House on Fire

60

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show was going on at Piers 92 and 94 off the West Side Highway. We found Natalya just where she said, in the “benching” area. She kissed Sukie and gave me a firm handshake. She was dressed all in pink, her suit and her shoes. She was a very attractive woman. A forty-year-old Grace Kelly, but with one difference: up close you could see she’d had a lot of roadwork done.

Meanwhile, dogs by the dozens were walking by on leashes. I paid no attention to their owners. There were all sorts of breeds and sizes of dog, and they were yipping and barking. It was a cacophony. We walked past an area where people were showing off their dogs, and some were grooming them. I saw a big old English sheepdog with hair rakishly over his eyes. And then a huge Neapolitan mastiff, a homely dog but a fierce protector.

Natalya was grooming her Havanese, a small dog with long, silky black-and-white hair and button eyes, who was standing on a bench. She said she was entered in the show. The dog reminded me of Chewbacca, from the Star Wars movies. A Wookiee. But a very cute dog.

Sukie told Natalya about the brick and the Molotov cocktail guy. She looked at me and put a hand on my biceps, lightly squeezing. She hugged Sukie and told her how scary that must have been. The two seemed to get along just fine.

Then Sukie excused herself to go find the nearest restroom.

Every bench in the hall had a dog sitting on it. The dogs were all getting petted and groomed and primped. They were the celebrities, not their owners. The woman next to us was trimming the eyelashes of her cocker spaniel with a pair of scissors. A few benches away was a long-haired dachshund, which was getting lots of attention from visitors.

“How’s your dog doing in the show?” I asked Natalya.

“Clara is select bitch,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

She pulled out a ribbon affixed to a silver medallion from under the bench, a blue-and-white rosette, and showed it to me. It did say Select Bitch on it. I realized she was talking dog-show language. She kept brushing her dog, who responded by panting happily.

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Winner of show always wire fox terrier.”

“That right?”

She tilted her head and smiled. “You went after this bomber?”

I nodded.

“Yes, of course you did,” she said. “You are sheepdog.”

“I’m a sheepdog,” I said dubiously.

“I read somewhere there are three kinds people — is sheep, is wolves, and is sheepdog. Most people sheep — just kind and gentle people. They never hurt others, except by accident. Then there is predators — the wolves. They prey on weak people. They feed on sheep. These are the bad people.”

“Okay.”

“And then is sheepdogs. They protect flock. They have drive to do this. They have gift of aggression.”

I nodded.

She said, “You are not sheep. You are not wolf. You are sheepdog. You are guard dog, not attack dog.”

“I see,” I said. “And what are you, Natalya?”

She smiled. “I own guard dog. Dogs have owners, yes? Who owns you?”

“Maybe I’m a stray,” I said.

She went back to brushing her dog, whose hair was so long I couldn’t see her feet. “Clara,” she said soothingly to her dog. Then, to me: “I think you are good man. Very observant. I have strong intuition, and I trust this intuition. And you are good for Sukie.”

“Thank you.”

“These children of Conrad — they are not sheep or wolves; they are scorpions.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s what he always says to me. His children see me as thief in night who comes to take their birthright away. Their greed makes them... it blinds them. I think it does not blind you. I think you see this.”

I didn’t want to agree with her, so I just nodded vaguely.

“Megan thinks she is very clever, what she is doing. But she is playing short game. Conrad, you see — he plays long game.”

“He’s eighty years old. That’s a long game right there.”

“I’m very sorry about what happened to Hildy.” She said “Hildy” with a hard Russian ch sound, and she also said it with invisible quotation marks around it. As if she knew it was an alias. “I think she was someone special to you.”

I concealed my surprise. “She was.”

“No one else in family really sees you. Too blinded by greed. But I see you.” She stroked the hairbrush over the long hair on the dog’s face. “Clara, dushenka,” she said to the dog. Probably a Russian word. To me, she said, “These are my private thoughts. I share them with no one. Not even Conrad. I like you, Nick.”

“What’s not to like?” I said.

