Watchers

before they reached the end of the block, the dog began to elaborate on his message. He suddenly gripped Nora’s hand gently
    but firmly in his teeth and, to her startlement, pulled her along the sidewalk to an art gallery, where a young man and woman were admiring the landscape paintings in the window. The couple had a baby in a stroller, and it was the child to whom Einstein was directing Nora’s attention. He wouldn’t let go of her hand until he had forced her to touch the pink-outfitted infant’s chubby arm.
    Embarrassed, Nora said, “He thinks your baby’s exceptionally cute, I guess— which she certainly is.”
    The mother and father were wary of the dog at first but quickly realized he was harmless.
    “How old’s your little girl?” Nora asked.
    “Ten months,” the mother said.
    “What’s her name?”
    “Lana.”
    “That’s pretty.”
    Finally, Einstein was willing to release Nora’s hand.
    A few steps away from the young couple, in front of an antique shop that looked as if it had been transported brick by brick and timber by timber from seventeenth-century Denmark, Travis stopped, crouched beside the dog, lifted one of its ears, and said, “Enough. If you ever want your Alpo again, cut it out.”
    Nora looked baffled. “What’s gotten into him?”
    Einstein yawned, and Travis knew they were in trouble.
    In the next ten minutes, the dog took hold of Nora’s hand twice again and led her, both times, to babies.
    Modern Bride and babies.
    The message was painfully clear now, even to Nora: You and Travis belong together. Get married. Have babies. Raise a family. What’re you waiting for?
    She was blushing furiously and seemed unable to look directly at Travis. He was somewhat embarrassed, too.
    At last Einstein seemed satisfied that he had gotten his point across, and he stopped misbehaving. Until now, if asked, Travis would have said that a dog could not look smug.
    Later, at dinnertime, the day was still pleasantly warm, and Nora changed her mind about eating inside, in an ordinary restaurant. She chose a place with sidewalk tables under red umbrellas that were, in turn, sheltered by the boughs of a giant oak. Travis sensed that she was not now intimidated by the prospect of a real restaurant experience but wanted to eat in the open air so they could keep Einstein with them. Repeatedly throughout dinner, she looked at Einstein, sometimes glancing surreptitiously at him, sometimes studying him openly and intently.
    Travis made no reference to what had happened and pretended to have forgotten the whole affair. But when he had the dog’s attention, and when Nora was not looking, he mouthed threats at the mutt: No more apple tarts. Choke chain. Muzzle. Straight to the dog pound.
    Einstein took every threat with great equanimity, either grinning or yawning or blowing air out his nostrils.
     
     
5
    Early Sunday evening, Vince Nasco paid a visit to Johnny “The Wire” Santini. Johnny was called “The Wire” for several reasons, not least of which was that he was tall and lean and taut, and he looked as if he was constructed of knotted wires in various gauges. He also had frizzy hair the shade of copper. He had made his bones at the tender age of fifteen, when to please his uncle, Religio Fustino, don of one of New York’s Five Families, Johnny had taken it upon himself to strangle a freelance shit-and-coke dealer who was operating in the Bronx without the permission of the Family. Johnny used a length of piano wire for the job. This display of initiative and dedication to the principles of the Family had filled Don Religio with pride and love, and he had wept for only the second time in his life, promising his nephew the eternal respect of the Family and a well-paid position in the business.
    Now Johnny The Wire was thirty-five and lived in a million-dollar beach house in San Clemente. The ten rooms and four baths had been remade by an interior designer commissioned to create an authentic—and expensive— private Art Deco retreat from the modern world. Everything was in shades of black, silver, and deep blue, with accents of turquoise and peach. Johnny had told Vince that he liked Art Deco because it reminded him of the Roaring Twenties, and he liked the twenties because that was the romantic era of legendary gangsters.
    To Johnny The Wire, crime was not just a means to make money, not simply a way to rebel against the constraints of civilized society, and not only a genetic