The Barker Street Regulars

of walking them, I let them out in the yard for a few minutes. To avoid once again losing my bearings in the tangle of gaslit streets on Norwood Hill, I consulted my scribbled directions to Ceci’s and studied the Newton map in my atlas of eastern Massachusetts. Then I crated Kimi, threw on my parka, snapped a leash on Rowdy, and tore to my car. I told myself that Rowdy was my camouflage: If for some unforeseen reason I needed to pass unnoticed in Newton, I’d become yet another suburbanite exercising another suburban dog. Like Sherlock Holmes lingering outside Irene Adler’s house, right? Disguised as a drunken-looking groom—of the equine variety, of course, although when you consider Holmes’s admiration for the woman, you naturally have to wonder about his unconscious motivation in casting himself as a groom. And about mine in taking Rowdy with me. Camouflage? Oh, sure. Any excuse would do. The truth? As the Bible says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
    Instead of meandering along Greenough Boulevard, I cut across the river to Soldiers Field Road. A sharp left took me under the Mass. Pike, and a right led me to Oak Square in Brighton. Turning left, I crossed into Newton and, consulting my refreshed mental map, made my way up Norwood Hill without getting lost. The challenge was greater than on my previous trip. The night was mild and foggy. I seemed to ascend into a cloud. Twenty minutes after I’d left home, I was on Norwood Road. A block ahead of me, I knew, the road split. Upper Norwood forked to the right and continued past Ceci’s house, and Lower Norwood veered left to deadend near the bottom of her property. On my previous trip here, I’d had to get out of the car to search for a street sign. The neighborhood had intimidated me and made me feel vaguely angry and resentful, as if the invisible inhabitants of these immense houses had conspired to maintain exclusivity by insisting on charming gaslights that failed to illuminate hidden street signs.
    Now, on this Friday evening, one of the houses on the block of Norwood Road before the fork was visibly and brightly inhabited. Fog-softened light radiated from every window of the three-story colonial; cars lined both sides of the narrow street. About half were big, new four-by-fours: Jeeps, Blazers, a Land Rover. Honestly, to judge by what’s driven in prosperous suburbs, you’d assume that free-roving lions and elephants posed a constant threat to people running errands and ferrying children to soccer practice. If not, why prepare for a safari? Anyway, parked between a Mercedes and a vehicle suitable for off-road adventure in Africa was a familiar old Volvo from which the bumper sticker had been removed. Hugh and Robert had evidently decided that when the game actually was afoot, it was best not to advertise the news. Had their quarry also arrived? I scanned for a dark panel truck. Its presence here, I realized, would be unremarkable; anyone would assume that it belonged to the caterer hired by the hosts of the party, or perhaps to an electrician, plumber, or locksmith responding to a household emergency. But the panel truck wasn’t there. It could have been on Lower Norwood Road, of course, or somewhere else nearby. And the man with the bulbous forehead could have driven anything: a rental car, a fancy new four-by-four borrowed from a friend. Was he here? Or had I arrived in time?
    Rowdy’s comforting presence offered a reliable way to find out. At shows and at dog training, I seldom have to worry that Rowdy will start a fight. What I do have to worry about is that a dog with warped judgment will decide to take him on. Also, when trouble breaks out between other dogs, Rowdy feels compelled to join the fun. If he’s loose in the back of the car, he has a slight tendency to roar at any dog we pass. And, naturally, he won’t tolerate having his turf invaded by canine strangers. When I first brought Kimi home, he exhibited a certain amount of rivalry. Now, of course, he adores her. The two of them won’t fight about anything except food, and even when a battle breaks out, there’s more noise than actual bloodshed. So for a dominant male malamute, he’s remarkably good with other dogs. But if Irene Wheeler’s confederate had arrived here with a male Great Pyrenees, Rowdy would let me know.
    Backing carefully along the car-lined block of Norwood, I reached an empty space and parked. Would the