Fight it off, big guy, fight it off. That was Bernie’s voice talking inside me. It hardly ever happens, but when it does I pay attention. I rose to my feet in the driveway—Bernie was rising, too, wiping blood from his eyes—and saw the masked guy running down Mesquite Road, supporting his bitten arm with his free hand. A motorcycle was parked next to my fire hydrant down the block; not actually mine, I suppose, but no time for that now. I took off.
The man mounted the bike, glanced back, and saw me coming. The engine roared. I dug in, my claws tearing into the pavement, still hot and soft from the day. My heart pounded like some huge engine of its own, driving away all traces of that black hole in my mind. The man’s hand—the only useful one now—squeezed the throttle and the bike rose almost straight up in a wheelie, back tire screaming. I sprinted my very fastest, came real close to catching up, and at the last possible moment leaped the very most powerful leap of my whole life. I hit him on the shoulder, hit him hard. The bike went spinning across the road and the man flew high into the air, his mouth—visible through the mouth opening in the mask—a big round black hole of its own. He landed on his head and lay still.
FIVE
Fritzie Bortz, a highway patroller pal of ours—a pal even though he’d written us up once to make his quota, whatever that was, and then had done it again!—was the first cop on the scene. He pulled up on his bike, had some trouble with the kickstand, almost fell over. Fritzie was a pretty poor bike rider, had caused lots of accidents.
He dismounted, came over to us, his belly stretching his shirt and hanging over his belt in a friendly sort of way. The biker lay motionless on the road, mask ripped to shreds and face exposed. It was a face we didn’t know. I did know that the smell of the living leaves very quickly and the biker’s was totally gone already.
“What’s with your forehead?” Fritzie said.
Bernie had his T-shirt in his hand, was pressing it against the cut on his forehead. “Nothing,” he said. “How come you’re here?”
“How come?” Fritzie said. “I’m a cop, Bernie.”
“Pretty far from your beat,” Bernie said.
“My beat is the whole Valley, freeway-wise,” Fritzie said. “I roam the land. But the fact is I was on a break just over at Donut Heaven when the call came in.” He glanced down at the biker. “Dead?”
“Yup,” Bernie said.
“What happened?” said Fritzie.
Bernie started explaining things. My name came up once or twice in what sounded like a very nice way, but my mind kept having thoughts about Donut Heaven, my favorite place for crullers, and don’t get me started on the bear claws. Lucky Fritzie!
Fritzie gave the biker a closer look. “Think he’s over seventeen?”
“Way over,” Bernie said.
“Then I can’t write him up on a twenty-eight dash nine sixty-four.”
“What’s that?”
“Helmet law violation.”
“He’s dead.”
“I’d have to check on the finer points,” Fritzie said.
An ambulance drove up, and then a couple of cruisers and an unmarked car. Some uniformed cops came over, plus Captain Stine wearing a dark suit. Captain Stine was a very watchful dude with deep dark eyes and a sharp kind of nose. He used to be Lieutenant Stine and had gotten to be Captain Stine on account of us, but in ways I couldn’t remember exactly or even not exactly. The point is, we’d always been careful around him and still were.
“What’s with your forehead?” Stine said.
“Nothing,” said Bernie.
Stine gazed down at the biker. “Dead, huh?”
Bernie nodded.
“Take me through it.”
Bernie took him through it. Meanwhile, the back doors of the ambulance opened up and out came Doc Devine, an EMT buddy of ours. Doc Devine had been an actual doctor back when we’d first known him, not pals at all at that time, and then had done a spell up at Northern Correctional by reason of us busting him—and now we were pals. What a world!
“Hey, Chet,” he said, giving me a pat. “Lookin’ good, big guy.” I bumped up against him in my palliest way. Doc was a little dude, which I’d forgotten to take into account, but he didn’t fall all the way flat down, so no harm done.
Meanwhile, Bernie and Captain Stine were squatting on either side of the biker. Stine snapped on surgical gloves, checked all the biker’s pockets, finding nothing, and then rolled back one of the biker’s sleeves. He raised the limp arm, shone a flashlight on the inside of his wrist, revealing a small tattoo.
