“Not a thing,” Bernie said. “Let’s hear the story of you and Mavis.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a narrative, Neddy. Isn’t stand-up all about narratives?”
“Are you suggesting our relationship was a joke?” Neddy sat down heavily on the lumpy chair. A tiny poof of dust rose up.
“Was it?” Bernie said.
“Just because it didn’t work out?” Neddy said.
“Why didn’t it?”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Who said it was?”
Neddy’s eyes shifted.
“The name, Neddy,” Bernie said.
Neddy sighed. “Johnnie Lee said it was my fault. But she was wrong. Mavis lost hope. How was that on me?”
“What was Mavis hoping for?” Bernie said.
“You know. Success.”
“Success in Hollywood?”
“Yeah.”
“As an actress?”
“At first. Then it got more like success as a movie star.” Neddy shot Bernie a quick up-from-under look. “Now you’re going to say what’s the difference?”
Bernie laughed. “Maybe Chet and I should just leave and let you interview yourself.”
Neddy’s face brightened. All Bernie’s ideas are brilliant, but some are more brilliant than others. This seemed to be one of the others. If Neddy interviewed himself and we were gone, how would we know what he found out? Maybe I was missing something. But there was another problem with leaving right now—namely, a faint smell coming from farther inside the trailer, a smell that needed looking into.
No worries. I should have known. Bernie hooked a barstool with his foot and drew it closer, just another of his many cool moves. He sat down opposite Neddy.
“We’re all ears,” Bernie said.
I had a choice. Try to make sense of what Bernie had just said, or not. I went with not.
“Mavis is beautiful,” Neddy said. “Her face, her body, everything. And don’t say the camera doesn’t love her.” He pointed to the picture on the wall. “It does. The problem with Mavis is she’s such a genuine person.”
“Meaning she can’t act?” Bernie said.
Neddy frowned. “You’re not a very nice man.”
Whoa! How off base was that? There was no one nicer than Bernie. Some humans miss the most obvious things. That’s not how we roll in the nation within. We’re all over the most obvious things like … like white on rice! Although I’m not a big fan of rice and actually prefer the brown kind.
“So she can act?” Bernie said.
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying she’s so genuine she just can’t merge herself into some imaginary life dreamed up by a writer.”
“Is that her explanation of what went wrong?”
“I wish,” said Neddy. “She thinks she has no talent. We tried everything—classes, yoga, therapy. We made some progress, even had an agent who repped some known B-listers. They still rep me for some reason. Maybe they forgot to fire my ass.”
Bernie smiled. “What’s the name of the agency?” he said.
“MDC,” Neddy said. “Stands for Mad Dog Creative. But the point is, Mavis called it quits.” He raised his skinny arms and let them flop back down. “Mavis and Johnnie Lee had kept in touch, so one day—this was two years ago around Thanksgiving—Johnnie Lee told her about a good job opening in the Valley. Mavis interviewed, got it, and that was that.”
“What was the job?” Bernie said. Or something like that. I was a bit stuck on Mad Dog Creative.
“PR for a big golf course developer,” Neddy said.
“Which one?”
“Don’t remember the name, if I ever knew.”
“And you stayed behind?”
“At the time, I was involved in a pretty exciting pilot development. It almost got green-lit. Came this close.” Neddy held up his thumb and first finger with a tiny space between them. Human hands can talk, by the way, often made more sense than their mouths. “Also I was actually making a dollar here and there on the stand-up circuit. Mavis and I fought about the whole thing from every possible angle. It went on for weeks. Finally—in order to be fair to her—I broke it off.” He gazed at Bernie, waiting for some reaction.
“Are there groupies in stand-up?” Bernie said.
Neddy’s face, so changeable, made another change, this one the biggest so far. It twisted up in rage—was there really so much rage inside him?—and he sprang up and punched Bernie right on the nose.
