Read Online Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak - Free Book Online Page B

unzipped the gym bag.
    Margaret regarded me with a dubious expression. She had little button eyes that looked like she'd rimmed them with eyeliner, and pink ears, a pink nose, and pink toenails. A real girl. I offered her my hand, in case she was trained to shake, the way dogs are. She took my finger in her tiny teeth and shook it like she was bringing down big game. Doc had said she didn't bite; I guess that didn't count as biting. “Be nice,” I said, and set her on the sidewalk. “I'm new at this.”
    She was intriguing to look at, I had to admit. Her movements were sensuous, like a belly dancer's, with a back-and-forth sway. The torso was long, relative to her legs, a dachshund's body. With a fluffy tail. Her head sloped into her back like a sports car, and the lack of neck dictated the need for the harness that attached to the leash; a collar alone wouldn't have anything to hold on to. It was impossible to look at her without wanting to draw her, and a greeting card began to unfold in my head: Margaret in combat fatigues, holding a machine gun, saying, “Don't call me rodent.”
    I let her walk, since she'd been cooped up all night in pockets, cars, and gym bags. We made our slow way east, the sidewalk tough and pebbly under my wool socks. I didn't regret giving my shoes to Doc—he'd need them more than I did—but it was depressing to know his feet were smaller than mine.
    I kept looking behind me.
    When I reached my block and a patch of grass in front of Loo Fong's, I stopped. Doc had said Margaret was housebroken but I wasn't sure how that worked. I needed to pee again, so she might too, but how to communicate this?
    â€œPee, Margaret,” I said. She looked at me and yawned.
    I explained that this was the best bathroom for her on the block, the block that was her new, temporary home. “See,” I pointed, “we live at Wildwood Arms Deluxe Apartments two doors down that way, and we work at the mini-mall right here, and there's a courtyard in between, I'll show you that tomorrow, but right now this is the optimum stretch of grass for bodily functions. Truly. Please.”
    Incredibly, Margaret started sniffing the grass, perhaps hearing the call of nature. She turned her back on me and I looked away, to give her privacy.
    I stretched to see around Loo Fong's neon CHINESE! Good! Fast! Cheap! sign, and almost lost my balance. There, nestled in the corner position between Plucky Chicken and Neat Nails Plus was Wollie's Welcome! Greetings.
    Visible through the curtains, there was light.
    When I'd left for Rio Pescado the shop had been dark.
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    D ID I HAVE to check it out? “Yes,” said the voice in my head. Ruta again. “But not in socks.”
    Inside my apartment, I turned on all the lights, cranked up the heat, and tried to focus. The shop was locked when I'd left for the hospital; I might be nonchalant about the Rabbit, but I would no more leave my shop unsecured than a mother would send her child to school naked. The mini-mall parking lot was empty now, which meant that whoever was in the shop was on foot or didn't want their car seen. Something stirred in me, some primal homesteader-on-the-frontier impulse that gets people to load up their shotguns. Not that I had a shotgun.
    The ferret crawled into the cupboard under the kitchen sink to commune with Mr. Clean. I fished her out and tied her leash to the refrigerator handle. The apartment grew warmer, but it would be hours before my extremities thawed. I donned a dry pair of socks, then hiking boots, sitting on the black-and-white checkerboard kitchen floor to lace feverishly. “Margaret, I've got to go out,” I said. “Believe me, I don't want to, but I've pumped my life's blood, not to mention my life savings, into that shop.”
    Margaret crept under the oven. I pulled her out and shortened the leash.
    â€œI don't expect you to understand feeling this way about