Paw and Order Page 2

  • • •

  We drove into one of those neighborhoods that was all about nice houses with space between them and no one around but landscapers. Bernie patted his pockets, reached under the seat, fumbled with some scraps of paper, squinted at a torn envelope. “Two forty-three? Is that what it says? Can’t read my own damn . . .” He checked the passing houses, slowed down, pulled over in the shade of a big tree. A taxi came by the other way, the driver pulling over on his side of the street and parking in the shade of his own big tree. The driver—a slicked-back hair dude—took a long look at a blue minivan parked farther up our side of the street and then glanced over at us. His face, not happy at the moment, looked like it was made of a few hard slabs stuck together. He steered back onto the street and drove off, leaving a faint smell of hair gel behind, a bit like the scent of bubble gum. I’d tried bubble gum once. Not food and not a chewy: I didn’t understand bubble gum at all.

  We got out of the car, approached the nearest house, a brick house with a tall hedge in front and a gated driveway on one side, the gate hanging part open. A member of the nation within the nation—as Bernie calls me and my kind—had laid his mark on one of the gateposts, forcing me to do the same. Meanwhile, Bernie had gone on ahead. I tried to hurry things along, but that’s not so easy to do. Bernie was already knocking at the front door when I caught up to him.

  “Kind of a big house,” Bernie said. “Maybe we’ve got the wrong—”

  The door opened and a woman—not Suzie—looked out. She was maybe about Suzie’s age, had red hair and green eyes—although Bernie says I can’t be trusted when it comes to colors, especially red, so don’t bother remembering this part—and wore a dark business suit. I knew right away that she was the type of woman who had a certain effect on Bernie.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Uh,” said Bernie. “We’re, um, looking for Suzie Sanchez.”

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “Not really. It’s kind of a surprise.”

  The woman gazed at Bernie. With some humans, you can see into their eyes a bit, get a feel for what’s going on behind them. This woman was some other type. “Are you a friend?” she said.

  Bernie nodded. “I’m Bernie Little. This is Chet.”

  My tail got ready to start up, but the woman didn’t look at me. “The private detective?” she said. She looked past us. “That must be the famous Porsche.”

  “Wouldn’t know about famous,” Bernie said.

  The red-haired woman smiled, more to herself that to us, if that makes any sense.

  “Suzie mentioned you,” she said. “She’s our tenant—you’ll find her in the carriage house out back.” The door closed.

  We followed the driveway along the side of the house, past a small green lawn which a squirrel had crossed, and not long ago—

  “Chet!”

  —and came to another brick house, much smaller than the first. Bernie gave it a careful look. “Urbane?” he said, stepping up to the door. “Would that be the word?” He was on his own. I waited for the answer. Bernie froze and said, “Oh, my God! Flowers!” “Flowers” was the answer, not “urbane”? That was as far as I could take it. Meanwhile, Bernie was glancing around wildly. He spotted some yellow flowers growing in a window box, sprang over and snatched them out, then returned to the door, the flowers in one hand and a surprising amount of that moist black potting soil on his shirt. Bernie’s other hand was in knocking position when the door began to open from the inside. A lovely big smile spread across Bernie’s face and then just hung there in the strangest way when a man stepped outside. The man wore a suit, had a neatly trimmed little beard but no mustache, a look that always bothered me, no telling why, and carried a briefcase made of fine, lovely-smelling leather that aroused a funny feeling in my teeth right away, a feeling that only gnawing can satisfy, as you may or may not know. He paused, rocking back slightly on his heels. We’ve seen that before. Bernie’s a pretty big dude, and I’m not exactly a midget myself, a hundred-plus pounder, in fact, as I’d heard Bernie say more than once.

  “Ah, um,” the man said, and then his gaze settled on the flowers. “A delivery for Ms. Sanchez?”

  “Huh?” said Bernie.