Well, not that last part, although the nose was where Neddy was aiming. But Bernie caught Neddy’s wrist in midair and held it there, absolutely still. Without getting up, Bernie gave Neddy a gentle push, and he sank back down in his chair. Then Neddy put his head in his hands and began to sob.
“I loved her, you son of a bitch. I still do. I can’t stand to see her treated like trash.”
“Who’s treating her like trash?” Bernie said.
Neddy’s sobs amped down, but he kept his head in his hands. “Go away,” he said.
Bernie rose. “Thanks for your time.”
We were leaving? Without cuffing Neddy and taking him in? I was a little surprised. Then came another surprise. Instead of heading for the door, Bernie went the other way, deeper inside the trailer. Were we doing one of those real fast recons? I love those! I trotted alongside Bernie as we swept through the trailer, finding lots of mess but nothing worth a second look. There was one interesting smell, rather kibbley, although not like my kind of kibble.
We went back into the living room. Neddy was still in his chair. “Snooping through my home?” he said.
“Correct,” said Bernie.
Neddy called him something that didn’t sound very nice. I took one last look at those skinny calves. My teeth just didn’t want to get involved. We went outside and headed for the car.
A trash barrel stood by the roadside. Bernie raised the lid. It was stuffed to the brim. On top lay an unopened bag of kibble, not quite smelling like food for me and my kind, and the happy eater pictured on the front was not one of us. It was a ferret.
Seventeen
“Two ferrets in the same case?” Bernie said as we drove away from Neddy’s trailer. “What are the odds on that?”
Odds came up from time to time, a complete mystery to me. The two ferrets part zipped by me, too. There was only one ferret so far, Griffie, first encountered at Johnnie Lee’s condo, and now we had ferret kibble in Neddy’s trash. So therefore?
“Approaching zero, big guy. Was Griffie here? If so, why didn’t he eat his kibble? Or … or was he just expected here but never…” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, a sign he was so-thereforing at a very high level. “Griffie belongs to Johnnie Lee, or possibly Mavis. Yet Neddy says he hasn’t had contact with Mavis for over a year, and Johnnie Lee for much longer than that.” Bernie gave me a quick look. “He’s a liar, Chet—but what kind? The big lie kind of liar where you can’t trust a word he says? Or the careful little-lie kind who mostly sticks to the truth, although the frame around it is crooked?”
Wow! Bernie at his most brilliant! I wanted him to go on forever.
“And don’t forget he’s an actor of sorts, maybe not as genuine as Mavis, and therefore better at fooling people. But there was one moment when he was genuine for sure, Chet—when he threw that punch. That was a lucky break for us.”
Some dude trying to hurt Bernie was a lucky break? This was a strange case. Also we’ve never had a case with a ferret before. We had had cases where tough guys like Mickey Rottoni end up with a round red hole in their foreheads. So at least that was a good sign. Not for Mickey, of course. A bad guy, although he’d never done anything bad to me or Bernie. For a moment, I thought, Poor Mickey. Then the next moment came, and I was thinking about something else. Slim Jims, if you want the details.
Bernie fished under the seat and came up with a bent cigarette, or at least part of one. He was great at quitting smoking, had done it often. It had been a long time since the
last cigarette, but maybe Bernie felt like quitting again. He lit it, inhaled, exhaled, and relaxed, the whole car relaxing around him, and everything in it, including me.
“The main takeaway is that he loves her, Chet. And will protect her if she asked. Suppose he’s protecting her from us—that means she asked. So therefore Mavis and Neddy are in contact. My guess is she was here, and not long ago.”
Wow! Mavis and Neddy were in contact! All we had to do was … was …
I could feel the answer coming to me, maybe not full speed or even steady, more like lurching. But before it could arrive, Bernie said, “Why would she want protection from us?”
A tough one. We were the ones who did the protecting. I waited for Bernie to figure it out and was still waiting when the phone buzzed.
“Hi, Bernie. It’s Weatherly.”
