Thereby Hangs a Tail (9 page)

Nance nodded, a nod a lot like Bernie’s. Nance was also Nancy Malone? Humans got so complicated with their names, no idea why. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been Chet, pure and simple.

“Suzie Sanchez from the
Valley Tribune,
” Suzie said. “I’ve left a few messages in your voicemail.”

Nance licked her lips. We always watched for that, me and Bernie, me because I liked seeing those tiny tongues—did I get into that already?—Bernie for reasons of his own. “Haven’t had time to check,” Nance said.

“Can you spare a moment now?” Suzie said.

“Sorry,” said Nance.

“When?” Suzie said.

“I’ll get back to you,” Nance said.

“Soon, I hope,” Suzie said. “I’m sure it’s in everyone’s interest that we get the story right.”

“Are you?” said Nance. She turned and disappeared through the same door that Suzie had come out of.

What now? This was pretty confusing. I moved closer to Bernie. Suzie looked at Bernie through partly closed eyelids, as though cigarette smoke had blown her way. “So were you shading the truth a little when you said you were off the case?” she said. “Or is it something else?”

“Something else,” Bernie said.

She gave him a long look. “Bernie,” she said, “what is it? What’s gone wrong?”

“Wrong where?” said Bernie. Ah-ha! Bernie was answering a question with a question. Not too sure in my own mind what was going on, but I loved when he did that.

Suzie maybe didn’t love it; I could tell from the wrinkles that appeared on her forehead, and her eyes getting smaller. “Are you being purposely obtuse?” she said.

“Obtuse is purposeful by definition,” Bernie said.

“Then why?” said Suzie. “What’s your point?”

Hey! Were they arguing? That made me feel bad. Didn’t Suzie like Bernie? Didn’t he like her? I twisted my head around, nipped at my coat. Bernie opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment a man, trailed by Nance carrying a saddle, walked out of the big door of the barn and into the corral. The man wore gleaming boots and carried a short whip—the whip was actually what I saw first—and stood very straight, but he was much smaller than Nance. He whistled—a sharp, harsh whistle that hurt my ears—and the horse came trotting to him. It stood there, tossing its mane in a very annoying way.

Nance stepped up, began saddling the horse. I’d carried Charlie around on my back many times and that was lots of fun, but wearing a saddle? I don’t think so. And that shiny thing Nance was sliding in the horse’s mouth, a shiny thing attached to the reins? Forget it.

The man took the reins, stuck one foot in the stirrups. Nance crouched behind him, her hands curled under his other boot, and boosted him into the saddle. Each boot had a short metal thing sticking out the back; they caught my eye.

“The count?” Bernie said.

“Who else?” said Suzie.

“How’s his English?”

“Not bad.”

“As good as Adelina’s?”

Suzie laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Bernie said.

“Adelina was born and raised in Passaic,” she said.

“Passaic?” said Bernie. A new one on me, too. Was it somewhere in the Valley? The Valley went on forever; and beyond it? Once I’d had an adventure in New Mexico; another time, I’d been to San Diego. We’d surfed, me and Bernie! Sort of.

“Passaic, New Jersey, Bernie,” Suzie said. “Good luck with the case.” She turned and walked away; the yellow Beetle was parked by the far side of the barn. Suzie got in and drove away.

Bernie watched her go. “Christ,” he said. He looked down at me. “Did I screw that up?” Bernie screwing up? No way. I bumped against him. “And come to think of it, I’ve got this nagging thought that maybe obtuse—”

Nagging thought? He’d lost me completely, but it didn’t matter because we both got distracted by the heavy thumpity-thump of the horse on the move. I turned and saw the count leaning forward in the saddle, the horse headed straight toward what looked like a section of fence standing in the middle of the corral. A pretty high section of fence: was it possible that—

Wow! More than possible. And I saw what those metal things—spurs, I remembered, from a time when me and Bernie were into watching Westerns, although he’d kept on saying, “See how it used to be?” until finally the Westerns went to the bottom of the DVD pile and stayed there.

Where was I? Oh, yeah—the metal things: they were for sticking in the sides of the horse when you wanted to make him jump. I can jump, too, and all on my own; wouldn’t have minded a crack at that fence myself. Was this a good time for that? Why not? I happened to look at Bernie. Was he shaking his head at me?

