Tender Is the Bite

by Spencer Quinn

  First, we had a taxi pulling up outside. A passenger sat in the back. Somehow, the screen closed in on her: a very nice-looking woman with a ponytail. Hey! It was Mavis! And weren’t we searching for Mavis? And here was Bernie kicking back and watching TV! You, too, would have barked your head off.

  “Chet, easy there,” Bernie said. And old man Heydrich actually had his hands over his ears, one of the most pleasant sights of my whole life, but work comes before play. That’s one of our rules at the Little Detective Agency, or should be, as perhaps Leda had suggested on more than one occasion. I ran to the nearest window, got rid of a plant or two that was in the way, and peered out. What was this? No taxi?

  I took a few steps toward Bernie. He was still gazing at the screen. And Heydrich seemed to be upset about something. Did he actually shake his finger at me? So much to deal with. Even more than I’d thought, because there on the screen was the taxi! Still parked in front of our house! The taxi was and was not there? If that was how things were going to be in this world of ours, then … then … I couldn’t even begin.

  Bernie glanced back at me. “Schrödinger’s cat, huh, big guy?”

  He turned to the screen, missing an odd look from Heydrich. But I didn’t really care about that—or anything else. Because … because cats were suddenly in the picture? Wasn’t a ferret, or possibly two ferrets—I wasn’t quite clear on that—enough? Cats had cropped up in a few cases before, never with a good result. Once, I’d had to come to some sort of accommodation with a supposedly beautiful cat from Hollywood, name of Brando. The most difficult challenge of my whole career? I couldn’t think of a harder one.

  Meanwhile, Bernie’s attention was on the screen, as though this new development wasn’t bothering him in the least. Bernie can be a real cool cat at times. Uh-oh. What was going on? My own mind tormenting me? How do you put a stop to that?

  I ran back to the window. Still no taxi on the street, no action whatsoever. I took another look at Bernie’s screen. Plenty of action there. First, Mavis leaned forward to pay the driver. Then she opened the door and started to get out. But what was this? Just as her foot touched the ground, a man stepped into view on the far side of our house, like he was coming from the patio, and not just a man but a man I knew. Olek! I whipped around to the window. No Olek, no Mavis, no taxi. But there they all were, on the screen. Mavis caught sight of Olek and shrank back into the taxi, ducking down out of sight. Olek didn’t see her. His eyes were on a long black car parked in our driveway, a car I’d completely missed until that moment. Olek glanced at the taxi, then got in the long black car, which drove off down Mesquite Road, away from the taxi. Mavis popped up into view and gazed at our house. The taxi pulled a U-ee and drove off down Mesquite Road in the other direction. I came close to remembering something or other.

  “What do you make of that, Mr. Heydrich?” Bernie said.

  “Why should I even care?” said Heydrich.

  Then came a huge surprise—even a shock—and quite scary. Bernie … how to put this? Got angry? Got very angry? Got furious? Blew his top? Yes, that was it. Bernie suddenly blew his top at old man Heydrich. He sprang to his feet, his chest heaving, his face flushed, his strength so huge and obvious that if he’d pulled down the whole house, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  But Bernie didn’t pull down old man Heydrich’s house, probably a good thing what with all of us inside it. Instead, he raised his voice—it rang like a giant bell—and said, “Then why are you doing all this?”

  Heydrich, still in his chair, raised his hands to protect himself, but Bernie didn’t go near him.

  “Answer me!”

  Heydrich made himself very small and in a very small voice replied, “To protect against bad elements.”

  “Bad elements? Are we bad elements, me and Chet?”

  Despite how afraid he was, some sort of clever idea must have occurred to Heydrich, because his lips curled up in a little smile, and in a slightly louder voice, he said, “Your words, not mine. Perhaps you don’t realize I’m protecting the whole neighborhood, including you.”

  Without warning and with one sweep of his mighty hand, Bernie sent the nearest screen flying. It happened to hit all the other screens, sending all of them flying, and the crashing wasn’t nearly done before Bernie said, “Send me the bill.” And we were out of there. My very first time inside old man Heydrich’s house. All in all, I wasn’t against a follow-up visit, just not anytime soon. One good thing: the cat, possibly named Schrödinger, had not appeared.

