They clinked glasses and drank. The sky darkened and a star blinked on, then another, and another. Bernie had explained the stars to Charlie and I’d paid close attention. Did you know that they were just giant balls of … something or other? Charlie had watched Bernie’s face the whole time. I could still see the look in his eyes. He loved Bernie. And so did I! We really were a lucky little bunch.
“Did the same little bird mention Billie Holiday?” Bernie said.
What a brilliant question! Who else but Bernie would have even dreamed of asking it? I think you know the answer.
“Maybe, maybe not.” Gudrun smiled. She had very white teeth, perhaps on the small side, but sharp-looking, for a human. “It’s also possible we have similar tastes.”
Bernie’s eyebrows rose slightly. Have I already mentioned they have a language of their own? Right now they were saying something about getting interested in Gudrun.
“For starters,” she went on, “we’ve got bourbon and Billie. Just staying with the B’s for now, we can add baseball. I understand you were a pretty good pitcher in college. No little bird necessary—baseball stats never die.”
Bernie’s eyebrows got a little more interested.
“And I myself,” Gudrun continued, “was a catcher.”
“Never played softball myself,” Bernie said, “but I’ve always thought it’s just as—”
“I’m talking about baseball,” Gudrun said. “High school baseball.”
“With the boys?”
“I had my own locker room, but otherwise yes—with the boys. Now you’re going to ask if I started or rode the pine.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Bernie said. “I was going to ask what high school.”
Those green eyes shifted the slightest bit. “The Screaming Eagles of North Malvern High.”
“Near Pittsburgh?”
“Correct.” Gudrun set her glass on the sideboard and, real smooth, got into a catcher’s crouch, kind of right in front of Bernie, a bit of a strange sight. She put a hand between her legs, lowered one finger. “Fastball.” Then two. “Curve.” Then one more finger. Hey! Could that be three? The whole number thing was suddenly clear to me, or just about. “Changeup,” she said, “although none of the boys had one.” She rose, again real smooth, and picked up her drink. “Did you have a changeup, Bernie?”
“Um.” Bernie cleared his throat. “Uh, well, no. Never got comfortable with the grip.”
“No?” she said, giving him an odd sort of look. It seemed to make Bernie redden. But why? I was getting a bit lost.
He cleared his throat again. “I didn’t even have a curve, just a chickenshit slider that tended to stay up in the zone.”
“So you relied on your heater?” Gudrun said.
“Heater’s putting it a little too strong,” said Bernie. “But right now, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to see whatever it was you were going to show me.”
“Are you in a rush, Bernie? Going somewhere?”
“No,” Bernie said.
That surprised me. Weren’t we on our way to Mexico? Lola was on my mind again, and more vividly than ever, for some reason.
“Working on anything interesting these days?” Gudrun said.
“Nothing new,” Bernie said. “We’re still on the Wendell Nero murder.”
Gudrun picked up the bottle, refreshed their drinks. Sometimes humans say, “Care for another?” or “a splash more?” Gudrun just poured.
“Are you one of those guys who lets perfect stand in the way of good?” she said.
A complete puzzler, and maybe to Bernie, too. “Meaning what?” he said.
“Meaning loose ends are part of the human condition, Bernie. You can tie yourself inside them and end up accomplishing nothing, or you can take a bow for a job well enough done and move on.”
She took out her phone and pointed it at a screen hanging from one of the glass walls. The screen lit up and a man appeared, a man I knew, specifically Florian Machado. He was sitting on a stool and wearing an orange jumpsuit. First came Gudrun’s voice.
“I understand you have something to say.”
“Yeah,” Florian said. “It’s, like, about the deal.”
“The plea deal the state has offered?”
“Hell, yeah. Is there some other deal out there?” Florian laughed a laugh that didn’t sound happy. He rubbed his hands together. Were they shaking a bit? I thought so. “The thing is,” he went on, “I want to take it.”
“Instead of going to court?”
