Show Business is Murder

Arful by JOHN LUTZ

“ARE YOU TRYING to tell me dogs can talk?”

Braddock had been in Hollywood three long years now. He hadn’t been able to sell a screenplay, but he was sure he’d heard and seen just about everything, much of it right here in Savvie’s bar, within spitting distance of Wilshire Boulevard. But here was something he hadn’t expected, like an opening scene from an old Twilight Zone episode.

The old man sitting across the table from him smiled, wrinkling his seamed face even more and giving him the look of one of those dolls with heads and faces made from dried apples.

“No,” he said, “not every dog. But some dogs sometimes, if a certain operation is performed on their palates and if they are properly trained.” He took a swig of blended Scotch and twinkled an eye at Braddock. “I know how to train ’em.”

Braddock was barely in his twenties, but he knew he was no fool. “Who trained you?” he asked.

Mitty-that was the old man’s name-twisted his lips in an odd mobile line that changed his smile to a tight grin. He had small, even teeth that were yellowed and probably false. “Dr. Darius,” he said, “the veterinarian surgeon who discovered and perfected the operation.”

“Sure,” Braddock said. “I think I met him once.”

“Doubt it,” Mitty said. “He’s been dead for over fifty years. But before he died he taught me not only how to develop the facility of speech in certain dogs of a particular combination of breeds, but the operation that makes it possible.”

It was dim in Savvie’s. Outside the tinted windows only an occasional pedestrian trudged past in the ninety-degree heat. This time of the afternoon there were no other customers in Savvie’s. Braddock, Mitty, and Edgar the part-time bartender had the place to themselves. Braddock considered what Mitty had told him. How naive did the old joker think he was?

“I suppose you’re a rich man,” Braddock said.

Mitty raised bushy gray eyebrows high on his deeply furrowed forehead. “I wouldn’t be sitting here with you and Java sipping this cheap Scotch if I was rich, now, would I?”

“Java?”

Mitty nodded and glanced down and to the side, toward a dog that had been so still and quiet that Braddock hadn’t noticed it. Java was a small black and white pooch sitting patiently on its haunches near his chair.

“I didn’t see it there,” Braddock said.

“Java’s a he,” Mitty corrected.

“Sorry, fella,” Braddock said to the dog. For only an instant, he half expected the dog to answer.

Java resembled one of those miniature collies, only his hair was shorter. And he did have a funny look around the mouth, as if he were sort of smiling. As if he knew something.

“Why didn’t Java introduce himself?” Braddock asked.

“Introduce yourself, Java,” Mitty told the dog.

At the mention of his name, Java woofed.

“That’s talking?” Braddock asked.

“Not at all. You can’t expect a dog to know the English language without learning it. And I didn’t give him the proper commands. What he is, he’s shy, not much of a performer. That’s why I said he wouldn’t talk here and now. But he’s getting better, more outgoing.”

“Where have you performed?” Braddock asked, being careful to look at Mitty when he asked. “I mean, you and Java?”

“Nowhere yet. We’re working up to it.”

“Uh-huh.” Braddock sipped his drink, a club soda with a lime twist. He never drank before evening, keeping his mind clear to write. He’d soon discovered that many of the powerful people in the film industry were blatant con men, not to be believed. If he’d been naive when he arrived in L.A., he was long over it. Now there were calluses on his cynicism.

Mitty leaned back and regarded him. Braddock regarded the old man right back. He had to be in his eighties, and he dressed like a racetrack tout in Guys and Dolls, tan checked sport coat, red shirt, redder bow tie. The tie had a sprinkling of tiny black polka dots and was perched in an oddly rapacious way at his Adam’s apple like a brilliant exotic butterfly, carnivorous and going for the throat.

“As I recall from seeing you in here before,” Mitty said, “your first name is James.”

“Correct.”

“Like James Braddock, heavyweight champion of the world.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He was long before your time. But shouldn’t you still know yours is the same name as a heavyweight champion?”

