The Mad and the MacAbre (5 page)

He decided to stop at the pet store on the
way home.

* * *

"Don't get used to this," said Charlie,
waving the red rubber squeak bone at the dog. "I'm not buying you a
toy every time I go out. This is all you get." He squeaked the bone
and the dog ran in a joyous little circle on the basement floor.
"If you lose it, it's not being replaced, so be careful."

He tossed the bone to the dog. It caught it
in its mouth and then dropped onto its stomach, chewing vigorously
on the toy, which squeaked and squeaked and squeaked.

Charlie leaned against his metal table and
watched the dog. It seemed to be having a lot of fun. Why? It was
just a rubber bone. Was the dog imagining that the squeaks were
screams of agony? They didn't seem comparable.

He observed it for several minutes,
wondering what possible pleasure the dog could be getting out of
this, besides the opportunity to exercise its jaws. Why did people
like Alicia think that dogs were so great? Who cared about
unconditional love? Love should be given out on an "as deserved"
basis.

When he decided that the dog had squeaked
the toy enough for one night, Charlie changed its bandages and
refilled its food bowl. The dog was healing nicely--in a few days,
it would probably be completely back to normal. Normal for a
clown-faced idiot dog, anyway.

"I don't want you to run away and cost me my
reward," he informed the dog as he showed it the cheap black collar
he'd purchased, "so you're going to have to wear this, like it or
not."

The dog most definitely
did
not
like it,
and it took a few minutes of struggle to get the collar over its
head and fastened properly. Charlie considered hitting the dog to
encourage it to keep still...but, no, there was no reason for that.
He'd win this little dispute without resorting to
violence.

He got the collar on the dog, attached the
leash he'd also bought, and led it up the stairs. He let the dog
run around the living room for a minute while he put on his heavy
coat and gloves, and then took the dog outside for a traditional
walk.

It finished its business almost immediately,
but Charlie was pretty sure that walks were about exercise as much
as defecation, so they began to walk along the sidewalk. Sometimes
the dog walked right alongside of him, sometimes it tugged on its
leash in a failed attempt to run ahead, sometimes it forced Charlie
to tug on its leash because it got distracted by fascinating
smells, and sometimes it ran in a circle and almost tripped him,
but overall Charlie thought it was a relatively successful
walk.

After they'd gone about six or seven blocks,
they approached a driveway where a young blonde woman was taking
groceries out of her car. Her eyes lit up as she saw the dog.

"Oh, look at you!" she said, placing a bag
of groceries on the ground and crouching down so she could pet the
dog. "What a sweetie!"

The dog licked her face, clearly loving the
attention.

"What's his name?" the woman asked Charlie.
She was absolutely beautiful. She looked as if she might have just
come from the salon as well as the grocery store.

"He doesn't have one."

"Doesn't have a name?" The woman scratched
both of the dog's ears. "How can a sweetie like you not have a
name? You don't like that at all, do you? I bet you don't!"

"I mean, I don't know its name," said
Charlie.

"Well, he's absolutely adorable," said the
woman, picking up her grocery bag and standing up. She grinned at
Charlie. "Both of you have a great evening, all right?"

The woman turned and retrieved a second
grocery bag from her trunk. Charlie couldn't believe it. She was
just standing there, totally unguarded, not even looking at him. He
could shove her into the trunk, slam the lid, and have a gorgeous
woman in his basement this very evening.

He wouldn't do it, of course. He'd broken
the schedule once, and had vowed to never do it again. And though
this idea sounded great as a flash of fantasy, it was far too
risky. She could scream, or somebody could see (for all he knew,
her husband was right inside), or she could be locked in the trunk
with the only set of keys.

Still...he was amazed at how the dog had
instantly created a level of trust.

He should have asked the woman if he could
help her carry her groceries inside, just as a test.

"Maybe you could be useful," Charlie told
the dog as they resumed their walk.

Yes, he was talking to an animal in public,
but the woman had done the same thing without feeling humiliated.
Clearly, you were allowed to talk to uncomprehending animals
without looking like a candidate for the local asylum.