“See this?” he said.
“A Q?” Bernie said.
“Stands for Quieros. Mean anything to you?”
“Besides the fact that quiero means ‘I want’?” Bernie said. “Nope.”
“Haven’t heard of the Quieros?”
“Thought I made that clear.”
Stine glared at Bernie over the biker’s body. “Why are you like this?”
“Like what?” Bernie said.
“Like the way you are,” Stine said. “A son of a bitch.”
Bernie smiled. There was blood on his teeth, but not much. “Some combination of heredity and environment,” he said.
Stine smiled, too. Had I ever seen him smile before? It was a small smile, and quickly gone, but his eyes joined in, which is always the best.
“Quieros sort of means I Wants,” said Stine. “I think it’s supposed to be funny.”
“I don’t get it,” Bernie said. I was totally with him on that. We’re a lot alike in some ways, me and Bernie; don’t forget that.
“They’re a gang,” Stine said. “Kind of new, originally from Central America somewhere.”
“And the name is the mission statement?” Bernie said.
“You got it,” Stine said. “They have wants. Sure you haven’t heard of them?”
“Why do you keep asking?”
“Because this guy just tried to take you out.” Stine let go of the biker’s arm. It fell heavily to the pavement, bounced up the tiniest bit, then lay still. “I always wonder about motive in situations like this. Maybe your mind works different.”
Uh-oh. Was Stine saying something bad about Bernie’s mind? Right there was why you always had to keep an eye on him. Didn’t he know that Bernie was always the smartest human in the room? How could anyone miss that?
The biker’s eyes were open. Bernie gazed down into them. The biker’s eyes gazed back in a way that bothered me. Wasn’t Bernie or Stine going to reach out and gently close the lids? Proper procedure at a time like this, in my opinion; I’d seen it done lots of times. But not now. “Haven’t got a clue,” Bernie said. “Car thief surprised in the act?”
“Seems unlikely,” Stine said. “What with this Harley Softail on the scene”—he nodded his chin at the wrecked bike now lying in the gutter—“and no one to drive it away.”
“Mistaken identity?” Bernie said.
“Can’t rule it out completely,” Stine said. “But just about, in the case of someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“How about I revise that to someone in your profession? Can’t help making enemies, no matter what a sweetheart you might be inside.”
At least Stine hadn’t missed that: Bernie was a sweetheart inside. But did we have enemies? I myself liked most of the perps and gangbangers we’d come across. And they liked us. Take Whispering Hex Voidman, for example, who on his very first day out on parole made a point of dropping in with some antler snacks just for me. Those antler snacks: a dream come true. And dreams coming true happens a lot in my life! I often dream about antler snacks, for example. Maybe you do, too. All of that probably fits together in a way that might come to me later. Too bad old Hex had boosted the antlers from Petco and ended up back behind bars by dinnertime, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, I couldn’t think of any enemies.
“What might be useful,” Stine was saying, “is if you came up with an enemies list and we put our heads together over i
t.”
“We could also turn the A/C way up and sit around the fire,” Bernie said. I started panting, not sure why.
“Huh?” Stine said.
“That’s another thing Nixon liked to do.”
Stine rose. I listened for the knee crack that often happens when humans rise like that, and there it was. Little pleasures are all around. “Don’t start,” Stine said.
On what? The only Nixon I knew was our mechanic, Nixon Panero, and there was no fireplace in his shop.
Stine walked to one of the cruisers, leaned against it in a tired sort of way, took out his phone. Doc Devine came over.
“What’s with your forehead?” he said.
“Nothing,” said Bernie.
“Let’s have a look-see,” Doc said.
Bernie dabbed the wound with his T-shirt one more time, let Doc have a look-see. I had a look-see, too. Poor Bernie. He had a deep gash on his forehead, still seeping blood.
Doc peered at the gash. “Gonna need stitches.”
Stitches? I’d had stitches on my head once, back at a time Bernie and I had had a dustup with some no-good Russian dudes. Stitches on the head meant wearing one of those horrible cones around your neck for days and days. Bernie wasn’t going to like that.