Braddock almost pitied the old man for the question. “That kind of ancient knowledge is useless now. It’s a new world. Linear logic is dying. If something comes up and I need that kind of information, I can always get it from the Internet.”

Mitty shook his head with unexpected violence, as if trying to jar loose the persistent butterfly tie clinging to his throat. “You have to be able to think, to synthesize, not just have a lot of facts at your disposal. Everything’s connected to everything else.”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Braddock said. “The Internet.”

“But the world didn’t start when the Internet was invented. Or just as you were born.”

“I think it pretty much did,” Braddock said. “At least, when it comes to useful information.”

Mitty appeared saddened by this statement. He looked down at Java. Java looked back. He still seemed faintly amused and, yes, rather shy. A strange thing in a dog.

A fat man in oversized Levi’s and a tropical-print shirt waddled in from the heat and breathed in the air conditioning with a smile as he wiped a wrist across his perspiring forehead.

“Glad I could find somewhere to get a drink,” he said. “Everyplace else is closed because of the election.” He settled his bulk on a bar stool that seemed to bend beneath his weight, though that was probably an optical illusion. “How come you’re not closed?”

Edgar, who was a huge man himself, in his sixties with the build and misshapen ears of a former pro wrestler, said, “ ’Cause last election day, we knew who to vote for. Fact is, though, we were about to close.”

Mitty winked at Braddock and smoothly and slowly tugged on Java’s leash until the little dog was out of sight on the other side of his chair. Then he raised a gnarled forefinger to his lips in a signal for Braddock to be silent.

“What’s the big secret?” Braddock whispered across the table.

“Java,” Mitty said. “Even if you don’t believe me, he’s a valuable piece of show business property. But I must trust you with him for a few minutes.”

No one spoke, not even Edgar, busy behind the bar, as Mitty wrapped Java’s leash around the table leg, using an elaborate kind of slip knot. He hand-signaled for the dog to sit and stay, then went shuffling off toward the men’s room. Java didn’t move or make a sound. Braddock had to admit the pooch was well trained.

The fat man finished his beer and made his way back out into the heat.

Edgar looked over at Braddock. “You ever hear of Mitty and Buddy?” he asked.

“No. And are you really getting ready to close?”

“Naw, I just said that to get rid of that guy. If he’d stayed around, he would have thought Mitty was nuts. I like Mitty. I don’t wanna see that. And Mitty was bound to start bragging again about that dog. You can’t shut him up for long.”

“That’s for sure,” Braddock said. “But I don’t know why he’d brag about the dog.”

“Not that dog,” Edgar said, “Buddy. Mitty and Buddy used to be one of the hottest lounge and resort acts in the country. But I’ll tell you something: that dog there, Java, looks a lot like the photos I seen of Buddy.”

“Come off it,” Braddock said with a laugh. “You mean this Buddy was a talking dog?”

“I mean it,” Edgar said, stone faced. “He even talked to some scientists the government sent when they heard about him.”

“Funny I never read about that,” Braddock said.

“Well, it’s kinda like UFOs.”

“How so?”

“The scientists didn’t believe it even after they heard it. ’Cause they didn’t want to believe it.”

“But I’ve heard of UFOs.”

“That’s ’cause there are more of them than talking dogs.”

“So why’s Mitty telling me all about this stuff?” Braddock asked.

“Because he’s dying.”

Braddock sat back. “What?”

“He’s got something bad wrong with him, some kinda rare blood disease nobody can do anything about. I think he wants to sell you the dog.”

“Buddy?”

“Naw! Buddy’s been dead more’n forty years. Java. Mitty knows a smart young guy can work up an act and make a fortune with Java. He likes you, thinks of you as a son. He told me that.”

“I only met him a few months ago.”

“He says that right away you reminded him of himself when he was young, full of ten kinds of malarky and burning to make some kinda smash in the business.”

“Ten kinds of malarky?”