Florian nodded.
“And what’s your reason?”
Florian shrugged. “Death penalty. I wanna live.”
“Even if it means in prison?”
“Yeah. You never know. Maybe they’ll change the law. Make it more … what’s the word.” There was a long pause and then Florian said, “Humane. They’ll make it humane.”
“So that’s your whole reason?”
“Mostly.”
“What’s the rest of it?”
“Well, there is the part about me doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“The thing that happened to what’s his name.”
“Wendell Nero.”
“Yeah. The old guy. I never meant any harm.”
“But?”
“But he, uh, surprised me. All’s I wanted to do was grab some stuff—electronics, things like that. I thought there was nobody there. That was the surprise. And the stupid bastard came right at me. I couldn’t believe it. A scrawny old dude coming right at a … specimen such as myself.”
“And what did you do?”
Florian sat for what seemed a long time, first looking right at us, and then down at the floor. He took a deep breath. “Ah, hell,” he said. “I cut his throat.” He closed his eyes. The screen went dark.
Gudrun turned to Bernie. “Come on upstairs,” she said.
Bernie no longer looked flushed; in fact, he was pale. “What’s there?”
“The best view in town,” Gudrun said. “It washes all the ugliness away.”
Bernie rose but didn’t say anything. He had a blank look on his face. I’d never seen that before. It scared me.
“Would Chet prefer to stay here?” Gudrun said. “I’ve got some snacks for him and it’s not really dog safe up there.”
Bernie didn’t answer, his face no longer blank but dark and deep in thought.
“Bernie?” Gudrun said.
He gave himself a tiny shake, the exact same thing I would have done at that moment. I stopped being scared.
“Sure,” he said. “Want to stay here, Chet?”
I didn’t see why not, especially if snacks were involved. Gudrun went to the sideboard, opened a cabinet, took out a red box. Yes, a red Rover and Company box, containing the best biscuits in town. I’d even visited their test kitchen, but no time for that now. Gudrun put two giant-sized biscuits on a plate and laid it on the floor. Then she led Bernie across the room and up the spiral stairs.
I trotted over to the plate, took a quick sniff of those wonderful biscuits and snapped one up. And then … and then I spat it out. Whoa! Why did I do that? I lowered my head over the biscuit, did some more sniffing. There was something a little strange about the smell. How could that be? A Rover and Company biscuit not smelling right? That made no sense to me. But also it hadn’t tasted quite right either. I had a funny feeling on my tongue. I tried licking away that funny feeling on my paw, and it mostly worked, but there was still a bit of funny feeling left. A cool drink of water would have been nice. I looked around, saw no water bowl. Over in the corner, my poor little hamster was still on the wheel. I started up the spiral stairs.
I’d only climbed spiral stairs once before in my life, chasing a perp about whom I now remembered nothing except that he was wearing boxers and one of his ankles seemed to be bleeding a bit. From somewhere behind me, Bernie had called, “Careful, big guy—spiral stairs are tricky.” And I hadn’t had the slightest notion! Where would I be
without Bernie? I’d carefully leaped right up, hardly touching the stairs at all, avoiding the problem pretty much completely. Now I did the same thing, and in no time popped up to the top, and found myself on a kind of deck, with no walls at the edges, only thin see-through rails. For a moment I felt like I was floating in the night sky. I came close to running back down the spiral stairs. Then I noticed Bernie and Gudrun.
A couch stood at one side of the deck, facing the edge so that anyone sitting on it would see the view. Bernie stood with his back to the back of the couch, if you get what I mean, and Gudrun was facing him.
“I could use a man like you,” she said.
“I’m not a lawyer,” said Bernie.
She touched his chest. “What I don’t need is more lawyers.” Her fingertip moved in a little circle, still touching him. “What I need is someone like you.”
Bernie backed away, but not far, being blocked by the couch.
