Heart of Barkness Read online

  We walked around the house. There was a little patio at the back, partly shaded by an overhang from the roof, and in the shade of that overhang stood a piano, the upright kind. Lotty, wearing a bathrobe, sat before it, writing on a pink sheet of paper, glasses on the end of her nose, and a cigarette between her lips. Bernie started clapping.

  Lotty looked up, startled. She lost her balance, for a moment seemed about to topple off the piano stool.

  Bernie raised his hands, palms up, sometimes the signal for don’t shoot, although probably not now.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

  “Well, you did.” Lotty took off her glasses and gave him a close look. “The big tipper from last night.”

  “First time I’ve been called that,” Bernie said.

  “It’s a compliment,” Lotty said. She glanced at me. “Chet, right?”

  “Right,” said Bernie.

  “He’s a stunner.”

  Bernie cleared his throat. “I’m Bernie.”

  “I remember.”

  “Great show last night.”

  “Thanks,” said Lotty. “But I get alarmed when fans show up unexpectedly.”

  “I’m sorry about that. Doubly so since you were composing.”

  Lotty stubbed out her cigarette. “That’s a fancy-pants word for what I do.”

  “What would you call it?”

  Lotty shrugged. “Just fiddling around.”

  “How come you didn’t play the piano on your records? You’re really good.”

  “Far from it. The piano’s set up for right handers and my right hand’s a slug.”

  That was strange. I knew slugs from several gardens I’d … explored, you might say, and they looked nothing like Lotty’s hands, quite nice hands, in fact, although not in Bernie’s league.

  “… wondering why you changed ‘lonesome’ to ‘lonely’?” Bernie was saying.

  “You’re the snoopy type.”

  “True.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just curious.”

  “You know what they say about curiosity.”

  I sure did! It couldn’t have been fresher in my mind. I took a quick sniff: no cats on the premises, but I remained on high alert, in the picture as never before.

  Lotty picked up the pink sheet she’d been writing on, stuck the glasses back on the end of her nose. “Hard to say,” she said. “These things just happen. I get—” She looked up, met Bernie’s gaze. “—a sort of warning bell that something’s not quite right.”

  “So you got a warning bell about ‘lonesome’?”

  Lotty nodded.

  “It seems more … poetic to me,” Bernie said. “Speaking as an outsider.”

  “An outsider to what?” said Lotty. “Human emotion?”

  Bernie laughed, just one short burst, not too distant from a bark. Did I love hearing that or what?

  Lotty smiled, seemed to relax a little. “You’re right about that—Bernie, was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “‘Lonesome’ is more poetic. And also what you’d expect in country music. So that’s your answer.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Any other questions?”

  “Two,” said Bernie. “In no particular order, first—why would you arrange the car repair for the tip jar thief? Second, why don’t you sing ‘How You Hung the Moon’ anymore?”

  Lotty went still. She’d been starting to sound friendly, like they were having a nice chitchat, but now that was all gone. “Who are you?” she said.

  “I’m a fan of your music.”

  Lotty batted that away with the back of her hand.

  “And also a private investigator,” Bernie said.

  Her eyes widened and she shrank back a bit. Humans sometimes do that when they’re scared, although not always. But their smell changes every time—sharpening in a somewhat oniony and not unpleasant way, as Lotty’s did now.

  “Working for who?” she said.

  “Nobody,” said Bernie.

  “Then those two questions—who are you asking them for?”

  “Myself.”

  “Why?” Lotty rose. “What the hell are you doing here?” She stabbed her papers at Bernie, like they were some sort of weapon.

  “Offering my help,” Bernie said.

  “I don’t need help from you or anyone else. Please leave.”

  That seemed strange to me, on account of how Lotty was shaking. The sun came out and shone down on her. She wasn’t wearing makeup and all the lines on her face were suddenly visible. For some reason, that made me like her face better, and I already liked it a lot.

  “Here’s my card, just in case.” Bernie stepped up, put it on the piano.

  “Just go,” said Lotty.

  My tail started wagging, like … like it was trying to change her mind? Something like that. My tail has a mind of its own, sometimes even gets ahead of me. For example, it knew we needed a client. I agreed. Where else does the money come from in this business?

