"Fine, but I need the owner's name for the records." He jabbed an index finger at the groomer. "And you'd best start deskunking that cocker, Dina. If the owner comes back before it's dry, you can forget your part of the service charge."
She bristled, then her lips flattened to a grim line. "Excuse me, Mr. McPhee," she mumbled, and reached for the door to the kennel runs.
Dina, Jack repeated to himself. Well, half a name was better than none. And she'd remembered his. Repressing a smile wasn't easy, but he managed.
When the door closed behind her, he said to Slouchmeister, "I guess she's not what you'd call dependable, huh?"
"Dina's okay, except on short notice." He chuffed at his own lame joke. Stationed again behind the counter, he added, "Like my dad says, if you don't manage the help, the help'll manage to get paid for sloughing off."
Jack assumed the kid inherited his charm from his old man. "Your dad owns Home Away?"
"He took it over when my grandma died." He circled Jack's name on the registration form and noted his temporary custody. "Thank God I only have to work here during the summer."
"College student?"
Nodding, he offered the pencil to amend the ownership line. "Yale. Class of whatthefu" A gestured "oops," then, "Class of whenever Dad gets sick of paying tuition."
Interesting, Jack thought. And wouldn't it be a coincidence if those Ivy League halls of higher learning emptied right around Memorial Day and refilled Labor Day weekend.
Consideration was given a two-birds-with-one-stone idea. Evidently, Dina the groomer was called in to remedy a dog unfamiliar with a skunk's defense mechanism, not for a full day's work. Waiting around in the parking lot, then buying her a cup of coffee could be edifying in more ways than one.
All in good time, he decided. A casual remark afterward in the wrong ear about her delightful, spur-of-the-moment repartee with Butch's temporary custodian could be a tip-off. Jack using his real name wasn't particularly risky, unless the Calendar Burglar walked his fingers through the phone directory.
"Business before pleasure," he said, with a sigh. "Damn it."
* * *
There wasn't enough scotch in Scotlandneat, on the rocks, sucked out a barrel's bung hole with a strawto blot out the lowlights of the next twenty-four hours.
Not once, but
twice
during Jack's overnight campout in his car, a minuscule Chevy with a cretin at the wheel rolled by the cul-de-sac's entrance. Moby Dickhead had burned the decoy house's address for future reference as effectively as gasoline and a match. Jack stayed put, though, entertaining himself with fantasies of felony assault and battery.
Then just after dawn, while his head was burrowed under the pillow and his mind was deeply involved in an entirely different fantasy and costar, Home Away called to inform him that Butch had jumped a pit bull in the outdoor exercise yard.
The pit bull emerged unscathed, naturally. The idiot sheltie's emergency animal clinic's bill was $422.73. Luckily, Angie Meadows's hobby was hooking, not wind sprints. When he dropped off the bandaged sheltie, she did chase Jack for two blocks, screaming explicit details about the amputations she'd perform if she caught him.
The bar where Angie worked was off-limits for the forseeable future. Finding another second-favorite watering hole wasn't a fraction as worrisome as Gerry Abramson's retainer dissolving in record time.
Provided the Calendar Burglar was identified and stopped, the insurance agent wouldn't freak about Jack's expensesapart from maybe the veterinary clinic bill for Butch. And if, of course, it was Jack's hunch that led to the thief's apprehension.
And then there was the increasing possibility that he was loonier than Brett Dean Blankenship. Being wrong about the kennel connection wasn't the issue. He had, however, speculated that the burglar might be a customer, not an employee. TLC's and Home Away's log sheets were both kept in plain view. The thief dropping off his dog just as Jack was dropping off loaners failed to amuse him.
Merry Hills was next and the last on the list. Jack refused to quit two-thirds through the rotation. Come up empty again, and he'd contact kennel owners for a confidential look at their files. As if they'd allow it then, any more than they would have at the outset. Therefore, Jack McPhee, state animal facility inspectoror something equally official soundingwould make unannounced visits.
