This Dog for Hire

but maybe someone would have seen Billy and might know where J could find him.
    When we got as far as Gansevoort Street, we found a tattered woman slowly pushing her shopping cart full of possessions along the sidewalk. Poking out from inside her torn coat was the broad, striped face of a red tabby cat, and there were two small mixed-breed dogs, each wearing several sweaters, riding in the cart among her treasures. The homeless men usually collect deposit bottles. Many have become rather entrepreneurial, amassing large amounts of cans and bottles they can exchange for enough money for a meal. The street women seem far crazier than the men. Few talk to anyone. Many rave as they go. They seem more impaired than simply hideously down on their luck. At least, with this lady, her pets gave me a possible opening.
    “Handsome cat,” I said, the jowls telling me the cat was male, “what do you call him?”
    She stopped, looked at Dashiell, then, to my surprise, looked at me. Perhaps Dash’s presence signaled I was trustworthy.
    “Tuna,” she said. “Just use your nose, girlie. A nose, by any other name, would smell a rat. Something’s fishy in Denmark.”
    “I see,” I said. “I mean, I sniff, therefore I am.”
    She tossed back her head and cackled.
    “Sure would like some coffee,” she said, lifting her head and air scenting, as if I might have some in my pocket.
    “I’ll get you a cup, um, what did you say your name was?”
    “I smell, therefore I call myself Bo Peep.”
    “Wait here. I’ll be a minute, okay?”
    “No skin off my cat,” she said, getting busy adjusting the parcels in her cart. The dogs sat perfectly still, staring down at Dashiell.
    We were across the street from Florent, the wonderful little French bistro smack in the middle of the meat district on Gansevoort Street. I ordered a coffee to go, and while I waited, I figured out the name. It wasn’t Bo Peep. It was B. O. Peep! Accurate, too.
    When I got outside, B. O. was down the block. Dashiell and I ran to catch up with her. I handed her the bag with the coffee.
    “B. O., do you know a homeless man called Billy Pittsburgh? He hangs around West Street sometimes.”
    She opened the bag, sniffing like a dog. “Coffee,” she said, “I smell coffee.” She closed her eyes and inhaled.
    “Have you seen Billy around lately?” I asked.
    “Billy Pee,” she said. “Smells worse than Shithead here,” she whispered. The little brown Chihuahua mix looked up at the sound of his name.
    “He eats it,” she said, her hand next to her mouth in a dramatic aside, dirty fingers poking out of her torn, gray woolen gloves.
    “Has he been around? Billy?”
    “He calls me Mary Perry,” she said slowly to no one in particular. “Mary Perry. It rhymes. Mary Perry. Not my name, I tell him. My address.”
    She put the bag under Tuna’s face, for him to smell the coffee. His eyes became slits and his lips retracted.
    “Slow Black Billy,” she said, laughing. “That’s what I call him. He don’t move too good.”
    She carefully took out the container of coffee and opened it, smelling it again for a long time.
    “Do you know where I could find him?” I asked her one more time.
    She began to push the heavy cart with one hand, and I could see the coffee sloshing out of the cup as she moved on. After going a few feet, she turned around.
    “Haven’t spotted him lately,” she said. “But someone else sure did. Don’t know who. Don’t want to know.” She was shaking her head as she began to make her way slowly down the block, still muttering. “Always making fun, that Billy. Always making jokes on me.” She stopped, and it looked as if she were pointing to her chest. Slowly, the cart began to move forward again. “Now the joke’s on him ,“ she said, but then the wind came up and I could no longer hear her.
    Dashiell and I walked uptown for a few block? before heading back downtown, but I didn’t see Billy or any other homeless people. It was dark by then, and the transvestite hookers were out, dotting the corners of Washington Street in the meat district like colorful birds, dancing in place, preening hopefully each time a car passed, singing to attract a mate, or at least the chance to earn a quick twenty.
    When we finally arrived at home, the cottage seemed unusually warm, safe, and clean. I fed pashiell, took a bath, and poured a glass of wine; then, remembering that the short version of the third law of private investigation