Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

in the hall, I noticed a baseball cap hanging on one of the hooks, but Janet didn’t take it, and now I wouldn’t be there to see who would.
    Good thinking, I told myself. Like it would be terrifically significant to see who took the cap, like it was even legal to live downtown and not have at least a few of them. Besides, no matter who owned this one, I already knew who stood across from Lisa’s in the weeks before she died.
    Walking over to Charlie Mom’s, Janet was quiet.
    “When did you get Pola ?” I asked her, wanting to get something going.
    She turned and looked at me.
    “Skip,” I said, watching her face harden. “He said you sometimes had to run home to walk her. I was surprised you never mentioned her.”
    Janet shrugged. “I missed Ch’an . After Lisa”—she paused, as if looking for the right word—“well, Avi doesn’t bring her in all that often. Not the way Lisa did. There’s something about Akitas , I don’t know, but I just missed being around one. I was able to find one, a female like Ch’an , only white, that a breeder in Jersey had held on to and then decided to sell. She’s seven months old, a real peach of a dog. I’ve only had her since, well, just a few weeks. That’s why I sometimes run out to give her an extra walk. She’d been a kennel dog, so I wasn’t sure about her housebreaking, but she’s doing real good , she’s real clean in the house.”
    I nodded.
    “They’re pretty popular,” I said, “ Akitas .”
    Janet nodded.
    “Paul said he liked them, too.”
    I felt her tense, the way I could always feel the tension surge in some male dogs when there was the perceived threat of another intact male approaching.
    “So did you know him before Lisa?” I asked. “I mean, since you worked in the same gym with him. Or had Lisa met him before?”
    “I introduced them.”
    Bummer, I thought.
    “Lisa came over to train with me, and Paul came into the gym to ask me something, so I introduced them.”
    “And what? Rockets went off? Soft music started playing, you know, like in the movies, to indicate two people are falling in love ?“
    “Something like that,” she said.
    “Did they start dating right away, or what?”
    “Lisa started swimming again.”
    “What do you mean?” As if I didn’t know.
    “She hadn’t been swimming for a long time, except in the summer, when she’d visit her parents. And after she met Paul, she began swimming regularly again. He used to call her xiao yue .”
    We stopped on the comer, neither of us speaking as we waited for the light to turn green.
    “It means little fish,” she said as we crossed Seventh Avenue . The waiter at Hunan Pan had looked away when he’d told me, not wanting to embarrass me by paying attention to how I might react. Such a nickname is given in great affection, he’d said, looking toward the other side of the restaurant, to family members.
    “Did Lisa stop training with you after she met Paul?” I asked Janet when we’d reached the safety of the other side of the street. She didn’t respond. “I don’t guess she had the time to do both.”
    We’d arrived at the restaurant. Janet stopped and turned to face me. “You know, I’m going to beg off, Rachel. I wasn’t thinking. It’s late, and Pola’s been alone all day. I’d feel like such a bitch, staying out even later. I’ll catch you another night,” she said and, not waiting for a response, turned and headed in the direction of home.
    It was quiet for the Village. Even weekday nights, there are people everywhere, going to plays and clubs, going to or coming from restaurants, walking their dogs, or just hanging out at the coffee bars that have suddenly cropped up like weeds, one to a block. Some sit inside, reading the newspaper or a magazine. Others sit outside, on a bench, watching the passing parade, as if they were in Rome or Paris . But tonight was sort of peaceful, and Dashiell and I walked slowly, enjoying the quiet.
    How should I feel, I wondered, about Paul using the same term of endearment for Lisa and me?
    He’d loved her. That I knew. What harm would it cause to think the obvious, that in the short time I knew him, he had come to love me, too? What difference could it make anyway, I thought, now that he was dead?
    Suddenly a hand grabbed my arm, and someone was in my face.
    “You were seen,” he said, his seething rage barely under control. “What the fuck is going on, that’s what I want to know.”
    “You were seen,