demons believed to have lodged within his skull. Similar practices were used in medieval France when surgeons looked to remove
The minister sat in silence. Beads of sweat had gathered in the depression above his upper lip.
“Take it,” Faton said. “Carry it as a talisman around your neck, or in a pocket over your heart. How you wear it is not my concern… just so long as it stays on your person.” He continued to smile faintly. “May it guard your head against poisonous thoughts, and serve as a reminder of what can happen to a man who succumbs to them.”
Begela looked at him. Then he slowly lifted a hand off his chair, reached toward the desk, and closed his fingers around the rondelle.
“What should I do next?” he said in a dry rasp. “About the Americans…”
“You needn’t do anything for the moment — but I appreciate the fact that you’ve asked. It already signifies a new mental clarity.” Faton rose and put on his hat. “Between us, I’ve planned an intense study of the enemy that should determine our tactics against him in coming days. Find what he treasures most, and you’ve identified his greatest vulnerability. Take it from him, and you hold the key to his defeat and destruction. It is a simple doctrine that can prove complicated in execution… but a game without challenge is hardly worth playing, don’t you agree?”
The minister had lowered his eyes onto the back of his own clenched, trembling hand.
“Quite so,” he said.
Faton stood before the minister’s desk, his smile growing until it showed a row of small, even teeth.
“I’m glad we agree,” he said in an indulgent tone. “It seems to me we’ve made progress here today. And progress, Etienne, is always a delightful lift.”
The adoption center was at the end of a long dirt and gravel drive that led off the coiling two-lane blacktop between Pescadero Creek County Park and Portola State Park, a short fork in the road to the southwest. Julia Gordian considered herself fairly adept at following directions, but because the sign marking the drive was obscured by a thick outgrowth of oak and fir, she had missed it at first and had driven twenty minutes past her destination to the Pescadero Creek Park entrance. There a helpful ranger at the admissions gate had steered her back around, advising her to stay on the lookout for a PG&E roadside utility station about an eighth of a mile before the unpaved turnoff.
The utility station was nothing more than a green metal shed with a concrete apron that almost blended into the woods to the right, and Julia spotted it only at the last instant. But soon afterward she’d seen the sign with the wood-burned depiction of a greyhound on a rustic post amid the trees. She had swung her brand new Honda Passport onto the mostly uphill drive, muttering a stream of obscenities at the pebbles spitting up from under the vehicle’s tires to pop and rattle against its windows, and sparing some choice words for the jutting branches on either side as they raked across its shiny silver finish.
Julia drove slowly along. She had just strung together a phrase pairing synonyms for the excretory functions of various farm animals and a particularly objectionable sex act between human family members, when two buildings came into sight ahead of her — a small frame house with a neat lawn to her left and a flat-roofed prefabricated aluminum structure some yards beyond it. There were five greyhounds cavorting in a large pen behind the house. Two of them were fawn colored, two were roans, and the odd dog out was a tawny brindle. It hardly surprised Julia that none of the greyhounds were gray.
She rolled the Passport into a dusty, weed-smattered parking area by the prefab, cut the engine, grabbed her handbag off the passenger seat, strapped it over her shoulder, and got out. The plain metal sign above the building’s open door read:
PENINSULA GREYHOUND RESCUE AND ADOPTION CENTER
As she started toward the building, a man in blue jeans, a plaid work shirt, and a baseball cap with a well broken-in bill appeared in its entrance, and then came down the two wide front doorsteps to greet her.
“Julia Gordian?” he said.
She nodded. “And you must be—”
“Rob Howell, pleasure to meet you,” he said, smiling an instantly likeable smile. A lank six footer with a dark scruff of beard, he held a cell phone in his right hand, offered her the other. A pair of heavy rubber gloves was stuffed into his back pocket. “Today’s my day to clean the exercise area out back. Cynthia… that’s my wife… saw you drive up and called to let me know. I’ll introduce you later, when she’s through feeding our six-month-old.”
Julia nodded again and stood quietly in the warm sunlight.
“So,” Howell said after a moment. “How was your trip here?”
“Oh, great,” Julia said. “Very relaxing, in fact.”
“Any trouble spotting that sign down the hill? Guess it’s kind of hard to notice sometimes. With all the branches I’m always forgetting to trim—”
“No, no, I saw it just fine.” She nodded over toward the house. “Those are beautiful dogs back there… are they up for placement?”
“Actually, they’re our personal brood. Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, and Joey. Don’t ask how we got stuck with them—”
“What about Chandler?” Julia said. “I assume they’re named after characters from that TV show
“Right, that’s it.”
“And Chandler being the sixth, well, friend…”
“Cynthia and I try to leave an open slot. Just in case another dog turns out to be irresistible,” Howell said with another smile. “You have, what, two ex-racers of your own?”
“Jack and Jill,” Julia said. “Which means a third pooch would have to be named Hill or Pail of Water. If I use your general naming formula.”
“There’s a lesson in that for prospective adopters, I suppose,” he said. “Stick to nursery rhymes with lots of characters—”
“And sitcoms with large ensemble casts.”
Both were grinning now.
“Follow me,” Howell said and nodded toward the center. “We should talk about the job.”
The area just inside the building’s doorway turned out to be a combination waiting area and supply-and-gift shop. There were folding chairs to one side of the room that Julia guessed were for visitors, a counter and cash register, and walls lined with all manner of greyhound-related merchandise: books on the breed’s history and care; porcelain statues and life-size posters of greys; ashtrays, coffee mugs, pens, beach towels, cooking aprons, sweatshirts, T-shirts, jackets, and even socks featuring their likenesses. There were also leashes, collars, and coats as well as plenty of general dog health and grooming items.
Howell had noticed Julia looking around the place.
“Every cent we make here at our In the Money store… that’s a little play on words, since racing greyhounds get retired, really discarded, by their kennel owners and trainers after they’ve finished
Julia faced him, impressed. “That’s quite an operation,” she said.
Howell stood at one end of the counter, an elbow resting on its edge.
“Right now, it’s tough,” he said. “Cyn’s got the baby on her hands, and I’m a night auditor over at a hotel out near San Gregario Beach. But we try our best to juggle everything.”
“There are no other volunteers?”
Howell shook his head.
“We used to have a couple of regulars, super folks,” he said. “A college student who came in two, three afternoons a week. And a woman who’d help us out Saturdays. But the kid transferred to an out-of-state school, and the woman’s a single mom who’s had to take on a paying weekend job to make ends meet.” Howell shrugged. “When she couldn’t cut the schedule anymore, I decided to put up fliers in pet stores.”
“Like the one I saw,” Julia said. “How’s the response been?”
