Of Mutts and Men

by Spencer Quinn

  “I’m happy for you,” he said. “You deserve the very best.”

  And now Suzie did put her arms around him and gave him a hug. He hugged her back, but a brief kind of hug. Then he stepped away.

  “How long are you in town?” Bernie said.

  “Well, I have news on that front,” said Suzie. “I’d love to tell you all about it. We’ll have to meet for—”

  At that moment, a long black car drove up. A uniformed driver got out and opened the door for a salt-and-pepper-haired man in a dark suit. He had a squarish face with strong features, not at all the face of someone who gets bossed around, more like the opposite. He saw Suzie and waved. She waved back.

  “That’s him?” said Bernie in a low voice.

  “Good grief,” Suzie whispered. “Don’t be a dope.”

  The man came up, shook hands with Suzie.

  “Sorry to keep you,” he said. “Damn traffic.”

  “No problem,” said Suzie.

  The man glanced at Bernie. Maybe he was the type of human—and there were some—who didn’t seem to even be aware of the nation within. Here’s a strange thing: I’m extra aware of those very types! What’s that all about?

  “Loudon,” Suzie said, “I’d like you to meet my … old friend, Bernie Little. Bernie, this is Loudon DeBrusk.”

  Loudon DeBrusk’s eyes—the very light blue kind that remind me of the sky when night is barely gone—seemed to shift for the briefest instant. He and Bernie shook hands.

  “Nice meeting you,” DeBrusk said.

  Bernie nodded. He has many nods. This one meant nice meeting you, too. Plus a little something else I couldn’t quite grasp.

  DeBrusk turned to Suzie and gestured toward the big and heavy wooden door of the Veritan Club, a door with metal studs, like doors you see on some old ranch houses in these parts, except fancier.

  “Shall we?” he said.

  “I’ll be in touch, Bernie,” Suzie said, and then she and DeBrusk walked up the stairs and entered the Veritan Club. We stood on the street, Bernie gazing at the closed door, me gazing at Bernie. After what seemed like a bit too much of that, I moved closer and gave him what you might call a little push.

  * * *

  Bernie was very quiet. We left the Old Town part of Pottsdale, left Pottsdale totally, got into a traffic jam at Spaghetti Junction where all the freeways come together, and ended up in South Pedroia, Bernie not saying a word the whole time. It was almost like he was somewhere else. This was a bit disturbing. When you’re here you’re here! I sat up very straight, on high alert even though there was nothing to be alert about. It was just to remind Bernie we were here and nowhere else. Anytime now he’d be giving my head a quick scratch and I’d know he got the message. Except he did not.

  We came to the street with all the self-storage places, one big garage-like building after another, all of them with many doors. Bernie parked in front of our door, pressed a button on his phone. The door slid up. Humans have lots of tricks like that. Does it make things more fun for them? I took a glance at him. He didn’t seem to be having fun. We went inside and did something we hadn’t done in a long time, namely check out our Hawaiian pants.

  Racks of hanging Hawaiian pants. Shelves of folded Hawaiian pants. Boxes of boxed-up Hawaiian pants, stacked floor to ceiling. A beam of light came through a small high-up side window, a light beam full of swirling dust. We walked to the back where a stool stood against the wall, a single pair of Hawaiian pants draped on top, the legs slumping down to the floor. Bernie picked them up and held them against his body, like he was thinking of trying them on. Try them on, Bernie, try them on! They’ll look great!

  But he did not. Instead he folded them very carefully and was about to put them back when he noticed an open pack of cigarettes lying on the stool.

  “Hey,” he said, the first word he’d spoken in some time. Moments later, he was sitting on the stool, lighting up, taking that first drag, letting it out with a long, slow breath. “Pot of gold,” he said. Someone else had said that very thing and not long ago. I came very close to remembering who. Chet the Jet, on fire! Or at least heating up. Smoke rose into the light beam and mixed with the dust motes up in the golden air. There’s all kinds of beauty in life.

