Stardust

Susan smiled at me and the heat thickened. “Yes,” she said, and leaned across the table and put her hand on top of mine, “you will.”

Chapter 33

AFTER lunch I dropped Susan at Harvard, where she taught a once-a-week seminar on analytic psychotherapy.

“You’re going to stumble into the classroom reeking of white wine?” I said.

“I’ll buy some Sen-Sen,” Susan said.

“You consumed nearly an ounce,” I said, “straight.”

“A slave to Bacchus,” she said. “Drive carefully.”

She got out and I watched her walk away, until she was out of sight.

“Hot damn,” I said aloud, and pulled out into traffic.

I went through Harvard Square and down to the river, and across and onto the Mass. Pike. In about an hour and forty-five minutes I was in Waymark again. It took me a couple of tries but I found the road leading into Pomeroy’s cabin. There had been snow here, that we hadn’t gotten in eastern Mass., and I had to shift into four-wheel drive to get the Cherokee down the rutted road.

The cabin door was locked when I got there, and inside I heard the dogs bark. I knocked just to be proper and when no one answered but the dogs I backed off and kicked the door in. The dogs barked hysterically as the door splintered in, and then came boiling out past me into the yard. They stopped barking and began circling hurriedly until they each found the proper spot and relieved themselves, a lot. Inside the cabin there was a bowl on the floor half full of water, and another, larger bowl that was empty. I found a 25-pound sack of dry dog food and poured some into the bowl and took the rest out and put it in the back of the Cherokee. Finished with their business, the dogs hurried indoors and gathered at the food bowl. They went in sequence, one after another until all three were eating at once. While they ate I found some clothesline in the cabin and fashioned three leashes. When they were done I looped my leashes around their necks and took them to the car. They didn’t leap in easily, like the dogs in station wagon commercials. They had to be boosted, one after the other, into the back seat. Once they were in I unlooped the rope and dropped it on the floor of the back seat, closed the back door, got in front and pulled out of there.

On the paved and plowed highway I shifted out of four-wheel drive and cruised down to police headquarters. The patrol car was parked outside. It looked like a cop car designed by Mr. Blackwell. I left the dogs in the Cherokee and went on in to see Phillips.

He was behind his desk, his cowboy boots up on the desk top, reading a copy of Soldier of Fortune. He looked up when I came in, and it took him a minute to place me.

“You went out and hassled him, didn’t you?” I said.

Phillips was frowning, trying to remember who I was.

“Huh?” he said.

“Pomeroy. When I left you went back out there and made him tell you everything he told me, and then you couldn’t keep it to yourself, you went to the Argus and blatted out everything you knew; and got your picture taken and your name spelled right, and ruined what was left of the poor bastard’s life.”

Phillips had figured out who I was, but he kept frowning.

“Hey, I got a right to conduct my own investigation,” he said. “I’m the fucking law out here, remember?”

“Law, shit,” I said. “You’re a fat loudmouth in a jerkwater town playacting Wyatt Earp. And you cost an i

“You can’t talk to me that way. Whose life?”

“Pomeroy killed himself this morning, in Boston. He had a copy of the Berkshire Argus story with him.”

“Guy was always a loser,” Phillips said.

“Guy loved too hard,” I said. “Too much. Not wisely. You understand anything like that?”

“I told you, you can’t come in here, talk to me like that, that tone of voice. I’ll throw your ass in jail.”

Phillips let his feet drop off the desk top and stood up. His hand was in the area of his holstered gun.

“You do that,” I said. “You throw my ass in jail, or go for the gun, or take a swing at me, anything you want.”

I had moved closer to him, almost without volition, as if he were gravitational.

“Do something,” I said. I could feel the tension across my back. “Go for the gun, take a swing, go for it.”

Phillips’ eyes rolled a little, side to side. There was a fine line of sweat on his upper lip. He looked at the phone. He looked at me. He looked past me at the door.

“Whyn’t you just get out of here and leave me alone,” he said. His voice was hoarse and shaky. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

We faced each other for another long, silent moment. I knew he wasn’t going to do anything.

“I didn’t do nothing wrong,” he said again.

I nodded and turned and walked out. And left the door open behind me. That’d fix him.

Chapter 34

“I KNOW people who might take one dog,” Susan I said. “But three? Mongrels?”

“I’m not breaking them up,” I said.

We were in my living room and the dogs were around looking at us. The alpha dog was curled in the green leather chair; the other two were on the couch.

“Where did they sleep last night?” Susan said. I shrugged.

Susan’s eyes brightened.

“They slept with you,” she said. I shrugged again.

“You and the three doggies all together in bed. Tell me at least they slept on top of the quilt.”

I shrugged.

“Hard as nails,” Susan said.

“Well,” I said. “I started them out in the kitchen, but then they started whimpering in the night…”

“Of course,” Susan said, “and they got in there and you sleep with the window open, and it was cold…”

“You’re the same way,” I said.

Susan laughed. “Yes,” she said. “I too think the bedroom’s too cold.”

“Dogs do not respect one’s sleeping space much,” I said.

“Did we sleep curled up on one small corner of the bed while the three pooches spread out luxuriously?” Susan said.

“I wanted them to feel at home,” I said.

“We must be very clear on one thing. When I visit, we are not sleeping with three dogs.”

“No,” I said.

“And when we make love we are not going to be watched by three dogs.”

“Of course not,” I said. “Hawk says he knows some woman owns a farm in Bridgewater and is an animal rights activist.”

“Don’t tell her about my fur coat,” Susan said.

“He thinks she’ll take them.”

Susan put the palm of her right hand flat on her chest and did a Jack E. Leonard impression. “I hope so,” she said, “for your sake.”

“You wouldn’t like to take them over to your place today,” I said. “I need to go to my office.”

“I have meetings all day,” she said. “It’s why I’m here for breakfast.”

“Oh yeah.”

“I’m sure they’ll love your office,” Susan said.

And they did, for brief stretches. Every hour or so they felt the need to be walked down to the Public Garden. In between walks they sat, usually in a semicircle, and looked at me expectantly, with their mouths open and their tongues hanging out. All day. Outside, Christmas was making its implacable approach. The dryness in the mouth of merchandising managers was intensifying, the exhaustion had become bone deep in the parents of small children, the television stations kept wishing me the best of the joyous season every station break, and the street gangs in Roxbury and Dorchester were shooting each other over insults to their manhood at the rate of about three a week. In the stores downtown people jostled each other; bundled uncomfortably in clothing against the cold, they were hot and angry in the crowded aisles where people sold silk show handkerchiefs and imported fragrances for the special person in your life. Liquor stores were doing a land-office business, and the courts were in double session trying to clear the calendar for the holiday break.