“Okay,” Bernie said. “Let’s do it.”
“I can’t do it,” Doc said. “You have to go to the ER.”
“You forgot how to stitch?” Bernie said.
“You know it’s not that,” Doc said.
“Then let’s get it done.”
Doc glanced around, lowered his voice. “It’s illegal.”
Bernie called over to Captain Stine. “Doc here’s going to stitch me up.”
“Doc?” said Captain Stine.
“Yes, sir?”
“When you’re done I’ve got a couple skin tags you can snip off.”
“No problem,” said Doc. “Depending where they’re situated.”
Bernie and Doc went over to the ambulance. Bernie sat on the back bumper. Doc dabbed something on his forehead, threaded a needle. “This might smart a bit.”
And Bernie, as I must have made clear already, was pretty damn smart himself, so this was going to go smoothly. In went the needle. Bernie’s face showed nothing. I laid down on the road, curled up a bit, not sure why.
“All set,” Doc said. “And a nice piece of handiwork, if I say so myself. You’re going to look even more beautiful than before.”
“That’s a scary thought.”
Uh-oh. Bernie was scared? Because of the neck cone? I didn’t blame him. I waited for the cone to appear, but it never did. Fritzie mounted his bike, got it started after a few tries, and drove off. A wrecker rumbled up, loaded what was left of the Harley and took it away. The uniform cops snapped lots of pictures, picked bits of this and that off the street and dropped them in evidence bags, and then they left, too. Doc and the other EMT rolled the body onto a stretcher and slid it in the ambulance. Captain Stine got in the unmarked car, paused before closing the door.
“If anything happens that I should know about,” he said, “I want to know about it.”
“I hear you,” Bernie said.
Stine gave him a long look. Was he wondering about Bernie’s ears? That was my only thought. He drove away, the ambulance following. We were alone. Heat rose up from the pavement. Bernie’s eyes seemed to be on something far away. He gave me a pat. I noticed for the first time that lights were on in the nearby houses. They went off one by one.
Bright and early the next morning we were on the road, heading straight into the rising sun.
“Best part of the day, big guy,” Bernie said, as we passed the very last abandoned development and hit open country.
I couldn’t have agreed more. I sat up my tallest in the shotgun seat, wonderful smells streaming by so fast I could hardly keep up: sagebrush—such a strong scent, always reminding me of Leda’a parmesan sage pork shoulder recipe, actually her only dish and not a favorite of Bernie’s, meaning I always got lots; greasewood, which was kind of like mesquite but oilier; rocky smells like chalk and iron; plus all kinds of poop—javelina, buzzard, snake, coyote, cougar, goat, lizard, human. And all that was from just one sniff ! I was having the time of my life.
“It’s a big country, Chet,” Bernie said after a while. And he was so right: it stretched on and on to where it finally met the sky. “You’re going to see the Mississippi.” I had no idea what that was, but I got excited just the same. Bernie glanced over at me. “Something to look forward to, I know,” he said. “But that’s not why I took the case.”
No? Had I already heard something on this subject? I came close to remembering, so close it was almost as good as if I’d done it. Or even better!
“Three reasons,” he said, which meant this wouldn’t be easy, since I don’t go past two, a perfect number in my opinion. “Put together, they add up to fate. First, there’s the name of the town the Boutettes come from—St. Roch. St. Roch, big guy—patron saint of dogs. Second, Ralph Boutette’s company is named after his dog, Napoleon, also missing. Third—”
The phone buzzed. Bernie hit the button.
“Bernie?”
It was Suzie. I missed her, and hearing her voice made me miss her even more, which was kind of strange because here she was, sort of. Suzie was Bernie’s girlfriend, if I’ve left that out. We’d had happy times when she was a reporter for the Valley Tribune, but now she’d gone to the Washington Post, which was a no-brainer, Bernie said. Maybe if he’d used his brain, Suzie would have stayed and he’d be happier, Bernie’s brain having proved itself time and time again in our work at the Little Detective Agency.
