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Hoke’s crotch, and began to dry-hump Hoke’s leg in a practiced, determined rhythm. Mr. Ferguson, a red-faced, red-haired man in his early forties, wearing a gray, heavy cardigan sweater despite the eighty-five-degree temperature, lit his pipe with a kitchen match.
    Hoke tried to shake the dog loose. “Ms. Westphal sent me out about the house-sitting job.”
    “I know,” Mr. Ferguson said after he got his pipe going, “she called me. Come on inside.” Mr. Ferguson started toward the door, and Hoke managed to kick the amorous Airedale viciously enough to dislodge him when Mr. Ferguson turned his back. But the dog darted ahead through the door before Hoke could close it. The moment Hoke closed the door, the dog was on him again, his forelegs clamped like a vise around Hoke’s right thigh. Hoke took out his pistol.
    “If you don’t get this animal off me, I’m going to kill him.”
    “No need to do that,” Mr. Ferguson said. “Rex! On the table, boy!”
    The dog released Hoke’s leg at once and jumped to a chair, then onto the kitchen table, which still held the dirty dishes from Mr. Ferguson’s lunch. Mr. Ferguson reached between the dog’s legs, above the red, pencil-sized penis. “Old Rex gets horny living here without a mate, but if you jack him off once or twice a day, he stays mighty quiet.” The dog climaxed, and Ferguson wiped the table with apaper napkin. Rex jumped to the chair, then to the floor, and crossed to a corduroy cushion under the stove.
    “What I want to do,” Mr. Ferguson said, “is go up to stay with my mama in Fitzgerald, Georgia. She’s dyin’ of cancer, you see, and the doctors only give her six or seven months to live. I don’t think it’ll be that long, but however long it takes, I’m gonna stay with her. She’s all alone up there, with no friends, so I have to go up whether I want to or not. A man only has one mama, you know.”
    “Why not bring her down here? Wouldn’t that be better than leaving your job and your house?” Hoke shivered. The air conditioning was set for sixty or lower; no wonder Mr. Ferguson was wearing a sweater.
    “No, I can’t do that. She’s too old, and she don’t want to leave her friends up there.”
    “You just told me she didn’t have any friends.”
    “She has friends, all right, but they’re all dead and in the cemetery. Mama’s eighty-six years old. But she’s got her own little house, and sick as she is, she wouldn’t want to come down here to Miami. And I can’t take Rex up there with me. Mama don’t like dogs, and she never did. And I know she wouldn’t ’low Rex in the house. I hate to leave Rex down here, but I don’t see no other way out of the situation. Do you?”
    “You could hire somebody to stay with her.”
    “No, I couldn’t do that. Jesus Christ Himself couldn’t get along with that old woman. Nobody’d stay with her for more’n a day or two. No, I have to go. A man’s only got one mama. Want to see the rest of the house? I got a pool out back. Rex likes to dive for rocks. You can throw a rock in the deepest part, and he’ll dive right in and bring it to you. Labrador retrievers do that, but not many Airedales.”
    “I’ve got another appointment, Mr. Ferguson. Ms. Westphal will call you later.”
    “You gonna sit my house for me?”
    “I don’t think so. I’ve still got a couple of other options.”
    “That’s too bad. Rex liked you a lot. I could tell.”Hoke drove back into the Grove, parked behind the Hammock Bar, and drank two draft beers before returning to the Safe ‘n’ Sure office. After his experience with the frigging dog, Hoke felt entitled to the drinks. Except for Rex, the house would have been ideal.
    Ms. Westphal unlocked the front door, and they went into the office together. “Sorry you had to wait,” she said. “What I need is a secretary. I was going to buy an answering machine, but most people won’t talk to them anyway.”
    “I don’t want to sit Mr. Ferguson’s