Tender Is the Bite

by Spencer Quinn

  Now there was more confusion than ever on the faces of the cops. They all turned to Ellis. He ignored them, instead fastening his gaze on us, a gaze partly confused but mostly furious. Bernie, stirring his coffee with his finger, looked right through him. I chewed my chewy.

  After that, our place did get searched, but pretty quickly, and only one thing got turned upside down. That was Bernie’s coffee mug. It happened to be sitting on the kitchen counter as the cops were leaving, and Captain Ellis happened to knock it off as he was passing by.

  * * *

  Bernie swept up the pieces of the broken mug.

  “Wait a minute, big guy.”

  He got out the vacuum and vacuumed where he’d swept.

  “Okay. Good to go.”

  I came over and sniffed the floor. There was lots of shoe polish scent in the air, a PD sort of thing. Bernie fixed breakfast for two. Did that mean we’d already had the predawn raid? I wondered about that as I was chowing down. We weren’t quite done before the phone buzzed.

  “Bernie?” It was Captain Stine. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Not much,” Bernie said. “Chet and I are just finishing breakfast. He’s having that kibble from Rover and Company he likes, plus a little flaxseed for his coat, and I’m—”

  “For crissake—you know what I mean. What’s going on with this guy Mickey Rottoni or whoever the hell he is? Things are in uproar down here.”

  “Can’t help you,” Bernie said.

  “Not buying that for a second,” said Stine. “We got Ellis telling everyone you killed Rottoni and hid the body.”

  “Who’s his source?” Bernie said.

  “He’s keeping the source confidential for now,” Stine said.

  “I’ll bet he is.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I suggest you find that source. As for Mickey, who was in charge of the search of the Zinc Town mine?”

  “Look, I know you and Ellis have this feud, but—”

  “Feud?” said Bernie.

  “Stop being so goddamn—” Stine began, but Bernie clicked off and lay the phone on the table, upside down. It buzzed again, vibrating slightly. Bernie ignored it. Instead, he went for a little trip inside the house, me alongside. We collected a couple of things—the putter and the purple-covered high school yearbook—and returned to the kitchen.

  “Are these clues, Chet?” Bernie said. “Or just random noise?”

  I listened to the putter and the yearbook, didn’t hear a peep out of either of them. They had to be clues. The day was off to a great start. Predawn raid, nice big breakfast, two silent clues. Who could ask for more?

  Bernie paged through the yearbook. “Here’s the rodeo team, Wynona at the side, Johnnie Lee front row center. See how happy she looks?” He showed me the picture, but I would have needed a bit more time to make sense of it. “This here must be a scene from The Crucible.” He pointed. “Neddy? Gotta be. And this is Mavis, for sure. Even then she was…”

  Whatever Mavis was back then stayed in Bernie’s mind. He turned to another page. “The senior class photos, big guy. Hmm. Johnnie Lee got a piercing after the rodeo team photo. Here’s what she had to say. ‘Been a blast, buckaroos. Shout-out to Coach Wynona, the bestest! I’ll always remember Pooh Bear, the prom after the prom after the prom, and the Hole in the Wall. See you when I see you. Ride ’em, babycakes!’”

  Bernie looked up. “Pooh Bear?” he said. “Hole in the Wall?”

  I couldn’t help him. But bears had come up already in this case, during our conversation with Scott Kyle, or perhaps Kyle Scott, who was no longer answering our calls, if I remembered right. Was it possible the bears had gotten him? I knew the smell of bears very well. There was not a whiff of bear in the whole house. We were safe for now.

  Bernie closed the yearbook, picked up the putter, took a practice putt or two, then putted a kibble nugget that had somehow fallen to the floor and gone unnoticed. A fallen kibble nugget unnoticed? That wasn’t like me at all. I snapped it up before it stopped rolling.

  “How about we pay a visit to Shaky Insterwald?” Bernie said.

  Shaky Insterwald? Hadn’t seen him in ages, hadn’t even thought of him! What an amazing idea, straight out of the blue! But that was Bernie.

