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‘Adventures of Bill and Othello — chapter two,‘ by Julie Tran.
The first name on the list was one Miss Roberta Muffinella.
“What’s that? A disease?” asked Othello roughly with a shudder, like he himself had had the disease.
“No, a client. Says here she’s at 57th and Seventh.” Bill squinted at the list. He couldn’t read very well. Othello had passed it on to him because he couldn’t read at all. “Top floor, it says.”
“Top floor? Like, an apartment?”
“Says here we’ll know when we sees it.”
“Well, that some stupid-ass instruction. And one long-ass hike.”
Bill snorted. “Didn’t you run here all the way from Brooklyn when you left home?”
“Yeah, once. I hope Carl pays us well for all this damn walking, you know.”
Othello launched into a soliloquy for the rest of the way, pausing only when they cross the streets beside several dozen human ankles. Around 57th and Columbus, a young German couple found them immensely interesting and chased them for half a block in an abrupt burst of flash photography.
“Nein, Danke! Nein Danke goddamnit!” shouted Bill furiously. Taken aback, the young Germans laid off them. Bill was quite blind by this point and couldn’t quite see their expressions, but he graciously allowed the assumption that they had been politely remorseful.
“Great job, Bill!” said Othello crossly. “Now they probably all think all Americans are rude!”
“Well, they should,” Bill said in a matter-of-fact kind of tone as they continued walking. “Our grandparents kicked their asses in both the World Wars. If I were them I would think we’re rude all the time.”
Othello gave him a side look. “Your grandparents didn’t fight in the Wars.”
“It’s an expression, Othello. It’s not like your grandparents fought either.”
Othello made a noise that was halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “No, but I bet they’re much closer to it than yours. My great-great-great granddad was at the Capaccio Airfield during the Italian campaign. Mother told me back at the breeder’s.”
“The breeder’s?”
But at the moment they crossed the street, and the conversation died there.
They reached 57th and Seventh eventually. Carl was right. They did know it when they saw it.
For the dwellings of Miss Roberta Muffinella was a magnificent glass tower with giant metal block letters running down one side, screaming “Luxury Condominium” to whoever cared enough to rest their eyes upon them. Bill and Othello did, and they did it with a distinct awestruck manner.
“I wish I was better dressed,” Othello mumbled as they trotted in the posh lobby. He glanced at Bill and sniffed imperiously, “I wish you were better dressed.”
Bill was tempted to both out the bare nakedness of them both, but he wasn’t keen on exploration the vastness of Othello’s stream of lecture. So he kept his mouth shut, all the way across the shiny lobby until they stood waiting in front of an equally shiny elevator scissor gate, whence they were joined by a cloud of perfume in red heels and a golden Yorkshire terrier.
Immediate, Bill’s eyes started to water.
“Good grief!” he exclaimed, backing away from the terrier and her toxic-scented owner, bumping right into Othello. “Lord have mercy!”
The Yorkshire’s little ears perked up. Abruptly she turned to face him, her huge, beetle-black eyes sparkling with vicious contempt and maddening superiority.
“A religious acolyte!” she spat out these three words so venomously, one might have taken them synonymous with “a massive dunghill.” “You’re not here to preach, are you?”
“Preach?” said Othello with evident confusion. “Preach what?”
“Catholicism! Puritanism! Methodism! Evil, foul religious busybodies disrupting our daily lives with their nonsense, exorcising people left and right, trying to bring us back to the Dark Ages! Well, I’m telling you right now, you’re not welcomed —”
“Quiet now, Christina Hitchens!” a voice snapped from within the cloud of perfume, and Christina Hitchens the Yorkshire terrier immediate shut up and whirled away from Bill, as if she had never said a thing.
“Intense lady, isn’t she?” said Othello. Bill could not help but notice an underlying note of awe in the remark. But try as he might, he could not understand what was there to be awed at, especially when the elevator came and the Christina Hitchens’s human owner refused to let penetrate her fragrant exterior their gasping request that she, please, please, pressed the button so they could get to the top floor. This resulted in them having to take the stairs the rest of the way up.
“You know, I’m starting to see why Carl had trouble finding employees,” Othello panted, eight floors later, as they both lay bellies flat on the landing of the top floor. The staircase door was close. Orchestra music hummed shrilly from the other side.
“Ditto,” Bill replied feebly, pushing himself up to knock on the cat-flap-sized square on the door.
Within seconds, it slid open. Two black eyes on a hairy black face stared out at them.
“What?” It was a male voice.
“We — um — we work for Carl at the dog bar?”
The eyes lifted. “Oh! Hold on!” There was a clacking noise, and the big door swung in.