  * * *

  Back home, I was just the slightest bit nervous around Bernie. Imagine that! But why was he so quiet, just pacing around and glancing out a window from time to time? I paced, too, a little behind him. Suddenly, he laughed and turned to me. “I forgot the mugs.”

  The mugs? Oh, right, the coffee mugs. And there I was, in the picture.

  “I liked those mugs, especially the one with the surfing parrot.”

  Did Bernie want me to make a quick visit back to Heydrich’s and retrieve the mugs? Retrieving is right up my alley, as you might have guessed. I often have to stop myself from retrieving—for example, that time when a perp name of Gene “the Genius” Gendrich pulled the pin on a toy grenade that turned out not to be a toy—and then put it in his mouth!—before Bernie snatched it away and hurled it as far as he could. I’d managed to stop myself from retrieving it, thanks to Bernie, his very strong hands, and my collar. The mug, of course, was not going to blow up. But then there was the issue of the parrot. I’d had an encounter earlier in my career with a parrot named Cap’n Crunch. Parrots are birds, so they have those tiny angry eyes, but also they can say things like “Get lost,” and “Big fat ugly.” It’s a bad combo.

  Bernie opened the fridge and gazed inside. I gazed with him. There wasn’t much to look at. All we had was a beer or two, some lemons, and a wrinkled-up onion, but gazing into a fridge is a nice way to spend some time, the air so cool.

  “Do you feel things shifting under us, Chet?”

  We’d been through an earthquake or two, me and Bernie, and I can always feel them coming and he never can, so it I suppose it made sense for him to ask. But why now? There was no indication of any shifting whatsoever, the earth in one of its rock-solid moods. I pressed against Bernie’s leg.

  “Thanks for reminding me.” He reached into his pocket, fished out a cocktail napkin I sort of remembered from somewhere or other. Bernie peered at the smeared inky writing on the napkin and took out his phone. “Johnnie Lee? Bernie Little here. Pick up, please. Your friend has misinterpreted a couple of things. We can help. Pick up.”

  He waited. No one picked up. Bernie pocketed the phone. “Did I sound believable?”

  What a question! Who was more believable than Bernie?

  “But can you blame them?” He thought for a moment. “How about we try pulling at a very tentative thread?”

  I had no objection, although I didn’t see the point. Of course I’ve had threads caught in my mouth before—who hasn’t?—and they can be very bothersome, but the inside of my mouth was threadless.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Bernie said. “All our threads are pretty damn tentative.”

  No, no. That wasn’t it at all! How frustrating! All I could think to do was grab that wrinkled-up onion, but Bernie closed the fridge door before I could.

  “But doesn’t a dying man’s last word have to mean something?” he said.

  * * *

  “So many last words,” said Bernie as we drove out of the Valley, “happening every day, every hour, every minute. But how often is it ‘golf’?”

  Golf? Aha. Far from unknown territory. I’d been around golf courses in my time, knew, from having heard it so often, that golf was all about putting. That made sense to anyone who’d ever been on a putting green. The feeling of a putting green under your paws is like no other. You want it to go on forever. At the same time, a strange urge starts to overcome you—specifically, a desire to dig the whole thin
g up. Then there’s the golf ball itself, not the best ball out there, but at least a ball. Balls in general are kind of a hobby of mine. Lacrosse balls have the best mouthfeel, basketballs are simply too big unless you deflate them a bit at first—turning your head slightly sideways to get the right teeth involved being the best method—baseballs are the most interesting once you get inside, and the insides of golf balls are somewhat of a disappointment, bad tasting and bad smelling. There. A quick … how to put it? Overview? A quick overview of the subject, the point being that when it comes to golf, I’m up to speed. Also, when it comes to speed, I’m up to speed! Was that a sort of joke? Sorry, not my department, Bernie handling the jokes at the Little Detective Agency. I take it back, the same way, for example, when once I snatched a chew toy I didn’t even want away from Iggy, and Bernie noticed and said, “Chet?” and I immediately laid that chew toy, or its remains, on the Parsonses’ door step just like nothing had happened.

