“For God’s sake, get some new ones,” Desie had beseeched her husband.
“Hell no,” he’d said. “This way’ll make a better story, you gotta admit.”
Of the surgically retrieved eyeballs, one each belonged to the Canadian lynx, the striped marlin, the elk and the mule deer. The still-missing orb had come from the Cape buffalo, Stoat’s largest trophy head, so he was especially eager to get it back.
Her own eyes glistening, Desie stalked up to her husband and said: “If that poor dog dies somewhere out there, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I’m telling you, nobody stole Boodle—”
“Doesn’t matter, Palmer. It’s your dumb hobby, your dumb dead animals with their dumb fake eyeballs. So it’s your damn fault if something happens to that sweet puppy.”
As soon as Desie had left the den, Stoat phoned a commercial printer and ordered five hundred flyers bearing a photograph of Boodle, and an offer of $10,000 cash to anyone with information leading to his recovery. Stoat wasn’t worried, because he was reasonably sure that none of his enemies, no matter how callous, would go so far as to snatch his pet dog.
The world is a sick place, Stoat thought, but not that sick.
Twilly Spree had followed the litterbug’s taxi from the party to the house. He parked at the end of the block and watched Palmer Stoat stagger up the driveway. By the time Stoat had inserted the key, Twilly was waiting thirty feet away, behind the trunk of a Malaysian palm. Not only did Stoat neglect to lock the front door behind him, he didn’t even shut it halfway. He was still in the hall bathroom, fumbling with his zipper and teetering in front of the toilet, when Twilly walked into the house and removed the dog.
With the Labrador slung fireman-style across his shoulders, Twilly jogged all the way back to the car. The dog didn’t try to bite him, and never once even barked. That was encouraging; the big guy was getting the right vibrations. The smart ones’ll do that, Twilly thought.
Even after they got to the motel, the Lab stayed quiet. He drank some cold water from the bathtub faucet but ignored a perfectly scrumptious rawhide chew toy.
“What’s the matter, sport?” Twilly asked. It was true he often spoke to animals. He didn’t see why not. Even the bobcat with which he’d shared a tent in the swamp. Don’t bite me, you little bastard is what Twilly had advised.
The dog settled in at his feet. Twilly patted its glossy rump and said, “Everything’s going to be all right, buddy.” He couldn’t bring himself to address the animal by the name on its tag—Boodle. It was a quaint synonym for bribe, Palmer Stoat at his wittiest.
“From now on,” Twilly said to the dog, “you’re McGuinn.”
The Lab raised its head, which seemed as wide as an anvil.
“After a great guitar player,” Twilly explained. The dog uncurled and stretched out on his side. That’s when Twilly noticed the tape and bandage. He knelt beside the dog and gingerly peeled the dressing from a shaved patch of belly. Beneath the gauze was a fresh surgical incision, in which Twilly counted twelve steel staples. He pressed the tape back in place and lightly stroked the dog’s ribs. It let out one of those heavy sighs that Labs do, but didn’t appear to be in pain.
Twilly worried about the wound, wondered what could have gone haywire on such a strapping critter—the gallbladder? Do dogs even have gallbladders? I know they get arthritis and heart disease and autoimmune disorders and cancers—for sure, they get cancer. All this was going through Twilly’s mind; a juicer commercial on the television and Twilly hunched with his elbows on his knees, on the corner of the bed, with McGuinn snoozing on the burnt-orange shag.
That dog, it had the softest breathing for an animal that size. Twilly had to bend close to hear it, the breathing like a baby’s in a crib.
And Twilly thinking: This poor fella’s probably on some heavy-duty dope to get past the surgery. That would explain why he’d come along so meekly. And the longer Twilly thought about it, the more certain he became about what to do next: Return to Palmer Stoat’s house and find the dog’s medicine. Risky—insanely risky—but Twilly had no choice. He wanted nothing bad to happen to McGuinn, who was an innocent.