To Fetch a Thief

by Spencer Quinn

  All this talk had been flowing back and forth over my head in a pleasant way, but elephant dung: that got my attention.

  “Not hard to spot,” Bernie was saying. “And I looked. Even if I hadn’t, do you think Chet would have missed something like that?”

  “Got a point there,” said Rick, giving me a quick pat.

  Damn right, Bernie had a point. I’d never overlooked dung of any kind, not once in my whole career.

  “But,” said Rick, “that could just show they got separated earlier, like before they reached the border.”

  “You think it’s a coincidence,” Bernie said, “two Cuatro Rosas trucks showing up in the same case?”

  “Spoke to that guy, Tex Rosa—absolutely clean, by the way, not even—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Don’t say what?” Rick said.

  “‘Not even a parking ticket,’” Bernie said. “It’s one of those cop clichés that drive me crazy.”

  “Okay,” Rick said, “I won’t say it. Am I allowed to say he denies that any of his trucks were anywhere near the fairgrounds the night of the disappearance?”

  “I’ve got a witness who contradicts that.”

  “Name of?”

  “Ollie Filipoff—one of the acrobats.”

  Rick wrote in his notebook. “I’ll check him out.”

  “Do that,” Bernie said. “And then ask yourself what the second truck was doing down there.”

  “The so-called second truck’s back in the yard,” Rick said. “Saw it myself this morning. According to Rosa, it was headed to Santa Fe with some engine parts last night, but developed an oil leak at spaghetti junction and turned back.” Rick paused, cleared his throat. I always listen for the throat-clearing thing, in case I haven’t mentioned that already. “Bernie?”

  “Don’t want to hear it.”

  “I’ll say it anyway—spaghetti junction’s a goddamn nightmare, plus it was nighttime, and anyone could go in tailing truck A and come out tailing truck B.”

  The muscle in Bernie’s jaw jumped. “That didn’t happen.”

  “Suit yourself,” Rick said. “But big picture—what we’re left with is a missing elephant and the body of the guy who stole it. Not much rationale for a big commitment of Metro resources.” Rick got up. “But if something new comes up, let me know.”

  “That’ll be my number one priority,” Bernie said.

  They didn’t shake hands.

  The door to Popo’s trailer was open. We went in, found him sitting in front of a mirror, putting on his clown face. He had the white stuff on already, and the thick red lips, but he hadn’t started on the eyes or the nose.

  “Hi,” he said, turning; his eyes looked very small. “What brings you here?”

  “Uh.” I felt Bernie steel himself. That’s what he does at tough times—stands straighter, makes himself hard like steel. “We’ve got news,” he said. “Not good.”

  “Oh, no,” Popo said. He put one hand to his mouth, smearing the red lip stuff over his face.

  “I’m sorry,” Bernie said.

  Popo sucked in air, real fast, making a rasping sound. He turned his face away from us. Popo was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, one of those wife beaters, I think they’re called, not sure why. The one wife beater we’d come across wore a leather jacket. We broke down his door and caught him in action. Bernie made him pay. But that’s another story. Right now I was watching Popo’s shoulders, skinny shoulders, not at all like Bernie’s, and his neck was skinny, too. Something about the back of his head was very nice, hard to explain. He was trembling, just the tiniest bit. I went around and sat down in front of him, at his feet. Maybe he didn’t see me right away, on account of his eyes being so damp and cloudy. But then he did, and reached out. I gave his hand a lick. It tasted of lipstick, a taste I knew from having chewed up one of Leda’s lipsticks in the old days, or possibly more than one, even lots.

  Popo’s eyes, overflowing now although he didn’t make a sound, stayed on me. His face was very strange, part clown, part man, and all smeared with red and tears, but I wasn’t afraid. I moved closer, pressed against his leg. Popo was the kind of human I really liked, don’t know why. He put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer. I let myself be pulled.

  Bernie told Popo the whole story about what had happened out in the desert. Popo asked some questions and Bernie explained again. Then came more questions and more answers from Bernie. I ended up almost understanding the whole thing myself.

  Popo wiped what was left of the makeup off his face. “I want you to keep looking,” he said.

  “For what?” said Bernie.

  “For Peanut, of course. That’s what Uri would have wanted.”

