Thereby Hangs a Tail (11 page)

“That’s going to look bad,” Bernie said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Let’s go back to how you admire—or admired—Adelina Borghese,” Bernie said.

“What did you mean—what’s going to look bad?” said Mr. Ganz. His voice changed, got higher and thinner, always a sign that the interview was going well. No surprise—Bernie was a great interviewer, or have I mentioned that already?

Bernie shook his head. “You’ve made your choice on that,” he said. “But can you elaborate on why you used to admire Adelina?”

Mr. Ganz’s voice rose some more. “Forget the past tense. I admire her, period.”

“Why?”

“She’s down to earth,” Mr. Ganz said. “People with her kind of money are usually out of touch, in my experience. Adelina enjoys all the trappings, of course, but she hasn’t been spoiled.”

“Maybe that’s because the money came late,” Bernie said.

“The money came late?” Mr. Ganz said. “I don’t understand.”

“Isn’t she from New Jersey?”

“Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

Bernie opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment Babycakes made a whimpering sound, very hard on the ears.

“Oh, poor baby,” said Mr. Ganz. “She’s so sensitive to mood, to tension. We’ll have to continue this some other time.”

“What are you tense about, Mr. Ganz?” Bernie said.

“I didn’t say I was tense.”

“Then who is?” said Bernie. “I’m not, and neither is . . .” Bernie looked at me. Hey! I was standing right by the silver bowl! And also it was empty. How the heck had that happened? “. . . Chet.”

“So?”

“So who’s left to be tense?” said Bernie. He rose. “We’ll go, but before we do, I’ll let you in on the count’s theory.”

“Theory about what?”

“The kidnapping, why we’re here,” Bernie said. “The count thinks that Princess was the real target.”

“What sense does that make?”

“To someone angry about a backstage atrocity, maybe a lot,” said Bernie.

“That’s a disgusting accusation,” said Mr. Ganz.

“But it’s all we’ve got,” said Bernie. “All I can pass on to Lieutenant Stine.”

“Who’s he?”

“The Valley detective in charge of the case.”

“So I’m going to look bad to the police—is that the meaning of your threat?”

“Just the name,” Bernie said.

“What name?”

“The eyewitness at Balmoral.”

Babycakes was back to gazing into the distance. Now Mr. Ganz gazed into the distance, too. “Aldo Reni,” he said.

“The count’s secretary?”

“The maid will show you out,” said Mr. Ganz.

“We can find our way.”

We left, Bernie quiet and thoughtful, me licking my lips. In the front hall, Bernie paused at a table, picked up a magazine, leafed through. He went still for a moment, then slipped the magazine inside his shirt.

We got home late, Bernie tired, with dark circles around his eyes, me pretty peppy, having slept the whole way. The rumbling motion, roof down with the sky full of stars: I had some of my best sleeps on the open road. Normally Bernie would head right for bed at a time like this, flopping down clothes on, eyes closing in midair. But not tonight. Instead, he went into the office and opened the safe. He reached in and took out the glossy magazine photo of Princess on a satin pillow, the one Adelina had given us, where someone had drawn in a bull’s-eye target over her fluffball head. Bernie sat at the desk, opened the magazine he’d taken from Mr. Ganz’s house, riffled through the pages, stopped.

I went closer, saw that a page had been torn out, leaving a narrow ripped margin on one side, the side with those surprisingly sharp staples, as I knew from a chewing episode or two I’d had with magazines, back in my puppy days. He slid the glossy page with Princess’s photo into place. It fit perfectly.

TEN

W
e were asleep, Bernie in the big bed, me at first at the foot of it, but in the night I’d moved to the front door and laid down with my back against it. Sometimes that happened, no idea why. A sliver of cool air—cool for the Valley, anyway— leaked in through the space under the door, and in a way that’s hard to explain, I could sort of feel what was going on in the night, despite being off in dreamland. I had a lot of fun in dreamland. For example, I was now deep in the canyon, doing my quick trot—I can keep it up practically forever—on the scent of a fat javelina, when all of a sudden a crocodile came looming out of a cave, and I leaped a huge leap, right over its snapping jaws, but the moment I landed a huge bear—

Ring, ring. A phone tried to get into the dream, but then everything—bear, crocodile, the whole canyon—broke up in pieces that faded quickly away, and I was on my feet.