  I was with him on that: the bearded dude had a strange way of talking. Much easier to understand was his smell, which was all about nervousness, and getting more so. Nothing easier to pick up in the whole wide world of smells than human ­nervousness—excepting bacon, of course, goes without mentioning, and possibly steak on the barbie, and there’s no leaving out burgers, plus those Thai ribs down at Mr. Cho’s Tex Mex Chinese Takeout and Delivery aren’t too shabby, and . . . where were we again? All I knew for sure was that my position on the front step seemed to have changed a bit, moving me closer to the briefcase. At the same time, the bearded dude was calling over his shoulder. “Suzie? A delivery for you.”

  “Coming.” That was Suzie, no doubt about it, from somewhere back in the house—meaning we’d found her, so everything had to be going smoothly.

  The bearded dude raised his voice again. “Bye, love.” Then he stepped around us—me getting in a lick of his briefcase, an all-too-quick lick, but the leather was by far the best I’d ever tasted—walked down the street, got into the blue minivan, and drove away. Bernie wasn’t smiling now, but his mouth was still open. All of a sudden, he looked like Charlie! Charlie’s Bernie’s kid back home in the Valley, where we all once lived together as one big happy family—me, Bernie, Charlie, and Leda, Leda being Bernie’s wife at the time, but now married to Malcolm, who’s real big in software, whatever that may be, and we don’t see Charlie much, except for some holidays and weekends. But no time for any of that, and I shouldn’t have even gotten started. The point is, I could now see Charlie in every feature of Bernie’s face. Okay, not the nose. Bernie’s waiting to get that slightly bent part—hardly noticeable, in my opinion—fixed after he’s sure that his fistfighting days are over, which I hope is never, on account of how much I’d miss seeing that sweet uppercut.

  Right in there somewhere, Suzie appeared. Her eyes—beautiful dark eyes that shone like the countertops in our kitchen after they’d been polished, which had been a while—widened in the way that shows a human is surprised. Cats are just the opposite, but let’s leave them out of the story if we can.

  “Bernie?” she said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were headed home.”

  “Uh, home, right,” said Bernie. “Surprise type of thing.” He thrust the flowers in her direction, then seemed to think better of it, and drew them quickly back, the heads of some of the flowers snapping off and wafting down to the floor, a black-and-white tile floor that I knew would feel nice and cool on my paws once we got inside. Wasn’t that the plan? I got a sudden feeling that things weren’t going well and started panting just the littlest bit. Bernie noticed all the scattered petals. “Maybe not my brightest idea,” he said.

  “No, no,” said Suzie. “This is wonderful! I just wish you’d called, that’s all. I would have been more . . . organized.”

  Bernie glanced back toward the street. “Is that what we’re calling it?” he said.

  “Bernie? Whoa. Is something wrong?”

  “How would I know? I’m just the delivery boy.”

  Suzie’s face changed and so did her eyes; she started to become a harder kind of Suzie. I preferred the other one. “You’re not making much sense,” she said.

  “No, love?” said Bernie.

  “Love?”

  “That’s what your guest calls you.”

  “My guest?” Suzie’s eyes shifted. “You’re talking about Eben? He’s from London, Bernie.”

  “So?”

  “So he calls everyone ‘love,’ ” Suzie said. “Like Ringo Starr.”

  Ringo Starr? Had to be some sort of perp. And not even the first Ringo perp we’d run into. Who could forget Ringo Go
g­arnian, who liked to dress as a mailman and empty out people’s mailboxes and was now dressed in an orange jumpsuit? Message to Ringo Starr: heads up, buddy boy. Bernie and Suzie had gotten a bit confusing there for a moment, but now we were humming.

  “Meaning you and he aren’t . . . ?” Bernie said.

  “Aren’t what?”

  “You know.”

  “For God’s sake—he’s a source.”

  “A source of what?”

  “Information,” Suzie said. “I’m a journalist, remember? Journalists have sources.”

  “Oh,” Bernie said.

  “That’s it?” said Suzie, her voice closer to its normal self, which actually reminded me of music. “Just oh?”

  Bernie thought for a moment. Then he held out what was left of the flowers.

  “How nice,” Suzie said. “You’re giving me my own flowers.”

