Mike Resnick - Dog In The Manger

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Copyright ©1995 by Mike Resnick
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To Carol, as always,
And to my good friend Ross Spencer,
the funniest mystery writer yet hatched
1.
Go be an honest cop. See where it gets you.
It got me on television (all except NBC, which was busy covering the World Series), and it got
me intoNewsweek (two paragraphs, one photo), and it got me my very own 192-page
paperback biography that was churned out by some hack writer in one weekend. (We were
going to split our zillions 50-50 and then sell the movie rights to Brian de Palma or maybe
George Lucas; I think we each came away with seven hundred and fifty dollars, and I never
did see a copy of the book on the stands.)
I'm a real, bonafide hero. Of course, I'm flat broke and I live in a two-room furnished
apartment on Cincinnati's less-than-posh west side, right between an elegant auto junkyard
and Proctor & Gamble's swank old-line parking lot, and the phone company keeps
threatening to disconnect me. But I'm a hero.
Let me tell you, the hero business isn't all it's cracked up to be.
When I got out of the army—I was busy defending Italy from the Communist Menace while
most of our boys were fighting a minor skirmish in Vietnam—I joined the Chicago Police
Force. I kept my nose absolutely clean, didn't take any more graft that was absolutely
necessary (if you've ever been to Chicago, you'll know what I'm talking about), and rose to
the rank of lieutenant after a decade.
Then our new police commissioner—Chicagoalways has a new police commissioner—
declared the city's umpteenth all-out war on the drug trade. This time we kept clear of the
ghettos, mostly because the press didn't like to follow us to West Madison Street, and we
started hitting the high class dealers and dens in the Lake Shore Drive area. I was still dumb
enough to think we meant business, so when I busted Bennie the Turk—(no, that's not why
I'm a hero)—I looked at his little address book and found the names of two U. S.
Representatives and half a dozen state Senators. I should have wised up when everyone on
my team started calling in sick, but I went ahead and put together my evidence and arrested
both Congressmen and three Senators for illegal possession of cocaine. (No, not yet.) It was
explained to me that I had made a grievous error, that these were men of honor who couldn't
possibly have had any dealings with the Turk, and besides boys-will-be-boys-ha-ha, but I
figured thatsomebody would give a damn, so I went ahead and testified against them. (It's
okay to cheer now: that's how I madeNewsweek and had my little chat with Dan Rather.) Of
course, the case was thrown out.
And so, I might add, was Elias J. Paxton.
Right. That's me.
I wish the guy who did theNewsweek piece had come by a year later to see how his
incorruptible national hero was doing. Of course, he wouldn't have been able to find me, not
in Chicago. They kicked me off the force, of course. First they tried to get me to resign. When
that didn't work they found some obscure regulation—they have about ten million to choose
from, all for situations like this—and gave me the boot. I still don't know what the hell they did
with my pension.
So I figured I'd cash in on my reputation and set up shop as a private eye. They found zoning
violations in my first four offices. They decided my car was a menace to navigation. They
tapped my phone.
So I moved to Cleveland, and couldn't find any work there either. I finally took a job as a night
watchman in a glass factory, which lasted until the night it got broken into and I killed two
armed trespassers. They couldn't throw me in jail, but they made it very clear that my
presence was no longer required, or even acceptable, in their fair city. I guess they expected
me to disarm gunmen with my smile.
Which is how I wound up in Cincinnati, a world-famous incorruptible cop reduced to looking
for a goddamned dog.
Well, it wasn't justany goddamned dog. It was a very special goddamned dog. At least, that's
what Hubert Lantz kept telling me.
I had spent the day sitting in my dingy little third-floor office on Eighth Street, staring at the six
Chicago Police Department citations that used to mean something to me, but which I now
keep only to cover the cracks in the plaster. The glass in my door was cracked too—an irate
husband had slammed it two months ago, when I broke the news to him that his worst fears
about his wife weren't half as bad as the truth—and the replacement still hadn't arrived. The
rest of the office wasn't much to look at, but at least it was whole: a desk, four chairs, a
cabinet, and a bookcase loaded with lawbooks which I had picked up at a Brandeis book sale
and planned to get around to reading someday. The fact that most of them dealt with
Kentucky law didn't seem to make much difference: clients who are impressed by law books
don't much care where they're from, and those who aren't impressed care even less.
Anyway, four o'clock rolled around and I got down to the serious business of deciding
whether I had enough money to splurge on a Reds game at Riverfront Stadium. I figured that
even if I settled for a four-way chili and a cup of coffee, the best I could do was a seat in the
right field bleachers—left field was out of the question, since Barry Larkin and Reggie
Sanders were both on a tear and there'd be ten thousand kids there hoping to catch a home
run—and had just about made up my mind to go to my apartment and save the six bucks
when the door opened and in walked this tall, skinny, balding man wearing a pair of designer
jeans and a tan sweater with one of those little crocodiles on it.
