To Fetch a Thief

by Spencer Quinn

But back to the lobby. It had ceiling fans, a palm tree—I know palm trees from the big leaves—and a few clusters of leather chairs here and there. Very nice, the leather smell. Leather is good for gnawing: that was my first thought.

  The lobby was deserted except for Popo. He sat in a leather chair in one of those clusters, his face even thinner than the last time we’d seen him, the bones underneath showing in a way that made me uneasy. We sat beside him, Bernie on another leather chair, me on the floor, a black-and-white tile floor that felt nice and cool.

  “Drummond fired me,” Popo said.

  Uh-oh. Humans got fired from time to time, meaning they had no job. Having no job: that would be bad. Couldn’t happen to me and Bernie. There was always divorce work.

  “Why?” Bernie said.

  “He’s going in a different direction.”

  “A circus without a clown?”

  Popo shrugged, just a little shrug. A big shrug means not caring. A little shrug means you’re beat. I didn’t like seeing that from Popo. I moved closer to his chair. And what was this? Down near one of the wooden legs, a small corner end of leather had come loose and was just hanging there, like something meant to be.

  “What are you going to do?” Bernie said.

  Popo shrugged again.

  “You must have contacts.”

  “Contacts?”

  “In the clowning world.”

  “I suppose,” Popo said. “But what if your heart’s not in it?”

  “Maybe you just need some time,” Bernie said.

  Sometimes humans get this look that makes me think they hadn’t heard what had just been said. “Has that ever happened to you?” he said. “Your heart not being in your work?”

  “Divorce cases sometimes do that to me,” Bernie said. “But my head’s always in it.”

  Popo gave Bernie a quick look. “That’s probably why you’re the way you are.”

  Did Popo mean that in a good way or bad way? I didn’t know. As for Bernie, he was shrugging the big shrug, the non-caring kind. Bernie’s tough—don’t forget that. And so am I.

  “With me there’s not much separation,” Popo said, “so my head’s not in it either, at least not now.” He gave himself a shake, not much of one, more like a shiver, but I loved seeing that. “Not fair to you, talk like this,” Popo said. “Obviously not in your line. But I was sorting through Uri’s—effects? Is that the properly detached terminology?—and I found something you might be interested in.” He opened a laptop. “This was Uri’s. There were no bad surprises, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I found this video. It’s from twelve years ago, before we even met.” Popo turned the laptop in our direction. “I think it’s for some sort of school discussion video hookup.”

  Popo tapped at the keyboard. A close-up face appeared, a face I didn’t recognize at first, but then I noticed the pencil mustache and even though he looked younger than in the video with Peanut, I knew it had to be DeLeath: mustaches interest me, especially the pencil kind, and there wasn’t another one in this case, not that I could remember.

  First came a woman’s voice. “Welcome to Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School, Mr. DeLeath.”

  “Thank you,” DeLeath said. Hey! He had a very nice voice, strong and kind of deep, in fact a lot like Bernie’s. Although not quite as nice as that—goes without saying.

  “The students really enjoyed their visit to the circus when you were in town last winter,” the woman said, “and they have some questions. Can you hear me all right?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Great. How about we start with Jeremy?”

  There was some banging around and then a kid spoke. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” said DeLeath, starting to smile.

  “My dad says you have to hurt the elephant to make it do tricks.”

  The human smile when the smiling feeling stops suddenly inside them: that’s an interesting sight, and I saw it now on DeLeath’s face. “Jeremy?” he said, and now the smile was gone. “The most important thing I’ve learned in my life is that you should never be cruel to animals. And to treat an animal badly just to get it to do a trick is not worth it.”

  Hard to describe the look on DeLeath’s face at that moment, but it was one of the best human looks there is. I’ve seen it on Bernie’s face once in a while. I think it’s the look of a leader.

  The woman spoke. “Does that answer your question, Jeremy?”

  “My dad says they poke the elephant with this hook thing,” the kid said.

