The Sound and the Furry

by Spencer Quinn

  Hey! I wasn’t out in open water anymore, instead had green on both sides, and not so far away. I could see trees and that mossy stuff, and even an old falling-apart dock. Plus the waves had died down and the water didn’t taste so salty. I was in a bayou! Loved these bayous. What a place! I got myself turned sideways—only one of my legs in on the action at the moment, the others maybe too tangled in the net, or having a nice little rest—and headed for the old dock.

  I’d taken a stroke, maybe even two, when I caught my first whiff of that froggy snaky scent with the peppery poopy add-on. The green rot smell came from the land; this other one was drifting up from down below. Kind of interesting, but I had more important things on my mind, namely getting to that dock, so I ignored this smell from down below. Except I really couldn’t on account of how it was getting so strong. A bubble popped up right in front of my face and when it burst it was just absolutely full of that smell.

  I swam on, close enough to the dock now to make out a few crushed beer cans lying on it and glinting in the sun, a pretty sight. Yes, the sun was up now and shining nice and warm, although for some reason I was shivering harder than ever. I churned away, or at least called it churning, and the dock drew a bit closer. Then came two new things. First, from farther up the bayou, I heard the sound of a boat. Second, I felt a strange tug on the net, like it had snagged on something down below.

  I swam on, not my fastest, of course, with just the one paw doing the work. The boat sound got louder, making a sputtering sort of putt-putt I thought I recognized. I turned my head to look, spotted a small silver boat rounding a bend up the bayou, not too far away. The driver was a big, gray-haired woman wearing a halter top and shorts. And a patch over one eye? Hey! I knew that woman. Wasn’t she—

  All at once I plunged down under the surface, so fast the force actually snapped my head back. I was moving faster than I’d ever moved in the water before, straight down, the net pulling tight tight tight now, like some unstoppable force had a grip on it. I hit bottom, felt solid mud under one of my paws, and then I saw where this unstoppable force was coming from. A huge creature rose up out of the murk, right in front of my face, a creature with a long bumpy snout, tiny bumpy eyes on the top of its head, and teeth so big they stuck right out of its mouth. I knew what this creature was from Animal Planet: a gator. And that strange smell had to be gator smell. What we needed was a TV that—

  The thought never got finished. The gator opened its mouth—so wide!—and came at me. I pushed off the bottom with my one paw. The gator chomped down—one of those teeth parting the fur on my shoulder—and clamped onto the net behind my neck, just missing me. Then—whoosh. I was off on a horrible ride, getting rolled and twisted and shaken through the water, the whole time needing to breathe so bad. All at once I felt my collar ripping right off me and I got flung up to the surface. And what was this? The net was gone? I was free? I was free! I took off toward the dock, got closer and closer, was just a few churns away when I got hit from below, hit so hard I rose straight up in the air, high enough that there was time for a glimpse of the silver boat—much closer—and the woman in the eye patch, on her feet now and facing my direction.

  I fell with a big splash. The gator rolled up out of the water right between me and the dock, swung around in one quick snapping movement of its body, so big, so long, and came gliding my way. I got my head up as high as I could and barked my loudest, fiercest bark, all I could think of to do. That got the gator angry: I could see it in those yellow eyes. It kept coming, not scared in the least, and showed me that wide-open mouth again, so huge and pink inside, with all those teeth, on and on, and a thick yellow tongue with a piece of seaweed lying on it. Nearer and nearer, and hissing now—I felt his breath on my nose—and I opened my own mouth, too, ready to bite and fight my very hardest.

  Get it on.

  Hiss. Hiss.

  And then, just as our bites were about to come together: CRACK! I knew that sound, took me back to K-9 school and even before: a rifle shot. At the same moment, a bloody hole appeared in the thick green skin behind the gator’s head, where the neck would be if it had a neck; I wasn’t sure about that. The gator closed its mouth, sank from sight, the tail, so heavy and hard, whacking me in the gut as the beast—yes, a beast for sure—swam away.