“Well, hi,” said Bernie, a very warm hi for him, especially on the phone. He cleared his throat and tried again in what sounded more like a business-type voice. The Little Detective Agency is a business, don’t forget, a highly successful business except for one tiny part, which I won’t go into now. “Um, hi. Hello. Bernie speaking.”
“Right,” said Weatherly after a slight pause. “I recognize your voice. I just wanted to thank you again. Trixie’s back home.”
“Good to hear.”
“She has to take it easy for a few weeks, but she’s doing fine.”
“I’m glad.”
“One other thing,” Weatherly said. “I’ve been suspended.”
We slowed down a little, like … like the car was dealing with this news. I’d learned all about suspensions from the career of Fritzie Bortz, former motorcycle cop and now Border Patroller riding shotgun in a white SUV, and even sometimes in the back seat. But how did the car know? Whoa! I’d strayed into odd territory. Lucky for me, I’m pretty good at straying right back out.
“Go on,” Bernie said.
“They took my gun and my badge.”
“What for?”
“Insubordination.”
“Was it Ellis?”
“Not openly.”
“Of course not,” Bernie said.
Then came a silence. I could sort of feel the presence of Weatherly during that silence. She was steaming.
Bernie glanced at me, or rather at my neck. Hey! My neck fur was standing on end, and I hadn’t even realized it! What was that all about? Bernie checked the rearview mirror. We were alone on the highway, which I already knew just from the sound, empty of all machines except us.
“I was wondering,” Bernie said, “if you’d like to … that is, um … how about a bite to eat?”
Wow! Great idea, and so sudden, right off the top of his head. My neck fur settled right back down. The Little Detective Agency, ladies and gentlemen. What can I tell you?
“When?” said Weatherly.
“Tonight at eight?”
“Okay.”
“Dry Gulch all right with you?”
“The place with that cowboy sign?”
“Uh, yeah. Or if that’s not—”
“See you there.”
Click.
Bernie sped up a little. “Is there something wrong with the cowboy sign?”
The huge wooden cowboy out front of the Dry Gulch Steakhouse and Saloon? I loved the wooden cowboy, had lifted my leg against him too many times to count, even for someone good at counting, like Charlie, say, who could now go all the way to 106, which took pretty much our whole walk around the block, just him and me. I wore a leash! He held one end! He really is the cutest kid.
But back to the huge wooden cowboy. He had a big square jaw and eyes that sparkled—although only at night—and he was hunched over a bit, reaching for his gun. What could be wrong with any of that?
* * *
We drove into the Valley, took one of the first exits, and were soon in South Pedroia. The heat was rising up from the ground more than it was coming down from the sky, a late-in-the-day summertime thing in our part of the world. We headed into the oldest part, those narrow streets lined with brick warehouses, the heat now coming in from the sides as well. Lots of interesting smells in the air—which gets pissier as the day goes along, which you may not know—and among them a strong smoked-oil sort of smell you find wherever big trucks get together. So before we even pulled up in front of Rottoni Transport—the security rollers over the doors all down for the night—I knew where we were. There was no one around but our little bare-chested buddy, leaning against a wall and talking on his phone, a cigarette bobbing up and down in his mouth and a bottle sticking out of his shorts pocket. His name almost came to me. Wow! Was it possible I was getting better at the job? I knew one thing for sure: we’d be rolling in money one day. I—but not Bernie—have rolled in poop from time to time. Would rolling in money be much different? I couldn’t wait to find out.
Bernie parked not far from our pal. As we got out of the car, he said, “Griffie is the key to this case, big guy.”
Uh-oh. How was that possible? Griffie was a ferret. His smell was unbearable, even to me, who likes just about every smell I’ve come across. Was Bernie joking? No time to figure that out, because we were now pretty close to the bare-chested dude. He saw us, said something quick and quiet into the phone, tucked it in his shorts, and glanced down the alley. Not a very long alley, and it seemed to end in a brick wall. As for what he’d said into his phone so quick and quiet, I’m the type who hears the quick and quiet things, in this case, “Yikes, gotta go.”