  DeLeath’s face hardened a bit, not as hard as a real hard guy like Mr. Gulagov, now breaking rocks in the hot sun, but hard enough. “That does happen, and I’ve been guilty of it, too, but that was in the past. If we—human beings—are so smart, then we’re smart enough to persuade animals to do what we want without violence.”

  This was not so easy to follow. On top of that, I all of sudden found myself thinking about how we’d found DeLeath in the desert, and the horrible snake. I got a bit confused, and the next thing I knew I was right next to Popo’s chair, and gnawing on that loose bit of leather—in fact, already at the stage where there’s almost nothing left.

  Meanwhile, the woman was saying, “Well, Jeremy, that seems to answer your question, don’t you think?”

  And Jeremy was saying, “My dad says it’s a big hooked thing, real sharp. You dig it into—”

  Popo closed the laptop. His hands—long and thin—were trembling a bit. “I wanted you to see him in life,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “It might make you more determined.”

  “To do what?”

  “Find the truth,” Popo said. “And if that’s impossible, at least keep looking for Peanut.”

  “Determination comes with the service,” Bernie said.

  “Sorry. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “Do you need another check from me?” Popo said.

  That was the kind of talk I liked to hear. “We’ll settle up when it’s over,” Bernie said. Oh, Bernie.

  “I’m staying here for the moment—the owner’s a friend,” Popo said.

  Bernie rose; me, too. “Did Uri go to Mexico much, or have any dealings down there?” Bernie said.

  “Nothing I’d call dealings,” Popo said. “We went to Cabo once. Why?”

  “Where we found him was practically on the border.”

  “I know,” Popo said. “That’s just another thing I don’t understand.”

  We went outside. I felt something flapping on my lip, licked at it, tasted leather. Uh-oh: a little scrap of leather, actually not that little, was stuck to my teeth and hanging out for all the world to see, had maybe been like that for some time. I hopped in the car, started trying to put things right.

  Bernie glanced over as we drove off. “What are you up to?”

  I sat up straight: quiet, alert, professional.

  “You have papers for the dog?”

  Late at night, crossing the border. I’ve done it before; we worked Mexico from time to time, me and Bernie. Bright lights, the kind that buzzed, shone down from above, and the uniformed guy in the booth held out his hand. Bernie said, “Sí,” gave him a sheet of paper, and then said something else, the sound of his voice changing in a hard-to-describe way. All I know is when that happens I can’t understand him at all, except for a few words like amigo, cerveza, and croqueta.

  The uniformed guy eyed the paper, handed it back to Bernie, and said, “Enjoy your visit, señor.”

  Señor—I knew that one, too, another way of saying dude. I glanced back at the uniformed guy as we rolled away, saw him pick up a phone. Meanwhile, Bernie shifted gears, and—VROOM VROOM—we were south of the border, down Mexico way. I knew that because Bernie had started singing those very words. There’s a little woo-woo thing I can do for joining in, and I did it now.

  We drove through a small town, not well lit, and into the countryside. Things are different down Mexico way, for example, the days are brighter and the nigh
ts are darker. Does that make sense? Not to me. Soon the yellow line disappeared from the middle of the road, then the road got narrower and bumpier, and traffic thinned out to just us. The wind rose and blew scraps of this and that through our headlight beams. Yellow eyes glowed from time to time off the side of the road, and once we passed a barefoot man standing under a scrawny tree. I kept my eyes on him as we went by—I can turn my head practically around backward if I want, strange how little turning the human head can do, but no time for that now—mostly to get a long look at those bare feet, bare human feet being an interest of mine, hard to explain why, and saw the man take a cell phone from his pocket just before we rounded a curve.

  The moon rose, low, huge, orange. I love the moon, but what’s going on with it is hard to say. Soon, I knew from experience, it would be higher, smaller, and white. What was up with that? And there were other nights when part of it was missing, sometimes almost all, and that complete disappearance thing happened, too—nights with no moon. One thing for sure—I knew because Bernie made the point a lot—we were in the Milky Way. I felt good about that, although milk isn’t my drink. Cats like milk. Have you ever seen how cats lap it up? In real tiny sips, very neat and tidy, never spilling a drop. Cats will do just about anything to irritate.

