All Shots

collar, not a choke collar, but he was totally unused to leash corrections of any kind. His expression was hurt and baffled.
    Enraged and powerless, I met Sammy’s eyes and tried to convey a sense of comfort that I didn’t feel. Preoccupied with Sammy, I was stunned to hear a new voice, a woman’s voice, saying, “What the hell is going on here?” In the doorway to the kitchen and dining area stood Holly Winter. “Take your dirty business elsewhere,” she said.
    My dirty business? Dog writing? While it was true that articles about canine personal hygiene and, in particular, parasitic diseases occasionally touched on unaesthetic topics, I, at least, always labored to present potentially revolting material in as tasteful a manner as possible. Unfortunately, the desire for clarity and accuracy often conflicted with the laudable desire not to sicken readers. For example, when fresh tapeworm segments cling to an infected dog’s perianal area, they honestly do look like grains of rice, whereas once they dry, they resemble sesame seeds, and if you want your readers to be able to check their dogs for tapeworms, you’d better come right out and say so. And if your readers permanently lose their appetites for paella and risotto? If they forever after stick with plain, unadorned hamburger buns? Well, a slightly restricted human diet is a small price to pay for a parasite-free dog, isn’t it? Still, aesthetics counts. There’s absolutely no need to dwell on such stomach-turning facts as the true nature of the segments—they are sacs of eggs— and their utterly disgusting habit of crawling around. Dog writing as a dirty business? Well, maybe it was.
    “This woman has nothing to do with anything,” I told Grant. “I have no idea what she’s doing here.”
    “Bringing food for Zachie,” Mellie said with great softness and warmth. “Zachie’s coming home.” Her face was flushed, and her eyes shone.
    As if Mellie needed a translator, Holly Winter said, “Zach Ho is on a flight from Heathrow to Logan. The police told me so. I picked up some food for him.” Her eyes, too, were shining, and her face, like Mellie’s, glowed a rosy red. “And this neighbor of Zach’s”—the name intoned with warmth bordering on heat—“saw me and said she had his key. There’s ice in the bags, but she offered to let me in.” A key on a short chain dangled from her hand.
    “So Zachie’s milk won’t spoil,” Mellie said. “He’s my good friend.” In a gesture that took no more than a microsecond, she reached up and fluffed her hair.
    Francie had told me that Zach Ho was one of Mellie’s mainstays. I’d had no idea that Mellie had a key to his house, and I was quite sure that the police didn’t know about that key, either. I’d been equally oblivious to what might, for all I knew, be a universal female response to Dr. Zach Ho. Now that I thought about it, I remembered that Francie had talked about him with particular affection and indulgence. When she’d said that he had an eye for the ladies, her voice had conveyed not a hint of Cantabrigian feminist blame; on the contrary, she’d sounded titillated. As if to investigate my new hypothesis about Zach Ho, I took another look at Holly Winter, whom I’d have thought incapable of blushing. She was as tiny and bony as ever, but there was something different about her hair. It was still almost painfully short, but brightening its predominant darkness were fine streaks of... could it be? Yes! Blond. Zach Ho, I decided, must possess the animal magnetism that Steve unintentionally radiated. Rowdy, I might mention, had that same electric effect on females of his species. In his case, though, the impact was deliberate. Indeed, it was calculated. He had a way of puffing himself up to display his rich coat and massive musculature to greatest advantage, and when circumstances permitted, he’d wait until his female object’s eyes were on him to ignore her completely while raising his leg to an impossible height and drenching the nearest tree or fire hydrant in a show of masculine hyperfluidity. So, I wondered about Dr. Ho. The Steve type, inadvertently alluring? Or the Rowdy type, aware of his appeal and eager to show it off?
    “I don’t give a shit who this is,” Grant said. “The toys. And everything else that slut left here. Including Streak.”
    “Don’t use bad words,” Mellie told him.
    “Screw you,” he said. “The toys. And my bitch.”
    “God is listening