The Dogfather

clutched in both hands as if he were a purse someone was trying to snatch. In the parking-lot lights, she and Anthony practically glowed in the dark. “Hi, there!” she greeted all of us. “You like my new car? Hey, Holly, I got to tell you, Anthony’s doing great. You hear him? No barking. Silent as the grave. Oh, Jesus, what did I say? I need a zipper for my fat mouth.”
    Guarini nodded at Carla and then set about organizing the evening’s event by directing the placement of the cars. Obedience-minded as I am, I’d already parked the van exactly where my Bronco had been, so I simply waited as Guarini had Favuzza moved the Suburban to the spot it had occupied. Meanwhile Zap drove the limo eight or ten spaces away and, as directed, parked it facing the front of the lot. Guarini asked Carla to park her convertible next to it. “Carla," Guarini said, “I got to ask you to leave Anthony in your car for a couple of minutes.” As if he needed to soften or justify the request, he added, “I got Frey with me. He’s going to stay in the car. Miss Winter, you’re going to leave Sammy where he is, in your van, and you’re going to act like he’s not here.”
    Once Zap and Carla had carried out the instructions, I saw the point, which was to move both vehicles away from the area. Gesturing to Zap and Carla, Guarini gathered the whole group in a circle in the space between Steve’s van and the Suburban. Although Joey Cortiniglia’s bodily fluids and tissues were no longer visible on the blacktop, I could sense their traces underfoot and found myself shuffling and keeping the dogs on tight leads to shield my feet and their paws from contact with the dead. No one else showed a sign of sharing my superstition. Guarini and his guards stood where Joey’s corpse had lain, and to their left, the Bellano twins leaned against the Suburban. Carla faced Guarini. She rested her weight on her right foot and, flexing her left ankle, tapped a slim heel in what struck me as a rhythm of courtship. To Carla’s left was Zap, his arms folded across his scrawny chest. For once, his prematurely aged face bore an expression: He looked sullen. My dogs and I completed the circle, Rowdy on my left, Kimi on my right. Acknowledging Guarini as the alpha figure in the pack, the dogs watched his face in what I read as the vigilant expectation of a signal. We human beings silently waited for Guarini to speak. Remarkably, even Carla kept quiet.
    It was typical of Guarini that he left unspoken what would have been a silly preamble about our wondering why he’d gathered us all together here. We knew why. Or everyone except Rowdy and Kimi did. Instead of wasting time voicing the obvious, that he wanted the name of Joey’s killer, Guarini began by talking about dogs. Truly, the man was a mobster after my own heart. Pointing to Rowdy and Kimi, he said, “I got a lot of respect for malamutes. Smart. Strong. Natural. Beautiful. A lot like my elkhounds. But quieter.”
    Carla giggled. “Not like my Anthony!”
    While Carla was still displaying the hysteria never observed in Alaskan malamutes or Norwegian elkhounds, Guarini turned to the bodyguard on his left. In expecting a signal, Rowdy and Kimi had been correct. As usual. Anyway, the designated guard, who’d always seemed surgically attached to Guarini, separated himself, stepped forward, and, within seconds, was pressing an automatic to Zap’s chest. The guard’s actions had been so smooth, so professional, that I hadn’t even seen him reach for the weapon. Kimi, to my right, was next to Zap. She transferred her gaze from Guarini to me. Rowdy began to watch her. Zap’s face turned from a yellowish sallow to a waxy green.
    Guarini was smiling. “Miss Winter, supposing this was you.”
    “Would my dogs protect me?”
    He nodded.
    “They’d have blocked access to me. Rowdy would definitely have done that.”
    “And supposing it was Joey.”
    “No. They probably wouldn’t have done anything. They wouldn’t have barked or growled.” Following Guarini’s lead, I didn’t bother to say that we weren’t speaking hypothetically. When Joey had been shot, my dogs hadn’t done a thing to protect him.
    “So,” said Guarini, “supposing Joey’s here, and he’s got your dogs on leash, and somebody walks up to him.”
    “You know this already,” I said. “It isn’t that mala-mutes are bad guard dogs. What they are is non-guard dogs. They take care of themselves. Rowdy and Kimi will