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  TAIL OF VENGEANCE

  I think my boyfriend is cheating on me.”

  We should have walked away at that very moment, me and Bernie—or better yet run, our tails between our legs. Not so easy in Bernie’s case, since, maybe like you, he’s stuck with living a tailless life, poor guy. Imagine that! Actually, I can’t. The good news is that I’ve got enough tail for two, a strong, bushy, pleasing-to-the-eye tail that even has a mind of its own. Sometimes it wags me! Or just about. I’m not so easy to wag, being a hundred-plus-pounder and strong for my size, Bernie says. And not just Bernie: ask some of the perps up at Northern Correctional, although they may not have time for chitchat, what with being so busy breaking rocks in the hot sun. The point is we’ve taken down lots of perps here at the Little Detective Agency. Bernie’s last name is Little. I’m Chet, pure and simple.

  This customer with the cheating boyfriend problem did not look like a perp. What she looked like was the kind of woman who has a certain effect on Bernie. A lock of her golden hair—mostly golden, that is, the roots telling a darker story—drooped down over one eye, and she flicked it back into place with a little shake of the head. That got Bernie’s attention, big-time. Why? I just didn’t understand.

  “Well, uh, Sherry, is it?” Bernie said.

  “Sherry Caputo. Lieutenant Stine of Valley PD recommended you. He’s my neighbor.”

  “Very . . . thoughtful of him,” Bernie said. “The thing is, Sherry, that while I’m sorry to hear about your situation—”

  “Tell me about it,” the woman said. “If he’s cheating, I’m going to wring his neck.”

  “And if he’s not?”

  Sherry blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Her eyes shifted, sometimes a sign that human thinking was in the works. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she said.

  “Right,” said Bernie. “Exactly. Glad you said that. The thing is, this isn’t really the kind of job we take on. Missing persons is more our line.”

  “Stine said you’d say that. He also told me about the Hawaiian pants.”

  Oh, no. Not that. Is there such a thing as being too brilliant? That’s the story of the Hawaiian pants. Bernie’s a big fan of Hawaiian shirts, the one he was wearing at the moment—with a pattern of hula-dancing mules—not one of my favorites. And this was in the early days with Bernie, before I’d even met a mule, namely Rummy, about whom more some other time, or never. Where I’m going with this is . . . is . . . right! The Hawaiian pants! One night, after a bourbon or two—or maybe more, but I don’t go past two, the perfect number, to my way of thinking—Bernie suddenly slammed his hand down on the table real hard and said, “Hawaiian pants! We’re rich!” At which point I’d taken off, running all over the house, darting into and out of every room, meaning the kitchen, Bernie’s bedroom, Charlie’s bedroom, the office, the front hall, the living room, not necessarily in that order—or any order! Who needs order? Especially when Bernie’s on top of the world. If Bernie’s on top of the world, I’m on top of the world. And when he’s not I still am! Or close. So round and round and round I flew, zigging and zagging, claws digging in deep, leaning into the turns so sharply that I almost—

  “CHET!”

  Better back up a bit. First, the bedrooms. In the predivorce days, Bernie’s bedroom was actually his and Leda’s. Then it was just Bernie’s, although the divorce hadn’t gone through yet. That was around the time I flunked out of K-9 school, something I’d rather not go into now, and gotten together with Bernie. After that came a real weird time when Leda moved back in—bringing their kid Charlie with her, of course—to give the marriage another try, as she told Bernie, or for another reason he found out later, something about prenup negotiations with the new guy, Malcolm, who made a pile of money in software and has very long toes. That was the period where I really got to know Charlie—“those two wild animals growing up together” as Leda said, although I didn’t quite get the reference. But that’s okay. Who has time to understand everything? Gotta live, too, right? Unless I’m missing something.