Ring, ring. Our phone, ringing in the middle of the night, the windows dark, the house all shadowy. I heard Bernie’s sleepy voice, thick and scratchy. “Hello? Suzie?” A short silence, but by then I was in the bedroom, watching. Bernie was sitting up in bed, phone to his ear, rubbing his head with his other hand. “Clauson’s Wells? The ghost town? What are you doing way out—” Bernie said. “Sure. You mean in the morning, or—” He went silent. I heard Suzie, speaking fast, her voice high, but I couldn’t make out the words. “Now?” Bernie said. “Is someone with you? I thought—” I heard a click on the other end. The next second, Bernie was out of bed, pulling on his pants. “Chet?” he called. “Chet?” He was facing me, seemed to be looking right in my direction, but he didn’t see me: I could never get used to how poor his night vision—and the night vision of all humans I’d ever known—was. How did they live like that? I went over to Bernie, wagging my tail.

“Where have you been hiding?” he said, giving me a quick pat. “Got to move, boy.”

I ran to the front door, skidding to a stop on the wood floor, my claws making a nice skittery scratching sound. Something was up: I could feel it. I heard Bernie entering the office, spinning the dial on the safe. He came out, tucking the .38 Special in his belt. We were all set.

We drove fast under the night sky, at first the usual Valley night sky, dark and pink at the same time, with no stars, but after a while the pinkness faded away and the stars came out, and also the moon, just a thin silvery curve. I’ve spent a lot of time watching the moon, had many chances to see it change shapes, still had no idea what was going on. Did anybody? Probably not: I’d heard Bernie telling Charlie that the sun was just another star, but how could that be true? Look how big the sun is, and how hot, while stars are small and if they have any heat I’ve never felt it. Oh, Bernie. I took my eyes off the sky, looked sideways at him. He was hunched over the wheel, gripping it tight. Usually on nighttime drives we had some music, but not now. There was only the wind whipping by, flattening my ears. It made a funny feeling down my back. I shifted closer to Bernie.

We zigzagged up into some mountains, still zooming, Bernie shifting the gears real fast, the tires squealing on the turns. I loved that shifting. Suppose I managed to get my mouth on that leather knob, was it possible to—

“Chet!”

Interesting idea, but maybe not now. We were in a big hurry. Did I know why? Something about Suzie and ghost towns. Bernie was very interested in ghost towns and once we’d almost invested some money with a guy—kind of like the tin futures guy from the Dry Gulch Restaurant and Saloon, now that I thought about it—who wanted to buy up a whole ghost town and do something with it, can’t remember what. In fact, maybe we had made that investment. Hadn’t there been a visit to Mr. Singh soon after? Our finances had been a mess back then, and still were, but peeling up this mountain road I forgot about all that right away. Off in the distance a pair of narrow yellow eyes gleamed in the headlights. I barked and just like that they were gone.

“Chet? What’s up, boy?”

I barked again, no real reason. We were on the job, out in the night, driving fast. Anything better than this? You tell me.

On the other side of the mountains the air turned cool and fresh, and the stars got brighter. We took a narrow paved road across flat desert, and Bernie floored it. Wow! The engine screamed and I would have, too, if I’d known how. Bernie’s hair was blowing straight back. Hey! His forehead went much higher than I’d thought; but he still looked great. Faster, I was thinking, let’s go faster, when all of a sudden the car made a funny little lurch.

“Uh-oh,” said Bernie, slowing down. “What was that?”

I didn’t know. This Porsche, brown with yellow doors, was very old, even older than our old mostly purple one, which went off a cliff back when we were working the Gulagov case. We had tools in the trunk, but nothing good ever happened when they came out, even though Bernie was always the smartest human in the room. Please, I thought, don’t pull over.

