Heart of Barkness Read online

  “What do you say to a little fetch?” Bernie said.

  Is there more than one answer to that? Fetch is a great human invention, probably their best. And fetch with Bernie doing the throwing is the best of the best. Have I mentioned that Bernie pitched at West Point, might have gone pro if he hadn’t blown out his arm? But now even with a blown-out arm he can throw tennis balls so far they turn into tiny yellow dots.

  We stood by home plate—I know all the baseball lingo although the actual game is a complete mystery to me—and Bernie tossed the ball from one hand to another. He got a strange look on his face, almost like he was angry. Was there anything to be angry about? Not that I knew of. Were we getting this show on the road or not?

  Bernie glanced down at me—well, not exactly down, since we seemed to be face-to-face, my paws somehow on his shoulders.

  “You’re right,” he said.

  About what? I was trying to figure that out when Bernie stepped away, reared back, and let fly. What an amazing throw—a frozen rope, as we say in baseball—right over the diamond, over the pretty-much-grassless outfield, the color of those slag heaps, and all the way to the fence without a single bounce. Wow! The ball hit the fence, bounced off, hit the ground, bounced again, and then I snagged it and zoomed back to Bernie, dropping it at his feet.

  “Good grief, Chet. Are you getting faster?”

  Sure! Why not?

  After that we settled into a more normal game of fetch, although much longer than usual—what a fun day!—Bernie throwing grounders, flies, one hoppers, two hoppers, but not another one all the way to the fence. When it was over—Bernie always tosses the last one into the car—he rubbed his elbow and took a long breath.

  “Married the wrong woman,” he said quietly. “And then when the right one came along…”

  I waited for more—and could feel more going on inside him, which was where it stayed. Bernie’s face was all sweaty—a lot sweatier than normal after fetch—but he no longer looked angry. He started the car. I nosed the tennis ball under the seat for next time—soon, I hoped!—and sat up straight and tall.

  * * *

  We drove along the main street of Phantom Springs, past some stone buildings. Nice stone buildings, but with some cracked windows.

  “Has there ever been a boomtown that made a comeback?” Bernie said. “What about a whole boom country?”

  I searched my mind for an answer, a very rapid search since I had no clue what he was talking about. The stone buildings gave way to brick ones and finally wood. We turned onto a narrower street, sloping up into shabbier territory. Wind chimes chimed on just about every porch on this street and the cars had lots of bumper stickers.

  “Two ninety-nine Bluff Street,” Bernie said, pulling over in front of a yellow house with faded flowers painted on the door. “Still some original hippies living up here.”

  Hippies? We sometimes ran across hippies in our line of work, although not recently. I had no problem with hippies. They did a lot of yawning, gave off interesting smells, and were at their best when they got the munchies.

  We walked up to the yellow house. Bernie raised his hand to knock on the door, but before he could it opened and a very big dude in a business suit came out, as wide as Shermie but taller. Also his face was very different, not mashed up or scarred, the skin smooth, like he took real good care of it. I had a strange thought: this is the kind of dude who does the mashing and the scarring.

  He stopped dead, stared down at us. We stared up at him.

  “Looking for someone?” he said.

  “You live here?” said Bernie.

  “You always answer a question with a question?” the big dude said.

  “Why do you ask?” said Bernie.

  The big dude smiled. “Sense of humor—I like that.” He looked past us, his gaze settling on the Porsche. Then he turned, closed the door, made sure it was locked, all his movements unhurried and relaxed. “Have a nice day,” he said, stepped carefully around us—a much lighter-on-his-feet type of big guy than Shermie—and started walking up the street, trailing a hair-gel aroma, but not nearly as strong as some you come across, plus a faint scent of baby powder. We stayed where we were. The dude disappeared around a curve at the top of the hill. I heard a car door open and close, and then an engine starting. Did Bernie hear that, too?

  “We’ll catch the plate number as he comes back down.”

  Meaning he did hear it! Good for Bernie! I was proud of him, even though the engine sound was now fading and fading, meaning the big dude was driving off in another direction.

