at the receiver in Travis’s hand.
Travis hung up and turned away, but Einstein stood there, gazing at the wall
phone.
“Probably a wrong number.”
Einstein glanced at him, then at the phone again.
“Or kids thinking they’re being clever.”
Einstein whined unhappily.
“What’s eating you?”
Einstein just stood there, riveted by the phone.
With a sigh, Travis said, “Well, I’ve had all the bewilderment I can handle for
one day. If you’re going to wax mysterious, you’ll have to do it without me.”
He wanted to watch the early news before preparing dinner for himself, so he got
a Diet Pepsi from the fridge and went into the living room, leaving the dog in
peculiar communion with the telephone. He switched on the TV, sat in the big
armchair, popped the tab on his Pepsi—and heard Einstein getting into some kind
of trouble in the kitchen.
“What’re you doing out there?”
A clank. A clatter. The sound of claws scrabbling against a hard surface. A
thump, and another.
“Whatever damage you do,” Travis warned, “you’re going to have to pay for. And
how’re you going to earn the bucks? Might have to go up to Alaska and work as a
sled dog.”
The kitchen got quiet. But only for a moment. Then there were a couple of
clunks, a rattle, a rustle, more scrabbling of claws.
Travis was intrigued in spite of himself. He used the remote-control unit to
mute the TV.
Something hit the kitchen floor with a bang.
Travis was about to go see what had happened, but before he rose from the chair,
Einstein appeared. The industrious dog was carrying the telephone directory in
his jaws. He must have leaped repeatedly at the kitchen counter where the book
lay, pawing it, until he pulled it onto the floor. He crossed the living room
and deposited the book in front of the armchair.
“What do you want?” Travis asked.
The dog nudged the directory with his nose, then gazed at Travis expectantly.
“You want me to call someone?”
“Woof.”
“Who?”
Einstein nosed the phone book again.
Travis said, “Now who would you want me to call? Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Old
Yeller?”
The retriever stared at him with those dark, undoglike eyes, which were more
expressive than ever but insufficient to communicate what the animal Wanted.
“Listen, maybe you can read my mind,” Travis said, “but I can’t read yours.”
Whining in frustration, the retriever padded out of the room, disappearing
around the corner into the short hallway that served the bath and two bedrooms.
Travis considered following, but he decided to wait and see what happened next.
In less than a minute, Einstein returned, carrying a gold-framed eight-by-ten
photograph in his mouth. He dropped it beside the phone directory. It was the
picture of Paula that Travis kept on the bedroom dresser. It had been taken on
their wedding day, ten months before she died. She looked beautiful—and
deceptively healthy.
“No good, boy. I can’t call the dead.”
Einstein huffed as if to say Travis was thickheaded. He went to a magazine rack
in the corner, knocked it over, spilling its contents, and came back with an
issue of Time, which he dropped beside the gold-framed photograph. With his
forepaws, he scraped at the magazine, pulling it open and leafing through its
pages, tearing a few in the process.
Moving to the edge of the armchair, leaning forward, Travis watched with
interest.
Einstein paused a couple of times to study the open pages of the magazine, then
continued to paw through it. Finally, he came to an automobile advertisement
that prominently featured a striking brunette model. He looked up at Travis,
down at the ad, up at Travis again, and woofed.
“I don’t get you.”
Pawing the pages again, Einstein found an ad in which a smiling blonde was
holding a cigarette. He snorted at Travis.
“Cars and cigarettes? You want me to buy you a car and a pack of Virginia
Slims?”
After another trip to the overturned magazine rack, Einstein returned with a
copy of a real-estate magazine that still showed up in the mail every month even
though Travis had been out of the racket for two years. The dog pawed through