She stayed motionless for a moment or two. Then she nodded. Bernie: a great interviewer, which I may have mentioned before, but why not again?
“What did he want you to do?” he said.
“Cleotis doesn’t like getting talked about behind his back.”
“You’ll have to weigh that little quirk of his against your kid’s future.”
“Oh, Christ,” Fleurette said, wiping her tears on the back of her arm. “How come everything happens to me?”
“You’re doing better than Mack,” Bernie said. “For now.”
Fleurette backed away. “Are you threatening me?”
“The situation is threatening you,” Bernie said. “We’re your only chance to push back a little.”
“Who’s we?” Fleurette said.
“Chet and I, of course.”
Fleurette looked at me. It so happened that I’d moved over to where a few of her tears had fallen, and was at that very moment licking them off the bare floor. Hadn’t tasted human tears since . . . since I couldn’t remember when! How do you like that? Fleurette’s were warm and salty, with just the very slightest hint of pot smoke.
She blew out a long breath, seemed to get smaller.
“Cleotis told me to get right over here and move Mack somewhere else.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say—I swear to you.”
“Where did he tell you to move him?”
“He said Mack would know. My job was to get him out of here and fast.”
“Cleotis was helping Mack hide out?”
“I think so.”
Bernie glanced around. “Who owns this place?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about the shrimp?”
Fleurette blinked. “Shrimp?”
“The shrimp that got stolen from Grannie Robideau.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“No?” Bernie said. “Someone the spitting image of you has been serving those stolen shrimp by the trayful over at Rooster Red’s.”
“How—” she said, her face, kind of pale to begin with, paling some more. When human faces get that way, fainting often comes next. I got ready—to do what I wasn’t exactly sure. But how could it hurt to be ready?
No fainting happened. Fleurette took a deep breath—I could hear her sucking in air—and said, “How do you know that?”
“Actually knowing would be giving me too much credit,” Bernie said. “More like a hunch until you confirmed it.”
Fleurette gave Bernie a hard look. “Why are men such jerks?”
“No time to get to the bottom of that now,” Bernie said. “Did Mack own Rooster Red’s?”
Fleurette went on giving Bernie the hard look for a bit, finally nodded. “His dad built the place.”
“Is his dad still around?”
“Died a long time ago.”
“How?”
“They said his liver gave out.”
“What about his mother?”
“Same thing, except later,” Fleurette said. “Mack was pretty much alone in the world, except for his friendship with Ralph.”
“And Vannah, of course.”
“Vannah?”
“Vannah Boutette—his sister.”
“Vannah’s not close to anybody,” Fleurette said. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Bernie said. Which was nice to hear, all this back-and-forth being not so easy to follow. And now I had the green light to not even try! Bernie always comes through. “Who stole the shrimp?”
“Lord Boutette? That’s what everybody says.”
“Was Ralph in on it?”
“Ralph? Sure doesn’t sound like him.”
“Did Mack do a lot of that—buying stolen goods?”
“Maybe a little.”
“How much did he pay for the shrimp?”
“I didn’t see them come in,” Fleurette said. “Actually I sort of did, but it was still dark. I was working the early shift, so it was maybe five in the morning.”
“Sunday morning.”
“Right. Usually I open up, but Mack was already there. I could hear him talking in the kitchen. The lights weren’t on so I just sort of waited out back.”
“Why?”
Fleurette shrugged. “The lights not being on, and all. It was just kind of . . . I don’t want to say creepy.”
“Who was he talking to?”
“Some man. I didn’t recognize the voice.”
“So it wasn’t Lord Boutette?”
“No.”
“What were they talking about?”
“I couldn’t tell. The ventilating fan—the big one over the back door—was running. It’s pretty noisy. Then after a minute or two, the other man came out. I don’t think he saw me—I was in the shadows, kind of behind my car.”
“What did he look like?”
“Like I said, it was pretty dark.”
“Could it have been Ralph?”
“This guy was a lot taller.”
“What else?”
“Nothing, really.”
“What did he do?”
“Walked around to the front of the building. I heard a car start up and drive away, but I didn’t see any headlight beams.”
“Describe his walk.”
“Huh?”
“Posture, gait, anything you noticed.”
“Like I said, it was—”
“Don’t tell me it was dark, Fleurette. Just try to remember.”
Fleurette closed her eyes, a very interesting human thing. Why do they do that? Did something change inside them? Did something change inside me when I closed my eyes? I thought about closing them but decided against it. We were on the job.
Her eyes opened. “I do remember one thing,” she said. “He walked like a cowboy.”
“Yeah?”
“Not the kind of walk that comes from riding horses. I’m talking about the kind that comes from wearing cowboy boots, if that makes sense.”
“It does to me,” Bernie said, which had to mean we were cooking. When cases started to make sense to Bernie it was just about time for me to grab the perp by the pant leg. Fleurette was wearing shorts, but not the real short kind, nothing I couldn’t handle.
“. . . and then?” Bernie was saying, meaning we weren’t quite at the pant leg moment.
