This Dog for Hire

imagination can really get out of hand when I’m this tired.
    Why would I be followed if the man who had killed Clifford Cole was dead?
    Hey, relax, I told myself. It was probably just a pervert in the john. New York is full of them.
    Or some guy who couldn’t read English, made a natural mistake.
    “Not to worry,” I said out loud, to Magritte. “This case is closed as tight as a Brittany’s lips.”
    But the feeling of being followed stayed with me. Even when it’s baseless, it can be more frightening than being followed .
    When you are sure you are being followed, you can do something about it, step into a store, jump on a bus, get lost in a sea of humanity or traffic.
    Except it was nearly midnight in a deserted part of the city. There were no open stores, no buses, no sea of humanity. There wasn’t even a fucking cab.
    Okay, still.
    You can draw a gun. (Mine was home.)
    You can turn around and shout, “I see you, you cowardly scumbag, hiding in the shadow of that building. What are you doing there, jerking off and thinking about your mother?”
    You can pretend you’re going home and lead him to the Sixth Precinct.
    And, if there’s absolutely no other choice, you can send your dog to talk some sense into the bastard.
    Unless the only dog you happen to have with you at the time is a lousy basenji.
    In which case you’re nuked.
    That’s when I turned around again, just in time to catch the man who was hanging back partway down the block step quickly closer to the building line where he’d be less likely to be seen. I could see the fronts of his white sneakers shining in tin moonlight.
    I was just about to succumb to the most hideous feeling of helplessness, a feeling I loathe because it’s always easier when you can actually do something, when a cab pulled up.
    I wrenched open the door and told the driver my address.
    And had I not looked out the back window as my cab pulled out into the street and seen the man who had been standing in the shadows run to the curb with his arm up like a flagpole and immediately get a cab, the creep, I would have thought I was okay.
    Safe.
    But now I knew I wasn’t. The signs were in place that someone wanted to know where I was going. As clearly as the toilet paper that might be stuck to the bottom of his sneakers would have told the world where he’d just been.
    All I could think of was how good it would feel to be home with the door double-locked and my own dog at my side.
    There was only one thing to do. I offered my driver an extra five if he’d get me home in five minutes, and he nearly left my head on Eighth Avenue making the turn on West Thirty-third Street, past the north side of the main post office, to go downtown.
    And all the way home, all I could do was hope that the man who had been following me hadn’t thought to make a similar offer to his driver.

28
    Who Wouldn’t Make a Face?

    WHEN I WAS putting the key in the front-door lock, I heard the phone and nearly broke the key in half trying to get inside.
    “Rachel, thank God you’re okay.”
    Magritte had run in. Dashiell had run out. Now they were both in the garden, the door open, the warm air flowing out and the frigid night air coming in.
    “Dennis?”
    The dogs came barreling in and headed for the food bowls.
    “Hang on a sec,” I said, slipping off my coat and tossing the Flying Man into the living room.
    “Hey, where were you raised,” I asked Dashiell. “a kennel? Close that door.”
    He came from behind it, butted it once with his cinder block of a head, and then did a neat paws up. The door slammed so hard, the house shook. I turned the lock and put on the chain.
    “That’s better.” He and Magritte were tugging on the new toy.
    “I’m back,” I said into the phone, “what’s up?” “Thank God you’re okay. I’ve been worried sick.”
    “What’s wrong? What happened?”
    “You’re not going to believe this. Gil didn’t die of a heart attack. He was poisoned!”
    “What? How do you know?”
    “When I got home, there was a message from Marjorie, saying it was urgent she speak to me as soon as possible, even if it was in the middle of the night. So of course I called.”
    “And?”
    “A technician was moving the body, you know, Gil, because the ME has to autopsy to determine cause of death, and when he was getting him onto a rolling stretcher, he smelled bitter almond.”
    “Cyyanide.”
    “Right. It wasn’t a heart attack. It looks as if Gil was