  “What’s keeping him?” Bernie said after a while. “Google shows Bluff Street dead-ending at the top.”

  I tried to make sense of that, but not for long. Finally Bernie turned to the door and knocked. No answer from inside. He rattled the handle.

  “Smell anything in there, big guy? Something I should know about?”

  Should he know about pizza? A toilet that needed flushing? A mouse issue? I wondered about all that as we started walking around the house. Bernie tried peering in windows, but all the shades were drawn. Around the back was a gully with one tiny puddle at the bottom, plus a busted-up fridge, a lawn chair or two, and lots of broken bottles. We went to the back door, much more flimsy than the front one, which was often the case. At the Little Detective Agency we have lots of ways of getting past flimsy doors. Bernie kicking them in is my favorite, but this time we got by with the credit card trick.

  Bernie opened the door all the way, so that it pressed against the back wall, which we always do in case some perp inside is trying the hiding-behind-the-door-with-a-tire-iron trick. We know all the tricks, in case you’re not clear on that yet. Also we’re available for hire, especially if you don’t have divorce work in mind.

  We went inside with—after a moment of confusion in the doorway—me in the lead. When a place has been trashed you know it right away: overturned dressers, slashed mattresses, everything all over the place. We stepped carefully from room to room, ended up in the smaller of the two bedrooms.

  “What was he looking for?” Bernie said. “And did he find it?”

  I had no answers, didn’t even know who “he” was. Bernie gazed at the walls. They were hung with posters, all of them showing a blond woman, usually dressed like a cowgirl, sometimes standing before a mic, sometimes playing a guitar. I came very close to recognizing her!

  “Old Lotty Pilgrim concert posters,” Bernie said.

  Of course! And I’d practically gotten there by myself. My mind wasn’t quite on fire, but almost. I was having a very good day.

  Bernie bent down, picked a framed picture off the floor, set it on the desk. The glass cover was cracked, but I could make out the people in the photo. I knew two of them: Lotty and Jordan. They were standing side by side and smiling at the camera, Lotty with her guitar over her shoulder. There was another person in the picture, a woman in denim with a big head of curly black hair, not smiling.

  “Jordan’s a big fan,” Bernie said. He tapped the face of the unsmiling woman in denim. “And who would she be?”

  We went into the front hall. A sheet of paper was tacked to the door. Bernie read what was on it. “This was a courtesy call. Sorry I missed you.”

  What was a courtesy call? Who got missed? I waited to find out, but Bernie didn’t say. Did he know? Was it important? I don’t ask myself questions like that. And even if I did, it wouldn’t be now, not with someone in squeaky sneakers—a man, actually, the walking-man sound being very different from the walking-woman sound, in case you’ve somehow missed that—coming up the path to the front door. I went still, on high alert. Bernie looked my way immediately, and went still himself.

  The man halted outside the door. Then through the narrow slot came a wad of mail, plopping onto the floor. The footsteps went away. Bernie picked up the mail, riffled through it, dropped all but one letter onto a small table. “From the Arizona Department of Public Safety,” he said. “Why would they be writing
to Jordan?” He tapped the envelope against his hand a few times, gazed at it for a moment or two, held it up to the light, squinted at it—and finally tore the thing open.

  Bernie took out the papers inside, unfolded them. “Application for a private investigator’s license,” he said. “What does Jordan want to investigate?” He refolded the papers, laid them on the table. “How about we ask him?”

  What a great idea! I was so excited by Bernie’s brilliance that I almost forgot about that pizza.

  “Chet? Where you going?”

  Nowhere. No place at all. Don’t bother looking at me. I trotted into the kitchen—a trot very close to a run, but not quite, a run attracting too much attention at a time like this—and located the pizza box on the counter, snapping up the only remaining slice. Sausage and pepperoni, my favorite. I trotted back into the hall, all set for work, a total pro.

  “What were you up to?” Bernie said.