  I puked first thing, even though there was nothing pukable left in me. Meanwhile, the silver boat glided up beside me, the eye patch woman—Mami, that was it, Mami Boutette—now at the stern, steering with one hand and holding a rifle in the other.

  Mami gazed down at me with her one eye, a dark green, bayou-colored eye. “You went one on one with Iko?” she said. “Hell’s bells. Liked the looka you from the get-go.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  We rode up the bayou in the silver boat, Mami and me, both of us sitting in the stern. Mami took out her cell phone, checked the screen.

  “Roaming charges?” she said. “They can stick that where the sun don’t shine.”

  Whoa! Had I already figured that one out? Was the answer . . . night? Night! No sunshine at night! What had taken me so long? Mami was saying they could stick whatever it was in the night, plain as day. As for what that meant, exactly, you had to accept that not everything made sense, which I could do no problem, just another one of my strengths.

  I was still shivering—although hardly at all, nothing worth mentioning, so forget I mentioned it. Mami patted my head. She had a big hard hand, with calluses and dirty fingernails, but turned out to be a pretty good patter, if not in the class of Autumn and Tulip, those two world-beating patters in the employ of our pal Livia Moon who had a nice setup in Pottsdale, coffee house up front and house of ill repute in the back.

  “Would you believe that’s the third time I winged Iko in the past twenty years?” Mami said. “Damn gator’s gonna outlive me.” She slid a bottle out from under the seat, one of those flat bottles, and took a swig—bourbon, a smell with which I was very familiar—and then smacked her lips, one of the best sounds a human could make, in my opinion. She steered us around a big patch of floating seaweed—was that a blackened, twisted-up bird lying in the middle of it?—and from this new angle I could see a town, docks lining both sides of the bayou. It looked kind of familiar. I was puzzling over that when a big bubble broke the surface on one side and Iko’s smell came wafting over us.

  “Hey, you’re still cold, huh?”

  Mami gave me a brisk rub up and down my back. The smell faded away behind us. I felt a little better, but not totally better on account of the fact that Iko’s scent was on me, actually in my fur. I needed a swim. Maybe not now.

  “This detective buddy of yours any good?” Mami said. “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  Detective buddy? Was she talking about Bernie? At that moment I remembered how I’d last seen him, lying motionless on the deck of Little Jazz.

  “Whimpering?” Mami said. She parted the fur on my shoulder. “Scrape don’t look like much. Iko bang up your insides? That it?”

  Whimpering? Couldn’t be me. Just in case, I shut down any sounds that might have been coming out of my mouth. As for Iko, he hadn’t hurt me at all! What a nice realization! Soon after that, I was starting to think I’d gotten the best of our little dustup. A good place to leave it? That was my take.

  “You’re one tough hombre,” Mami said. “Speaks good of him that he hooked up with you, thing in his favor. Then there’s Baron’s recommendation, but what does that add up to? Dung pile.”

  Dung pile? Was that what Mami just said? In my mind, I went back over my dung pile experiences, some of them lots of fun—that time when Iggy and I found our way to the model organic farm!—at least in the beginning. Meanwhile, Mami had her phone out again.

  “More like it,” she said, and pecked away at the keys.

  The town—St. Roch, that was it! I was on a roll, and if not quite there, I could sense one coming—drew closer. At first no one was around and then a car I knew very well came zooming down the road—engine
screaming in that voice I loved—and braked to a shrieking stop beside one of the docks. Even before it had stopped fishtailing, a man I knew very well jumped out—yes, jumped—and ran to the end of the dock.

  “Easy, fella, easy.” Mami put her hard hand on my neck. “Fixin’ to dive back into the drink?”

  Dive back into . . . I realized I’d shifted position a bit, now had my front paws over the side. Back into the drink? I thought not. Panting started up from deep inside me and wouldn’t be controlled.

