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out with Bruce is at the top of my To Do list, but I feel sorry for him, after all. Us hippie kids are supposed to end up with more than our fair share of compassion, but apparently Joy left hers at Larchberry.
    “Yeah?” He beams again. He’s more like a puppy than Daisy, really. He tries so hard. “You want to get dinner somewhere? We can get ice cream at Uncle Louie G’s after. Butter pecan, remember that?”
    “Yeah, the best—”
    “God,” Joy cuts me off as she slings her purse over her shoulder.
    “What?” Bruce says, wounded.
    “You’re going to hang out with my baby sister on a Saturday night?”
    “It’s her first night here. Why not?
    ” “Your social doom, baby.” She kisses him on the cheek. “Call me?”
    “Are you going to meet us later?”
    “We’ll see what everyone’s up to.” With that she flounces out of the apartment, high heels clicking toward the elevator.
    I smile. “Elevator’s dead.”
    Even Bruce, ever the doormat, smiles as a faint “Shit!” resounds down the hall before the door to the stairwell slams shut.

Chapter Four
    People in New York City don’t have real phones. Bruce and Joy each have a cell, which they take with them when they leave, which leaves me with no phone. So I have to scrounge for a quarter because I didn’t think to call Clocker’s exceptionally irresponsible owner while there were two cell phones in the house. I take the dogs and the stairs to the street and find a pay phone and update Nat’s voice mail with Joy’s address.
    About an hour later, the buzzer rings. I lift the receiver and see her in the intercom camera. The black-and-white grainy image makes her look like some kind of hoodlum.
    “You’re Clocker’s human?” I ask.
    “Yeah, hi.” She puts her hands, prayer like, to her chin. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
    “It’s about time.”
    “Sorry.” She puts her face right up to the camera so she’s all lip ring and wide eyes. “You’re my hero?”
    “I’ll bring him down,” I say.
    “Wait! I really, really have to pee.” She does a little jig. “Can I come up?”
    “You expect me to let a perfect stranger in? This is New York!”
    “My dog’s great, isn’t he?” She eyeballs the camera again. “I named him Clocker because his tail wags in a perfect circle, did you notice? Isn’t he the best? They say pets take after their owners. What do you say? I look harmless, right? Come on, I’m dying down here.”
    I can appreciate the need for a decent placeto pee in Brooklyn. I’ve been there myself. “Just for a minute.” I buzz her in. Let’s hope she’s not a serial killer cleverly disguised as some blond-dreadlocked skater girl.
    I open the door and Clocker barges down the hall to greet her as she emerges from the stairs, not at all out of breath.
    “There’s my boy!” Nat drops to her knees and hugs him. He’s wagging his tail so hard he practically shimmies across the tile.
    “Where you been, Mister Bad?” Clocker hurtles himself gleefully onto his back and she scratches his belly. “You went to the park without me? Did you see all your buddies?”
    “And where were you?” I say, hands on my hips. I feel suddenly parental, which I don’t like, so I drop my hands.
    “Work.” She stands up. “Thanks for looking after him.”
    She’s taller than me, lankier too, with skinny hips and long tanned legs. Her dreads poke out from under a blue bandana. She’s got an eyebrow ring too, I can see now, and a tattoo of what looks like a bike chain and a series of gears climbing up her arm. Shemight be my age, maybe a little older. She’d fit right in as a Woofer. Her hands are just as dirty, and she’s as tanned and as freaky looking as any of them.
    “Grease.” She holds her hands up. “Bicycles. Clocker comes to work with me. He usually stays put, but every once in a while he takes off to the park without me. It’s okay, though.” She hugs him again. “You always find your way back to me,