  Of course it was nice—Bernie always came up big in the end. As for me, I was already in the house, feeling the tiles under my paws, pleasantly cool just as I’d expected. I also seemed to be . . . how to put it? Munching? Close enough. I seemed to be munching on some of those petals that had fallen on the floor. They tasted a bit like grass, drier perhaps, but with a faint hint of lemon that was really quite pleasant. What was the name of this city again? Foggy something? I was liking it just fine.

  THREE

  * * *

  First, we were hungry. Lucky for us, Suzie had a little kitchen at the back of her place, and soon we were chowing down: yogurt for Suzie, bacon and eggs for Bernie, bacon and kibble for me, and then a bit of bacon for Suzie, which she and I ended up sharing. So nice to see Suzie again! I’d missed her.

  After that, we were sleepy, even though it was morning. No problem for me: whatever regular hours happened to be, we don’t keep them in this business. Bernie and Suzie went upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door. I made a quick recon of the whole house—not much to it, bathroom and another small bedroom on the upstairs floor, kitchen, office, and living room down below. Then I lay by the front door and closed my eyes. Warm air, actually almost hot and much damper than the air we’ve got back home in the Valley, leaked in under the door, and with it came sounds from the street: a car going by, a truck, and a bicycle making just a faint airy whirr-whirr-whirr, very pleasant to my ears.

  A door opened, not too far away, thumped softly closed. Then came footsteps. A woman, moving away, wearing sneakers: other than that, I had no info. She stopped. Silence. There’s a silence when something’s ended. This was the other kind, when you’re still in the middle.

  I heard the soft grunt of a woman bending down or leaning forward. After that, a real faint metallic scratch, just about at the outside range of what I can hear. That scratch was followed by another, slightly louder. After that: a pause, a soft thud, like from a real small door closing, and then the footsteps came my way again. A door opened and closed. Another bicycle went by with another nice whirr-whirr-whirr.

  Everything got quiet. It was quiet upstairs, too. Quiet was the ideal sound for sleeping, but for some reason I felt restless. I got up and did a complete recon of Suzie’s place again, and then another. I was just passing her bedroom door for way more than the second time, when it opened and she tiptoed outside, buttoning up her blouse. Human tiptoeing: always something I love to see, although why they do it is a complete mystery.

  “Shh,” she said in a little whisper, making the sign Bernie and I had worked out for quiet, namely a finger across the lips. “Let him sleep, Chet—he’s so tired.” She gently took my front paws, which seem to have risen up and planted themselves on her chest, and encouraged them back down to the floor. We headed downstairs, Suzie still on tiptoes. Funny how noisy human steps could be, even with only the toes touching down. Yes, you had to feel for humans in some ways, but wasn’t it amazing how so many of them kept breezing along like they were aces?

  Downstairs in her office, Suzie checked her watch, didn’t seem to like whatever it was telling her, and began gathering up stuff real quick: phone, laptop, shoulder bag. I hung right beside her, even quicker, and for no particular reason except that it felt good. We bumped into each other a few times, and then Suzie laughed and said, “Want to ride with me, Chet? The big lunk’ll be zonked till noon.”

  What was this? Ride? I was already at the front door. The big lunk part I didn’t get at all.

  • • •

  Hadn’t been in Suzie’s little yellow Beetle in way too long. Last time I’d seen it had been back in the Valley, that sad day with a U-Haul hooked on behind and Suzie on her way to her new gig—a no-brainer, Bernie said, although how did that match up with the look on his face as he’d watched her go? But now we were all back together! So everything was cool, except that all the other times I’d been in the Beetle, she’d had treats in the glove box, and now there were none. Not a scrap of food anywhere in the car, for that matter. I didn’t even need to bother digging under the seats. Suzie was the tidy type of human. The untidy types could be bothersome at times—take Nestor “Messy” Ness, for example, now on parole because no one at Northern Correctional could bear to share a cell with him—but there was also something to be said in their favor.

