Thereby Hangs a Tail Read online

  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

  When 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, “min
us 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.

  “Che—et?”

  I looked up, one of my front paws poised high. Bernie gave me a quick little head shake. That was one of our silent signals. It meant no. I could always dig another hole later, even a bunch of them. All of a sudden I was in a digging mood.

  “Che—et?”

  Bernie gave me a finger wiggle. That meant come. I went over, stood beside him, a real team player, but at the same time wondering about the possibility of digging under the fence that separated our place from old man Heydrich’s. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

  A big woman with short dark hair, except for strange gray side wings, appeared in the doorway of the plane. She had the fluffball in her arms.

  “Princess,” called Adelina, waving her cowboy hat. She ran toward the plane. Bernie and I followed. The big woman came down the staircase. Princess, even smaller than I’d thought from the photo, had her nose in the air and eyes half shut, not looking at any of us. Right from the get-go I wanted to give her a quick little nip. We were off to a bad start.

  “Oh, Princess,” said Adelina, taking her the moment the big woman’s foot touched the ground, “I missed you so so much.” She kissed Princess’s face a number of times. Did Princess actually turn away her tiny head? Maybe. And if a tail was wagging somewhere under all that fluff, I couldn’t see it.

  “This,” said Adelina, turning to Bernie, “is Princess.”

  “Um,” said Bernie.

  “Say hi to the nice detective, Princess.”

  Princess was back to gazing at the sky.

  “And this is Nance, our trainer,” Adelina said.

  “Bernie Little,” said Bernie, shaking hands with Nance. The hands of most women got lost in Bernie’s, but not this one’s.

  Nance had a deeply tanned face, also wore bright blue eye makeup, the combination having a strange effect on me, like I’d want to lick that makeup right off, something I’d never do, of course. She gave Bernie a long look and said, “Do you really think Princess is in danger?”

  “No,” said Bernie.

  No? Just like that, no? What if we get fired? Bernie: two grand a day!

  “Then—” said Nance.

  “But every once in a while, a threat like this turns out to be real.”

  “Exactly,” said Adelina. She turned to Nance, those green eyes narrowing. “I thought we’d been through this.”

  Nance looked down. Humans often had complicated relationships with each other. In our nation—the nation within the nation, as Bernie calls it—we can get pretty complicated, too, but we have ways of sorting things out much quicker. I was used to these awkward human moments, almost always found them interesting, even entertaining. I opened my mouth, unrolled my tongue, rolled it back in.

  Adelina turned her attention to Princess. You’d be surprised how often humans use one of my guys to end their awkward moments, if Princess could be called one of my guys. “Does little Princess need some time to herself ?” Adelina had two voices— a baby voice for Princess and the icicle voice for the rest of the world. I preferred the icicle voice. Now came more kisses. “Poor Princess, cooped up on the nasty plane.”

  Cooped up? Princess would have had plenty of room in a mailbox. I glanced at Bernie: his face was blank.

  “Nance?” said Adelina. “Is it safe?”

  Nance bent down, patted the tarmac with her hand. “Yes.”

  “Not too hot?” Adelina said. “Remember Barcelona?”

  “It’s just right,” Nance said, her voice sharpening.

  Adelina gave her a look, also sharp, and gently lowered Princess to the runway. Hey: she had legs. Princess extended them in a way that reminded me of that staircase coming down from the plane, a thought I thought would lead to another, but did not. Whew. Slow it down, big guy.

  I slowed it down, kept my eye on Princess. Her paws, so small, touched the tarmac. She stood still, her eyes, huge and dark, on nothing in particular. What would I do in her place, at a time like this? Give myself a shake, no doubt about it. Come to think of it, why not now, even in my place? No reason I could see. I gave myself a restrained kind of shake, grew aware that those huge dark eyes seemed to be fixed on me. And guess what. The very next moment, Princess gave herself a shake. If you could call it that: the movement was so tiny, really just a slight trembling, as though a breeze had ruffled her fur, that I almost missed it.

  “Have you ever seen her do that before?” Adelina said.

  “Never,” said Nance.

  “D
o you think there’s something wrong with her?” Adelina said. “Oh my God—is she sick?”

  “Looks okay to me,” said Bernie.

  The huge dark eyes shifted over to Bernie. For the first time that I’d seen, Princess began to move under her own power. Hard to describe it, exactly. Her little legs were going quite fast, a quick trot, you might call it, or even running, but she was hardly getting anywhere. She reached the edge of the tarmac—

  “Not on the ground, Princess,” said Adelina. “It’s dirty.”

  —and kept on, around a dusty thick-leaved plant—where I’d have lifted my leg, for sure, and almost to the Porsche. Princess gazed at it, then trotted back, her legs almost a blur. And her eyes: was that an anxious look I saw? I was almost feeling sorry for her—how crazy was that?—when she regained the tarmac and stopped near Bernie. Then, eyes right on him but expressionless now, at least as far as I could tell—she squatted.

  “Good girl,” Adelina said.

  A yellowish pool began to spread across the tarmac. It got bigger and bigger, shockingly so. The smell was—I’ll admit it— fascinating. But that wasn’t the important part. The important part was the fact of the yellowish pool expanding quickly, the lead edge closing in on Bernie’s shoes, black leather lace-ups with an interesting smell of their own, speaking of smells. We’ll save that for later. The point now was that growing lake on the tarmac and the way Princess kept her eyes on Bernie the whole time.

  “A long flight,” Bernie said, stepping away.

  Princess did something I’d never seen before. Still squatting, with no interruption of flow, she shifted, kind of like a crab, in his direction.

  “I think she likes you,” Adelina said.

  “Definitely,” said Nance.

  “Well, um,” said Bernie, taking another step, raising one heel, and peering down at it: yes, damp.

  At last Princess went dry. She straightened and stood still. For some reason, the tiny pink tip of her tiny tongue was sticking out, just barely.

  “How about a treat for our little star?” said Adelina. “Any bacon bits?”