  Nothing. Zip. Nada. I gulped down the last of the pizza. We hit the road, although not for long, stopping at the top of the hill, where the pavement ended. But a sort of road kept going, narrow and rough, hardly even a track. It zigzagged down and down, finally meeting a highway in the distance.

  “He didn’t want us to see that plate, big guy,” Bernie said.

  Whoa! Did that mean somebody had put one over on us? I wondered who that might be.

  * * *

  Sometimes you don’t know how hungry you are until you happen to down a little snack, say a leftover pizza slice, of no interest to anyone. And then it hits you: you’re starving! And there’s no more pizza, no food of any kind, except for a single Slim Jim in the glove box, giving off the most powerful smell you’ve ever smelled.

  “For god’s sake, Chet! What’s all the racket?”

  Racket? I listened my hardest, heard nothing but the lovely rumble of the Porsche, and possibly a distant echo of something that might have been barking, but possibly not.

  “Hungry? Is that it?”

  Why, yes, yes indeed. On the same page at last! Bernie gave me a look. I gave him a look back. Then he popped open the glove box and the Slim Jim was mine. Well, it had always been mine, of course. It was just that now I … possessed it. Was that the expression? Possessing Slim Jims was one of those things that made life such a joy.

  We drove back to the edge of town, then up those switchbacks on Old Gila Road to the faded blue house at the top. This time Rita didn’t come out with a shotgun. She didn’t come out at all. We went to the door. Bernie knocked. No answer. If anyone was home, they were making no sounds and giving off no smells. Did that mean the case was going well? Not well? Was this a case at all? Who was paying? Us? Had we somehow … paid ourselves with that C-note? Would that be a good business plan? What was our business plan, again? I had a faint memory of a discussion about that with our accountant, Ms. Pernick, but the details were gone.

  Eight

  We swung by the Crowbar on the way home. No cars in the lot. Shermie was outside, hosing down the front steps.

  “Hey, guys,” he said. “Don’t open till four, but I can grab you a cold one outta the cooler.”

  “That’s all right,” Bernie said. He made one of those chin gestures—one of many human things I love to see, like snot rockets which I may have mentioned already, although not as surprising—at the hose.

  “Washin’ off the puke,” Shermie said. “Comes with the territory.”

  “Speaking of the territory, it’s only got the one aquifer,” Bernie said.

  “Huh?”

  Bernie explained about the aquifer. I’d heard this many times, didn’t really listen. Instead I watched Shermie’s face. Was he getting the aquifer thing or not? I couldn’t tell, but his lumpy, eyes-too-close-together sort of face was starting to grow on me, hard to explain why.

  “But here’s the thing,” Shermie said when Bernie was done. “Nobody likes the smell of puke.”

  Was that true? Certain pukey smells aren’t bad at all, in my opinion. Once we’d taken Charlie to the county fair and caught the end of the hot dog eating contest. Why they’re called hot dogs when they’re clearly sausage is a bothersome mystery, but forget about that. The point is the end of the hot dog eating contest, which was all about a bunch of dudes puking—not all at once, but sort of one after another, like … like it was a catchy idea. They did their puking offstage, in and around buckets. In some way I can’t quite recall, I managed to … how would you put it? Corral, maybe? I’d managed to corral one of those buckets for an all-too-short period of time. I still remember the smell: complex and fascinating. Plus there were pretty much whole hot dogs in that bucket, hardly chewed on at all. That was when I realized I didn’t understand hot dog eating contests. And wanted to see another one right away.

  When I tuned back in, Bernie and Shermie had moved on from puke and aquifers.

  “What time does Lotty get here?” Bernie was saying.

  Shermie shook his head. “She was one night only.”

  “Where is she tonight?”

  Shermie got out his phone, tapped at it for a while. “She’s off tonight. Next show’s at the Junction in Lubbock, Texas, two weeks from tomorrow.”

  “I’d like to get in touch with her.”

