Last Chance (12 page)

His index finger slid away from the dog's collar. The dog-bite rules kicked in and I backed up slowly, careful not to meet the dog's eyes, careful not to challenge it.

“Knock it off, Antoine,” a voice behind me said. “And get a grip on that dog.
Now.”

Someone—Nick—strode past me, grabbed the dog's leash, and thrust it into Antoine's hand.

“Are you crazy?” he said to Antoine. “You know what she's going to do?” He nodded stiffly in my direction. “She's going to run inside and tell on you. Is that what you want? You want to screw this up?” He sounded disgusted. He grabbed Antoine's shoulder and shoved him. “Get out of here,” he said. “Get to group.”

Antoine scowled at me, but he tightened his hand on the leash and led the dog toward the animal wing. Nick waited until he was almost there before turning to me.

“Everything's okay now, right?” he said.“You weren't hurt, so there's no problem, right?” There was an angry bite to his voice.

“Everything's
not
okay,” I said. “He was hurting that dog. He kicked it. Twice.”

Nick shook his head. Was that disappointment I saw on his face?

“Look,” he said, “I'll keep an eye on him, okay? I'll make sure he doesn't do it again. So you don't have to say anything, okay?”

Not okay,
I thought. I started back toward my office. When I got there, I was going to report Antoine. He didn't deserve to be in the RAD program.

Nick grabbed my arm.

“Hey!” I said. I spun around to face him.

He let go of me.

“Give him one more chance,” he said. “That's all I'm asking. Just one more chance.”

“Why should I?” I said. “The RAD program is supposed to help dogs behave better so that they can be adopted. Abusing a dog isn't going to make it more people-friendly. In fact, I don't think somebody who abuses animals should be allowed to stay in the program. So if you think I'm going to close my eyes and pretend I didn't see what I saw, you're wrong.”

“That figures,” he muttered.

Jerk,
I thought. I started back to the office again. He stepped in front of me, blocking my way.

“Wait,” he said.

“What for?”

“I know what you think,” he said.

I seriously doubted that.

“You think we're a bunch of losers,” he said. “I bet you're not even all that surprised that Antoine kicked his dog. You probably think we all do the same thing the minute Ed's back is turned.”

Okay, so maybe he did have a pretty good idea what I thought. Well, mostly. I had seen him with Orion enough times to know—well, maybe to believe—that he would never hurt a dog.

We stood there, staring at each other, not trusting each other, Nick's glare making it clear that he didn't like me. Then he stepped back and looked down at the ground for a moment.

“Okay,” he said finally.“Maybe Antoine's been having some problems.” His tone was marginally softer.

“Maybe?”

“If you knew him, you'd know he was making progress.”

“Kicking a dog is progress?”

He looked at me the way you'd look at a tourist. Like I was someone with a tenuous grasp of the local language and customs.

“He gets frustrated,” he said. “He's used to working out his frustrations physically. That's why he's here.”

“Oh,” I said. “So what you're saying is, it's okay if he kicks a dog because it's not his fault. It's what he's used to. Is that it?”

He shook his head. “No, that's not it,” he said, his voice patient now, as if he had decided it was worth the effort to attempt to explain to this tourist how things worked. “I'm just trying to tell you about Antoine. Because if he gets kicked out of this program, it's not going to be good for him.”

It might be good for his dog,
I thought. But I didn't say that. Instead, I said, “Fine,” and crossed my arms over my chest. “So tell me.”

He looked at me for a moment, frowning a little, as if he was trying to figure out where to start.

“Antoine lives with his mother and his kid brother, who's seven,” he said finally. “And with whatever boyfriend his mom happens to bring home. The latest
boyfriend”—
he made the word sound like an insult
—
“when he gets mad, he likes to take it out on other people. Mostly smaller people. I bet you don't know any guys like that, do you?”

I didn't, but I didn't tell Nick that. I didn't say anything.

“Besides being a bully, the guy's an idiot. Took a swing at a cop who pulled him over for speeding. When Antoine got his sentence, the boyfriend was in lockup. Antoine's in open custody now, in a group home. The boyfriend, though, he just got out. He's back at Antoine's house, with Antoine's mother and Antoine's brother. Antoine only found out this morning when his kid brother called him, crying.”

Oh.

“That still doesn't make it okay for Antoine to kick his dog,” I said. “Or to threaten me.”

“No kidding,” Nick said. His face was grim. He glanced around, checking to see if anyone could hear us. “But he's not what you think,” he said. “He's not a bad guy. He deserves another chance.”

He sounded just like Kathy when she had described the RAD dogs.

“And you want
me
to give him that chance?” I said.

“I know it's not your style. But would it kill you?”

I stared at him. Okay, so maybe he wasn't as bad as Antoine. Maybe he wouldn't take his frustration out on a dog. And maybe Kathy liked him and believed him when he said he hadn't taken any money. But he was still the person I had caught back in junior high running out of the office with charity money. He'd just taken it. Taken it and spent it. He was here at the animal shelter now because he had been charged and convicted of some kind of violent crime. And what about the roll of bills that I had seen him slip through the fence to his friend Joey? Kathy saw one side of him—the side that he chose to show her. I saw another side. For all I knew, he could be making up a sob story about his friend just so I wouldn't report him.

“If Antoine's not really a bad guy, what's he doing here?” I said.

“He
volunteered
to be here, same as me,” he said, looking hard at me. “Same as you.” I felt heat in my cheeks. So he
had
heard what my father had told Mr. Jarvis. “Even good girls can slip up, huh?”