In the meantime, a new decoy address was a must. A new dog to allegedly reside at that address was crucial. The first grin in recent memory broke across Jack's face. "Belle has a dog."
He sobered immediately. "She also has a husband who thinks you're a bottom-feeder and he's probably at home on a Sunday morning."
Flipping through the Rolodex, Jack called ex-girlfriends, friends, acquaintances and bar buddies he had to describe himself to. Realizing he was visually fitting a dog suit on the one-eared tomcat that roamed the apartment complex, he gave up and dialed his ex-wife's number.
"You want to borrow my dog," Belle repeated. Her tone was normally associated with unsecured loans of large sums of cash.
"Just overnight. You know I wouldn't ask, if I
really
didn't need your help."
"Everybody else you've asked turned you down flat, huh?" She laughed. "Two problems, hon. I'm packing for a flight down to Little Rock to meet Carleton."
Jack pumped a fist. "He's already in Arkansas?"
"He drove down Friday. He's the keynote for another financial seminar. I bowed out of two days of godawful wives' activities, but I'll make an appearance tonight. Then we'll drive on to Hot Springs for a couple of days' R&R."
"If you're leaving town," Jack said, "you need a dog-sitter for what's his name."
"Abdullah, otherwise known as Carleton Jr." She made a gagging noise. "Who's in Florida humping his harem."
"Still?" Jack remembered Belle mentioning the afghan hound's mating marathon last week at lunch. How a dog's life was perceived as a negative, he couldn't imagine.
"I'm sorry, Jack, but I've got to go. I'll call later in the week, okay? Collect on that rain check for a drink you owe me."
"I'll hold you to it, babe. One last thing, though. What kennel do you use for Carleton Jr.?"
"A kennel for an AKC champion stud-muffin?" She chortled. "Abdullah has a nanny, deah boy. She can't speak a word of English, but then, neither can he." A pause, then, "I heard somebody recommend Merry Hills once. It's south of town, off the bypass."
Jack would love to know who that somebody was, but his ex-wife's soon-to-be-empty house solved his location problem.
The Park City phone book had two columns of businesses that rented everything from bulldozers to bridal gowns. For a price, a portable wire dog pen was available, but not a dog to put in it. Local breeders also proved less than cooperative. Jack was reverting to the semiferal-cat-in-a-dog-suit idea when he noticed a small boxed ad at the bottom of the page.
* * *
The city animal shelter's desk attendant peered at him through her round, gold-rimmed glasses. "You want to borrow a dog," she said, in precisely the same tone Belle had used on the phone.
"Just overnight." Jack beamed his best "trust me" smile.
"I'll bring it back safe and sound, tomorrow afternoon." The bemusement in her eyes hardened to anger. "If that's a joke, mister, it isn't funny." Her arm swept toward a metal door with a vertical glass window above the handle. "Sixty-eight cats, kittens, dogs and puppies in there need homes. Most were dumped like last week's garbage. Ten percent might be adopted before their time on this Earth ends."
Lips pursed, she shook her head. "If there's anything more cruel than taking one of them out on a field trip," she said, a quaver in her voice, "I can't figure what it'd be."
Jack couldn't, either. The dogs he'd loved as a boy were rejects pushed from a vehicle during the night. He'd known that, yet finding the three-legged beagle in the yard, then later the Irish setter, were like extra Christmases. Both mutts were scrawny and flea-infested, but Jack's loathing for anyone who'd leave a dog to fend for itself or die trying, quickly became fear they'd accidentally wandered from their real homes and their owners would come and take them away.
"I'd give anything to have a dog again," Jack found himself saying. "I kind of envy a couple of friends their dogs, even though one's a Maltese with a Napoleon complex, and the sheltie thinks he's Muhammad Ali."
The attendant's expression softened. "Live in an apartment, do ya? Single. Full-time job."
Taken aback, he said, "So are you psychic, or a really good guesser?"