Bernie pulled over. He got the tools, popped the hood. I trotted through the shadows, leaving my mark on a round cactus, a couple rocks, and a scrap of cardboard. By that time Bernie was bent over the engine, saying, “Probably something to do with the . . . Fuck!” Then came a clank-clank-clank as some tool fell deep inside all that machinery. I gazed at some distant hills, low rounded shapes, starless and darker than the sky, waiting for this to be over, and—what was that? A flash of light? Orange and yellow, there and gone in an instant, but: a muzzle flash. I’d seen muzzle flashes before, had no doubt.

“Chet! Stop that barking!”

But I couldn’t. This was my job. I barked and barked until finally Bernie got his head out from under the hood, and gazed in the direction I was pointed at, toward those dark hills. “Chet? What is it? What’s going on?”

A muzzle flash, Bernie! A muzzle flash in the night. I kept barking, hoping there’d be another, but there wasn’t.

Bernie found a can of something and poured it into the engine. “Should hold ’er for now,” he said, and closed the hood. We got in and Bernie fired the engine. “What’s up, boy? Easy, there, easy.”

We took off, not as fast as before, the engine sounding fine. I barked a few more times, but not loud. We were kind of headed in the right direction, if not to the exact muzzle flash point, then at least to the low hills. Soon our headlights picked out a signpost in the night. Bernie slowed down: an old wooden signpost, crooked and weathered, the color of bones. He read the sign: “Clauson’s Wells, three miles.”

We turned off the paved road, onto a dirt track, headed now toward where I’d seen the muzzle flash. We bumped along, taking it slow, which was fine with me—we’ve had car problems on desert tracks like this, one or two ending in long walks. “Drove cattle through Clauson’s Wells at one time,” Bernie said. “Last water for two hundred miles.” He went quiet, then added, “If there’s any left.” Poor Bernie. He was so worried about water—would probably be talking about the aquifer any moment now—but whenever he turned on the tap, there it was, water out the ying-yang. How could there be a prob— “Only one aquifer for the whole goddamn state, why can’t anybody—” Bernie’s voice faded again, but I knew he was talking to himself inside. I was pretty sure that humans did a lot of that, had trouble shutting down their minds. Not me, amigo: I can shut down my mind at the drop of a hat, whatever that means.

The low hills drew closer. Human things started showing up in our headlight beams: beer cans, a hubcap, strips of toilet paper stuck on spiny plants, another wooden sign, this one on the ground and pocked with little round holes. “They say Wild Bill Hickok rode through here, shot the town up pretty good,” Bernie said. Hickok again? Was he the perp? Kidnapper of Princess and Adelina? And whoa. He’d shot up Clauson’s Wells? What about that muzzle flash? Had to mean the dude was back, shooting it up again. Perps had a hard time going straight, almost never did. That was something you learned in this business.

“Chet! Easy, boy. What’s got into you?”

I tried to keep my mouth shut, not easy. I knew we were getting close. Did Bernie? I gazed at him, hunched over the wheel, knuckles showing green in the light from the dash. Yeah, he knew. We were partners, me and Bernie. Just to be sure, on account of how you don’t bring a spoon to a knife fight, I checked Bernie’s belt, saw our .38 Special firmly in place, all ready for action. I was in the mood for Bernie to start taking potshots at something right this second. We were good to go.

The track suddenly broadened into a hard-packed street with dark wooden buildings on both sides, some lopsided, some worse than that, almost falling down. A big ball of tumbleweed rolled through our headlight beams and bounced out of sight. I’d had fun chasing tumbleweed in the past, once even—

A car was parked in front of one of the buildings, a building with swinging doors. I recognized those kind of doors from all the Westerns Bernie and I had watched. They meant saloon, and saloons meant fistfights and busted-up furniture. I also recognized the car, the yellow Beetle that always had treats inside: Suzie’s car. Bernie pulled in behind it and cut the engine. He took the flash-light from the glove box and turned to me, finger over his lips. I knew what that meant. We hopped out, silent, like shadows. The wind made a high whining sound, not loud. Uh-oh. Was Bernie limping? Yes, just a bit. That sometimes happened after a long drive, on account of his wound. I slowed down and walked beside him.