  Bernie glanced at me. “Something on your mind, big guy?”

  Not a thing. A complete and comfortable blank. We were good to go. Any reason not to grab some shut-eye? Not that I could think of.

  * * *

  When I opened my eyes, we were on the potholey part of the road to EZ AZ Desert Tours and Mini Golf. Soon I’d be seeing those little windmills, lighthouses, tugboats, castles, a Santa Claus, lots of fun stuff. Suddenly, everything became clear. Bernie and I were going to treat ourselves to a round of mini golf. The best treats are the ones you share. Well, no, but it felt good to think the thought.

  “Uh-oh,” Bernie said. I gazed ahead and immediately thought the same thing: Uh-oh. Why? Because there were no tiny windmills and all of that. There was no mini golf. There were no ATVs. There was no ranch house. All that remained was the desert floor, scraped flat, with a few scraps of tar paper shifting around in the wind, plywood shards, bent pipes, a smashed-up toilet. A big dumpster truck sat in the middle of the emptiness, raising a dumpster with its metal arms and thunking it down on the flatbed at the back. Bernie stopped beside the cab and looked up at the driver.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  “Haulin’,” said the driver, his meaty arm hanging out the door.

  “Right,” said Bernie. “But why?”

  “Can’t just leave a mess like that out here. Wouldn’t be environmental.”

  “True. But what happened?”

  The driver shrugged. “New ownership. Tore it all down. Planning a solar farm—least that’s the word.” He pointed into the distance. “If you’re looking for tours, the closest place is ten miles other side of Zinc Town, on old number seventeen. If it’s mini golf, I can’t help you.” He stepped on the gas and rumbled away.

  We got out of the car and walked around. Bernie kicked at this and that. He picked up a blackened brick and tossed it away. He didn’t look happy, but then I got lucky and noticed a golf ball with a red stripe on it, just lying there. I grabbed it and held it out for Bernie.

  “You’re the best,” he said. But he still didn’t look happy. Then he peered a little closer at the ball, dirty and scuffed up like so many. The next thing I knew, Bernie was flipping open the toolbox, not the big toolbox we had at home but the small one he kept under the front seat in the Porsche.

  “Pipe cutter would be perfect,” he said, rummaging around in the toolbox, “but of course we…” He pulled out what appeared to be the broken blade from a small saw. “Don’t recall seeing this before. How in hell…?”

  And soon, he was holding the ball steady on a somewhat flat rock with one hand and trying to saw through it with the other. There was a bit of blood—not even as much as had seeped out of Heydrich’s leg—a bad word or two, and some forehead sweat beads falling on the rock, but then—

  “Ta-da!”

  We were looking at two halves of the golf ball. Inside was the blue rubbery interior, no surprise. Bernie poked at the blue rubbery interior and tossed them away. “Worth a try.” He looked a little happier. And happier still when I retrieved both halves of the golf ball and dropped them at his feet.

  Twenty-two

  “What should we call them, Chet? The macro people and the micro people?” He picked up the halves of the golf ball and stuffed them in his pocket. “How about we work the macro side for a while?”

  Macro and micro people? Bernie was on his own. He reached inside the car for the phone, tapped at it. From the other end came a voice.

  “McGregor Worldwide.”

  “Energy Department,” Bernie said. “East European Division.”

  “One moment, please.”

  Another voice spoke. “EED.”

  “Scott Kyle, please,” said Bernie.

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Bernie Little.”

  “One moment, please.”

  Then came some music, not “If You Were Mine” or anything like that. We stood in the emptiness where EZ AZ Tours and Mini Golf had been. In the distance rose some green-gray mountains, and off to one side, the desert floor shimmered almost like a lake. Some folks, especially newcomers from back east, wherever that is, exactly, often get excited and say things like, “Hey! Is that water?” Well, I used to think, Does it smell like water? Now I don’t think anything, just wait peaceably for whatever’s coming next. Folks from back east can be lots of fun.

  The voice came back on. “Mr. Little? I’m sorry. Mr. Kyle is not available.”

  “Can you have him get back to me as soon as possible?” Bernie said. “It’s urgent.”

