise.

The cold air from inside rolled out like the waves at high tide. I shivered, then turned when I heard a noise behind me. The big guy with the thick neck was headed my way, a scowl on his face.

“Are you the manager?” I asked him in my sweetest voice. Then, before giving him a chance to answer, I made my plea again. “Do you ever make exceptions?” I whispered. “We could even come back later.”

“Lady, you're going to have to step back. Insurance regulations. Hard-hat area.” T. McCoy tapped his with his knuckles. “You could get hurt, hanging around here.”

I nodded and backed away, taking one last look at the building before picking my way back to where Chip was standing. I took his arm and pulled him toward the street.

“There's a pet door. I'd bet big money it's for a cat. I can just about guarantee they need one. Could also be a way for me to get in there.”

“Excuse me. You're going to fit through a cat port?”

“Uh-uh.”

“You're thinking of hiring on a midget?”

“Uh-uh.”

He was heading toward Washington Street, and I pulled him the other way.

“Where are we going?”

“I want to check out the building next door. When I was here last night, it looked vacant.”

We walked a few steps past Keller's to the identical building next door, the one with the broken window on the second floor.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“Looks deserted.”

“That's what I thought last night, but I couldn't be sure, even with the broken window. Hell, for all I could tell in the dark, it could have been broken ten minutes before I got here. But if it were operating, it would be open now.”

“There's not even a sign.”

“Of life?”

“No, a sign saying their name and what they sell.”

We walked across the parking area to take a closer look, the door padlocked, trash and papers blown up against it.

“Perfect,” I said.

“For what?”

“You said you didn't want me to take Chi Chi's place for a night, right? Anyway, even if I did, I couldn't check out Keller's paperwork with Vinnie there watching me.”

“That was Vinnie, the guy we spoke to?”

“Unless there's more than one Vinnie working there.”

“So, go on. What's the deal with this place?”

“I thought I might ask Chi Chi to see if there's any way Clint could get me into Keller's, like a sliding back door held closed with a stick, I should be so lucky, or a window on the second floor he could unlatch. Look at the little one up there to the right. Doesn't that look like a push-out window, maybe in a bathroom?”

Chip looked up at the small window I had indicated.

“Could be.”

“Well.”

“Well, what?”

“I'm sure I can get in this building. Probably not much in it to protect at this point. Even if I have to climb up and break a window—”

“Are you crazy? You could go to jail for that.”

“You worry too much. Listen, if I can figure out how to get in here, and if Chi Chi will let me work with Clint—”

“Back-chaining.”

“Right. I'll teach him what to do in this building, then when he's got it, I'll send him into Keller's when it's closed, through the cat port. He can unlatch the window for me, and I can get in, check the paperwork, satisfy my curiosity, and both of us will be out of there long before Vinnie shows in the early morning.”

“How did you say you were going to get up to that window he'll open for you?”

“I'm starving,” I told him. “How about some breakfast?”

I began to walk, heading back to Washington Street for my third visit to Florent in the same day, though in truth it seemed like ages since I'd been there, sitting with Chi Chi, listening to her spin the truth until neither one of us knew what was real and what wasn't.

But didn't I do that, too, I thought, stopping and waiting for Chip to catch up, even when I wasn't on the job?

7

You Don't Think It's Possible to Be Fooled?

I don't know why I was hungry. I'd had a steak, green beans, and thin, crisp French fries in the middle of the night, part of a bowl of soup a few hours after that, then a small, sweet clementine in the morning, which I'd peeled and eaten on the way to Keller's while Chip sipped his coffee and ate a croissant, the flakes of pastry floating from his mouth to the front of his jacket like snow. But when my bacon and eggs came, I felt I'd become Dashiell, the smells filling my senses separately and together, so that even the odor of the butter on my toast seemed to saturate my mouth and I longed to dip my head, as he would have, and eat until everything was gone, licking the plate until it was clean, then, my forehead pleated with wrinkles of concern, beg for more. Had Chi Chi slipped something into my soup when I wasn't looking? No, it couldn't be that. Her little trip to the bathroom had had the opposite effect on her. She'd lost her appetite.

“What does this Clint dog know?” Chip asked, lifting a hand to get the waiter's attention, then pointing to his coffee cup.

“He's housebroken.”

“How long do you think it will take you to teach him what he needs to know?”

“Don't know. All I've seen him do so far is ride around in Chi Chi's jacket. And possibly take a leak on command.”

“That's a good sign. At least she taught him something.”

“The thing is, I won't know how complicated the job will be until I get inside the building next to Keller's. Assuming the layout inside is the same, that'll tell me how far he'll have to go, what's involved in opening the latch, if that's what turns out to be best. At this point, I'm not even sure there's a way he can let me in.”

“Wouldn't it be infinitely simpler to have Chi Chi leave the latch open for you, right before she leaves?”

“She could. But I doubt it would stay open. I'm sure they do a walk-through before closing up. Anyway, if it's always locked, and they find it open, Vinnie will know who did it, and it could cause a lot of grief for her. That's the last thing I want.”

“What about a night watchman? Wouldn't that put a kink in the plan?”

“Can't be one. Vinnie wouldn't be able to have a tranny hooker visit him if there was a watchman on duty. And if, say, there was one, but he left when Vinnie came, I would have seen him. And I would have seen lights on somewhere. But there weren't any. Not a one.”

“When will you try the empty building?”

“Tonight. If it looks good, maybe I can start Clint tonight, too, assuming Chi Chi lets me.”

“She will.”

I looked at him, doubt I'd tried so hard to quash creeping back. What was wrong with me? Any one of a dozen of my old trainer friends could have given Chi Chi my number.