Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

“We’d be towed in a nanosecond if we parked here.” I called information for the number of Hong Fat and, before dialing it, smiled at Paul and in my sweetest voice asked him what he’d like for dinner. He laughed so hard tears came to his eyes.
    “Surprise me,” he said when he’d regained his composure.
    “No problem.”
    I dialed Hong Fat.
    “I’d like an order to go, please. No, delivery. Well, it’s not exactly an address. I’m parked across the street in a black Ford Taurus. T as in to go, A as in appetizer. Taurus. A car. Car. C as in chow mein . Yes. An order of steamed dumplings with oyster sauce. Do you want soup?” I asked Paul. He shook his head. “We’ll skip the soup tonight. One order of kung po chicken and one crab with ginger and scallions. White rice or brown?” I asked Paul, but he just waved his hand at me. “White rice,” I said into the phone. “And chopsticks, please. Thank you.”
    “Chopsticks okay?” I asked him.
    He merely stared at me.
    “How about a drink before dinner?”
    I didn’t wait for a response. I reached back to the floor behind his seat and pulled out a plastic shopping bag. I handed him a bottle of merlot and a corkscrew, and I held the two plastic glasses.
    As if he ate dinner in a car every night of his life, he anchored the bottle between his legs, peeled off the foil that surrounded the cork, and began to twist the corkscrew carefully into the center of the cork, which a moment later came out with a satisfying pop.
    He filled the glasses and took one for himself.
    “To you, Dog Paddle,” he said, touching his plastic glass to mine.
    We sat back and sipped our wine. I thought about music, but Dashiell was asleep and I didn’t want to drown out the sounds of his snoring. I had thought about candlelight, too, but there really wasn’t anyplace safe to put candles. I’d checked it out.
    When the confused-looking little man in the white jacket came out of Hong Fat and looked around, Paul rolled down his window and motioned him over to the Taurus. I leaned over with the money, but Paul brushed my hand away, taking some folded bills from his pants pocket and paying for the food himself. The waiter said something I couldn’t understand, and then Paul nodded and laughed. He pulled the bag in through the open window and turned back to me. “So, how do you want to do this?” he asked.
    “One course at a time, starting with the appetizer,” I said, opening the bag and pulling out the dumplings and the little clear plastic container of dipping sauce.
    “Would you like to tell me what this is all about?”
    My mouth was full of dumpling. I shook my head no. “I thought we were going to talk about Lisa,” I said around the dumpling. “You promised.”
    He took a bite of dumpling. “You want to talk about your cousin ?”
    “I do.”
    “This is delicious. How did you find this place?”
    “It was recommended, so to speak, by someone I thought I knew.”
    He refilled our wineglasses.
    “Seriously, Paul, I—”
    “She wanted to many,” he said, leaning back and gazing out the windshield. “She said it was time to formalize our commitment to each other. I told her I wasn’t ready.” He turned toward the food, hoisting the final dumpling with his chopsticks. Then, chopsticks poised, as if he were about to conduct an orchestra, he looked at me. “Okay?” he asked. There was a flash of white between us. I could hear Dashiell swallowing the dumpling behind me.
    “You said okay. It’s his release word.”
    “The chicken next?” he asked, as if nothing untoward had happened.
    “But you loved her, didn’t you?” I asked, thinking about the jasper heart necklace and the heart bracelet, thinking about all those roses.
    Paul turned away from me and looked out the side window. Sitting on the sidewalk, to the right of Hong Fat, there was an unshaven, disheveled-looking man leaning against the wall, a cigarette dangling from his crusty lips. He wore a purple sweater that was too big for him and was frayed at the bottom, stained, wide-legged brown pants, shoes without laces. In one hand he held a live crab.
    He put the crab down on the sidewalk.
    “Come here, Donny,” he said in his gravelly voice.
    The crab didn’t budge.
    “Goddamn you to hell, Donny,” he shouted at the crab. “I said come. When the fuck’re you gonna learn to mind me?”
    He took the cigarette from his mouth and, holding it between two stained fingers, touched it to the