The library door opened and Steven came in with what appeared to be a black and white aardvark on a leash. The aardvark had a bright red choke collar around his neck. His lost-and-found tag dangled from one of the loops on the collar. The tag was bright red also, and heart shaped.
'She's had her walk,' Steven said. 'And the maid says she was very good.'
He leaned over and unsnapped the leash and the aardvark dashed over to Patricia Utley and wagged its tail. Astonishingly, Patricia Utley went to her knees and put her face down where the aardvark could lap it. It wasn't a very big aardvark. Maybe it was too small to be an aardvark.
'Did you have a lovely tinky tinky?' Patricia Utley said.
As I studied it, it was definitely too small to be an aardvark. But whatever it was, it was a lapping fool. It lapped Patricia Utley's face very intently.
'This is Rosie,' Patricia Utley said.
She was turning her face to avoid losing all her makeup.
'That's great,' I said. 'Rosie is not an aardvark, is she?'
'No, of course not. She's a miniature bullterrier.'
'That was going to be my next guess,' I said. 'Like Spuds McKenzie in the beer ads.'
'I don't watch beer ads,' Patricia Utley said.
She stood and Rosie turned and wiggled over to me and rolled on her back.
'She wants you to rub her stomach,' Patricia Utley said.
I sat back down on the hassock and bent over and rubbed Rosie's stomach, which was quite pink.
'She likes it if you say rub rub rub, while you're doing it.'
'I can't do that,' I said. 'You'd tell.'
'Rub, rub, rub,' Patricia Utley said for me.
She brought her sherry to the blue leather couch and sat on the edge of it, her knees together, her hands, holding the sherry, folded quietly in her lap. Rosie turned immediately over onto her feet, trotted to the couch, and elevated onto it without any apparent effort, as if somehow she had jumped with all four feet equally. She lay down beside Patricia Utley, put her head on Patricia Utley's lap, and stared at me with her almond-shaped black eyes that had no more depth than two slivers of obsidian.
'And now you are looking for this Rugar person?'
'Yes.'
'I don't know anyone of that name.'
'He works through a lawyer,' I said. 'Or he used to.'
'Is he based in New York?'
'I think so.'
'Do you know anything else about him?'
'Rugar or the lawyer?'
'Either,' Patricia Utley said.
She was smoothing the fur on Rosie's tail, which looked like it belonged on a short Dalmatian. Rosie would occasionally open her mouth and close it again.
'He's American born, worked for the Israelis for a while. He's in his forties or fifties. Tall, athletic, gray hair, gray skin, seems to dress all in gray. Rugar probably isn't his real name. Very expensive, very covert.'
'And if I wished to hire him I would go to a lawyer?'
'A particular lawyer. Who would set up an appointment with Rugar.'
'And you don't know who the lawyer is?'
'No, hell, I don't even know if his name is Rugar.'
Patricia Utley ran the tip of her tongue along her lower lip. I waited. She sipped her sherry and swallowed and repeated the tongue-on-lower-lip movement. Rosie kept looking at me. Occasionally she wagged her tail.
'I don't know of any such lawyer,' she said finally.
'Where would you go if you needed someone killed?' I said.
'I have never had to consider that,' she said. 'Bribery has always been entirely serviceable.'
'And so much more genteel,' I said.
She smiled and sipped her sherry again.
'Will you be in the City long?'
'Depends how long this takes,' I said.
'You would be amazed at the diversity of my client list,' she said.
'No, I wouldn't,' I said.
