Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

Tylenol with codeine, Valium, Ex-Lax, and Turns for her tummy to start her own pharmacy. I even found her favorite medicine, hidden behind the six-pack of toilet paper under the sink for those times when Howie was too slow getting back from the store. Before leaving Dora’s suite, I stopped at her bureau to look at the photo hanging over it, a round-faced boy, already overweight at seven or eight, standing next to a little girl, her dress so starched the skirt stood out, a ribbon in her curly hair, her face as round as Howie’s. A sister? So where was she when Mama needed so much care?
    Next door to Dora’s room was a second bathroom, and across the hall from that was Howie’s bedroom, the door so warped it didn’t even close all the way. I pushed it open slowly and turned on the light.
    Howie slept on what looked like a cot, or a youth bed. It was as neatly made as if Howie were in the army, the single pillow fluffed, the striped blanket pulled tight and tucked in with hospital comers. Howie’s slippers were lined up next to the bed on a little mat. I walked in, waited for Dashiell, and closed the door behind us as well as I was able.
    There was an old upright bureau on one wall and a small desk on the other. I sat at the desk, turned on the lamp, and opened the top drawer, looking at the neatly lined up pens and pencils, the checkbook, the little packet of rubber bands, the small dish of paper clips, and the box with stamps in it, all carefully tom from their sheets and stacked in neat compartments, everything just so.
    The drawers to the left held Howie’s business files, every payment and expense neatly recorded. And envelopes of receipts, all marked and ready for tax time. Behind the receipts were letters. I pulled the file and looked through the lot of them, all from patients and doctors relating to the conditions Howie was supposed to treat. And behind that a folder with photographs in it, only three of them, Howie kneeling with a bunch of other boys, perhaps a team shot but without the identifying paraphernalia, Howie’s grim little high school graduation picture, and one really good photo, a black-and-white enlargement of Howie doing t’ai chi. It reminded me of the photo of Lisa in Avi’s office, the way the subject was off center, the way the light hit the hands, caught in a graceful pose as the subject moved slowly through the form. Howie looked through the Tiger’s Eyes, loose circles made by his powerful hands, which in the photo looked as chiseled as the David’s.
    I checked my watch. It would be nearly halfway into the next appointment, if there were one. Still no Howie. But for how long, I couldn’t say.
    I became aware of my breathing then, shallow and quick, my head clear, my ears alert to any sound from elsewhere in the apartment. I shut off the desk light and was ready to go when I got one last idea. I knelt and looked under Howie’s neat bed, then slid out the magazines I’d had the feeling would be there, carefully sliding them back when I had seen enough silicone and whips to last me a lifetime.
    I stopped in Howie’s office on my way out. His appointment book was lying open on the cabinet near the head of the massage table. I checked my watch. It was four twenty-eight. Someone was due in just two minutes, on the half hour. Just then, the bell rang. I signaled Dashiell, and we made it out the door before the second ring, a longer one, had summoned Dora.
    There was a tense-looking young man waiting to be buzzed in. Walking past him, I thought about her, about Howie’s mother. She had looked as if she’d fall asleep, mesmerized by the TV. I wondered what would happen to the cigarette, but whatever would, it had happened countless times before, and Dora the lush was still here to tell any stranger who’d listen what a fucked-up loser the son who cared for her in her old age was.

24

There Ought to Be a Law

    LEAVING HOWIE’S, I felt that crick in my neck he had warned me about the first time we’d met. I had thought about going over to the Club to see Paul. I could say I’d lost Lisa’s work keys, ask if I could borrow his set, see what he said, watch his eyes while he said it.
    Then I thought about the envelope. What had he thought when he’d reached into his pocket and found it missing, when he’d realized I knew that it had been he who’d been so anxious to get married, not Lisa? All she had wanted was to go to China , no matter what it cost her. So I thought maybe I