“You're Eli Paxton?” he asked.
I nodded. I used to come on suave and sassy like the detectives in the movies and say that,
no, I was his uncle who was just tending the store and taking messages while he was busy
hobnobbing with the rich and famous, but one day about a year ago an absolutely gorgeous
redhead took me at my word and walked right out. I didn't get another client for three weeks,
and I've never been anything but polite and sincere since then.
“I need your help,” he said, looking very nervous and lighting up a Marlboro.
“That's what I'm here for,” I said reassuringly. “Why don't you have a seat and tell me what's
on your mind.”
He picked up a wooden chair and carried it over to my desk. I remembered too late to hide
the beat-up old copy ofPenthouse and replace it with the neat old copy ofForbes , but he was
too caught up in his own troubles to notice.
“I don't know exactly where to begin,” he said, puffing away furiously and stifling a cough.
“Have you ever heard of Baroness von Tannelwald?”
I took my feet off my desk and sat erect. A baroness, no less. Things were looking up.
“Never,” I said. “Sounds like she must be from one of Cincinnati's old Germanic families.”
“From one of Arizona's old Weimaraner families,” he said, smiling in spite of his distress.
“She's a dog.”
“A dog?”
He nodded.
I put my feet back on the desk. “Why should I have heard about a dog?”
“She was Best in Show at Westminster four months ago,” he said, snuffing out his Marlboro
and immediately lighting another. “I thought you might have read about her.”
“My interest in animals starts and ends at River Downs and lasts just about six furlongs,” I
replied. “What does this dog have to do with you?”
“She belongs to one of my clients.”
“One of your clients? What do you do for a living?”
“I'm a handler.”
“A what?”
“A professional handler,” he repeated. “I condition show dogs, take them on circuits with me,
groom them, and present them in the ring.”
He handed me his card, which was how I found out his name. I'm never nosy anymore unless
someone pays me to be.
“You're one of those guys who places the dog's feet down where they belong and holds the
tail out?” I asked.
“Right.”
“Well,” I shrugged, “it's a living.”
He got so hot he forgot he was scared. “It's more than a living! I'm a highly-trained
professional, half athlete and half artist! What I do takes a hell of a lot more talent than taking
photographs of unfaithful wives and husbands screwing each other in hotel rooms!”
“Photos went out when they got rid of transoms,” I noted drily.
“Do you have a drink?” he asked suddenly.
I figured, what the hell, I can always put it on the expense statement, so I walked over to the
metal cabinet where I keep all the copies of my paperback biography that I use to impress
potential clients, pulled out the bottle of Jim Beam that I was using as a bookend, and brought
along a couple of glasses.
He downed three fingers without batting an eye, then refilled his glass and did the same thing
all over again.
“Thanks,” he said. “I've been under a lot of pressure this week.”
“You want to tell me about it?” I asked with all the professional sympathy I could muster on
the spur of the moment.
The muscles still twitched in his face—they hadn't stopped twitching since he'd walked in—
but he took a deep breath and plunged right in.
“Baroness belongs to a man named Maurice Nettles out in Casa Grande, Arizona. She came
into heat two weeks ago and he decided that he wanted me to ship her home for breeding.
Naturally, I didn't want to. With her inherent quality, plus the reputation she picked up by
winning Westminster, I could have made another $20,000 off her by the end of the year.”
“From just one dog?” I asked.
He nodded.
“How many show dogs do you handle?”
“Between twenty and thirty,” he said.
I tried to suppress a greedy little smile. Things were looking up again, and so was my salary.
In five seconds it had gone from $150 a day to somewhere around $400. I figured I might
even be able to afford a display ad in next year's Yellow Pages.
“Did you ship her off?” I asked at last.
“He pays the bills, so when I couldn't talk him out of it I told my kennel girl to send her home
last weekend while I was at a show.”
“Then what's the problem?”
“When I came home Sunday night none of the dogs I had left behind had been cleaned or
fed, and the phone was ringing off the hook. It was Nettles, demanding to know where
Baroness was. She was supposed to arrive there at dinnertime, but when the plane landed
she wasn't on it.” He paused long enough to light still another cigarette. “Kennel help is never
very dependable, so I just assumed the girl got to the airport too late to get her on the plane
and simply booked her on a later flight. As for her not being home, hell, she probably has a
boyfriend stashed away somewhere in Dayton or Covington.”
