Thereby Hangs a Tail Read online

  “I’m a little concerned about her weight,” Nance said, “so close to showtime and all.”

  Her weight? There were dust balls under Bernie’s bed that weighed more than Princess.

  “Just one won’t hurt,” Adelina said. “She’s had a hard day.”

  Nance reached into her pocket, took out a bacon bit of a kind I’d never seen before, nice and thick. She approached Princess, hand out, smiling; Nance had very white teeth, big and even. Princess stayed still, putting in no more effort than letting her mouth fall slightly open as the bacon bit drew near. As for what got into me, how to explain? The facts are that suddenly I was airborne, in full flight, ears flat back; airborne and snagging that bacon bit right out of Nance’s hand at the exact moment of transfer, possibly knocking Princess over, but totally by accident. The whole thing was an accident, really. As for the bacon bit: delish. I tore across the runway, downed the bacon bit, skidded to a stop beside the plane’s big wheels and lifted my leg. No idea why and I didn’t absolutely need to go: but it felt good. And doesn’t everybody like feeling good? Or am I missing something?

  SIX

  There have been times in my life when I’ve felt pretty bad. Take when a mobster named Gulagov had me locked in a cage; or the day Leda packed up Charlie’s things and took him away, except for some weekends and holidays; or way back when I was a puppy in this apartment run by a drug dealer who liked to give me a kick when things weren’t going well. But had I ever felt worse than I did on that runway, moments after that little bacon bit episode? I was out there by the plane, my leg still raised, when I heard Adelina say, “You’re fired.”

  We drove away from the airstrip. I rode shotgun as always, but not sitting straight like normal, instead lying on the seat, curled up, my head against the door. An awkward kind of position, with my silver tags digging into my neck a bit, but I let them. We were off the case, and all on account of me. After a while Bernie reached over and adjusted the tags. Then he popped a CD into the player and soon we had Billie Holiday. Bernie loved Billie Holiday. He pressed a button until “If You Were Mine” came on. “If You Were Mine” was Bernie’s current favorite. He sang along—Bernie has a very nice singing voice, have I mentioned that?—and cranked up the volume for the trumpet part at the end.

  “Don’t you just love that trumpet?” he said.

  I did. I loved the trumpet. The sound of the trumpet did things to me.

  “Roy Eldridge,” Bernie said. “They called him Little Jazz, no idea why. Except, hmmm—hey! In contrast to Louis Armstrong, maybe, Satchmo being Big Jazz? Think that’s it?”

  I had no idea what Bernie was saying, and besides: two grand a day! We needed it. With our finances a big mess, how could we be thinking about anything else except that two grand? Two grand a day, and all those days on the case, not sure how many. But Bernie didn’t seem to be thinking about the money. After “If You Were Mine” played for the umpteenth time— which is a lot—I felt Bernie glance over at me; couldn’t see him with how I was curled up, my gaze on the inside of the door but actually seeing nothing. All of a sudden he started laughing, just laughing and laughing. Don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh like that. It went on and on, left him wheezing and gasping, and still wheezing and gasping, he reached over and patted my back. It felt good. “They broke the mold,” he said, and then more “ha ha ha.”

  Broke the mold. That was new. I knew mold, of course, from back in the Leda days. She’d been terrified of mold and had hired this guy to inspect the house, even though Bernie told her there was no mold out here in the desert. And the inspector didn’t find any, just gave Bernie a little grin, along with the bill. So breaking the mold had to mean when you didn’t find any, and Bernie was thinking back to that day and now finding something funny about it. I didn’t get the joke, but I sat up and moved closer to him. He scratched between my ears, the way I liked. My tail wagged, the slightest bit, all by itself. Not right, I know—I’d messed up big-time, been bad, not a team player, not a pro, and worst of all I’d let Bernie down—but I couldn’t help it.

  “Good boy,” Bernie said.

  When we got home, the phone message light was blinking. Humans had a way of inventing all these things—phone message lights, alarm clocks, bills—that disturbed their peace of mind. Bernie went right over and pressed a button. Our phone has a voice of its own that sounds like the voice of a robot in a DVD Bernie and I once saw. Don’t ask me to explain what the DVD was about, but at the end Bernie’d said, “Get it? The robot is the master.” Whoa. The robot was the master? I’d gotten scared, but too late, the movie being over.

