Thereby Hangs a Tail (5 page)

Whoa. Meaning the shooter was some guy named Einstein? We headed back toward the car. How could Bernie have figured that out already? No way was Einstein the only pothead shooter in the Valley—we had them out the yingyang.

“Imagine the kind of detective he’d have been,” said Bernie. “Einstein, I’m talking about.” That just confused me more. We had competition—there was Len Watters in Pedroia, for example, and the Mirabelli Brothers in Sunshine City, but Einstein, PI, was new to me. Hey, bring the dude on—we weren’t afraid of competition, me and Bernie. Except for finances, we were doing great.

Back in the office, Bernie sat at the computer and started tapping away. From time to time he muttered a few words, like “smokes pot,” or “handy with a thirty-ought-six,” or “ax to grind.” I lay down on the rug. Ax to grind? I knew axes, remembered a real fun camping trip where Bernie showed Charlie how to take down a tree. Talk about excitement! Tim-ber! And a lucky thing no one was in the tent at the time. But where did axes fit in now? Joint, cartridge: that was it, right? Still, I trusted Bernie.

My eyelids got heavy. That happens once or twice a day, maybe more, a delicious feeling, hard to describe, that means a nap is on the way. Napping is a lot like sleeping. There’s a difference, but what? Let’s just say I’m a big fan of both, and leave it at that.

Tap tap tap. Pretty soon I was caught up in a dream that was all about camping. Right from the get-go I was chasing a squirrel, and then in that funny way dreams have, the squirrel turned into the fat javelina from the canyon. I chased that, too, and lots of other things, some of them animals I’d only seen on the Discovery Channel, like iguanas and water buffaloes. How weird was that? Funny how the mind—

“Chet? Up and at ’em, big guy.”

Up and at ’em? Took me a moment or two to understand, what with iguanas and water buffaloes still on the loose, but then I was on my feet, giving myself a good shake, the coat-rippling kind that starts at the front and ends with my tail going thrum thrum.

Bernie laughed. “Wish I could do that,” he said.

Poor Bernie. No tail, for starters. I couldn’t even imagine what that was like. You’d be off-balance every waking moment!

We got in the Porsche. No rifle this time, but before turning the key, Bernie opened the glove box and checked the .38 Special. “Way I see it,” he said, “gotta be someone who wants payback, someone we put away.” Fine, if Bernie said so, although I didn’t quite get what he was aiming at. We backed out of the driveway, headed down Mesquite Road. “Remember Victor Prole?” Bernie said. Nope, but there was Iggy, yip-yipping at the window. I barked back. “Good boy,” said Bernie.

“Hard to forget a creep like that. Dope dealer, Harley lover, gun nut—and he got out of Central State two weeks ago.” Still didn’t ring a bell. I barked again, couldn’t think of anything else to do. Bernie gave my head a quick rub. Ah. Very nice. I moved a little closer.

We went on a long drive, all the way to the big downtown towers and beyond. The sky lost its blueness, turned no particular color at all, just a dull haze, swallowing up the tops of the towers, giving me a bad feeling, hard to explain. I almost wished that Bernie would put the top up; no longer possible anyway—something about a blown condenser.

“It’s all one system,” Bernie said. “Air, water, us. Why is everyone so clueless?”

I had no clue what Bernie was talking about, so I guess I was clueless, too. I squeezed over still closer to him, felt better.

Soon the towers were behind us and we were in a bad neighborhood with broken windows and people standing around doing nothing. Some of them turned to watch us go by. I kept my head up and my eyes straight ahead. We were on the job, me and Bernie, although what job, I wasn’t sure. And, by the way, who was paying?

Bernie turned into a narrow street full of potholes and parked by a little square house with stained yellow walls and black grates on the windows. He took the .38 Special from the glove box and tucked it in his belt. I had my teeth with me at all times. Kind of a funny thought. I tried to think why, but couldn’t, and by the time we got out of the car and were walking across the yard, all brown and weedy, I’d forgotten the whole thing, whatever it was.