“You know, Nick, when you grow up extremely poor like me, and then suddenly you have great wealth, you have maybe different perspective. You realize what is real wealth? Is other people. Is not dollars or rubles. Is what kind of person you are.”

I paused for a moment. I hadn’t expected this kind of directness from Conrad’s fiancée. So I pushed a bit. “Tell me about Paul. He seems very gentle. Maybe a little out of it, but well meaning. Am I wrong?”

“Paul is more complicated than he seems.”

Who isn’t? I thought. “How so?” I said.

“Paul is Chow Chow. He has big fluffy coat and everyone thinks it is friendly dog. But Chow Chow can be very aggressive. They have jaws like lion. I had Chow Chow in Russia, big, fluffy, beautiful dog, but he can never stop biting. He jumps and bites people and digs holes.” She paused and, after a meaningful glance, said, “We had to put him down.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Some breeds of dogs, like the Rottweiler and the pit bull, they are friendly and sweet and loving but very aggressive to other dogs.”

“And what is Conrad?”

“He is my Chihuahua.”

“But Chihuahuas are little.”

“I once had a Chihuahua who is extremely loyal but if anyone else gets near me, he snarls and bites.”

“Loyalty’s a good thing,” I said.

She looked lost in thought. “We had to put him down too.”

We talked for a while, Natalya and I, until Sukie came back. She said to Natalya, “Looks like you two are hitting it off. I might wander around for a while.”

“Sukie, my dear, I must go,” said Natalya. “Clara and I. I have hairdresser appointment. Can I give you a ride anywhere?”

“Just back to my house.”

“My car is outside. I will drop you two off.”

We wandered through the halls of Pier 94 and took an elevator down to the ground level. Outside it was crowded with cars and cabs and a lot of people. When Natalya emerged, in her pink suit and holding Clara in the crook of her arm like a baby, a couple of shouts went up from the crowd. I heard “Kimball.”

“Damn these people,” Natalya said.

Some in the crowd started chanting, “Kimballs lie, people die!”

There were black signs that read GREED KILLS AND KIMBALLS ARE KILLERS and a big red banner that read 200 DEAD EACH DAY. I immediately took the lead and ushered the two women across the bustling sidewalk to Natalya’s car, a white Bentley limo. Someone threw an egg, which splatted on the sidewalk near her. The car pulled up to us just in time, and Natalya and her dog hustled over to the passenger’s-side door. I opened the door for her. She climbed in, with Clara the dog, and then Sukie did.

When I was about to get in, I suddenly noticed something on the undercarriage of the car. Something had glinted at me. I said, “Hold on,” then I closed the car door and knelt down on the pavement. I reached underneath, felt the hot metal next to the object I’d seen a few seconds earlier. I grabbed it. It easily came off.

It was a small, gray plastic box, around five inches long and two wide, with two big magnets on top. Inside, as I expected, was a GPS tracking device. Someone was tracking Natalya.

I shoved it into the pocket of my coat and jumped into the car. Once I closed the door it was quiet in there. The outside chants were muffled.

“What did you find?” Natalya said.

I pulled out the little gray box and showed it to her.

“What is it?”

“It’s a tracker. A GPS tracker.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s for someone to follow you, track you down everywhere this car goes.”

Her brows arched. She looked angry. “Who puts it there?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out.” I disconnected the battery from the GPS unit, disabling it.

She told the driver, “Please, Edward, get us out of here. Go very fast.” The car slowly began to move. There were too many people around. Natalya began stroking Clara, in her lap.

Someone hit the car hard, or maybe kicked it. It made a hollow sound.

Suddenly the exterior of the Bentley was hit with dozens of what sounded at first like rocks. Splotches of paint covered the windshield and the side windows, yellow and pink. We’d been attacked by a couple of paintball guns. The protesters had come prepared with weapons. Yellow and pink paint streamed down the windows. They had known that Conrad Kimball’s fiancée would be at the dog show.

Natalya was quietly crying as we drove away. But I kept staring out the window, because I had to double-check on something.

It took me a moment, but quickly I confirmed it. My stomach knotted as I recognized someone in the crowd. It was a swarthy man with a scar cut through his right eyebrow, and I knew for sure I had seen him before.