The horse landed, thumpity thump, and the ground beneath me shook. The count had a stern look on his face, like this wasn’t fun; I didn’t get that: making the ground shake had to be fun. The horse circled around the corral. Nance walked over to where we were, stood on the other side of the fence.

“Poetry in motion,” she said.

Poetry? Bernie loved poetry. He knew all kinds of poetry by heart; sometimes, like on long rides in the car, it came flowing out of him. My favorite was:
Cannon to the right of them / cannon to
the left of them / cannon behind them / volleyed and thundered,
but I also liked
Old dog Tray’s ever faithful / Grief cannot drive him away
/ He’s gentle, he is kind / I’ll never, never find / A better friend than
old dog Tray;
although I really didn’t get that one, since the only Tray we knew was a nasty old growler who guarded a junkyard in Pedroia, a friend to nobody.

Bernie gave Nance a nod, the kind of nod that might have made Nance think he agreed with her about the poetry in motion thing. “He was an alternate on the Italian equestrian team six Olympics ago,” Nance said.

“I didn’t know horses lived that long,” said Bernie.

Nance shot him a quick look. “I’m talking about the count,” she said.

“Oh,” said Bernie.

The horse trotted over to us, his head over the fence. “Whoa,” said the count. I got my first good look at the count’s face: thin, with a big nose, quick, dark eyes, a mustache. I didn’t like mustaches, no idea why. The count gazed down at Bernie. The horse was looking at me. I looked right back, you better believe it. He whinnied, a horrible sound, and started sidestepping. The count made a clicking sound and the horse went still. I found myself inching closer to him.

“This is the detective,” Nance said.

“Bernie Little,” said Bernie. He raised his hand over the top rail, within shaking distance, but the count didn’t seem to notice.

“What is it that you want?” he said. He had a funny way of talking, the sounds not quite right, hard to understand.

“To help find them,” Bernie said. “Your wife and Princess.”

“In this matter you have failed already, no?” said the count.

“If that’s true,” Bernie said, “then our motivation will be all the stronger.”

“There is motivation,” said the count, “and there is competence.” “You can check us out,” Bernie said. “I can give you a list of references.”

“References?” said the count. “This is not how I operate.”

“How do you operate?” Bernie said.

The count didn’t answer. He just stroked the side of that big nose with his finger. Was that supposed to mean something?

“One thing I know,” Bernie said, “in situations like this, time is not on our side.”

The count gazed down at him. I knew that Bernie wanted him to say yes. I also knew what humans look like just before they say yes. The count wasn’t looking like that now.

“It’s best if we have a client,” Bernie said. “But the truth is we’re going to work this case, client or not.”

“This is a threat of some nature?” said the count.

“Just a statement of fact,” Bernie said.

“Ah,” said the count. “Statement of fact.
Asserzione di fatto
.” Hard to understand, the count, and now impossible. “And when you refer to ‘we,’ you are meaning—?”

Bernie gestured toward me. Oops. I seemed to have gotten myself through the rails somehow, within a short lunge of one of those skinny horse legs. I backed through the rails, not easy. “Chet and I,” Bernie said, giving me a private look. I knew those private looks. This one meant . . . something, I forget.

Then came a surprise: the count slipped down out of the saddle, landed lightly on his feet, and stuck his hand through the railing. “Lorenzo di Borghese,” he said.

They shook hands.

“Um,” said Bernie.

“Let us go inside the shade and formalize arrangements,” the count said. “Nance, you will be so kind to give Angel a little more exercise.”

“Of course, Loren—Mr. Borghese.” Nance stepped through the rails and took the reins. The horse was named Angel? What angels were exactly, I wasn’t sure, but something good, right? So what was—

“Che—et?”

Hey! Another surprise: I was through the fence again, kind of crawling in the dirt. High above, Angel whinnied and shied away.

“Angel, easy,” said Nance, tugging at the reins.

“Che—et? Let’s go buddy.”

Bernie was watching me. I rose and trotted after him and the count, brisk and innocent.