Bernie knocked on the door. No answer. He glanced around. I’d already done that, spotting nobody. Bernie knocked again. Ratta-tat-tat. Hey! That reminded me of Adelina Borghese and the Princess job. Where were we with that, again? What had Bernie—

A voice came from inside the house. “Yeah?” A man’s voice, rough, unfriendly, maybe even a bit familiar. I got a strange feeling in my teeth, like they wanted to press on something.

“Yo,” said Bernie.

“Huh?” said the man behind the door.

Sometimes I have trouble understanding human speech, even get a bit frustrated; other times, I wonder what all the fuss is about.
Yeah, yo, huh:
this was one of those other times.

“That you, Victor?” Bernie said.

“Nope.”

“Victor Prole?”

“No way.”

“Sure sounds like the Victor Prole I knew,” Bernie said. “With the prognathous jaw.”

One thing about Bernie: he could lose me just like that. I stood there, staring straight ahead, doing absolutely nothing. We were partners and that was that. Anything he wanted to try, no matter how hare-brained—and boy, in my experience is that one bang-on expression—was all right by—

The door opened and there stood a man, very big. He had a nice jaw, in my opinion, sticking far out as jaws should, a rare trait in humans. The rest of his face was nothing special—tiny eyes, flat nose, stubbly beard. I caught a whiff of him and remembered. Yes, I knew Victor Prole: a real bad guy we’d collared for something or other, but not before he sucker-punched Bernie in a downtown elevator. Don’t like elevators myself—in fact, almost always avoid them—but I’d been in that elevator and good thing, too.

Those tiny eyes shifted from Bernie to me and back to Bernie. “You,” he said.

“Do I look better in person?” Bernie said. “Or through your scope?”

“Scope?” said Victor Prole.

“On your thirty-ought-six,” Bernie said.

Victor Prole screwed up his face, squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment: not a pretty sight. “Not makin’ sense,” he said, and started to close the door.

That trick never worked on Bernie. His foot shot out, kept the door from closing. One thing I’ve noticed about perps, gang-bangers, bad guys: it doesn’t take much to set them off. In this case, that little foot move of Bernie’s was enough. Victor Prole’s face swelled up, his lips curling in a nasty way, but what I noticed most was one of his arms, reaching for something behind the door, out of sight. Then came a silvery flash, and Victor was swinging a heavy wrench at Bernie’s head. I knew wrenches from the time Bernie had decided to install a new toilet, the kind that used less water, although an awful lot of water got used that day.

I sprang, aiming right at Victor’s wrist, but when my teeth clamped down, the wrist wasn’t there. Somehow Victor was already on the floor, Bernie on top of him. Things were happening fast. I loved that! I piled right on and we all rolled around until Victor cried out, “Stop, for fuck sake!” Bernie had Victor’s arm twisted up behind his back in a way that always ended things.

“Where’s the rifle?” Bernie said.

“Huh?”

“The one you used to take potshots at us out in the canyon.”

“Potshots? Didn’t take no potshots. Don’t own no rifle, no weapon of any kind.”

“That’s not like you,” said Bernie.

“You’re breaking my arm,” said Victor.

“Sorry,” Bernie said. “Getting shot at undermines my composure.”

Down on the floor, Victor looked confused. Meanwhile, I smelled pot. I followed the scent—it’s easy, kind of like following a bubbling little stream—to a sofa near a TV. And under the sofa—a bit of a struggle to get in deep enough with my paw—a brick of pot, tightly wrapped in plastic. I carried it back to the front door, where Victor was saying, “Wasn’t even in no canyon this morning. I had an appointment with my PO, downtown.” Bernie’s grip on Victor’s arm relaxed a bit. “I swear,” said Victor. “I’m going straight this time. I even started yoga.” For some reason at that moment, they both looked at me. I dropped the brick beside them and wagged my tail.

Bernie called Victor’s parole officer. Victor alibied out. We didn’t bust him for the pot, or even seize it; all we took was the wrench, no idea why. Did it have something to do with not bringing a spoon to a knife fight? That was as close as I got.

Back in the car, Bernie was quiet. I could feel him thinking. His thoughts were like breezes, rising up and dying around us, very relaxing. After a while, he took a deep breath and said, “Have to look into this later.” He checked his watch. I didn’t like Bernie’s watch, didn’t like how humans were always attaching themselves to bits of machinery. I got a crazy urge to give the watch a little nip, was even starting to lean that way—although I’m sure I’d never ever actually do such a thing—when Bernie glanced at me and said, “Princess touches down in twenty minutes.”

