Tender Is the Bite

by Spencer Quinn

“Basically if I knew where to find the girls, as they called them. Apparently, they’d applied for entertainment jobs on a cruise ship, and these guys wanted to hire them.”

  “Did you tell them anything?”

  “Didn’t you say not to?”

  “True, but—”

  “And do I look like some sort of hick who’d fall for bullshit like that?”

  “You do not.”

  “Then there’s your answer,” Wynona said. “And they also asked about Neddy.”

  “Did he apply for a cruise ship job, too?”

  “Supposedly. And it would be believable in his case. But I kept my lips zipped.”

  “Thanks,” Bernie said. “One more thing—does the Hole in the Wall mean anything to you?”

  “Sure,” Wynona said. “Once upon a time, it was a cool teenage hangout—for the kids fit enough to make the climb. But then they found some artifacts up there, so the trail’s been closed off for years.”

  “What trail?” said Bernie.

  Wynona started in on something that sounded complicated. Bernie flipped open what Leda used to call his ratty little notebook—although no rat had ever been near it, trust me—and started making notes. Maybe I would have taken a swing at following it, but I got distracted by some very well-dressed ladies coming out of the café door. They all headed for cars parked along the street, except for the very last one, who saw us, paused, and stepped back inside. I came very close to recognizing her, despite the fact she wore big sunglasses and a fancy sort of cowboy hat that kept her face in shadow. Pretty good on my part.

  Meanwhile, Bernie had said goodbye to Wynona and was putting his phone away when it buzzed again.

  “What the hell is going on?” It was Captain Stine, sounding not his best.

  “We’re on a little hydration break,” Bernie said. “And you?”

  “And me? And me? I just got back from hours and hours of digging up that goddamn mine in Zinc Town—that’s how I am. Redigging it up, to be accurate.”

  “You were digging personally?”

  “Yes, you son of a bitch, plus a whole team working double overtime and blowing up the budget from now till the end of time.”

  “Did you find Mickey Rottoni?” Bernie said.

  Stine was quiet for what seemed like a long time. Then he said, “What do you think?”

  Bernie reached out and scratched between my ears, very brief but perfect, and out of the blue. “I don’t know what to think,” he said.

  I sure did: Bernie was the best!

  “The answer,” said Stine, “in case you don’t know, which I doubt, is no. But would it surprise you to learn we found another body in there?”

  “If Ellis was in charge, yeah,” Bernie said.

  “Ellis? Ellis is suspended as of ten minutes ago. A heavy lift, by the way. He’s got a lot of backers on the twelfth floor. But even those assholes can see that whatever went down at Zinc Town’s a disgrace.”

  “How did Ellis take it?”

  “He doesn’t know yet. Or maybe he does, unofficially. We’re looking for him.”

  Bernie sipped his iced tea.

  “I’m waiting,” Stine said.

  “For what?”

  “For you to ask about this other body.”

  “I don’t like to pry,” Bernie said. He clicked off and put the phone down. It buzzed again right away. He took another sip of iced tea and turned to me. “Did we get hold of the levers of power, big guy? Just for a minute or two?”

  Poor Bernie. All he had hold of was a glass of iced tea, couldn’t have been clearer. I had hold of nothing, although that might change, half a biscotti lying under the table within easy reach. But maybe we’d get hold of the levers of power one day, whatever they were.

  Bernie drummed his fingers on the table. I loved seeing that! Now all I had to do was wait for something amazing.

  “Cruise ship,” he said or possibly muttered or even mumbled. “She’s right. Could appeal. So how would you get in touch with … doesn’t he have an agent? Some funny name, kind of—?”

  Bernie cut himself off before he could get to the amazing part. The woman wearing the sunglasses and cowboy hat had come outside and was walking toward our table. Caroline Wray. I’d almost known!

  She stood before us, taller than I remembered. Bernie’s legs tensed like he was about to rise, but in the end he did not.

  “Ah, our private investigator, if memory serves,” she said. “Are you investigating me? Or is your presence here only a coincidence?”

  “Kismet,” Bernie said, losing me completely.