  Twenty-eight

  When it comes to golf, Shaky Insterwald is our go-to guy. He’d also been the go-to guy for lots of folks interested in buying beachfront property in Mexico. Some of those folks ended up hiring me and Bernie when it turned out that those beachfront properties didn’t exist, and neither did the beaches, meaning we’d lugged the surfboard down there for nothing. But all that was in the past, and Shaky’s days of breaking rocks in the hot sun were behind him. Now he ran Buckets and Buckets o’ Balls, Cheapest Driving Range West of the Mississippi, Come Knock Yourself Out, which I believe was the full name of the place, written on the monster sign out front.

  Shaky sat in the shade of an umbrella in front of the office, which looked like a shack, or possibly a tiki bar in need of repair. He had a few customers whacking balls off the farthest away tees and was enjoying a cold frosty drink, a drink that was spewing out the unmissable smell of tequila sunrise.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “Come to smack some balls around? Best way to start the day.”

  “Maybe later,” Bernie said, pulling up a rickety-looking lawn chair and sitting down. What was this? A wince in his eyes? Was he in pain? Why would that be? Our little dustup with Vanko? Ah. Was I putting things together or what? And was there some swelling on one side of his beautiful face? Perhaps, but hardly noticeable, and that wince was here and gone in a flash. We’re fast healers, me and Bernie. I sat beside him.

  “God almighty,” Shaky said. “Is he still growing?”

  “I don’t think it’s possible at his age,” said Bernie.

  “No?” said Shaky. “Check out some of the dudes in the NFL.”

  Whatever that was, it struck Shaky as very funny. He laughed and laughed.

  Then he glanced down the tee boxes to his customers and gave me another look. “Chet’s not planning to do that thing where he chases balls all over the lot, is he?”

  “I think that was a onetime event,” Bernie said.

  Shaky nodded. “Too bad in a way. Business picked up for a week or so, folks who heard about him and wanted to see with their own eyes.”

  Wow! I hadn’t known that! Would there be any harm in—

  Bernie gave me a look, just raising one eyebrow the tiniest bit. I got the message.

  Meanwhile, in the closest tee box, a thick-necked guy with skinny legs was loading up his swing.

  “Christ,” said Shaky. “Wish to hell I had more tee boxes.”

  “Why?” Bernie said. “You’ve got plenty of empty ones.”

  “I mean way down thataway.” Shaky waved toward the thick-necked guy—now missing the ball completely—and beyond. “So I don’t have to see all this horrific shit.”

  “Those are your customers,” Bernie said.

  “They suck. Practically everyone in the whole world who ever picked up a club shoulda put it right back down. Although not you, Bernie. You got that sweet natural draw. You could be decent—more than decent—if you gave it a chance.”

  Decent? More than decent? Once, I’d seen Bernie hit a golf ball. This was on a case. I don’t remember the case, or why he suddenly had the client’s club in his hands. I just remember the beautiful thwack and the ball vanishing into the blue.

  “You’re the golfer, Shaky.” Bernie laid the putter on the table. “What do you make of this?”

  Shaky checked the writing on the blade. “Tiger, huh? Once took a grand off him at Pebble.”

  “Yeah?” Bernie grinned, looking so happy.

  “Son of a bitch took ten back from me the next day. I’d like to think he wasn’t setting me up.”

  “Course not,” Bernie said. “Probably you celebrated a little too much the night before.”

  Shaky laughe
d, grabbed a quick gulp of tequila sunrise, laughed some more. “Know what I learned on the tour? You can be great at something, world-class, and still not have any fun. In golf, anyways, it’s the model. The fun ones crash out. Take that guy there.” He pointed to the thick-necked guy, now taking an enormous swing and topping the ball, which rolled a little way on the sunburned grass. “He’s having more fun than any of the guys in the top ten.” Shaky picked up a bullhorn. “Hey, number ninety-seven. Free bucket waiting for ya, courtesy of Buckets and Buckets o’ Balls.” The thick-necked guy gave a happy wave of his club.