I sat up straight.

FIVE

W
hen the rich get too rich,” Bernie said, “is when the problems start. ” Problems? I suppose we had some, but I couldn’t think of them at the moment. We were somewhere I’d never been—and that was always fun—an airstrip out in the desert, with lots of small planes on the ground, sparkling in the sun.

“Any idea what it costs to run one of those babies, never mind pony up in the first place?” Bernie said.

Ponies: don’t get me started. I had a nice stretch, the walking kind, gave myself a shake, circled around a bit, and lay down on the shady side of the car. A little snack of some sort would have been nice, otherwise no complaints. I heard a distant buzz, very faint, that seemed to come from beyond some mountains, brown and bare.

“The ancien regime all over again,” Bernie said, “minus the powdered wigs.”

I glanced over at him, leaning against the car. When Bernie worried, he got lines on his face that weren’t normally there. He had them now. What was he worried about? All I understood from that last remark was powder. There was gunpowder, of course, so . . . hey! I got it! Bernie was worried about how we got shot at. Was I cooking or what? All of a sudden my mind was running at top speed. Victor Prole alibied out, even though he looked and smelled right for the shooter role. So our next move had to be all about IDing the shooter. I was in the picture, understood the whole enchilada just like Bernie. And why not? We were partners, after all, although the only enchilada I’d ever tried—snapped up at a dead run in an alley while chasing a gangbanger weighed down by heavy gold chains—ended up disagreeing with me.

The distant buzzing got louder. I glanced up, saw a plane high over the mountaintops, shining like the sun—a very pretty sight. After a while Bernie said, “I think I hear something.” He peered into the sky, spotted the plane, and said, “There it is.” I took a close look at Bernie’s ears. Not too tiny, in fact a reasonable size for human ears, so why didn’t they work?

The plane flew in a big circle, landed with a bounce, and rolled in our direction. At the same time, a long black limo appeared on a dirt road that came out of some nearby low hills. It sped down, leaving a golden trail of swirling dust. Things were so beautiful sometimes I just wanted to gaze and gaze.

But this wasn’t the right moment. We were on the job. I stood straight, head up, tail up, alert. The limo parked beside us. The driver got out: Adelina’s driver, wearing black and, now I noticed, a diamond in one ear. He opened the furthest back door for Adelina. I almost didn’t recognize her at first. She was dressed like a cowgirl, with a big white hat, fringed shirt, cowboy boots. I checked Bernie. Uh-oh. Mouth open. Only women—some women—could make that happen to Bernie. But he got it closed pretty quick, and we walked over to Adelina.

“You’re on time,” she said.

Bernie nodded. He had many different nods. This was one of the cold kind. I got it. We were always on time; we were pros, me and Bernie. “Any news?” he said.

“Like what?” she said.

“More threats. Anything we should know.”

“Isn’t one threat enough?”

“Wouldn’t be here otherwise,” Bernie said. “But this job is all about information. The worst thing the client can do is withhold.”

“I’m not withholding anything.”

Bernie nodded. I was pretty sure this nod, a slow one, meant he didn’t believe her, but I couldn’t be certain and there was no time to think about it. The plane came to a stop not far away. I barked. Didn’t like planes, not one bit, hard to explain why because I’d never been in one.

Adelina’s green eyes were on me. “Why is he barking?”

Bernie smiled. He has a great smile—did I mention that? Smiling is about as close as humans can get to a tail wag. “Hard to say,” he said.

“Are you sure he’s safe?” Adelina said. “He’s so . . . so boisterous, and Princess is delicate.”

Boisterous? A new one on me. Like a boy, maybe, Charlie, for example? Hey, not bad. Must mean Adelina liked me after all. That made me bark some more, maybe a bit too loud, because Adelina seemed to flinch. She started to say something, but at that moment the door of the plane opened and a staircase emerged and lowered itself down to the tarmac. Kind of weird. It made we want to dig a hole, so I got started in the dirt at the edge of the runway.