To Fetch a Thief

by Spencer Quinn

  Peanut’s eyes opened. She watched me drink. I watched her watching. She dipped her trunk in the pool, so of course I thought she was taking another drink. Surprise: her trunk bent in my direction and out came a jet of water, soaking me through and through. Bernie sometimes did that with the garden hose: it was one of my favorite games. I started running around that water hole, darting this way and that at my very fastest, Peanut sitting on her butt and spraying me whenever I got near. Were we having fun or what?

  By the time the fun ended, the sun was high in the sky. I turned to the hills. We still had lots of ground to cover. I gave Peanut one of those low rumbly barks that meant up and at ’em. Peanut didn’t get up. Instead she began giving herself a shower. I barked louder. No effect, not even after the shower was over. I stood by the pool barking my head off. Got nowhere. Peanut didn’t swing her trunk at me or seem to get angry in any way. She just ignored me.

  After a while I climbed up on the bank, sat in the shade of the palo verde. The next thing I knew I was more curled up than sitting. I heard showering sounds. My eyelids got heavy. I dreamed I was riding on Peanut. It made me pukey.

  THIRTY

  I awoke feeling tip-top. Tip-top and hungry. I sniffed the air, smelled no food; pretty much no other smells were in the air except for Peanut’s, crowding out all the others. No surprise there: when I looked around I saw she was lying right beside me, back to back, rising like a wall, crowding my space, too.

  I rolled over, rose, and had a nice stretch, butt up high, front paws sticking way out; can’t tell you how good that feels. Then I took a good recoy or recon or whatever it was, very important in this line of work. I knew right away—from the reddish tinge in the sky and the long shadows—that the day was getting late. The hills topped by that giant saguaro, with home on the other side, still seemed far away. All around lay the flat plain, treeless except for the palo verde we were under, me and Peanut. Then, off to one side, I noticed a low dust cloud on the move, all red and gold. It was coming closer, but not exactly in our direction—a good thing, because Jeeps were raising all that dust, the sort of green Jeeps that Captain Panza and his guys rode in. I glanced over at Peanut, still sleeping in the shade of the palo verde. She made a few sounds, somewhere between moaning and snoring, but showed no signs of getting up—also a good thing, because spotting upright elephants was probably pretty easy, even from a distance. But then another thought came, hitting me hard: what if Bernie was in one of those Jeeps?

  The next thing I knew I was charging across that flat plain with everything I had, not directly at the Jeeps but trying to cut them off somewhere up ahead. I ran and ran thinking, Bernie, Bernie, ran faster than I could ever remember, and soon made out the rough track the Jeeps were on. I scanned the track, spotted some low bushes they’d have to pass, and made them my target. What did Bernie call this? Heading them off at the pass, that was it: one of our best techniques at the Little Detective Agency. I dug in and found one more gear; loved when that happened. The wind whistled in my ears. It was saying Chet the Jet!

  But even with me in that extra gear, and the wind urging me on, the Jeeps reached those low bushes first, close enough to me so I could see the shapes of the people inside, far enough so I couldn’t tell whether Bernie was one of them. I kept going, running on the track now, maybe eating dust, maybe feeling like I was bursting inside, but not caring. I just cared about Bernie.

  After a while, I realized I was no longer eating dust; also not seeing the Jeeps and not even hearing them. I forgot all that and kept running. Then I remembered again and stopped. I stood on the track and panted. They were gone. I wanted to—I don’t know, maybe sink my teeth into the tires of those Jeeps. Humans and their machines: a big subject for later. Right now the big question was whether Bernie’s scent lingered in the air, very faint? I wasn’t sure. Maybe if I sniffed around a bit, I’d—

  At that moment, I heard a trumpeting sound, somewhat distant but very clear. I looked back in the direction I’d come from. There was Peanut, a huge form standing beside the palo verde tree, and almost as big. Hard to be sure at that distance, but I thought she had her trunk raised up high, almost the way Bernie sometimes waved his arm when he wanted me to come. A crazy thought, but there it was. I turned and went back. Peanut was my responsibility.