I liked barns. Lots of smells in a barn, plus interesting stuff all over the place, most of the time including food scraps. And in fact I’d already picked up the scent of peanut butter on my way in, but I’d never gotten the hang of eating peanut butter and besides who was this dude, sitting at a table by the door, cleaning a rifle? I’d seen Bernie cleaning our rifle plenty of times so I knew what was going on. This rifle looked longer than ours.

“My secretary, Aldo,” said the count. “Mr. Little, the detective.”

“Hi,” said Aldo, rising. A big guy, as broad as Bernie and taller. He had one of those ponytails; hard not to look at anything else, for some reason. I tried to remember what a secretary was and almost did.

“Nice scope you got there, Aldo,” Bernie said. “Is that a—”

“If you don’t mind clearing up, Aldo,” the count said. “Mr. Little and I must confer.”

“Right away,” said Aldo, stuffing all the rifle parts into a canvas bag and heading toward the door.

Bernie and the count sat at the table; I lay under it. The count peered down at me. “Interesting animal,” he said. Who was he talking about? “In our world overbreeding is always the risk. Here the opposite seems to obtain.” Could have meant anything; all I knew was I didn’t like the count’s breath, which smelled of fish. I’m not a picky eater, but the appeal of fish is lost on me.

Bernie gave the count a smile, the mouth kind, the eyes and the rest of his face not joining in. “A lot of people have underestimated Chet,” he said.

“No offense intended,” the count said. He took out a pack of cigarettes. “Smoke?” he said.

“No thanks,” Bernie said, but his eyes were glued to that pack.

“Of course not,” said the count, lighting up and taking a deep drag. “You Americans,” he said.

Yeah, we were Americans, me and Bernie. So?

The count blew out a long, thin smoke cloud. Ah, wonderful smell, always sharpened my appetite for some reason. “The fact is,” the count said, “I am a dog lover.” He tapped ashes off his cigarette. They floated down past my nose, and all of a sudden I was sneezing. Hadn’t sneezed in some time: it took me completely by surprise. When I came out of it, the count was saying, “. . . familiar with the dog show world, Mr. Little?”

“Call me Bernie,” said Bernie. “And no, not really.”

“And you call me Lorenzo,” the count said. “Lorenzo the Magnificent.”

“Excuse me?” said Bernie.

“Ha, ha, just my little joke,” the count said. He held up his hand, thumb and finger touching; his fingernails were polished and shiny. “What I need you to understand about the dog show world is the ruthlessness.”

“Ruthlessness?”

“I refer to the owners.” The count patted his pockets, produced a checkbook and a gold pen. “What was your arrangement with Adelina?”

“Two thousand a day.”

“Dollars or euros?” said the count. Euros? A new one on me:

what was he trying to pull?

“Dollars,” said Bernie. Whew. Not so easy to put one over on Bernie, amigo.

The count flipped open the checkbook and started writing.

“Suppose we begin with a retainer of, say, three thousand?”

“Fine,” said Bernie.

The count handed over the check. We were back in funds! “Allow me to advance a theory,” the count said, not quite letting go of the check, he and Bernie holding it together. “Princess, not Adelina, was the target.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Didn’t I just explain? The ruthlessness of the show world. Are you familiar with the expression ‘cui bono’?”

Bernie nodded. I knew Bono, too, from a period where Bernie played “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” over and over until I wanted to . . . I don’t know, something bad. But how Bono fit into this whole—

“Then who would benefit more than Princess’s rivals?” the count said.

“She has rivals?” said Bernie.

“Bitter, bitter rivals, Bernie. Do you know how badly they want to win next week? If you will pardon the pun—it is a dog-eat-dog world.”

Oh, how I hated that one. I shifted closer to the count’s nearest leg. That boot looked thick, and there was the spur to deal with, but still I—all at once, Bernie’s foot slid in front of me, blocking any move I may or may not have been planning.

“I would begin,” the count was saying, “if you don’t mind my advice, with Babycakes.”

“Babycakes?”

“Formally known as Sherm’s Lucky Roll,” the count said. “Owned by Sherman Ganz of Las Vegas.”

“Did you mention this to the police?” Bernie said.

“I was not impressed with the police. Aldo can fill you in on the details.” The count rose, letting go of the check.

Stick it in your pocket, Bernie, quick.

NINE