  Bernie took another drag. “There’s what you can control and what you can’t,” he said. “Which everybody knows. There’s also what you think you can control but can’t, which some people know. But what about the things you think you can’t control but actually can? See where I’m heading with this?”

  At first I did not but then from out of nowhere it came to me. We were going to burn our self-storage to the ground, let all the Hawaiian pants go up in smoke! Wow! What a brilliant idea! I did a fast trot to the door and back, just letting Bernie know I was totally on board.

  “Getting antsy, big guy?”

  Ants? Something about ants? There were certainly ants down under the floor, ant smell one of the most common smells around, but no ants were actually on me. In fact, that had never happened. Ants and fleas are very different, but there was no reason Bernie would know that. I cut him some slack. I’d cut all the slack in the world for Bernie.

  He took one more drag, ground what was left of the cigarette under his heel, and rose. “A theory of the case, yes, we always need that,” he said. “But bending facts to fit the theory?” He shook his head. “Not so fast, right, Chet?”

  Not so fast? I didn’t like the sound of that, not one little bit. We walked outside, closed the door, and drove away, burning absolutely nothing to the ground. My head felt somewhat tired inside. I curled up on the shotgun seat. Bernie made a phone call. I heard some back and forth between him and Captain Stine. Whatever this was, it made no sense at all. I didn’t even try. The sound was enough, more than enough. Bernie and Stine put me to sleep.

  * * *

  “Ride Your Butt Off,” Bernie said.

  I opened my eyes.

  “Spin Classes, Road Racing, Mountain Biking,” he went on.

  I sat up, saw the Rio Vista Bridge not far away. We were parked by a storefront with a bicycle hanging over the door. Bernie was reading the sign.

  “Start Feeling Good Today.”

  We hopped out of the car, me actually hopping. I felt good today, but I hadn’t just started feeling good. When had it begun? I thought back and back but never came to the beginning of me and feeling good. Meanwhile we were on our way into Ride Your Butt Off, if that was the name of this place. True, I already felt good, but what harm could it do?

  A desk stood in the entrance. Behind it was a big, dimly lit room with a whole bunch of people pedaling stationary bikes. The bikes formed a circle around a single bike, pedaled by a sweaty woman wearing one of those mouthpiece plus earpiece things. All the bikes had screens on them, and all the bikers were glued to their screens, except for the sweaty woman who was watching the bikers and shouting, “Ramp up, ramp up, one twenty, one twenty-five, one thirty, give me your best, give it, give it!” What else? Everyone was sweating—I’d never smelled so much human sweat in one place in my life, an ocean of human sweat, really a special treat for me, but at the same time some of the faces of the riders reminded me of a perp we’d taken down long ago name of Fats Sezura, specifically how Fats’s face had looked just before his heart attack. All in all, I was ready to be out of there.

  A dude at the desk said, “Help you?”

  “We’re looking for Eva Rome,” Bernie said.

  He pointed to the sweaty woman leading the ride, if that’s what she was doing and if a ride to nowhere could still be called a ride.

  “That’s her,” he said. “They’re almost done and her next class isn’t till Wednesday. Or I can hook you up with another instructor if you like.”

  “We’ll wait,” Bernie said.

  The dude looked at me.

  “There’s a dog on the internet who rides a bike,” the dude said.

  “We’ll wait outside,” Bernie said.

  Whoa! But—
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  * * *

  Eva Rome came outside, wiping her face with a towel. Some humans—actually very few—move like they’re not touching the ground. Eva was that kind. She had a teenage body but an older face and her eyes were older still.

  “You wanted to see me?” she said.

  “I’m Bernie Little and this is Chet.”

  “Is this about the other night? You’re with the police department?”

  Bernie handed her our card. “We’re working on a case that’s probably not related to what happened to you. I just wanted to rule it out for sure.”

  Eva rubbed the side of her neck, very lightly. “What happened to me was the scariest thing in my whole life,” she said. “You want me to tell you?”

  “Please,” said Bernie. How polite of him! He really is the nicest human in town.

