“That’s right.”
“Tell me about him.”
Dr. Ory blinked. “Tell you about Napoleon?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugged. “He’s a typical four-year-old pug in good health except for some early-stage arthritis in his right hip.”
“What’s he like?”
“You’re asking me about Napoleon’s . . . personality?”
“Yeah.”
She gave Bernie a look. “You’re an unusual sort of detective.”
“Do you know many?” Bernie said.
“Actually you’re the first.”
“We’re all like this.”
Dr. Ory laughed, then took a sip of beer. It left her with a beery mustache she didn’t seem to notice. “The fact is, Napoleon’s very well named. He’s dictatorial, crabby, likes everything just so. Ralph feeds him on ground filet mignon and nothing but.”
Ground filet mignon? At that moment I understood the case through and through. We had to find Ralph and find him fast.
“I’m guessing they have a close relationship,” Bernie said.
Dr. Ory nodded. “Ralph’s one of those men who’s awkward around people, but animals are a different story.” She paused. “Do you know the type?”
“Negative,” Bernie said. He drained his glass and raised it high for the waitress to see. Sometimes Bernie gets thirsty in a real big hurry. I’m the same way.
Throat clearing is an interesting thing. In humans it means they’re about to start something over; for us in the nation within it means we’ve got something caught in there. Dr. Ory cleared her throat now and said, “What do you think’s happened to Ralph?”
“Two narratives at the moment,” Bernie said. “Narrative one is all about his eccentricity—loner off by himself, all that. Narrative two is—”
The waitress came with a fresh beer for Bernie. She had a long ponytail, not as long as tails I’d seen on some actual ponies, but I always liked seeing any kind of tail on a human. “Just letting you know we’ve got an all-you-can-eat fried shrimp special, ten ninety-five including sides,” she said.
“Not for me,” Dr. Ory said.
“We’re not eating,” Bernie said, then checked the waitress’s nametag and added, “uh, thanks, Fleurette.”
That was Bernie: so polite. Maybe there were some dudes around who weren’t comfortable with other people, but no way was he one of them.
“Narrative two,” he went on when Fleurette went away, “is more complicated, involving a shrimp heist and the Boutette-Robideau rivalry.”
“Shrimp heist?”
“You didn’t hear about it?”
“I’ve learned to tune out anything to do with their stupid feud.”
Bernie nodded like that made sense. “A ton of shrimp was allegedly stolen from Grannie Robideau by Lord Boutette, who’s since been arrested for the crime. The Robideaus think Ralph was involved and he’s on the run.”
“What a crazy story.”
“You don’t buy it?”
“Not saying that,” said Dr. Ory. “Anywhere else, involving any other participants, I wouldn’t believe it for a second.”
“But?”
Dr. Ory sighed. “But here, with them, anything’s possible. Who ended up with the shrimp?”
“Good question,” Bernie said.
Or something like that, but I got distracted by a side door opening and the deputy sheriff, Scooter Robideau, stepping inside. He looked our way and stepped right back out.
“Chet!” Bernie said. “What’s all that noise about?”
Dr. Ory laughed. “He smells grub,” she said, just as the kitchen door swung open and Fleurette came out with a huge tray of fried shrimp.
But that wasn’t it at all! Until it was. That shrimp smelled too good to resist, at least to me. And then to Bernie and Dr. Ory as well! They changed their minds about the shrimp! Chet the Jet catches a break!
FIFTEEN
We bought a nice big supply of chow and put it away in Little Jazz’s galley, which turned out to be the kitchen—Bernie doing most of the putting away and me helping as best I could—and then sat on the deck and watched the sun go down.
“If we light this little coil,” he said, “the mosquitoes won’t bother us.”
He lit the little coil. The mosquitoes stopped bothering me even though they were still bothering me. Meanwhile, the sun disappeared, and the tops of the trees went black at the same time the sky behind them was on fire, and so was the bayou all around us. After a while, the sky blackened and blurred in with the trees, the water holding on to the daytime a little longer. Then all we had for light was the orange glow of the coil. I watched mosquitoes dive down onto it and vanish with a sizzle.