“And now it's Wednesday and she hasn't turned up yet?”
He nodded. “Neither her nor Baroness. Nettles called twice more Sunday night and accused
me of purposely missing the flight so he'd miss her season and I could continue showing her,
and—”
“Have you ever done that before?”
“Once, when I was much younger and really needed the money. Not recently. Anyway, he's
suing me for the value of the dog.”
“How much would that be?”
“About $25,000, maybe a little less.”
I hated to ask the next question, but I had to. “Aren't you covered for it? It seems to me that a
man in your profession would have insurance to protect him against a valuable dog dying or
being stolen.”
“Of course I am!” snapped Lantz.
For which thank God, I thought. So the problem was real and not imagined.
“Then why not let your policy pay for the dog?”
“Because I got another call from Nettles this morning. He's made an official complaint to the
American Kennel Club. He wants my AKC privileges revoked.”
“Any chance?” I asked.
“A damned good one,” said Lantz. “I've been suspended on bad conduct charges a couple of
times, mostly for bitching too loud about what I thought was rigged judging. There are people
in the organization who are just waiting to land on me with both feet.”
“What's the kennel girl's name?”
“Alice Dent,” he said.
“Do you have a photo of her?”
“I can get one.”
“So basically what you want me to do is find Alice and—”
“I don't give a damn about Alice Dent!” screamed Lantz. “Just find the dog! I am 45
goddamned years old. I've been a pro handler since I was 18. It's the only trade I know. I've
got to get this sonofabitch off my goddamned back!”
“So at this point, you don't much care if Baroness is dead or alive, as long as we can prove
that whatever happened to her wasn't your fault. Is that correct?”
He nodded, snubbed out his cigarette, and poured yet another drink from my rapidly-
diminishing supply of Jim Beam.
“Have you reported this to the police?” I asked.
“Of course!”
Thank God, Version 2.0: he'd talked to the cops and he still wanted a private detective.
“What was their reaction?”
“They were very polite...”
“Everyone in Cincinnati is.”
“...but I got the distinct impression that hunting for show dogs is pretty low on their list of
priorities.”
“How about hunting for kennel girls?” I asked.
“We're just across the river from Kentucky and maybe 20 miles from Indiana,” he said. “The
second she crosses the border, with or without Baroness, she's out of their jurisdiction. I got
the impression they figured she was in some other state before I got home Sunday night. So
they're officially looking for her and for Baroness—but, damn it, I want someone who's doing
nothing but looking for them.”
“How did you happen to choose me?” I asked. I didn't much care, but it would be nice to hear
that a few satisfied customers had taken a little time off their divorce proceedings to go
around town saying nice things about me.
“I picked your name out of the phone book.”
“It would probably be politic of me to accept that answer, Mr. Lantz,” I replied, “but if I did, you
might start wondering just what you were getting for your money. I'm the only detective in the
book who doesn't have some kind of ad. You can barely find my name stuck in there between
Norman Security and Prestige Investigations. And they misprinted my address.” Probably, I
added mentally, because I'm always six weeks late paying my bill. “So who put you onto me?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Bill Striker.”
“You went to the Striker Agency first?”
“I handle a schnauzer for him. He told me he was too busy to take on another client just now.”
“And he recommended me?”
“He suggested that you might need the work.”
Which was true, of course, but it sounded just a bit denigrating, and I decided that the next
time Mrs. Martinelli called me at three in the morning to tell me that devil-worshipping godless
communists were slithering down her chimney with the intention of raping her for the greater
glory of Mother Russia, I would tell her that Soviet rapists were the special province of the
Striker Agency.
“Did he tell you my fee, too?” I asked.
Lantz shook his head.
“Four hundred a day plus expenses, and a bonus if I succeed. I'll bill you every Friday, but I
need a retainer in advance.” I was ready to clear my throat and say that I had really meanttwo
hundred, but he didn't even flinch, so I opened up a desk drawer and whipped out a pair of
contracts with the grace and finesse of Michael Jordan driving toward the hoop, back before
he gave it all up to hit .220 in the minors. “This is my standard contract. Sign both copies, and
keep one of them for your files.”
He did so without even bothering to read them, and pulled out his checkbook.
“Will a week's retainer be sufficient?”
I nodded, and tried not to look too eager as he made it out and handed it over.
“I'll bring Alice's photo by tomorrow morning,” he said, getting to his feet.
“I'll want her home address, too,” I said.
“She lives with my wife and me.”
“Her previous address, then, as well as her parents’. And you'd better give me the dog
owner's address and phone number too.”
“Nettles? What do you needhis address for?” demanded Lantz.