  We glided up to the dock. Bernie! Oh, Bernie! Right at the very edge of the dock, knees bent like . . . like he was going to dive right into the silver boat! Do it, Bernie, do it! And maybe he was going to, but before he could I was in midair. Not one of my best leaps, not even close—in fact, a very bad one with me almost not getting to the dock, even though the boat was practically touching it, and falling into the drink instead. Not the drink! Missing a leap like that? What was wrong with me? But somehow Bernie leaned down and caught me, and then raised me up, maybe staggering the least little bit, and held me tight.

  Bernie! I licked his face and pawed at him and just went wild for Bernie. He laughed and hugged me and his eyes got damp. Bernie wasn’t a crier—not Bernie, better believe it. I’d only see him cry once, the day after the divorce when all Charlie’s things got packed up and Leda drove him away—and there’d been no crying until her car was out of sight, making me the only one who saw his tears. Now I saw them for the second time. Second meant two. Two: the best number. It never failed.

  At about that point, I noticed Bernie had a bandage tied around his head, and also looked kind of pale, with dark shadows under his eyes. I did some more licking to make it all better.

  Meanwhile, Mami was on the dock, tying up the silver boat. She rose and turned to Bernie.

  “Hope you deserve all that affection,” she said. “What happened to your head?”

  “I fell,” Bernie said.

  He fell? When had that happened? I had a fuzzy sort of idea that maybe I knew something about that, but it stayed fuzzy: my whole mind seemed to be fuzzy. Poor Bernie. I gave him an extra lick or two. He gave me one more hug, then put me down nice and gently. No need for that: I’m one tough hombre. Still, I felt like sitting instead of standing, so that was what I did. Bernie wiped his face on his sleeve, stepped over to Mami, put his arm around her shoulder, and kissed her wrinkled, splotchy, weathered face.

  “My, my,” she said, her deep green eye opening wide.

  “I owe you,” Bernie said.

  Her eye narrowed fast. “Find Ralphie,” she said.

  “We’re working on it.”

  Mami clutched the front of Bernie’s shirt, not so friendly now. “But are you getting anywhere?”

  “I think so,” Bernie said, trying to back away and not having an easy time of it. “In fact, I’ve got something to show you.”

  She let go of him. We walked to the car. Solid ground felt pretty fine under my paws. Bernie reached down under his seat and took out the thick piece of pipe with the big nut at one end.

  “Ever seen this before?” Bernie said.

  “No.”

  “Any idea what it could be?”

  “Maybe one of Ralph’s gizmos?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A long story,” Bernie said. “Have you heard about Mack Larouche?”

  “They say he OD’d up in the city.”

  Bernie nodded. “How would you characterize his relationship with Ralph?”

  “Nothin’ now,” she said. “It don’t exist.” Her green eye went darker, almost black. “Unless they’re both together in heaven.” She turned quickly to Bernie. “Is that what you’re telling me? Ralph’s dead, too?”

  “I don’t know that,” Bernie said.

  “And why does their relationship even matter?” Mami said.

  “Might not,” said Bernie. “But in my experience cases usually get solved when you reach a sort of information tipping point. We’re not there yet.”

  “They were close,” Mami said. “Good enough?”

  “Guess it’ll have to be,” Bernie said. “For now. Does Ralph have a drug problem?”

  “Ralph don’t even drink coffee.”

  “Drug users tend to hang out with each other.”

  “Mack wasn’t always a druggie,” Mami said. “And I wouldn’t even call him a druggie. Mack had it under control.”

  “Until he didn’t,” Bernie said.

  A breeze fluttered Mami’s eye patch. I caught a glimpse of what was underneath. “Believe in heaven, Mr. Little?” she said.

  Bernie looked at her, then at me, then at nothing. “I think it’s right here,” he said. “But in very small moments.”

  “Better than nothing at all?” said Mami. “Or worse?” She did a dry spit in the direction of the bayou.

  Dry spits: so interesting, but no time to go into the subject now, except there’s no ignoring that you didn’t see it often, and then only from men. Mami: I liked her a whole lot.

  “Give me a heads-up next time one of those moments comes around,” she said. Her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen, then up at Bernie. “Anything else? Gotta take this call.”

