Startled, he took the candy and peeled off the paper.
The retriever watched, licking its lips.
Breaking the bar into pieces, Travis paid out the chocolate in morsels. The dog took them gratefully and ate almost daintily.
Travis watched in confusion, not certain if what had happened was truly extraordinary or had a reasonable explanation. Had the dog actually understood him when he had said there was candy in the glove box? Or had it detected the scent of chocolate? Surely the latter.
To the dog, he said, “But how did you know to press the button to pop the lid open?”
It stared, licked its chops, and accepted another bit of candy.
He said, “Okay, okay, so maybe that’s a trick you’ve been taught. Though it’s not the sort of thing anyone would ordinarily train a dog to do, is it? Roll over, play dead, sing for your supper, even walk on your hind feet a little ways… yeah, those’re things that dogs are trained to do… but they’re not trained to open locks and latches.
The retriever gazed longingly at the last morsel of chocolate, but Travis withheld the goody for a moment.
The timing, for God’s sake, had been uncanny. Two seconds after Travis had referred to the chocolate, the dog had gone for it.
“Did you understand what I said?” Travis asked, feeling foolish for suspecting a dog of possessing language skills. Nevertheless, he repeated the question: “Did you? Did you understand?”
Reluctantly, the retriever raised its gaze from the last of the candy. Their eyes met. Again Travis sensed that something uncanny was happening; he shivered not unpleasantly, as before.
He hesitated, cleared his throat. “Uh… would it be all right with you if I had the last piece of chocolate?”
The dog turned its eyes to the two small squares of the Hershey’s bar still in Travis’s hand. It chuffed once, as if with regret, then looked through the windshield…
“I’ll be damned,” Travis said.
The dog yawned.
Being careful not to move his hand, not holding the chocolate out, not calling attention to the chocolate in any manner except with words, he addressed the big tattered dog again: “Well, maybe you need it more than I do, boy. If you want it, the last bit’s yours.”
The retriever looked at him.
Still not moving his hand, keeping it close to his own body in a way that implied he was withholding the chocolate, he said, “If you want it, take it. Otherwise, I’ll just throw it away.”
The retriever shifted on the seat, leaned close to him, and gently snatched the chocolate off his palm.
“I’ll be double-damned,” he said.
The dog rose onto all fours, standing on the seat, which brought its head almost to the ceiling. It looked through the back window of the cab and growled softly.
Travis glanced at the rearview mirror, then at the side-mounted mirror, but he saw nothing unusual behind them. Just the two-lane blacktop, the narrow berm, the weed-covered hillside sloping down on their right side. “You think we should get moving? Is that it?”
The dog looked at him, peered out the rear window, then turned and sat with its hind legs tucked to one side, facing forward again.
Travis started the engine, put the truck in gear, pulled onto Santiago Canyon Road, and headed north. Glancing at his companion, he said, “Are you really more than you appear to be… or am I just cracking up? And if you are more than you appear to be… what the devil are you?”
At the rural eastern end of Chapman Avenue, he turned west toward the McDonald’s of which he’d spoken.
He said, “Can’t turn you loose now or take you to a pound.” And a minute later, he said, “If I didn’t keep you, I’d die of curiosity, wondering about you.”
They drove about two miles and swung into the McDonald’s parking lot.
Travis said, “So I guess you’re my dog now.”
The retriever said nothing.
TWO
1
Nora Devon was afraid of the television repairman. Although he appeared to be about thirty (her age), he had the offensive cockiness of a know-it-all teenager. When she answered the doorbell, he boldly looked her up and down as he identified himself-”Art Streck, Wadlow’s TV”-and when he met her eyes again, he winked. He was tall and lean and well-scrubbed, dressed in white uniform slacks and shirt. He was clean-shaven. His darkish-blond hair was cut short and neatly combed. He looked like any mother’s son, not a rapist or psycho, yet Nora was instantly afraid of him, maybe because his boldness and cockiness seemed at odds with his appearance.
“You need service?” he asked when she hesitated in the doorway.
Although his question appeared innocent, the inflection he put on the word “service” seemed creepy and sexually suggestive to Nora. She did not think she was overreacting. But she had called Wadlow TV, after all, and she could not turn Streck away without explanation. An explanation would probably lead to an argument, and she was not a confrontational person, so she let him inside.
As she escorted him along the wide, cool hallway to the living-room arch, she had the uneasy feeling that his good grooming and big smile were elements of a carefully calculated disguise. He had a keen animal watchfulness, a coiled tension, that further disquieted her with every step they took away from the front door.
Following her much too closely, virtually looming over her from behind, Art Streck said, “You’ve got a nice house here, Mrs. Devon. Very nice. I really like it.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly, not bothering to correct his misapprehension of her marital status.
“A man could be happy here. Yeah, a man could be very happy.”
The house was of that style of architecture sometimes called Old Santa Barbara Spanish: two stories, cream-colored stucco with a red-tile roof, verandas, balconies, all softly rounded lines instead of squared-off corners. Lush red bougainvillea climbed the north face of the structure, dripping bright blossoms. The place was beautiful.
Nora hated it.
She had lived there since she was only two years old, which now added up to twenty-eight years, and during all but one of them, she had been under the iron thumb of her Aunt Violet. Hers had not been a happy childhood or, to date, a happy life. Violet Devon had died a year ago. But, in truth, Nora was still oppressed by her aunt, for the memory of that hateful old woman was formidable, stifling.
In the living room, putting his repair kit beside the Magnavox, Streck paused to look around. He was clearly surprised by the decor.
The flowered wallpaper was dark, funereal. The Persian carpet was singularly unattractive. The color scheme-gray, maroon, royal blue-was unenlivened by a few touches of faded yellow. Heavy English furniture from the mid-nineteenth century, trimmed with deeply carved molding, stood on clawed feet: massive armchairs, footstools, cabinets suitable for Dr. Caligari, credenzas that looked as if they each weighed half a ton. Small tables were draped with weighty brocade. Some lamps were pewter with pale-gray shades, and others had maroon ceramic bases, but none threw much light. The drapes looked as heavy as lead; age-yellowed sheers hung between the side panels, permitting only a mustard-colored drizzle of sunlight to enter the room. None of it complemented the Spanish architecture; Violet had willfully imposed her ponderous bad taste upon the graceful house.
“You decorate?” Art Streck asked.
“No. My aunt,” Nora said. She stood by the marble fireplace, almost as far from him as she could get without leaving the room. “This was her place. I… inherited it.”
“If I was you,” he said, “I’d heave all this stuff out of here. Could be a bright, cheery room. Pardon my saying so, but this isn’t you. This might be all right for someone’s maiden aunt… She was a maiden aunt, huh? Yeah, thought so. Might be all right for a dried-up maiden aunt, but definitely not for a pretty lady like yourself.”