  But forget all that. Bernie pressed the button and our phone voice said, “Two new messages.”

  Then: “Hey, Bern, my man.” I knew that friendly-on-the-outside voice: the guy in the Hawaiian shirt from Dry Gulch. “Chuck Eckel here. How ya doin’? Slight development on the tin futures front—give me a call when you get this. Like ASAP.”

  And then: “Hi, Bernie.” Another voice I recognized, this one friendly not just on the outside but through and through: Janie, my groomer, the best groomer in the whole Valley. She had a great business with a great business plan: Janie’s Pet Grooming Service—We Pick Up and Deliver. Hadn’t seen her in a while, now that I thought about it. “It’s Janie. Just wondering what you heard from the vet.”

  “Huh?” said Bernie. He picked up the phone. “Janie? Bernie Little here. Got your message. What’s this about the vet? Give me a call when you get a chance.” He punched in more numbers. “Chuck? Bernie Little.” Bernie listened. There’s this painter Bernie likes, can’t remember the name, who paints the human face— made a bundle, Bernie says—in a bunch of parts that don’t quite fit together. Bernie’s face started getting more and more that way as he listened on the phone. “An earthquake? I don’t . . . in Bolivia? But how does that . . . ? Three grand? But . . .” More listening, more coming apart of Bernie’s face, the nicest face around, in my opinion. “What does that mean, cover the position?” I could hear the voice on the other end, the friendly coating thinning out. “You never—” And thinning out some more. “Lose the whole investment? That’s not how I understood the . . . you need it by when?” Bernie hung up, but not before I heard Chuck Eckel say, “Close of business today, my man.”

  When Bernie’s upset, even feeling a bit overwhelmed—not that anything ever really overwhelms Bernie—he has this habit of rubbing his eyes very hard with the knuckles of both hands. He was doing it now. Despite how I know nothing ever really overwhelms Bernie, the truth is I can’t stand seeing him rub his eyes that way. So I went over and bumped my head against his leg, and bumped it again when he didn’t seem to notice the first time.

  “Hey, boy,” he said. He stopped rubbing his eyes, looked down at me. I looked up at him. Our eyes met. His face started going back together the right way. “How about a chew strip?” he said.

  A chew strip? Had I done anything to earn a chew strip? My mind flashed back to that scene on the runway. I knew the answer to the chew strip question was no. I probably didn’t deserve another chew strip for a long, long while, like a day or two. At the same time, I felt this sudden breeze from behind me, surprisingly strong, and realized my tail was wagging.

  Bernie laughed. “Hard to turn down a chew strip, huh, boy?”

  Impossible, I guess.

  We went into the kitchen. Bernie opened the cupboard over the sink, took out the chew strips and the bourbon. He handed me a chew strip and I started chewing. Hard to explain how good that made my teeth feel. And the taste! Out of this world, whatever that means. Meanwhile, Bernie poured himself a glass of bourbon, a small pour, I was happy to see, until he knocked it back in one go and refilled. He carried the glass with him into the office. I followed, trying to make the chew strip last, although it was almost gone.

  Bernie took down the Niagara Falls photo and spun the dial on the safe. Was the rifle coming out again? No idea why we needed it at the moment, but the rifle coming out was a
lways a good idea to my way of thinking. Bernie reached in. Not the rifle; instead he removed a small black box. I knew that black box: inside lay Bernie’s grandfather’s watch, our most valuable possession, except for the Porsche. I gobbled up the last bit of chew strip. We were on our way to see Mr. Singh.

  “Bernie! Chet!” said Mr. Singh. “How is our beautiful timepiece today?”

  Bernie handed over his grandfather’s watch. His grandfather once owned a big ranch where Mesquite Road and our whole neighborhood was now, but lost everything, possibly because of a drinking problem, although the drinking problem might have come from some other story Bernie had told me, a story about another relative. But not Bernie’s father. Bernie never talked about his father, who’d been dead for a long time. Bernie’s mother was still around. I’d met her once: a piece of work. She lived somewhere far away with a new husband, or an even newer one. She called Bernie Kiddo! What was up with that? But I still shouldn’t have done what I did, a story perhaps for another time.

