Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

accident?”
    “Maybe Bucky causes accidents,” Boris said, and even though I’d felt like smacking him in the past, just then I could have kissed the man.
    “Oh, perfect, Boris. Good American thinking. So what’s the scenario, pally? Let me see if I can figure it out. I broke into Alan’s room, unplugged his radio, carried it into his bathroom, placed it on the shelf over the tub, plugged it in, and then pulled the shelf out of the wall. How am I doing so far?” But it was a rhetorical question, my favorite kind. He held up a hand. There was more to come. “So what was Alan doing while I allegedly did all this, soaping his genitals?”
    He looked around for support and found none.
    “Great. This is great. So what did I do next? Will someone please tell me how I made Rick choke?”
    When no one answered him, or came to his defense, he shot Boris a look and then picked up his cards again, rechecking them to see if his hand had improved in the interim.
    Boris looked at me and winked. Then he picked up his shot glass and downed the contents, taking the sweating bottle out of the ice bucket and refilling his glass and mine before putting it back. Fortunately, my mother wasn’t here to tsk-tsk about the drinking or tell my cohorts I’d always had an overactive imagination.
    Woody picked up four chips and dropped them in the pot.
    I threw in five more chips, raising it again, and waited.
    “Are you going to call, or aren’t you?” I asked when nothing happened.
    “I fold,” Chip said.
    Bucky slapped his cards onto the table and folded.
    “Rachel has big hand,” Boris said. “Boris folds, too.”
    I turned and looked at Woody.
    “Fold,” he said.
    “Cool,” I said, gathering in the chips and adding them to the pile in front of me.
    “Starter’s luck,” Boris said.
    I picked up the cards and began shuffling, fanning them out left and then right to the melodious sound of chips hitting each other.
    Suddenly Bucky gave me a concerned look, his face as wrinkled as a shar-pei’s. “I meant to tell you, Rachel,” he said, picking up the cards as I dealt and slipping one between two others, “I’ve been hearing rumors about you for the past few years, since you dropped out of sight.”
    He looked up at me now, to make sure he had my attention.
    “They say you quit the business because you took a bite, and it scared you off.”
    “Really? I heard the same story about you,” I told him, picking up my cards, giving them a look-see, then looking up at Bucky, grinning.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Yeah, it’s what everyone is saying, that you do all those commercials instead of working with clients because you lost your—”
    “What a bunch of crap,” he said.
    I looked down at my queens and grinned some more. I’ve always felt the concept of a poker face was a guy thing. I prefer the grin to the deadpan gaze, Julia Roberts rather than Robert Mitchum, rest his soul. It’s better for the immune system.
    “Who? Who said that?” Bucky shouted.
    “Who do you think?” I asked him. There’d been too many years of Bucky’s game, inventing some hideously damaging insult, then passing it on in front of other people as if he were your best friend shouldering an important but difficult message.
    Beware the messenger.
    Bucky looked back at his hand, quiet for the moment.
    “Of course,” I added, “I tell anybody who bad-mouths you, whatever they are saying just isn’t so. I tell them that you’re a wonderful trainer, absolutely fearless, one of the best in the business, past, present, and future. And that you have huge balls.” Even before Bucky looked up, surprised, Chip had kicked me in the foot.
    “Isn’t that what you told them about me?”
    “Especially the part about the balls,” Chip muttered.
    “Of course, I—”
    “So, that’s settled.” I flashed him the Kaminsky grin, a watt or two brighter than Julia’s. “Let’s play cards. In or out, suckers?” Chip picked up a five-dollar chip and tossed it into the pot. “Fold.” Bucky picked up his vodka, swallowed it, and slammed his glass down on the table. At the loud sound, Dashiell stood and barked, his tail straight out behind him. Then Betty stood, too. She gave him the eye. Dashiell’s shoulders seemed to lift as his tail dropped. He went around to the far side of the bed and lay down with a sigh. There’s nothing like the efficiency of an alpha bitch. I hoped I had just proven that, along with Betty.
    I looked