  In the distance rose a dark mountain, or maybe two mountains. Bernie was looking that way, too. “Dos Jorobas,” he said, “meaning two humps. And down in the valley between them—that’s San Anselmo.” I could see a cluster of yellow lights between the humps, very dim. We were headed in that direction, but Dos Jorobas seemed to be moving with us so we couldn’t get closer. I’d seen that happen before—it wasn’t just a Mexican thing. I shifted over, rested a paw on Bernie’s knee.

  “Hey, Chet,” he said. “You all right?”

  Of course I was all right, and if not at the very top of tip-top, then pretty close.

  He patted my head; so nice. “Getting a bit tired, big guy? It’s been a long day.”

  Tired? I never got tired. I wagged my tail, not easy to do when you’re sitting down in the shotgun seat. It swished back and forth on the smooth, worn leather, making a sound I liked so I kept doing it till I got tired. I yawned a big long yawn.

  “Maybe,” said Bernie, “we should call it a night.”

  Fine by me, if that’s what he wanted. We climbed a rise, started down the other side, and there, just ahead, lay a crossroads with a few low buildings and a flashing neon sign. I like neon signs. My favorite’s this one with martini glasses we’d visited on a case, couldn’t remember any details at the moment, my mind getting a bit fuzzy, like dreamland was trying to close in, maybe close in fast.

  “Looks like a motel,” Bernie said, slowing down. A motel—exactly what we needed! One thing about Bernie: he can make things happen.

  TWENTY-ONE

  We parked and went into the office, a very small office but full of interesting smells. I’d forgotten all about Mexican air and what’s in it. This is a big subject that I promise to get to later, but for now let’s just say Mexico’s a great place if you’re interested in smells.

  A woman with gray hair in a long ponytail sat in a lumpy old chair, watching TV and smoking a thin cigar. Bernie said something in that way he did when we were down in Mexico. The woman said, “Three hundred pesos for a single, or twenty U.S.”

  Bernie took out his wallet. “Your English is great.”

  “Should be,” said the woman. “It’s my first language.”

  “Yeah?” said Bernie.

  “Graduated from New Trier High back in the day. Plus a year at Central Illinois.”

  “Hey,” said Bernie.

  “Now I’m back down here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Papers,” said the woman.

  “Ah,” said Bernie.

  Human speech could be very easy sometimes—yeah, hey, oh, ah. Bernie was a master. As for what they were talking about, that was anybody’s guess. I didn’t dwell on it; in fact, the whole thing vanished from my mind right away, because all of a sudden a mouse popped out of nowhere, ran right by me—smelling strongly of butter, by the way—and disappeared into a tiny hole in the wall. I looked up. Bernie and the woman seemed to have missed it all.

  “Room number seven,” she was saying, and Bernie took a key off a wall peg.

  “Get many Americans staying here?” he said.

  “Some,” said the woman. “Especially around festival time. Plus birdwatchers and hunters passing through.”

  “Hunting what?” Bernie said.

  “Whitetail, mostly,” said the woman. “Some turkey.” She nodded toward a table in the corner. “There’s brochures if you want.”

  I was hoping Bernie would go pick one up—turkeys are another interest of mine—but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Had any Americans recently?”

  “One or two.”

  “Gentleman named Darren Quigley, by any chance?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” the woman said.

  “An acquaintance of ours,” Bernie said. “We’re trying to catch up with him, maybe get in some sightseeing.” He took something from his pocket. “Here’s a picture of him.” We had a picture of Darren? One thing about this job: there were lots of surprises.

  The woman glanced at the picture. “Never seen him,” she said.

  “Too bad,” Bernie said. “We should have organized this better. Kind of a reunion thing, actually—three old buddies.” Three old buddies? I was lost. “The third buddy should have passed this way as well—big fellow.”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Wears a bandanna,” Bernie said. “Name of Jocko Cochrane.”

  She stopped shaking her head in mid-shake, then shook it once or twice more. Her gaze fell on me. “It’s fifty pesos extra for the dog.”

