Faye Kellerman - The Garden Of Eden And Other Criminal Delights

Me? I’m a lowly tenant, paying my out-of-town landlord eight hundred a month for the privilege of residing there. I came out to the Estates during one of my college term breaks to visit a friend. I was instantly entranced by the endless horizon, the splashy sunsets, the nighttime sky, sometimes as black as tar winking with millions of stars. Five years later, the ocean still has me under her spell. I earn my living as a handywoman, keeping my rent down by doing free repairs on my unit and a couple of others that my landlord owns.

My connection with Conroy was tenuous. One Saturday morning, his sink pipe burst, spewing water in his face and all over his ultramodern compact kitchen. He came banging on my door at seven in the morning, waking me up, demanding that I do something.

Conroy never asks, he demands.

Being an easygoing gal, I took his harsh tone of voice in stride and went next door. The pipe repair took all of five minutes-a loose joint-and just to show what kind of sport I was, I didn’t even charge him. He never did thank me, but from that day on, I was the only one in the complex whom he never threatened to sue. We never became friendly enough to carry on a true conversation-the kind with give-and-take. But I would condo-watch his place when he went away on vacation, which was about four times a year.

One Friday afternoon, Conroy showed up at my door, beaming like a new father as he presented me to the pit bull. The dog was white and black, seemed to be molded from pounds of muscle, and had teeth like razors.

Conroy spat a wad of tobacco into my geranium box. Still chomping his Skoal, he said, “Don’t need you no more, Lydia.” He spat again. “Meet my new watchdog, Maneater.”

The dog was on a leash and, by way of introduction, bared his fangs.

“Lookie at this, Liddy.”

Conroy smacked the dog soundly across the mouth with a rolled-up newspaper. The pit bull let out a menacing growl but didn’t budge. Conroy hit him again and again. The dog never moved an inch. Then Conroy pried open Maneater’s mouth and stuck his nose inside the gaping maw. The dog endured the ordeal but wasn’t pleased. And Conroy? He just stood there, smiling wickedly.

“Now you try to pet him, girl,” he told me.

Slowly, I raised my hand toward Maneater’s scruff. The dog snapped so hard, you could hear an echo from his jaws banging shut. Only quick reflexes prevented me from becoming an amputee. Conroy broke into gales of laughter that turned into a hacking cough, sending bits of tobacco over my threshold.

“Cute, Conroy,” I said. “You’re going to win loads of friends with this one.”

“Don’t need no friends,” Conroy answered. “I need a good guard dog. One that’ll attack anyone I say to attack. One that’ll protect me with his life no matter how I whop the shit out of ’im.”

“That’s why you bought a dog?” I said. “ To whop the shit out of him?”

“For protection, Liddy,” Conroy said. “Now look at this.” He looked down at the dog. “Nice, Maneater, let her make nice!”

He turned to me and said, “Go ahead and pet him now.”

“Once burned, twice shy, Conroy!”

“Go ahead, Liddy!” His smile bordered on a smirk.

Call me irresponsible, but I reached out for the dog again. This time he was as passive as a baby, moaning under my touch.

“Amazing,” I said.

“Now, if you tell him to be nice,” Conroy said, “it won’t mean a thing. He only responds to my voice, my words. That’s what I call a well-trained dog.”

“You trained him?” I asked.

“Of course not, girlie!” More laughter mixed with coughing. “I spent six months looking for the choicest breeders, another six sorting through litters to find the perfect pup. Look at ’im, girl. Broad chest, strong shoulders, massive forequarters, a jaw as powerful as a vise. Look, look !”

I looked.

Conroy spat, then continued. “Before he was even weaned from his mama’s tit, I hired the best trainer money could afford. And now he’s all mine. Perfect dog for the perfect man.”

I gazed down upon Maneater’s mug. The pleasure of my company had worn off, and he was growling again.

“I don’t know, Conroy,” I said. “A dog that mean. He could get you into lots of trouble.”

“Bull piss.” Conroy spat. “You know how them thieves are. They see Malibu, they think money, money, money. Well, let them burgle the other condos! No one’s gonna touch my property unless they wanna be hamburger.”

“I don’t know, Conroy,” I said again. “You’d better keep him locked up during the day or else there’s going to be trouble.”

Conroy’s mouth turned into one of his evil grins. “Liddy, where does a two-ton elephant sleep?”

“Where?” I said.

“Anywhere he wants,” Conroy said. “Get what I’m saying?”

I got what he was saying. But before I closed the door, I reiterated my warning. He’d better keep an eye on the dog.

And of course Conroy, being the cooperative fellow that he was, let the dog go wherever he pleased. The dog tore up Mrs. Nelson’s geranium boxes, turned over Mrs. Bermuda’s trash cans, and peed on Dr. Haberson’s BMW car cover. He chased after the resident dogs and cats-terrified them so badly, they refused to go out for walks even when carried by their owners. Maneater should have been called Bird Eater. He ingested with gusto the avian life that roosted in the banana bushes, chased seagulls, spraying feathers along the walkways. Whenever he ran along the shore, he kicked sand and grit in everyone’s face.

Since his purchase of Maneater, Conroy had taken many more day trips. When he went away, the dog posted guard in front of the corner condo, not letting anyone get within ten feet of it. Postal carriers stopped delivering mail to neighboring units, leaving letters in a clump at the guardhouse. The gardeners refused to maintain the nearby lawns and planter boxes. Soon the greenery gave way to invading weeds, and the grass dried up until it was a patch of straw.

But the biggest problem had to do with the walkway. One of the two main beach access paths curved by Conroy’s condo. Technically, you could pass without getting lunged at if you hugged the extreme right side of the walkway. But pity the poor soul who wasn’t aware of this and walked in the middle. Maneater would leap up and scare him to a near faint. Most of us learned to avoid the path whenever Conroy was away. But that wasn’t the point at all.

Conroy thought it was hysterically funny. The rest of the tenants were livid. They tried the individual approach, knocking on Conroy’s door, only to get frightened away by a low-pitched growl and a flash of white teeth. Every time they were turned away, they heard the old man laugh and hack. One of the tenants finally took the step of calling in Animal Control. Problem was that Maneater hadn’t actually succeeded with any of his attempted attacks. Unless they caught him in the act, there wasn’t anything they could do.

So the people of the Estates did what they usually do when at wit’s end. They called a condo meeting: sans Conroy, of course.

The complaints came fast and furious.

“This used to be a peaceful co-op until Conroy and his dog came along. We didn’t pay all this money to have to be scared stiff by a wild beast or have sand thrown on our backs. This is Malibu, for God’s sake. People just don’t behave like that here. Something has to be done. And it has to be done immediately. Call the City Council. Call the movie-star mayor and ask him to declare Malibu a pit-bull-free zone. Call the Chamber of Commerce.”

After living in Malibu all these years, we knew that the local political bodies didn’t wield any real power. It was the moneyed ones with their connections downtown who sat on the throne. And since none of us in this development had enough California gold to buy us the ordinance we needed, we were left to deal with the problem on our own.