I shrugged. “If nothing else, to let him know you've hired a detective to track down the girl and
the dog. That ought to convince him of your sincerity.”
And of course, if Nettles felt like hiring a detective who was on the scene, I was sure we could
work something out.
“I don't like it,” said Lantz, but he scribbled Nettles’ address and number on the back of my
copy of the contract, then got to his feet. “I'll drop the photo off in the morning.”
“I'll be here,” I said.
He looked like he wanted to say something more, paused awkwardly, and then left the office.
Two minutes later I was on the phone to my check guaranteeing service, reading them the
account number from Lantz's branch bank. It was, as the saying goes, good as gold. Two
thousand, minus the four percent guarantee fee: nineteen hundred and twenty beautiful
dollars.
It was so good, in fact, that I skipped the chili, had a slab of ribs, and bought myself a box
seat at Riverfront. Jose Rijo was throwing nothing but smoke, and Barry Larkin was wearing a
big red S on his chest under his uniform, and the Reds whipped the tar out of the Dodgers, 8-
1.
I was on top of the world when I got home. The Reds were back in first place by half a game,
I had a client in hand and money in the bank, and I was even thinking of paying my phone bill
in the next week or so. I tossed my jacket onto the frayed, battered sofa, walked into the
kitchen, pulled a beer out of the icebox (I know “refrigerator” is the proper word, but I'm old-
fashioned—and besides, this particular machine had been built when iceboxes were all the
rage), and walked back to the living room.
I turned on the TV, hoping to catch a replay of Barry Larkin's two home runs, and the picture,
after the usual 30 seconds of static and light show, adjusted itself just in time for me to see a
brief news item concerning an armed robbery in Newport, right across the river. This was
followed by the birth of a trio of white tigers at the Cincinnati Zoo, and then a 20-second spot
showing the cops dredging a station wagon out of the Little Miami River.
I was feeling so happy and so relaxed that I almost missed the driver's name.
It was Alice Dent.
I bellowed a curse that must have awakened half the building. Now instead of having
nineteen hundred and twenty dollars in the bank, I was eighty dollars in the hole. Lantz would
certainly demand his money back, and I'd already gotten the damned check guaranteed.
I pulled out his business card and dialed his number. He picked it up on the sixth ring. I could
barely hear him over the barking, but I told him what had happened and unhappily informed
him that he could pick up his money the next morning at the office.
I put the beer aside and went to work on a bottle of Scotch instead. I seem to remember
watching the beginning of an old Bogart movie, but I don't recall any of the details.
I must have stumbled off to bed somewhere in the middle, or else I just drank so much that I
didn't pay much attention to thedenouement . At any rate, the next thing I remember was this
high-pitched whining near my right ear. I turned and cursed and told it to shut up, but it
wouldn't stop, and finally I realized that my phone was ringing. I fumbled for it, finally got hold
of it, and spent another few seconds trying to remember where my mouth and ear were.
“Hello?” I croaked.
“Mr. Paxton? This is Hubert Lantz.”
“Phone company or electric company?”
“I'm your goddamned client!”
I sat upright in the bed. “What time is it?”
“Five in the morning.”
“Well, you can damned well wait until nine o'clock for your money!”
“I don't want my money.”
“Repeat that?” I said, trying to clear my head.
“You're still working for me.”
“But they found the girl. She drove her car into the river.”
“I don't care about the girl. I want the dog.”
“It wasn't in the car?”
“No.”
“Then it's probably running around loose in the woods. What you need is a game warden.”
“What I need is a detective!” he snapped. “If you don't want my money, just say the word and
I'll find someone who does.”
I assured him that his money was very near and dear to my heart, and asked where he was.
It turned out that he was at the Clermont County Morgue, some fifteen miles east of the city. I
took a cold shower, put on a fresh if somewhat rumpled blue suit, got into my ‘88 LeBaron,
and drove off to meet him.
The sun was just rising as I left the highway and began winding my way down the little
country roads, and a golden mist seemed to hang over the fields in the damp morning air.
So what if it was six in the morning? I had money in the bank, the Reds were in first place like
the Big Red Machine of old, and I was working again. It looked like the beginning of a pretty
good day.
I was wrong.
Good days were about to become as scarce as $25,000 Weimaraners.
2.
A typical front page story in Cincinnati will concern a viaduct that's being repaired, or perhaps
the condition of Jose Rijo's elbow. A proposed renovation of Fountain Square is good for six
columns and a banner headline. It's a pleasant, peaceful, civilized little city where nothing
nasty ever seems to happen. First Amendment rights get suppressed from time to time—it's
the only city ever to bust an art museum for obscenity, and nudity in print, in film, or in person
sends you straight to hell or to jail, whichever comes first, without passing Go—but most of
the inhabitants, who would never dream of exercising such rights in the first place, think it's a
pretty small price to pay for the resultant tranquility.
