The Dogfather

aware that they weren’t ordinary, innocent reminders like Remember to pick up milk or Call me when you get a chance. “What message was that?”
    “About Joey’s funeral. The boss wants you there ’cuz it’s soon and a lot of people might not show up. I’m here picking up his sister, but her plane’s late.”
    “Mr. Guarini’s sister?”
    “Joey’s sister. For the funeral.”
    “This is the first I’ve heard about it.”
    “You didn’t get the message.”
    “No. I haven’t been home. I’ve been here.” Duh.
    “The boss is sending a car for you. Wear black.”
    “Enzio Guarini, fashion consultant,” I blurted out.
    Zap cracked a smile.
    “When?” I asked.
    “Ten o’clock.”
    “What day ?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “And wear black.” In what I intended as a be-seeing-you tone, I added, “Thanks.”
    For once, Zap remembered his manners or possibly forgot his lack thereof. Instead of departing, he held the exit door open for me. Short of telling him to leave, there was no way to get rid of him.
    The door led to one of those nightmarish airport visions of a cement and asphalt future. Between the ugly concrete building I’d just left and the identical one opposite ran a blacktop road packed with buses, vans, cars, and diesel fumes. Overhead, rust-stained concrete walkways linked the terminals. Terminal. The mot juste, I always think. The world seems doomed to end neither with a bang nor a whimper but with a deadly boring wait in a concrete and asphalt airport that covers the entire surface of the planet, thus making it unnecessary to fly from anywhere to anywhere because you’re already in the same gruesome place you’d go. But there was one sign of hope. Remember the one God sent to Noah? Not the rainbow. The other one. I’m convinced that dove is a mistranslation. But the first two letters are right.
    In the wasteland of the airport Ararat, there had appeared the same sign God sent to Noah, and the people saw it, and they saw that it was good, which is to say the puppy, now wearing a little red collar attached to a red cotton leash, had drawn a clucking and ooh-ing crowd into which I hoped Zap would sink. He did not. Far from it. Rising to the top, Guarini’s driver said, “Hey, you, what the hell are you doing with the boss’s dog?”
    I simply had to intervene. “This isn’t Frey. This is a malamute puppy. See the white feet? And legs? The white on the face? Elkhounds are all gray. You see this puppy’s tail? It’s not curled. This is not an elkhound. This is not Frey.” Without pausing, I added, “Steve, this is Zap. Zap, Steve. I’m, uh, training an elkhound puppy that belongs to a, uh, friend of Zap’s, and—”
    Zap cut me off by addressing Steve. “He’s gonna be big. Look at the paws. That’s how you tell. By the paws.” This to Steve Delaney, D.V.M., who nodded politely. “How much you pay?” Zap demanded.
    I answered. “A fair price, but the puppy is not—” Zap asked the inevitable, “How much you want for him?”
    In a tone that brooked no dispute, Steve said, “This is my dog. He’s not for sale.” With that, he swooped up Rowdy’s son. Nodding at Zap, he said, “Nice to meet you,” and took off.
    In parting, Zap said loudly, “Tomorrow at ten. Don’t forget.”
    When I caught up with Steve, he repeated, “Tomorrow at ten?”
    I said, “I have a very classy clientele these days. Maybe you noticed.”
    “No one could miss it.”
    “Tomorrow at ten,” I said, “I’m training his friend’s dog.”
    Incredible though it may seem, that was, in fact, what I ended up doing. The dog wasn’t Frey. Still, at Joey Cortiniglia’s funeral, I really did end up training a dog.
     

CHAPTER 7
     
    The interment of Joseph Ignatio Cortiniglia took place at a Roman Catholic cemetery in Munford. Joey's graveside service was the first I’d attended in ages. My father’s intense response to my mother’s death, in combination with my own grief, had left me petrified of funerals. In the past few years, I’d gone to a couple of blessedly bodiless memorial services, and strictly from a distance, I’d observed burials at the famous Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. But I’d successfully avoided actually attending all manner of decedent-present ceremonies. I was as frightened as ever. I went anyway. The only thing I had to fear was not fear itself. It was Enzio Guarini.
    Joey’s shiny wooden coffin was the centerpiece of the event. Suspended just above