Pastime

Robert B Parker

Pastime

For my wife and sons-sine qua non

CHAPTER 1

THE dog was a pointer, a solid chocolate German shorthair, three years old and smallish for her breed. She sat bolt upright on the couch in Susan

Silverman's office and stared at me with her head vigilantly erect in case

I might be a partridge.

'Shouldn't she be lying on the couch?' I said.

'She's not in analysis,' Susan said.

'She belonged to your ex-husband.'

'Yes,' Susan said. 'Good point.'

The dog's eyes shifted from Susan to me as we spoke. The eyes were hazel and, because she was nervous, they showed a lot of white. Her short brown coat was sleek, like a seal's, and her oversized paws looked exaggerated, like a cartoon dog.

'What's her name?' I said.

Susan wrinkled her nose. 'Vigilant Virgin.'

'And she's not in analysis?'

'I believe they have to have long silly names like that because of the American Kennel Club,' Susan said. 'She's a hunting dog.'

'I know,' I said. 'I had one like her when I was a kid.'

'Like her?'

'Yeah. Same breed, same color, which is not usual. Mine was bigger though.'

'Don't listen,' Susan said to the dog. 'You're perfectly big enough.'

The dog canted her head at Susan, and raised her ears slightly.

'What are we going to do with her?' Susan said.

'We? My ex-husband didn't give her to me,' I said.

'Well, he gave her to me, and what's mine is yours.'

'Not if I have to walk around calling her Vigilant Virgin,' I said.

'What was your dog's name?' Susan said.

'Pearl.'

'Well, let's call her Pearl.'

'And Boink Brain isn't going to want her back?' I said.

'He's not so bad,' Susan said.

'Anyone who let you get away is a boink brain,' I said.

'Well,' Susan said, 'perhaps you're right… anyway. He's been transferred to London, and you can't even bring a dog in there without a six-month quarantine.'

'So she's yours for good,' I said.

'Ours.'

I nodded. The dog got off the couch quite suddenly, and walked briskly over and put her head on my lap and stood motionless, with her eyes rolled slightly upward looking at me obliquely.

I nodded. 'Pearl,' I said.

Susan smiled. 'Beautiful Jewish-American girls don't grow up with hunting dogs,' she said. 'If they have dogs at all they are very small dogs with a little bow.'

'Sure thing, little lady. This looks to me like man's work.'

'I think so,' Susan said.

I patted Pearl's head.

'You could have told him no,' I said.

'He had nowhere else to place her,' Susan said. 'And she's a lovely dog.'