This Dog for Hire

looked it up himself, I told him the ring number.
    He nodded, then turned and made his way through the folds of humanity clogging the aisle, stopping and squatting low to look inside the other basenji crates as he had done with Magritte.
    “Here he is. So what’s the big deal!”
    There were two women in front of Magritte’s crate now, one tall and thick, built like a tree, hair shorn short in front, the rest pulled back and tied with a scarf, the other short and soft and round with breasts that began under her chin and ended somewhere around her pillowlike stomach. The tall one clutched her catalog to her chest. The other kept methodically pulling pieces of rice cake from her pocket and putting them into her mouth.
    “This is Magritte, isn’t it?” the short one said.
    I nodded. I was going to have a neck like a nose tackle by the end of the show.
    “The News says he’s a shoo-in,” she said, a real edge in her voice. There was a thin mustache on her upper lip that she apparently hadn’t had time to wax or bleach.
    The tall woman checked her catalog and then bent to look into Magritte’s crate.
    “Orion has a better ear set,” she said to no one in particular.
    “They say he’ll take Best in Show,” the short woman said.
    Her skin was doughy and pale, with small scabs on her cheeks. Her short, curly hair was dyed aubergine. I’ve always thought that color looked better where it belonged, on an eggplant.
    “Well, he hasn’t taken the breed yet,” I said. “There are lots of other good dogs here today.”
    “But none as brave and famous as this one,” she said, sarcasm dripping off her tongue along with a fine spray of rice cake.
    In 1984 rumor had it that the Newfoundland Ch. Seaward’s Blackbeard would take Best in Show before he had even drooled and rolled his way into the Garden to compete in the breed. And he did. But that kind of successful second-guessing was rare, and even though some people assumed BIS was already a done deal at this show, I wasn’t one of them. I refused to make assumptions about Magritte’s chances.
    I supposed they had a basenji entered and didn’t care for the edge Magritte had picked up when he lost his owner and gained Veronica Cahill’s publicist. I was going to ask which dog was theirs, but not wanting another rice cake shower, I decided not to. Instead I picked up Gil’s catalog, hoping they’d take the hint and go away.
    You wouldn’t have to be a detective to figure out which dog was theirs. Ch. Turkon’s Heavenly Hunter, a male, four years old. That would make them Poppy O’Neal and Addie Turkle. But which was which I couldn’t say.
    Once they had moved on, Poppy or Addie leaving a trail of puffed rice, like Hansel and Gretel in the woods, I got up to stretch, then stood up on the bench where I had been sitting to see if I could spot Gil. It was getting close to the time for Magritte to go get brushed, go potty, and present himself ringside. But Gil was not to be seen.
    I remembered a story Chip had once told me about a famous handler. She had arranged to show a boxer the owner thought had great potential but was herself unable to win a major with. The handler met the owner and dog outside the ring the very moment the dogs were called. The owner had been standing and waiting, afraid the handler wouldn’t show. The dog, absorbing all her anxiety, stood next to her, his head low, his tail down. As the handler took the leash, not saying a word to either of them, the dog’s head came up, giving his neck an elegant arch, his dark eyes danced, his tiny, docked tail shot straight up and began beating rapidly from side to side. He won the breed, finishing his championship, and later on, with the same handler holding the leash, all know-how and confidence, he took the group.
    If Magritte took the breed today, wouldn’t it be a bittersweet victory? Like Clifford’s soaring career, you’d have to wonder if all the great press, the sympathy, the sheer drama of recent events, would have made for a win that in the normal course of events wouldn’t have happened.
    I saw Gil approaching from the opposite way he had left. He was walking with another man, who was small and thin, his hair and skin the same dead-looking steely gray, a cigarette apparently stuck onto his dry lower lip despite the fact that there was no smoking allowed and that this was announced over loudspeakers with predictable regularity.
    “—should go up. After today,” the little man