Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

his cold nose through the lining of my jacket pocket. Next I felt his teeth as he grasped the key tag and slipped the key out.
    Cathy, flushing slightly as she did so easily, despite her California tan, just watched him work, offering neither encouragement nor redirection. In the end, he’d picked six pockets, and Cathy scooped up six hotel keys from her lap and tossed them onto the table. The applause was wild, and those of us who could manage it gave her a standing ovation.
    “Untie,” Audrey said, putting Magic down onto the rug.
    The black pug started with Martyn, who sat at Audrey’s left, because we were sitting in exactly the same places we’d sat the night before, except that there were twelve of us now instead of thirteen. When we heard growling, and when Martyn began to laugh, we all ducked our heads under the table to have a look-see. There was Magic holding the end of one lace and shaking her head from side to side, backing up as she did, keeping up her ferocious sound. When she’d untied one shoe, she proceeded to the next and then around the table, until everyone not wearing slip-ons had their laces dangling loose. We all stayed with our heads under the table, too enthralled to miss a shoe.
    Woody picked up a little basket of chocolate mints that the waiter had placed on the table after clearing the dessert plates. For a moment the basket disappeared, then Rhonda came around serving the mints, the handle of the basket tucked into her big undershot jaw, the basket swinging below her pugnacious-looking chin.
    We took mints by the handfuls, junking up on sugar and chocolate as the perfect accompaniment to the booze. As Rhonda worked her way around the table, we got louder and louder.
    When someone’s cell phone rang, it set us off anew. I sent Dash to fetch it, and he slipped it off Woody’s belt and brought it to me. I held it up as if to answer the call, pretended to listen, and then said, “Only a smile. What are you wearing?” When it rang again, I passed it to Woody.
    Rick surprised us all by asking Freud how old Sam was, and after he’d barked about ten times and showed no signs of stopping, the saliva flying out of both sides of his mouth, Sam jumped up and grabbed his big, drooly mouth to stop the count. Whoever would have guessed that Rick Shelbert had a sense of humor? You never know.
    Woody had walked away from the table and turned his back to us. I could see him nodding as he talked into the phone. I could see the tension in his neck and shoulders. When he took his seat again, he was frowning.
    Then Boris got up and walked away from the table with
    Sasha. “Sasha now sink Star-Spangled Banner,” he said so seriously that for the moment there wasn’t a sound in the room. He hummed, as if to give Sasha the right key, then he turned back to face us again. “Boris teach this to Sasha because he is happy to be American dog trainer.” He bowed his head and turned back to face the big Rottie, lifting his arms as if he were about to conduct the Boston Pops. No one was breathing. He turned again, the dog waiting patiently for his cue. “Boris loves this land, land of the free, home of the braves.”
    Boris waited, then turned to us yet again. I felt my stomach lurch, as if I were the one doing all that turning.
    “You must be much more drunk than you look,” he said. It took us a moment to realize he was right; honest to God, until then, we were waiting for Boris’s Rottweiler to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
    Everyone began to look around the table sheepishly. “We do have to work tomorrow,” Bucky said. “I think I’ll be the first.” He reached into the pile of keys and picked out his. “Good night, folks.”
    Cathy picked up the remaining five keys.
    “404,” she said. Rick began to stand, stumbled, and sat back down hard. We all laughed, relieved that it was he and not us. Cathy whistled and Sky picked up his head, but she tossed Rick’s room key to Freud. And when he caught it, everyone clapped. “305.”
    I raised one hand, and she tossed the key. It landed with a thunk on my dessert plate to thunderous applause. Once again, we were on a roll.
    Cathy palmed the next key and dropped it on her lap. But Sky hadn’t picked her pocket, had he?
    “405,” she said.
    “Oh, that’s me, dear. Have your clever dog bring it over. Beryl’s too potted to catch it.”
    But Cathy merely handed the key across the empty space where Alan Cooper would have been sitting.