Before There Were Angels Read Online Free Page A

he picked on George, which was cowardly and unfair to a woolly being who had never bitten, or even barked at, anyone or anything in his life, and who only asked to remain cheerfully inebriated and left to enjoy his high standards of food and alcohol, and to have his aching morning hangover dealt with by a bowlful of Fat Tire. We lived in a city where even the soup kitchens are Zagat-rated, and George considered himself fully entitled to a limitless supply of gourmet riches and brain cell tickling splendor. Why not?
    So who was emptying his bowl?
    He could see me pouring in the Fat Tire. He could see me turning my back and throwing the beer bottle in the garbage, then leaving the kitchen, and he saw nothing else as he approached the bowl, not least because his hair and his hangover were impairing his vision, but when he reached his bowl, it was empty.
    Empty?
    This had never happened to him before.
    He barked.
    That had never happened to us before.
    “George, what is it?” Belle called out to him. “Did Luke buy you the wrong gin?”
    “ Beer ,” I corrected her. “It’s Fat Tire. I don’t see the problem. Maybe they have changed their Chief Blender, or whatever he is called, or George is in need of two hairs of the dog this morning. Weird, though.”
    I got out of my chair and staggered to the kitchen. In common with many new residents of San Francisco, I was suffering from foot trouble. The doctor had given it a longer name, though, calling it plantar fasciitis , which is where you damage the ligament supporting the bridge of your foot by walking too many miles up and down hills while supporting several more pounds in weight than you should have.
    George was sitting by his bowl with a mixture of anticipation, confusion, and I have to say aggression, on his face. Whatever had happened, he was giving me time to fix it, but he expected me to make it my next priority and not to start arguing over who had drunk his Fat Tire. He didn’t necessarily expect me to believe that it hadn’t been him, but he didn’t want me to waste time while I considered whether to replenish his bowl or not.
    He needn’t have worried. Once you have owned an Old English Sheepdog for a few weeks, you realize that wherever else in the household budget you are capable of cutting costs, his food and booze budget had better be taken out of the equation and inflation-proofed, otherwise you will have a very grumpy dog.
    So I limped to the fridge, grabbed another bottle of Fat Tire, flipped the cap and poured the contents into George’s bowl, watching to see what would happen next.
    Nothing happened next, except that George lapped it clean and demanded a refill, which he got.
    Crisis over.
    … u ntil dinner, when he was otherwise occupied and failed to spot that I had poured him his Bombay Blue Sapphire gin and tonic and therefore failed to attack it immediately, and by the time that he was finally ready for his cocktail he discovered that it was gone - his bowl was dry - provoking another outraged bark.
    “What’s going on with you, George?” I asked him. “Why are you knocking back drinks like you have just returned from rehab?”
    He shot me an annoyed look and gave me a nudge. Just get on with it.
    I nitially we did not realize that a third party was involved but we did wonder why George only had one bowl at a time while we stood over him but invariably two if we walked away, and there was never any problem with his Chateaubriand steak.
    It was only after a few days of other inexplicable occurrences , literally emerging from the woodwork, that it dawned on us that George might have been the first victim among us, one who could suffer but not explicitly explain his suffering beyond a mournful expression and an outraged bark.
    Poor George.
    Then poor us.
     

Chapter 7
     
    The next week I flew out to Phoenix to pick up more furniture that Belle had bought in a fire sale as she left her husband Robert, thinking she might need it one day. The