He looked at us, his face running through several expressions, none happy to see us.
“Hey, there, Rico,” Bernie said.
Rico! I’d almost had it.
“If that’s your name,” Bernie went on, confusing me a bit. “You owe us twenty bucks.”
“Uh, I don’t remember nothin’ about no, uh…”
He backed away. I seemed to be quite close to him, one of our best techniques in a situation like this. As for the twenty bucks, there were a number of people around town we’d lent money to, although we never asked for it back. Was Bernie tweaking our business plan at last, as Ms. Pernick, our accountant, had suggested? Rico seemed the unpromising type in so many ways, but you had to start somewhere, as humans like to say.
“Can you get your dog to back off, mister?” Rico said.
“First,” said Bernie, “we’re partners. Second, he’s more likely to back off when he sees the twenty bucks.”
Rico blinked. “But it’s a dog.”
“He.”
Rico shrugged. “Okay, he’s a dog. What’s a dog know about money?”
“You’d be surprised,” Bernie said. “But one thing’s for sure. He knows about being owed.” Bernie held out his hand.
Rico licked his lips. “You keep sayin’ I owe you, but what for, man? Is this a shakedown? I got friends, if you didn’t know.”
“Like who?” Bernie said.
“Guys you don’t want to mess with, believe me.”
“Name one.”
“Not gonna open that can of worms.”
That was what humans call a no-brainer. There’s not a chance worms are in my vicinity without me knowing it, and no worms were anywhere near. Was Rico just trying to be difficult? I moved in a little closer. He was nicely placed, tight to the wall now, possibly on his tiptoes. This is a fun job, my friends.
“You remember us, don’t you, Rico?”
“Sure, sure, kinda.”
“We met right here.”
I placed a paw on one of his feet, quite gently.
“It’s comin’ back to me a little,” he said.
“What did we talk about?” Bernie said.
“You … you don’t remember?”
Bernie laughed. I love when he enjoys himself. Was there anything I could do to Rico that would make Bernie laugh harder? I began to give that some serious thought.
“What’s funny?” Rico said.
“You,” said Bernie. “What’s your last name, Rico?”
&
nbsp; “None of your goddamn business.”
“Wrong on that one. Let’s see your ID.”
“Don’t have it on me.”
“What would fall out of your pockets if we held you upside down and gave you a shake?”
Oh boy! We hadn’t done the upside-down-shake in so long I’d almost forgotten it! But why not? It had to be one of our very top techniques. What was that other guy’s name? Swiftie something-or-other? A speedy little human who might have really thought he could run away from me. The fun I’d had, closing in, dropping back, closing in. And we get paid to do this? Well, not always. But forget that part. The point was that when we turned Swiftie upside down and shook him, all sorts of things fell out of his pockets, including a chunk of stolen moon rock, a complete mystery to me, and a Slim Jim, no mystery at all, and soon taken care of. Rico had no Slim Jim, but I still wanted to get started on the upside-down shake. I’m a team player, in case that wasn’t clear already.
Rico glanced this way and that, looking for help, or an escape route, or something. But he was on his own.
“Okay, you win,” he said. “My last name’s Carter.”
“Like the president?”
“What president?”
Bernie smiled. How nice to have a job you enjoy! “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “What’s important it that the other day your last name was Miller.”
“That must have been some kind of … um…,” said Rico.
“No arguing with that,” Bernie said. “And we’re fine with you calling yourself whatever you want—as long as you’re straight with us. Otherwise, we’re taking you for a long ride.” Bernie nodded toward the Porsche. He didn’t mention that Rico would be on the shelf in back, meaning it was … how to put it? Understood. Something like that.
Rico licked his lips and licked them again, like his mouth was drying up. “You got no right.”
“Ever heard that might makes right?” Bernie said.
Rico shook his head. “Nope, but it makes sense,” he said. He took a deep breath. “Is this about that ferret shit?”
That was a puzzler. If anything of that nature was around, who would be the first to know?
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