“Maybe you’re wondering why I didn’t show Ralph’s glasses to the sheriff,” Bernie said.
Me? No. And even with him now bringing it up, I still didn’t feel like wondering about it. Was that bad of me? The truth was, I felt like listening to those mosquitoes sizzle away, a brand-new kind of fun for me, and brand-new kinds of fun were the best, although the old familiar kinds of fun were pretty good, too. Even just as good, so forget all this.
“Comes from being outsiders here,” Bernie said. “Can we trust the sheriff? Even a little? And the Boutettes—haven’t they got a right to know about the glasses? But do we let down our hair for them? En masse or just one? And if just one, which? Mami? Duke? Lord? We’re in a madhouse.”
Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good. Weren’t we on a houseboat? I felt it rise and fall very slightly, creaking in a very pleasant way against the dock. And what was this about our hair? I’d been shaved once, something about the heat. Never again, Boutettes or no Boutettes.
All of a sudden, my eyelids got heavy. I started to have a thought about madhouses and houseboats maybe being the same thing.
“But here’s a starting point,” Bernie said first thing the next morning, a cup of coffee in his hand, steam rising into the still air. “I didn’t show Ralph’s glasses to the sheriff or to the Boutettes, but I did show them to Mack. Does that mean that deep down in my unconscious mind he’s the one I actually trust?”
Bernie’s unconscious mind? That was new. And it had a deep down part, meaning we were probably dealing with something pretty big. So where was he keeping it?
“What are you sniffing at, big guy? I need a shower?” And then Bernie did something amazing: he raised his arms, one after the other, and sniffed his pits! That Bernie!
“I don’t smell anything,” he said.
Of course not, but at least he’d tried. You had to love Bernie.
“How about we get started,” Bernie said, “and grab something to eat along the way?”
After that, there was a bit of commotion, and then Bernie said, “Okay, okay.” He poured kibble in my bowl, had himself a nice muffin, and hardly a moment or two later we were on the move in the pirogue, Bernie driving, me standing tall in the bow, no time lost. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day: you hear humans say that all the time.
Back in the boat and slicing through the water, waves starting right up out of nothing on both sides of the bow. What a sight! What a feeling! I forgot my problems pretty quick, not hard since I had none at the moment. Hey! Were we making those waves ourselves? I wondered about that all the way to the fork in the bayou. We went the same way as before and were soon on the lake. Bernie slowed down as we came to Isle des Deux Amis and steered us completely around it.
We gazed at the island. A big black bird on a branch of the tallest tree gazed back at us.
“Know what we’d do if we were playing by the book, big guy?” he said. Shoot the black bird right out of the tree? That was my only idea. “Let the sheriff in on Ralph’s glasses and get him out here with a work crew and a backhoe.”
Bernie powered down to nothing and we came to a stop, rocking gently in the water. His eyes got a distant look. He rubbed his chin, something that hardly ever happened with Bernie. It meant he was do
ing his hardest thinking. I could feel it, as though he was trying to lift a huge weight, like that time at the gym when he’d bet a couple of muscleheads that—but let’s not go there.
“At least I’ve come up with a solid reason for not playing this one by the book,” he said after a while. He gave me a smile. “It’s on account of you, Chet.”
On account of me? What had I done? That little fuss about breakfast? All at once, I felt a bit pukey. My tail got ready to sag, not possible since I was sitting on it, although it tried anyway.
“Remember when we searched the place?” he said, gesturing at Isle des Deux Amis. “You’d have found a body if there was one. So that’s that.” He hit the throttle and we took off across the lake. I stood up, giving my tail a chance to raise itself high, which it did at once. We were a team, me and Bernie, had dug up a body or two in our career, me doing most of the actual digging. Not to take anything away from Bernie when it comes to digging—he’s not at all bad for a human. But can humans get their legs involved in digging the way we do in the nation within? You know the answer. Not the point. The point is, I know what I’m doing in the sniffing-out-bodies department, one of my best things. Once I even smelled one in a freezer. Was the perp surprised or what?