  Shaky picked up the putter. He was a tall, thin, stooped sort of dude who could have used a shave, a haircut—and a toenail trim, most of all. Those toenails! Wow! Also he had bad teeth. One of the easiest smells out there—didn’t Senator Wray have a bit of that, now that I thought about it? But back to Shaky, bad teeth and also he did shake a bit, but when he took that putter in his hands and got into putting position, here in the shade of this crummy tiki bar or whatever it was, the shaking stopped and Shaky somehow looked kind of powerful. And his hands were huge! They wrapped around the shaft of the putter like a thick leathery snake. Whoa! A scary thought. I actually backed away a bit.

  Shaky waggled the putter. The waggle is one of the best parts of golf. Once, Bernie showed Charlie how to do it. The fun we had that morning, which turned out to be a school morning, Charlie ending up late, leading to difficulties with Leda and also perhaps with Ms. Minoso, Charlie’s teacher, who didn’t seem to get any of Bernie’s jokes when we finally arrived.

  Shaky looked up. “Feels a little off,” he said.

  “I removed the grip,” said Bernie.

  “So’s I noticed.” Shaky waggled the putter again. “It’s not that. More like something got loose inside—but what? Nothin’ in there to get loose.”

  “No tiny screw or anything like that?” Bernie said.

  “Tiny screw? In a putter shaft?” Shaky waggled the putter one more time. “Any objection to me prying off the cap, taking a gander inside?”

  Gander? A kind of goose, if I wasn’t mistaken? I’d learned that on a visit to a bird sanctuary, me, Bernie, and Suzie, where unfortunately … something unfortunate happened, ending the visit on the early side. So although I’d been following this putter conversation pretty well, I might have missed a thing or two before the moment Shaky pried off the cap at the end of the shaft with his teeth—bad smelling, yes, but still very useful, especially for a human—and turned the putter upside down and gave it a shake.

  Some small papers rolled out, bound by a rubber band, and landed on the table, actually in a wet spot next to Shaky’s tequila sunrise. Bernie reached for the papers, but Shaky, surprisingly quick, grabbed them first. He sort of cleaned up the wet spot with his elbow, snapped off the rubber band, unrolled the papers, and spread them on the table.

  Not papers, but photos.

  “Probably best if you didn’t—” Bernie began.

  But it was too late. Shaky was hunched over the table, peering at the photos. We all took a nice, long, long peer.

  In the first photo, two people stood on a deck of a big house, overlooking a lake. Hey! I’d seen that house and that deck! And also that lake, both of them only by night, true, but I recognized them. I’m a pro, don’t forget. The two people had their arms around each other and were kissing. I recognized them, too: Mavis Verlander and Senator Wray.

  In the next photo, Mavis and the senator were on a bed and their clothes were on the floor. Over the head of the bed hung a big painting of a woman. I recognized her, too, from our little get-together at Billy Baez’s horse ranch, where I’d met her and her horse. The horse’s name was Capitol Hill, if I remembered right, and hers was Caroline Wray. She looked happier in the painting than she had at Billy’s. Somehow that bothered me.

  “Don’t know the gal, but she’s a knockout,” Shaky said. “The old coot looks familiar.”

  “Uh-huh,” Bernie said.

  The last photo showed Mavis and Wray again, still without clothes, although now standing up. She had her back to him, but had turned her head to look his way. They were both laughing. Some sort of square thing was stuck to her butt.

  Shaky squinted at it. “That a bumper sticker? What’s it say?”

  “‘Wray’s OK,’” said Bernie, his voice low and kind of hard.

  “Thought I recognized the bastard.”

  “You know him?” Bernie said.

  “Nah.”

  “Am I hearing a little extra spin in that nah?”

  “Nah,” Shaky said. Then he laughed. “How come your hearing’s so frickin’ good, Bernie?”

  Whoa! Had something suddenly happened to Bernie’s ears? I gave them a close look. They seemed unchanged, nicely shaped and of useful size, but I knew for a fact that Bernie’s hearing wasn’t frickin’ good or anywhere close.

  “Don’t know him personally,” Shaky was saying. “Buddy of mine plays with him.” He gestured at the photos. “Is this important? Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Yes,” said Bernie. “And no. Who’s this buddy of yours?”

  “Assistant pro over at Belhaven Springs. Gets looped into a foursome with Wray once in a while. He cheats.”

  “At golf?”

  Shaky took another glance at the photos. “That, too.”

  “Cheats how?”

