Free This Dog for Hire by Carol Lea Benjamin

guy who’s appealing, interesting, single, straight, and uninfected—it should only happen—and you’re wearing your black knit coatdress with the deep V neck and matching cigarette pants, your mother’s sparkling marcasite pin, sheer black stockings, and witchy black suede, ankle-high boots with a small heel, and your hair for once came out perfect, and you’re even wearing makeup, for God’s sake, then you’ll see homeless people. You’ll trip over them. They’ll hold their filthy hands out, nearly touching you, and ask for money. Or you’ll pass one, asleep in a doorway, and for a long time afterward, you’ll continue to smell the rancid odor of urine, wafting into your nostrils from your own clothes, which absorbed the stink as you passed it.
    I knew it would take great luck to find Billy. It’s not as if he had an address or a phone number. And even if I found him, it was doubtful he saw anything or could remember or relate what he saw if he had seen anything. Still, this, according to my mentor, Frank Petrie, was how you did investigative work. And since I didn’t have a better idea at the moment, I figured I’d give it a shot.
    Frank required a daily progress report that he could forward to the client so that, even when there was no progress, most days, you could outline where you went looking for it. According to Frank, the third law of investigation work is Look, kid, no one’s paying you to sit on your ass and watch TV.
    Dashiell liked the waterfront, and in nicer weather I did too. It was comforting to be near the river and expansive to let the eye rove far instead of being stopped every few feet by a building. There’s more sky in the Village than there is uptown, because the buildings are lower here, more on a human scale than the skyscrapers in much of the rest of Manhattan, and at the waterfront you can see really far, to the Statue of Liberty if you looked to the southwest, to the twin towers of the World Trade Center south and slightly to the east. If you looked northeast, you’d see the Empire State Building, which to me is still the tallest building in the world. I’m always reluctant to edit the truths of my childhood.
    I could see everything, including my breath, but I couldn’t see Billy Pittsburgh.
    We crossed West Street, walked a block to Washington, and headed uptown. A lot of homeless hang out in the meat district, a few blocks north from where we were. It was a long shot, but maybe someone would have seen Billy and might know where I could find him.
    When we got as far as Gansevoort Street, we found a tattered woman slowly pushing her shopping cart full of possessions along the sidewalk. Poking out from inside her torn coat was the broad, striped face of a red tabby cat, and there were two small mixed-breed dogs, each wearing several sweaters, riding in the cart among her treasures. The homeless men usually collect deposit bottles. Many have become rather entrepreneurial, amassing large amounts of cans and bottles they can exchange for enough money for a meal. The street women seem far crazier than the men. Few talk to anyone. Many rave as they go. They seem more impaired than simply hideously down on their luck. At least, with this lady, her pets gave me a possible opening.
    â€œHandsome cat,” I said, the jowls telling me the cat was male, “what do you call him?”
    She stopped, looked at Dashiell, then, to my surprise, looked at me. Perhaps Dash’s presence signaled I was trustworthy.
    â€œTuna,” she said. “Just use your nose, girlie. A nose, by any other name, would smell a rat. Something’s fishy in Denmark.”
    â€œI see,” I said. “I mean, I sniff, therefore I am.”
    She tossed back her head and cackled.
    â€œSure would like some coffee,” she said, lifting her head and air scenting, as if I might have some in my pocket.
    â€œI’ll get you a cup, um,