“I’m only repeating what-”

Edgar broke off what he was saying as Mitty emerged unsteadily from the men’s room and returned to the table. There were wet spots on the front of his pants and his fly was slightly more than half zipped up, just far enough that Braddock decided not to bring it to his attention and embarrass him. As Mitty sat down, he drew from an inside pocket a folded, aged envelope.

“Look at these,” he said, lovingly spreading the ancient contents of the envelope on the table so Braddock could examine them.

There were old playbills, press clippings, and grainy black-and-white photographs. Several of the photos were of posters extolling the virtues of Mitty and Buddy. On one of the posters they were headliners at some Catskills resort Braddock had never heard of. The only photo of Buddy was a grainy black-and-white of the dog with his leash wrapped around a post, much as Java’s leash was wrapped around the table leg, with the same distinctive kind of slip knot. Buddy and Java did look a lot alike.

“You think I wasn’t big in show business at one time?” Mitty asked. His complexion was sallow. He dug in a pocket and deftly swallowed a pill with a swig of Scotch, waiting for Braddock to answer.

“I believe that,” Braddock said.

“But you don’t believe about Buddy.”

“I didn’t say that… ”

“And you don’t believe Java here is trained to speak.”

“Listen,” Braddock said, feeling sorry for Mitty, “I’ve gotta be honest. I’m like all the rest of them out there. I don’t believe dogs can talk.”

“Not dogs!” Mitty said desperately. “Certain dogs. Maybe one in a hundred thousand. If they’re trained.”

“And have been operated on,” Braddock reminded him.

“Only some of them. Now and then there’s one that has the proper palate formation and doesn’t require the operation. And to tell you the truth I never even tried the operation. I love dogs, can’t cut on ’em like I was a trained surgeon. After Buddy died I gave up show business. Then, when Dr. Darius’s widow died and the family let me look through his papers, I was overjoyed to learn there were rare dogs that didn’t need the operation in order to learn a facsimile of human speech.”

“Dogs like Java?”

“Like Java,” Mitty said. “It took me years to find him.”

“Maybe Buddy and Java just happen to be similar,” Braddock said.

“Certain breeds… ” Mitty said mystically.

Braddock looked again at the yellowed newspaper clippings and photographs on the table. “I’ve got to admit, you were impressive, you and Buddy.”

“It could be Braddock and Java,” Mitty said. “This is a way for you to beat this business, Jim! This is opportunity knocking, if only you’ll believe it’s out there!”

“Opportunity usually has a price,” Braddock said, remembering this was L.A.

“It does this time, too,” Mitty told him. “I’d never lie to you. Java is valuable and he’s all I have to sell. I’ve gotta get six thousand dollars for him.”

“Six thousand? I don’t have that kind of-”

“Yes, you do! I heard you say you sold some foreign rights to a screenplay you wrote four years ago, when you were only nineteen.”

“That’s the only thing I ever sold,” Braddock said. “And if it weren’t for that money I’d have to get a j-j-”

“Job,” Mitty said.

“I have difficulty even saying the word,” Braddock told him, feeling a chill.

“So did I when I was your age. That’s because our kind knows our calling, our business. Don’t you understand? I’m offering you the way in! Chaplin with his tramp outfit and cane! Laurel with Hardy! The three tenors! Braddock and Java!”

“Why six thousand dollars?” Braddock asked.

“It’s the cost of a fu-It’s the exact price of something I need.”

“But I’ve never even heard Java talk.”

“But he can! I swear to it!”

“So show me. Make him perform.”

“You can’t make a shy dog do something like talk if he doesn’t want to.”

“Make him want to, if you want to make me want to buy him.”

Mitty glanced at Edgar, who looked away and began polishing glasses with a gray towel.

Mitty turned his gaze on Java, who also looked away.

“I do not wish to appear the fool,” Mitty said.

“That isn’t my intention,” Braddock said honestly.

Mitty sighed, then tugged on Java’s leash and signaled with his hand for the dog to sit. Java settled back on his haunches, staring expectantly at Mitty with watery brown eyes. Spaniel eyes, Braddock suspected.

