“He told you about awful things in prison?”
“Not in so many words. But something’s eating inside him, and that was never true before.”
Something eating inside someone? Oh, no. What could be worse? How I wished I hadn’t heard that! And . . . and maybe I hadn’t. I leaned in that direction, leaned as hard as I could.
“What did he say exactly?” Bernie said.
Mr. Parsons shook his head. “Not much exactly,” said Mr. Parsons. “Certainly not in front of Edna.”
“Was this the same time when he asked for the money?”
“In the form of a loan,” Mr. Parsons said.
“To go to school, as I remember.”
“Forestry management. Edna found the program and recommended it. More wishful thinking on our part.”
“So what was the money for?” Bernie said.
Mr. Parsons shrugged. “We sent him care packages—as many as they allowed. But after eight or nine years, our visits . . . tailed off. Edna’s a trooper. It was hard. I’m talking about the maximum-security building, always with Billy behind glass. And then when the girlfriend came along, he preferred to schedule his visiting times with her. At least we thought so at the time. But maybe it was a rationalization. One of my biggest weaknesses, Bernie. I envy your strong-mindedness, can’t tell you how much. Blinds you, in this case to Billy’s anger.”
“Billy’s angry at you?”
Mr. Parsons nodded, dabbing at his eyes. That spread the snot smear around a little more. Bernie fished under the seat, came up with a paper napkin, not too dirty, and cleaned up Mr. Parsons’s face. Mr. Parsons didn’t seem to notice. “Angry because we stopped visiting. We still called on the phone every Sunday. His anger caught me by surprise. And Edna . . . well, poor Edna. I just had no idea the visits meant so much to Billy. He was always monosyllabic, often cut them off early. But there I go again—rationalizing.”
“So Billy revealed this anger for the first time when he came to discuss the loan?”
Mr. Parsons stayed silent for what seemed like a long time. I don’t mind sitting in an unmoving car if we’re at Donut Heaven, say. But we were not. Right around then I noticed what you might call a tiny flaw in the rear seat upholstery.
“I don’t like where you’re leading me,” Mr. Parsons said at last.
“Where’s that?” Bernie said.
“To a place where decisions get made on account of guilt.”
“What decisions are we talking about?”
“Edna’s and mine,” said Mr. Parsons. He wrung his hands. That always bothers me, hands being a bit like tiny people, and you never like to see people in distress. “To fund Billy’s business venture.”
“What kind of business venture?”
“A start-up,” said Mr. Parsons. “Now just give me a moment and I’ll get this right.”
His lips moved, but no sound came out. Hey! My lips were moving, too! When it comes to leather upholstery there’s a kind that looks like leather but smells like plastic. That was what Mr. Parsons had in the backseat of his car. I prefer real leather, although I’m not fussy.
“The securities recovery sector,” Mr. Parsons said. “That was it. Billy needed capital to hire some staff.”
“I’m not familiar with the securities recovery sector,” Bernie said.
“Neither was I. Now I am. But don’t ask me to explain it.” He laughed, laughter that suddenly cut off. “Stiller’s Gym! That’s the name. It was on her jacket. Do you know Stiller’s Gym, Bernie?”
“I know where it is,” Bernie said. “Whose jacket are we talking about?”
“Oh,” said Mr. Parsons. “The girlfriend. Didn’t I mention her? She’s very pretty.”
“What’s her name?”
“Dee. She came by yesterday, wearing the jacket. The satin kind. I noticed the name on the back.” He leaned forward. “So shall we get started? That is, if you’re still willing.”
“Was Billy with her yesterday?”
“He was at a staff meeting with the twins.”
“The twins?”
“He hired twin brothers. Billy says they finish each other’s sentences! And Dee was only dropping off some papers.”
“What kind of papers?”
Mr. Parsons started patting his pockets again. “Thought I had them right here. Whole point of the exercise.”
Bernie’s voice, gentle already, got more so. “What kind of papers?”
“Mortgage papers. A very smart kind of mortgage Billy found for us. It pays you instead of you paying it!”