  “You didn’t mention that,” Bernie said.

  “I forgot.”

  Bernie paid some more money and said good night. We went outside, headed toward our room. I realized my tail was down, kind of just dragging along after me, and raised it back up. Fifty pesos extra for me? What was that all about?

  Bernie switched on the bedside light, a dim brownish light that left the corners of the room in shadow, even though it was a pretty small room. He tried the overhead light; it didn’t work. I sniffed around. There’d been a man and a woman in here, but not recently, and they’d had a burger or two. Other than that, nothing of note. Then I spotted a strange picture on the wall, a picture of a bull and a dude dressed up in a glittery costume. The dude held a sword and seemed to be about to stab the bull with it. Could that be? I tried to look away but couldn’t, at least not for long. Has that ever happened to you? Meanwhile, Bernie was unpacking, pouring water in my bowl, brushing his teeth. Those little teeth humans had—they brushed them every day for some reason. Mine are big but only get brushed when Janie’s Pet Grooming Service—We Pick Up and Deliver comes to visit. So: the smaller the teeth, the more you need to brush them? Was that it?

  “Let’s catch some zzz’s, big guy.” Bernie turned down covers, got in the bed, reached for the switch, but the light went out before he touched it; at the same time the AC stopped humming. “Uh-oh,” Bernie said. He rose, crashed into a chair sitting in plain sight, and went to the window.

  I squeezed in beside him. Bernie parted the curtains. The whole village was dark, dark and silent; although actually it was a silvery kind of darkness because of the moon, and not quite silent, either: I could hear a car, far off, but coming closer.

  “Either a power failure or they switched off the generator,” Bernie said. He opened the window and a nice little breeze flowed in. Bernie gazed at the village, not a light showing. His voice grew quiet. “That’s how nights were in olden times,” he said. I waited for more, so maybe I could get the point, but no more came. Bernie climbed in bed. I lay down beside it, stretched my legs way out, then pulled them back in, got comfortable. Dreamland rolled over me right away, like a tall, dark wave.

  Things are di
fferent in dreamland. For example, I was flying. Not flapping my wings or anything—I don’t believe I had wings in the dream—but just soaring high up over the desert. Way down below something was moving. I drew closer. Hey! It was Peanut! I took a nice deep sniff, trying for a whiff of that powerful Peanut smell, and I picked up a powerful smell, all right, but kind of confusing.

  I opened my eyes, saw the bed beside me, remembered where we were. I rose and looked at Bernie. He was sleeping, one arm outside the covers, chest rising and falling. I watched that arm for a while, and might have kept that up for some time, but then a gust of wind blew through the open window, carrying a powerful smell, the powerful smell from my dream. The dream itself was gone, but did I care? No. I was already at the window, sticking my nose out into the night. That smell, the very most powerful smell in the nation within the nation: need I mention it’s the smell that females of my kind sometimes get when they . . . have wants—let’s leave it at that.

  The next thing I knew I was outside. I’m a pretty good leaper—in fact, the very best leaper in my K-9 class, which actually led to all that trouble on the very last day, meaning the day I would have gotten my certificate—but with such a low window even a bad leaper, Iggy, for example, could have done it. Well, maybe not Iggy.

  Ah. So nice to be outside on a soft and beautiful night, all silvery dark, the moon now in a different part of the sky and lower, nothing stirring, and that special scent a snap to follow. Was this the way things were in olden times? I began to see why Bernie went on and on about them, whatever olden times actually were.

  The scent led me away from the motel, across the hard-packed dirt street, still warm from the day, and into an alley with a bar on one side—easy to tell from that barroom smell, which I must have described already, probably more than once—and a crumbling wall on the other. The alley ended at a cross street, also dirt, with deep ruts here and there like black holes. Bernie talked about black holes a lot. They were dangerous, capable of swallowing up everything, so I was careful to avoid them. I made my way down the street, low ramshackle dwellings on both sides, the scent growing stronger. A moment or two later, just beyond a rusted-out car up on blocks in someone’s front yard, I glimpsed a bushy tail, pure white in the moonlight and raised up high.