  I was going to make some second point, but now it’s gone, and anyway we’re already way off course. So back to me, Bernie, and Sherry, sitting outside Senor Breakfast, a place we like near Valley College, Bernie on account of the coffee—“hottest in town”—and me on account of a line cook name of Rodrigo, who sends out bacon that somehow gets too burned for human consumption every time I’m around. Why don’t they like it real crisp? Just one of those puzzlers you run into in the human world.

  Bernie set his coffee mug on the table. “What did Stine say?”

  “About the Hawaiian pants?” said Sherry. “Just that you’re a real good detective and you’re not in a position to—that you’re anxious for work these days.”

  “Anxious?”

  “How about eager?”

  Bernie gazed at her.

  “Willing?”

  Bernie nodded. Were we still on Hawaiian pants? Bottom line: our self-storage in South Pedroia was stacked to the roof with them, not one pair in the initial order having found a taker. What else? The second shipment was on a container ship, due any day.

  “So what I’d like is some proof, one way or the other,” Sherry said. “What will it cost?”

  “We’re not cheap,” Bernie said.

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me and Chet, of course.”

  Sherry glanced my way. “The dog?”

  “Correct.”

  “Did he just eat all that bacon?”

  Bernie checked the paper plate Rodrigo had sent out. It lay on the patio floor at Senor Breakfast, and at that moment I happened to be licking it clean. Bernie gave me a look. I gave him a look back, kept licking at the same time. Two things at once? I was on top of my game.

  “His appetite, uh, sharpens a bit when the weather cools down,” Bernie said.

  How interesting! I’d have to think about that. Leave it to Bernie to come up with something so brilliant. What would I do without him?

  “He’s just sort of your pal?” Sherry said. “Follows you around while you work?”

  “More the other way around,” Bernie said.

  “Huh?”

  “We’re partners—let’s leave it at that,” Bernie said. “And it’s eight hundred a day, plus expenses.”

  “How does six sound?”

  “Doable.”

  Bernie agreed to that real quick, meaning six must be bigger than eight. Sherry was learning what so many had learned before her: namely, that Bernie was always the smartest human in the room.

  “His name’s Ric—no K—Teitelbaum. He owns a recycling business in Mesa Negra.”

  “Recycling what?”

  “Oh, all sorts of stuff. I don’t really know. But it’s, like, worldwide, literally. I’m talking China and everything.”

  Bernie nodded. He has all kinds of nods, meaning way more than we have time to go into at the moment. This particular nod was one you saw when he was having a good time. So we were having a good time? Start me up!

  “How long have you been together?” Bernie said.

  “Going out, you mean?” said Sherry. “About two months.”

  “Not very long.”

 
; “Maybe not in time. But in feelings. We’re serious, or at least we were until he started cheating. If he did, which is the whole point of this meeting.” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that look on your face?”

  “Look?” said Bernie.

  I didn’t get it either. It was just Bernie’s normal face, the best face in the world.

  “Like maybe you think I’m delusional,” Sherry said. “If I’m delusional, how do you explain this?” She held out her hand. A huge ring glittered and sparkled on one of her fingers. “Ric gave it to me Saturday night.”

  “So you’re engaged?” Bernie said.

  “Engaged? What would an engagement ring be doing on this finger?” She stuck up her middle finger, possibly to give Bernie a better view. “We’re talking four flawless carats here, Bernie.”

  “Very pretty.”

  “That’s an understatement.” She took a sip of coffee, the ring clinking in a pleasant way on the cup, then glanced across the street. “That your car? The old, beat-up Porsche?”

  “I wouldn’t really say beat up,” Bernie replied.

  “Ric’s got the biggest collection of Porsches in the state,” said Sherry.

  “How many can he drive at once?” Bernie said.

  “I don’t get it.”

  I was with her on that. “Doesn’t matter,” Bernie said. “What makes you think he’s cheating?”

  “This,” said Sherry, fishing through her purse and handing Bernie a little slip of paper.

  “A credit card receipt?”

  “From the Wagon Wheel Motel in Ocotillo Springs. It fell out of his pocket when he was taking care of the check.”

  “At the restaurant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Saturday night?”