“A reverse mortgage?”
“Something like that,” Mr. Parsons said. “Dee was going to come around for the papers in a day or two, but my thinking is let’s move things along, start those checks flowing!” Then came more pocket patting. “Where in hell—?”
Bernie switched off the engine. “Let’s go in the house and look for them.” He opened the door. Yip yip yip: Iggy had it dialed up to the max. “Chet? How about you wait here?”
Wait here? What sense did that make? I got to my feet, made my reaction clear.
“Chet? Need you to step up now, big guy.”
Barking can sometimes change to yawning in a flash, just one of life’s little surprises. Bernie led Mr. Parsons into the house. Not long after, he came out alone, reading some papers. He let me out of Mr. Parsons’s car, his eyes still on the papers, and we crossed over onto our property. Bernie stuck the papers in the glove box of the Porsche.
“Securities recovery,” he said, slamming the glove box closed so hard the whole car shook.
We hit the road.
TWENTY-THREE
* * *
Tell you one thing right now,” Bernie said. “I don’t want to get like that. But here’s the catch—do you even realize you’re like that when you’re like that? See how life twists against you? It’s not just a long road. It’s a long road that yees and yaws and bends you like in a funhouse mirror.”
Of this I understood zip, except it was something about mirrors. Every once in a while I catch sight of a very tough-looking customer in a mirror and give him what for in no uncertain terms. Then those terms get less certain and soon after that a message comes through: it’s me, Chet the Jet! Do I always tell myself this will never happen again? You bet! So no harm, no foul!
Bernie was quiet for a while. When he spoke, it was in a real quiet voice. “London. What could be so bad? We’d find something, right? You and me.”
Was this about finding things? At the Little Detective Agency we always found whatever was out there to be found. Don’t forget we had my nose going for us.
After that, Bernie gave his head a quick shake, reminding me of me. “Here’s where we are, big guy,” he said. Hmm. I could see perfectly well where we were: stuck in traffic at one of the ramps under or over Spaghetti Junction, primo territory for getting stuck in traffic. I waited for Bernie to say something about Spaghetti Junction, but instead he said, “Summer Ronich—did we like her? Not me, big guy—ostensible kidnap victim, is alive and well, all seemingly way behind her. Of the two kidnappers, one, Travis Baca, dies in a freak accident on his last day at Northern State. The other, Billy Parsons, in on the loose, with twenty grand of his parents’ money and schemes for some business venture. Billy’s also involved in the theft of a saguaro from state land. Someone—Billy being suspect one—killed Ellie Newburg, Department of Agriculture agent working the saguaro case. The detective on the murder is Brick Mickles, who solved the kidnapping fifteen years ago.” Traffic started up. “What else?”
What else? Wasn’t that more than enough?
“The ransom,” he continued a little later, as we left the freeway for surface roads. “Half a mill, never recovered.” We parked in front of a gym—I could see shadowy weightlifters through the big window in front—and hopped out of the car.
“Stiller’s Gym,” Bernie said. “Has a muscle-head rep. That’s all I know.”
Maybe a bit too much knowledge, in f
act? Muscle heads sounded not too good, made me a little uneasy. Bernie opened the door and we went inside.
I’d been in gyms before, some fancy—Leda’s for example, always filled with fresh flowers—and some not. Stiller’s was of the not fancy variety—dinged-up wooden floor, barbells, dumbbells, stands, and racks, everything colorless and worn-looking. Were those two dudes at the bench press muscle heads? Couldn’t see it, myself. Muscle necks, yes, for sure—necks that would have amazed you, as thick as human thighs you sometimes see at all-you-can-eat buffets—but their heads seemed rather small.
“Seven, eight, one more, you pussy, one more,” screamed the muscle neck who was watching.
The muscle neck on the bench and doing the actual lifting made sounds, but nothing you could call human speech. The bar wobbled halfway up, and his face turned the color of a vegetable I have no time for whatsoever, namely beets. Bernie feels the same. We went past them, through an amazing air pocket practically boiling over with their smells, and headed for a boxing ring at the rear of the gym. There were no pussycats to be seen. I thought I came close to grasping what Bernie meant by muscle heads.
