“Can or bottle?” Bernie said.
“Bottle.”
“Did he take the cap off or was it already open?”
“I … uh, I’m not sure,” Devin said.
“That’s okay,” said Bernie. “Do you remember that snap-fizz sound you get when the cap snaps off?”
Devin was quiet for a moment or two. Then he said, “I don’t think so. Is it, like, important?”
“Not really,” Bernie said. “The only important thing now is that you’re safe.” He gave Devin’s shoulder a quick pat. “What happened next?”
“I drank the Coke and went to sleep.”
“How did it taste?”
“Like Coke. You know. Great.”
“Before you went to sleep,” Bernie said, “did you hear any talking?”
“From the tent, you mean?” said Devin.
“Or anywhere?”
Devin shook his head. “The next talking I heard was when I woke up.”
“And when was that?”
“I don’t know. The blindfold was on.”
“Uh-huh,” Bernie said.
“I didn’t even know what was happening—I thought I was blind. Then I tried to get the blindfold off, but my hands were tied. Then I tried to yell, but there was tape on my mouth. That’s when I heard talking. A man said to shut the fuck up.”
“Did you recognize his voice?”
“No,” Devin said. “But it turned out to be one of those two guys, the meaner one.”
“Which one’s that?”
“The not quite as big one.”
“Mack.”
“They never said their names.” Devin turned to Bernie. “And I never saw their faces till … till you came. Who are they?”
“Criminals,” Bernie said.
And soon they’d be breaking rocks in the hot sun. I felt pretty good about that. I squeezed over toward Suzie. She put her arm around me.
“… he picked me up,” Devin was saying. “I kind of struggled, and my shirt got ripped, and I fell and tried to roll away, but he grabbed me and then I felt a sharp thing in my leg and that’s all I remember till I woke up again and I was in that room.”
“In the hunting lodge.”
“Yeah. That place.”
“The ripped shirt,” Bernie said. “Is it the one you’re wearing?”
“Yeah.”
Bernie turned. “Is that the rip? At the back of the neck?”
Devin nodded.
“And that’s where the name tag goes?”
“My mom sewed it on.”
“Check if it’s still there.”
Devin checked. “It musta got torn off.”
“Good thing you’re a fighter, Devin.”
“Huh?”
“That name tag turned out to be real important.”
“You found it?”
Bernie smiled. “A fighter and pretty smart, too.”
“Thanks,” said Devin in a very small voice. We went bumpity bump over a long washboard stretch, but then came smooth gravel and Bernie stepped on it. “You’re taking me to my mom?” Devin said.
“After one quick errand,” said Bernie.
“Where is she?”
“At home.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Suzie?” said Bernie.
Suzie flipped open her phone. “No service,” she said.
“Should have service soon,” Bernie said.
“That’s all right,” said Devin. “Will my dad be there, too?”
Suzie’s arm tightened around me.
“Your dad got involved with some bad people,” Bernie said. “That’s why this happened.”
“Does he know about me?”
“He felt very bad about it,” Bernie said.
Devin went quiet for a bit. Then he said, “I want to talk to him.”
Bernie stepped on it a little more; we were whipping through the night. “They killed him, Devin,” Bernie said.
“My dad’s dead?”
Bernie nodded.
Sometimes humans go to pieces. I hate seeing that, and kids going to pieces is the worst. Devin went to pieces. Bernie tried pulling him over, closer to him, but Devin wouldn’t be pulled. He went to pieces by himself. We drove faster and faster; I thought we’d lift right off the ground.
“Why? Why?”
Bernie didn’t answer at first. But then, after more why-whys, he took a deep breath and said, “Your dad finally stood up to them.”
Was that what had happened? Not the way I remembered it, but the whole thing was pretty complicated, and if Bernie said so, then end of story.
Devin started quieting down after that. We came to a crossroads, the crossing road being paved, and made a pit stop. When we returned to the car, Devin climbed into the back with me and Suzie sat in front. We drove down the paved road. Devin said, “So he was brave?”
“Yeah,” said Bernie.
Devin leaned against me and fell asleep. Somewhere high above a chopper went whap-whap-whap. Not loud; no reaction from Bernie or Suzie; no surprise.
It was still dark when we pulled into the town of Big Bear and parked in Judge Stringer’s pebbly driveway. His house was dark, too.
“Here’s how this’ll work,” Bernie said. “Chet and I go up to the house. Devin and Suzie get down out of sight. Suzie counts to ten and beeps the horn, beep-beep. Everybody good?”
