The Dogfather

for a class. “I’ll be quick," I said. “I just wanted you to know that my car’s dead. It, uh, blew up, more or less. In the middle of the night.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “Yes. It’s just that I can’t stand to think how close everyone was to it last night. You, your friends, Rita, Steve, Sammy. I feel unnerved. I just wanted to touch base with you. That’s all.”
    “Well, I’m fine. I wasn’t in your car.”
    “Also, Leah, I wanted to mention... those, uh, people who were at the show...”
    “The ones you were so unfair about?”
    “I was not! Leah, you haven’t heard from...?”
    “No, but if I do, I won’t be a snob like you.”
    “Leah! That is—”
    “Holly, the first time I met that man—what’s his name? You know. The one with the widow’s peak. When I met him was outside the Museum of Fine Arts, you know what he really wanted?”
    “You,” I said.
    “He wanted to know whether there were real mummies in the museum, and he wanted to know what you had to do to get in. I told you before. He did not understand that he could just walk in. Holly, it’s a terrible thing that anyone should feel so marginalized, so excluded from society! Can you imagine that? And here you are—! Incredible! Not everyone has had your advantages, you know.”
    There ended the conversation. Leah went off to her class. The subject, it so happened, was sociology.
     

CHAPTER 20
     
    Edward Zappardino possessed multiple disadvantages. For once I’ve not referring to dogs. It’s true, however, that he’d never owned one. Too bad, because a dog wouldn’t have minded his lack of such physical and mental attributes as a handsome face, a fine physique, high intelligence, and a charming personality. Zap’s dog, had he ever been blessed with one, would have seen him as altogether admirable in body and mind. As proof that my psyche has not gone entirely to the dogs, let me say that unlike the proud canine Zap might have owned, I was embarrassed to be seen with him, especially in so public a place as Loaves and Fishes.
    You will recall that Loaves and Fishes was the natural foods supermarket in back of which Joey Cortiniglia had been murdered. Zap and I were not, however, on a sentimental revisit to the scene of the crime. I was doing my grocery shopping. Zap had driven me because Enzio Guarini, taking pity on my earless state, had insisted on sending me his limo and, with it, his driver. When Zap had pulled into the supermarket parking lot, I’d assumed that he’d wait behind the wheel while I shopped. Unfortunately, he’d said, “You mind if I come along?”
    I’d lied in saying, “Not at all.”
    By way of thanks, he’d said, “It gets boring as shit being stuck in the car all the time.”
    As I’ve mentioned in passing, Loaves and Fishes is a temple devoted to the worship of wholesome holistic organic purity in all things: food, vitamin supplements, cosmetics, detergents, paper products, and esoteric personal-care devices, such as peculiarly shaped toothbrushes and spiked wooden implements designed to clean and massage your feet while moving you toward Oneness with the Infinite. As Zap remarked while we strolled amidst the fruits and vegetables, “This shit’s friggin’ weird.”
    Actually, he was referring to avocados. He’d never seen them before and had no idea what they were.
    Sounding ludicrously like Julia Child, I said, “They’re perfectly delicious.” I felt entitled to sound at least a little bit like Julia because once my new book was released, I’d be a cookbook author, too, although granted, 101 Ways to Cook Liver wasn’t exactly Mastering the Art of French Cooking. For a start, the recipes weren’t French. There were other trivial differences as well. Still, in researching the book, I’d finally learned to cook and on occasion did so for myself as well as for the dogs. Liver was no longer in my repertoire. Julia was probably tired of coq au vin, too.
    Zap didn’t recognize fresh ginger, either. I managed to silence him when he started to say what it looked like. It was easy to understand why Al Favuzza was always telling Zap to shut up. I did, however, see Leah’s point about marginalization and disenfranchisement. When I put a bunch of fresh basil in my cart, Zap asked me what it was. This from a guy named Zappardino!
    “Basil,” I said. “It’s Italian. No one in your family cooks Italian?”
    “I don’t eat home much. I sleep there, but I’m out a lot.”
    “You