A Fistful of Collars (32 page)

Bernie, hand over his eyes to block that sand, didn’t see the car and probably hadn’t heard it, either, not a big surprise since I’d barely picked up on that
tick-tick-tick
myself. The driver’s window slid down and the driver peered out.

Not Cal Luxton, which was my first thought. This was the white-haired dude, not old, more like Bernie’s age: white hair kind of long, heavy black eyebrows, narrow little mouth; and those liquid black eyes. In the passenger seat beside him sat that gigantic member of the nation within, long teeth bared. I had the strangest thought: that was me and Bernie in a nightmare.

The liquid-eyed dude nodded to himself and said, “Thought it’d be you.”

He had a liquidy voice that somehow matched his eyes and kind of made me feel sick. Bernie turned his head in the direction of the liquid-eyed dude’s voice and squinted at him through puffy eyelids.

“Ramon?” he said.

“Hello and good-bye,” said Ramon.

He was leaving? I had just enough time to think: good news. And then Ramon had a knife in his hand. There are all sorts of knives—for butter, for steak, for carving the turkey on Thanksgiving. This particular kind of knife—all steel, thin and flat, with a round hole at the top of the grip—was a kind I’d seen before—and seen in action—on a visit to Otis DeWayne, our weapons expert. What Ramon had in his hand was a throwing knife, which he now drew back behind his ear with the same soft easy grip Otis had used before letting it go and popping a pink balloon hanging from a branch in his yard.
Pop
went the balloon, shriveling down to nothing, and the knife sank deep and quivering into the tree. Those liquidy dark eyes locked on Bernie. Shriveling down to nothing? No!

I got my paws under me and sprang, maybe not my best spring on account of the brick pavement in back of the warehouse being so slippery with dust. But no excuses, not in this business: that’s one of our rules, mine and Bernie’s. The point was I straight up didn’t get there in time, in fact sort of didn’t even get there at all. Ramon’s arm whipped forward and he flung that flat steel knife. It whistled in the air and I felt the blade cut right through the tip of one of my ears before I crashed against the side of the car. Then came a grunt of pain from Bernie. I picked myself up, wheeled around toward him.

Oh, Bernie. The knife had stuck him—not in the head or the chest, which I knew from my experience in this business were game changers—but in his leg, the bad leg with the war wound. Plenty bad enough, and worse was the fact that the knife had cut clear through and sunk into the door, pinning him to it. Bernie reached down, obscured by a sudden whirlwind of dust and sand—like it was taking Bernie away from me!—and gripped the
handle of the knife, his movements slow and . . . yes, even uncertain, as though he was confused. In that horrible moment, I sensed movement inside the car, quickly turned, and saw Ramon drawing another knife from a sheath he wore behind his neck. And the .38? Somehow it had fallen from Bernie’s belt, and now lay on the ground, out of his reach.

No time to think, but that’s often when I do my best work. I leaped straight up and through that window, clamping my mouth around Ramon’s wrist, good and hard. Our cases usually ended with me grabbing the perp by the pant leg, not the wrist, but this was a start. Or maybe not, because the next instant Ramon shouted, “Outlaw! Kill!”

And then that huge dude beside him with the long teeth and the angry eyes was all over me. So strong! So heavy! I thrashed around, tried to throw him off, couldn’t budge him.

“Kill! Kill ’im, Outlaw!”

Outlaw growled the most ferocious growl I’d ever heard and got me by the neck, although not right under at the very softest part, more to the side. My heart pounded like it wanted to get free and fly away, but somehow that gave me more strength. I twisted around, got a paw free, dug it right into Outlaw’s face. He barked a furious bark and then we were in the backseat, crashing around so hard the car rocked. Outlaw rolled right over me, went for my throat again. I kept rolling, slipped away, twisted around suddenly, and there I was, on top! Outlaw didn’t like that. He bit my shoulder, bit it real hard. That maddened me so much that what came next was a blur of fighting and blood and pain, all of this with the dust storm howling outside, and the next thing I actually knew was that I somehow had Outlaw by the throat. That didn’t make him let go of my shoulder. Those long teeth were still there, digging in deep, Outlaw growling this rough burry growl
the whole time, a growl I felt in my body, through and through. More than anything else it was the growl I didn’t like: it sent a message that in some way Outlaw was enjoying all this. Didn’t he realize I had him by the throat, the softest part? My jaws started to squeeze and I tasted blood and a thrill went through me and I squeezed harder and—

And Outlaw stopped struggling, stilled himself, lay defenseless down on the floor in the back of the car, throat exposed. In short, he submitted. That was something we have in the nation within. My role now was to call a halt to the neck biting thing. Not an easy role at all: I barely pulled it off.