  “Um,” said Bernie, “I’m not sure that—”

  Popo’s voice rose, got real loud, in fact. “Name the price.”

  Bernie nodded. “The normal rate—four hundred a day plus expenses.”

  Four hundred a day? Wasn’t our normal rate five hundred? Which was more? That was the one I wanted.

  Popo opened a drawer and took out his checkbook.

  “That can wait,” Bernie said. Oh, Bernie.

  Popo glanced at a wall clock—and, yes, gave himself a little shake. Then he turned to the mirror, and began spreading white stuff from a jar onto his face.

  “What, uh . . .” said Bernie.

  “Showtime,” Popo said. From the set of his skinny shoulders I knew he was steeling himself, too, the best he could.

  We left Popo’s trailer. Outside were a bunch of circus people, some I knew, like Fil and Ollie Filipoff, and lots I didn’t, like a bare-chested strongman, a woman in motorcycle leathers, a man with one of those single-wheeled bikes in his hand. They all started filing inside.

  We drove out of the fairgrounds. The patches under Bernie’s eyes were even darker now. He made some calls. I kept a close watch on the car in front of us, specifically a car with a cat lying on the rear-window shelf, as cats often do. What’s wrong with the shotgun seat? This cat was watching me, too, watching me in a way I didn’t like one little bit.

  “Chet! Knock it off.”

  I tried to knock it off.

  “Chet! What’s gotten into you?”

  Bernie didn’t know? The cat was practically right in his face, yawning and stretching in a way that made me want to . . . but then we turned onto an exit ramp and the cat was gone. I settled down, no problem, quiet, alert, professional.

  Pretty soon we were going by a golf course. Lots of golf courses in the Valley, always the greenest land around. That bothered Bernie, on account of—hey! We weren’t actually going by this one, but turning in and following a curving driveway lined with flowers. In the lot at the end we parked beside a long, white car that seemed familiar.

  Nice smells in the golf course air: flowers, fresh-cut grass, and water, lots of it, even though I couldn’t see any. We walked over to the practice tees—I knew practice tees from the Dalton case, where it turned out Mrs. Dalton was having an affair with her golf pro, although at the same time her game improved so much she and Mr. Dalton won a local husband-and-wife tournament just before the divorce, so everything ended up okay—where only one person was taking swings, a tanned, big-headed, cigar-smoking guy wearing yellow pants, a pink shirt, and a straw hat: Colonel Drummond. He took a short, choppy backswing and jerked his club down at the ball with surprising force. Was that called topping it, when the ball hit the ground almost right away, bounced a few times, and rolled to a stop close by?

  Colonel Drummond glanced up. “Mind not moving when a player’s addressing the ball?” he said. He looked more closely. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Your office said you’d be here,” Bernie said.

  Drummond reached into the basket, placed another ball on the tee. “This about DeLeath? I already heard.” He shook his head. “Terrible, terrible news,” he said, talking around his cigar. “I’m devastated, don’t mind telling you.” He waggled the club, took another swing, a lot like t
he last, but this time he didn’t top the ball. Instead it darted rapidly to one side and dinged off a golf cart. “See?” the colonel said. “Can’t hardly think about anything else. Our little world—the circus world, I’m talking about—has lost one of its best.” He teed up another ball.

  “What do you want to do about it?” Bernie said.

  Drummond, already into his waggle, stopped. “Do about what?”

  “Getting to the bottom of what happened.”

  “The animal rights assholes got into DeLeath’s head and he went off the deep end, that’s what happened,” Drummond said. “Unless you have a different story.”

  “I don’t,” Bernie said. “I only have questions.”

  Drummond checked his watch. “Tee time’s in five minutes,” he said, “so there’s time to hear just one.”

  “Okay,” said Bernie. “Do you know Tex Rosa?”

  “Never heard of him.” Drummond started his waggle again, took the club back, and swung. This time the ball rose off the ground a bit and went down the fairway, although not far.

  “More like it,” Drummond said. “What would you say—two twenty?”

  “Tex Rosa owns a shipping line called Cuatro Rosas,” Bernie said.

  Drummond took the cigar from his mouth, tapped off the ash, smiled. “That’s pretty damn close to a second question,” he said. “The answer’s still no.”