  By the time I reached her, Peanut was in the pool again, taking another shower. She took no notice of me, just kept scooping up water and dowsing herself, flapping sheets of water off her ears. It suddenly struck me, maybe kind of late, that Peanut was a performer. Oh, brother. I’d worked with other performers before—Weedy Willis, the country singer, for example, or Princess, the best-in-show champ—and they were trouble each and every time. Besides, I was hot and dusty, no longer in my best mood. I went to the edge of the pool and drank, felt a bit better—in fact, pretty close to tip-top.

  Peanut sat down. Was she planning on a nice long pool session? I gazed at the hills, darkening in the late afternoon light. Did we have time for a nice long pool session? No. Why wasn’t Peanut getting that? I barked. She ignored me in that still and heavy way of hers, showing no reaction at all. How annoying was that? I waded into the pool, barged up to her, and gave her a nudge on the side, not the least bit gentle. And what was this? She got right up, so fast that a wave sprang up, sweeping me out of the pool. I rose, gave myself a good shake, and started off toward the hills. Peanut followed along, no problem. I didn’t have to look back, just felt the earth trembling under my paws.

  Night fell. The moon, yellow but maybe not quite as big as before, like a piece was missing, rose over the hills. That missing piece bothered me—where did it go? That was the kind of thing Bernie knew. I thought about Bernie for a while. Then I thought about food, the ribs at Max’s Memphis Ribs, for example, the way the juicy meat comes right off the bone—and then you’ve still got the bone!—or a big biscuit the judge gave me one time when I went to court, Exhibit A in this case where Exhibit B was a .44 Magnum I’d dug up in a flower bed, the perp now breaking rocks in the hot sun, and then back to Bernie. Soon the ribs again, the whole time this light boom-boom happening in the earth, like drums. Have I mentioned Big Sid Catlett yet? Maybe some other time. But with all this thinking going on, presto: before I knew it the hills were right there, rising in front us, that single huge saguaro on top. Presto was a word Bernie sometimes used, like just before turning the key that time he was jump-starting the DA’s car. The DA had a fire extinguisher in the trunk, so there turned out to be no problem.

  I paused at the base of the hills. Peanut stood beside me. The moon was high overhead now, pouring down this silvery light. It glinted on her tusks, and also on a hard-packed path that led up the mountain. Home lay on the other side. I started up. And after me: boom-boom in the earth.

  The path cut back and forth in long, easy switchbacks, easy for me, anyway, and I heard no complaints from Peanut. Up and up we went, the air nice and fresh and every step a step closer to home. I was rounding a bend, thinking about my bowls beside the fridge at our place on Mesquite Road when the boom-booming stopped. I looked back. Peanut had gone still, all except for her trunk, raised up high and sort of feeling at the air, reminding me of those things submarines poke out of the water, the name escaping me at the moment; we love submarine movies, me and Bernie, but no time for that now because without any warning Peanut was off and running, and if you couldn’t call it running, there was no denying how fast she covered the ground. She bowled me over and rounded the bend.

  I rolled down a steep slope and came to rest in a gully. I hopped right up, a bit annoyed. Had I had it up to here, wherever that is, with Peanut knocking me around? Pretty much. Plus this turned out to be a very deep gully with scratchy things growing all over the place. By the time I scrambled to the top, Peanut was out of sight. Nothing easier than following her smell, of course, which I did, around the bend, up and around another bend, and then onto a flat part: the very top, with the saguaro towering overhead. I knew this place: it was
where we found—

  And there was Peanut, lit almost white by the moon, standing at the edge of the shallow dip where we’d found DeLeath’s body. At first she was perfectly still; then her ears moved a bit and she stepped down into the dip, steps that seemed to me very careful, like not to disturb anything. At the bottom she paused again, then lowered her trunk and swept it gently back and forth over the ground. I sat down and watched, didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. The sweeping of the dirt—more like patting or stroking, really—went on for some time. Then Peanut picked up a rock, maybe the size of a basketball or a little smaller, and kind of . . . what was the word?—cradled it in the curve of her trunk. She cradled that rock and swung her head from side to side: it reminded me—kind of odd how the mind works, hard to explain—of this one night back when Charlie was smaller and he couldn’t sleep and Bernie had rocked him back and forth.