  Although perhaps not Caroline. “More the opposite,” she said. She pulled up a chair and sat down, taking off her sunglasses but leaving the cowboy hat on so her eyes were in shadow. When we’d surfed in San Diego, we’d kept going until after the sun went down. The color of the ocean then was the same as Caroline’s eyes now.

  “What is it you want?” she said.

  “In what context?” said Bernie.

  “In the context of you dropping whatever you’re doing—or think you’re doing—and going on a long vacation.”

  “Like to Kauai?”

  “Kauai has its charms, but I don’t really care. How much? What’s the number? Men do so love to have a number.”

  “I have no number,” Bernie said.

  “You prefer an initial offer?” Caroline said. “You’re the haggling type?”

  “What I want,” Bernie said, “is Mavis Verlander, safe and sound.”

  “A very pretty young woman, I hear. It’s possible I met her once, but unfortunately—very unfortunately—I don’t recall. You’re not the first to want her, and you won’t be the last. Girls like her go round and round until the music stops. Round and round and round.”

  “Is it too late?” Bernie said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “In general, when that question is asked, the answer is yes,” Caroline said. “But be more specific.”

  Bernie’s voice got hard. “Can you still stop all this?”

  “I?”

  “And if not you, the senator?”

  “Griffin?” Caroline started laughing. What a laugh she had! So rich and musical and confident! Some women don’t have confident laughs. They put a hand over their mouths. Men never do. What was that all about? No time to figure it out now. Caroline didn’t cover her mouth. Her teeth were big and white, her tongue nice and pink. Was it the happiest laugh I’d ever heard? Not close.

  “Oh, dear.” She took a silk handkerchief from her little gold purse and dabbed at the corner of her eye.

  “What are you telling me?” Bernie said.

  Caroline stuffed the handkerchief back in the purse and snapped it shut. “You may think you know what you’re doing—Bernie, is it?—but trust me. You do not.” She rose, walked over to a car, and drove away in no particular hurry. And not just any car but a Porsche, unless I was very mistaken, brand new and shiny, and quite similar to the color ours had been several paint jobs ago.

  The waitress came with the check. Bernie was reaching into his pocket when he suddenly went still. “Mad Dog Creative,” he said. “How could I forget a name like that?”

  “Excuse me?” said the waitress.

  * * *

  “MDC,” said a woman on the other end of the line.

  “I’d like to speak to the agent who reps Neddy Freleng, the comic.”

  “Moment.”

  Silence. Then another voice, this time a man’s. “Mr. Frood’s office.”

  Bernie repeated the whole thing about Neddy Freleng.

  “Moment.”

  Silence. Another man came on. “Wyatt Frood,” he said.

  “You rep Neddy Freleng?”

  “Correct.”

  “My name’s Lou Mayer. I’m with the Upper Valley Regional High School Association in Arizona. Ran into a couple of cruise ship entertainment scouts and they told me about Mr. Freleng. I’d like to find out if he’d be interested in visiting some of our cl
assrooms next year.”

  “What’s it pay?”

  “Nothing monetary. But our speakers can claim a charitable donation. And the kids always make a nice gift or two.”

  “Neddy was supposed to—” Mr. Frood backed up, tried again. “Did the cruise ship scouts say they’d already met with Neddy?”

  “Not that I remember. I’d like to meet him, too.”

  “I can give you his office number.”

  “Out there in LA?”

  “No. His office where you are.” Mr. Frood told Bernie the number.

  “And the address?” Bernie said. “I need to mail a brochure.”

  “Mail,” said Mr. Frood, almost like he’d never heard of it. I was very familiar with mail, and mail deliverers most of all. “Here you go—14362D West Horizon Road.”

  “Thanks,” said Bernie. Mr. Frood was already gone.

  * * *

  The Valley goes on and on in all directions. You have to get used to that if you want to be happy here. And I’m very happy here. Being a good napper in the car is a big help.

  “Wakie, wakie.”

  I opened my eyes. We have lots and lots of strip malls in these parts, from the very fanciest to the very crummiest. This one was in the very crummiest group, or possibly below, a squat, crumbling adobe building with a broken taped-up window or two, no parked cars, no people. We walked from door to door, all of them plastered with notices and padlocked.