  “Most basic way—on the scorecard. Anyone calls him on it, he’s always like, Nope, it was a four. Drive a little left over by the pond, five iron back of the bunker, chipped to eight feet, lipped it in. A story with details, just leaving out that the chip left him a thirty footer and he two putted. The little lie and the big lie all mixed together, you see what I mean.”

  Bernie smiled. “Very much so.”

  “You take every edge you can,” Shaky said. “That’s the game. But screwing with the score? That’s changing history.” He drained his tequila sunrise. “And then what’s the point of living right?”

  Bernie rose. With one hand, he picked up the putter and the photos. With the other, he took some money from his pocket and tried to hand it to Shaky. Shaky shrank away.

  “No way I take your money. Wouldn’t’ve gotten back on track, hadn’t been for you.”

  “I’ll book some lessons after this case,” Bernie said.

  “Hey, that’ll be fun!” Shaky said. “Meantime, I’m guessing I ain’t seen no photos nohow.”

  “Yo,” said Bernie.

  Twenty-nine

  “Blackmail,” Bernie said. “I’d like to think I had that feeling, but I didn’t.”

  Blackmail? How interesting! We’d worked a number of blackmail cases, although none recently, our recent jobs having been mostly about divorce. Blackmail cases are much better than divorce cases, but stolen property cases are my favorite, especially the one involving the hijacked eighteen-wheeler hauling a full load of biscuits from Rover and Company. We’d recovered each and every box! And returned a good number of them!

  “The Mickey Rottonis of the world never realize they’re out of their league until it’s too late,” Bernie said.

  We stopped at a red light. A cat in the rear window of a pickup gave me a look I didn’t appreciate, not one little bit. A soft growl rose up and joined all the traffic sounds.

  Bernie glanced over at me. “Rough on Mickey, I know, big guy. Maybe even worse, that horrible realization is their very last thought.”

  What was that? Totally missed by me. The light turned green. The pickup made a turn. We kept going straight. The growling died away. I realized I’d had a momentary drop right out of the picture. To get back in, I kind of pawed Bernie’s shoulder, but in the nicest way. Around then, we happened to veer into the next lane and possibly the one next to that. When the honking died down, Bernie said, “Thirsty? Let’s take a quick break.”

  I wasn’t the least bit thirsty! I simply wanted back in the picture! But Bernie’s the best wheelman in the Valley, so this little driving blip had to mean he needed a q
uick break. And there I was, back in the picture. We communicate, me and Bernie, end of story, probably the reason this case—blackmail, was it?—was going so well.

  We sat outside a small and quite fancy café we’d never been to. Bernie had iced tea. I had wonderfully icy water in a huge tin bowl. The waiter said nice things about me. What a find this place was!

  Bernie was looking through the high school yearbook again. “Got to confront the question of whether it was a setup, big guy. Was Mavis in on the blackmail? Just don’t see it. Why did Mickey beat up Johnnie Lee? Had to be when…”

  I sipped more of the lovely water, waited to hear Bernie’s guess, an amazing one for sure, but it never came.

  “We know Mavis and Wray met when Johnnie Lee took her to the holiday party. Then what? Mavis tells Johnnie Lee what’s going on? She tells Mickey? Or he simply finds out? Then he needs some details about the affair, the wheres and whens? Johnnie Lee won’t cooperate? He beats her up? She gets the restraining order? He gets himself a camera with a long lens and makes his play anyway, maybe with incomplete information?”

  Wow! What a lot of great questions!

  “Then came the blowback. Johnnie Lee got our name from Wynona, but we scared Mavis off, totally by accident, as it turned out. That’s the past. But what’s happening now? And what could happen?” His finger went tap, tap on a yearbook page. He took out his phone.

  “Wynona? Bernie Little here. Any chance you’ve heard from Johnnie Lee or Mavis?”

  “I have not.”

  “Has anyone else been asking about them?”

  “Yes.”

  “In person?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Who was it?”

  “A foreigner of some kind. I never quite got his name.”

  “What kind of foreigner?”

  “Russian, maybe.”

  “A real big guy or an actually huge guy?”

  “A really big guy. The actually huge guy stood by the car.”

  “What did he want to know?”