The Dogfather (15 page)

When we’d finished eating, my guests pitched in to load the dishwasher and clean up. Mr. Wookie was brought out to make friends, snack on steak, and receive congratulatory toasts, and then Rowdy and Kimi had their turn. On my own, I’d have been hard pressed to provide beer and hot dogs for this gathering. I loved being able to offer choice steak and good wine. In my contacts with Guarini and his men, I’d seen ample evidence of Guarini’s wealth and no sign of anyone else’s. Joey Cortiniglia’s widow, Carla, hadn’t had her dream of a flower shop fulfilled until after her husband’s death. The bodyguards, the horrible twins, Al Favuzza, and Zap the Driver wore hideous gold jewelry, but their heavy rings and such were the only indication I’d seen of affluence. But maybe crime did pay after all. Now that I was tasting corruption for myself, I found it mouth-watering.

Guilt held off its attack until the next morning; it waited until Mary and Mr. Wookie drove away. Then it pounced. I felt horrible. Evidence of my contamination was everywhere: in the packets of leftover steak in the refrigerator, in the empty wine bottles neatly aligned on the kitchen counter, in the unopened bottles still in the box, and most of all in the ribbons that Harry Howland had presented to Leah. Leah and I are first cousins—our mothers were sisters—but our family resemblance is limited to our love of dogs; we don’t look alike. Rowdy and Kimi, too, are cousins. Their radically different facial markings mean that at first glance, they’re anything but ringers. Harry Howland had been pressured to put up my dog: Rowdy. Howland had resisted, or so he’d told me; he’d certainly given Best of Breed to the dog he preferred, Mr. Wookie. But Kimi was also mine, and she’d won the points and gone Best of Opposite. Sipping my third cup of coffee, I sat at the kitchen table and watched Kimi, who was in a sphinx pose on the floor watching me. Had she deserved the ribbons? Yes. Ah, but was that why she’d won them? Exactly how had Guarini’s thugs tried to influence the judge? I’d seen Favuzza speak to Harry. Had Favuzza given Howland Rowdy’s number, the number on my armband? That number alone? Or the number on Leah’s armband, too? What had the damned vampire said? Was that the Mob’s first contact with the judge? Or a follow-up? I could hardly phone Howland to ask, and I was equally reluctant to raise the matter with Guarini. As to Favuzza, I didn’t have his phone number, didn’t even know where he lived, and didn’t want to talk to him. The corpse-shifting twins would know, as would Zap the Driver. Zap seemed the most likely of the four to give me the details without necessarily reporting back to Guarini. And I’d see Zap the next time he delivered Frey to me. Maybe I’d have the guts to interrogate him. Maybe I wouldn’t.

In the meantime, I could make a token effort to decontaminate my house. I couldn’t return the steak we’d eaten or the wine we’d drunk, and it wouldn’t exactly be a noble deed to send the leftovers to Guarini with a self-righteous little letter (“I cannot accept your gifts, but I’ve already eaten and drunk half, so here’s the rest!”) Still, I could rid myself of what remained. My two big dogs, of course, offered a convenient means to dispose of the meat. In fact, I put them in my bedroom before dumping the leftover steak into a plastic bag and taking it out to the trash. The unopened bottles of wine went to the cellar, where they’d sit until I donated them as auction items at the annual Camp N Pack weekend of the Alaskan Malamute Rescue of New England (Visit us on the web!
www.amrone.org
). I rinsed out the empty bottles and disposed of them outdoors in the recycling bin under the back steps. As penance, I then e-mailed four people who’d applied to adopt dogs from Alaskan Malamute Rescue and were impossible candidates. It’s fun to reply to promising prospects. I picked the four least promising applicants, people with scads of cats, rabbits, and toddlers, no experience with big dogs, no kennels, and no fenced yards.

Then I cut Tracker’s nails, got scratched, vacuumed, took a shower using antibacterial soap, and finally took Rowdy on leash to the smooth surface of my driveway to engage in my personal form of prayer: the merging of canine and human souls that occurs in the pursuit of flawless heeling. Heeling is alpha and omega; it’s where dog training begins and ends. Good heeling does not
require
concentration; it
is
concentration. You and your dog are so lost in each other that your spiritual oneness becomes a miraculous unity of motion: You move as one.