  Mr. Singh held the watch in both hands, admiring it. “Do you know that only a dozen of these were made?” he said. “How I would love to take this on Antiques Roadshow.” Mr. Singh had a strange way of talking, almost like music. I could listen to him all day. “Did you ever find out how it came into his possession?” he said.

  “No,” said Bernie.

  “Thereby hangs a tale, I’m sure,” said Mr. Singh.

  A tail? Was Mr. Singh saying Bernie’s grandfather’s watch had a tail? Fun to listen to, Mr. Singh, but hard to understand. We left, a big wad of cash in Bernie’s pocket and a bite or two of curried goat kebab in my mouth. I like ethnic food. So does Bernie. There are picky eaters out there, but not us.

  We dropped by the bank, one of those places where I can’t go in. No problem. I was cool about waiting in the car, most times. Bernie wasn’t gone for long. He came back muttering about tin futures and earthquakes in Bolivia. “There’s all this money flowing around, Chet, rivers and rivers of money. How to tap into it, that’s the problem.”

  Rivers of money? The only rivers in the Valley didn’t even have water in them. I curled up on my seat and closed my eyes. What were we working on right now? I could only think of one measly case, a divorce in Sunshine City. We hated divorce work, me and Bernie. Maybe I was wrong about those rivers of money, maybe they were real. Wouldn’t that be nice? I could almost see myself diving in.

  I woke up feeling tip-top. Where was I? In the car. There was a faint taste of curried goat in my mouth, not bad at all. Everything, or parts of everything, came back to me—the watch, Mr. Singh, nothing on deck but divorce work. I checked Bernie: hands on the wheel, face not happy. I sat up, shifted closer to him.

  “Nice nap?” he said.

  Very. I opened my mouth real wide, stretching my lips tight, clearing my head. We were on Mesquite Road, not far from home. And there was Iggy in his window. Always good to see Iggy. I heard his faint yip-yip-yip from behind the glass and barked back. He stood up on his back legs, front paws pressing against the window, and watched us go by. We turned into our driveway, and at almost the same time another car drove up, one of those Beetles. I’m no expert on cars—can always spot a Porsche, of course—but Beetles are easy, and this particular Beetle I knew very well. It was yellow, for one thing, and I’d ridden in it a bunch of times: Suzie Sanchez’s car. A great car. There was always a box of biscuits in the glove compartment.

  We got out of the Porsche. Suzie was walking toward us. She smelled like soap and lemons, had shiny black eyes that reminded me of the countertops in our kitchen. I liked Suzie a whole lot. She and Bernie exchanged a glance, complicated and awkward. Complicated: that was the problem. In our nation, the nation within the nation, we keep these things simple. Take a recent evening, for example, when I’d heard some persistent she-barking from across the canyon and—

  “Hi, Bernie,” she said. “Hey, Chet—looking good.” She reached in her bag. “Can he have a biscuit?”

  “He just ate,” said Bernie. Huh? What was he talking about? Surely not the goat kebab, hardly more than a nibble, and quite some time ago, in my opinion. Suzie’s hand emerged from the bag, empty. Human tension is an interesting thing. You can smell it; well, maybe not you, but I can. The smell was out there now, and it got ratcheted up much stronger when Bernie said, “How’s Dylan?”

  Yikes. Dylan McKnight was Suzie’s ex-boyfriend, but maybe not completely out of the picture, something about a trip the two of them had taken to LA. I didn’t know Dylan McKnight well, had only met him once, and we hadn’t hit it off—a real pretty boy, and also a former jailbird. The day we met he’d ended up in a tree, the exact details not too clear in my mind, except for the sirloin tips Bernie gave me later.

  Suzie’s voice, usually warm and friendly, changed fast to something much colder. “I wouldn’t know,” she said.

  “No?” said Bernie. “Is he still in LA?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “He’s back in the Valley?”

  Suzie took a deep breath. “Bernie?” she said.

  Bernie got this stubborn look on his face. “Yeah?”