“Hey, Suzie,” he said, and all of a sudden I could see Charlie in his face. Charlie’s smell is always in his bedroom, but it fades between visits.
“Guess what,” Suzie said.
“You’re going to be on The Tonight Show.”
Suzie laughed. “I actually might be on a local cable news roundup in September. But I’m calling because I’ve got the whole Labor Day weekend off. I was thinking of coming home.”
Bernie turned to me, and quick and softly said, “I’m an idiot.” Then he raised his voice back to normal. “That would have been great. Any interest in meeting up in New Orleans instead?”
“New Orleans? What’s gotten into you?”
Bernie laughed and started in on a long explanation. Partway through I realized he was going over the case. What a great chance to wrap my mind around the whole enchilada! But instead, my mind drifted over to experiences I’d had with enchiladas, some better than others, and the opportunity slipped on by.
Bernie was at his cheerfullest when he hung up. “Practically a paid vacation, Chet—we’re on a roll.” He dialed up some music, cranked the volume. We listened to all our favorites: “Sea of Heartbreak,” “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” “After You’ve Gone,” and of course “If You Were Mine.” When Roy Eldridge hit that last part on his trumpet—the hair on the back of my neck standing straight up—Bernie said, “And that’s reason number three—the name of Ralph Boutette’s houseboat. Little Jazz. He sounds like the kind of guy we’re going to like.”
Wow! I couldn’t wait. We zoomed across the big country. I felt huge.
Sometime later, Bernie said, “If we can find him.”
Who was he talking about? Kind of a puzzler. But if people are missing, we always find them, here at the Little Detective Agency. Except for that one time on the trail of a little girl. We’d roared through the night, pedal to the metal, Bernie leaning forward like that would make us go faster. Both of us leaning forward, if you want the truth, and it did make us go faster. We got there too late just the same. I’m a pretty good forgetter, but I can’t seem to forget the moment we opened that horrible broom closet.
I went back down to normal size; which is still pretty big, amigo.
SIX
I opened my eyes. Nighttime, which I’d already known just from the feel. I was curled up on the sh
otgun seat, air streaming by. Strange air, much heavier than in the Valley, and kind of wet, if that makes sense: wet air but with no rain. I glanced up at Bernie, caught sight of the black zigzag pattern of the stitches on his forehead, his skin all green from the light of the dash. He hardly looked like Bernie! I closed my eyes.
A dream rose up out of the darkness, a lovely dream that began with she-barking across the canyon in back of our place on Mesquite Road and the next thing I knew I was right there with her, the two of us in the shade of a sweet-smelling eucalyptus tree. Oh, what a moment! Why couldn’t it go on forever? But it didn’t and not only that, it took a quick turn for the worse. Bernie and Mr. Parsons were gazing down at me, and I was caught in a circle of light, just like a perp down at the station. Mr. Parsons showed Bernie a photo of a puppy.
“Spitting image,” Bernie said.
“Right after I took that picture,” Mr. Parsons said, “I heard a woman calling for him and the little critter took off.”
“Catch the name?” said Bernie.
“Shooter,” Mr. Parsons said.
He started laughing in his normal, friendly old-dude way, but then his laughter got scary and wild. Doc Devine came and threw him in the ambulance. Bernie gazed down at me, not pleased. Whatever it was, I didn’t do it! I opened my eyes.
And there was Bernie, gazing down at me, yes, but not with not-pleased eyes, far from it. “Bad dreams, big guy? You were whimpering pretty good there.”
Whimpering? Oh, no. I sat up straight at once, a total pro on the job and ready for anything, and that was when I noticed we were parked outside a small motel, empty night all around.
“Welcome to Texas, Chet,” Bernie said, giving my head a kind of rumple. “Let’s get some shut-eye.”
I wasn’t actually that keen on more shut-eye at the moment, but if Bernie said shut-eye, then shut-eye it was. I glanced around at Texas, saw not much.
“But first,” he said, opening the cooler, “how about some chow?”
He had roast beef sandwiches in there? When had that happened? Bernie: just when you think he’s done amazing you, he amazes you again.
The Sound and the Furry Page 4