The prayerful nature of dog obedience training is not always immediately apparent to those of conventional religious persuasions. Upon spotting a dog such as Rowdy, for example, and a person such as myself, the luckless individual who dwells in dogless ignorance and sees but through a glass, darkly, is all too likely to blurt out, “For God’s sake, that woman must be crazy! She’s spitting at her dog!” Cheddar cheese, in case you wondered.

To the credit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, let me hasten to add that its agents, Victor Deitz and John Mazolla, may have sensed the spiritual nature of Rowdy’s and my endeavor. Or so I like to imagine. This was, after all, Sunday morning. What I know is that the blurt-free, indeed speechless, men stood in my driveway with eyes so wide and mouths so open that I was tempted to ask whether they wanted some cheddar, too.

Our worship service having been interrupted, Rowdy and I turned our attention to the two men, who seemed to be in their mid-thirties and were short-haired, clean cut, and thus identifiable as probable non-Cantabrigians. Mormons? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a big facility on Brattle Street and sends lots of young Mormons here from Utah to try to convert the rest of us. I sometimes wonder what horrible crimes these innocent-looking missionaries have committed back home to get stuck serving out their long sentences in Harvard Square. Baptist fundamentalists would have an easier time making converts in Beirut than the Mormons probably do in this multicultural hotbed of caffeine-addicted feminist intellectuals. Not that religion is dead here. On the contrary, Cambridge is filled with people who’ve been Born Again: They’ve accepted John Harvard as their personal savior.

Or maybe the two men weren’t Mormons after all. They just stood there. The Mormons were always friendly and polite.

“Are you lost?” I asked, meaning geographically, not spiritually, in other words, “Hey, this is 02138, the notorious Dip Zip, and no one as conventional as the two of you could possibly have come here on purpose.”

That’s when Victor Deitz, as he proved to be, asked whether 1 was Holly Winter. Having said that I was, I naturally expected him to tell me that his dog refused to come when called or was afflicted with submissive urination, so just as naturally I was surprised when he said, “Victor Deitz,” and pointing to his companion, “John Mazolla. FBI.”

Deitz was a short, hard-muscled, Nordic-looking man with pale hazel-blue eyes and white-blond hair clipped to a uniform quarter of an inch all over his skull. Mazolla was a few inches taller than Deitz. His coloring was only slightly darker than Deitz’s. His eyes were blue, his hair light brown and neatly trimmed rather than almost shaved off. Still, the two agents shared a bodily resemblance, as if they worked out in the same gym, performing the same number of reps with the same weights using the same equipment. In particular, both Deitz and Mazolla had overdeveloped, hence oversized, necks, on top of which sat what appeared by comparison to be shrunken heads. Deitz and Mazolla resembled Guarini’s men in only one respect: Like the Mafia, they wore those bowling-league-style jackets.

With Rowdy’s leash in my left hand, I extended my right to Deitz and said, “How do you do?” Why Deitz? A lifetime with dogs has given me an almost uncanny and definitely canine ability to recognize authority. Mine is merely a derivative gift. Rowdy, possessed of the real thing, ignored Mazolla, looked at Deitz, and returned his eyes to me. He showed no inclination to fall at Deitz’s feet as he’d done at Enzio Guarini’s.

“You’ve been keeping some strange company lately,” Deitz said.

I don’t like personal remarks from strangers, and from the second I met him, I didn’t like this particular stranger at all. More significantly, neither did Rowdy, who showed not a trace of his usual friendliness. He didn’t issue a
woo-woo
or wag his tail, and his warm brown eyes had a cold glint. When a dog who loves everyone decides to dislike someone, trust the dog.

I said, “Aren’t you supposed to say what a nice day it is? Admire my dog? You’re supposed to start by building a positive alliance with me. That’s what I learned in journalism classes. When you’re going to interview people, you start by putting them at ease, creating a cozy atmosphere.”

“Miss Winter, we’re not journalists. We’re here about the company you’ve started keeping.”

“The company I keep is largely canine. To the best of my knowledge, Rowdy and Kimi haven’t committed a federal offense lately.”

“Enzio Guarini. Alphonse Favuzza. Edward Zappar-dino. Thomas and Timothy Bellano.”