We’re big boxing fans, me and Bernie, have a fine collection of great fights, which we break out when Bernie’s in a certain kind of mood, like after we’ve had Charlie for a weekend and now he’s gone. The Thrilla in Manila! And what about No Mas, and Ward-Gatti 1? Don’t get me started!
We had no one like any of those guys in the ring at Stiller’s Gym. What we had were two skinny-legged dudes huffing and puffing and throwing haymakers that made swishing sounds in the air and landed no place.
“Elbows in,” called a lean little man who sat on a stool behind the ropes, a towel around his neck, a pencil behind his ear, a clipboard on his lap. “Stick and move, stick and move. Basic physics, for chrissake.”
One of the skinny-legged fighters glanced over and said, “Physics?” Or something like that—hard to tell with the big mouthpiece he had on. Pay attention, skinny-legged fighter: that was my thought as another haymaker slowly came his way and then BAM. Well, not BAM, but it did glance off the side of his padded head gear, just over the ear. He cried out and staggered into the ropes. The other skinny-legged guy danced around like he was champion of the world. Bernie’s face suddenly opened up in a great big smile.
“LeSean?” he said, approaching the little lean guy on the stool.
The little lean guy looked up. Then his face cracked open just like Bernie’s, smiling big. “Bernie?”
LeSean rose off the stool, or perhaps Bernie simply picked him right up. They hugged and slapped each other’s backs for quite some time before I’d had enough and squeezed my way in between.
“Who’s this good-looking dude?” LeSean said.
“Chet,” said Bernie.
“The jealous type, huh?”
“Doing his best to keep it under control.”
LeSean laughed, meaning Bernie had said something funny; about whom I had no idea. “Lookin’ not bad yourself, Bernie.”
“You, too.”
“No ill effects?”
“Nah.”
“Leg okay? Didn’t seem too good last time I saw you.”
“No complaints,” Bernie said. “How’re you doing?”
“Same—no complaints.” He reached out, touched Bernie’s arm very lightly. “Won’t never forget what you did that day.”
“Long time ago,” Bernie said, waving away whatever that was all about with his hand. “You own this place?”
“These days I’m tryin’ not to make mistakes like that,” LeSean said. “I manage an up-and-comin’ welterweight from over in Negrito, ref Golden Gloves, work with a few fighters around town.”
Bernie gestured over his shoulder to the two fighters in the ring, now listening in from the other side of the ropes.
“Nah,” said LeSean. “Corporate types. There’s a market, believe it or not, givin’ lessons to corporate types. Matter of fact, want to step in for a quick demo of what stick and move is all about?”
“With one of them?” Bernie said.
LeSean laughed. “Corporate types like to sue. I meant with me.”
“Not a chance,” Bernie said. Meaning Bernie didn’t want to box with LeSean? That made no sense. I’d seen what Bernie could do with his hands many times, often to much bigger dudes, which LeSean was not. “But maybe you can help me with something.”
“Take five,” LeSean said. The two fighters left the ring and headed for the watercooler, both on their cell phones before they arrived. “What’s up?”
Bernie handed LeSean our card.
“Cool flower,” LeSean said. “Makin’ any money?”
“Maybe this time,” said Bernie. “Know a woman named Dee Branch? She has some sort of relationship with this gym.”
“Rides a Harley?” said LeSean.
“Yeah.”
“Can’t say I know her,” LeSean said. “Seen her in here a few times.”
“Doing what?”
“Kickboxing class on Wednesday nights. Some talent in that class—one or two of the girls you’d actually have to watch out for.”
“Including Dee?”
“Yeah,” said LeSean. “But there’s other reasons to watch out for her.”
“Such as?”
“The company she keeps, namely these ’roided-out twins,” LeSean said. “Renzo and Albin Garza. Couldn’t call them gang members, although we get some of that, too. More like professional thugs for hire.”