  “I was walking home after the ten p.m. class—that’s our last one—when someone grabbed me from behind,” Eva said. “This was at the Super Low Gas on the corner.” She pointed down the street. “It was closed and this guy was really strong. He dragged me behind the station, got a knee in my back and a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t move at all. A woman came up. She wore a bandanna over her face, right up to her eyes, and had a knife with a real long blade. She held it right in front of my eyes. Then she said, ‘Where’s Dewey?’ And I said I hadn’t seen him in three weeks, had no idea where he was.”

  “Who’s Dewey?” Bernie said.

  “This guy I used to know. Sort of a boyfriend. I broke it off. That’s the truth and it’s what I told her. She pressed the edge of the blade against my throat, right here, and said, ‘Prove it.’”

  “Prove that you hadn’t seen him in three weeks?” Bernie said.

  “Like, how do you do that?” said Eva. “But then I thought of a way. Check my phone. That’s what I told her. It was in my pocket. She took it out, went through the phone. That was that.”

  “They let you go?” Bernie said.

  “There were texts and calls from Dewey, but not for the past three weeks. The woman told me to lie facedown and not move. I lay down by a trash barrel and didn’t move. I thought I heard them going away but I still didn’t move. At last I got a grip and took a look. They were gone. I got up.”

  “Jesus,” Bernie said.

  “I know,” said Eva.

  “You told the police all this?”

  “I’m not sure they believed me.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Or maybe it’s just that I didn’t give them much to go on. You know—disappointing them.”

  “Did they ask you to describe the knife?”

  Eva nodded. “It had a red handle.”

  “Did you see the face of the man?”

  “No.”

  “What about the woman’s eyes?”

  “They didn’t ask me that.”

  “But you saw them.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “They were real real smart,” Eva said.

  “Did you notice the color?”

  She shook her head. “Just that they were real real smart. Scary smart.” She thought for a moment. “Am I in danger?”

  “No,” said Bernie. “Not from those two.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re still here,” Bernie said. “What does Dewey do?”

  “For a living?” said Eva. “He takes shortcuts.”

  “Such as?”

  “I never wanted to know the details.”

  “Has he done time?”

  “I think so.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing violent—I made sure about that.”

  “Why did you break up with him?”

  “He was part of the old me. I’ve finally—finally—decided to get past the old me. I’m … I’m killing her off on the bike.”

  Bernie gave her a long look. She dabbed at her face with the towel. “What’s Dewey’s last name?” Bernie said.

  “Vaughan.”

  “Do you have a picture of him?”

  Eva’s phone was tucked in the waistband of her tights. She took it out, tick-tacked at it with the tip of her fingernail, turned the screen so Bernie could see. Bernie went still, although not that anyone would notice, other than me.

  It just so happened that I could see the screen, too. And there was my Dewey, with his surfer hair, his beachboy grin, and the little round bullet scar on his cheek. I looked forward to our next get-together.

  “Did Dewey ever mention the name Wendell Nero?” Bernie said.

  “No.”

  “Did he ever talk about an uncle?”

  “I don’t think he had any uncles. He was fostered most of his childhood, going from one family to another. That’s how it started, the two of us. I felt sorry for him.”

  “Maybe not the best foundation,” Bernie said.

  “I know that now,” said Eva. She looked my way for the first time, gave me a quick little smile. Then she turned back to Bernie. “Do you know what they want with him?”

  “No,” Bernie said.

  “Are you looking for him, too?”

  “I wasn’t. But now? Yes.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “Nothing I’m aware of. It’s possible that we can end up protecting him, me and Chet. But the real reason is that he knows things we need to know.”

  “About what?”

  “Two murders,” Bernie said. “And he’ll also know who attacked you the other night.”

  “You mean they could be arrested?”

  “And put away.”

  Eva gazed up at the sky. A balloon had gotten loose and was rising higher and higher. “Dewey has a friend—well, maybe an associate is how to put it—down in Campo Pequeno. I’ve never met him.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Dewey calls him Mig.”

