Thereby Hangs a Tail (25 page)

Thurman’s mouth opened. All that black hairy beard and then a very red tongue in the middle: it had a strange effect on me, made me feel like scrapping. At the same time, I noticed Crash sidling toward the cab of the RV. I sidled over with him. He looked at me and mouthed some word. Mouthed, like with no sound. What was I supposed to make of that? I had enough trouble with ordinary sounded-out words; if you weren’t careful, you could get impatient with humans sometimes. I showed Crash my teeth, didn’t know what else to do. He stopped sidling.

“You callin’ me a loser?” Thurman said.

“Just picking up on what’s being advertised,” said Bernie.

“Don’t like the way you talk,” Thurman said. How was that possible? I could listen to Bernie talk forever. “I’m thinkin’ maybe you’re a faggot.”

“Thinking or hoping?” Bernie said.

“Oh, Christ,” said Crash. At the same moment, Thurman lunged forward and unleashed another of those roundhouse crushers, this time at Bernie.

Bernie knows a lot about boxing, and fighting in general— have I mentioned that already? He did some boxing back when he was in high school, plus we have a big DVD collection of old boxing matches. Bernie’s favorite boxer is Sugar Ray Robinson. He presses the slo-mo button to see exactly what Sugar Ray is doing, and says things like “wow” and “can you believe it?” Then he presses the button for normal speed and the other guy is falling down and Sugar Ray is raising his arms to the sky.

One of Sugar Ray’s slo-mo moves is this little head shift, just as a punch is coming. “See him slip that punch?” Bernie would say. That was what Bernie did now, slipping Thurman’s big roundhouse—I could hear the whoosh of air—and stepping inside, his own fists jabbing thump thump. Thurman went down, rolled over in the dirt, and sat up, blood dripping from his nose. Then: a surprise. Thurman reached in his pocket, pulled out a narrow little flat-sided gun.

And our own gun, the .38 Special? In the glove box. But I didn’t think about that, didn’t think about anything. The next thing I knew I was in midair. Thurman saw me and the gun shifted in my direction. Then Bernie was in midair, too. Thud, smash, and BOOM. We landed on Thurman, me and Bernie, and the gun went off. I heard a loud ricochet, very near, then sank my teeth deep into a wrist—Thurman’s, I hoped. Yes, Thurman’s: had to be his cry of pain, Bernie would never make a sound like that. Then came another cry of pain as Bernie did something to him and Thurman screamed, “Stop, stop, I give up.”

Bernie had some violence in him deep down—me, too—as more than one perp had discovered. He rose, the gun in his hand. “C’mon, Chet. Back off.”

I backed off, licked my lips. Human blood: there were times when I thought it could become a habit.

Bernie looked around. Thurman lay on his back, bleeding from nose, mouth, and wrist. Nearby, Disco was on all fours, puking. And Crash was over at the RV, door open, already climbing into the driver’s seat. Were we having fun or what?

Bernie said, “Freeze.” He didn’t bother aiming at him, kept the gun pointed to the ground. Crash froze. “Hands up.” Crash raised his hands. “Step on out of there.” Crash started to step out of the cab. At that moment, a sound came from inside the back of the RV, a single high-pitched yip.

“What was that?” Bernie said.

I knew.

TWENTY-THREE

G
un loose in his hand, still pointed toward the ground, Bernie walked over to the RV. No one else moved. Except for me, of course: I went with Bernie. He opened the side door of the RV.

At first nothing happened. I glimpsed a really messy place, with dirty dishes, piles of clothes, lots of empty bottles. Then out came Princess, bursting out, in fact. She flew through the air, missed her landing, somersaulted a few times, bounced up, looked around frantically, and saw me. Princess ran right over, wagging that pom-pom tail. My tail was wagging, too; I could hardly keep my back paws steady on the ground—that’s how forceful my tail can get. I lowered my head, gave her a little bump. That sent her somersaulting again. She found her feet, started racing around me in a crazy way. That got me racing, too. We charged around the RV, the Porsche, the pickup, then charged around them again, and a few more times, finally coming to a stop at Bernie’s feet.

“Good boy,” he said. “Real, real good.” I felt great, my very best. Bernie leaned into the RV. “Adelina?” he called. “Adelina? It’s me, Bernie Little. You can come out. It’s safe.”

