“Hey, Doc,” said Dick as he reached for his back pocket and took out the pack of cigarettes he kept there, then placed it on the next chair for later consumption. He settled himself in for the long haul, immediately assuming that manspreading posture your regular subway traveler abhors so much.“So you’re interested to learn to tango, huh?”
“No, thanks,” said Tex. “I am actually here to ask you something, Dick.”
“Sure—shoot.”
“This may sound a little weird, but…”
The other man cocked a quizzical eyebrow.“Yes?”
“Well… I was just wondering how, in spite of your age, you manage to—”
“Viagra,” said Dick immediately. “Though I should probably take it easy on the little blue pills. Not good for the old blood pressure. But then I don’t have to tell you, Doc.”
“I wasn’t referring to Viagra, Dick,” said Tex, with perhaps less warmth than a doctor is supposed to award a loyal patient. “I was actually referring to your hair.”
“My hair?”
“The thing is that I think I’m going bald, and so I was wondering if perhaps you’d like to share the secret of that amazing crop of hair of yours.”
Dick burst into loud laughter at this, causing the unreasonable resentment Tex experienced toward the other man to spike.
“Oh, for crying out loud, just tell me how you do it, Dick. You and Rock, both.”
He’d already learned Malcolm’s secret, but frankly he didn’t feel like practicing that man’s remedy if given a choice. Not that he was squeamish, but still. There were limits to what a man was willing to do—even a man as desperate as he was.
Dick was still grinning, took a cigarette from the pack, stuck it between his lips, then removed it again and returned it to the pack.“Look, Doc, I like you. In fact I like you a lot, so I’m going to tell you my secret, but before I do, I want you to know that this is not for the faint of heart, all right? So you do with it what you will, but I won’t be held responsible for the consequences.”
“Oh, absolutely, Dick,” said Tex, now really curious for what was about to follow. “So what’s the big secret?”
And so Dick leaned into him, and whispered his big secret into his ear. Tex’s eyes went wide, and when Dick leaned back, the man gave him such a shit-eating grin that frankly Tex couldn’t help but wonder if the man wasn’t perhaps having a laugh at his expense. Dick must have sensed his skepticism, for he now nodded and said, “Honest to God, Doc. And if you don’tbelieve me, you can ask Rock. He’ll tell you the exact same thing.”
“So Rock…”
“Applies the same technique.”
Tex thought for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks, Dick. I owe you.”
“Sure. Oh, and you’ll tell me if it works out for you, okay?”
“I will,” said Tex as he got up. He was feeling slightly dazed as he walked out, and when he glanced back, saw that Dick had snatched another willing lady from the flock, and was moving across that dance floor again with an energy Tex knew he’d never be able to conjure up if he lived to be a hundred. Which is why he decided to try Dick’s remedy. Only he had to make sure no one found out, or he’d be the laughingstock of the whole town!
16
When I walked out of the pet flap, after having eaten my fill, and ready to take a nap on the lawn, I found Dooley sniffing that same lawn with a determination I found particularly amusing.“What are you doing?” I asked, even though it was obvious he was sniffing grass!
“I’m conducting an experiment, Max,” said my friend as he lifted his nose from the lawn long enough to answer my question.
“What experiment?”
“Okay, so Fifi and Rufus managed to track Angel all the way to that pond, all right?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, placing myself down on the lawn, and emitting a contented little sigh as I rolled over on my back, my paws dangling in the air. Sheer heaven!
“So why can’t we do the same thing?”
“Because we’re cats, Dooley, not dogs,” I said.
“I know, but our sense of smell is pretty developed, too, right?”
“Of course it is, but not as developed as a dog’s. And also, dogs seem to have cornered the market on that kind of stuff, so why not let them? It’s my belief, Dooley, that we’re all put here on this earth with a specific purpose, and a dog’s purpose seems to be to sniff out stuff and follow their nose wherever it may lead.”
“And our purpose?” asked Dooley, closely following my reasoning.
“Our purpose is to use our brains and our cunning, and the agility of our feline bodies,” I said as my eyes started to drift closed. The sun was really giving of its best, and within a few minutes I’d be compelled to retreat to the shade. But for now I enjoyed that tickle on my belly—those warm rays massaging my abdomen—and decided to stay put and relax.
“I’ll bet you’ve figured out what happened to Angel already, haven’t you, Max?”
“No, Dooley, I haven’t,” I murmured sleepily.
“No, but I bet you have, with that big brain of yours. So where is she, Max? Did she really run away from home, or was she beamed up by aliens?”
“I have no idea, Dooley. Absolutely no clue.” And then I really did drift off into a peaceful slumber.
I have no idea how long I’d been lying there, but it must have been longer than I’d anticipated, for the sun had already shifted further west at this point, and it took me a little while to realize that the sound of shouting voices had woken me up. And as I pricked up my ears and turned them in the direction of the sound, I discovered that the voices were coming from Blake Carrington’s field. And so I reluctantly picked myself up from the lawn, and started off in that direction, to find out what was going on. Dooley, who’d been sleeping in the shade of the rosebush, woke up when I trudged past, and sleepily said, “Have the aliens returned Angel yet?”
“No, I don’t think so, Dooley. But they have brought us something else to investigate.”
And so Dooley, who’s just about as inquisitive a cat as I am, got up and together we snuck through the hedge, and then through the high grass that covers the field, except the part where that car wreck lies, and of course—and how could I forget—that skeleton!
Two men stood near the wreck, and one of them was actually shaking his fist at the other man. The fist-shaker was tall, with one of those craggy faces and impeccably groomed gray hair and looked to be about sixty years of age. The other man was younger, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties.
“You did this!” the older man was snarling. “If you hadn’t been there that day, this would never have happen!”
“How many times do I have to tell you—I wasn’t there!”
“My private detectives don’t lie, Jessie. Not only were you there, you were in the car that raced my son and caused him to have that terrible accident. You killed my boy!”
But Jessie, whoever he was, made a circular motion with his index finger next to his temple and then made to leave.“When you asked me to come out here I actually thought you had something interesting to tell me. I should have known it was the same garbage!”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. If you think I’m going to stand here and listen to this nonsense you’re crazy.”
“You stay here—I’m not done with you, Jessie. Come back here!”
Jessie turned.“You know what you should do—what you should have done a long time ago? Get rid of that wreck, sell the land and move on. Because this?” He gestured to the car wreck. “This is crazy. As crazy as you are!”
“I’m going to sue you, Jessie! How dare you dig up my boy and dump him here!”
But Jessie had already moved out of earshot, and now it was just us and Blake Carrington, for I had a strong suspicion that the man now leaning against the car was the late Steven Carrington’s dad. The recent screaming match had clearly taken a lot of energy, for Mr. Carrington didn’t look well. He was clutching at his chest, and his face had gone a pasty sort of pale.