But as soon as I did, backing away from Outlaw—who didn’t move at all, his eyes, now dull, gazing at nothing—I realized that Ramon was no longer in the car. I vaulted into the front. The driver’s door was open. I shot outside.

The air was thick with dust, like a screen between me and everything. But I could see Bernie, sort of sitting against the door, all twisted around, still trying to pull the knife out and get himself free. Ramon was walking toward him, not in a hurried sort of way. He stood over Bernie. Bernie glanced up at him, his eyes swollen almost shut from the dust. Ramon’s own eyes were wide open, darker and more liquid than ever. He smiled and reached behind his neck.

Oh, no. He had another knife in that sheath? I charged. Or tried to. But my shoulder—the one Outlaw had been working on—let me down, and I crumpled to the ground.

Ramon drew the knife. He held it over Bernie’s head and said, “Adios.” But as he raised the knife higher so he could jam it down even harder into the top of Bernie’s skull, Bernie at last yanked the other knife out of the door and out of his leg. It took all the force Bernie had, and because of that the blade came slicing up real fast,
almost slipping from his grip, and that blade cut deep into the inside of Ramon’s leg, high up.

Ramon staggered back. Blood jetted out of his leg in thick red pulses. He sank to the ground, pressed his hand against the wound. His hand was soaked red in a moment and then the thick pulses started up again, shooting right through his fingers.

“Lucky son of a bitch,” he said. “You killed me.”

I
’m not that lucky,” Bernie said.

By now I was at Bernie’s side. He ripped off his own shirt—Hawaiian, with the red palm trees, one of my favorites—tore a strip from it and tied the strip tight around Ramon’s leg, above the blood-spurting part. Blood spurted once more, and then not again.

After that Bernie cuffed him. Ramon lay down in the dust, his skin white, pasty, damp, staring straight up, his eyes kind of lifeless, reminding me of Outlaw at the end of our little scrap.

Bernie turned to me, examined the tip of my ear and my shoulder. “Might need a stitch or two, big guy.” Then he rolled up his pant leg. “Me, too.” His poor leg: the knife had gone right through his calf where all the old scars were and out the other side. But there wasn’t much blood. Bernie tore off another strip of Hawaiian shirt and fixed himself up. Meanwhile, the storm was fading, the wind falling off, the air clearing, the roar amping down and down. Reddish dust covered everything—the old Flower Mart, Ramon’s car, Ramon, Bernie, me. Outlaw poked his head up out of the car window. He was all dusty, too. He gazed at Ramon. Ramon gave him a cold look. Outlaw ducked back out of sight.

Bernie shifted over, picked up the .38, tucked it back in his belt. Then he sat right beside Ramon.

“Sign that the ecology’s going absolutely haywire,” Bernie said.

“Huh?” said Ramon.

“Dust storm like that,” Bernie said. “Once the rivers all ran free. Keep that in mind.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ramon said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bernie said. He touched the strip he’d tied around Ramon’s leg. “Know much about knots?”

Ramon gazed down at his leg, didn’t reply.

“This here’s a slip knot,” Bernie said. “Meaning all I have to do is give a light little pull on the end right here and it’s all undone.”

Wow! Was there anything Bernie didn’t know?

“Now that we’ve laid the groundwork,” Bernie went on, “let’s go over the three murders you’ve committed.”

Ramon gave Bernie a hard glare.

“Not selling you short,” Bernie said. “There may be more in your whole career—I’m just focusing on the ones revolving around Thad Perry.”

“You’re full of shit,” Ramon said.

“How about simplest one first?” Bernie said. “You killed Manny Chavez because he was skimming off the blackmail payments. The only way he could have done that without your knowledge was by telling Jiggs the amount had been raised and then pocketing the difference. So the question is, what put you onto him?”

Ramon turned his head and tried to spit, but only dry dust came out.

“All I can think of is that Jiggs called you to complain about the bump,” Bernie went on. “Was that it?”

Ramon gave him another one of those hard glares.