“That's different,” I said.

“Yeah. I bet it is.”

Boy, even when he wanted something from me, he couldn't help sneering at me.

“I mean, what was Antoine charged with?” I said, trying to stay calm. “What did he do?”

“What difference does it make?”

“You want me to give him a break. So I think I have the right to know.”

“I can't tell you.”

Right. I started to move around him. He stepped in front of me again.

“Okay,” he said. “He warned the guy—the boyfriend—to leave his brother alone.”

“Warned
him?”

“Okay, so maybe he kind of threatened him,” Nick said. I waited. Nick watched me for a moment. “Maybe with a knife.”

“Maybe?”

“He was looking out for his kid brother,” Nick said. “Things got a little out of hand. The boyfriend got nicked.”

“Got nicked? Like, oops, the knife jumped out of Antoine's hand?”

“Antoine
nicked him,” Nick said, sounding exasperated. “The guy took five stitches.”

“And Antoine got charged?”

“Yeah, he got charged. The boyfriend made sure of that. The day before they sent Antoine to the group home, the boyfriend messed up and got arrested. He didn't make bail. He got sentenced to eight months, so Antoine relaxed a little. He knew the guy wasn't going to mess with his brother. But now the guy's out and he's back living with Antoine's mother.”

“And that's why Antoine kicked his dog? He was taking out his anger on him?”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “And yeah, I know he has to stop acting the way he does. But if you ask me, the boyfriend has to stop taking things out on little kids. And Antoine's mother has to maybe think about the guys she's spending time with.” He shook his head in frustration. “Look, I promise he'll never hurt the dog again. If he does,
I'll
report him. Hell, you can report
me
too if you want. I don't care. All I'm asking is that you give him one more chance.”

Give one more chance to a guy who had attacked another guy with a knife? This really was foreign territory. And it sure made me wonder.

“What about you?” I said.

“What about me?”

“What are you doing here?”

Nick's eyes turned to ice, and there was a chill in his voice when he answered.

“We're not talking about me,” he said.“We're talking about Antoine. Are you going to tell on him or what?”

I met his cold eyes and told him exactly what I was thinking. “I don't know,” I said.

He shook his head in disgust. “Yeah, well, whatever, princess,” he said. “I'm not going to get down on my knees and beg.”

As if I had asked him to.

He started to turn away.

“Hey, Nick?”

He looked over his shoulder at me.

“Where did you get the money you gave your friend Joey?”

For a second he almost looked hurt.Then he wheeled around and stalked away.

K
athy was still in her meeting when I got back to my desk. I couldn't have told her what Antoine had done even if I'd wanted to, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. What if Nick had been telling the truth? What if Antoine had the kind of home life that I couldn't even imagine? What would happen if I told? Would he get kicked out of the program? Then what would happen to him?

Did I even care?

I guess I did, because when Kathy dropped by my office after her meeting, I told her that Mr. Jarvis had signed the grant applications and that the courier had already picked them up, guaranteeing delivery of her grant proposal by the end of the day. And that was all I told her.

Later, when I went to the staff kitchen to wash out my mug, I heard Nick's voice inside. While I waited out in the hall for him to leave, I heard him say, “He's been doing really good.”

“Really
well,”
Kathy corrected in a gentle voice. “I know. Both Ed and Stella have told me.”

Who were they talking about? Was Nick telling her about Antoine? Was he afraid that I would say something?

“So,” Nick said, drawing out the word, sounding like a nervous little kid, “I was wondering, you know, about after.”

“After?”

“After the program is over. I was wondering . . . if Orion keeps on the way he has been, you know, if he succeeds in the program . . . ”

He wasn't talking about Antoine after all. He was talking about the big dog.

Kathy laughed. “You're leading somewhere, Nick, I can feel it. Spit it out.”

Silence, followed by a rush of words. “It's about finding a good home for Orion,” Nick said. “I want to know if
I
can adopt him, you know, if he keeps doing as great as he has been doing.”

More silence. I wished I could see the look on Kathy's face. Was she surprised by Nick's question, or had she been expecting it?

Finally, she said, “Orion isn't the only one who has been doing well. Ed says you take the program seriously. So does Stella. She told me that you've been studying up on dogs. She said that with all the reading you've been doing, you know almost as much as she does.”

I remembered Nick sitting at the picnic table with his book and highlighting pen. I wondered if he paid as much attention in school as he did to that book.

“And Ed says that the rest of the boys look up to you,” Kathy said. “He says you've been a good influence.”

Silence from Nick. Then a sound like a sigh.

“But, Nick, you know the policy. Your job—the job of all RAD participants—is to train the dogs so that they're ready for other people to adopt, not so that you can adopt them yourselves. Besides, they don't allow pets at the group home.”

Nick lived in a
group home?
That was news to me. But I really shouldn't have been surprised. After all, he was here because he had been in trouble with the law.

“I know,” Nick said. “But what if I knew someone who was interested in adopting him? What would they have to do to make it happen?”

“I don't understand,” Kathy said.

Neither did I.

“I told my aunt all about Orion. She wants to meet him. She's coming here this afternoon to pick me up. She said she might be interested in adopting a dog.”

I wondered if the shelter had a policy on relatives of RAD participants adopting dogs that were in the program.

When Kathy spoke again, she sounded surprised. “Your aunt is picking you up? You're not going in the van with the rest of the kids?”