Palmer Stoat had crawled into a corner, beneath a stacked glass display of antique cigar boxes. The bearded man approached, his legs bare and grime-streaked below the hem of the kilt. Stoat shielded his head with his arms. He heard the big man humming. It was a tune Stoat recognized from an old Beach Boys album—”Wouldn’t It Be Great,” or something like that.
He peeked out to see, inches from his face, the intruder’s muddy boots.
“What I ought to do,” Palmer Stoat heard the man say, “I ought to kick the living shit out of you. That’s what would lift my spirits. That’s what would put a spring in my step, ha! But I suppose I won’t.” The man dropped to one knee, his good eye settling piercingly on Stoat while the crimson orb wandered.
“Don’t hurt me,” said Stoat, lowering his arms.
“It’s so tempting.”
“Please don’t.”
The bearded man dangled the two bird beaks for Stoat to examine. “Vultures,” he said. “They caught me in a bad mood.”
Stoat closed his eyes and held them shut until he was alone. He didn’t move from the floor for two hours, long after the intruder had departed. He remained bunched in the corner, his chin propped on his pallid knees, and tried to gather himself. Every time he thought about the last thing the captain had said, Palmer Stoat shuddered.
“Your wife is a very attractive woman. ”
17
The dog was having a grand time.
That’s the thing about being a Labrador retriever—you were born for fun. Seldom was your loopy, freewheeling mind cluttered by contemplation, and never at all by somber worry; every day was a romp. What else could there possibly be to life? Eating was a thrill. Pissing was a treat. Shitting was a joy. And licking your own balls? Bliss. And everywhere you went were gullible humans who patted and hugged and fussed over you.
So the dog was having a blast, cruising in the station wagon with Twilly Spree and Desirata Stoat. The new name? Fine. McGuinn was just fine. Boodle had been OK, too. Truthfully, the dog didn’t care what they called him; he would’ve answered to anything. “Come on, Buttface, it’s dinnertime!”—and he would’ve come galloping just as rapturously, his truncheon of a tail wagging just as fast. He couldn’t help it. Labradors operated by the philosophy that life was too brief for anything but fun and mischief and spontaneous carnality.
Did he miss Palmer Stoat? It was impossible to know, the canine memory being more sensually absorbent than sentimental; more stocked with sounds and smells than emotions. McGuinn’s brain was forever imprinted with the smell of Stoat’s cigars, for example, and the jangle of his drunken late-night fumbling at the front door. And just as surely he could recall those brisk dawns in the duck blind, when Stoat was still trying to make a legitimate retriever out of him—the frenzied flutter of bird wings, the pop-pop-pop of shotguns, the ring of men’s voices. Lodged in McGuinn’s memory bank was every path he’d ever run, every tomcat he’d ever treed, every leg he’d tried to hump. But whether he truly missed his master’s companionship, who could say. Labradors tended to live exclusively, gleefully, obliviously in the moment.
And at the moment McGuinn was happy. He had always liked Desie, who was warm and adoring and smelled absolutely glorious. And the strong young man, the one who had carried him from Palmer Stoat’s house, he was friendly and caring and tolerable, aroma-wise. As for that morbid bit with the dog in the steamer trunk—well, McGuinn already had put the incident behind him. Out of sight, out of mind. That was the Lab credo.
For now he was glad to be back at Toad Island, where he could run the long beach and gnaw on driftwood and go bounding at will into the cool salty surf. He loped effortlessly, scattering the seabirds, with scarcely a twinge of pain from the place on his tummy where the stitches had been removed. So energetic were his shoreline frolics that McGuinn exhausted himself by day’s end, and fell asleep as soon as they got back to the room. Someone stroked his flank and he knew, without looking, that the sweetly perfumed hand belonged to Desie. In gratitude the dog thumped his tail but elected not to rise—he wasn’t in the mood for another pill, and it was usually Desie who administered the pills.