Good? Way better than good: what a plan!
Bernie and I got out of the cruiser; he closed the door real softly. We walked up to the house and stood on either side of the door, right against the wall, totally silent; just like in practice.
BEEP-BEEP.
I heard stirring in the house almost right away, and then light flowed out from a window somewhere above us, and I heard the judge’s wife.
“Clarence? I think the sheriff’s in the driveway.”
“Damn it to hell,” said the judge, or something like that: he was farther from the window and I couldn’t be sure.
Then a bit of quiet, and after that came a soft pad pad, moving closer and closer. The door opened.
The judge, standing in the doorway, just out of sight, spoke in one of those urgent loud whispers—so strange: what was the point? But no time for that now.
“Laidlaw?”
Silence.
“Christ almighty,” said the judge. He stepped outside, within touching distance of me and Bernie on either side. The judge, wearing pajamas—hey, they were orange—and those slippers with the rawhide laces, wasn’t looking sideways. He was peering at the cruiser, his white hair all over the place, his face set in an irritated expression, his eye—the one I could see—angry.
“Laidlaw?”
He took another step. We pounced. The judge twisted around, looked pretty shocked to see us. There was a bit of a struggle. Somehow the judge slipped out of his pajama top, fell free to the ground and started scrambling into the house. I caught him by the pant leg. Weren’t pajamas a kind of pants? Case closed.
The judge screamed. No way he could have been in that kind of pain. Then, like his scream had caused it—that confused me for the longest time—lights flashed on, so bright and all around the house and the driveway and the lawn that it was almost day, and dudes, heavily armed dudes wearing blue hiking outfits, came rushing in from every direction and surrounded us. I recognized a couple of them, including the nice one who’d shared his BLT, and the gray-haired one who now faced Bernie and said, “What the hell’s going on?”
“We were just about to deliver this prisoner,” Bernie said.
The gray-haired dude glanced down at the judge. “But we haven’t even arrested him yet,” he said.
“What are you charging him with?” Bernie said.
“A million things,” said the gray-haired dude. “Corruption, racketeering, drug dealing, money laundering, blackmail, Christ knows what else—been sitting on this county for months. And now you come to fuck it up.”
“Were your eyes open while all
that sitting was going on?” Bernie said.
The gray-haired dude turned bright red. “Better have friends in high places, buddy boy. Who the hell are you?”
“Hikers,” Bernie said. “We met on the trail—don’t you remember?”
The gray-haired dude’s face left the red stage, hit purple. A couple of the armed guys stepped forward.
“Take it easy,” Bernie said. He handed the gray-haired dude our business card, the new one with the flower. Bernie didn’t care for the flower, but it was Suzie’s design, so we were living with it for now.
The gray-haired dude scanned the card. “This doesn’t tell me a whole hell of a lot.”
“Happy to answer any questions,” Bernie said. “But they’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Meanwhile, you can add kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder to those charges.” He handed over the keys to the cruiser. “The actual murderer’s in the trunk. I assume you picked up the deputies.”
“Still looking for them.”
“They weren’t in the hunting lodge?”
“What hunting lodge?”
“You didn’t see my flashlight?”
“What flashlight?”
One of the guys toward the back held up the flashlight. “Boss? I didn’t know whether to mention this at the time.”
Then came more palaver, but after that we were in the Beetle and headed home, Bernie driving, Suzie sleeping beside him—he had his arm around her the whole way—Devin, also sleeping, in the back with me. I was wide awake. Day—the real day—broke all around us as we came down out of the high green country and into the desert. When the most beautiful part of that was fading, I got started on the rawhide lace. It just so happened that I’d ended up with one of the judge’s slippers, exactly how being a bit of a mystery.
Anya wasn’t inside her house, or in the doorway, or on the front lawn. She was standing right out in the middle of the street. That moment, when Devin ran into her arms and she swept him up, and they cried their eyes out? Well, this job is the best there is, if I haven’t mentioned that already.
“Don’t know whether to cash the check,” Bernie said as we drove away.
I sat up straight.
“Why not?” Suzie said.
“She never leveled with us,” Bernie said. “I’m not even sure she—”
“Cash the check, Bernie,” Suzie said. “You earned it.”
Ah, that Suzie.