  “A, B, C—D must be around the back,” Bernie said.

  We circled around to the back. It was a lot like the front, except here we had some trash lying around.

  “F, E, D.”

  We stopped in front of D, the only unpadlocked door in the whole place. A glass door, but with a blind hanging on the other side so we couldn’t see in. That didn’t keep me from smelling in, if you understand what I mean.

  Bernie did. He didn’t bother knocking, just tried the door, and when it didn’t open, he picked up a rock and shattered the glass, first telling me to step back, of course, just one of our many techniques at the Little Detective Agency, all adding up to make it what it is.

  We swept the blind aside and stepped in. A very crummy office and very small. There was barely room for the two guys already there, never mind us. The desk was the bricks-and-board type, and the chairs were plastic lawn chairs. Neddy was slumped in one of the lawn chairs. He wore a white T-shirt that was mostly red in front, and had a gun in his hand, not held tight, but his fingers had stiffened around it. More like loose and stiff at the same time, not a very professional look.

  The other guy lay twisted and facedown across the slanting desk board, his feet among the bricks, most of them scattered around. He had a gun in his hand, too, his grip on it much better than Neddy’s, with none of that looseness. Bernie flipped him over, not gently.

  It was Ellis. He wasn’t in his gold-braided uniform, instead wore a blue button-down and jeans. The blue button-down was all red in front, just like Neddy’s T-shirt.

  “Any chance Crime Scene will get this right?” Bernie said.

  I didn’t understand the question.

  He turned to me. “Smell Olek, Chet?”

  I got that one! What a great question! And the answer was yes, I sure did. Who could miss that borschty aroma?

  Bernie rose. “I don’t know many Russian words, but one is bespredel.” He gestured with his chin at the scene in Neddy’s office. “Now I’m pretty sure they have it in Ukrainian, too.” Bernie took one last look at Ellis and … and spoke to him. “Did you die thinking you were still in charge?”

  I’d never seen Bernie speak to a dead person before, and hoped this was a one-and-done situation. He got the blind back in place. We went out and closed the door.

  Thirty

  Up and up we climbed on a trail that twisted through a green and silvery forest, the trees smelling nuttier the higher we got, the feel of the air growing lovelier and lovelier. We came to a clearing with a stream flowing on the other side, not a muddy little trickle but bubbling water on the move. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of it, the water almost up to my shoulders. I gave it a taste. Ah! Delicious, some of the best water I’d ever sampled. Were we in New Mexico? I thought so. Not a very nice place in the matter of speeding tickets, but I had no complaints about their water. I lapped up some more.

  Bernie sat on the bank, dipping his bare feet in the stream. He opened the backpack, took out his water bottle and his notebook, the one no rat had ever been near. He studied the notebook and drank water. I studied him. He looked a bit worried. Did we have anything to worry about? Not that I could think of. For one thing, the .38 Special was in that backpack, as well as a tuna sandwich for Bernie and a Slim Jim or two for me. Can you lose with a combo like that? We never had. Tuna sandwich, Slim Jims, .38 Special. Remember that and you’ll come up roses. Just watch out for the thorny parts, which can mean a trip to the vet.

  Bernie gazed over my head, past the stream, the hills rising on the other side, all the way to some red-gold cliffs in the distance, cliffs with spiky rock towers at the top.

  “The Hole in the Wall’s somewhere up there, big guy.” He closed the notebook, got everything put away, crossed the stream with the backpack slung over one shoulder and his shoes in his hand. My Bernie! But he looked more worried than ever. “Let’s see if we can pick up the pace.”

  I was off like a shot.

  * * *

  “Smell Olek, Chet?”

  I did not. We were climbing a steep hill on one of those trails that was not always visible. Fine with me. No Olek smell, no human smell at all other than Bernie’s, always a comforting one to have nearby. Also we had scents of elk, snake, fox, bear, bighorn sheep, wild turkey, coyote, on and on. What a highly entertaining hike from the nose’s point of view!

