Gaits of Heaven

athletic.”
    “Frank’s a client of mine,” Steve said. “He’s a psychologist. Nice dogs. One of them went Best of Breed at Westminster a couple of years ago.”
    “Dogs!” Rita exclaimed. “I should’ve known.”
    I wasn’t surprised at all. Anything but. “Of course you should’ve known. As the hymn says, All nature sings, and round me rings, the music of the spheres. It’s obvious that the universe is sending us a message, namely, that Frank was meant to intercede.”
    “I told Peter I’d speak to him, but I don’t think he’ll do it.“
    “Frank owes me,” I said. “I’m the one who sent him to the handler who showed that dog for him at Westminster. Frank is grateful to me. Besides, we go way back. He knew my mother.”
    “Every dog owner over the age of forty knew your mother,” Rita grumbled.
    “Those who did thought very highly of her. She has posthumous clout. But go ahead and talk to Frank on your own. Then if he says no, tell him I said to ask.”
     

CHAPTER 36
     
    At seven o’clock on Tuesday morning in the house next to Ted Green’s, Barbara Leibowitz and George McBane are having breakfast. Although they are sitting at the same kitchen table and listening to the same National Public Radio program, they are not exactly eating together. Indeed, it might be said that they are eating apart or that George is having breakfast with Barbara; and she with the half-Westie and entirely adorable Portia and with Dolfo. In deference to Barbara’s desire that he lower his cholesterol level, George is sprinkling granola on a bowl of low-fat Total yogurt. Barbara is indulging in an Iggy’s croissant, on which she is spreading sweet butter. The well-trained, civilized Portia, loose in the kitchen, is munching on the contents of a white ceramic dish that bears her name in ornate blue letters. Since Barbara wisely views Dolfo as precivilized, he is in a nearby wire crate. He does not envy Portia her personalized dish but is happy to make do with a stainless steel bowl. The dogs are eating together in the sense that they are having the same meal, a mixture of Eukanuba, safflower oil, grated carrot, diced chicken breast that Barbara cooked herself, a small quantity of filtered water, and two powdered supplements, Nupro and Missing Link. Although the dogs are silent right now and are attending exclusively to their food, each would be willing to woof pleasantly at the other, whereas Barbara is not speaking to George.
    “Barbara, they’re rodents, for God’s sake,” says George. “They’re rats with furry tails. Try thinking of it that way. We had rats. I poisoned them. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you. I know how softhearted you are. The only thing I’m guilty of is pest control.”
     

CHAPTER 37
     
    On Tuesday morning-, Caprice astonished me by getting up early with the rest of us and leaving to meet with a physics teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School to discuss tutoring. It soon emerged that the teacher was a client of Steve’s and that Steve had been the matchmaker. As a romantic matchmaker for human beings, Steve was all but useless; he failed to share my interest in fixing people up, and whenever I suggested that So-and-so and So-and-so might make a good couple, he’d shrug his shoulders and offer no opinion on the matter. Need I add that he refused to read Jane Austen? He did, however, have a good eye for a dog and a particular talent for prophesying the outcomes of particular breedings. For instance, when he’d learned about the Emma-Rowdy breeding that had produced Sammy, he’d known right away that he’d want a puppy. So, I assumed that he’d regarded Caprice as in physics season, so to speak, and had applied his talented eye to identifying a suitable mate.
    Once the animals and I had the house to ourselves, I did my usual morning chores and then settled down at the kitchen table with my notebook computer and the disc I’d lifted from Ted Green’s yard. My guilt about the pilfering took the form of a conviction that the disc was going to contaminate my notebook with a virus that would wipe out my hard drive and e-mail itself to all my friends, who’d blame me for the epidemic, and rightly so! What do thieves deserve? The worry about a virus was justified, but since I used the notebook only for writing and never for e-mail, even the worst infection couldn’t have spread itself to my Internet contacts. Still, my guilt-driven fears