“Have to do better than that,” Bernie had told him after he’d checked the freezer.
“But when will I get the chance?” the perp had said as Bernie snapped the cuffs on him. “I’m a cinch to get life without parole.”
That had made Bernie laugh. “See, Chet,” he’d said, “there’s some good in everybody.” Which I’d already known, but it was nice to hear.
“Meaning you’ll let me go?” the perp had asked.
Making Bernie laugh even harder. The fun we had in this business! A bright yellow butterfly fluttered by the pirogue. I snapped at it for absolutely no reason, snapped and missed, which was always the way with butterflies.
And very soon after that, we were tying up at Mack’s dock, Bernie tying the actual knot, but I’d jumped onto the dock with the free end of the rope in my mouth, just trying to help.
“Good boy—you remembered.”
Remembered what? My mind was blank on that one. We walked around the deck, checked things out.
“Pickup’s not around,” Bernie said. “Meaning he’s probably not here.” Bernie took out his credit card. “Just as well.” He moved toward the glass slider at the back of Mack’s house. Bernie was real good at slipping locks with that credit card, but for some reason the sight of the card brought to mind that horrible night when the maître d’ at the Ritz had cut our credit card in half, not because we were breaking into rooms—no way, not that night—but because he said it was no good. No good—that maître d’ had never even seen us before, didn’t have a clue as to how nifty Bernie was with that card. And after that how come Bernie hadn’t popped him in the mouth? It’s always fun to see dudes with a combover get popped in the mouth, on account of how what they’ve got left for hair goes flying straight up and just like that they’re bald. Our night at the Ritz was a complete mystery to me.
Bernie got busy with the card, then paused and glanced at the sign nailed to one of the stilts. “Iko’s gotta be his dog.” Bernie peered through the glass. “Don’t see one.”
Because there was no dog on the scene, except for me, of course, which I’d known from sniff one. But it wasn’t only that: any member of the nation within would’ve been barking his head off by now.
“Hey,” Bernie said. “It’s not even locked.” He slid the door open, stuck his head inside, and peered around some. Or maybe not. I was already inside Mack’s crib and couldn’t be sure about what was happening behind me.
Mack’s downstairs was one big space with a living room part at the front and a kitchen in back. Bare wooden floor and lots of empty beer cans around: it reminded me of a mountain cabin we’d been in on a case involving a wilderness camp and a missing kid, except that the walls of that cabin had been bare, and these walls seemed to have . . .? Was it possible? The heads of animals sticking right through them? Open-eyed animals—a deer, a bear, a mountain lion, and a big-horned sort of goatish creature I wasn’t familiar with. Oh, yes, I’m familiar with mountain lions and bears; don’t get me started. The point was these open-eyed beings didn’t give off the scent of the living or the dead. If anything they smelled like Bernie’s suit—he has just the one, and I don’t see the problem with the checked-pattern, no matter what anyone says—when it comes back from the dry cleaner’s. That was a smell I didn’t particularly like, but I’d never hated it until now.
I felt Bernie’s hand on the top of my head, just resting there for a moment, and then gone. My mind cleared in the nicest way. We got to work.
Casing the joint is one of our best techniques at the Little Detective Agency. I sniffed around under the furniture—snapping up a fried chicken ball before I’d hardly begun. One of the many nice things about fried chicken balls is that they’re a kind of a ball, and balls roll when they get dropped. I’ve had good luck with fried chicken balls in my career—also pineapple chicken balls and sweet and sour chicken balls, too important not to mention.
Meanwhile, Bernie was opening a set of drawers. He always starts with the bottom one and works up. I’m not sure why, just know it’s the right way. I finished up with my part, finding no guns, no ammo, no dope, no blood, none of the sort of stuff we looked for, and went over to Bernie. He was going through a drawer—an old pair of sweatpants, a bunch of papers, and—
“What’s this, big guy?”
