All Shots

couldn’t be expected to wait outdoors?
    “She left,” he added. Rising to his feet, he said, “You have something for me.”
    My principal employer, Dog’s Life magazine, does not send couriers to pick up my columns. Still, if I had anything whatever for anyone at all, it was bound to be something or other about...
    “Something about dogs?” I asked. “About malamutes?”
    “You haven’t heard from Calvin?”
    The Calvin I knew well was a miniature schnauzer. “There must be some misunderstanding,” I said.
    “Holly Winter,” he said.
    The dogs sensed my relief even before I let my breath out. “You’re looking for the other Holly Winter,” I said. “She lives in Cambridge, too. We’ve had mix-ups before. That’s what this is about. You’ve got the wrong one.”
    As if I’d released them from an obedience exercise, Rowdy and Kimi stirred a little. Rowdy meandered to the big water bowl and drank. Just as casually, Kimi moved her eyes from my face to the back door. I often had the uncanny sense that she could read my mind, but at the moment, I was practically reading hers. Domestic dogs, having evolved with us, are hardwired to follow the human gaze: they look where we’re looking, and they check out objects of our attention. As if acting on my desire to show Adam the door, Kimi took a few steps toward it. I nearly laughed.
    “I’ll give you her address,” I said. Internet addict that I am, I usually use Web directories, but there was an old phone book in a cabinet under the counter. I pulled it out, looked up the other Holly Winter, scribbled her address on a notepad, and handed Adam the slip of paper. “It’s off Kirkland Street, a left turn off Kirkland. When you leave my driveway, turn right. You have to. It’s one-way. And then turn right onto Concord Avenue. Follow it almost to Harvard Square. Just before the Square, you’ll see the Cambridge Common on your left. After the Common, go left. Get in the middle lane and take the underpass. When you come out of the underpass, turn left and then turn right on Kirkland Street. Then watch the signs. It’s a left turn.”
    Like Kimi, I stepped toward the door. Although Adam had done nothing that felt at all threatening, I wanted him out of the house, in part so that I could call Leah and let her know exactly what I thought of her rotten judgment.
    Adam thanked me. I opened the door. As he was leaving, he paused briefly. “What kind of dogs are these?”
    “Alaskan malamutes,” I said.
    “They’re beautiful.”
    “Thank you,” I said. “And that’s some motorcycle you have.”
    He smiled.
    “It’s a Harley,” I said. “I know that. But—”
    “It’s a Screamin’ Eagle Ultra Classic Electra Glide.”
    And that’s how I found out what it was.
    Only later did I realize that whereas I’d observed the Harley closely and learned its name, I’d been so startled to discover its rider in my kitchen and so angry at Leah for having let him in and having left him alone in my house that I’d learned almost nothing about him. Him. The Harley rider. The young Moses. The man looking for Holly Winter. Adam. I knew that he drove a Harley-Davidson Screamin’ Eagle Ultra Classic Electra Glide with a Maine plate. And I didn’t even know his last name.
    Adam: precisely what I didn’t know him from.
     

CHAPTER 2
     
    As Holly Winter—the other Holly Winter—an, pause, other Holly Winter—another Holly Winter or, in retrospect, yet another Holly Winter—is walking through Harvard Yard toward Quincy Street, a loose dog takes a break from Frisbee to run toward her in what I would undoubtedly have viewed as a friendly manner. To her disgust, the dog not only reaches her but goes so far as to deposit its saliva on her, which is to say that the dog licks her hand.
    Yes, what kind of dog? The first question to spring eternal to my dog-hopeful mind—a Finnish lapphund, a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever, a fascinating mix of let’s guess which wonderful breeds?—never even begins to cross hers. She does not know, she does not ask, she does not care. Rather, once the dirty thing has gone away, she fishes in her purse, extracts a little sealed packet containing a moist towelette, and uses it to decontaminate her hands, thus defending herself against the threat of bacterial, viral, and parasitic disease. Such an extreme reaction! The dog’s tongue, after all, touched only one of her hands, yet she cleans both.
    I am tempted to make the