But soon came a puzzler: When we stopped for gas and Bernie was at the pumps, Suzie spoke, very quiet, maybe just to herself. “Check means bank account,” she said. “Where it wasn’t safe to keep money because of the IRS.” The check was good? It wasn’t good? I got a bit nervous.
Bernie climbed back in the car. “Something on your mind?”
“No.” Suzie glanced at him. “Yours?”
He nodded. “I was wondering if he’ll tell her the part about holding the automatic while I tied up those deputies.”
“What?”
“The safety was on,” Bernie said. “As I recall.”
When we got home, Mr. Parsons was out on his front lawn, Iggy behind him in the window, jumping up and down. Mr. Parsons stumped over as we got out of the car.
“Saw the news,” he said. “Congratulations. So glad you’re all back together.”
“Thanks for your help,” Bernie said.
“A pleasure,” said Mr. Parsons. “Iggy slept twenty-four hours solid after Chet left. One bit of neighborhood news—there’s this little puppy that’s been hanging out in the canyon lately.”
“Yeah?” said Bernie.
“Funny thing is,” said Mr. Parsons, “he’s a perfect miniature of our friend here.”
“Chet?”
“The same.”
Then they were all looking at me for some reason. I wagged my tail, my go-to move, really, suitable for just about every occasion.
Bernie and Suzie closed the bedroom door and went right to sleep, or pretty soon. I slept under the kitchen table, one of my favorite spots, the table top being a kind of roof and then there was the bonus of the real roof. When I woke up, Suzie was gone and Bernie was showered, shaved, dressed, and drinking coffee; his face looked almost back to normal.
“Hey, big guy.” I went over to him. “You did great,” he said, and gave me lots of pats. “How about we pay Georgie Malhouf a visit?”
Not long after that, we—how would you put this?—barged, yeah, we barged into Georgie’s office without knocking. Georgie was at his desk, in the middle of saying something to Butch, in one of the visitor chairs. They both rose, real surprised.
“Why, Bernie,” Georgie said. “We were discussing you this very moment. Butch, didn’t I just finish saying that Bernie should be on the receiving end of a nice fat check from Malhouf International?”
“Huh?” said Butch.
“What I want,” Bernie said, “is to see some paper I allegedly signed.”
“Sure thing, right away,” said Georgie. He fumbled in a drawer, handed Bernie a sheet of paper.
Bernie glanced at it, tossed it away. “Not this one. You know what I’m looking for.” Georgie gave him another sheet. Bernie scanned it and nodded. “Eat it,” he said.
There was pause. Then Georgie said, “Can Butch have some?”
“Butch?” said Bernie.
“Maybe a little,” Butch said.
Bernie tore off a thin strip, which Butch ate. Georgie ate the rest. They didn’t seem to enjoy it, no surprise to me. Eating paper was pretty pointless, as I’ve proved to myself more than once.
A few days later, Moondog knocked on our door. He didn’t bring Rummy with him, just Rummy’s smell.
“Owe you an apology,” he said.
Bernie’s face was stony. “Some things you can’t apologize for.”
“Right about that,” Moondog said. “I apologize anyhow.” Bernie said nothing.
Moondog shuffled around a bit. “Sheriff killed Turk because he thought you’d get the truth out of him?” he said.
“Something like that,” Bernie said.
Moondog reached in his pocket and held out the nugget. “Here,” he said.
Bernie took the nugget.
Moondog shuffled around some more. “Don’t have to tell me or nothin’, but I’d sure like to know where that nugget come from.”
Bernie gave him a long look. “Chet found it somewhere in the mine.”
Moondog nodded. “What I thought. See, there’s stories going way back that hidden deep inside that son of a whore is a chamber with a seam of pure gold yea big.”
Not exactly: it was even bigger.
“What I’m thinkin’ is you got a real talented dog here. I’m proposin’ we go in halves, you and me, lease us some earth-movin’ equipment, and get rich as kings.”
Bernie thought. Moondog and I waited. “I’ve made a few investments recently that didn’t work out,” Bernie said at last.
Tin futures? Hawaiian pants?
“So I’m going to pass on this one.”
After Moondog left, we went on a nice long walk. Bernie did some whistling; he was real happy.
“Gotta pick and choose, big guy,” he said. “That’s what shrewd investing’s all about.”
Oh, Bernie.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Molly Friedrich, Lucy Carson, and Sylvie Rabineau.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Description
Back Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Content
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapte
r Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Acknowledgments
The Dog Who Knew Too Much Page 26