This Dog for Hire

bisexuality. For business purposes.
    “Naturally she’d be interested in what happens here with Magritte today. Considering”—he paused, but didn’t take his eyes off mine—“her investment.” I heard Magritte resettle in the crate and, with out looking, poked my fingers in for him to sniff.
    “It can only help Clifford’s name. If Magritte wins. And”—he got his handkerchief out just in time to catch a triple sneeze—“you know what this would have meant to Clifford.”
    “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Louis,” I said. “I’m only the hired help.”
    “Life is for the living, Rachel,” he said. Then he turned and made his way down the aisle to Veronica. Lots of people were making their way up and back
    in the benching area, and whatever their reason for being at Westminster, they didn’t want to miss the chance to see Magritte. Some thought a barkless dog would be perfect for apartment living. Mo complaints from the neighbors about noise. Others were just attracted to anyone or anything important enough to be written about in the papers.
    Most of them just stopped by quickly, checked their catalog, poked their fingers at Magritte, then headed for the concessions or down the next aisle. Short-attention-span disease was rampantly on display. I was sneezing back and forth with Magritte to keep him amused when I became aware that yet another spectator had stopped in front of us. I looked up.
    “Pardon, is this Magritte?” His voice sounded hoarse.
    “Yes, it is,” I said.
    It was the stocky man from Cliff’s opening, now spiffed up in a navy suit, white shirt, and maroon tie. He bent to look into the crate.
    I wondered if he was a reporter. I looked for a press ribbon, de rigueur at Westminster, but there was none. Nor was there a Nikon or a Hasselblad hanging from his shoulder. Not a reporter.
    Maybe he was a dog trainer. He had a ruddy, used-up sort of face. Working outdoors, training dogs, can do that to you.
    Especially if when you finally come indoors, you do a shitload of drinking.
    “Is he going to win?” he whispered in his raspy voice. “He really got some fabulous press, didn’t he?” He hiked his tan leather backpack higher onto one shoulder.
    “Maybe he’ll get the sympathy vote.”
    “Oh,” he said. “Maybe he will. Are you—?”
    “A friend.”
    “A friend of his ?” he asked.
    I merely smiled.
    Most dog shows attract serious dog people, professionals who earn their living training or showing dogs and breeders who need to prove their stock and see what the competition is producing. This one, because of its location and the fabulous press it gets, even when none of the dogs competing have recently murdered owners, attracts a broader audience, families dragging their kids through the crowded aisles, hoping by looking and asking questions to select the perfect breed, the curious, the lonely. Rich or poor, the bored take in Westminster. They come to see Nanook, Rin Tin Tin, and Lassie, for a once-a-year lively alternative to the museum or the movies.
    lie bent and looked at Magritte again, putting his face close to the cage. His dark hair was so even in tone, I wondered if it was natural.
    “He’s so quiet,” he said. “Is he always this quiet?” He straightened up. “Funny, isn’t it? It’s so hard to tell them apart. I wonder how the judges know which is which.”
    A detective listens, Bruce Petrie used to tell me. I thought this might be a good time to practice keeping my sarcastic mouth shut.
    “Unless, of course, the color is different.”
    I nodded.
    I wondered if he had used that stuff on his hair you comb in and no one’s supposed to notice that in three days your hair is suddenly the color of a desk.
    “I’m enjoying the show,” he volunteered.
    I nodded. I figured it might seem rude to ask. The whole idea is to fool people, isn’t it? I mean, even if you’re in your eighties and your hair is solid black, like enamel paint, or if, like Tony Bennett, you have a hairline considerably lower on your brow than it was when you were younger, no one’s supposed to know it’s not a result of Mother Nature’s glorious and perfect design.
    I checked my watch. “He’s going up at eleven-thirty,” I said. “Are you going to watch him in the ring?”
    “Eleven-thirty,” he repeated to himself. “I wasn’t going to stay, but I guess I shouldn’t miss that. Where would I go?”
    Despite the fact that he had a catalog and could have