––––––––
“What?” I was stunned that John—that any dog owner, for that matter—would medicate their pet simply because he’d been badly startled. For a moment, I actually thought he was joking, but his expression didn’t change. I struggled to hold my voice down, because Greg was in earshot. “Why did you do that?”
“He was going bananas when I put him in the car. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I was afraid he was going to hurt himself.”
My heart was pounding. “But, John, you knew I was going to help him work through this. And you knew I was right here.” I looked up at Greg, who was staring straight ahead as if he couldn’t see us. “All you needed to do was tell Greg, ‘Get Allie.’ He’s been sitting right there.”
“Yeah, but...you should have seen Flint!”
I managed not to growl: I would have seen him if you’d just spoken up! “Why did you even have tranquilizers on hand?”
“From Felicity. She left them when she moved out. She asked me to bring them to her a while back. I stuck them in the glove box and forgot about them. She used to have to give Pippa one in order to fly with her. I figured Flint is two and a half, three times bigger than she is. It’s like giving him a third of a dose.”
After considering my limited options, I decided to get into the car. I got into the passenger seat. “The thing is, John, now it’s meaningless if I try to divert his attention and get him to play with me. It’s also meaningless if he goes on stage tonight, because, even if he’s flawless, he’s been doped. He will behave differently in subsequent performances when he isn’t under the influence.”
While I was talking, John had set his jaw and was driving, obviously not agreeing that what he’d done was highly irresponsible. Maybe this was the cause of Flint’s performance anxiety. Maybe he was being doped on a regular basis. “Have you given him any un-prescribed drugs before?”
“No, Allie. Of course not. This is the first time ever. I swear.”
“So be straight with me. A tranquilizer would normally take at least fifteen, twenty minutes to take effect. You had to have had it on you. And given it to him almost immediately after the lights fell.”
He was grinding his teeth now. I said nothing, staring at him in profile.
“Okay, fine, Allie. You caught me. The truth is, yeah, Felicity asked me to return Pippa’s tranquilizers, like I said. That’s what put the thought in my head. I was contemplating giving him a fraction of a dose tonight. To help him get over his stage fright.”
I balled my fists and tried to keep my voice steady and low. “I see. Surely you realize, though, that doing so would have undermined my work completely. Is there any reason for me to be here?”
“Yes! I was going to discuss it with you first, Allie. I was going to wait and see how things went. And if everything really is as big a mess as I think it is, I was going to get your approval prior to giving him a tranquilizer.”
“Well, it was not a wise thing to do under today’s circumstances. We’ll have to wait and see how he seems to be handling the dose you gave him. At least he’s not going on stage. But I’m not a fan of drugs to manipulate a dog’s behavior. If that’s what’s necessary to get a dog on stage, he shouldn’t be on stage to begin with.”
I had only met John once in passing several months ago. Baxter liked him, though, and that was always good enough for me. Until now. At the moment, at least, I no longer trusted that John was telling me the whole story about Flint.
“I’m concerned that we’re not on the same page, John. If it hadn’t been for the heavy fixture terrifying Flint, you anticipated that today I would get acquainted with your dog, give you any training tips I could, and either keep a close eye on how he followed directions in tonight’s performance, or put Pavlov in the role. Right?”
“Right.”
“Did I leave anything out?”
“No. That was it. Frankly, I thought this would end up being like my typical doctor visit. I wait ‘til I think I’m going to keel over to schedule an appointment. Then by the time I see the doctor, I’m feeling fine.”
I looked back at Flint, who was sleeping with his back to us. “And that exact scenario—Flint being as good as he is in rehearsals—would be the ideal thing for you, Flint, the theater, and all the actors? Despite the current sellouts that you’re getting without sticking to the script?”
He winced so quickly it was more like a nervous facial tic. “Yes.”
“You sound somewhat less than certain. Do other people agree with Felicity that it’s just fine if the dog louses up and the actors adlib?”
He hesitated. “In the long run, I think everyone’s onboard with me—that we’ll be best off when performances go as well as rehearsals. Short term...not so much. Actors love to show up the playwrights. Makes them feel all the more important.”
I decided to let the matter drop, for the time being. “What do you hope to see come out of tonight’s performance, now that Pavlov is stepping into the role?”
“I hope she’ll do a reasonably good job filling in, considering you had no notice and next to no rehearsal time.”
“That’s all? If she does everything perfectly, would you want her to replace Flint?”
“No. I want you to help Flint be comfortable on stage. Like I’ve said. More than once.” His voice was a little testy.
“Then I guess we are on the same page after all. I just had my doubts considering your haste in giving your dog downers.”
“I just...don’t want him to get hurt. That’s all. That beam barely missed him.”
“You don’t think someone intentionally rigged that fixture to drop, do you? Nobody benefits from hurting you or your production, do they?”
