"I know what meshugge means. And I think I know why he wanted to fire me, too."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't do it his way."
"He knew you weren't going to do it his way when you told him nobody went in till the old man let go of the kid and the gun. That wasn't Brady's way, that was your way. His way was the kid comes out and you go in, an even trade."
"That's exactly what I'm ..."
"You're missing my point. If he wanted to fire you because you didn't do it his way, then why didn't he fire you on the spot? When you refused to do it his way?"
"I don't know. Why didn't he?"
"Maybe he realized you were right. But then, after it was all over, he had to fire you to show he's still the boss."
"But he didn't fire me."
"Only because I talked him out of it."
"How'd you do that?"
"I told him you were fearless and honest and sympathetic and smart and that you'd probably turn out to be the best negotiator the team ever had, male or female."
"Fearless, huh? You should only know."
"Fearless," he said. "And all those other things, too."
"And that's why he gave me the thirty-day probation."
"Well, I also told him you were beautiful."
"You didn't," she said.
"I did," he said. "Want to go to a movie tonight?"
She looked at him.
"What do you say?"
"What's playing?" she asked.
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Louis Loeb told Carella on the telephone that his partner's will had already been filed and was a matter of record and he had neither the time nor the inclination to discuss it in detail with the detectives investigating his murder, certainly not after they had violated the civil rights of Mr Schumacher's widow, an offense for which he - Mr Loeb and not Mr Schumacher -was still awaiting an apology. Carella said, "Thank you, Mr Loeb," and hung up.
At two o'clock that afternoon - after having spent an hour and a half poring over the will in what was called Surrogate's Court in this city but which in many other cities was called Probate Court - he and Brown drove uptown onto Jefferson Avenue and parked the car in a neighborhood sprinkled with antique shops, boutiques, beauty salons, and art galleries. Nestled between two of these galleries was a shop called Bide-A-Wee Pets. The woman who owned the shop was named Pauline Weed. She had sold a black Labrador retriever puppy to Margaret Schumacher for her to give to her husband on the occasion of their first Christmas together - and now she'd been named in Arthur Schumacher's will as the legatee of ten thousand dollars.
The woman was astonished.
Blonde and beautiful, in her early thirties, Carella guessed, slender and tall in black dancer's tights, black pumps, and a blue smock that matched her eyes, she accepted the news with disbelief at first, asking them if they were playing a joke on her, and then taking a closer look at the gold, blue-enameled shields they showed yet another time, and then bringing her hand up to her mouth and giggling behind it and shaking her head, all in what appeared to be a genuine display of surprise and delight.
"I can't believe this," she said, "it's so impossible."
"You had no idea, huh?" Brown said.
"None at all," she said, "this is a total and unimaginable surprise! Ten thousand dollars, that's a fortune*. For whatl I hardly knew the man. Are you sure this isn't a mistake?"
They assured her it was not a mistake.
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They showed her the paragraph they had copied from the wilclass="underline"
In appreciation of the excellent medical services provided to my beloved Labrador retriever, Amos, by the NBB Veterinary Hospital at 731 Derwood Street, Isola, I give to Dr Martin Robert Osgood the sum of Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00) to further his work with animals. In similar appreciation of the excellent consultation and advice she gave to me regarding the care of the aforesaid Amos, I leave to Pauline Byerly Weed, owner of Bide-A-Wee Pets at 602 Jefferson Avenue, Isola, the sum of Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00). Inasmuch as I have made prior arrangements with the Hollybrook Pet Cemetery and Crematory at 4712 Liberty Road in Pinesdale for the burial and perpetual graveside care of the aforementioned Amos, I request that my wife Margaret, should she survive me, or my daughter Lois Stein, should she survive my said wife, determine that Hollybrook Pet Cemetery and Crematory honors its contractual obligations. Of the rest, residue and remainder of my estate . . .
This is amazing," she said, "truly. I don't know what to say. I haven't seen him in ... God, it must be six, seven months since he last came in. This is incredible. Excuse me, but I can't get over it."
