Watchers

would you want me to call? Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Old Yeller?”
    The retriever stared at him with those dark, undoglike eyes, which were more expressive than ever but insufficient to communicate what the animal Wanted.
    “Listen, maybe you can read my mind,” Travis said, “but I can’t read yours.”
    Whining in frustration, the retriever padded out of the room, disappearing around the corner into the short hallway that served the bath and two bedrooms.
    Travis considered following, but he decided to wait and see what happened next.
    In less than a minute, Einstein returned, carrying a gold-framed eight-by-ten photograph in his mouth. He dropped it beside the phone directory. It was the picture of Paula that Travis kept on the bedroom dresser. It had been taken on their wedding day, ten months before she died. She looked beautiful—and deceptively healthy.
    “No good, boy. I can’t call the dead.”
    Einstein huffed as if to say Travis was thickheaded. He went to a magazine rack in the corner, knocked it over, spilling its contents, and came back with an issue of Time, which he dropped beside the gold-framed photograph. With his forepaws, he scraped at the magazine, pulling it open and leafing through its pages, tearing a few in the process.
    Moving to the edge of the armchair, leaning forward, Travis watched with interest.
    Einstein paused a couple of times to study the open pages of the magazine, then continued to paw through it. Finally, he came to an automobile advertisement that prominently featured a striking brunette model. He looked up at Travis, down at the ad, up at Travis again, and woofed.
    “I don’t get you.”
    Pawing the pages again, Einstein found an ad in which a smiling blonde was holding a cigarette. He snorted at Travis.
    “Cars and cigarettes? You want me to buy you a car and a pack of Virginia Slims?”
    After another trip to the overturned magazine rack, Einstein returned with a copy of a real-estate magazine that still showed up in the mail every month even though Travis had been out of the racket for two years. The dog pawed through that one as well until he found an ad that featured a pretty brunette real-estate saleswoman in a Century 21 jacket.
    Travis looked at Paula’s photograph, at the blonde smoking the cigarette, at the perky Century 21 agent, and he remembered the other ad with the brunette and the automobile, and he said, “A woman? You want me to call . . . some woman?”
    Einstein barked.
    “Who?”
    With his jaws, Einstein gently took hold of Travis’s wrist and tried to pull him out of the chair.
    “Okay, okay, let go. I’ll follow you.”
    But Einstein was taking no chances. He would not let go of Travis’s wrist, forcing his master to walk in a half-stoop all the way across the living room and dining room, into the kitchen, to the wall phone. There, he finally released Travis.
    “Who?” Travis asked again, but suddenly he understood. There was only one woman whose acquaintance both he and the dog had made. “Not the lady we met in the park today?”
    Einstein began to wag his tail.
    “And you think that’s who just called us?”
    The tail wagged faster.
    “How could you know who was on the line? She didn’t say a word. And what are you up to here, anyway? Matchmaking?”
    The dog woofed twice.
    “Well, she was certainly pretty, but she wasn’t my type, fella. A little strange, didn’t you think?”
    Einstein barked at him, ran to the kitchen door and jumped at it twice, turned to Travis and barked again, ran around the table, barking all the way, dashed to the door and jumped at it once more, and gradually it became apparent that he was deeply disturbed about something.
    About the woman.
    She had been in some kind of trouble this afternoon in the park. Travis remembered the bastard in the running shorts. He had offered to help the woman, and she had refused. But had she reconsidered and phoned him a few minutes ago, only to discover that she did not have the courage to explain her plight?
    “You really think that’s who called?”
    The tail started wagging again.
    “Well . . . even if it was her, it’s not wise to get involved.”
    The retriever rushed at him, seized the right leg of his jeans, and shook the denim furiously, nearly tugging Travis off balance.
    “All right, already! I’ll do it. Get me the damn directory.”
    Einstein let go of him and raced out of the room, slipping on the slick linoleum. He returned with the directory in his