Desie ran to the den and found him standing away from the desk, pointing spasmodically with the scissors.
“What is it, Palmer?”
“Eeeaaaaaahhh!” he cried.
Desie stepped forward to see what was in the FedEx envelope. At first she thought it was just a sock, a thin, shiny wrinkled black sock, but that wouldn’t make any sense. Desie picked up the velvety thing and suddenly it looked familiar, and then she let out a cry of her own.
It was the severed ear of a dog, a large dog. A large black Labrador.
Desie dropped the thing, and it landed like a dead bat on the pale carpet. “Jesus!” she gasped.
Her flushed and trembling husband bolted for the bathroom. Desie pounded furiously on the door. “Now do you believe me?” she shouted over the roar of retching. “How about it. Palmer? Do you believe me now, you smart-assed sonofabitch?”
9
Twilly missed McGuinn. Missed the sound of his panting, the musky warmth of his fur.
It’s only a dog, he thought. I got through my whole childhood without so much as a goldfish for a pet, so why all the guilt over a damn dog?
For two days Twilly Spree drove, scouting the likeliest locations. Okeechobee Road in west Dade. Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Dixie Highway in North Miami. U.S. 1 from Kendall Drive to Florida City. And all the time he was missing McGuinn.
I’m going soft, Twilly grumbled. I’m definitely slipping here.
On the third day, after finally finding what he needed, he returned to the veterinary clinic. The frizzy-haired lady in pink met him in the reception area and took him to Dr. Whitcomb’s private office. The veterinarian, who was on the telephone, motioned Twilly to a chair. The lady in pink closed the door on her way out.
As soon as Dr. Whitcomb hung up, Twilly said: “Well?”
“Yes. You ought to have a look.” The veterinarian took a small round object from the top drawer. He handed it to Twilly, who rolled it in the palm of his hand. Seeing the object on an X ray was one thing; holding it was something else, a handful of guilt.
It was a glass eye from the stuffed head of an animal.
“And you’ve got no idea,” Dr. Whitcomb was saying, “how your dog came to ingest something like this?”
“Beats me,” Twilly lied. “I told you, I just found him a few days ago.”
“Labs’ll eat just about anything,” the doctor remarked.
“Evidently.”
Now Twilly knew the truth: He was the one responsible for the dog’s sickness. If he hadn’t removed the eyeballs from Palmer Stoat’s taxidermy, McGuinn wouldn’t have found the damn things and swallowed them.
Twilly wondered why Desie hadn’t told him. He might’ve returned the dog to Stoat if he’d known the truth about the surgery. Now he felt purely rotten.
“A glass eye,” Dr. Whitcomb was saying, “imagine that.”
“And it got stuck inside him?”
“Basically, yes. Pretty far down the chute, too.”
Twilly said, “God. The poor guy needed another operation?”
“No, Mr. Spree. A laxative.”
The door swung open and McGuinn clambered into the office, trailing his leash. Excitedly he whirled around twice before burrowing his snout in Twilly’s crotch, the customary Labrador greeting.
“A very potent laxative,” Dr. Whitcomb added, “and plenty of it.”
Twilly found himself hugging the dog fiercely. He could feel McGuinn’s tongue, as thick as a cow’s, lathering his right ear.
“You sure he’ll be OK?”
“Fine,” said Dr. Whitcomb, “but pretty soon he’ll need those staples taken out of his belly.”
From a damp crumple of cash Twilly counted out a thousand dollars in fifties, which he handed to the veterinarian.
“No, Mr. Spree, this is way too much.”
“It is not.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue, just take it. Maybe next time somebody can’t afford to pay, then… ”
“That’s a good idea,” said Dr. Whitcomb. “Thank you.”
He followed Twilly and McGuinn to the parking lot, where the dog methodically peed on the tires of five late-model cars, including the doctor’s.
“Can I ask a favor?” the veterinarian said. “It’s about that fake eyeball. Mr. Spree, would you mind if I kept it for my collection?”