  Shermie didn’t reply, maybe because he was drinking from the hose. Even though I wasn’t at all thirsty, I wanted to do what he was doing, and very badly, although I’d never drunk from the end of a hose and had no idea how to manage it, what with the water shooting so fast out the end. But could it hurt to try?

  “Shermie?”

  Shermie looked up, water dripping off his chin.

  “You heard me,” Bernie said. His voice was nice and quiet, even soft. For some reason, that often caught the attention of certain dudes, especially ones who’d been on the end of that sweet uppercut.

  “Um,” Shermie said. He turned a tap. The water stopped pouring out of the hose. “Is this about last night?”

  “Got it on the first guess,” Bernie said.

  Shermie gazed down at the end of the hose. A last drop dribbled out. “What about last night?”

  “Shermie? Don’t overthink—anyone ever told you that?”

  “Nope. What’s it mean?”

  “It means don’t let your mind twist itself in knots.”

  “That’s never happened to me, Bernie.”

  “You’re a lucky guy.”

  “Yeah?” Shermie beamed. “Never thought of myself that way.”

  “Now you can,” Bernie said. “So what’s the answer?”

  Shermie blinked. “To what?”

  “How to get in touch with Lotty Pilgrim.”

  Shermie’s forehead started to furrow, but then it smoothed out. “Hey! Almost overthunk right there.”

  “Good catch,” said Bernie. “Remember—curiosity killed the cat.”

  Excuse me? Had I ever heard something so important? Why was I just finding out about it now? Question after question came tumbling into my mind. What was curiosity exactly? And how could I use it the next time a cat entered my life? Cats had entered my life more than once, never with good results. Here’s the thing about cats entering your life: by the time you realize it’s happened, they’ve already been there for a while.

  I glanced around. We seemed to have moved inside the Crowbar, in fact into a small office near the front. Shermie opened a desk drawer, shuffled through some papers, handed one to Bernie. Bernie took a look at it, handed it back.

  “Don’t want to write it down?” Shermie said.

  Bernie shook his head.

  “You memorized it?”

  Bernie shrugged.

  “How?” said Shermie.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “How do you do that? Memorize written-down stuff?”

  Bernie’s eyes got an inward look. “I’ve never thought about it.”

  “Like it just happens?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You’re a lucky guy, too, Bernie,” Shermie said.
>
  Bernie was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I know.” And gave me a pat, not a long one, but very nice all the same.

  * * *

  “Dolly Parton has Dollywood,” Bernie said, as we followed a long dirt drive to what looked like a little ranch house at the end. But no cattle around? No horses? No sheep? All of them interesting to pal around with, at least for a while. What kind of ranch was this?

  We parked in front of the house, actually kind of nice from close up, not so different from our own place, but smaller. Pink flowers that smelled like Suzie’s perfume—I missed her!—grew on both sides of the door, and piano sounds came from inside, starting, stopping, starting up again.

  We stood outside, but Bernie didn’t knock. Instead he cocked his ear. I do the same thing—don’t forget we’re a lot alike in some ways—but only to pick up sounds from far far away. What we were hearing now came from inside the house, or actually just behind it: the piano, then Lotty sort of half-singing, and after that the piano again.

  I turned and started around the house. Bernie didn’t say, “Chet?” Or, “Where you going, big guy?” He just followed. We’re a team, me and Bernie, and a real, real good one. If you’re a perp, we’ll find you. If not, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But feel free to come say hi. A treat would be nice.

  More piano. Then Lotty half-sang, “… lonesome road that brought me…” She paused, began again: “… lonely road that took me here, to…” I felt Bernie go still, so I went still, too. When Bernie gets really interested in something, a look comes over his face that makes him much younger, actually reminding me of Charlie. That was the look I saw now.

  “… to,” Lotty took up the half-singing again, “to anybody…” She grunted, muttered something I couldn’t make out, then went on. “Not just to anybody, but … but anybody except for you.” The sound of the piano rose higher and her voice strengthened with it. “I ended up on / this lonely road / that took me here / to not just anybody / but anybody else / from you, ol’ darlin’.” She went silent.