  “I thought that was clear.”

  “A . . . complicated evening,” Bernie said.

  “I’m not paying you to tell me that,” Sherry said. “I’m paying you to find out what he was doing at that goddamn motel.”

  “We’ll need a picture of him,” Bernie said.

  She turned her phone so we could see. A smiling, fleshy-faced dude appeared on the screen. He had one of those mustache-and-chin-beard combos, not a look I find appealing, hard to say why.

  “Want me to email it so you can print it out?” Sherry said.

  “I’ll remember,” said Bernie.

  Money changed hands, and in the right direction.

  • • •

  “Worldwide Recycling Solutions,” Bernie said. “Looks more like a junkyard.”

  We were out in Mesa Negra, not the nicest part of the Valley, with junkyards out the yingyang. This one looked like the best of them to me, bigger than the others, rows and stacks of crushed and twisted metal going on and on, all enclosed by a high fence topped with razor wire. Could I leap it if I had to? Even though leaping is my very best thing, I wondered about that.

  We sat in the Porsche, yes, a real old one, which is how we roll when it comes to Porsches, but in no way beat up, except for the dents you could hardly see. This was called sitting on a place, one of our best techniques at the Little Detective Agency. Another is grabbing perps by the pant leg, usually my job, except for that one time when Bernie . . . I’d rather not think about it. But I was still thinking about it and nothing but when a dude in oil-stained denims appeared in the junkyard. He opened the gate, and a big, bright yellow SUV came rolling through, the fleshy-faced, mustache-and-beard-combo guy at the wheel.

  “Not a wallflower,” Bernie said. A bit of a puzzler, until I noticed a flower or two, dusty and droopy, growing out of pavement cracks by the Worldwide Recycling Solutions gate. They weren’t growing on a wall. Bernie, right as usual. And I was in the picture! We were off to a good start, whatever this was about. Cheating boyfriends? I don’t think we have that in the nation within the nation, which is what Bernie calls me and my kind. For some reason, my mind wandered back to a night when I’d caught the faint sound of she-barking from across the canyon behind our house on Mesquite Road. Faint, yes, but soon that she-barking was all I could hear, as though it was happening inside my own head. Does that sound scary? I promise you it wasn’t.

  Meanwhile, we were following Ric Teitelbaum in his enormous yellow SUV. Bernie was the best wheelman in the Valley. Once, some gangbangers from south of the border had offered us big green if Bernie would drive a shipment of shrimp from one town to another down there. But the shrimp had turned out to be something else, as anyone with a nose could have told you, meaning Bernie had given the job a pass at the last minute, which had led to a bit of resentment on the part of the gangbangers. Forget all that, the gunplay part especially. The point is, Bernie was a great wheelman, could follow from just about anywhere, including in front of the dude, or even in front and going backward, which I’d seen once and didn’t want to see again. As for Ric Teitelbaum, there’d be no losing a ride like his.

  “He never checks the rearview mirror,” Bernie said. “Tells you something right there.”

  I waited to find out what it told us, but Bernie didn’t say. We followed from close behind, sometimes without even one car in between. Bernie reached over and gave me a pat. This case was going very well.

  We crossed the Arroyo Seco Bridge, not even a trickle of water underneath. “How many aquifers have we got, big guy? One and one alone.” And soon we were in Pottsdale, one of the nicest parts of the Valley, with big houses, fancy stores, and lots of golf courses. “So goddamn green,” Bernie said. “Green comes from blue, and we’re running out of blue. How simple can it be?”

  Green comes from blue? That’s what Bernie called simple? Just another example of his amazing brainpower.

  Meanwhile, Ric Teitelbaum had turned onto a street we knew, namely the street where Livia Moon had her coffee place, Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More, the and-more part being the house of ill-repute in the back. That was where you’d find two very nice young ladies named Tulip and Autumn, both off-the-charts patters. I knew that coffee and blueberry muffins—quite tasty if you’re a muffin fan, which I’m really not—were for sale in the front, but I’d never seen anything for sale in the back and remained unclear on Livia’s business plan.