Mitty looked around. He didn’t seem to want any more witnesses to this than was necessary.

“He can’t pronounce just any words,” he said to Braddock.

“Of course not.” Braddock wished he hadn’t started this. There’d been no reason to dare the old geezer, to humiliate him.

Mitty found a sheet of yellowed paper from the assortment on the table, unfolded it, then put on a pair of half-lens reading glasses and referred to it. Braddock saw that it contained a handwritten list of about twenty words.

“He can’t say all of these yet,” Mitty said, noticing Braddock staring at the list. “They’re Buddy’s old words. There’ll never be another Buddy.”

“Of course not,” Braddock said, feeling smaller than Java. “Start with something easy.”

“Awful,” Mitty said.

“What?”

But Mitty was staring intently at Java, who still had his moist brown eyes fixed on the old man. “Awful!” Mitty suddenly shouted.

Java turned his head, looking away as if embarrassed.

“Awful!” Mitty shouted again, with a note of desperation.

“Arful!” barked Java.

Mitty, his face flushed in triumph, looked at Braddock. “You heard! You heard!”

Braddock was stunned, yet dubious. He remembered what Edgar the bartender had said about the government scientists. It was natural to be skeptical. “It might have been a bark. I mean, it started with the word Arf. But dogs say that all the time, even ones who can’t talk.”

“A bark?” Mitty was incredulous. “Not a bark! No! You said start with something easy!” He stared hard again at Java and shouted, “AWFUL!”

“Arful!” barked Java.

Mitty beamed. “Awful!”

“Arful!”

“Awful!” Mitty was consulting his list, not even looking at Java.

“Arful! Arful!”

“Tree!” shouted Mitty.

“Tree!” barked Java.

“Car!”

“Car!”

“House!”

“House! House!”

“My God!” said Braddock.

Edgar was leaning over the bar in shock. “I read about it, but I never seen it.”

Mitty hugged Java, then collapsed back in his chair, breathing hard, exhausted but wearing his seamed smile. “I’ve got to be honest, that’s as good as I’ve ever heard him.”

“He talked!” Edgar was saying over and over. “He really talked!”

“He talked,” Braddock admitted, not knowing what to think, how to feel.

“That’s why we were big, Buddy and me. It’s why you and Java can be big, Jim. Jim and Java. That’s even better than Braddock and Java!”

Braddock’s heart was hammering as he stared down at Java. “Awful!” he shouted at the dog.

“Arful!”

That did it. “Will you take a check?”

“From you, of course,” Mitty said. “Just make it out to Mitford Chambers for seven thousand even.”

“You said six thousand!”

“Did I? Make it five thousand then, Jim. I don’t want you to feel bad about this day. Not ever.”

THAT NIGHT BRADDOCK folded a soft blanket in a corner of his tiny apartment for Java to sleep on. But the next morning Java was in bed beside him. The dog had drooled on the pillow.

At breakfast, after Java had finished his dog food, Bradford swallowed a bite of egg and shouted, “Awful!”

Java barked back something that sounded like Arful, though it wasn’t as clear as it had been yesterday at Savvie’s.

“House!” shouted Braddock. “House!”

“Shut up!” shouted Maureen Waters, his unemployed neighbor in the adjacent apartment. She was an aging character actress prone to violence.

Braddock sighed, looked at the list of command words and instructions Mitty had given him, then made sure Java had plenty of water. As he left the apartment, he carefully locked the door behind him.

Savvie’s wasn’t like yesterday. There were half a dozen customers at the bar and tables even though it wasn’t yet noon. Lou Savvie himself, a slender, jovial man who looked like the aged Frank Sinatra and knew it, was tending bar.

“Ring-a-ding-ding,” he said, when he saw Braddock.

Braddock sat at the far end of the bar and ordered a coffee with cream. “Edgar working today?” he asked.

“He was supposed to,” Savvie said. “He didn’t show. That’s why I’m here.”