Adelina didn’t come out. I thought of her face, and those ants. But the ants hadn’t been on her face, had they? They’d been circling my puddle of puke. I got a little confused.

“Suzie?” Bernie said. “Are
you
in there?”

Suzie didn’t come out either.

“Suzie? Suzie?”

“Hey,” said Crash, watching from beside the cab, “ain’t no one in there.”

Bernie turned to him. “If I find anything bad, say your prayers.”

“Like what kind of bad?” said Crash. “Gonna shoot me ’cause of dishes in the sink?”

Bernie moved toward Crash, raising the gun. For a moment, I thought Bernie was going to crack him across the face with it, even though I’d never seen Bernie do such a thing, not like this, to a skinny old hippie. And Bernie didn’t. “Facedown,” he said.

“Huh?”

Bernie pointed the gun at a spot on the road. “Facedown,” he said. He motioned with the gun at the others: Disco, now on his feet, rocking back and forth, and Thurman, sitting up, nose still bleeding. “All of you,” Bernie said. “And not a word. Not a sound.”

They all lay down on the road. “Farther apart,” Bernie said. They shifted farther apart. “Chet,” Bernie said. I went over and stood behind them. Princess stood beside me. I could hear the drip drip of Thurman’s blood in the dust. Then, from behind, came the creaking sound of the RV taking Bernie’s weight, and after that his soft footsteps as he moved around inside.

Thurman raised his head, turned toward Crash, and said in a low voice, “I want that fuckin’ money.” I went closer to him and growled. He lowered his head. Princess followed me. She made a funny high-pitched noise, a sort of bleep. Was that meant to be a growl? I glanced at her; she had her head up in that determined way.

Bernie came out of the RV, stood on the highway, looking down on the three men. Thurman was a bad guy, no doubt about that, but Disco and Crash, too? They’d given me water when I was thirsty, and don’t forget the Slim Jims. I watched Bernie. He gave Disco a little kick in the ribs, not hard at all, more of a poke to get his attention.

“Don’t hurt me, man,” said Disco. “I ain’t done nothin’.”

“Where’s Adelina?” Bernie said.

“Who?” said Disco.

“Adelina Borghese, Princess’s owner.”

“Princess? Don’t know her neither.”

Bernie knelt, held out his hand. “Hey, Princess,” he said. Princess approached him, pom-pom waving. Bernie gave her a pat. Her pom-pom wagged faster. “Where’re your tags, Princess?” he said. She rolled over. Bernie scratched her stomach. Her paws made funny little movements. Bernie: enough.

Bernie rose. He gazed down at the three men again, again toed Disco in the ribs. “Where’re her tags?” he said.

“Tags?”

“Her ID.”

“Dunno,” said Disco. “Hey, Crash, she ever even have ’em?”

“Shut up,” said Crash.

“Huh?”

“Exercise your goddamn right.”

“What right?”

“The right to shut up in front of a cop.”

“He’s no cop,” Thurman said.

“Got a badge,” said Disco.

“And some kind of bullshit story to go along with it,” said Crash.

“What story?” said Thurman.

“Thurman?” Bernie said. “I want you to exercise your right.”

He turned to Crash. “You—got a name?”

“Crash.”

“Real name.”

“Real name, man? Depends on what’s reality. And we all got a different reality.”

“Where’s your ID?”

Crash didn’t answer.

Bernie moved on to Disco. “Name,” he said.

“I’m exercising my right,” Disco said.

Bernie backed toward the cab, opened the door. The moment he turned to climb in, Thurman was up and running. He was a pretty fast runner for a human, especially such a big one, and he almost reached the pickup before I brought him down. We rolled around in the dirt for a bit, and he cried out a few times, but it couldn’t have been from pain because I really wasn’t doing that much to him. Some humans have a real deep fear of me and my kind—even some kids!—a complete mystery to me.

“Lie still,” Bernie called from the cab of the RV. Didn’t even come running: Bernie trusted me.

Thurman lay still. I backed off. And just as I was backing off, Princess ran up in her blurry-legged way and started barking furiously in Thurman’s face.