  Bernie gave him a long look. “Your stance is too wide,” he said. “Messes up your rotation.”

  “Huh?” said the colonel. “You know the game?”

  “Not really,” Bernie said. “I caddied a bit when I was a kid.”

  Hey! That was new. Bernie could still surprise me, always in a good way. No one comes close to him, if you want my true opinion.

  Drummond lined up before another ball. “Like this?”

  “Even more.”

  Drummond brought his feet closer together, swung again. This was his best by far, not what you’d call soaring, but well off the ground and past some bushes, rolling up to the edge of a sand trap. “Well, well,” said Drummond. “Much obliged.”

  “What about Peanut?” Bernie said.

  “What about her?”

  “Don’t you want her back?”

  “How can you even ask me that?” Drummond said. “But we’ve got to face facts—elephants aren’t built for desert survival.”

  “Meaning she’s dead?”

  “Wish to God I could be more hopeful.”

  “Is she insured?”

  Drummond laughed. “Can’t buy life insurance for circus animals,” he said.

  “So that’s it?”

  A golf cart came bumping up with a guy dressed a lot like Drummond and also smoking a cigar at the wheel. “Sneaking in some practice?” the new guy said. “You sly son of a bitch.”

  Drummond picked up his bag, turned to Bernie. “It’s business, son. I’m interviewing for a trainer next week and we’ll have a new elephant act up and running by spring at the latest. The show must go on.” He got in the cart. “Thanks for the tip.”

  As the cart drove off, I heard the other guy say, “What tip?”

  “Gonna cost you to find out,” said Drummond. They both laughed. Cigar clouds lingered in the air behind them.

  Bernie watched until the cart was out of sight. “Two twenty, my ass,” he said. Someone’s bag of clubs stood waiting on the next tee. Bernie grabbed a club, toed a ball into place and whacked it. CRACK! ZING! Wow! So high and zooming—that ball just took off, soaring straight, way over the bushes and the sand trap, and a pond and the green with its flag, and some trees and the fence beyond, and over the road on the other side, where I finally lost it.

  We went home. I took a ball with me, actually more than one. Golf balls aren’t big—you can fit a surprising number of them in your mouth at the same time.

  FIFTEEN

  Back home, Bernie filled my water bowl and went into the bedroom. I lapped some up and followed him. “Hate sleeping in the daytime,” he said, lying on the bed, still in his clothes. He rolled over and fiddled with the alarm clock. “One hour, tops.” He lay back, closed his eyes. I wasn’t really in the mood for this, felt like a hike in the canyon out back, or a game of fetch, or even a quick walk up and down the street. But Bernie looked so tired, and that strange zigzag line was showing on his forehead again, like maybe he was in some kind of pain. I backed out of the bedroom, went into the hall, looked out the side window, and there was Iggy, in his side window. He jumped up, front paws on the glass, excited to see me—Iggy was a good pal. I got up on my hind legs, too. Iggy went yip-yip-yip, that high-pitched bark that annoyed all the neighbors, except for us, of course. I started to bark back, but then swallowed it—or most of it, or at least some of it—thinking of Bernie. Then old Mr. Parsons appeared behind Iggy and said something that I could tell was all about knocking it off and getting away from that damned window. Iggy kept yipping and jumping up and down and wagging his stubby tail. Mr. Parsons went away, then came back with—hey! with a chew strip, a real big one. He waved it in front of Iggy’s nose and walked away. That was the end of all the yipping, jumping, and wagging; Iggy turned from the window and scuttled after old Mr. Parsons. I wanted that chew strip real bad.

  “Chet!” Bernie called from the bedroom. “Cool it.”

  I caught the faint echo of barking in the air. Me? Oops.

  I moved toward the front door, circled around a bit, lay down. Then I got up, looked out the side window again. No Iggy. He was probably working on that chew strip. I came close to barking again, very very close, maybe even too close. I went still, listening for Bernie. He was breathing, slow and regular. I went down the hall, peeked in the bedroom. He lay on his back, forearm over his eyes, chest rising and falling. I watched him for a while. He was sleeping. That was nice, watching Bernie sleep. Soon he’d be up and we’d be hiking in the canyon or playing fetch, or doing that other activity I’d thought of before but couldn’t think of now.