Something stirred uneasily in the pit of Braddock’s stomach. He tried to ignore it. “Mitty been in?”

“That old character? Nope. Haven’t seen him for a while.”

“He was in yesterday,” Braddock said, sipping coffee.

Savvie looked at him with his head cocked to the side. “Place was closed yesterday, election day. The law.”

“But I was in here. Edgar was tending bar. Mitty was sitting at that table right over there. I sat with him.”

Savvie grinned, as if wondering if this was a joke. “I think not, pally.”

“But I bought a-”

“What?”

“Never mind. Mitty was telling me about his early show biz days, about him and Buddy. He said they were big.”

“That I can tell you is true,” Savvie said. “Mitty and Buddy were huge in the business for a while. They played the Catskills and West Coast in the late thirties and forties, even into the fifties. They started in vaudeville, the resorts and lounges, did some gigs on early TV. They were hip. Chicks dug them, thought Buddy was cute. Everybody dug them. They were on Ed Sullivan four times!”

Braddock was flooded with relief.

“Mitty must have been some trainer. And some dog, that Buddy!”

Savvie looked puzzled. “Dog? Naw, Mitty never worked with no dog.”

“But Buddy-”

“Was his dummy. Like Charlie McCarthy. Made outta wood. Sat on his lap. Mitty was a ventriloquist.”

Braddock must have turned pale.

“Hey! You okay?” Savvie asked, his face screwed tight with concern.

“Yeah, sure,” Braddock said. His voice sounded unnaturally high. He was having trouble breathing. Five thousand dollars! He had to get to a phone and try to stop payment on his check! But he knew it wouldn’t do any good. The bank had been closed yesterday but open all morning. There had been plenty of time for Mitty to cash the check, pay Edgar his cut, then leave town.

Savvie glanced behind him at the beer advertisement clock. “I wish Edgar’d get here.”

“He won’t be coming in,” Braddock said, laying a couple of bills on the bar for the coffee and a tip.

“How do you know? A little bird tell you? A breeze named Louise?”

“A little dog.” Braddock got down off his stool and moved toward the door.

“You maybe oughta see a doctor, pally. You don’t look so well.”

“You’re right,” Braddock said in his new, high voice. “I feel arful.”

THINGS DIDN’T GET any better for a long time for Braddock. He waited tables for several months in a restaurant where other show business hopefuls ate cheap meals and left meager tips and sad stories. Night after night Braddock would drive a junk Ford he’d been able to afford to an even cheaper apartment than the one he’d been evicted from after the talking dog affair.

Java still couldn’t talk, but Braddock sure could. And what he asked himself aloud every few days was the simple and ageless question, “How could I have been so stupid?”

Braddock didn’t know why he kept Java around. Maybe as a reminder of his own gullibility. Or maybe it was because he’d somehow gotten fond of the shy little dog, who, after all, wasn’t a willing or even knowing party to the scam that had taken in Braddock. Java still occasionally wore that curious crooked smile that had so fooled Braddock into thinking there might be a glimmer of humanlike intelligence behind it. Of crude human ability. After all, if a dog could be embarrassed and actually had something like a sense of humor… But Braddock had to face facts. Java was merely a dog. And he, Braddock, was merely a dupe, another failure and Hollywood footnote so tiny and brief that no one would ever read it.

It depressed Braddock to distraction.

Then, inevitably, it angered him. He had to get even somehow, with somebody.

So it was that six months later, and with great care, he chose that somebody. A man who was a modest success in show business. Guilfoil was his name. Ernest Guilfoil of Guilfoil Associates, whose embossed, cream-colored business card had an old fashioned movie projector printed on it and read simply, GUILFOIL: WRITE, EDIT, PRODUCE.

“What have you produced?” Braddock asked him, in Guilfoil’s reasonably plush Wilshire Boulevard office.

“Mostly European properties rather than home grown. There’s richer soil to nourish greater success right now in Europe.” Guilfoil, a short, plump, and seemingly completely hairless man whose smile was constant, smiled even wider as he spoke.