  We reached the top of the hill, which turned out to be the last hill on the hike. Ahead, a rocky plain extended all the way to the base of the red cliff. The cliff wasn’t totally straight up and down until almost the very top. I thought I could make out a trail switchbacking up the not-totally-straight-up-and-down part, but I wasn’t sure. Above the end of the trail, if that’s what it was, I saw a black hole in the face of the cliff.

  Our own trail led across the plain, but a sign was posted on the very last tree in the forest. Bernie read it: “‘Trail closed. Do not proceed under penalty of law. By order of the USDA Forest Service.’” We kept going. Bernie gave me a glance, a certain kind of glance that means, Anything up, big guy? Was this about Olek again? There was no Olek scent in the air. There might have been a whiff or two of other human scent, but it was a bit confusing at the moment because of a vinegary smell streaming in on the breeze. Up ahead, the sun, getting lower in the sky, dipped below the top of the cliff and put us in shadow.

  Sometimes in our part of the world you can see where you’re headed—in this case, the tall red cliff with the black hole in its face—but it won’t come any closer, even might try to move farther away. That was what we had happening now, me and Bernie. He began to jog. I trotted along beside him. How worried he was, and what a hurry we were in! I suddenly thought of Gail. Bernie sped up a bit. I trotted along beside him.

  * * *

  The sky was purple with orange streaks, and the shadow of the cliff was almost as dark as night when we finally reached it. Bernie gazed up at the cliff face, not straight up and down until you came to a ledge quite a way below the black hole. From here, I could see something I hadn’t been able to before—a rope ladder dangling down and down from the mouth of the black hole to the ledge below.

  We started up the steep zigzagging path, me first, but when I glanced back and saw Bernie had to go down to all fours on the toughest parts, I moved behind him, just in case. Bernie on all fours is not at his best. He was dusty and sweaty when we reached the ledge, and there was a line or two on his face that I’d never seen before.

  It was as close to silent on this ledge as the world ever gets. A little green lizard w
ith a yellow head ducked under a rock partway down the switchback trail, and I heard the scramble of its tiny, hard feet. But other than that, we were soundless. Bernie gave me another of those searching looks. The air began to smell of vinegar. There were other scents, too, but with vinegar around, they just wouldn’t line up for me. Bernie took the .38 Special from the backpack and stuck it in his pocket. He lay the backpack beside me, crouched down, rubbed the top of my head. “Sit,” he said. “Stay. Guard the backpack for me.”

  I sat. I stayed. I guarded the backpack. Bernie gave me the silent signal—finger across his lips—walked over to the rope ladder, got a grip with his hands, and started up. We’d done lots of ladder work, me and Bernie, and I was not bad on them, not too bad at all, but we hadn’t gotten to rope ladders. This one swayed and wobbled as Bernie climbed. That didn’t slow him down in the slightest. Higher and higher he went at the same steady pace, hands and feet, arms and legs, his whole body in beautiful motion. He reached the lip of the back hole, pulled himself up, gave me a quick glance—even a quick little wave—and disappeared inside.

  After that, nothing. Well, perhaps a faint thump or footstep. I rose. Still staying, of course, as Bernie had suggested. I thought about the faint thump or footstep. I edged over toward the rope ladder, still staying on the ledge, meaning my obedience was beyond question. From above came not a sound, no thump, no footstep. I gazed up at the black hole and placed one paw on the first rung of the rope ladder. It swung away from me. I tried again, and again, and was about to try once more, when a figure appeared up above, on the lip of the black hole. A very small figure, but one I knew. It was Griffie.

  I barked, not loudly, a bark partly surprised, partly annoyed, and partly just hi. Then I remembered the silent sign and barked again, much more softly. You wouldn’t have heard it, but perhaps Griffie did. He backed away, out of sight.

  I got a paw—a front paw—on a rung of the rope ladder, not the lowest as before, but the next one up. That was more or less an accident, but a good one, because one of my back paws got involved with that lowest rung and the next thing I knew, I was sort of on my way up! This was nothing like the wooden ladders of my experience, but definitely doable, as long as I—