  Twenty

  “Could artificial intelligence solve this case right now?” Bernie said.

  I didn’t think about that for even a single second. Sometimes Bernie talks in his sleep, just a bunch of words, all jumbled, not meaning anything. This was like that, except he was awake, and driving up and out of the Valley on a road I knew well. Soon would come the souvenir stand with the giant sombrero-topped flamingo, and then a nice long nap, and after that you’re in Mexico.

  “Or how about this?” Bernie went on. “Would an AI version of me still have Suzie? I don’t mean have. That’s the kind of thing I’ve got to stay away…”

  His voice trailed off. It’s not that I was happy about that—who wouldn’t be happy, just hearing the sound of Bernie’s voice?—but I wasn’t exactly unhappy. Meanwhile the giant flamingo appeared in the distance. I shifted around a bit, kind of circling on the shotgun seat, trying to find the perfect napping position, and while that was going on Bernie slowed down and exited onto a crossroad. We weren’t headed for Mexico after all? Too bad. I had some fond memories of Mexico, starting with a chance encounter behind a cantina with one of my own kind, her name turning out to be Lola. The females of the nation within are sometimes in the mood and sometimes not. It’s easy to tell. Is that how it goes in the human world? Perhaps not.

  “I mean would AI me still be with Suzie,” Bernie said. “But what if Suzie was AI Suzie?”

  The day was taking a bad turn. We entered a dusty little town. “Campo Pequeno,” Bernie said. “Coronado came through here. The Zunis weren’t impressed.”

  So far I was with the Zunis, whoever they might be. We drove down the main street, the dusty little town being the kind with one main street and … and a few back streets. Was there something familiar about this place? My sleepiness vanished, just like that. I sat up straight, on high alert, a total pro ready for total pro action. The first action I thought of was biting. That was odd. Biting never came first, not even with the perpiest perps. That wasn’t my MO.

  A diner stood between two boarded-up buildings. One of the best things about humans is all
the different kinds of restaurants they’ve got going. Steakhouses are the best and all-you-can-eat vegan is the worst. Somewhere in the middle are diners, which are mostly about eggs, in my experience, and I’ve got no complaints about eggs, but where diners really shine is in the sausage department.

  We entered the diner. I didn’t smell sausages or even eggs, the main aroma in this place being stale coffee. There was no one around except one apron-wearing woman at the counter, chewing gum and scrolling through her phone. Maybe not a promising start, but then I remembered that gum was important in this case! And because of me! I’d found a wad of cherry gum out back of Wendell Nero’s RV and that had led us to Florian Machado, now in an orange jumpsuit, case closed! Wow! Was this what it felt like to be Bernie? He had it made in the shade! Then I thought, uh-oh, maybe he didn’t know that he had it made in the shade, and after that, wham, from out of nowhere, came another troublesome thought: If the case was closed, what were we doing in this crummy diner? Did I mention the fat flies slowly circling one of those sticky flypaper strips hanging from the ceiling?

  The woman looked up from her phone, raised an eyebrow. Maybe she was the strong silent type, except for the strong part, since she was on the short and roundish side.

  “Coffee, please,” Bernie said, “and a bowl of water for Chet, here.”

  The woman cracked her gum. “Gotta charge you a quarter for the water,” she said.

  Bernie nodded one of his nods. This nod meant yes and also sent some sort of message. Soon Bernie was sipping stale coffee and I was sipping water from a bowl with a dead fly lying on the bottom, or, on second look, maybe not quite dead. No complaints. You toughen up in a job like mine, and I was toughened up to begin with. Whoa. Just then came another memory—what was with all these memories all of a sudden?—a memory of when I was very small. Had I ever had a memory of when I was very small before? Not that I remembered, but in this memory I lay in straw in the corner of a shed, and a big man with big boots walked up and—

  And lucky for me that memory broke into pieces and disappeared. Whew. Because otherwise maybe I’d have found out that I wasn’t toughened up to begin with, and then what? But now we didn’t have to go down that road. What a life!