This Dog for Hire

had probably been elated the day he signed the contract. That had been November 16, which would mean he had been working on things for his show since then. There had been no date set, no promise of how soon it would be or how many of his works would be included. Most shows were up for a three-week period, during which there would be an opening, often stacked with the artist’s friends and sometimes, like the invitations, paid for by the artist. But then you had the chance to hope, and who could put a price tag on what that was worth? There might be a sale, a visit by a critic, a positive line in the press. You might, after all, have a chance.
    Peter Cole did not live in Fort Lee, but Woodcliff Lake. I found Morgan Gilmore’s number, too. He lived in Greensboro, North Carolina. I marked it with the highlighter, then put it on the nightstand with the rest of the papers.
    In the morning, I’d try to reach Louis Lane. Alter that, I’d start looking for Billy Pittsburgh, who, Isuspected, was using a name other than the one he had been given as a child.
    What did it all mean, all this name changing? I had even done it myself.
    When I took .lack’s name, I had thrown away my own- I had detached myself from my past and my family. When we split, I chose to keep his name, not my own, even though I had used it for less than a year. I had set myself adrift. I had even rejected my profession, taking a job with the Petrie Detective Agency on lower Broadway, run by two brothers, Bruce and Frank.
    I didn’t actually meet the older Petrie, Bruce, until I had been working at the agency for two and a half months. He was obsessed with electronic equipment for both surveillance and criminal activities. Every few months or so he’d surface from his windowless back office and show us the specs on the latest eavesdropping equipment, voice-changing telephone, letter bomb scanner, or microcamera in a key chain.
    It was Frank who had hired me to work as a junior undercover agent trainee, meaning I would do the same work as the regular agents but for much less money, because, as he so wisely explained, what if you’re following a guy and he goes into the men’s room and there’s another way out? And when I presented the same scenario with a woman being followed, he had shoved some papers around on his desk and said he couldn’t sit around all day and waste his valuable time arguing with me, there was work to be done, and did I want the job or not? I said I did. When I got home, I called Lili.
    Why do you want to put yourself on the outside looking in? she asked, one of her usual rhetorical questions. No, she said, changing her mind, for you. that would be an improvement. You won’t have time to press your nose against the glass. You’ll be too busy looking inside other people’s garbage cans to even wonder about how normal people live. You don’t really belong in the family, she said.
    Family, Dennis had said, oh, you know.
    Frank Petrie had put a tail on me right after he’d hired me, a real geek.
    Hey, you never know, the Pinkertons could have sent me to find out all his secrets.
    The tail was so ugly, you couldn’t miss him from a mile away. It did not require a genius to figure out what was going on. I called Frank.
    “Next time,” I told him, “send someone less memorable.”
    “Good work, kid,” he said. “You might not be a total loss after all.”
    Now, why couldn’t anyone in my own family ever say anything that supportive!

9
    You Can Never Be Too Paranoid

    I WOKE UP to the sound of my own voice coming from the office. I hadn’t remembered to turn down the volume on the answering machine, which I leave on high during the day so that I can monitor calls from anywhere in the house. Living in this city, you can never be too paranoid. At least that’s what my shrink always used to say.
    The next thing I heard was Dennis.
    “Rachel, it’s Dennis Keaton. Please call me. I have something important to tell you.”
    I picked up the phone. “Hey.”
    “Have you seen the Times?”
    “Not yet, Dennis. I was asleep.”
    “Oh. Sorry. I forgot other people do that,” he said. Great. My mother had been reincarnated as a gay guy.
    “Can you hang on?” I asked.
    “The C section,” he said. “Page nineteen, I'll hold.”
    I went downstairs, opened the front door, and sent Dashiell for the Times.
    To most people, a C section is a cesarean. If you live in New York City, it’s the arts section of the Times , the part