Free Abnormal Occurrences by Thomas Berger

by street, until at some point I crossed the animal’s trail. Or again, I could save shoe leather by remaining at my desk at headquarters, dialing random phone numbers and asking the answerer if he happened to know of such a dog. Having taken on a bit of weight in recent years, I decided on the second of those tactics, but before I had begun to put it into effect, Fogarty came into the squad room, chewing on the inevitable unlighted cheroot. He had black circles around his eyes. His beefy face was haggard.
    “I never got a wink all night,” he complained. “The phone kept ringing, and when I picked it up, it was a wrong number—but always a different wrong number, and the voice was different. If it was somebody out for revenge, he was a master at disguising his voice or went to the trouble of organizing coupla dozen friends. Didn’t wanna unplug, case it was finally you.”
    “Huh,” I said, mostly for myself, “could there be a connection...?” To Fogarty, “You didn’t run across the bark of a dog anywhere?”
    He glared at me. “You know, Vinnie, your idea of humor—”
    “I’m serious, Fogarty. I’m working on that squeal about the dog who runs an answering service.”
    “If you want,” Fogarty offered, “I’ll ask around.”
    By this he meant among his regular informants, a motley crew of lowlifes, addicts of various kinds, and a good many phonies, perfectly respectable people who get off on being thought by the police to be petty criminals. I expected little genuine assistance from this quarter. But what harm could it do?
    He sat down at his own desk and began to work the telephone, speaking to various persons, invariably greeting each with another obvious alias and a ludicrously outdated one at that. Who nowadays is known as Butch or Gertie or Slick? No matter: it was during his fifth or sixth such call that he gestured violently toward me. I raised my eyebrows. He took the phone away from his mouth for a moment and covered the instrument with a meaty fist.
    “Pay dirt?” he asked, his lips forming the letter Q, of which the tip of his tongue made a little tail. “Maybe.”
    “And maybe not,” I said. I didn’t want to encourage Fogarty in his sense of drama, which is always likely to turn maudlin.
    “Say, Blackie,” he said into the mouthpiece, while winking significantly at me, “do you know this for a fact? ...Hey, no offense, man. It was simply a question... Yes... sure... no... well...” He began violently writing in the notebook before him.
    “Gimme,” I said, with outstretched hand.
    Fogarty slammed the phone down, tore the page from his book, and shoved it at me.
    I ripped the paper from his hand and read silently, “Blonde at First and Seventy-second.”
    “It might not be much,” Fogarty said, “but it’s a start.”
    I sighed. “I know you’re just trying to help, Fogarty, but there must be thousands of blondes on the sidewalk at any given time in this town. Why would this one know anything about a dog that operated an answering service?”
    He began to pout. Fogarty can sometimes be oversensitive.
    “Okay, what do I have to lose?” I said, with more cockiness than I felt, and I got up, put my belt on a tighter notch, and headed uptown.
    I work in an unmarked car that has seen better days, but it’s an effective cover. I expected the trip to be completely futile, but wonder of wonders, when I reached the designated corner the blonde was still there. I must say she looked too garish to be a streetwalker; it occurred to me she might well be a decoy cop, a male officer padded in the right places and dressed in women’s clothes, with a purpose to attract a robbery or rape attempt.
    I left the car and sidled near her/him, displayed my shield in a cupped hand, and said, “DiFalco, Animal Crimes.”
    “Get lost,” said the blonde, “and if you don’t, I’ll call a cop.”
    “What do you think I am?”
    “Some creep with a fake badge to shake people down