Human anger has a smell, somewhat like sweat, although not the fresh kind, and blood. Now it came off Gudrun in a little wave. But when she spoke, there wasn’t a hint of any of that in her tone. In fact she almost sounded sweet.
“You’re not attracted to me, Bernie?” she said.
“Uh, that’s … that’s not it,” Bernie said.
“You’re seeing somebody?”
Bernie shook his head.
“Then what?” said Gudrun. “I’m not asking for a lifetime commitment.”
Bernie shifted his weight to one side, shifted back.
“Don’t you ever just jump into something?” Gudrun said. “Seize life in the here and now? Maybe I misjudged you.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?” The night was silent, except for the faint hum of the city, far below. At last Gudrun spoke. “Are you still not over Suzie Sanchez?”
Bernie’s head snapped back, like he’d been hit. And for one terrible moment I thought he was about to hit her back, for real. I’d never seen Bernie hit a woman, or even come close. He never would and never could. Sweat appeared on his forehead, like he was in some awful struggle.
“What do you know about Suzie Sanchez?” he said.
“Not much. We have a mutual acquaintance.”
“Who?” said Bernie.
Gudrun shook her head. “I won’t say. But she told this mutual acquaintance that, quote, he loved that damn dog more than he loved me.”
That staggered Bernie. He reached behind, gripped the couch with both hands. “I don’t believe you.”
Gudrun shrugged. She looked up at him. He looked over her head into some very faraway distance, but slowly his gaze came down and met hers.
“Believe this,” Gudrun said. She took Bernie’s face in both hands, pulled him close and kissed his mouth. And kept it there until Bernie started kissing her back, kissing her hard. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, even bending her backwards a little. One of his hands slipped up under her shirt. One of her hands did the same to him. Bernie made a sound deep in his throat, a sound I’d only heard from behind closed doors, then lifted her off the floor like she was nothing and started to turn, as though to carry her around to the other side of the couch.
That was when he saw me, watching from the top of the spiral stairs.
Twenty-eight
The trip down to Mexico was quiet. The night was quiet, the road was quiet, Bernie was quiet. Even the uniformed dude at the border was quiet, speaking softly like he was afraid of waking a baby.
We drove along the main drag of the little border town. Potholes appeared in the road, first one or two, then many, and by the time we hit open country there was no pavement left, the potholes winning out completely. Bernie’s pedal foot usually gets heavy in open country, but not on this night. Even the Porsche, usually so loud in the best way, was quiet. The road curved up a long slope, no other traffic coming or going. At the top, Bernie pulled to the side, shut off the engine. Then came pocket patting, glove box checking, under the seat fishing, and finally he found a cigarette, somewhat bent. Bernie tried to straighten it, ended up breaking it in two. He lit up the longer end, breathed out a long smoky cloud that turned silver in the moonlight.
“God help me,” he said.
God came up in many human conversations, but he remained a shadowy figure to me. What was his deal, anyway? Where was he? Could he help Bernie? And why would Bernie need help? Weren’t we having a pretty good life, except for the finances part? Aha! I started to get where god might be useful.
The cigarette end glowed bright. Bernie blew out more smoke, shook his head. “Saved my bacon, Chet,” he said.
He turned to me, his eyes sort of watery, but he wasn’t crying. Bernie was not a crier, except for the day we packed up Charlie’s room for his move to High Chaparral Estates. What we had going here had to be a trick of the moonlight.
“You know those movies where a house takes off from its foundation? That’s me right now.”
I was lost. The house thing made no sense to me at all. As for saving bacon, there was none around to be saved or for any other purpose, such as frying up a panful and chowing down. I know when bacon’s on the scene, my friends. Trust me.
Bernie put his hand on my head, rested it there in a way that felt perfect. “If she said something like that, or even close, then…”
Who? Saying what? And then? I had no answers, and before they could come, Bernie cranked ’er up and we got back on the road, much faster now. “Let’s do some damage, big guy—like a wrecking ball.”