Perhaps he shouldn't be so quick to get rid
of it. Charlie might have a creepy smile, but he had a cute
dog.

* * *

"You need a name," Charlie told the dog as
they sat on the couch.

The dog squeaked its bone.

What was a good name for a dog? Fido? Rover?
Duke? Prince? Spike? Clowny-Face?

Killer?

Hmmmm. He liked Killer.

"Do you want to be named Killer?" he
asked.

The dog squeaked its toy again, but it was a
non-committal squeak.

Killer wasn't exactly subtle. He should
probably brainstorm more options. Charlie went to get a pen and a
notebook, then sat back down and started writing down ideas. He
wrote down every dog name he could think of, the first names of
everybody he knew, and other names that might be appropriate for a
dog whose cuteness was going to lure women to their death.

After about an hour, he had a list of
forty-seven names. He read them slowly, one at a time, to see if
any elicited a reaction from the dog.

None of them did. The dog just kept chewing
on its toy. Charlie had to admit to himself that he was taking his
newfound willingness to communicate with the dog a bit too far.

He read the list of names again, to himself
in a whisper.

Cutter sounded the best, but it didn't look
right. He wrote it on a separate page. Cutter.

He wrote it again: Kutter.

"That's your new name," he said. "Kutter the
dog."

Charlie took Kutter for
another walk, tearing down the "
Found
Dog
" signs as they went.

- 5 -

"Did the address help at all?" Alicia asked
the next day.

"I'm keeping it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Its name's Kutter."

"Well, that's great. Congratulations on the
new addition to your household."

"Thanks."

Charlie looked at her more closely. He'd
always liked freckles. Perhaps someday she'd let him take her out
for coffee or--

--his basement. Perhaps someday he'd lock
her in his basement. That's what he meant.

But maybe coffee to start.

Charlie wasn't even going to try to pretend
to himself that he'd be even remotely close to capable of asking
her out right now, so he ignored the thought and glanced back at
his monitor.

"Do you have pictures?" asked Alicia.

Charlie shook his head.

"You need pictures."

"Okay." Charlie had no intention of buying a
camera, even a cheap disposable one. Still, it couldn't hurt to
pretend to go along with her idea.

"Well, I'm glad you kept the dog. Give it a
great big hug for me." Alicia patted Charlie on the shoulder and
then returned to her desk.

* * *

Alicia asked him about Kutter photos every
day for the next three days. After the third day, Charlie realized
that saying "I forgot again" just wasn't going to continue to work.
It was really not her place to guilt him into photographing his
dog, but finally Charlie decided to cave in to the pressure. He
bought a surprisingly inexpensive disposable camera on the way home
from work.

Taking the camera downstairs was not an
option. Some clue about the basement activities, no matter how
subtle, might appear in the photograph, and Charlie couldn't take
the risk. He also refused to appear in the picture himself. He'd
just get a couple of quick snapshots of Kutter and take them
straight to the photo-developing lab at the grocery store.

He opened the door to the basement. Kutter
happily bounded up the stairs. Charlie put on his leash, took him
for a quick walk, then brought him back inside.

"On the couch," Charlie said, patting the
cushion.

Kutter jumped up onto the couch.

"Good boy. Now smile." As Charlie peeked
through the viewfinder, Kutter jumped off the couch and ran into
the kitchen.

Stupid dog. "Hey, get back in here!" Charlie
called out. He heard Kutter thundering around in the kitchen for a
moment, and then the Boston terrier came running back into the
living room. He patted the cushion again. "C'mon. Picture
time."

Kutter woofed at him.

"I don't like it either. We don't have a
choice."

Charlie patted the cushion a few more times,
then decided that although the couch was the most aesthetically
pleasing location for the photograph, it didn't much matter either
way. He pointed the camera at where Kutter stood on the floor. The
dog looked right at the camera. Perfect.

He pressed the button, and nothing
happened.