“Mack came outside. It was starting to get a little lighter and I could see he was counting money. I sort of pretended I’d just driven up.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure why I did that. Just a feeling. We said good morning, he drove off, and I went in. Later, when the oyster guy came, I opened the big cooler. It was empty the night before and now it was full of shrimp.”
“Mack was counting money?” Bernie said.
“A fat wad, if you want the truth.”
“I do,” Bernie said, his eyes real watchful.
“I’ve told you the truth,” said Fleurette.
Bernie nodded, but just a little. “You’ve got our card,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to use it.”
“I can go?”
“Drive safe.”
I kept an eye on those short pant legs until she was out the door.
NINETEEN
Just like us in the nation within, humans come in different colors, and also just like us the particular color ends up being not the most interesting thing about them, or even close, in my opinion, although I’m not at my best with colors, so don’t pay attention to any of this. The point is that the cops who swarmed into the room above the coffee shop not long after Fleurette had gone were all different in color, going from very light to very dark. The darkest cop wore the fanciest uniform, fancy uniforms being a little detail you watch for in this business. They all took in the sights in the same order: Mack lying on the bed, Bernie standing nearby, me sitting at his feet. Then they all turned to the fancy-uniform cop, the way humans do when waiting to find out what happens next. The fancy-uniform cop was peering at Bernie.
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“Bernie?” he said. “Can’t be you.”
“Why not?” Bernie said.
“Son of a bitch,” said the fancy-uniform cop. Then he took Bernie in his arms and swept him right off the floor, a total first in my experience. “Son of a bitch,” the cop said again, actually waving Bernie around in the air a bit. The eyes of all the cops got very big.
“Put me down, Henry,” Bernie said.
“Is that an order, Captain?” said this Henry dude.
“More like a suggestion,” Bernie said.
Henry set Bernie back down on his feet but didn’t quite let him go, instead started pounding him on the back. Bernie did the same to him.
“Son of bitch,” Henry said. “I can’t believe this.”
“Everybody has to be somewhere,” Bernie said.
Henry glanced at the other cops. “Catch that, gentlemen? ‘Everybody has to be somewhere.’ Bernie Little here’s always the smartest guy in the room, and don’t you forget it.” From that moment on, I knew Henry and I had a lot in common, were going to get along great. I wasn’t too sure about the other cops, most of them now eyeing Bernie in a pinched-face sort of way.
“Cram the cynicism, ladies and gentlemen,” Henry said. “Without Bernie Little there’d be no more me, and I know how broken up y’all’d be if that happened.”
The cops sort of shuffled around, gazing this way and that. None of them looked broken up to me.
“Saved my life, this pig-headed hard-ass,” Henry said. “Mine and a whole shitload of others, that goddamn day.”
The cops started seeing Bernie afresh, although I couldn’t be sure, my mind at that moment knocked off the tracks by the pig-headed thing. I’ve had an encounter with a pig or two in my time—none pleasant, and one actually a bit painful, pigs turning out to be surprisingly aggressive when cornered—but the point was, I’d seen pig heads extremely up close, and they weren’t at all like Bernie’s: just for starters, Bernie had nothing you could call a snout. Then there was shitload, also a problem. I could never hear that word without thinking back to the Portapotty trailer-truck fiasco at Spaghetti Junction, the place where all the Valley freeways meet. Right in front of our eyes! And even closer, our windshield wipers nowhere near up to the job! A horrible memory, and if a repeat was on the schedule, we were looking at a bad day, not that any day could actually be called bad.
“Was this in Iraq, Lieutenant?” said one of the cops.
“Damn straight,” said Henry.
“What went down?” said the cop.
“Hell on earth,” Henry said, finally letting go of Bernie. “We were trapped in this goddamn—”
Bernie made a little back-and-forth wave with his finger.
“Huh?” Henry said. “Don’t want me to talk about it?”
“Well, um,” said Bernie. “Everyone did their job and there’s nothing really to, uh . . .” He gazed down at his sneakers, still kind of dirty from getting stuck in the mud on Isle des Deux Amis.
“Haven’t changed a bit,” Henry said. He took Bernie’s chin in his hand, and for one crazy instant, I thought he was going to kiss him. He gave Bernie’s head a little shake instead. “How’s life?”
“I’m a private investigator out west these days,” Bernie said, rubbing his chin. “This is Chet.”
“Looks like a champ,” said Henry, gazing down at me. “That tail wag’s off the charts. I’d bet he’s taken out a lot of wineglasses.”
“You’d win,” Bernie said.
Everybody laughed, at what I didn’t know.
“What brings you to our godforsaken corner of the planet?” Henry said.
Bernie turned toward the bed, and then all the cops, like a flock of birds, did the same.
“That was you, calling it in?” Henry said.
Bernie nodded.
“What’s the story?”
“We found him just the way you see.”
“Who is we?”
“Chet and I.”
Henry nodded, then went to the bed and pressed his finger on Mack’s neck, just as Bernie had done. “OD,” he said. “Textbook.”
“Looks that way,” Bernie said.
There was a slight pause. “You know him?” Henry said.
“Name’s Mack Larouche,” Bernie said. “He was a seafood wholesaler and bar owner in St. Roch.”