The dog that greeted them was a big, black poodle — the same breed that Carl’s fiancée, Biscuit, was, but much larger. But perhaps the grandeur of its size was simply an illusion created by the white cones that wrapped her neck.
“We’re looking for Miss Roberta Muffinella,” said Othello in the most business-like tone he could summon. “Does she live here?”
Even from behind the cone the black poodle’s glare was withering.
“Do I look like a ‘she’ to you, you simpleton?”
The honest answer was ‘yes’: not only was Miss Roberta’s hair was shiny, curly, and trimmed into four columns of triple poofs down his/her long, skinny legs; she/he was wearing what appeared to be a matching set of baby-pink athleisure. But Billy has spent enough time at the dog bar to learn that it was bad for business to tell a customer the opposite of what they wanted to hear.
“No, no, sir,” he said quickly, slapping on a smile. “You’re Miss Roberta —?”
“Yes, yes,” said Miss Roberta Muffinella impertinently. “But you can, and should, call me Steve.”
Othello made a chuckling noise in his throat that he quickly passed off as a cough. “Hiya, Steve,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Othello. This is my associate, William Shakespeare.”
Steve hesitated before shaking Othello’s hand. His black eyes were squinting at Bill.
“William Shakespeare, you say?” said Steve loftily. “I’ve heard of him before. I didn’t know he was a — I’m sorry, what breed are you, exactly?”
Bill opened his mouth to answer, but Othello cut in, “Steve, man, like we said, we worked for Carl at the dog bar on 71st. He was worried when you didn’t show up, man.”
Steve snorted, gesturing with one poofy leg at his white cone.
“Well, as you can see, I’m in no condition to go out.”
Steve led them down the entrance hall to the actual door of the condo.
“What happened?” asked Bill.
“Fell down the stage at my last dog show.”
“You’re a show dog?” asked Bill again, rather rudely. He didn’t think much of show dogs — they were almost as grooming-obsessive as cats, and he didn’t like cats. Steve noticed.
“Don’t take that tone with me, young hybrid man.” He shook his tail in Bill’s face. “This purebred perfection you’re seeing’s gotten me no less than five national championships and gotten Adam no less than sixty thousand dollars!”
“Adam?”
“My owner. A real annoying guy, if you want to get into it, but he’s actually quite alright.” Steve climbed up a step ladder by the door and hit the door handle, then climbed down and led them into the swanky condo, where the shrilly music was even louder. “Don’t get me wrong, though, he was much more alright when I can still sneak out for a shot or two at Carl’s.”
“That’s what we want to talk to you about, actually,” shouted Othello over the orchestra tunes. “Carl’s opening a booze delivery service.”
“Delivery service, you say?”
“Delivery service. For pals like you, who can’t sneak out as frequently.”
“And I’m expected to pay for this service, I suppose?”
Bill shrugged. “If you don’t, you’re just worsening inflation, Steve. It’d be easy! Just grab something around here! That nice pin thing, for example.”
“That’s Adam’s gold tie pin,” said Steve drily. Bill gave him a meaningful look.
“Well, you did say he was annoying.”
“How annoying, exactly?” Othello chimed in. “Did he force you to do all these shows?”
“Walk in eights?” said Bill.
“Play the violin?” said Othello.
“Not eat the treat?”
“Alright!” said Steve loudly. “Jesus Lord, you’re damn right you work for Carl. You’re cheeky bastards just like he is!” Steve huffed. “How come you’re working for him, anyway? Aren’t your owners worried? Or is Carl your owner now?”
“Owner!” exclaimed Othello with swelling indignation. “My good fellow, we are free canines without owners! We ran away from your measly humans and got jobs like real, decent members of society!”
“So you joined the proletariat, good for you,” said Steve dismissively. “Listen, pals, I’m real interested in this booze delivery thing, alright? My doctor told Adam that this cone isn’t coming off in two months, and I can’t risk going outside and get my neck snapped right before the regionals.” He trotted them back to the door. “So be here around this time on Friday with a bottle of bourbon, alright, and I know I can count on you.”
“Man, you sure love your dog shows,” Bill mumbles as Steve called them an elevator.
For the smallest fraction of a second, Steve’s face moved strangely, like he had a tiny spasm.
“There’s a reason the proletariat envies the bourgeoise, William Shakespeare,” he said solemnly. “Life is pretty good in the spotlight.”
Bill and Othello exited the building in a celebratory mood. They had just nailed their first client.
“We should go to the park,” Othello suggested.
“To find clients?” Bill asked. Othello shook his head.
“No, I’m kind of hungry. There’s a hot dog stand at the park I want to rob. You in?”
Bill hesitated.
“Yeah, sure.”