So I wasn't surprised to find reporters from both papers and all three TV stations at the
Clermont County Morgue. Journalists were just as starved for action as detectives, and the
fact that Clermont County is a good fifteen miles to the east of Cincinnati wasn't going to stop
them from getting a story. Except that there wasn't any story to get: Alice Dent had evidently
lost control of her car, skidded off the road, and plunged right into the Little Miami, where she
died either of multiple internal injuries or drowning, whichever came first. Open and shut.
I had driven through the sleepy little town of Milford, which seemed to specialize in
undertakers and eight-chimney homes built during the Revolution, and had stopped off for
coffee and a donut. It was just after daybreak when I arrived, and I pulled the LeBaron up
next to one of the mobile news units and got most of the details from a disgruntled
cameraman who kept complaining about driving all the way out here for a routine drowning
story. I felt much the same way.
Lantz met me at the front door, hopping around like a schoolboy trying to control his bladder
until the bell rang.
“You're late,” he complained.
“Nobody is ever late at six thirty in the morning,” I answered drily. “Where's the body?”
“This way,” he said, taking me by the arm with a stronger grip than I would have given him
credit for, and leading me down a sterile white corridor. A number of police were milling
about, and I got the impression from what I could overhear that the previous night had been a
bad one for car wrecks. I introduced myself to the coroner and showed him my ID, and he
ushered Lantz and me into a cool room that smelled of formaldehyde.
There were five bodies stretched out on metal tables, each with an impersonal little tag
hanging from the big toe of the left foot. Three of them were messed up pretty badly, but we
walked by them and stopped at the fourth. Alice Dent had been a pretty girl once, a little on
the chubby side, but not exceptionally hard on the eyes. Now her skin was shrivelled like a
prune, and she had a couple of nasty gashes where her head had cracked into the steering
wheel or perhaps the front window.
I looked long enough to please Lantz and the coroner, but there was nothing to see. She was
just another girl who had died too young.
“What about her effects?” I asked at last.
“That's why I called you,” said Lantz, leading the way to another room. I went through the ID
bit again, and then one of the cops pulled out a cardboard box marked “Dent, Alice” and
removed a single plastic bag containing her purse.
“Check her wallet,” said Lantz.
I did so. It held a wet driver's license and three soggy ten dollar bills.
“That's what you wanted me to see?” I said.
“That and one more thing.”
He took me by the arm again and led me around to a parking lot at the back of the building. A
very muddy Ford wagon was still hooked up to a tow truck. The driver was sitting in the cab,
drinking coffee from a thermos bottle and reading theEnquirer's sports section.
“Excuse me,” said Lantz, approaching him, “but would you please repeat to this gentleman
what you told me before?”
The driver looked confused.
“About the crate,” Lantz prompted him.
“Oh, yeah,” said the driver. He turned to me. “I've been with this wagon ever since we fished it
out of the river, and nobody's touched nothing but the body.”
“Thank you,” said Lantz. The driver nodded and went back to his paper. “Look in the back,”
Lantz told me. “I want you to see something.”
“It looks like a wire cage of some kind.”
“It is,” he said. “It's a show crate.”
“Then she didn't ship the dog and it's running around loose, just like I said on the phone,” I
told him.
He shook his head vigorously. “You don't understand.”
“Enlighten me.”
“This crate is what we drive dogs to shows in,” he said. “If we ever have an accident, the
crate will protect them so that we're not scraping their remains off the windows for the next
few weeks. Also, since we travel with an average of twenty dogs, this keeps them from
fighting with each other.”
“Educational,” I commented. “But so what?”
“The airlines won't accept wire crates like this one. Dogs sometimes get airsick, and they
don't want them vomiting all over the other cargo. We ship them in solid fiberglass crates.”
“All right,” I said. “So she missed the flight and was coming back home when she ran off the
road.”
“Not a chance,” he said. “The door to the crate is still shut. It's been shut all the time. That's
what I wanted the driver to verify.”
I opened the tailgate, reached in, and gave the crate door a pull. Nothing happened.
“They can withstand something like 800 pounds of pressure,” said Lantz. “The dog hasn't
been born that can break out of one of these things.”
“Then maybe she let it out for a run and it didn't come back, and she closed the crate and
went looking for it.” Even to me, that sounded a little far-fetched.
He shook his head again. “Alice may not have been the most conscientious kennel worker
who ever lived, but she knew better than to let a Westminster winner loose in strange
surroundings. Especially one that was in season.”