  “Do we have to talk about him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bernie. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Actually,” said Suzie, “I’m working on a story and your name came up.”

  Bernie stopped looking so stubborn. “What story?”

  “About this woman.” Suzie flipped open a notebook. “Adelina Borghese.”

  “What about her?”

  “Seems she was abducted.”

  “Abducted?” Bernie flinched, almost as though someone had hit him. I’d never seen him do that before. “We just saw her this morning.”

  Suzie went back to the notebook. “Happened shortly after noon,” she said. “Apparently she owns some sort of prize dog.”

  “Princess,” Bernie said.

  Suzie turned a page and nodded. “Yes, Princess,” she said. “The dog is missing, too.”

  SEVEN

  A ll this stuff was going by too fast. Princess was missing? And abduction: was that what we called a snatch in our trade, a kidnapping? I got too hot, started panting.

  “Where are you getting your information?” Bernie said.

  “A tip,” Suzie answered.

  “Who from?”

  Suzie’s face hardened and thickened a bit, reminding me very strongly of Bernie in one of his stubborn moods. “I don’t reveal my sources.”

  Bernie’s voice rose. That didn’t happen unless he was really upset, and not even usually then. “I don’t want to know your goddamn sources,” he said. “I want to know if your information is accurate.”

  Most people backed down right away when Bernie got mad. The truth is Bernie could be—I don’t want to say dangerous, not about Bernie, because he’s the best—so let’s say he could be real tough, but only on perps, and Suzie was no perp. Big surprise: she didn’t back down at all. In fact, her chin came up in an aggressive sort of way. “My information is accurate.”

  They glared at each other. I didn’t like the way things were going, not one little bit. I barked. They both looked at me. I was about to bark some more when the phone in the house started ringing. Bernie hurried inside.

  I trotted after him. An angry voice was coming through the answering machine. “What the hell’s going on?” I recognized the voice: Lieutenant Stine. “I thought you were working for these people. Snatched in broad daylight? Pick up, for Christ sake.”

  Bernie went to the phone. I could tell just from the way he moved, like he was walking through deep water, that he didn’t want to pick up. Then, as I’d seen more than once before, his back got real straight, like somehow he was making himself stronger inside, and he reached for the phone. Bernie—and possibly this is a small difference between us—could force himself to do things he didn’t want to do. But if you don’t mind my asking, why bother?

  “Yeah?” he said.

  Lieutenant S
tine’s voice came over the answering machine. “What the hell happened?”

  “You tell me,” Bernie said.

  “Some guys blocked her limo on the old Rio Loco Road, pistol-whipped the driver, snatched the Borghese woman. And the goddamn dog. But my question is why weren’t you there?”

  “She didn’t hire us,” Bernie said.

  “Huh?” said the lieutenant. “She told me she had. It’s not adding up, Bernie—you’re not trying to put one—” Bernie pressed a button and Lieutenant Stine’s voice shrank to a tinny version of itself coming through the earpiece of the phone.

  Bernie said, “I’m not trying anything. She fired us so fast it was almost like never getting hired in the first place.” Lieutenant Stine said something I couldn’t make out, and Bernie replied, “Couldn’t tell you why. That’s her right. But where are you on this? Was the trainer in the limo, too? What—”

  I heard a loud click on the other end. Bernie put the phone down, glanced at me, then at Suzie. She was busy writing in her notebook.

  “Suzie?” he said, very quietly. “What are you writing?”

  Suzie looked up. The pen kept moving even without her watching what she was doing. Sometimes humans amaze me. “I’m writing—question for Bernie: why fired?”

  Bernie gave her a cold look. Hey! What was going on between them? And the getting fired part: that was all on me, not Bernie. I barked. Suzie closed her notebook, came toward me, stroked my head. “Good boy,” she said. The truth was I’d been bad, not good, but I guess the point wasn’t getting across to Suzie. What could I do? And besides, the stroking felt so nice. I just emptied my mind and enjoyed every second.

  “We had a personality conflict,” Bernie said.

  Suzie stopped stroking me. “You and Ms. Borghese?” she said.

  “Correct.”

  “What were the circumstances?”

  “I’m not going into that,” Bernie said. “And all this is off the record.”