"After seventeen years, I could spot a dog lover from the far side of the moon. This cockamamie notion about borrowing one comes from wanting a dog for all the right reasons, but you're afraid that by midday tomorrowbefore you get attachedyou'll have to admit what you think you already know. Your place is too small, the dog will suffer without a yard to play in and it'll drive the neighbors crazy whining the minute you leave for work."
Hearing her vocalize the arguments he'd had with himself and lostor won, dependinghad Jack's hand reaching to scratch the back of his neck. The loaner dogs weren't his bowl of kibble, but K-9 and assistance animals were often apartment dwellers. Rode to work with their owners. Hung out with them all day at the office, keeping them company
"Except like you said, it'd be cruel to" Jack looked up, then around. The small room was a warehouse for pet food sacks, buckets of cat litter, baled newspapers, stuffed toys and boxes full of old sheets, blankets and towels.
"Where in the hell did she go?"
The metal door that resembled a drunk tank's swung open. A blast of frantic barks and warm, fetid air accompanied the attendant's reentrance. Beside her, a Wookie attached to a nylon leash lumbered along on all fours.
Its dirt-brown coat was short in some places and cowlicked in others. The tip of a parenthetic tail pointed at its droopy, shoulder-long ears, as though such colossal wind flaps might be overlooked. Overall, genetics seemed to have fused a retriever's legs onto a basset hound's torso. How the dog ran without kicking its front legs from under itself defied all laws of aerodynamics.
Jack backpedaled, palms aloft. "Uh-uh, no way, ma'am. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but"
"Twenty-four hours." The attendant held out the leash. "If you change your mind by then, bring him back." A wicked smile exposed a gold-capped molar. "The seventy-five-dollar fee is nonrefundable."
"But I"
"Will that be cash or check?" she inquired. "Sorry, but we don't take credit cards."
* * *
Stripped to his underpants, Jack goosed the dog into the tiled walk-in shower. "Atta boy. Sorry to put you through this, but whatever you rolled in since your last bath, it wasn't roses."
In deference to the dog, water generously described as tepid parted at the back of Jack's head, sluiced into his mouth and up his nose. Puffing and spitting, he dumped a bottle of shampoo on the mutt's head, then smeared it around. The stuff wasn't much for lather, but smelled nice and the label said it wouldn't sting a baby's eyes.
"Feels good, eh, boy? Just don't go getting your hopes up. Nothing personal, but this is strictly a one-night stand and you're spending most of it at Merry Hills."
The dog's muzzle tilted up. A speckled blue eye and a cinnamon-colored one expressed naked adoration. If ever a woman looked at Jack like that, he'd be a goner. A big, seriously ugly, homeless mutt didn't tug any heartstrings. Nope, not a one.
Jack scrubbed the sticky fur on its neck and chest. "I know a con when I see one." He step-pivoted to soap the dog's rump, belly and tail. "Now, Cherise Taylor, my old girlfriend?
She's
a different story. When she gets here, it might be worth your while to give her a 'you are my goddess' look when she picks you up."
A mournful groan reverberated off the ceramic tiles. The mutt's head hung so low, its ears drooped on the floor.
"Cut it out, damn it." Jack unhooked the handheld showerhead for the rinse cycle. "Like I told you, my jewelry-salesman cover is wearing thin and there's no reason not to take full advantage of the deHavens' little trip down south.
"Cherise is taking you to Merry Hills and signing in as Mrs. Carleton deHaven. Belle's never boarded a dog there, so nobody'll know the difference, and I promise, the joint's swankier than anyplace you've ever seen."
Jack shut off the water, saying, "I don't know if they have story hour or not, but I'm talking chopped steak for dinner."
After toweling off both himself and the dog, he threw on a robe and sat tailor fashion on the bathroom floor. He'd never used a blow-dryer in his life, but the clerk at the drugstore offered a few tips.
Careful not to aim the nozzle at the dog's face, it suddenly dawned on him that it needed a name. "We'll leave that to Cherise." Echoes of Sweetie Pie Snug 'Ems and Butch thrummed in Jack's ears. "No, we won't. Being female, she'll stick you with Truffles, or Dijon."