“Where do I find them?” Bernie said.
LeSean gave Bernie a look. “Thing is, with guys like that, don’t let ’em get their mitts on you.”
“Stick and move,” Bernie said with a smile.
LeSean didn’t smile back. “Don’t forget.” He led us over to a desk, checked a screen, wrote something on a scrap of paper, and handed it to Bernie. “You’re not the only one askin’,” he said.
“No?”
“Had a detective from Valley PD in here day before yesterday. Big fair-haired guy, extra-pally with black folks, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” Bernie said.
“Like he’d been raised on the north side with me and mine,” LeSean said. “I prefer white folks who act white—like you, Bernie—which is how come he got nothin’ outta me.”
• • •
“I act white?” said Bernie when we were back in the car.
What was this? Bernie white, in some way or other? Couldn’t have been his skin, which was always nice and tan, in that reddish Bernie way. The truth is there’s not much color variety when it comes to humans, not compared to how we roll in the nation within. Take me, for example: mostly black but with one white ear, which I know on account of how many people mention it in my presence. Ever seen a human colored like me? The point is humans go on and on about skin colors when it isn’t even one of their strengths. And they have so many strengths: cars, tennis balls, bacon, and that’s just without even thinking, which is how my mind works best.
Not far past the airport is El Monte, a part of town Bernie calls Subprimoville, for reasons of his own. Subprimoville is just about the biggest development in the whole Valley, detached and semi-detached and not detached at all houses built in what Bernie calls faux adobe style—or sometimes faux-a-dough, when it’s only him and me in the conversation—going on and on to the edge of the desert. The catch is that lots of the houses are empty. I’ve heard Bernie explain what went down many times. It starts simple and gets gnarly. Let’s leave it at that.
We stopped in front of a house at the end of a cul de sac, most of the streets in Subprimoville being cul de sacs. Two cars were parked in the driveway. Bernie checked the scrap of paper LeSean had given him, and we started across the dried-out lawn. Part way there, Bernie turned around, walked back to the car—me right beside him, of course—and took the .45 from the glove box.
“A touch slow, big guy,” he said. “No denying it.” He tucked the stopper in his pocket and
we went up to the door. The house was quiet. Bernie slow? No way I was falling for that.
For no special reason, I was hoping that Bernie would shoot out the lock. He knocked instead. I smelled a smell a lot like the stain remover Bernie sprays on his clothes when there’s a red wine spill, and mostly hidden way down deep a hint of something else. I wasn’t sure about that something else, although the fur on the back of my neck started to rise, like . . . like my fur knew for sure and I didn’t? Bernie raised his hand to knock again, but before he could, the door opened.
A smiling man looked out. He wore an apron over his clothes and had a mop in his hand. And . . . hey! I knew this man! Well, not exactly knew him, but hadn’t I seen that big head before, a real big shaved head, the face broad but the features small, excepting the ears, ears with gold hoops in each lobe? So now it was just a question of where I knew him from. I got right to work on that. The problem is sights aren’t as easy to remember in the nation within as smells. Had I caught just one previous paltry whiff of this man, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
“Hello?” he said.
Bernie nodded. I noticed that the bigheaded man was almost as tall as Bernie, and actually broader. “We’re looking for Renzo and Albin Garza.”
The bigheaded man shook his head. “Must have the wrong address.”
Bernie took out the scrap of paper. “Three seventy-one Paradise Circle?”
“That’s right. But there’s no one here by—what were those names?”
“Renzo and Albin Garza. They’re twins, weightlifting types, hard to miss.”
“Nope,” said the bigheaded guy. “Might have been tenants. Place has been empty for months. There’s a showing next week so I’m getting things shipshape.”
“You work for a real estate agency?”
“A few of them. I’m in the cleaning business.”
“Yeah?” said Bernie. “Have you got a card? I’ve been looking for something in that line.”
“Wish I could accommodate you,” said the bigheaded man, reaching under his apron. “But I’m completely—”
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