David Rosenfelt: Dog Tags

He stood near the front of the bar for over an hour, all the while under the watchful eye of Billy and Milo, though Billy was across the street, and out of the man’s line of sight.

Milo looked over at Billy as if to say, Let’s get this show on the road. Occasionally, passersby would approach Milo, often clucking about how terrible it was for someone to have left their dog tied up like that. Milo would give a low growl, not menacing enough for them to call animal control, but powerful enough to make them walk away.

But Billy was not changing targets. He instinctively knew the man would do something that would put what he was protecting in a place where they could get to it. And with what he knew about this man, it could be very valuable.

So Billy and Milo waited until past midnight, which qualified as the wee hours of the morning by New Jersey standards. There weren’t many cars going by, but Billy noticed that the man watched each one as it approached. He was meeting someone arriving by car.

If Billy’s instincts were right, the upcoming meeting was to pass whatever was in the man’s inside jacket pocket to the person he was meeting. If that was the case, Milo would have first dibs on it. If not, then Milo would probably just take the man’s watch and be done with it. Either way, it would be a profitable night, and revenge would be sweet.

At twelve twenty, a Mercedes came down the street from the north, driving more slowly than normal. Billy tensed as it pulled over to the curb about thirty yards past the bar. The man Billy had been watching looked toward the car, nodded almost imperceptibly, and started walking in that direction.

The man walked past Milo, who did not look at him but was instead looking toward Billy, waiting for a signal. Billy just held one hand in the air, palm facing Milo, the signal to wait.

The driver of the car pulled his car to the corner and got out, leaving the door open. He walked a short distance toward the bar and then stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the man to reach him. Billy could see that the driver was tall, maybe six foot five. Billy moved closer to them, almost to where Milo was, about thirty feet from the driver of the car.

If the men greeted each other, it was inaudible to Billy, and they didn’t shake hands. They stood together for two or three minutes, though Billy could not hear them talking.

The man from the bar started to reach into his jacket to take out whatever he had been protecting all this time. Billy moved closer, straining to see. Even in the darkness, he could clearly make out a thick envelope. The man started to hand it to the driver.

Billy gave Milo the signal to spring into action, and the dog reacted instantly. He raced toward the men just as the driver was himself taking something out of his own pocket. The glint off it sent a jolt of panic through Billy; it was a gun.

Billy never carried a gun himself; to do so would be to inflate any possible burglary charge to armed robbery. Instead he ran toward the men, though his prosthetic leg hampered the speed at which he could move.

“Erskine!”

Milo was by this time launching himself into the air, intent on grabbing the envelope now held by the driver. Just before he arrived, the man from the bar took a brief, frightened step back, and then a gunshot rang out. He was blown farther backward by the force of the bullet.

Milo’s perfectly timed jump allowed him to grab the envelope from the driver’s hand and take off down the street. The driver was clearly stunned, and it took a few moments for him to gather himself and point the gun toward the fleeing Milo.

As he started to pull the trigger, Billy reached him and grabbed for the gun. It fired as they were both holding it, and the bullet went off target. The driver wrestled with Billy for the gun, but Billy carried the day with a well-placed knee to the groin.

The man grunted in pain and staggered toward his car. Billy considered chasing him, but opted instead to quickly glance at the license plate, memorizing the number, and then went over to try to help the man who had been shot.

He put the gun on the ground and felt the man’s neck for a pulse, but there was none. Three men appeared from nowhere and fanned out into the area. Billy had been the first to arrive at a lot of crime scenes, and he knew with certainty that these were not city or state cops. But he had no idea who they were.

By this point, a crowd of people was starting to gather, and Billy yelled, “Somebody call nine-one-one! Hurry! Get an ambulance here!” He said this even though his substantial experience with gunshot victims made it clear to him that they hadn’t invented the ambulance or doctors that could help this guy.

Within a few minutes local police cars and ambulances arrived, and the men who had gotten there first seemed to melt away. This gave Billy time to look around for Milo, but he was nowhere to be found.

When homicide detective Roger Naylor showed up, he took command of the crime scene. Naylor heard what the officers who were already there had to say, and then walked over to Billy. They had known each other for years.

“Hey, Billy. They tell me you’re a witness?”

“Unfortunately.”

Naylor nodded. “You know the drill. Hang out until we can question you, and you’ll need to make a statement.”

Naylor didn’t wait for a response; he just walked over to the area where the forensics people were doing their work. Billy noticed that detectives were questioning other witnesses, probably patrons from the bar.

It was almost an hour before Naylor came back to Billy, along with another detective and two patrolmen. It wasn’t the waiting that bothered Billy; it was not knowing where Milo was. The sound of the gunshot at that close a range had undoubtedly spooked him, of that he was certain.

“Can we get this over with?” asked Billy.

“I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that,” Naylor said. “We’re going to have to do this down at the station.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re under arrest,” Naylor said as he and the patrolmen took out their weapons. “Stand and place your hands against the wall.”

CHAPTER 4

“DO YOU HAVE THE RING?” The minister’s question takes me by surprise, because I was waiting for the part where he asks if anybody knows any reason why the marriage shouldn’t take place. Could it be that only movie ministers use that line?

I rise smoothly to the occasion and take the ring out of my pocket, and then hand it to Kevin. In doing so I am graceful but deliberate, focused but with the apparent calm assurance of someone who has been taking things out of his pocket for years. It is a standout performance.

After the ceremony we head into the main ballroom for dinner. There is a DJ who plays music way too loud and spends most of his time begging people to go out on the dance floor.

Dancing, other than slow dancing, makes absolutely no sense to me. I don’t understand the enjoyment anyone could get from standing in one place and wildly gyrating. If it’s such a blast, do these people turn on the radio when they’re alone at home and start doing contortions? I don’t think so.

So if they only do it in public, it must be because they’re being watched by other people. They clearly think they look good doing it. They don’t. If rooms like this were ringed with mirrors, 95 percent of all dancing would be eliminated.

This kind of dancing also violates my space-alien principle. I judge things by the measure of whether aliens, landing on earth for the first time, would observe something and deem it stupid. And unless the aliens were from the Planet Bozo, dancing would land squarely in the “stupid” category.