  “I’m afraid not. Mr. Kyle is away on assignment.”

  “Somewhere with no phones? The moon?”

  Silence on the other end.

  “Or is he hiding out in Ukraine?”

  More silence. Then: “Have a nice day, sir.”

  “Sure,” said Bernie. “Maybe we’ll run into each other sometime. Be sure to introduce yourself.”

  Again, silence, but it didn’t sound so empty this time.

  Bernie clicked off. He looked at me. “I know. That was unnecessary. I’m getting frustrated.” He reached out, scratched between my ears. “And isn’t that when we have to be our most composed?”

  I missed most of that, perhaps all too wrapped up in the delightfulness of getting scratched behind the ears, especially by someone who knew what he was doing, like Bernie. But it would be dishonest to not mention that I’d run into two between-the-ears scratchers even better than Bernie in my career, Tulip and Autumn, two friendly young women who work at Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More in Pottsdale, specifically in the More part, which turns out to be a house of ill repute, the meaning of that still unclear to me, perhaps because all Bernie and I did there was buy fresh beans.

  “On the other hand,” Bernie said, “sometimes it’s a good idea to stir up the hornet’s nest, see where they go.”

  I gazed at Bernie. He looked good—well rested, not hung over, certainly not sick or feverish. A joke, perhaps? Could there be anything good about hornets? Wasn’t stirring up the nest the last thing you wanted to do? As for seeing where the hornets go, they always go to the same place, right at you. Take it from me.

  * * *

  Bernie walked around the car. I walked with him. He rubbed out a smudge or two on the fenders with the hem of his T-shirt. “Forget the hornet’s nest part,” he said. “What I meant was we have to find a way to bring the case to us.” He gazed around. “Will we ever be able to find out the actual person who owns this place now? Good luck with that. But let’s just think of it as Olek for the time being. What was the point of destroying it? I’m actually tempted to ask him. What if we said we’d changed our mind, were ready to hop on the next plane to Kauai?”

  He took out his phone. Wow! So surfing was back in the picture? And Olek was a pal? I’d been getting the feeling that Olek was not a pal, but humans can be complicated.

  I heard a tiny click, and then I felt someone on the other end of the line, but whoever it was didn’t speak.

  “Hi,”
Bernie said. “It’s me. Bernie.”

  “I see that on the screen.”

  Hey! It was Weatherly. Nice to hear her voice, and I’m sure she was thinking how nice it was to hear Bernie’s. Would she also like to hear mine? I was just about to give her a sample when someone barked on her end. A rather impatient-sounding bark and quite a surprise. I barked, not the mild-mannered bark I’d been intending but a bark that sent a message to that other barker—a she-barker, by the way—in no uncertain terms. And would you believe it? She barked a no-uncertain-terms bark right back at me! What else could I do but amp things up? I’m sure you’d have done the same. I amped up my usual no-uncertain-terms bark into something altogether more … just plain more! And … and she did the same! Did she really imagine she could outbark me, Chet, the best barker in the Valley when I really get going? That was outrageous! I barked a bark she didn’t need the phone to hear. She barked back the same kind! Stealing my idea! It … it was like … like a female version of me! Oh, what a thought! I barked a bark to clear the air of thoughts like that, now and forever. She barked back the same kind of bark. I barked. She barked. I barked. She barked. I—

  “Oh, for god’s sake!” said Bernie and Weatherly at the same time. “Put a lid on it!”

  * * *

  Here’s an interesting fact: Weatherly lived in Upper Canyon, not too far from us. I’d even been quite near her place once, although not with Bernie. It’s possible Bernie’s not even aware of the little—what would you call it? Day trip, perhaps? Good enough. The little day trip I took with Iggy. This was back when the Parsonses’ electric fence was new and before they realized it wasn’t working. What a glorious—if all too brief—period in our friendship, mine and Iggy’s! On the particular morning in question—as some of my pals at Valley PD might put it—Bernie was sleeping in very late, a bourbonish scent flowing on his breath to every corner of the house, Iggy was yip-yip-yipping in his front yard, and I was on the patio out back, not far from the gate, in those days still considered unleapable by any member of the nation within.