“Interesting,” I said. “What about her wallet?”
“We always ship dogs collect—it's standard operating procedure in the handling trade—but
we were all out of fiberglass crates last weekend, and the airlines insist on front money for
them. They won't bill the recipient; the shipper has to pay. So I left a check for the price of a
shipping crate with Baroness’ bill of health and trophies and all the other stuff that was going
home with her.”
“And it's missing,” I said.
“Right. I can understand the trophies being gone if Alice was robbed, but why a check made
out to an airline company? Why leave thirty dollars in her wallet and steal a useless check?”
“I haven't the slightest idea,” I admitted. “That's what you're paying me to find out.” I paused
and loosened my tie. “I suppose I'd better take a run out to the airport. What airline had you
planned to ship the dog on?”
“Federated Cargo Lines.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither did I, until a few days ago,” he admitted.
“Then why not fly on one of the major airlines?” I asked him.
“Direct flight,” he said.
“It makes a difference?”
“It sure as hell does,” he said. “They may shift luggage from one plane to another in half an
hour, but they allow five hours to move an animal. The only other airline that even goes to
Casa Grande is Delta, and they would have had to transfer Baroness twice, in Dallas and
Tucson.” He paused. “Do you know how hot Dallas and Tucson get in June, Mr. Paxton? I
wasn't going to let Baroness sit on some runway or dock for God knows how many hours in
hundred-degree-plus heat. So I hunted up a company that had a direct flight.”
“I can't imagine a plane being able to pay its bills just by zipping back and forth between here
and Casa Grande,” I remarked.
He smiled. “There's a difference between adirect flight and anon-stop flight. This plane was
making a milk run of sorts. It put down four or five times before getting to Casa Grande. But
they keep the cargo hold air-conditioned, and that was all that concerned me.”
I told him I'd check in with him later, got into the LeBaron, and began driving toward the
Greater Cincinnati Airport, which for reasons known only to God and certain select politicians
is located some 15 miles into the state of Kentucky. I circled the terminal twice without seeing
any signs for Federated so I stopped to ask one of the skycaps, who informed me that they
were strictly a freight company and pointed toward a little side road that led off to the freight
area a mile or so away.
I pulled up next to a large American dock, left the car, climbed up the stairs to a shipping
office, and asked where I could find the Federated dock. The clerk, a nice, balding fellow with
thick glasses, scratched his head and admitted that he'd never heard of them. Delta didn't
know anything about Federated either, but a nice middle-aged woman at TWA suggested that
I look over in the “minor league” area where Metro and North Central and a number of others
shared a terminal. I did so, and someone finally directed me to a dilapidated door with
“Federated Cargo Lines” emblazoned on its unwashed surface.
I walked in and found a bored-looking young man with too much hair and not enough
complexion chewing gum and thumbing through a stack of onionskin paper.
“Good morning,” I said, walking up to the customer counter.
He shrugged, and I gathered that the only thing good about it was that it was a few minutes
closer to quitting time than when he'd arrived.
“I need a little information,” I continued.
“Yeah?” he said without looking up.
“Yes. It concerns a flight of yours from Cincinnati to Casa Grande, Arizona.”
“What do you want to ship?” he said, finally meeting my eyes while scratching a pimple on his
chin.
“Nothing. I just need some information.”
“Call our office,” he said, going back to his stack of papers.
“I may have a little something you need in exchange for this particular piece of information,” I
said, pulling out a twenty and snapping it a couple of times to get his attention.
“Yeah?” he said, shooting me a big smile that exposed some unhealthy gums and a couple of
missing teeth. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“The flight to Casa Grande,” I said. “What's its number?”
“Flight Number 308,” he replied, reaching for the twenty.
I pulled it back out of his reach. “I need a little more than that,” I said with a smile. “Does it fly
on Sundays?”
“It flies every day of the year.”
“Did you ship a dog last Sunday?”
“How the hell should I know?” he asked, looking a little more insolent each time he reached
for the bill and I indicated he hadn't earned it yet. “I'm off on weekends.”
“You must have a cargo manifest,” I said. “Hunt it up.”
“That's a lot of work, buddy,” he said.
I ripped a small piece off the twenty and handed it to him.
“Have a copy of the manifest for me in half an hour and I'll give you the rest of it,” I told him.
I returned to my car, drove up to the passenger terminal, picked up aCincinnati Enquirer , and
stopped at a coffee shop. They had found Alice Dent too late to make the morning edition, so
I settled for reading about what Rijo and Larkin had done to the Dodgers. I checked my watch
from time to time, and when forty minutes had passed I paid the tab, got back into the
LeBaron, and drove over to the Federated office.
