Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,117

attractive by Hollywood standards, jabs a hole in your chest when you imagine how she might look stepping out of the shower or signaling to you from beneath the sheets. If that’s your problem, remember what the Brazilian said about relationships: Impossible!

I was driving myself crazy.

“Crazier,” Tomlinson informed me Friday morning when I sought out his wise counsel as a Zen Buddhist master. Which sent me back to the lab, thinking:

Make a list, Ford, it’s what you always do. Pros on one side, cons on the other. Then measure the list with a micrometer. Note the weight of every loaded word on the con side, compare those weights with loftier words in the pro column. Finally, subtract smallest number from largest number and then . . . and then divide the goddamn results by your total IQ of late, which shouldn’t reduce the sum by one goddamn digit!

My cell phone chirped before I began this idiocy with a pen and legal pad. Hannah texting, See you at 8?

It was 6:30, almost dark outside. Thank god, she didn’t add one of those idiotic smiley faces or I would have hurled the phone across the room, then booked the next flight for Cartagena.

Looking forward to it! I replied, then sat at the computer because I had thirty-five long minutes to kill before showering for our date. Fortunately, and surprisingly, there was an interesting e-mail awaiting to blot up the time. Dr. Arlis Milton of Atlanta writing with answers, as promised, but also to say things weren’t going well with the retriever’s reintroduction to civilization, although the man did his best to hide the truth among seven careful paragraphs.

The most interesting graph revealed much about the dog—Sam was the unfortunate name—and his late owner, Bill, no last name offered:

By now you’ve probably done your homework and discovered my wife’s maiden name so know that my father-in-law was among the most respected field trial breeder/hobbyists in the country. Are you the biologist Marion Ford who has published in various Florida journals? If so, you may appreciate that Bill was also a noted geneticist and wealthy enough to fund his own research as well as his hobby. Bill had great hopes for Sam, and his sire who was a Grand National champion . . .

Geneticist? That was intriguing. So the owner had been William-something, Ph.D. who, the letter informed me, had died in an Alligator Alley car crash on his way to a field trial near Miami. Three paragraphs later, Dr. Milton got to his real reason for e-mailing:

Naturally, we assumed both dogs also died because of the fire. It is for this reason that our attorneys wrongly settled Bill’s estate without addressing a codicil that required my wife to provide for his animals. This was more than a year ago . . .

One year? The physician was telling me that, legally, he and his wife had been spending money that shouldn’t have been disbursed, but all I could think was, Twelve months alone in the Everglades, but that damn dog survived!

Sam had issues, though, the letter continued. He wasn’t “show-worthy” (saleable, I translated) because of physical injuries. But was still “very trainable” (out of control, was the inference) despite the “expected behavioral changes” required of a dog to survive in the wild—even one with “national champion bloodlines.”

In short, by taking possession of the dog, Dr. Milton and his wife had touched a legal base, as required by their inheritance, and now the dog was for sale. I had done a good deed, so was being offered the right of first refusal, but the price—$1,500—was probably firm. If interested, call ASAP.

There was also a P.S. so saccharine sweet it made me wince: Bill loved the movie Old Yeller and the sequel about Old Yeller’s son. Savage Sam. Silly movie but thought his new owner might like to know!

Funny. I was laughing as I skimmed through the letter again, picturing Dr. Milton’s elegant Georgia home and the dog’s swath of destruction that had surely motivated the letter. No time to reply, though, let alone call, because it was almost seven. Time to shower up, shave close, and get ready for my long anticipated date.

That’s when I heard it. A strange Hoo . . . Hoo . . . Hoo . . . sound coming from outside. Reminded me of the hoot-owl call boys sometimes make by blowing through their hands. Whatever the source, it didn’t belong on the walkway or in the mangroves where it was