Dennis Lehane (Editor) - Boston Noir

On his best days, he obsessed over money and cigarettes. He didn’t care about food or temple anymore. His friend Pranh no longer visited.

“How much you make today?” he asked when she came home, already reaching for his Newports. Every dollar, every pack was an offering to him.

Like driving, so much of the game was being in the right place. That night she wasn’t even looking. She’d dropped a silent fare at Beth Israel and stopped at the Store 24 on Beacon when the shepherd limped out of an alley directly into her path, as if it didn’t see her.

Even with the shadows she could tell it was an older male, rheumy-eyed and white around the snout. Its haunches were matted black and it was hobbling so badly that she thought it had been hit. One of her father’s cardinal rules was that a hurt animal wasn’t worth the trouble. She’d once found a cat on Park Drive with its back legs smashed, writhing and spitting. It had no collar, so it was worthless, but Boupha couldn’t leave it in the street. As she tried to slide it to the curb on a pizza box, it snarled and clawed her arm, opening three beading lines she now wore as scars. “I tell you,” her father had said, “but you’re too smart, you don’t want to listen.”

Normally strays shied away, distrustful of people, but the shepherd just waddled along ahead of her. Its back was slick with blood; it shone under the streetlights. She was almost beside her car. Thinking of the cat lashing out, she stopped.

The dog stopped and looked back as if they were going for a walk and she needed to catch up. Its tag glinted.

She had treats in the glove compartment, a leash with a muzzle. She could quote her father back to him: older dogs were worth more. The owners had more invested in them.

But the blood. The blood was a problem.

The dog turned to watch her open the passenger door, cocking his head.

“Hey. I’ve got something for you. Here you go.”

She tossed him a treat. He waddled over and nosed it, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. Finally he took the biscuit, crunching it with his head lowered.

“Good boy, yes.”

The second one she dropped halfway between them. This time he didn’t hesitate.

“That’s a good dog,” she said, and squatted down to show she was no threat. With the leash behind her back, she set a treat on the sidewalk right in front of her.

As he came closer, he hunched lower and lower until he lay down and rolled on his side, panting, his tongue flopping out of his mouth.

“It’s all right, you’re okay,” she said, and hooked the leash to the ring on his collar.

She pushed the treat toward him and he rolled and took it and got to his feet, chomping. She waited till he was finished to pet him. His tag said his name was Edgar and he belonged to the Friedmans. The phone number was a Brookline exchange, a point in her favor.

He was still panting, so she took the bowl from the trunk and gave him some water. As he lapped, she inspected his haunch, pouring the rest of the bottle over it. She rinsed most of the blood off but there wasn’t enough light to see where it was coming from.

“I know it hurts, Edgar,” she said, drying him with an old towel, but he didn’t seem to mind. He stood still for her as if he was getting a bath. Maybe he was senile, or maybe he was just good-natured.

He looked good enough. She laid a trash bag and another towel across the backseat for him and drove straight home. It took only five minutes this time of night, but in the lot, when she opened the back door, his rear was matted again and the towel was bloody.

Later she realized this was where she should have cut him loose, but she’d already made her decision, and the possibility never crossed her mind. She thought she’d saved him. He had the tag, the tag had the number. That was the game. The only thing she was worried about was her father.

She couldn’t lie to him. The dog didn’t want to go in the cage, and there was blood on her shirt, blood on her arms. She gave him his cigarettes first.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “What do I tell you, and you do this.”

“I’m going to call them,” she said, but when she did, there was no answer.

Edgar was bleeding in the cage, and she had to make dinner.

“Get it out of here,” her father said. “What are you waiting for?”

She called the Friedmans again while he was eating. She thought it was wrong. She should at least be getting a machine.

She coaxed Edgar out of the cage and lifted him into the bathtub the way she did her father, using the flexible hose to wash his haunch. As she scrubbed him, something sharp cut her palm.

She looked at the hole in her rubber glove as if it couldn’t have happened, but the blood was already welling up.

“Shit.”

“What is it?” her father called.

“Nothing.”

She held Edgar still and gingerly parted his fur. Poking from a lipped gash in his gray skin was the broken blade of a steak knife.

She needed the pliers to ease it out. He didn’t growl as she cleaned and dressed the wound. She used extra butterflies and checked on him every few minutes to make sure he wasn’t digging at it. He didn’t like the cage, so she’d put down a blanket in a corner and given him a few toys. He lay with a stuffed Tigger between his crossed paws, licking the head as if it were a pup.

“I don’t know why anyone would do that to you,” she said, stroking him. “You’re a good boy.”

“Call them again,” her father said.

She had the number right, they just weren’t home. She had their address. Tomorrow she’d swing by and see if they’d put up posters. She wondered how long it had been.

In the middle of the night she woke to her father calling for her and the dog barking. Edgar must have nosed the door open, because he was in the middle of her father’s room, his front legs braced, his fangs bared. It was like the two of them were arguing.

“Go!” Boupha shouted, clapping, and Edgar slunk away.

“Keep him away from me!” her father screamed, wild-eyed. “He tried to bite me!”

“I’ll close your door. That way you’ll be safe.”

“Don’t leave me alone!”

“I’m right here, Pa,” she said, patting his arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

In the morning he was calmer, but he wanted the dog gone. Now, today.

Edgar’s bleeding had stopped, the blood crusted darkly around the butterflies. The way the game worked, the longer you held on to them, the greater your reward, but her father made that impossible. She called the Friedmans, and when no one answered, she clipped Edgar to his leash and took him to Brookline.

The address on his tag belonged to a leafy side street. It was the kind of neighborhood she could never afford, with neat lawns and hedges and gardens. As she slowed, searching for the number, Edgar sat up in the backseat as if he knew where they were going.

The Friedmans’ was a white frame house with baskets of geraniums hanging from the porch. Behind her, Edgar huffed and scratched at the window.

“Let me stop the car first.”

When she opened the door, he shot across the yard and up the steps, trailing his leash, a burst of energy that made her think he was feeling better. He waited, facing the doorknob, as if she had the key.

She took the leash in hand and rang the bell, then stepped back, standing straight, her chin held high. Americans liked you to look them in the eye so they knew you were telling the truth. In this case Boupha was, but out of habit she prepared the details of her story, like an actor about to take the stage. As proof, she would show the Friedmans the Band-Aid on her palm. She wouldn’t ask for a reward, would turn it down at first. Only when they insisted would she accept it, thanking them in turn for their generosity, and everyone would be happy.