“No dog,” said the kid, tossing a Xerox of the manifest on the counter.
I checked the flight number and date, then turned the rest of the bill over to him and studied
the manifest: television sets, computer parts, vaccine for a hospital, hardware tools—and no
dog.
“See if you shipped out a dog on any other flight last weekend,” I said.
“That'll cost you another twenty,” he said.
“Like hell it will,” I said with a grin. “Unless you want your boss to know you take bribes for
revealing confidential information, that is.”
He muttered something under his breath and walked to a file cabinet. I decided to wait. He
straightened up a few minutes later and slammed the drawer shut.
“We haven't shipped any dogs anywhere for the past week.”
“Thanks a lot, Sonny,” I said, and left.
Much as I hated to agree with Lantz's conclusion, it sure as hell looked like the dog hadn't
been in the car when Alice Dent had gone off the road. Not if the tow-truck driver was telling
the truth, and he certainly had no reason to lie.
I found a self-park lot across from the building that housed the Striker Agency, left the car
there, and went inside, wondering as I rode the elevator to the fifth floor what I was going to
do in lieu of a receipt for the twenty dollars.
Bill Striker was an ex-cop who'd struck it rich. He had started, like all of us do, by spying on
husbands and wives, then branched out into security services. He had employees guarding
half a hundred homes and stores and offices around town, and he was the first guy rock
musicians contacted when they came to town for a concert.
His office reflected his affluence. It was everything that mine wasn't—elegant, luxurious,
tasteful, and populated. He had two secretaries working the phone, a couple of assistants
hustling and bustling through the outer office and vanishing into the deeper recesses of his
suite, and a few well-heeled potential clients sitting on tufted, upholstered chairs.
“Hello, Mr. Paxton,” said Vicki, the receptionist who'd been with him ever since he left the
force. She was not only an exceptionally pretty girl, but had the impeccable manners his
operation needed and a mind like a steel trap. As long as he had her he would never need a
computer or a billing service, though of course he had the best of both.
“Hi,” I said pleasantly. “Is Bill in?”
“He's running a little behind today,” she said apologetically.
“I just need to see him for about five minutes,” I said. Then I put on my most sincere face. “It's
kind of important.”
“I'll see what I can arrange,” she said. She got on the phone and started whispering, then
turned back to me a moment later.
“Wait in Conference Room B,” she said. “He'll be there as soon as he can.”
I nodded, waited for her to step on the buzzer that unlocked the heavy door on the back wall
of the office, and stepped through it. The wallpaper in the corridor was sedate and tasteful,
and I followed it for about forty feet until I came to the conference room. I opened the
mahogany door and went inside. The floor was covered with a plush beige carpet, long
enough to need mowing every other week, and there was a huge table that would probably
have seated King Arthur and half his knights. I sat down, lit up a cigarette, and watched the
door.
Striker came in about five minutes later, a tall, lean man with Grecian Formula black hair,
steel gray eyes, and a store-bought tan. He wore a three-piece navy blue pinstripe with a
button-down collar and a thin tie. I was sure that even his shorts were color-coordinated.
“Eli!” he said, walking over and shaking my hand. “Good to see you.”
“Likewise,” I said, feeling tongue-tied as always. Most people didn't make me feel awkward;
Bill Striker did. I suppose it was because I knew, deep down in my heart, that even if I'd had
his breaks I'd never have wound up with his operation. I couldn't even decide if I'd look good
in a pinstripe suit and vest; I simply couldn't imagine myself wearing them under any
circumstance.
“Has Hubert Lantz been in touch with you yet?” he asked, pulling up a chair.
“Yeah. That's what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Happy to,” he said, pushing a buzzer beneath the table. “Care for a drink?”
A secretary entered the room just as I was shaking my head.
“A brandy for me,” he told her. Then he turned to me. “You're sure, Eli?”
“What the hell,” I said with a shrug. “I'll take a Scotch on the rocks.”
She smiled and left, and Striker lit a Royal Jamaican cigar which probably wasn't quite a foot
long. “What can I do for you, Eli?”
“I need a little help,” I answered, wishing he would offer me one of his cigars but bound and
determined not to ask for it.
“I don't know what I can tell you about detecting, but I'll be happy to try,” he said with a
winning smile that was so good-natured I couldn't even resent it.
“I've come here to ask you a couple of background questions about another area of your
expertise,” I said. “Lantz tells me he handles one of your dogs.”
“Three of them actually,” said Striker. “I love getting into the ring myself, but weekends are
our busiest time these days.” He withdrew his wallet and opened it to a photograph of a
Miniature Schnauzer that was stuck in there right between the baby pictures. “Champion
Striker's Hit Man,” he said like a proud father. “He's our biggie. Eighteen Best of Breeds so far
this year, and a couple of Group wins.”