  “This is an interesting possibility,” Bernie said.

  But the yellow SUV didn’t even slow down. We left Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More behind and followed Ric Teitelbaum into the hills where the very nicest houses were. Up and up we went on a series of switchbacks, Ric Teitelbaum finally pulling into a long driveway lined with flowering bushes on both sides. He parked in front of a big sand-colored house with a red tile roof. We pulled over, mostly hidden by a saguaro at the side of the road.

  “Eight mill, Chet,” Bernie said, taking out the camera. “Maybe more.”

  Teitelbaum got out of the car. As he approached the front door, a woman in jeans, T-shirt, and baseball cap rose from her work in a nearby flowerbed, came over, and gave him a kiss. It would have been a mouth kiss, but Teitelbaum turned his face and ended up getting kissed on the cheek. He went into the house. The woman stood still for a moment, a bunch of weeds in her hand. Then she returned to the flowerbed and got busy with the trowel.

  “Looks like an older version of Sherry,” Bernie said, squinting into the camera. “Don’t tell me she’s Sherry one point O,” he added, losing me completely. We hit the road.

  • • •

  “We’ve got news,” Bernie said. “Not good.”

  We were back at Senor Breakfast at the same table as before, me, Bernie, and Sherry the client. Bernie spread nice big blowups of the photos on the table, then looked up at Sherry.

  She took one quick glance at them. “What the hell?” she said. “I didn’t mean her.”

  “Huh?” said Bernie.

  Sherry pointed to the woman who’d been gardening outside Teitelbaum’s house. “That’s Annika. How can he be cheating w
ith her?”

  “Sometimes there’s no explaining what a guy sees in—”

  Sherry raised her voice. “Annika Teitelbaum, for Christ sake. She’s his wife.”

  “Ah,” Bernie said. And then, “uh” followed by “um.” That was the moment I began to have doubts about the case. I moved closer to Bernie, leaned some of my weight against his leg, just to remind him of who had his back. The table got a bit unsteady for some reason, but Bernie caught it before it flipped right over and soon had all the photos nicely lined up in place again. “Your meaning being,” he said, “that you suspect there’s a third woman?”

  “Oh my God!” said Sherry. “Isn’t it obvious? Have you forgotten about the motel receipt already?”

  “Not quite yet.”

  “Bernie? Do you want this job or not?”

  “I actually do.”

  “What does actually mean?”

  “Nothing,” Bernie said. “Can I ask what line of work you’re in?”

  “I’m an event planner. Here’s my card, in case you’re the entertaining type.”

  Bernie the entertaining type? Yes, and big-time. There’s no one more entertaining than Bernie.

  • • •

  “Geronimo camped right here in Ocotillo Springs,” Bernie said. “Sometimes I wish he’d won.”

  Geronimo? A new one on me. A loser of some kind, possibly wearing an orange jumpsuit, but it was clear that Bernie liked him. No surprise there: we liked a lot of the perps we’d put away, me and Bernie. I made what Bernie calls a mental note to give Geronimo a nice big lick if we ever met. But mental notes can be tricky. For example, although I’d made many mental notes in my career, none was coming to me just now. Whoa! Not even the one I’d just made! I was on fire, in a way.

  We drove through the little town—a town like lots of little towns down near the border, with one main street, a few bars, a few art galleries, and the rest empty storefronts—and came to a motel with a wagon wheel out front. Bernie turned into the lot.

  “Now we just need some cock-and-bull story to feed the manager.” I was hoping I hadn’t heard that right when Bernie said, “How about Ric and I are old college buddies and . . . no, that’s no good.” He went silent. We parked under a big eucalyptus, sat in a world of minty smell, a smell that made me relaxed and alert at the same time. What a nice feeling! Cocks were roosters, if I was getting this right, and bulls were bulls, neither one a personal favorite of mine, the combo making it worse. But I forgot all about that in the lovely little eucalyptus world.