  “Is it Duke?”

  “No.”

  “You’re aware that Lord took off?”

  She nodded. “I shoulda put money on that, maybe got something out of all this shit.”

  “Would he come back here?”

  “What would be stupider than that?”

  “Meaning . . .?”

  Mami didn’t answer, instead moved away to take her call.

  “How about we let Dr. Ory take a quick look at you,” Bernie said, “and then find somewhere to chow down? Or,” he went on, regaining his balance and wiping away what might have been a paw print on his shoulder, “maybe a quick snack now to tide you over?”

  He stepped over to the Porsche, reached into the glove box, took out a Slim Jim. When had that gotten in there? Not on my watch. Also nothing to worry about, or even spend any time on. What was all that talk about heaven and small moments? Totally over my head, or straight through it, but for some reason I remembered it while I was downing that Slim Jim.

  We stopped by Dr. Ory’s trailer. I didn’t want to go in, so she came out.

  “Found him, huh?” she said, wiping a wisp of hair off her face.

  “Mami Boutette did,” Bernie said. “Down the bayou, almost where it meets the sea.”

  Dr. Ory knelt in front of me, running her hands in that no-nonsense vetlike way over my body. “He swam all the way from here to there?”

  “That’s not clear,” Bernie said.

  Dr. Ory glanced at him. “What happened to you?”

  “I fell.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dr. Ory said, pouring some sharp-smelling liquid on a cotton ball and dabbing it on my shoulder. “You’re going to be just fine, Chet.” She scratched behind one of my ears and rose. Iko’s scent was totally gone. What a vet! Maybe she’d do some more scratching, possibly until I didn’t want anymore, meaning never.

  No more scratching happened. I was just thinking that I already felt fine, especially with the sun on me, heating me down deep where the chill still lingered, when a youngish man in a suit and tie came out of the trailer and said, “Last one just died, Doc.”

  “Damn,” said Dr. Ory.

  “More birds?” Bernie said

  “Four more at last count,” said Dr. Ory. “I called in Mr. Patel here from the government. Mr. Patel, meet Bernie Little and Chet.”

  Mr. Patel and Bernie shook hands. Mr. Patel was a much smaller dude than Bernie, but he had a nice, vigorous handshake, always something I liked to see. Also, he smelled a bit of curried goat, a dish I often enjoy on visits to Mr. Singh, our pawnbroker back home, at present taking care of Bernie’s grandfather’s watch for us if I was remembering right.

  “Call me Jack,” Mr. Patel said.

  “You with the EPA, Jack
?” Bernie said.

  “Not exactly,” said Jack Patel, flashing a smile, so bright in his dark face. “You from around here?”

  “Not exactly,” Bernie said.

  Jack’s smile faded. Weren’t we getting along anymore? All of a sudden this wasn’t so easy to follow. Instead, I concentrated on the smell of polish that rose from Jack’s shiny black lace-up shoes with tiny holes in the front. FBI dudes always wore those kind of polished shoes; other than that, I had no thoughts.

  “Mr. Patel’s going to have a little talk with Wes Derrick,” Dr. Ory said. “See if he can get some better answers than I did.”

  “The environmental guy from the oil company?” Bernie said.

  Dr. Ory nodded, checked her watch. “Should have been here by now.”

  At that moment a bright green jeep came down the street and parked in front of the trailer. Out stepped Wes, limping—and not just a little but in a pronounced sort of way, a very nice sight.

  “Sorry I’m a bit—” he began, and then he saw me. Sometimes the color drains right out of human faces and then they look like they’re made of paper and often keel over. Wes didn’t keel over. Instead, he backed toward the bright green jeep, kind of feeling for it behind him, his mouth opening and closing. Was he planning to make a break for it? I thought that over. Wes was a perp, no question. One of my jobs at the Little Detective Agency was to never let a perp make a break for it. Also, a savage sort of growling had started up in our vicinity, always exciting, although it meant thinking things over couldn’t go on at the same time. Plus, I was in the mood for excitement, big time.