What a great idea! Why hadn’t we thought of it before? A wrecking ball, doing damage—who could ask for more? You have to be grateful in this life. I knew one thing for sure. We were going to be rich.
* * *
I caught a glimpse of a few dim lights at the base of a butte that blacked out a section of the starry sky. “That’s where we’re headed,” Bernie said. “Los Pozos—can’t remember what that means.”
The road dipped down and the dim lights vanished. Cliffs, steep but not very high, rose on both sides. I heard the crunch of a boot heel somewhere up there and smelled a bit of weed. We came through the opening between the cliffs at the far end. A roofless pickup with a roll bar and two dudes in the front was parked across the road. Bernie stopped the car, took the .38 Special from the glove box, and placed it in the space between his seat and the door.
We sat where we were. The pickup dudes sat where they were. I felt Bernie starting to relax inside. Most folks would be going in the other direction. Bernie’s not most folks, which should be pretty clear by now.
Nothing happened for a while. Then the moon slipped behind a cloud. The dudes got out of the pickup and came toward us. One had a rifle over his shoulder, the other had a handgun in his belt. They were in no hurry. In our business when dudes like these two are in no hurry, it’s up to you also to be in no hurry. I sat like I had all the time in the world. Which I did, so it was easy-peasy.
They stood on either side of the car and gave us tough-guy looks. Bernie gave them one of his no particular look of any kind looks, just one of his many techniques. The dude on his side said something in Spanish. I know the sound of Spanish, but hardly any words, just tocino, cerveza, amigo, perro—things like that.
“I do better in English,” Bernie said.
“Yeah?” said the dude. “What if we don’t?”
Bernie shrugged.
The dude on my side kicked one of our tires. “Why you ride a shitbox?” he said.
Bernie turned to him. “There’s a law against shitboxes in Mexico?”
Silence. Their faces got all stony. Then the dude on Bernie’s side started laughing. My dude got into it, too. They laughed and laughed. Bernie’s dude had lots of gold teeth. My dude had pretty much no teeth of any kind. Their laughter died down.
“What are you doing here, man?” said Bernie’s dude.
“Just visiting,” said Bernie.
“Visiting who?”
“A friend of a friend.�
�
“This friend of a friend have a name?”
“Sure,” said Bernie. “But I don’t broadcast things like that. I try to keep people safe, especially the harmless ones.”
“Harmless?” said my dude.
“Los inocuos,” said the other.
The dudes glanced at each other over our heads.
“Fifty dollars,” said Bernie’s dude.
“Each,” said my dude.
“Huh?” said Bernie. “Take another look at the car and think again.”
The dudes laughed some more, ended up pocketing thirty each. Less than fifty apiece? More? I leave that to you. They moved the pickup off the road and we drove on.
* * *
The lights started blinking off in Los Pozos, the little town at the base of the butte. Bernie took a scrap of paper from his pocket, read the writing on it in the dashboard’s green glow. We passed a few houses, all dark, and stopped before one that seemed a bit bigger than the others and had blue TV light shimmering behind the curtains. We got out of the car and knocked.
“Sí?” came a woman’s voice from inside.
“Pepita?” Bernie said. “Juana gave us your address.”
“You’re the one with the dog?”
“Yes.”
The door opened. A thin woman with dark circles under her eyes gave us a look and motioned us inside. She glanced up and down the street and shut the door.
We were in a small room, neat and tidy, with not much furniture. There were a few card table chairs, a floor lamp, a table, and a bed, where a man, also thin, lay sleeping. His chest went up and down. I smelled his breath, the breath of a human with something wrong inside. A girl sat beside the bed on one of the card table chairs. She’d been watching TV, the sound turned down, but now her eyes were on us: big dark eyes shiny with health. That was a nice sight. This was Tildy. I recognized her from the photo we’d found in Wendell’s RV. Only a photo at first, and now here she was in real life. We were cooking, me and Bernie.
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