"What sort of 'consultation and advice' did you give him?" Carella asked. "About the dog?"
"Well, the first time he called . . . gee, this had to've been at least a year ago. Listen, are you positive this isn't a gag? I mean, all I did was sell his wife a dog."
"You do remember the dog?"
"Amos? Oh, sure, an adorable puppy. Well, you know Labs, they're the gentlest dogs on earth. I've got some back here now, come take a look."
She led them through the shop, past cages of puppies and kittens, past hanging cages of brightly colored birds and tanks of tropical fish, yet more cages with hamsters in them, endlessly paddling their wheels. There was the aroma of feathers and fur and an almost indiscernible aroma of what
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might have been cat piss disguised by litter. The Labrador retriever pups were in a cage at the back of the shop, two of them, looking up expectantly and . . . well, yes, cheerfully at Pauline as she approached them.
"Hello, babies," she said, "here're two people who brought me some very good news today."
She poked her forefinger between the strands of the cage and waggled it at the dogs, scratching first one puppy's head and then the other's, and then allowing them to nip and lick at her finger. The puppies were still frisking around the cage as she led the detectives back to the front of the shop again, explaining that she didn't like to stray too far from the cash register when she was alone in the shop . . . well, she guessed they knew what this city was like.
"So this first time he called ..." Carella prompted.
"It was about a flea collar, actually. He wanted to know how old the dog should be before he put a flea collar on him. He'd named the dog by then, on the phone he kept calling him Amos, a cute name actually ..."
Brown frowned.
"... Amos this and Amos that, and I told him if he planned to take the dog out to the beach - they had a house at the beach, Mr and Mrs Schumacher - or any place where there'd be plant life and ergo fleas or ticks - then he ought to put a collar on him right away, the dog was already three months old. So he came in sometime that week, and I sold him a collar specifically designed for puppies, there are different strengths, you know, this was a Zodiac puppy collar. I still can't get over this, forgive me," she said, shaking her head. "Just telling you about it -1 mean, I hardly knew the man."
"And you say he came in every so often . . ."
"Yes, oh, once a month, once every six weeks, something like that. He'd be passing by ... there are wonderful shops in the neighborhood, you know . . . and he'd stop in and buy a little something for Amos, a rawhide bone, or some kind of toy, we're always getting new shipments of toys, and we'd talk
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about the dog, he'd tell me stories about the dog, how Amos did this, how Amos did that..."
"In his will, he says you gave him consultation and advice ..."
"Well, hardly consultation. But advice, yes, I guess so. I mean, well, yeah, I'd give him little tips I'd picked up, things to make a dog happy, well, any animal. Animals are like people, you know. They're all individuals, you have to treat them all differently. He'd bring Amos in every now and then, I'd look him over, tell him what a good dog he was, like that. I remember once . . . well, I really shouldn't take any credit for this because I'm sure the vet would've discovered it anyway the next time Mr Schumacher took him in. But I was patting Amos on the head, and he had his tongue hanging out, panting, you know, and looking up at me, and I don't know what made me look in his mouth, I guess I wanted to see how his teeth looked, you can tell a lot about a dog's health by looking at his teeth and his gums. And I saw - I didn't know what it was at first - this sort of ridge across the roof of his mouth, like a narrow ridge on his palette. And I reached in there and it was . . . you won't believe this . . . he'd bitten down on a twig, and it had got wedged in there across his mouth, running from one side of his mouth to the other, where his teeth had bitten it off, wedged up there on the roof of his mouth with his teeth holding it in place on either side. And I yanked that out of there . . . Jesus\ He didn't even bleed. The thing just came free in my hand and that dog looked as if he was going to get up on his hind legs and kiss me! Can you imagine the pain that must've been causing him? Wedged up there like that? Like a toothache day and night, can you imagine? That poor dog. But, you know . . . that wasn't worth ten thousand dollars. I mean, nothing I did was worth ten thousand dollars."