He held up a metal thing, kind of like a piece of pipe but very thick and very short, with a big sort of nut at one end. Bernie peered into the open end. “Looks like it’s been heated up.” He sniffed at it. “But I don’t smell anything.” No? Even though his nose was practically touching the thing? Bernie’s nose is small when it comes to noses in general, but for a human it’s right up there. So what’s it for? He tried to work the nutlike thing off the pipe part, but it was stuck. He peered at it again. “Heavy-duty threads, but they’re warped,” he said, way too hard to understand and by me in a flash. Bernie started to put the pipe thing back in the drawer, then paused and tucked it into his belt instead. I’d been hoping it would go back in the drawer. Its smell reminded me of the birds in Dr. Ory’s office.
We went into the kitchen. Bernie opened the fridge. There was a tub of fried chicken inside, plus a few cases of beer. Another fried chicken ball struck me as a very good idea at that moment, but it didn’t happen. Casing a joint builds your appetite real fast: I’d noticed that in the past and now noticed it again.
We climbed the stairs to the top floor, Bernie leading and then me, although I ended up getting there first. Not much to see: a bedroom with an unmade bed and the bedside fan still on, clothes on the floor, a closet, a big mirror on the wall—Hey! With Bernie in it! And a real tough-looking member of the nation within. I got ready to . . . Me? Had I been through this before?—and also there was—
I ran to the closet and barked.
Bernie smiled and came over.
“Found the shrimp, didn’t you, Chet?”
Shrimp? What was he talking about? Normally in this setup we take positions on either side of the door, Bernie draws the .38 Special, and the door gets opened real quick and real careful. None of that happened now. Why not? Something about shrimp? There were no shrimp!
I barked again.
“Good boy,” Bernie said, and opened the door in a free and easy way, like it was our own closet back home on Mesquite Road.
No shrimp. Just Vannah Boutette, no news there, and the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything was probably not a shocker either. The only surprise was the gun in her hand, and me being surprised by that could only mean it hadn’t been fired in a long, long time, or never. She pointed the gun at Bernie.
SIXTEEN
Oh,” Vannah said. “It’s you.”
Bull’s-eye: it was us. I was glad to hear her say that: getting somebody mix
ed up with somebody else can send things off the rails pretty fast when guns are around. Vannah’s gun was kind of small, with a pretty pink grip, but I’d seen what even small guns could do. The question was why didn’t she seem to be lowering it? Wasn’t Vannah the client? I had a real clear memory of her handing over three grand in greenbacks, the very best kind, in my opinion, three grand now in Bernie’s front pants pocket, nice and safe. I could still pick up the faint scent of shrimp those bills were giving off.
“Correct,” Bernie said. “So how about pointing that popgun in some other direction?”
Vannah smiled. Some humans, but not many, know how to smile in a dangerous way. Vannah turned out to be one of them, although Bernie might have missed that. His gaze, which normally in a situation like this would have been on her face, with a glance or two down at the gun, seemed to be wandering a bit.
“How come men think they’re only the ones with balls?” she said.
Had I heard that right? How could I not have, what with my hearing being the way it is and the fact that she was only a step or two away? This was the most confusing moment of my life.
“Um,” Bernie said. Maybe he was confused, too. We’re a lot alike in some ways, me and Bernie. “Maybe we could discuss that under more peaceable conditions.”
The gun stayed the way it was, pointed at Bernie’s chest. “Am I making you nervous?” Vannah said.
“Not that so much,” Bernie said. “More like angry.”
Uh-oh. Bernie was angry? That meant one thing and one thing only: I was angry, too! It came over me so suddenly, like a hot red flood, although maybe not the red part, Bernie being of the opinion that I can’t be trusted when it comes to colors. The next thing I knew that little popgun was clattering across the floor, Bernie had a tight grip on my collar—the brown one, black only for dress-up—and Vannah was holding her wrist and no longer smiling, dangerously or in any other way.
“What the hell? He bit me!”
Bernie peered at Vannah’s wrist. “More like an accidental tooth scrape, I’d say.”
The Sound and the Furry Page 12