  I went into the office, gazed at the elephants on the rug, and was still gazing at them when the phone rang. The machine picked up.

  “Still not taking your calls? The retainer I put down doesn’t entitle me to more . . . Christ. Listen, it’s Marvin. Marvin Winkleman. Give me a call at your, quote, earliest convenience.” Click.

  I like most humans I’ve met, even some perps and gangbangers. Take Boodles Calhoun, for example, now breaking rocks in the hot sun, but once he’d scratched between my ears—this was just before he realized Bernie and I actually didn’t have a trunkful of gold coins for him—and he’d been very good at it. But forget Boodles Calhoun. The point was Marvin Winkleman seemed to be turning into one of those few humans I didn’t much like.

  I went into the kitchen, lapped up more water. Water’s my drink, although I’ve tried others, like beer from a hubcap, that time with the bikers. Loved those bikers! For a while I thought about all the fun we’d had and then I went sniffing under the table and found a few crumbs and after that I returned to the front hall and gazed through the tall window beside the door. Oh, no: a squirrel on the front lawn, just standing there! I growled. Maybe he heard me, because he scampered off, although not that desperate scamper squirrels do when they’re running for their lives, and that’s the scamper I like to see.

  Sometime later, old man Heydrich appeared on the sidewalk with a broom. He glanced over at our place, saw me, and made one of those nasty faces humans can make—I think that one’s called a smirk—and then started sweeping all the dirt from his part of the sidewalk over to our part, something Bernie hated. If only I’d been out there, I’d have—

  Old man Heydrich went away. A moment or two after that, a dusty pickup drove by. We get lots of dusty pickups in the Valley and I wasn’t watching very carefully until the driver’s head turned and he looked at our house. He got a real good look at the house and I got a real good look at him: his crooked nose, his long sideburns, his bandanna. I started barking my head off.

  “
Hey, Chet, what’s happening?” Bernie came into the front hall, not looking so tired now, the zigzag line gone. I barked and barked. “Heydrich sweeping the damn sidewalk again?” Bernie peered out the long window, gazing in the direction of Heydrich’s strip of sidewalk. Down at the other end of the street, Jocko rounded a turn and disappeared from view; Bernie looked that way, too late. I barked a few more times, but what could I do? “Come on, boy, how about a snack?”

  * * *

  We had a nice snack—salsa and chips for Bernie, king-sized biscuit for me—and then Bernie took a shower, hanging his bathrobe over the bathroom door. This was the robe Leda had always called Bernie’s ratty robe, although I didn’t know why, since the pattern didn’t have a single rat on it, was all about martini glasses with long-legged women in them. Bernie loved his robe, an old robe he’d had a long time, and that used to belong to a buddy from army days named Tanner who Bernie never talked about except for one night when we were camping out in the desert and he’d been staring into the fire. “Poor Tanner.” That was all he said.

  But now, in the shower, he was in a good mood. I could tell from his singing. He went through some of his favorites: “Lonesome 77203,” “Born To Lose,” “A Tear Fell,” “Sea of Heartbreak”; yes, a very good mood. Steam came pouring through the doorway and I went closer; love the feel of steam. And what was this? Maybe Bernie didn’t have the shower curtain quite right, because water was pooling on the floor. I tasted it: a little too warm and soapy, but not bad, not bad at all.

  Soon Bernie was all dressed—khakis, sneakers, T-shirt—and fresh coffee was dripping into the pot. “Love that smell,” he said; Bernie was capable of smelling coffee, I knew that for a fact. We went out to the patio, Bernie sipping from his mug, me checking under the barbecue and finding zip.

  “Kind of odd,” Bernie said. “Haven’t heard from Suzie in a—oh, my God!” He hurried into the office, got on the phone. “Suzie? Pick up if you’re there. I just, um, realized about our, like, date—you know, the Dry Gulch. Something came up, work, this case, developments. Uh. But I should have called. So, um, sorry. Please call. Or I’ll call you, maybe that’s the best way to . . .” He hung up, looked at me. “I’m an idiot,” he said. No way. Bernie was always the smartest human in the room.