Braddock wasn’t put off by this answer. He kept in mind the adage that you can’t cheat an honest man, and noted that the furnishings of Guilfoil’s office were fairly expensive. Deep enough pockets here, Braddock decided, but not so deep that if anything went wrong Guilfoil could afford topnotch Hollywood attorneys in a legal war of attrition.

“What I’m looking for,” Braddock said, “is a promotional production featuring my grandfather’s dog, Java, who has a very unique talent.”

Guilfoil appeared politely interested. “Which is?”

Braddock couldn’t quite yet bring himself to say. “Let me give you a little back story first.” He reached for his briefcase that held the material given to him by Mitty, along with some freshly doctored photographs of “Buddy” the talking dog, in what appeared to be aged newspaper and billing images from two generations ago. Braddock had used a friend’s computer to improve on what Mitty had shown him.

He watched while Guilfoil spread the material out on his desk and studied it.

After a while, Guilfoil looked up. If he’d had eyebrows, they would have been raised. “Are you kidding? A talking dog? Take a walk, kid.”

Braddock was ready. “I’m willing to put up a thousand dollars of my own money toward this production.” He laid a check on the desk, already made out to Guilfoil. “It isn’t much, Mr. Guilfoil, but it will show my sincerity.” Bait, borrowed from a loan shark in Central L.A. Braddock had been studying scams, and knew this was a necessary expense.

He watched Guilfoil stare at the check. “But this dog here, in what you’ve shown me, has gotta be dead.”

“Buddy has passed,” Braddock confirmed. “But let me tell you what my grandfather Mitty told me just before he, too, passed on. There are certain dogs of a certain breed and with palates of a certain type who… ” And he spun the tale told by Mitty months ago in Savvie’s bar.

Guilfoil didn’t quite buy into it. Not yet. Braddock understood.

“I’m not asking anything other than a percentage of the gross in any further film appearances or personal, so to speak, bookings,” Braddock said. “That’s how confident I am.”

“I know you’re confident,” Guilfoil said, “but are you sane?”

“I’ll let you judge for yourself,” Braddock said, standing up. Guilfoil drew back as if afraid, but Braddock merely walked to the door, opened it, and whistled softly.

There was the whisper of paws on the waxed tile floor, and a small figure entered the office and stood just inside the door.

“Mr. Guilfoil,” Braddock said, beaming proudly, “meet Java!”

Guilfoil stood up. “Hello, Ja-” He caught himself. “And this is a direct descendent of Buddy of the Catskills?”

“Direct, and ready to demonstrate the fact.”

Braddock walked back toward the desk, and Java followed to stand beside him, facing Guilfoil.

“I never saw a dog smile like that,” Guilfoil said.

“Java, speak!” Braddock said.

Java simply smiled at Guilfoil.

Braddock knew it was time to bring into play the results of the other half of the money he’d borrowed from the loan shark. The part he used for his ventriloquism lessons.

“Well?” Guilfoil said.

Java said, “Arful!”

Everything went smoothly after that.

TWO WEEKS LATER, Braddock sprang the trap. He showed up at Guilfoil’s office with Java and explained to Guilfoil that his mother in New Jersey needed heart surgery in a hurry, and asked Guilfoil for a loan against future earnings. Guilfoil, harder of heart and arteries than Braddock’s nonexistent mother, refused with transparent reluctance.

“You don’t leave me any choice, Mr. Guilfoil,” Braddock said. “I can’t stay here in L.A.”

“We have a contract to do a promotional film and work up a talking dog act,” Guilfoil reminded him. “I’m supposed to act as your agent.”

“And I have to get to New Jersey, and fast.”

“I’m not sure it’s legal to take dogs across state lines without making a lot of arrangements weeks ahead,” Guilfoil said, glancing at Java, who was seated near Braddock’s left leg. Java returned his glance and smiled at him.

“You don’t leave me any choice,” Braddock said again, even more despondently. “I’m offering to sell you Java.”

