This Dog for Hire

all.
    Two more doors opened and closed, getting closer to me.
    Maybe she had inadvertently left her coat on the hook behind the door and was looking for it.
    I don’t know why, but I leaned carefully forward and picked up t.he bag of dog food, squeezing it onto my lap in front of Magritte. I lifted my legs, toe. stretching them straight out in front of me and brae ing myself with my feet against the door.
    Then the oddest thing happened. The doors stopped banging open and everything was very quiet. Too quiet. Until the lady began to whistle. ;i sweet, clear little tune, just four notes, a pause, then those same four notes again.
    As if she were calling a dog.
    And again, four notes, a pause, the same four notes, only an octavo higher now, the sound echoing off the tiles, reminding me just how empty this place was so late in the day, and how isolated.
    Magritte stiffened, his hackles going up. And he growled, a low rumble in his throat I could feel as I quickly hooked his collar with two fingers just in time to prevent him from jumping down and disappearing under the door.
    When he discovered he wasn’t free to do as he pleased, he began to whine.
    Suddenly the bathroom doors opened again, this time from the side that led to the passageway under the stands. I heard a woman’s voice.
    “God, it’s late. Even the bathroom’s deserted.”
    Immediately the door to the stall next to me opened and closed. Only this time, the lady who had lost her coat was in the stall.
    “Do you have a comb? Dotty, a comb? Thanks.”
    I leaned down and away from that side, careful not to dislodge Magritte and his food, until I could see the shoes of the lady who had finally found a stall to her liking.
    I saw white leather sneakers.
    Big white leather sneakers.
    Facing the wrong way.
    Unless she was about to throw up, the lady next to me was not using the john in the usual way.
    I waited hopefully for the sound of retching.
    No such luck. She was using the stall as a place to hide.
    “So, where to next?” I heard from the area where the sinks were.
    “I’m off to a cluster. The South, thank you. Isn’t this New York weather something? How do they live here?”
    I took another peek at those shoes.
    My sister Lillian wears a size eleven, and these feet could make her look as if she were Cinderella.
    In my neighborhood, no matter what someone is wearing, feet that big can mean only one thing. The person in the stall next to me was no lady.
    A chill went: through me that precluded nearly all bodily functions, including the one I was there for.
    The sixth law of investigation work says, Don't get caught with your pants down.
    Quietly putting Magritte and the food down for a moment on the side opposite Big Foot, in one move I covered my ass, literally at least, slipped into my coat, and, hoisting Magritte but ditching the bag of Nutro Max kibble in the stall, bolted out of the ladies’ room, almost knocking down Dotty and het friend.
    "What's your problem?” I heard behind me before the swinging door closed.
    But I never stopped to answer. I ran down the moving escalator, Magritte now under my coal and snug against my chest, and kept running until I was on Seventh Avenue.
    There were people everywhere, all waving frantically for cabs. Not wanting to stand around vying with the crowd for too few taxis while whoever had been in the bathroom got the chance to catch up. t< indeed that was his agenda, I headed for Thirty-second Street.
    Carrying Magritte, exhaustion pressing against the backs of my eyes, I turned the corner and began walking rapidly toward Eighth Avenue.
    As I walked west, I was more and more alone. Except for a sense of peril I couldn’t shake.
    I stopped once and pretended to check my pockets, but I didn’t see anyone else stop and wait, nor did I spot a particular person behind me or across the street that I remembered seeing near me earlier.
    Still, I couldn’t shed that funny feeling, one that made the hair on my arms stand up. I began to run.
    When I reached Eighth Avenue, the wind was whipping around, blowing dirt off the street into my eyes. I stepped off the curb into the street, one hand on the outside of my coat propping up Magritte, who by now felt as heavy as a semi, the other up and out like a flagpole, hoping to attract a vacant cab.
    Watching the empty street in front of me, I found myself wishing I bad my attack-trained pit bull at my side so that I could feel smugly safe instead of terrified.
    My