"What the hell?" He pressed it again and the
camera still didn't click or flash or do anything to indicate that
a photo had been taken. Was it broken?

No, he just hadn't wound it.

Cameras sucked.

He wound the dumb little dial. Kutter ran
back into the kitchen.

"Hey!" Charlie followed Kutter into the
kitchen and nearly tripped over the dog as it ran back into the
living room. He pointed the camera at the dog, trying to follow it
as it ran in a circle around the living room, and squeezed off one
shot that he knew wasn't even close.

"Sit down, Kutter! Stay in one spot!"

Kutter jumped up onto the couch. Charlie
quickly pointed the camera and pressed the button, but he hadn't
wound it this time, either. Kutter jumped back down before he could
finish.

"Do you want me to tranquilize you? Quit
moving around!"

Charlie managed to take another twelve
action shots of the hyperactive animal, and then, finally, a few
pictures of Kutter relaxing on the couch. He decided to splurge on
the one-hour developing, and discovered that his thumb was over the
lens on all of the pictures.

* * *

Alicia laughed at his feeble attempts at
photography, but it was a nice kind of laugh, not a mean one.

* * *

Charlie bought a couple more squeak toys and
a stuffed penguin, to give Kutter some variety. He also bought the
forty-pound bag of dog food, which was the most cost effective, and
a bag of pseudo-bacon treats. If all went well, Kutter would
deserve the reward.

* * *

It wasn't as if walking Kutter opened up a
whole new world for Charlie, where potential victims fell at his
feet by the dozens. But there was no question that the dog was
going to make things easier for him. Somebody fussed over his dog
almost every other walk, and in two weeks there'd been at least
three separate occasions where he'd felt completely confident that
he could have safely gotten a woman home--and not homeless
vagrants; attractive, desirable women who would be almost
unbearably pleasurable to cut.

He altered his route often, sometimes taking
Kutter out for as much as three hours at a time. Exactly one week
after seeing the woman unloading groceries from her car, almost to
the minute, he saw her again, doing the same thing. A creature of
habit. Charlie liked that.

It was only about three weeks until his next
hunt on January 24th. There was no question whatsoever in Charlie's
mind that this was going to be the best one yet.

* * *

Charlie stood impatiently by the open
basement door. "You know where to go."

Kutter never wanted to go down into the
basement at bedtime. Not that Charlie blamed him--it was cold down
there--but Charlie was the master and Kutter was the dog and house
pets didn't have any say in the matter of where they slept. "Get
down there."

Kutter whimpered.

"Do you really think that's going to work on
me?" Charlie asked. "Seriously? If my heart melts, it's not going
to be for you. So get your flat face down there."

Kutter just stared at him.

The dog's wounds had healed completely, so
it wouldn't be ripping off its bandages and ruining his furniture.
That was the primary reason Charlie kept him in the basement. As
long as Kutter was quiet through the night, there was no real
reason to keep him locked away.

Charlie narrowed his eyes
and pointed his index finger at the dog. "All right, you're going
to get your way, but let me make one thing perfectly clear: No
barking. None. Unless somebody is breaking into this house--not a
neighbor's house,
this
one--I don't want to hear a single peep out of you. Do you
understand?"

Kutter continued to just stare at him, which
Charlie took for a "yes."

"Good. Don't forget it."

Kutter ran into the living room, then ran
back with one of his squeak toys. Charlie pulled it out of his
mouth, a task made more difficult by the fact that Kutter assumed
they were now playing tug-of-war. "I don't think you'll be keeping
me awake with that thing," Charlie said, putting the toy on top of
the refrigerator. He gathered up Kutter's other toys and placed
them up there as well.

Kutter sneezed at him.

"Bless you. Good night."

Ten minutes after Charlie got under the
covers, Kutter pushed open the bedroom door, jumped up onto the
mattress, and curled up at the foot of the bed. Charlie carried
Kutter back out to the living room and told him to knock it off.
The second time Kutter pushed open the door, which never seemed to
close properly, Charlie put him back down in the basement.