Stud Rites

hello to Oliver, the hotel door opened and in strode Duke Sylvia. He was a big, tall man who handled mostly Working Group breeds, a lot of Akitas and Danes, Siberians, Samoyeds, malamutes, boxers now and then; and mainly to show off, I’d always thought, also handled an unusually wide variety of other breeds when he got the chance—ridgebacks, bulldogs, and once in a while a toy, a Maltese, or a papillon. Duke was an ungodly gifted handler, one of the best I’d ever seen. Put Mario Andretti behind the wheel of an old VW bug, and maybe it becomes a Maseratti. Hand Duke a dog’s lead, you got a whole new animal. People swore that one time, on a bet, Duke Sylvia not only walked into the Pomeranian ring with a long-haired ginger cat, but won, too. The story must have been apocryphal. Watching Duke handle, you could still believe it. That’s how good he was.
    Duke didn’t have a dog with him now, just a leather suitcase in one hand and a metal tack box in the other. Although he was what my father calls ”a regular guy,” he was also what my grandmother calls ”a dandy.” He wore starched shirts, flashy ties, jackets fresh from the dry cleaner’s, creased pants, polished shoes, and heavy male jewelry: big rings, tie tacks, lapel pins, an ID bracelet, and a wristwatch with a wide metal band. His age? Over forty. Under sixty? He had thick gold-yellow hair streaked with white, like the mane of an aging lion, but treated with some kind of grooming product, maybe one of those conditioners that promise to eliminate tangles, mats, snarls, and static electricity while simultaneously moisturizing dry skin and imparting a pleasant nondoggy odor. As advertised, the effect was more controlled than greasy, and Duke’s hair matched the rest of him. He had broad features. Like a lion’s, his head was too big for his body.
    There was, however, nothing growly about Duke’s personality. On the contrary, he was an affable guy with an endearing ability, unusual in our cult, to remember the names not only of dogs but, remarkably enough, of people, too.
    ”Holly Winter!” he called out. ”Saw your dad a few weeks back. Good to see him out and about again. Hey, Timmy, how you doing? You heard about Elsa? Damned shame.” Duke didn’t look particularly upset. He could have been remarking on the peaceful and natural demise of an elderly pet.
    Tim Oliver echoed Duke: ”Damned shame.” Matching platitude with platitude, he added, ”No-where’s safe these days.” Tim—Timmy, as the old-timers called him—had soft, unformed features, as if a childhood illness or a genetic quirk had prematurely halted his facial development. His hair was lank, his face flat, his ears large. The diminutive, Timmy, I thought, flagged a folk diagnosis of what a doctor might have recognized as a subtle syndrome with trivial consequences.
    When Duke had finished greeting six or eight other people by name and exchanging remarks with all of them about Elsa Van Dine’s murder and the damned shame of random violence, I started to approach him with a request for a favor. The Showcase of Rescue Dogs was set for seven o’clock that night. I wanted to persuade Duke to handle one of the dogs.
    Before I could slip in the request, however, Timmy Oliver snagged Duke and launched into a monologue about the merits of his bitch, whose name, as I overheard it, was Xerox, but, as Timmy went on to say, was spelled Z-Rocks. According to Timmy, Z-Rocks had easily finished her championship at a young age, was the bitch he’d been waiting for all his life, and—in a stage whisper—exactly James Hunnewell’s type. Duke took Timmy’s bid for approval with his usual air of calm amiability. I followed Duke’s eyes as they played over Z-Rocks, who, viewed as a show dog, seemed to me perfectly decent, but not outstanding. Also, her coat was in disgraceful shape.
    ”And wait till you see her move!” Tim exclaimed. Wait was what we didn’t have to do. Abruptly tightening the lead in his hand, Timmy Oliver went charging across the lobby with the astonished Z-Rocks doing her best to maintain a proper show gait despite the obstacle-ridden conditions of the odd ring in which she suddenly found herself. Directly ahead lay the invisible pen into which the Border collie manager had herded his distressed nuptial flock. To avoid a collision, Timmy came to a startled halt, and Z-Rocks, displaying a show dog’s nose for where power lay, dutifully posed herself before Crystal,