Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

moving much too fast and no one saying a word, even when their mouths were moving. My eyes began to bum, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen; if I blinked, I might miss what I had come here to see.
    The end of a session was coming up, and I hit play again.
    “And so, my dears,” she said, in that same strong voice, “when you practice this week, remember to praise with enthusiasm. Here now, give me that darling corgi, no, no, the little girl. Watch me, students,” she said, leading the corgi to the heel position, signaling her to sit, and then bending down and hugging the little girl against her leg. ‘There’s a clever girl,” Beryl cooed, her voice warm and animated. The little dog gazed up at her, totally enthralled.
    “See,” she said, standing again, “nothing to it”
    God, she was good. But this wasn’t the spot
    I fast-forwarded, watching the jerky movements. Beryl was teaching the stay, demonstrating with the Dane and then watching her students try with their dogs, moving away so quickly that some of the dogs got confused and followed their owners instead of staying put.
    I scanned the first tape and checked my watch. Time was running out. Chip might not be able to keep the clerk busy much longer, and at the rate this was going, I might not have time to find what I was after before the store closed. I put the second tape in and popped the third tape into the machine next to it, pressing play twice and looking back and forth between the two sets as Beryl sped through her training classes. I must have looked as if I were watching a tennis game played by midgets.
    Then, on the third tape, the scene I was looking for began, something I had only vaguely remembered as I’d stood outside 303 back at the Ritz.
    I rewound the tape so that I would hear the whole thing.
    “So, dear people, now you have the down. But remember how to practice this, please. Those of you who had a little growling problem, teach the command at home first, where there are no other dogs about. The down puts your dog in a submissive posture, and for some of the males, this is quite embarrassing in class, in front of the other gents. It hurts your doggy’s pride. But once he learns the down at home, and you give him that nice tummy rub I showed you, he’ll do it very nicely in class and anywhere else you might need it. Any ques tions?”
    She looked around, her orange hair escaping the combs she used to try to keep it in place, just as her gray hair did now.
    “All right, then. Where’s my little darling?” she asked, her gaze leaving the viewer and going off to her left, a loving smile on her face now.
    I felt my stomach flip. This was the part I’d been waiting for.
    When the scene was over, I knew what I had to do, first thing in the morning. The music played again. As the credits rolled, the dogs romped in the background.
    I ejected the tapes, packed them up, and brought Ace Ventura back to the clerk.
    “I like the JVC one,” I told him. “I have to check with my roommate.”
    He closed his eyes and nodded wearily. Surely he’d heard that before.
    “I’ll give you a call about that later in the week,” Chip said. “I need a little time to think about it. Sure is a honey of a set, though.”
    “What did you find out?” he asked as soon as we’d left the store.
    “The explanation for something that was too much of a coincidence for me to buy.”
    He nodded.
    “Something you don’t care to elaborate on just yet?”
    I nodded.
    “Are we going back to the hotel?” he asked.
    “I have to make two quick stops first.”
    We were a few doors from the drugstore where I’d dropped off the film I’d shot on Sunday. I opened the envelope right in the store, looking through the pictures with Chip, stopping on the one of the locked roof door with the No Entry sign, and again on a shot of the maid’s cart parked outside one of the rooms, the passkey hanging on a hook to the left of the handle.
    “What next?” Chip asked.
    “Potato chips.”
    “A girl after my own heart.”
    We walked into one of the ubiquitous Korean delis that dot half the corners in Manhattan and stay open all night.
    “How about some beer to go with them?”
    “Oh, they’re not to eat.”
    He frowned. “I’m not going to touch this with a ten-foot pole,” he said, reaching for his money.
    “Allow me. I can expense them.”
    “You’re a hell of a date, Kaminsky.”
    I picked up a bag of Ridgies and put a five on the counter