Fall Guy

trimmed neatly above the line of his mouth.
    „I can be here with you when you decide to let Mr. Bowling come to collect his things.“ Very businesslike now. „If you'd rather not be here alone.“
    „I wouldn't be,“ I said.
    He raised his eyebrows.
    „I'll have Dashiell.“
    I looked down. Dashiell looked up and wagged his tail. Then he looked at the door to O'Fallon's apartment. I felt the same way. The hallway was starting to feel too small for two people and a large dog. There was no air circulating and the round fluorescent ceiling light made everything appear slightly green. Even Dashiell looked sickly in O'Fallon's hallway. Besides, if I was going to do this, I wanted to get started. I bent and began to unhook Dashiell's leash.
    „Is this okay?“ I asked.
    „As long as he doesn't disturb anything.“
    „He won't,“ I told him, wondering what there was that Dashiell might disturb.
    „How much time do I have today?“
    „Whatever you need,“ he said, unlocking the door, both locks with the same key, and pushing it open. That was a New York trick—two locks to deter a would-be thief, only one key to carry. Brody stepped out of the way to let me go in first, but of course it was Dashiell who rushed ahead, walking onto the faded Oriental rug and stopping cold a moment later, his mouth open, swallowing the air.
    I tasted the air, too. Something like Lysol. Whatever it was, it was overwhelming, used, I was sure, to mask another odor. Still, that was underneath the chemical smell, something metallic and gamy, a smell that brought the food I'd eaten a couple of hours earlier back up to my throat. I thought I could smell smoke, too, the stale odor you get in a place where someone has a long-term habit, or after a politically incorrect party, everything monitored nowadays, even your bad habits. I could see a few ashtrays from where I stood, emptied but not washed. But the odor was faint and I wasn't sure that was the source of the smell. It might have come from Brody, who was standing right behind me.
    I stepped into O'Fallon's living room, a book-lined room with an old, worn, oversized, cloth couch with loose back- and side pillows, a plaid blanket lying over the back of it; an oak desk piled with folders and papers; framed photos on every inch of the walls. There were plants everywhere, too, some thriving, others having seen better days, like the couch. I noticed a plastic dinosaur in the dirt of one of the larger ones, an old corn plant that stood in a corner near the windows. There were books piled on the floor, stacks near the desk, and more near the old couch. There was a winter coat over the arm of the couch. What was that about in all this heat? Smack in the middle of the room, there was a gym bag, its contents bulging, the zipper half open. The Oriental rug had a few worn spots, and in front of the couch a flat patterned kilim lay on top of it, another small rug in front of the daybed, which was against the front wall, under the windows. There were a small TV, a radio, an ancient teddy bear with black buttons for eyes, all on one of the wider bookshelves. A cool north light came in through the shutters that covered the front windows, the bottoms closed and latched, the tops partly open, the light spilling through the slats making lines on the carpet and up the wall of closets that divided this part of the apartment from the back.
    Someone had done an amazing job, I thought. Where was the blood spatter, the amoebalike stain on the rug? Where was the shattered wall? I looked at Brody. He was leaning against the wall near the doorway, staring straight ahead. I decided not to ask him anything just yet. Perhaps that was why the blanket was over the couch, I thought. Or perhaps that was the reason for that second rug in front of the couch, taken from the entranceway and put there to cover the place where O'Fallon's life had leaked from his body.
    But that couldn't be. Dashiell had gone nowhere near that rug, nor had he paid any attention to the couch. In fact, he was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he was in the kitchen, at the south end of the apartment, looking for water. And then I heard him sneezing, clearing his nose for an odor that interested him, the sound coming from the west end of the kitchen, the part I couldn't see. Perhaps the accident had occurred there, O'-Fallon sitting at the kitchen table with his cleaning kit and his gun, distracted by grief, careless in the most unforgiving way. Or maybe