“Edward. So that’s his first name. I’m surprised. Somehow, he just doesn’t look like an Edward, does he?” To Mazolla, I said, “Does your friend have something against Italians?”

It was Deitz who replied. “Miss Winter, you’ve got yourself caught up in something you don’t understand.”

“Dog training? You’re wrong. I’ve been doing it all my life. I understand it pretty well. I just make it
look
easy.”

“We’ve noticed that you enjoy doing favors for people. We have a few you can do for us. You’re in a position to install a small number of listening devices in interesting places,” Deitz said.

For a big, rough dog, Rowdy can move with remarkable grace. Now, he glided in front of me and came to a calm halt to create a sort of woofy battlement.

“I’m a dog trainer. As you can see.” I pointed to Rowdy. “Enzio Guarini has a dog. A very nice dog, as it happens, a dog that does not require the investigative services of the local animal control authorities, never mind the services of the FBI. What I’m in a position to do is train the dog. That’s the only position I’m in.”

“We could use your help,” Deitz said.

“Sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.”

Deitz’s eyes landed on my recycling bin. “Those your wine bottles?”

“You’re an ATF agent, too?”

“I’ve got some advice for you,” Deitz said. “You don’t have to do us any favors. Okay. That’s your choice. But don’t take any favors either. Train his dog. Leave it at that.”

“No favors,” I said, half to myself. “None at all.”

CHAPTER 16

On my way to Carla’s flower shop on Monday morning, I steeled myself to refuse any bouquets or potted plants she might offer in return for my introducing her barbaric Anthony to the fundamentals of canine civilization. I needn’t have worried. Carla’s little shop was jammed with silk greenery, plastic vines, stuffed animals, ceramic shepherdesses, American flags, brass tubs, decorative basketry, greeting cards, posters, and Mylar balloons. There was barely a flower or a living leaf to be seen. When I walked in, Carla was holding a can of air freshener that she’d evidently just emptied in its entirety in the small, enclosed space.

“I always love the smell of a flower shop.” She greeted me. “Don’t you? Oh, you brought a crate. That’s nice. I never got around to ordering one. I been keeping Anthony in the car out back.” His distant, muffled yaps were audible, but Carla screamed as loudly as if he were right here. Anthony had done a fine job of shaping her behavior. “Hey, I got to tell you, Frey’s doing awesome.”

I smiled. “Frey is a lovely pup. I’m very proud of him.”

“Enzio’s real happy with him.”

Enzio?
As recently as Joey’s funeral, hadn’t it been
Mr. Guarini
?

“I’m glad to hear that.” I set the crate on the floor, and next to it, a big tote bag of dog-civilizing supplies.

“You want me go get Anthony?” Carla took a few steps toward the back of the shop. How, I can’t imagine. Her patent leather pumps had five-inch heels. The shoes were black, as were her velvet Capri pants. Like the dress she’d worn at her husband’s funeral, her frilly white blouse had a plunging neckline. Her earrings, bracelet, rings, and an ankle bracelet were gold, as was the glitter on her cheeks and eyelids.

“No,” I said. “Let’s leave Anthony there for a few minutes. Before we get started, we need to have a little talk about our goals for Anthony. And how we’re going to go about training him.”

“You want some coffee?” Carla asked. “I got a machine in the back. It’s real. I hate that instant shit.”

I accepted. The machine proved to be a fancy automatic espresso maker. To my delight, Carla rapidly produced two cups of incredibly delicious cappuccino, foamed milk and all. She served it in oversized cups, real, not paper. But I’m hard to distract. Once both of us were seated behind the counter of the shop, I said, “Goals for Anthony.”

“I hate, like I really hate, having him locked up out there,” Carla shrieked, “but I got a business to run, and I got to get him to shut up, or I can’t even answer the phone.”

“Perfect. First goal. Anthony will learn to be quiet.”

“And he’s got to leave the plants alone. He keeps digging stuff, I had to put it all away, and you can’t hardly run a flower shop without plants, can you? And flowers? Maybe you noticed.”

“Now that you mention it,” I said. “But naturally you need to be able to have plants and flowers. Second goal: Anthony will not ruin the merchandise.”