“And your interest in him?” Henry said.
“Maybe we could step into the hall,” Bernie said.
Henry turned to the cop in the next-fanciest uniform. “Get an ambulance down here. Find out what the barista downstairs has to say. The rest of you clear out.”
The cops cleared out. The second-fanciest one got on her phone. The rest of us—me, Bernie, Henry—stepped into the empty hall, me arriving first after only a slight confusion.
Henry—a real big dude, in case I haven’t made that clear—gazed down at Bernie, not something many dudes can do. “Private eyes working in my territory make me nervous,” he said. Kind of a puzzler: nervous humans give off a sharp scent you can’t miss, and I wasn’t detecting the least whiff coming off Henry.
“Don’t blame you,” Bernie said. “I’d be the same. But this turned out to be a detour. We’ve been hired by some people in St. Roch to find a missing family member.”
Henry jabbed his thumb at the closed door to Mack’s room. “Not him?”
Bernie shook his head. “His best buddy.”
“Get a decent retainer?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Case doesn’t look too promising from this angle, is all,” Henry said. “Missing guy have a name?”
“Ralph Boutette.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.” Humans often said that, whether bells were ringing or not. At the moment, I heard only two: a church bell in the distance, and one of those tinkly bicycle bells only a few streets away. There was also a mouse in the wall, but that went without mentioning. “Who’s your client?” Henry said.
“Sorry, Henry,” said Bernie.
Henry’s eyes didn’t look quite as friendly now. “Hoping the deceased would lead you to Boutette?”
“That was the idea.”
“How’d you track him here?”
“On a tip.”
“From his supplier?”
“No,” Bernie said.
“Because if you can ID the dealer, I need to know,” Henry said. “Otherwise no harm no foul, no reason for further NOPD involvement. You and I can go down something nice and cold and rehash old times.”
“Sounds great,” said Bernie. “Have to take a rain check.” Rain check: that had confused me so many times back home in the Valley, but now in this place made complete sense. A breakthrough: I loved that feeling! Was I now on the way to understanding every single thing in the whole wide world? I couldn’t think of even one tiny reason why not. Chet the Jet!
“Sure thing,” Henry said. “But you haven’t answered the question—can you ID the scumbag who sold that little dude in there his last fix or not?”
Bernie looked Henry in the eye and said nothing. Henry stared back at him so long I started to get nervous myself. He shook his head.
“Hope you know what you’re doing, Bernie. Lot of crazy muthas down there on the bayou.”
“I’m learning that,” Bernie said.
They shook hands and we started walking toward the stairs.
“Better learn quick,” Henry called after us. “I’m talking about crazy swamp muthas who still write their own rules.” He raised his voice; it followed us onto the stairs, sort of blowing down our backs. “Where bodies get lost real, real easy. Easier than not—hear me, you pig-headed son of a bitch?”
Downstairs the second-fanciest cop was leaning on the bar in a tired sort of way and writing in her notebook, no one else around. She glanced over at us.
“Wish I had a dog sometimes,” she said.
“Plenty of rescues available.”
“But it’s a big responsibility.”
; “I’ve never actually thought about that,” Bernie said.
The cop looked surprised. Maybe she didn’t know we were alike in some ways, me and Bernie: some things never cross our minds.
“The captain sure seems sold on you,” she said.
“His judgment is sound in other ways,” Bernie told her. She laughed. “Find out anything from the barista?”
“Nada,” the cop said.
“Who owns this place?”
“It’s in receivership. She thought the whole upstairs was closed off, had no clue anyone was living up there, got pretty upset. I sent her home.” The cop took another look at me. “What’s his name, again?”
“Chet.”
“Short for Chester?”
Whoa. Not the first time someone had run that one by us. What was wrong with plain old Chet, pure and simple?
We got in the car, roof up, no rain. “A lot to think about, big guy,” Bernie said.
Really? I hadn’t realized that, searched my mind for a thought. After a while I found one, a happy thought about snacks and how nice it would be if a snack or two came into my life real soon.
“But I’d say Mack’s fear of needles would be number one, meaning a follow-up with Cleotis in on the agenda. How about we swing by Duke’s little club on the way, maybe check out his menu?”
Menu? Something about a menu? How could you complain in this life?
We were parking in front of the Fishhead’s sign when out the door strolled Duke, carrying something wrapped in foil. Not just something, but steak tips cooked teriyaki style. Smelling right through aluminum foil? It can be done. And what was this? He had a smudge or two of what looked like teriyaki sauce on his goatee? I took that for a good sign, no telling why.
He saw us, took a quick step forward like he was going to zoom off down the street, then stopped and backed toward the door. We hopped out, moved toward him, the two of us spread out a bit, just one of our techniques. Duke looked at Bernie, then me, and back to Bernie. Which right there was why this particular technique was so much fun: Duke couldn’t look at both of us at the same time! Meaning that while his eyes were on Bernie, I could grab him by the pant leg before he could say Jackie Robinson, Bernie’s favorite ballplayer, although not something I’d ever heard a perp actually say.
“Ch—et?” Bernie said.
The Sound and the Furry Page 15