“And your end of the deal?”

“You mean Java’s contract?”

“That’s it, kid.”

Java wasn’t smiling now.

“Not for a million bucks!” Braddock said.

“I was thinking twenty thousand.”

Java seemed to be listening carefully, glancing from one man to the other as they spoke.

“That isn’t nearly enough!” Braddock cried.

“It’s enough if it’s the only offer you’re going to get. And it is, since we’ve been keeping this dog act under wraps before springing it on the public.”

Braddock hung his head. “Okay. Twenty thousand. Cash, so I can catch a plane for Newark tonight. But it’s a lousy offer.” He gazed mistily at Java. “It’s a stinking damned world for people and dogs!”

“Show-biz, kid,” Guilfoil said, reaching into a desk drawer for a contract form and cash box.

“Take care of Java,” Braddock told him minutes later, trying not to break into a run as he went out the door.

HE SHOULD HAVE left town five minutes sooner. Braddock’s suitcase was packed and he was hefting it down from the bed when there was a knock on his apartment door.

His landlady to check on the place and make sure all the lights and gas burners were off, he figured.

But when he opened the door, there was Guilfoil and Java. And a uniformed policeman. And a plainclothes cop who flashed an L.A.P.D detective’s badge and said he was from the Bunko Squad.

Java couldn’t meet Braddock’s eyes. Guilfoil could. He looked furious. “You sold me ownership in a talking dog that doesn’t talk!” he said.

“Maybe he just won’t talk for you.”

The detective looked dubiously at Braddock, shaking his head. “It appears that what you did was illegal, Mr. Braddock.”

Braddock couldn’t believe this. “Then I want to cross charges! Arrest this man!”

“What?” Guilfoil said. “Cross what?”

“This Guilfoil isn’t any kind of producer, like his card says! He wasn’t really going to do a film promo for me and Java.”

“I never said I was,” Guilfoil told him.

“That you were going to make a film?”

“That I was a producer. You just assumed.”

“Your business card says you’re a producer!” Braddock fished his wallet from his pocket, rooted through it, and pulled out Guilfoil’s card. He handed it to the plainclothes detective. “It should say con man.”

“It doesn’t say producer,” said the detective, “It only says produce.”

“He writes, edits, and produces,” Braddock said.

The cop stared at him. “Produce, as in fruits and vegetables. Produce is what Mr. Guilfoil sells. He has a produce stand near Malibu.”

“About to open a second,” Guilfoil said proudly. “With the all the money I’m going to have garnisheed from your future salary. We’ll see now who’s the con man!”

“And you can have your dog back,” Guilfoil added, as Braddock was led away in handcuffs. “The kennel bill will be waiting for you.”

BRADDOCK WAITED UNTIL after the arraignment, when he was out on bail, before finally admitting to himself that this had actually happened. His future was set, and it was bleak. As for his present, it was just as bleak. Here he was back in his crummy apartment with his dog that couldn’t talk, unemployed and maybe going to prison. The best he would get was probation and a ruined reputation. Maybe house arrest, if he was lucky. Difficult to land a job when you’re behind bars or wearing one of those electronic anklets.

The decision wasn’t a hard one. Not in Braddock’s state of mind. Before they put something around his ankle, he put a rope around his neck. He climbed up on a chair and tied the other end of the rope to a sturdily mounted ceiling fixture.

It’s Hollywood, he thought. Everybody’s got an act, and mine wasn’t good enough. I fooled nobody.

Then he kicked the chair away.

He didn’t fall very far, but far enough.

He changed his mind in an instant. Too late. As he was choking to death, tearing at the inexorably tightening noose with clutching, helpless fingers, thrashing his legs about for a nonexistent foothold, he heard a rough, throaty voice not his own:

“I’d help you loosen that knot if I could, but what can I do with these? I got no opposable thumbs, pal.”

The last thing Braddock saw as the light faded was Java, sitting up on his haunches, holding out his paws.

Taking a bow? Smiling?