Sleeping Dogs

have one.” If it was a working police dog, he knew from experience that when Lorenz told it to leave him alone he would have to say it in German. Every department in the country figured that the average fleeing suspect didn’t remember enough of what he had learned in high school to get a job, let alone call off a dog.

Lorenz said, “Martha,” in a normal voice, and Hamp heard the toenails again, tapping lightly toward him from the back of the house. He turned and saw a gray-brown standard German shepherd, at least three feet tall, with a chest like a barrel and a huge gaping mouth, emerge from a hallway. She walked past Hamp, gave him a look and then sat down in front of Lorenz’s chair. When he pointed at the couch, the dog leaped up and lay down on the army blanket. “She gets lonely,” said Lorenz. “She and I were Air Police.”

Hamp nodded. “How old is she?”

“Nine.”

“You made lieutenant fast.” Hamp stopped trying to remember his German. It wouldn’t do any good. Lorenz had been one of the men Hamp had seen when he was in the marines guarding the most sensitive installations: Strategic Air Command bases, air force communication centers and listening posts, walking the perimeters with guard dogs. The sight of them had always struck him as vaguely poignant. The dogs were given to the men as soon as they were weaned, and man and dog trained together, sleeping together in the same barracks, never more than a hundred feet apart for at least the length of an enlistment, and more often for the life of the dog. If the man was married and lived off the base with his wife, the dog lived with them, and the two would report for duty together. The attachment between them grew so strong that they were like two men, or sometimes two dogs, the one who walked upright representing to the other one mother, father and head of the wolf pack. The loyalty was so blind and unbreakable that when the AP’s enlistment ended, the dog had to be discharged with him because it couldn’t live without him. Hamp had seen them in Thailand, Vietnam and other places, the strange solitary pairs the embodiment of a primal nightmare, the big vulpine creature perfectly capable and even eager to hurl its ninety pounds of muscle and fang into a man’s throat if it would bring a whispered word and a gentle pat from its master, who had trained it to attack even more efficiently than its ferocious instincts would have prompted.

Hamp stared at Martha. The dog lay quietly on the old army blanket and stared unblinking into his eyes, her head resting on her paws. He turned back to Lorenz, who seemed to be looking at him with the same expression. “In your investigation of the break-in at Mr. Mantino’s house …”

There was something about the term break-in that jarred Hamp’s mind. Whatever had happened, the entry was the least of it. But Lorenz’s eyes moved to the dog, and Hamp’s followed. The dog’s ears were up, and its head was turned toward him attentively. Hamp felt a sudden alarm. The dog had sensed that he was feeling uncomfortable, maybe by smell, or by a sound in his voice, and it was already beginning to show little signs of agitation. He had to do something before the animal began to suspect that he wished Lorenz harm. He had to stay on solid, neutral ground and get the master to talk. “Tell me anything you found that the FBI might need to know.” He knew better than to try to talk to the dog or make a friend of her. She had been brought up to feel no interest whatever in any human being but Lorenz. He tried to formulate something that he could say for the dog’s benefit, something scrupulously true and sincere. “I know that’s a tall order. I’m asking you for information without being able to reciprocate.” The dog set her head down again. “Anytime someone like Mantino dies violently, there are possible consequences and implications, and I don’t know yet what they might be. The report says it appeared to be a simple B and E for purposes of robbery.” The dog seemed to be satisfied, so he sat back in his chair.

Lorenz hesitated, then began. “You have to understand that this is the biggest disaster for our department in the last hundred years.”

Hamp answered, “I understand. We can …” he sensed that he was in danger again. “I can assure you that I haven’t any intention of letting what you tell me go into wide dissemination, and I’m not interested in the details of what went wrong. I’m interested in the murderer.” The tension seemed to go out of the big dog. She kept her eyes on him for another moment, then looked at her master without lifting her head.

