For the next few hours Dempsey slept in the quilt, which Todd had put on his big bed. Todd stayed beside him, though the need for sleep caught up with him several times, and he'd slide away into a few minutes of dreamland: fragments of things he'd seen from his bench in the waiting room, mostly. The box containing the dead guinea pig, that absurd poo­dle, nipping its own backside bloody; all just pieces of the day, coming and going. Then he'd wake and stroke Dempsey for a little while, talk to him, tell him everything was going to be okay.

There was a sudden rally in Dempsey's energies about four o'clock, which was when he was usually fed, so Todd had Marco prepare a sick-bed version of his usual meal, with chicken instead of the chopped horse-flesh or whatever the hell it was in the cans, and some good gravy. Dempsey ate it all, though he had to be held up to do so, since his legs were unreliable. He then drank a full bowl of water.

"Good, good," Todd said.

Dempsey attempted to wag his tail, but it had no more power in it than his legs had.

Todd carried him outside so he could shit and piss. A slight drizzle was coming down; not cool, but refreshing. He held onto the dog, waiting for the urge to take Dempsey, and he turned his face up to the rain, offering a quiet little prayer.

"Please don't take him from me. He's just a smelly old dog. You don't need him and I do. Do you hear me? Please ... hear me. Don't take him."

He looked back at Dempsey to find that the dog was looking back at him, apparently paying attention to every word. His ears were half-pricked, his eyes half-open.

"Do you think anyone's listening?" Todd said.

By way of reply, Dempsey looked away from him, his head bobbing uneasily on his neck. Then he made a nasty sound deep in his belly and his whole body convulsed. Todd had never seen the term projectile vomit displayed with such force. A stream of chewed chicken, dog mix and water squirted out. As soon as it stopped, the dog began to make little whining sounds. Then ten seconds later, Dempsey repeated the whole spectacle, until every piece of nourishment and every drop of water he'd been given had been comprehensively ejected.

After the second burst of vomiting he didn't even have the strength to whine. Todd wrapped the quilt around him and carried him back into the house. He had Marco bring some towels and dried him off where the rain had caught him.

"I don't suppose you care what's been going on all day, do you?" Marco said.

"Anything important?"

"Great foreign numbers on Gallows, particularly in France. Huge hit in France, apparently. Maxine wants to know if you'd like to do a piece about Dempsey's health crisis for one of the woman's magazines."

"No."

"That's what I told her. She said they'd eat it up, but I said -- "

"No! Fuck. Will these people never stop? No!"

"You got a call from Walter at Dreamworks about some charity thing he's arranging, I told him you'd be back in circulation tomorrow."

"That's the phone."

"Yeah. It is."

Marco went to the nearest phone, which was in the master bathroom, while Todd went back to finish drying the dog.

"It's Andrea Otis. From the hospital. I think it's the nervous young woman you saw this morning."

"Stay with him," Todd said to Marco.

He went into the bathroom, which was cold. Picked up the phone.

"Mr. Pickett?"

"Yes."

"First, I want to say I owe you an apology for this morning -- "

"No that's fine."

"I knew who you were and that threw me off -- "

"Dempsey."

" -- a little. I'm sorry."

"Dempsey."

"Yes. Well, we've got the X-ray results back and ... I'm afraid the news isn't very good."

"Why not? What's wrong with him?"

"He is riddled with cancer."

Todd took a long moment to digest this unwelcome news. Then he said: "That's impossible."

"It's in his spine. It's in his colon -- "

"But that can't be."

"And it's now spreading to his brain, which is why we've only just discovered it. These motor and perception problems he's having are all part of the same thing. The tumor's spreading into his skull, and pushing on his brain."

"Oh God."

"So ... I don't know what you want to do."

"I want this not to be happening."

"Well yes. But I'm afraid it is."

"How long has he got?"

"His present condition is really as good as things are going to get for him." She spoke as though she was reading the words from an idiot-board, careful to leave exactly the same amount of space between each one. "All that is really at issue is how quickly Dempsey becomes incapacitated."

Todd looked through the open door at the pitiful shape shuddering beneath the quilt. It was obvious that Dempsey had already reached that point. Todd could be absurdly optimistic at times, but this wasn't one of them.

"Is he in pain?" he asked the doctor.

"Well, I'd say it's not so much pain we're dealing with as anxiety. He doesn't know what's happening to him. And he doesn't know why it's happening. He's just suffering, Mr. Pickett. And it's just going to get worse."

"So you're saying I should have him put down?"

"It's not my place to tell you what to do with your dog, Mr. Pickett."

"But if he was your dog."

"If he was my dog, and I loved him as you obviously love Dempsey, I wouldn't want him suffering ... Mr. Pickett, are you there?"

"Here," Todd said, trying to keep the sound of tears out of his voice.

"So really it's up to you."

Todd looked at Dempsey again, who was making a mournful sound in his sleep.

"If I bring him back over to the hospital?"

"Yes?"

"Would there be somebody there to put him to sleep?"

"Yes, of course. I'll be here."

"Then that's what I want to do."

"I'm so very sorry, Mr. Pickett."

"It's not your fault."

Dempsey roused himself a little when Todd went back to bed, but it was barely more than a sniff and a half-hearted wag.

"Come on, you," he said, wrapping Dempsey tightly in the quilt, and lifting him up, "the sooner this is done the sooner you're not an unhappy hound. Will you drive, Marco?"

It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and though the drizzle had ceased, die traffic was still horrendous. It took them fifty-five minutes to get down to the hospital, but this time -- perhaps to make up for her unavailability the last time he'd been there -- Doctor Otis was at the counter waiting for him. She opened the side door, to let him into die non-public area.

"You want me to come in, boss?" Marco asked.

"Nah, it's okay. We'll be fine."

"He looks really out of it," the doctor remarked.

Dempsey had barely opened his eyes at the sound of Todd's voice. "You know, I realize this may seem like a strange thing to say, but in a way we're lucky that this caught him so fast. With some dogs it takes weeks and months ... "

"In here?" Todd said.

"Yes."

The doctor had opened a door into a room not more than eight by eight, painted in what was intended to be a soothing green. On one wall was a Monet reproduction and on another a piece of poetry that Todd couldn't read through his assembling tears.

"I'll just give you two some time," Doctor Otis said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Todd sat down with Dempsey in his arms. "Damn," he said softly. "This isn't fair."

Dempsey had opened his eyes fully for the first time in several hours, probably because he'd heard the sound of Todd crying, which had always made him very attentive, even if the crying was fake. Todd could be rehearsing a sad scene from a picture, memorizing lines, and as soon as the first note of sadness crept into his voice Dempsey would be there, his paws on Todd's knees, ready to give comfort. But this time the animal didn't have the strength to help make the boss feel better. All he could do was stare up at Todd with a slight look of puzzlement on his face.