“Doesn’t like you much,” Bernie said, getting out of the cab. He had another gun in his hand now, and a couple driver’s licenses. “Why is that?”

Thurman said nothing, just lay on the ground.

“Here, Princess,” Bernie said, and Princess ran over, stood beside him. I stayed where I was, guarding Thurman. Bernie approached Crash and Disco, squatted between them. “Whose .44 Mag?” he said.

No answer.

“Got a witness who says a big gun like this was used to pistol whip the driver,” Bernie said.

“What driver?” Disco said.

“Zip it,” said Crash.

“The driver in the kidnapping,” Bernie said.

“Kidnapping?” said Disco. “You talkin’ about the dog? Can’t kidnap a dog.”

Bernie dropped the licenses on the ground, one in front of Crash: “Herman T. Crandall—looks like you on a real good day”; the other in front of Disco: “Making you Wardell Krebs. Seen a lot of guys like you, Wardell, in a lot of situations like this—we’re talking about a major fork in the road, right here, right now—and they almost always make the wrong choice.”

“What’s the choice?” Disco said.

“Shut your mouth,” Crash said.

“Letting your buddy here do the thinking is a common mistake,” Bernie said. “His reality is life in the pen. What’s yours going to be?”

“Life in the pen?” Disco said.

“Might be some chance of parole,” Bernie said. “Especially if you’ve got no record. Got a record? Any of you?”

Silence from the guys on the ground.

“On the other hand, the victim is a prominent citizen,” Bernie said.

“Victim?”

“Shut up.”

“But it’s a dog. A dog can’t be a citizen.”

Why not, whatever a citizen was?

“Not talking about Princess,” Bernie said. “Any information you’ve got on the whereabouts of Adelina Borghese or Suzie Sanchez, now’s the time to come across.”

“Never heard of these fuckin’ people,” Disco said.

Bernie rose. “You’re done,” he said.

Bernie got plastic cuffs from our glove box, cuffed Thurman, then Crash, then Disco. After that, he got on the phone. We waited. While we waited we shared the two Slim Jims Bernie found in the RV. “Won ’em fair and square,” Bernie said, tearing off Slim Jim bits for Princess. Thurman, Crash, and Disco lay silent on the Old Trading Post Highway.

Not long after the Slim Jims were gone, we started getting company. First came some state troopers we didn’t know, then Lieutenant Stine and some of his uniformed guys, finally Sheriff Earl Ford and his deputy, Lester. A lot of talk started up, back and forth, voices raised and lowered, sometimes just about everyone talking at once. That was always too much for me. Humans aren’t at their best in big groups, no offense. A big group of my guys—something I’d never actually seen, not a real big group, no idea why—now wouldn’t that be something? I wandered over to the Porsche, lay in its shade. Princess lay down beside me. For a moment our gazes met. Then she closed those big dark eyes, wriggled a bit closer to me.

I kept my own eyes peeled, if that meant keeping them open. The eyes peeling thing sounded horrible—once I’d seen Bernie have a little slip-up with the potato peeler. Right now he was standing at the edge of the crowd, still and watchful. After a while, people began to leave: first the state police, followed by Lieutenant Stine and his men, taking Thurman and Crash with them, then two wreckers removing the pickup and the RV, raising lots of dust on the road. When it cleared, there was no one left except Disco, cuffed in the back of the sheriff ’s car, Sheriff Earl Ford, Deputy Lester Ford, Princess, and us. Earl and Lester moved closer to Bernie, their tall shadows falling over him, eyes hidden under the rims of their cowboy hats. I moved closer to him, too.

“Guess we should be saying congratulations,” the sheriff said.

“No need for that,” said Bernie. “And the case is far from solved. Unless someone already found them and forgot to tell me.”

“Them?” said the sheriff.

“Adelina Borghese and Suzie Sanchez,” Bernie said. “The missing humans in the case. Got them stashed away somewhere?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said the deputy.

“He’s just bein’ funny,” said the sheriff. “Startin’ to get to know him, Les. Even gettin’ to like him, yes, sir. Bernie here don’t mean no harm—he’s one of them funnymen, is all.”

“Don’t get the joke,” said the deputy.

The sheriff nodded. “That’s the problem with humor, isn’t it, Bernie. Gets in the way of communication sometimes.”