“He hot-wired a car from North American Watch and drove it to the front of the house so the occupants would see it and open the door to him. After that we don’t know the exact order of events—no witnesses, no prints—but here’s what I think. He got them to believe there was some danger, and Mantino and Sobell picked up guns from the gun cabinet in the living room. When Sobell headed for the back of the house with a thirty-ought-six, he shot him in the back of the head. Sobell had to be the first, because it’s pretty hard to do that to a man carrying a loaded weapon if he knows you’re coming. Then he shot Mantino five times in the chest and the front of the head before Mantino could get a shot off.”

“What next?”

“He kept his head, created confusion and got out. He behaved like a real soldier.”

Hamp held Martha in the corner of his eye as he spoke. “I’m interested in this man.” Martha cocked an ear, but there was no agitation. It was just like trying to beat a lie detector, he realized, and pushed on. “Is there anything in this to indicate where he came from, or where he’ll go next?”

“Nothing,” said Lorenz. “In the early fall there are about a thousand hotel rooms available, and about forty percent are rented. We’re pretty close to having all of them accounted for. We’re working on the planes and trains and buses. I’d say he drove in, did his job, then drove out without attracting any attention. He’s got nothing to worry about from anybody around here.”

“Who was Sobell?”

“Male Caucasian, six-one, one-eighty-five, good build, broken nose, lots of his prints on the guns in the cabinet. He was licensed as a private detective, but I can’t find any indication he worked at it much. I think he was a bodyguard.” Lorenz and his dog watched Hamp closely.

Hamp leaned forward. “Do you have any idea why Mantino hired a bodyguard instead of a member of his own organization? Was he afraid of something?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. It got him, though, didn’t it?”

Hamp thought about it. If Mantino was afraid of a paid assassin who used to work for the Mafia, it made a lot of sense. The one who gains the most is the one standing closest when the body falls. But he couldn’t allow Lorenz to start asking him questions. Even if he managed to compose answers, the dog would smell his tension and premeditation and turn on him. “What was missing from the house?”

Lorenz gave Hamp a wry look. “Nothing. Kind of odd, isn’t it? The theory is that he didn’t have time, or made more noise than he’d expected to.”

Hamp recognized that Lorenz was better than he looked—not as an investigator, because anybody could see it wasn’t a botched robbery, but as a cop. He had been pondering the murder, stewing about it for two days, and using the time to look, listen and evaluate. He had found the discrepancies between the official story he was paid to help concoct to keep publicity down and what his common sense told him was true. Now he was working on his own theory. If he was working on it alone, then all he could do was get in the way. But if he was good, there was some small chance that it might lead him, not to the predator who had made a brief and relatively harmless stop in this little community, but to Mantino’s associates. This good man could have no more idea than his dog did what it would mean to bring himself to the attention of those people right now. Hamp eyed the dog and determined to discourage him.

“He wasn’t trying to rob him,” said Hamp. “Washington is sure of that much.” Elizabeth was, at least. The dog sensed Hamp’s discomfort and turned its head to face him. In a moment, he knew, it would slowly align its body with its head, aimed toward him. “It was a hit.”

Lorenz nodded. “Okay. So what?”

“So his death doesn’t fit the standard motivation of an ordinary murder. I don’t know why he was killed, and we might not know for years, but it wasn’t a local matter. Do you understand?”

Lorenz reserved judgment. “Tell me.”

“I’m asking you not to go out and pursue any leads on your own. If something comes up, turn it over to the FBI.” Hamp was tempted to try to frighten him, but he could tell this was not a man who allowed himself to be frightened; to threaten him would just ensure that he would never drop the case.

Lorenz sighed in frustration, and the dog looked confused. Was her master angry at this stranger? She decided not to take any chances. Hamp watched as her big, muscular body sidestepped into line with the head, so that she was hunched on the couch, ready to spring at him if her master triggered the impulse. “Fair enough,” said Lorenz.

“Do I have your word?” asked Hamp. The dog smelled the tension and her master’s uncertainty. She hunched lower and her upper lip twitched, as though she could already imagine the taste.