“Whatever they may be,” I said drily. “Tell me, Bill, how much is this Weimaraner really
worth?”
“Oh, I don't know,” he said, leaning back and staring at the chandelier that hung down from
the ceiling. “Twelve or fifteen thousand.”
“Lantz says twenty-five.”
“Not a chance,” said Striker. “She's already had two washout litters.”
“I don't follow you.”
“This is a bitch we're talking about, not a stud dog,” he replied. “A male can service two or
three bitches a week, year around, with a stud fee of perhaps five or six hundred dollars. But
this bitch has only got a couple of litters left in her, and her first two were pretty disappointing.
I think she got one champion from something like 15 puppies. She'll produce maybe a dozen
more pups if she stays healthy, and you can figure half of them are going to be pet quality. So
that leaves five or six show pups. No matter how much Baroness has won, the record says
that she's not going to reproduce herself, which means that Nettles isn't going to be able to
gouge more than a thousand apiece for them. Twelve hundred tops.”
“That's all?”
He nodded. “You look surprised.”
“I am,” I admitted. “I guess I was influenced by those million-dollar yearlings that keep getting
auctioned off at Keeneland.”
“Apples and oranges. Do you know what Baroness won for going Best in Show at
Westminster?” He paused for effect. “A ten-cent piece of satin ribbon and a trophy that
couldn't be melted down for two hundred dollars.”
“Then why does anyone pay Lantz thousands of dollars to show their dogs?” I said. “At least
a Derby winner brings home a six-digit check.”
“Pride. Competition. Vanity. Take your choice. But believe me, Eli, there's no money in it for
an exhibitor unless he's got a top stud, and there aren't more than half a dozen males in each
breed that can pay their own way. Next question?”
“It's starting to look like the dog was never shipped and wasn't with the girl when she died,” I
said. “Based on your experience as a dog fancier rather than a detective, could Lantz have
any reason for lying to me?”
“What do you mean?” asked Striker. He looked up, saw the secretary standing in the doorway
with our drinks on an ornate silver tray, and motioned her in. “Hit Man won the tray and some
matching coasters at a Tennessee show last month,” he said with a touch of pride. “What do
you think?”
“Very pretty,” I answered without much enthusiasm.
“As to your question...”
“What I meant was, could Lantz have some financial motive for pretending the dog is lost?”
“Such as?”
“I don't know,” I said. “Could he give her to some unethical client, say she was a different dog,
and cash in by showing her for the new owner?”
Striker laughed out loud at that.
“What's so funny?” I asked.
“Eli,” he said, “they may all look alike to you, but you'll simply have to take my word that
Baroness is currently the most easily identifiable Weimaraner in the country. There probably
isn't a Weimaraner judge or breeder in the Eastern half of the United States who wouldn't
know her in a minute, to say nothing of the breeders around the Arizona area.”
“And if she's only worth twelve or fifteen G's, and is insured for it, there wouldn't be much
sense murdering Alice Dent for her,” I concluded.
“You think she was murdered?” he asked sharply.
I shook my head. “No. Probably not. Certainly not for a dog. I mean, hell, they'd have made
more money by stealing the car.”
I downed my drink and waited for the burning sensation, but it didn't come; Striker's Pinch
was a lot smoother than the stuff I drank.
Striker waited until he had my attention, then looked long and hard at his jewel-studded digital
watch. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Eli?” he asked. “I'd like to stay and shoot the
breeze, but...”
“No, I think that's everything,” I said, getting to my feet. “Thanks for your time, Bill. And thanks
for sending the business my way.”
“Happy to do it,” he said. He almost kept the pity out of his eyes; I admired him for trying.
I left his office, picked up the car, and drove home. Then I got Maurice Nettles on the phone.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Nettles?” I said. “My name is Elias Paxton. I'm a private detective in the employ of Hubert
Lantz, and—”
“That bastard will need more than a detective!” said Nettles hotly. “He's going to need one
hell of a topnotch lawyer before I'm done with him!”
“I'm sure he will,” I said sincerely. “But in the meantime, I'm trying to find your dog, and I'd like
to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Look in his basement or his garage!” raged Nettles. “I know what that bastard is trying to pull,
and he won't get away with it! And after this latest stunt, I'm not dropping the suit even if he
returns Baroness tomorrow!”
“What stunt are you talking about?”
“That son of a bitch had the gall to bill me for a shipping crate!”
“I don't understand,” I said, thoroughly confused.
摘要：

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