  After a while, Peanut put down the rock, slow and careful, and then began raising lots of dust with her trunk, throwing it in the air, and stomping around, maybe even smacking herself with dust from time to time, dust that made silvery boiling clouds in the moonlight. Actually a bit frightening—not that I got frightened myself—and I was glad when all that came to an end and Peanut raised her trunk again and did some more trumpeting; by now I was used to the trumpeting, even starting to like it. Her eyes glistened, and so did a wet track under each one. Something was going on, but I hadn’t figured it out before lights shone, down on the plain we’d crossed.

  I walked over to a ridge, took a gander. That’s an expression of Bernie’s, hard to understand, maybe something to do with wild goose chases, but I’ve never been on one even though it’s come up time after time, so I really couldn’t tell you. What did I see down on the desert floor? That’s the important point, and what I saw were two Jeeps moving our way. They came closer, then swung around a bit, headed toward a nearby rise, and when they swung around, sideways to me, I could make out uniformed guys in the first Jeep, Captain Panza—I could tell from all his shining gold braid—sitting beside the driver. There were uniformed guys in the second Jeep, too, two in the front, two in the back, and in between those two guys in the back, their rifle barrels glinting in the moonlight, sat one guy not in uniform.

  My heart started beating fast immediately and I had one paw raised, all set for takeoff, when I remembered Peanut. She was my responsibility. I looked back. There she was, still down in the dip, back to stroking the ground again with her trunk. Was she going anywhere? Not to my way of thinking. I took off.

  Tore off, was more like it, forgetting all about steepness and sharp or scratchy things underfoot, my eyes on those two Jeeps, especially on the non-uniformed guy in the backseat of the second one. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew the expression that would be on it: hard and calm at the same time. We didn’t scare easy, me and Bernie; that’s the calm-faced part. Also we didn’t take to getting pushed around; that’s the hard-faced part.

  As I ran, the Jeeps reached the rise—kind of a low round hill, really, rising on the plain—and disappeared from my view. I flew down the last slope, raced across the plain, leaped right over a dry wash, darted around to the back side of the low round hill, pebbles scattering beneath my paws, and saw: nothing. The Jeeps were gone, and so were all the uniformed men, and Captain Panza, and Bernie.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Gone: but where? This low round hill—how many had I seen like it in my career? Some big number, bigger than two, which is as far as I go with numbers, but why isn’t that enough? Back to the low round hill. It had some tall saguaros down at the bottom with bushes growing in between, then got bare farther up. Nowhere for those Jeeps to have gone: that was the point.

  Could they have somehow shut off their lights and zoomed away, so far and so fast that I’d missed them in such a short time, or at least what seemed like a short time? Tracking exhaust fumes—it doesn’t get easier than that, so I sniffed out the exhaust fumes, starting with where the Jeeps had come from, following them to the base of the hill, and then—But there was no then. The fumes led nowhere. I sniffed at the saguaros and the bushes, noticed a pickax blade, old and rusty, the kind miners used. Lots of empty mines in the desert, but they always had openings and I saw none. Kind of weird, in fact it got me going a little bit, and I ran around in circles, finding the scents of men, one of which I thought I remembered—Captain Panza’s—and another I knew for sure: Bernie’s.

  I ran around in circles—really just one big circle—with all those scents of Jeeps and uniformed guys and Captain Panza and Bernie inside. Strong fresh scents, meaning they came from close by: but I was alone! So therefore . . .

  I didn’t know. Bernie handled the so-therefores. Where was he? Bernie, I thought, and ran faster and faster in my circle. Whoa, big guy. That was Bernie, inside my head, a nice sound. I stopped running, sat down, sniffed the air. Smells can be separated out and followed on their own, kind of like . . . I couldn’t think anything that was like at the moment, but separating and following Bernie’s smell was a snap—and led me back to the hillside.

  I was standing there, maybe panting a bit even though I wasn’t winded, when I heard the sound of a motor, close by—not a car motor, more like our garage door opener on Mesquite Road, in the days when it used to work. The crazy thing was the closeness, like it was coming from right inside the hill, impossible, on account of how could motor noises come from inside the earth?

