Carl Hiassen - Sick Puppy

In the end, Stoat was able to turn his wife's dislike of the puppy to his own legal advantage. One evening he returned home from Tallahassee to find Abbie hysterically flogging the young dog with a rolled-up copy of Women's Wear Daily. Boodle was nearly a year old and already ninety-plus pounds, so he wasn't the least bit harmed or even unnerved by Abbie's outburst (and failed to make a connection between the spanking and the coral red Rossetti sling-back that had become his newest chew toy). The dog thought Abbie was playing, and throughout the attack he kept wagging his truncheon-like tail in appreciation of the rare display of attention. Palmer Stoat burst into the laundry room and wrested the rolled-up fashion magazine from his wife's fist. Within a week he presented her with divorce papers. Abbie signed without a fight, rather than face the lurid accusations of animal cruelty that her husband had vowed to publicize.

After she was gone, Stoat briefly set out to make a hunting dog of his blood-champion Lab. Boodle proved excellent at fetching but not so good at retrieving. He could find a downed mallard in the thickest cattails but invariably he kept swimming. By the time Stoat and his hunting companions chased down the dog, there was too little remaining of the bedraggled game bird to cook. Stoat went through half a dozen Labrador trainers before giving up on Boodle; the retrieval talents for which his canine lineage was famous obviously had skipped a generation. Stoat consigned the dog to household-protection duties, for which he seemed well suited, given his daunting size and midnight blackness.

So Boodle had settled in as lord of the manor. Stoat was undeniably fond of the animal, and enjoyed the company on those rare nights he wasn't away traveling, or drinking at Swain's. To his delight Stoat also discovered that, unlike the vanquished Abbie, most women adored large huggable dogs and were attracted to men who owned them. Boodle (Palmer Stoat would brag to his buddies) turned out to be a "big-time chick magnet." Certainly it had worked on Desie, who'd fallen instantly for the dog. Naively she had regarded Boodle's exuberantly sunny disposition as a positive reflection on his master. Such a happy pooch, she reasoned, could only have been raised by a patient, caring, unselfish man. Desie believed you could tell as much about a potential suitor from his pet as from his automobile, wardrobe and CD collection. Boodle being a riotously content and gentle dog, it seemed unthinkable that Palmer Stoat could be a conniving shitweasel.

Although Desie's view of her husband had grown darker after their marriage, her affection for the dog had deepened. Now Boodle/McGuinn was in the custody of a disturbed young man who might or might not prove to be a maniac, and Desie couldn't convince her husband that it was true. Several days passed before the envelope arrived via Federal Express late one afternoon. Desie wondered what Twilly Spree possibly could have sent that would "make a believer" of her doubting husband. A photograph of the dog, she guessed; the dog depicted in obvious jeopardy. But how – tethered to a railroad crossing? Tied up with a revolver pressed to his head? Desie cringed at the possibilities.

Palmer's flight from Tallahassee was late, so he didn't arrive home until half past eleven, after Desie was in bed. She heard him go into the den, where she'd left the package; heard him open the top drawer of his desk, where he kept the gold-plated scissors. For several moments she heard nothing else, and then came a quavering bleat that didn't sound anything like her husband, though it was.

Desie ran to the den and found him standing away from the desk, pointing spasmodically with the scissors.

"What is it, Palmer?"

"Eeeaaaaaahhh!" he cried.

Desie stepped forward to see what was in the FedEx envelope. At first she thought it was just a sock, a thin, shiny wrinkled black sock, but that wouldn't make any sense. Desie picked up the velvety thing and suddenly it looked familiar, and then she let out a cry of her own.

It was the severed ear of a dog, a large dog. A large black Labrador.

Desie dropped the thing, and it landed like a dead bat on the pale carpet. "Jesus!" she gasped.

Her flushed and trembling husband bolted for the bathroom. Desie pounded furiously on the door. "Now do you believe me?" she shouted over the roar of retching. "How about it. Palmer? Do you believe me now, you smart-assed sonofabitch?"

Twilly missed McGuinn. Missed the sound of his panting, the musky warmth of his fur.

It's only a dog, he thought. I got through my whole childhood without so much as a goldfish for a pet, so why all the guilt over a damn dog?

For two days Twilly Spree drove, scouting the likeliest locations. Okeechobee Road in west Dade. Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Dixie Highway in North Miami. U.S. 1 from Kendall Drive to Florida City. And all the time he was missing McGuinn.

I'm going soft, Twilly grumbled. I'm definitely slipping here.

On the third day, after finally finding what he needed, he returned to the veterinary clinic. The frizzy-haired lady in pink met him in the reception area and took him to Dr. Whitcomb's private office. The veterinarian, who was on the telephone, motioned Twilly to a chair. The lady in pink closed the door on her way out.

As soon as Dr. Whitcomb hung up, Twilly said: "Well?"

"Yes. You ought to have a look." The veterinarian took a small round object from the top drawer. He handed it to Twilly, who rolled it in the palm of his hand. Seeing the object on an X ray was one thing; holding it was something else, a handful of guilt.

It was a glass eye from the stuffed head of an animal.

"And you've got no idea," Dr. Whitcomb was saying, "how your dog came to ingest something like this?"

"Beats me," Twilly lied. "I told you, I just found him a few days ago."

"Labs'll eat just about anything," the doctor remarked.

"Evidently."

Now Twilly knew the truth: He was the one responsible for the dog's sickness. If he hadn't removed the eyeballs from Palmer Stoat's taxidermy, McGuinn wouldn't have found the damn things and swallowed them.

Twilly wondered why Desie hadn't told him. He might've returned the dog to Stoat if he'd known the truth about the surgery. Now he felt purely rotten.

"A glass eye," Dr. Whitcomb was saying, "imagine that."

"And it got stuck inside him?"

"Basically, yes. Pretty far down the chute, too."

Twilly said, "God. The poor guy needed another operation?"

"No, Mr. Spree. A laxative."

The door swung open and McGuinn clambered into the office, trailing his leash. Excitedly he whirled around twice before burrowing his snout in Twilly's crotch, the customary Labrador greeting.

"A very potent laxative," Dr. Whitcomb added, "and plenty of it."

Twilly found himself hugging the dog fiercely. He could feel McGuinn's tongue, as thick as a cow's, lathering his right ear.

"You sure he'll be OK?"

"Fine," said Dr. Whitcomb, "but pretty soon he'll need those staples taken out of his belly."

From a damp crumple of cash Twilly counted out a thousand dollars in fifties, which he handed to the veterinarian.

"No, Mr. Spree, this is way too much."

"It is not."

"But – "

"Don't argue, just take it. Maybe next time somebody can't afford to pay, then ... "

"That's a good idea," said Dr. Whitcomb. "Thank you."

He followed Twilly and McGuinn to the parking lot, where the dog methodically peed on the tires of five late-model cars, including the doctor's.

"Can I ask a favor?" the veterinarian said. "It's about that fake eyeball. Mr. Spree, would you mind if I kept it for my collection?"

"That depends," said Twilly, "on the collection."