This Dog for Hire

probably working with Louis. He's known Veronica for years. That’s how Cliffie got past the manila envelope and slides stage. Louis introduced them. Anyway, the art is his now, isn’t it?”
    “Yes. And he can get it? He has keys?”
    “He may be there right now, for all I know,” Dennis said. “Yeah, he has the keys. God knows why. He almost never came here. He claims he’s allergic to paint fumes. And dogs. Okay, so I’ll see you at the opening?”
    “You bet! Get to work, Dennis. You’ll feel better.” When I hung up, I needed to do something to clear my head, so I climbed on my exercise bike and began to pedal rapidly. I had gotten the habit of working out when I was a dog trainer, hauling around dogs that sometimes weighed as much as I did. It’s not really brute force that gets the job done. A great deal of getting through to a dog has to do with winning its respect, which is often done mentally, but it doesn’t hurt if you can impress the dog physically when necessary, stopping him or moving him, if not with your irresistible personality, then with a little muscle and some swell timing.
    I had told Dennis if he did something he’d feel better. But I had, and I didn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about the Christopher Street pier, how lonely it must have been that night, how dark. I wondered if there had been a moon.
    I thought about the sound of the place, too, the w ind, the car, the little bell on the dog’s collar, the sound it would have made as he pulled and twisted, trying to break free, and the mournful yodeling of that little dog, Magritte.

10

It Should Only Happen

    DESPITE THE FACT that my mail assured me I had won seven million dollars and therefore no longer had to work for a living, Dash and I headed for the waterfront to try to find the homeless man known as Billy Pittsburgh. After all, back before I became filthy rich, I had given Dennis the hope there might be a witness, hadn’t I?
    When the last thing you want to see is a homeless person, like finally you met a guy who’s appealing, interesting, single, straight, and uninfected—it should only happen—-and you’re wearing your black knit coatdress with the deep V neck and matching cigarette pants, your mother’s sparkling marcasite pin, sheer black stockings, and witchy black suede, ankle-high boots with a small heel, and your hair once came out perfect, and you’re even wearing makeup, for God’s sake, then you’ll see homeless people- You’ll trip over them. They’ll hold their filthy hands out, nearly touching you, and ask for money. Or you’ll pass one, asleep in a doorway, and for a long time afterward, you’ll continue to smell the rancid odor of urine, wafting into your nostrils from your own clothes, which absorbed the stink as you passed it.
    I knew it would take great luck to find Billy. It’s not as if he had an address or a phone number. And even if I found him, it was doubtful he saw anything or could remember or relate what he saw if he had seen anything. Still, this, according to my mentor, Frank Petrie, was how you did investigative work. And since I didn’t have a better idea at the moment, I figured I’d give it a shot.
    Frank required a daily progress report that he could forward to the client so that, even when there was no progress, most days, you could outline where you went looking for it. According to Frank, the third law of investigation work is Look, kid, no one’s paying you to sit on your ass and watch TV.
    Dashiell liked the waterfront, and in nicer weather I did too. It was comforting to be near the river and expansive to let the eye rove far instead of being stopped every few feet by a building. There’s more sky in the Village than there is uptown, because the buildings are lower here, more on a human scale than the skyscrapers in much of the rest of Manhattan, and at the waterfront you can see really far, to the Statue of Liberty if you looked to the southwest, to the twin towers of the World Trade Center south and slightly to the east. If you looked northeast, you’d see the Empire State Building, which to me i s still the tallest building in the world. I’m always reluctant to edit the truths of my childhood.
    I could see everything, including my breath, but I couldn’t see Billy Pittsburgh.
    We crossed West Street, walked a block to Washington, and headed uptown. A lot of homeless hangout in the meat district, a few blocks north from where we were. It was a long shot,