“Not beyond petty differences. Jealousies. Bitterness. That sort of thing. Nothing so terrible someone would want to injure an actor, or a dog.”
“Yet you and Sam Geller aren’t on the best of terms.”
“Did someone tell you that?” he asked.
“No,” I said, a little surprised, considering how obvious that had been to me. “It was because of your body language. Tone of voice. That sort of thing.”
He shrugged. “I felt indebted to his brother, but Sam and I rub each other the wrong way.”
We pulled into the dirt driveway of a little cabin. “Here we are. Ten minutes out of the booming town of Creede.”
“Come on, boy,” he said, opening the hatchback. Flint awakened, but was still clearly drowsy. While John was shutting the hatchback door, Flint peed on the dirt driveway. With John and I following closely, he trod inside, headed straight to his dog bed, and dropped down as if he’d been asleep on his feet.
John rubbed his face. “So. Looks like you were right. He’s had a bigger reaction than I figured he would.”
“Indeed. Obviously there isn’t anything I can do with a fast-asleep client.”
“Sorry to waste your time, Allie. I just lost my head for a minute there.”
I suppose I should have said something reassuring, but in truth, I remained annoyed. If he wasn’t a friend of Baxter’s, or if our relationship wasn’t still in the opening phase, or even if I hadn’t made such a long drive to get here, I’d have seriously considered saying thanks but no thanks to this job.
“How long do you think he’ll be groggy like this?” John asked.
“I have no idea. But at this point, my time would be much better spent working with Baxter on Pavlov’s training.”
He sighed and looked at the sleeping dog, then back at me. “I’ll give you a lift back to the theater. Then I’ll head back home and let you know the moment he’s back to his old self again.”
***
We made inconsequential small talk during the return trip. He dropped me off in front of the theater, waved, and drove away. I went straight to the stage, even though I knew they had moved the rehearsal upstairs. Sam Geller and two other men were clearing up the debris. If nothing else, I needed to feel confident that Pavlov was safe from a repeat incident before I would okay her returning to this stage. I decided to chat with Sam.
As I walked up the four steps, he gave me a quick glance, and returned his vision to the floor.
“Hi, I’m Allie. Here to work with Flint’s training.”
“Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with Flint that a good owner couldn’t cure.”
I silently gave him some credit. He, too, knew that the owners typically lead to the bad behavior in their dogs. “You think John’s been mistreating his dog?”
“Mistreating?” He paused from using his push broom and peered at me, tilting his broom to an upright position. “That’s an interesting question. I think John considers his dog a goose that’s going to be laying golden eggs.”
“So...that’s a no?”
He snorted. “Sure, lady. John treats Flint like a royal goose.”
His voice was so nasty, he could be capable of sabotaging Flint’s performance. “Border Collies are worth their weight in gold to ranchers,” I said. “It’s not a huge stretch to train them to herd actors instead of cattle or sheep.”
Sam laughed heartily. “Actors are a lot like livestock. You got a point there.” He returned to his sweeping. “John doesn’t like me talking to anybody when I’m supposed to be working.”
“Okay. Nice meeting you,” I said.
He made no reply.
I found my own way to a staircase and climbed up to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, I could hear one of the actresses’ voices from behind a closed door. Taking care to be quiet, I turned the knob and tiptoed inside. A dog bowl and water dish were stationed along the wall near the door. As I tiptoed past them, the odd shapes of the kibble in the dish caught my eye. Some of the pieces looked eerily similar to chunks of dark chocolate. I picked one up and scraped it with a fingernail. A thin dark-brown sliver stuck to my nail that looked and smelled chocolaty. Alarmed, I tasted it and, sure enough, it was dark chocolate.
I swept the bowl off the floor and cried, “Who did this? Who put chocolate in a dog’s bowl?”
Karen stopped in the middle of her soliloquy. She and Sally were doing a scene together while the men were offstage, sitting in chairs along one wall of the large space. “I put dog food in there. Pavlov was sniffing at Pippa’s stash of kibble in the Tupperware, so I assumed she was hungry and put a couple of handfuls in the dish. She backed away from it, though, so I just left it there.”
“Pavlov is trained not to eat anything in a strange setting unless I give her the okay. This would have made her really ill.”
“I’m sorry, Allie.” Karen walked up to me and looked at the contents of the bowl. “Those chocolate pieces weren’t in there when I put the dog food in the bowl.”
“Are you positive about that?”
She hesitated. “No. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. They are the same color as the kibble, and all I did was grab two handfuls and drop them into the bowl. We’ll have to ask Felicity, but someone must have sabotaged Pippa’s dog food by mixing the chocolate pieces in.”
“Did you ask Baxter if it was okay? Or Felicity if you could give Pippa’s kibble to Pavlov?”
“She did,” Baxter said. “I thought she meant the food in your hip pack.”
“I still have that with me,” I said, touching the pack.