  We stopped at a light. “Here’s a crazy thing,” Suzie said. “I really did like getting those flowers!” She laughed. “Does that mean I need to toughen up?” Suzie turned and gave me a close look. I gave her a close look right back. She smiled. “Forgot what it’s like having you around.” Then came a nice pat, so nice I never wanted the light to change. What a weird thought, because then how would we ever . . . something or other. “We’ll have to pick up some treats along the way, won’t we?” You had to love Suzie. Did she need to toughen up? Not with me around, amigo.

  “Along the way”: had to be immediately, ASAP, stat, in a hurry, now, or even sooner. What else could it mean? But we didn’t seem to be making any stops. We hit some traffic, made a few turns, and soon a big open area appeared on one side, with lots of grass and—and what even looked like a nice swimming pool, the longest I’d ever seen, with a very tall and narrow stone tower at one end! Swim and a snack? But that was life: just when you think it can’t possibly get any better, it does. That thought was still in my mind as we drove past the stone tower and turned onto a side street, away from the water. What was going on? I studied Suzie’s face for some clue, found none.

  Lots of humans are completely unaware that you’re staring at them. You can stare at them all day if you want, which I don’t, except when it comes to Bernie, of course. Suzie wasn’t the unaware type. Her eyes shifted my way.

  “I swear sometimes, Chet, I can feel you thinking right along with me.”

  Good news. Now we’d be clearing up this snack and swim problem. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, making a tiny sound at the end. That was a sigh; we’ve got pretty much the same thing in the nation within. It means there’s a problem. Slim Jims are a primo treat, but I’m not fussy: a simple biscuit would do. Problem solved!

  “The truth is . . .” Suzie stopped, gave her head a little shake, started up again. “Bad to even say it out loud. But what if—at least for the moment—I’m in over my head?”

  I raised my eyes, saw nothing over Suzie’s head except for the roof of the Beetle. We were in the car in the usual way. No worries.

  “Can’t do this job without an ego,” Suzie went on. “At the same time, you can’t let your ego get in the way.”

  What a lovely voice Suzie had! I realized how much I’d missed it. As for what she’s just said, I was no wiser than before, maybe less. And totally cool with it!

  “Meaning,” she said, “I can’t ignore the question of why someone like Lanny Sands would want to meet me. He’s one of those insidermost insiders, the kind you can never get to . . .” Suzie pulled over, parked a few spaces away from a restaurant with sidewalk tables, all empty. She took out her notebook, flipped thr
ough the pages, her eyes going back and forth real fast. Meanwhile, a taxi was coming up the street on the other side. It stopped, and a man wearing a suit and a baseball cap got out. He went over to the restaurant, sat at one of the tables.

  “Should have known he was the ball-cap-and-suit type.” Suzie snapped her notebook shut and started to get out. I started to get out with her—no point in making her go around and open my door from the outside: I like to make things easier for everybody.

  Suzie held up her hand. “Sorry, Chet. You’ll have to stay put.”

  Stay put? Had I ever heard such a thing? Did I even understand what it meant? All I knew for sure was the doors were closed and the windows, while open enough to let in a steady flow of air, weren’t open nearly enough for what I had in mind. I was just about to start charging back and forth across the front seat and maybe doing things to the Beetle that might not be right, when Suzie glanced back at me. “Won’t be long—I promise.” Suzie has a wonderful voice, like music, if I haven’t mentioned that already. Not music like “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.” More like “If You Were Mine,” one of our favorites, mine and Bernie’s, especially when Roy Eldridge comes in with his trumpet at the end. The feeling I get, all the way through my ears to the tip of my tail and back again, and I’m sure the same thing happens with Bernie, except for the tail. Too bad Bernie didn’t have a tail. He said so himself on a day I won’t forget: Bernie, high up in a tree in our yard, taking down a hanging branch with the chainsaw. He leaned way out and said, “A tail would come in handy right now, big guy.” The moment after that, Bernie, the ladder, and the chainsaw were all in separate motion. Bernie ended up landing on the roof of Leda’s convertible—this was toward the end of their ­marriage—not a scratch on him, and the branch came down on its own with the arrival of the monsoons, so everything was cool. But the point was . . .