  And then the hillside began to move. I remembered a mudslide during the monsoons and jumped back. But this wasn’t monsoon season, no mud at all, not a drop of rain for ages, so—

  Whoa. The hillside—at least a small part—turned out to be a sort of door, like this was some kind of mine after all. As it rose up—yes, like our garage door, except with lots of spiky vines laced over the outside—a shaft of light came spilling out and I saw way too much to take in at once. First: the two Jeeps about to drive out with Captain Panza and his men, Captain Panza tucking something into his shirt pocket. In the background: what looked like a mine, all right, with rock walls. And there was the eighteen-wheeler I’d last seen getting white paint spread over the red roses. Now two dudes were sticking on this enormous circus decal—clowns, ringmaster, lions, a big top. I knew decals—we had one from Max’s Memphis Ribs on our back bumper—but that wasn’t the point. The point was that a guy stood leaning against the rocky wall and watching the two decal dudes work, and the sight of that watching guy made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. It was Jocko. No mistaking that crooked nose or nasty eyes. And then—oh, no. Lying on the ground beside Jocko, partly hidden from my view, was Bernie.

  Why that oh, no? Because of how bad Bernie looked, his face bloody, one of his eyes swollen shut, clothes all torn. Also he was cuffed, hands in front of him. Growling started up, deep in my chest.

  The two Jeeps came rolling out of this cave or underground garage or whatever it was. I slipped out of the shadows, away from the headlight beams. That was something we’d worked on a lot, me and Bernie, staying out of sight. As soon as the Jeeps passed by, I was on my way, headed toward that opening in the hill. Did I have a clear plan? No. All I knew—

  The door was closing and closing fast. I took off for that narrowing gap, but what was this? Boom-boom, boom-boom. From out of nowhere came Peanut, cutting me off, getting to the door first. The gap was already way too small for Peanut to pass through, if that was her plan. At that moment, Jocko looked out. Did he see Peanut? I was pretty sure he did, from how his mean little eyes got bigger. Did Peanut see him? I didn’t know about that, but her whole body began to shake and I felt a huge kind of anger—more than anger; what was the word?—fury, yes, I felt this fury coming in waves off Peanut. She charged toward that gap—now maybe even too small for me—and I charged after her. Peanut was my responsibility.

  She hit the tiny gap, mostly hitting the whole hillside, just about back in place. KA-BOOM! And suddenly there was nothing but gap. We ran inside, me and Peanut. From behin
d came enormous crashing sounds, like the roof was caving in. No time for that. I had one thing in mind—Jocko—and I knew Peanut was thinking the same thing. From inside the trailer of the eighteen-wheeler came the lion’s roar.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jocko shouted. He reached for something hanging on the wall, something I recognized: an ankus. Jocko held it up so Peanut could see, and . . . and Peanut slowed down? Just from the sight of that horrible thing? I didn’t understand, only knew I felt bad. But for no time at all, because when Jocko brandished that horrible hook, a look came into Bernie’s eyes—or eye, really, the other one being shut—that I’d never seen before. Suddenly he was up—yes, staggering a bit, but on his feet. He rounded on Jocko. Jocko saw him and jabbed with the ankus, but not quick enough. Bernie was already swinging his cuffed hands, hands squared off in hard fists, right at Jocko’s face, swinging with all the strength in his body, meaning a whole lot and never forget it.

  What a wonderful sound that blow made! Jocko’s bandanna flew off his head and he keeled over at once, eyes rolling up, showing nothing but white. The next thing I knew I was with Bernie, reared up and licking his poor face. He couldn’t hug me on account of those handcuffs but he wanted to, no doubt in my mind on that subject.

  “Good boy,” he said. “You’re a good, good boy.”

  Did I feel great or what?

  “I’d sure like to know how you did this.”

  Did what, exactly? I wasn’t sure. But what was better than right now, being with Bernie and on the job?

  Bernie looked past me. Those two dudes who’d been working with the decal were moving on us, one holding a machete, the other a crowbar. Bernie sprang to the cab of the eighteen-wheeler, reached in, and whirled around, a gun now in his hands.