“That’s right.”
“Too bad.”
The receptionist ignored his last remark. A tall frizzy-haired woman in a pink lab coat came out to collect McGuinn. Twilly followed her to an examination room and together they hoisted the dog onto a stainless-steel table. In came the veterinarian, a slightly built fellow in his sixties. He had a reddish gray mustache and wore thick-rimmed eyeglasses, and he didn’t say much. He listened to McGuinn’s heartbeat, palpated his abdomen and examined the sutures.
Without looking up, the doctor asked, “What was the reason for the surgery?”
Twilly said, “I don’t know.” Desie had promised to tell him, but never did.
“I don’t understand. Isn’t this your dog?”
“Actually, I just found him a few days ago.”
“Then how do you know his name?”
“I had to call him something besides ‘boy.’ ”
The veterinarian turned and eyed Twilly dubiously. Twilly made up a story about finding the Labrador wandering the shoulder of Interstate 75 near Sarasota. He assured the veterinarian he was taking an advertisement in the local newspaper, in the hopes of locating the dog’s owner.
“No rabies tags?” the veterinarian asked. “No, sir.”
“No collar?”
“Nope,” Twilly said. The collar and the tag were in the car.
“A dog like this—it seems hard to believe. This animal has champion bloodlines.”
“I sure wouldn’t know about that.”
The veterinarian stroked McGuinn’s snout. “Somebody cared enough to take him in for surgery. Doesn’t make any sense they’d abandon him afterward. Not to me, it doesn’t.”
Twilly shrugged. “Humans are hard to figure. The point is, I care about him, too. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I got worried when he stopped eating.”
“Yes, it’s good you brought him in.” The veterinarian lifted McGuinn’s upper lip and peered at the pale gums. “Mr. Spree, do you mind waiting in the other room?”
Twilly returned to the reception area and took a seat across from two maternal-looking women, each with an obese cat on her lap. Next to Twilly sat a sharp-featured man clutching a brushed leather valise, from which a small shaggy head—no larger than an apple—would emerge intermittently. Its moist brown eyes would dart edgily about the room until the man whispered something, and then the tiny canine head would pop out of sight.
The sharp-featured man noticed Twilly staring, then pulled the valise protectively to his chest. Abruptly he got up and moved three chairs away.
“So,” Twilly said affably, “what’s your hamster’s name?”
The young man snatched up a veterinary magazine and pretended to read. The other pet owners seemed equally disinclined to chat. Twilly assumed they disapproved of his attire—he was shirtless and barefoot, and wore only a pair of old chinos. The rest of his clothes were at a laundromat down the street.
“Ah well,” he said, and folded his arms. Before long he fell asleep and, as always, did not dream. He awoke to see the face of the frizzy-haired woman in the pink lab coat.
“Mr. Spree? Mr. Spree?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
“Dr. Whitcomb needs to see you right away.”
Twilly rose so fast, it made him wobbly. “Is something wrong?” he asked the woman in pink.
“Please. Come right now.”
The dog predated Desirata. It was a gift from Dag Magnusson, president of the Magnusson Phosphate Company, who knew that Palmer Stoat loved to hunt. Dag Magnusson had purchased the dog from a breeder of field-trial champion Labradors in Hibbing, Minnesota. The one selected by Dag Magnusson was the pick of the litter and cost fifteen hundred dollars. Stoat named him Boodle as an inside joke, although the dog technically wasn’t a bribe but rather a reward for arranging one.
Dag Magnusson had sought out Stoat because a Magnusson mine in Polk County was about to be shut down by the EPA for polluting a community lake with chemical runoff. The chemical was so vile that it exterminated all life-forms larger than amoebas, and the government was contemplating a whopping six-figure fine against Magnusson Phosphate, in addition to padlocking the facility. The situation was so politically touchy—and the lake so odiferously befouled—that not even the sluttiest congressman could be induced to intervene.
So Palmer Stoat tried another approach. He put Dag Magnusson in touch with a regional EPA administrator who was known to have a weak spot for trout fishing. Dag Magnusson invited the EPA man to accompany him on a trip to a private stretch of blue-ribbon river in western Montana, and it was there the lucky fellow nailed his first twenty-inch rainbow. The fish had barely stopped flopping when the EPA quietly began settling its differences with Magnusson Phosphate, which ultimately agreed to pay a $3,900 fine and erect large warning signs on the shores of the poisoned lake in Polk County. Dag Magnusson was delighted with the outcome, and decided that Palmer Stoat deserved something more than his customarily exorbitant fee.