Bernie reached out, took hold of one end of the torn-off strip, held it lightly in his fingers. Ramon looked down, his eyes losing the glare real fast. Bernie tightened his grip just the littlest bit.

Ramon, his gaze locked on that knot in the Hawaiian shirt material, nodded his head. “Manny was a goddamn loser all his life.”

“But Carla was a winner,” Bernie said. His hand curled into a fist, the torn-off strip end lost inside. “How did she track you down? Through her friend Dina?”

“The hell with you,” Ramon said. “I got rights.”

Bernie started to pull.

“Stop,” Ramon called out. “Yeah, that was it, Dina. I was gonna have to—” He cut himself off.

“Kill her, too?” Bernie said. “But you ran out of time?”

Ramon said nothing.

“Which leaves us with April,” Bernie said. “She dumped Manny for Thad Perry, back when they were all kids. But you weren’t a kid—hard to imagine you as a kid ever. Also hard to imagine Manny feeling so humiliated he’d actually want to kill her. Unless some older buddy got him all stirred up.”

“He was a goddamn pussy,” Ramon said. “We—he—was just gonna throw a scare into her. But he went too far.”

“You’re saying Manny killed April?”

“Yeah.”

Bernie shook his head. “Don’t believe you.”

Ramon shrugged.

Bernie didn’t like that shrug; I could tell from his eyes. He yanked the end of the torn-off strip real hard. A red jet came pumping right out, the most powerful one yet. It struck Bernie in the face, ran down his chin, made him look so scary.

Ramon got scared through and through, no doubt about it. “You don’t understand,” he screamed. “The feel of the knife sliding in—I was just going to make a scratch. It was an accident.”

Bernie gazed down at him. Another red spurt: Bernie shifted his head out of the way, just like he was slipping a punch.

“Please,” Ramon begged. “Please.”

Bernie retied the knot, not quickly, but he did it. Ramon was making little whimpering sounds.

“Then you framed Thad for the murder,” Bernie said.

Ramon nodded.

“But Stine and Luxton started poking around,” Bernie went on, “and Stine was smart. For some reason Luxton alibied you out. Possibility one—you had dirt on him. Possibility two—you paid him off.”

“Everyone in Vista City knew Luxton was on the take,” Ramon said.

“So that was that?” Bernie said, wiping Ramon’s blood off his face with what was left of the Hawaiian shirt.

Ramon nodded again.

“Except for the nice bonus years later when Thad hit the big time,” Bernie said.

Ramon looked into some far-off distance. He’d lost all his color, making him sort of invisible, except for the dark eyes. “Couldn’t believe my goddamn luck,” he said.

Bernie and I each got stitches, took it easy for a day or so. Less than a day, in my case: taking it easy gets old pretty fast.

We had visitors. Lieutenant Stine, for example—although he arrived in a brand-new captain’s uniform, with all the gold. He had a whole case of bourbon for Bernie.

“Don’t want it,” Bernie said. “Don’t want anything from you.”

“Aw, come on, Bernie,” Stine said, softening that voice of his, normally so harsh and hoarse-sounding.

Bernie shook his head. “You used me as a cat’s paw.”

Whoa.

“I don’t like that,” Bernie said.

Well, of course not. Who would? Yes, Brando and I’d come to an arrangement, but no point pushing things too far.

Then there was Thad Perry.

“Can’t thank you enough,” Thad said. “And I’m sure Jiggs will want to thank you, too. Right now he’s on an extended vacation.”

“What’s this?” Bernie said.

“A check.”

“No, thanks.”

“Aren’t you even going to look at it?” Thad said. “There are lots of zeroes.”

“Nope,” said Bernie. In this business you get good at spotting tricks, and didn’t zero mean zip, nada, zilch? No way we were falling for that, me and Bernie.

“But I want to do something,” Thad said. “You . . . you redeemed me, man. And way less important, but it counts—you kept me out of the news.”

“Okay,” Bernie said. “Here’s what you can do—stop encouraging Leda about my son and the movie business. In fact, discourage her.”

“But why?” said Thad. “Charlie’s talented. Lars says that scene we did is the best thing in the film.”

“Can you get him to cut it?” Bernie said.

Thad laughed, like maybe he thought this was one of Bernie’s jokes. “You can’t be serious,” he said, “but I’ll try if you insist.”

Bernie sighed. “Just do the discouraging part,” he said.

*   *   *

The mayor’s office called and the mayor himself came on our speakerphone.