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Chapter Five
A Dog’s Decision
F
ATE DIDN’T KEEP MARYwaiting long. It intervened on four stumpy legs two weeks later.
She came out of the convenience store at a fast trot. She had decided that running out for milk, with the emphasis on running as well as milk, would do her good. Help energize her brain into drafting the lede for the freelance news story she had to sell if she wanted to put much more milk, or anything else, on the table.
Itshouldn’ttakemuchbrainpower.Howhardcould it be to put together a thousand words about HizzonortheMayor’sdiet?Especiallywhenthatwasjust the beginning of the story.
He’d told the world he would lose weight. He set up weekly photo opportunities to immortalize his magic shrinking waistline while he “trimmed the fat” in spending at city hall too. Mary suspected from the beginning his weight loss would prove to be as mythical as his spending cuts.
The first photo op came early. Hizzonor’s wife tipped Mary off. It didn’t exactly feature a shrinking waistline, although it did display every hairy inch of his midriff. And a lot of the rest of him. All streaked and splashed with cream pie.
Whipped cream also ended strategically although not intentionally placed to preserve some of the modesty of a prostitute. Unless she was an import, she was one of the street ladies Hizzonor had sworn to sweep out of Toronado between his bouts of trimming the fat.
Mary caught it all on camera. Hizzonor’s wife had made sure of it. She wanted her favorite columnist to witness her confronting her husband.
In all good conscience, Mary had to ’fess up that she was no longer a columnist at all.
“Sell thisstory to the highest bidder,” Hizzonor’s wifereplied.“They’llclimballoverthemselvestobuy it.”
She was right, Mary knew. She just had to write it perfectly. Her duty was to entertain, yes. It was also toshowthecitizensofToronadotheyhadslippedinto temporary insanity when they elected this mayor. It might help make sure the same mistake never happened again.
She knew she had the photos to do the job. Hizzonor’s wife looked immensely pleased with herself rightaftershethrewonecreampieatthemayorand theotherattheprostitute.Whichishowthemodesty of the lady of the evening came to be preserved.
They were banana cream pies, by the look of it, although they were so mashed it was hard to tell for sure.
When Mary sold the story, photos and video to the Toronado TV station, Pete Santini would regret firing her. So there.
It all left Mary distracted as she ran out of the convenience store with a jug of milk in one hand. In the other was her inspiration, a photo of Toronado’s dirty dog of a mayor. No offense meant to dogs.
Mary had to look where she was running, so she spotted the four-legged dog, who was much more honorable than the mayor, immediately.
Lancelot. What was he doing running loose here?
The cocky Basset Hound was about a block ahead of her, trotting past the high-rises circling Mary’s house and heading — why, it looked as though he was heading straight for her house. He was on a beeline to his size-large lady-love.
Mary broke into full speed, trying to catch up with the pint-sized Lothario. As she closed the distance between them, she practiced what she’d say to her mother.
“Okay, Mom, I did what we agreed on. I didn’t take the man’s jacket back to him myself. I sent it by courier. But I couldn’t send his dog back by courier, could I?”
Chapter Six
Fateful Arcaiton
“S
IR,IT’S WALDEN CALLING, from the front desk. I have a young woman here. She’s a little, well, out of sorts, sir. She has a dog in her arms. A Basset Hound. He looks a little out of sorts too, although I wouldn’t say angry. Maybe resigned. And, sir, I’m sure the dog is Lancelot.”
“It can’t be. He’s here. I’m sure he’s here.” Van clicked his fingers and called. No skitter of canine feet.
“Give me a moment please, Walden.” Van put the phone down and strode through the kitchen and down the hall to the bedrooms. No sign of Lancelot.
Maybe Lancelot really was down there in the lobby of Van’s apartment building with “a young woman.”
Itmightbetheannoyingwomanfromthepark.Just the kind of woman who could lure a busy man going about his — well — busy-ness and make him forget his goal. Van loved women in the bedroom and the boardroom, but that one could probably wiggle her way into a man’s entire life.