“I knew Felicity wouldn’t mind,” Karen said. “It was such a small helping. And I was worried with all the drama about the lights crashing down, Pavlov’s dinner might get overlooked. John’s always careful to feed Flint two hours before the show begins. I used to have a dog myself, so I was...on autopilot.”
As she was talking, I poured most of the pound or so of kibble onto a shelf so I could sort through it. There appeared to be only three pieces of chocolate left in the square-shaped container. There were eight pieces in the dog bowl.
The other actors had joined us and were watching me. I removed the chocolate pieces and swept the kibble back into its container. I needed to cool down a notch. No damage had been done, and we had to get Pavlov on stage in a couple of hours. “I’ll have to discuss this with Felicity. How’s the rehearsal been going?”
“Fine,” Karen answered. “Pavlov is a regular Rin Tin Tin. She’s following her instructions almost as well as Flint. In rehearsals.”
“Felicity is here if you want to talk to her,” Sally said. “Just knock three times on the wall. That’s the combination costume storage and sewing room.”
Hammond obliged. His face looked a little pale, and his forehead was dotted with perspiration. “Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Feels like my heart’s in arrhythmia,” he replied. “Happens when I’m stressed out.”
“This is nuts,” Greg said. “Why are we putting on the show tonight? Someone here obviously wants to destroy the show. What if we’re all sitting ducks?”
“Chocolate in a dog’s bowl would probably only make a dog ill for a couple of hours,” Hammond said. “And chances are the lights fell by accident. Don’t argue with my logic or I’ll need to breathe into a paper bag.”
A door in the opposite wall opened. “You rang?” Felicity said, Pippa trotting into the room by her side. “Wardrobe malfunction?”
“Nothing like that,” Baxter explained. “There were several chocolate pieces mixed in with Pippa’s kibble. Allie spotted it in the dog’s bowl.”
“I put it there,” Karen said. “I just scooped it out of the Tupperware.”
Her face fell. “Someone sabotaged Pippa’s food?” she asked.
To my surprise, John appeared in the doorway behind me. “What’s going on? What’s the matter with Pippa’s food?”
“It’s been laced with dark chocolate,” Greg said.
“What the hell is happening, all of a sudden?” John shouted. “A steel beam falls on us in rehearsal. The dog food bowl is filled with something that will make the dog sick! Not even an hour ago, our worst problem was the minor annoyance of a nervous dog in front of an audience. Now we’ve had two narrowly averted catastrophes!”
I felt my cheeks warming, wondering if anyone was going to accuse me or Baxter of being a bad-luck curse. I looked at Pavlov. She had realized that nobody was delivering their lines anymore, so she lay down, keeping her eye on me. I smiled at my sweet dog and patted my thigh. She quickly came over to join me. I gave her a hug.
“Somebody is trying to hurt my Pippa,” Felicity said.
John balled his fists. “Are you sure it wasn’t you, trying to make Pavlov too sick to go on tonight?”
Felicity gaped at him. “Please tell me you’re not serious, John. You’ve known me for five years! I would never do anything of the kind! You have to know at least that much about me.”
John lifted his palms. “Nothing bad has happened to your dog, just everyone else’s.”
“Flint’s as much my dog as yours, you stupid jerk!” Felicity shouted. “For all we know, you staged all of this yourself. Maybe you’re afraid your play is a dud, so you’re shooting yourself in the foot to try and sue the theater for breach of contract when they dump it.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Two dozen people have likely walked by the container today alone and could have dropped a handful of chocolate in there with none of us being the wiser.”
“Stop!” Hammond cried. His face was flushed and he was panting.
“What’s the matter?” John asked. “You don’t look too good.”
“I’m not. It’s my heart condition. Ask Sally if you don’t believe me.”
“It’s true,” Sally said. “His heart goes into arrhythmia, and his blood pressure goes through the roof.” She went over to him and grabbed his arm. “For heaven’s sake, Hammie, sit down and do your breathing exercises.”
Her tone was gentle, almost loving. John shot Hammond a vicious glare.
Hammond followed Sally’s instructions, bending forward to rest his elbows on his knees as Sally rubbed his back.
“That’s it,” Hammond said, panting. “I’ve had enough for one day. I’m having a panic attack. I can hardly breathe. John. You’re here anyway. You’ll have to go on in my place tonight.”
“Seriously?” John asked
“I’ve got post-traumatic stress.”
John groaned. “Fine. I’ll take your place, Pavlov will take Flint’s place, and we’ll just have to hope for the goddamned best.”
“Nice,” John, Felicity said sarcastically. “We should have Valerie add that to the program insert tonight,” Felicity growled. “‘John Morris as Steve Gadfly, Pavlov in the role of Blue, and we’ll just have to hope for the goddamned best.’”
“Catchy,” Hammond intoned.
“Allie,” John said, “you’ll have to give Pavlov his cues during tonight’s performance.” With undisguised disdain, he added, “Welcome to show business.”