  Lotty gazed at me, and the angry, scared look in her eyes softened a bit.

  “Are you afraid of someone?” Bernie said.

  “You,” said Lotty.

  “You’ve got nothing to fear from us,” Bernie said.

  She didn’t answer for what seemed like a long time. Then, looking over Bernie’s shoulder and into the distance, she said, “So long.”

  We went. My takeaway? Lotty was a big fan of mine, but maybe not of Bernie. She’d have to get to know him better.

  Nine

  We drove down the dusty road from Lotty’s ranch. No horses, no cattle, no sheep. Not even a pig! Probably a good thing, the pig part. I’d once found myself alone in a barn with a pig. A locked barn, shouldn’t leave that out. Plus this particular pig was very large, had long, sharp tusks, and possibly hadn’t enjoyed a good meal in some time. At one point in our encounter, I got the strange idea—just from a certain way of grunting he had, but it made an impression on me—that he wanted to make a meal of … well, I’d rather not go there. I was happy to see that Lotty had no pigs. Let’s leave it at that.

  Bernie gazed at Lotty’s fence as we passed by, many of the posts leaning and some down flat. “I just don’t get it,” Bernie said. “Looks like what they call rural poverty, but—”

  The phone buzzed.

  “Hello,” Bernie said.

  “Hi, Dad!” Charlie’s voice came through the speakers. “Is it true? You’re out of the hospital?”

  “Couldn’t be truer. I was going to come see you today.”

  “Can you come right away?”

  Bernie’s eyes got misty. You didn’t see that very often. Also his voice got choked up, and that was a first. “Of course,” he said.

  “Whew,” said Charlie. “I have to do a project for Ms. Minoso.”

  “She’s your teacher?” said Bernie, no longer choked-up although still a bit misty-eyed, and also surprised. Something seemed to be going on inside him, but who could keep up with whatever it was?

  “Of course, Dad! Jeez.”

  “What happened to Ms. Peoples?”

  “She met a rich guy online and moved to Florida.”

  Bernie grinned. How happy he looked, those other looks now gone! “What’s the project about?”

  “Aquifers.”

  “Yeah?” Now he was beaming, his eyes on the road, but maybe not really seeing, because he didn’t seem at all interested in a car coming the other way, meaning I didn’t think he noticed the driver peering our way and looking not a bit happy to see us. The driver was Clint Swann, Lotty’s … manager, was it? Boyfriend? I’d never gotten that clear. I turned to watch as he sped toward the ranch, his car disappearing in a dust cloud.

  “Mom says you’re the go-to guy.”

  “She does?”

  “Only for aquifers.”

  “Good enough,” Bernie said. “When’s it due?”

  “What’s ‘due’?”

  “When you have to hand it in.”<
br />
  “Yesterday.”

  “Oh?”

  “But I got an extension.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “I said can I have an extension.”

  “Nice. Till when?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  I looked back again. The dust had settled. Far in the distance I could see the ranch house, a tiny squarish shape, and a metallic glare, maybe off the windshield of a car parked in front.

  * * *

  Leda and Charlie—plus Malcolm, the new husband, with the very long toes—live in High Chaparral Estates, maybe the fanciest part of the whole Valley, although not the nicest. Mesquite Road is the nicest, in case I haven’t made that clear already. Charlie came running outside the moment we pulled into the drive. Sometimes—not nearly often enough, in my opinion—humans go out of their minds with joy. Hard to think of a better sight, especially when the human involved is still a kid. So the next moment, with Charlie in Bernie’s arms getting hugged and hugged—both of them out of their minds in the best way—was very nice to see. I was just about to hop out of the car and get involved myself when flying out the open front door came … well, maybe I’d better back up a little.

  But that turns out to be hard to do! Backing up and organizing a whole lot of—what would you call them? Facts? Bernie often talks about facts and I love listening, but the fact is I’m not sure what he means by facts. So right now all I can pass on to you is that running after Charlie was what still might be called a puppy, although now somewhat sizable, especially his paws. This puppy—Shooter, by name—and I went way back, even … even before there was a Shooter, as I had heard more than once. Also I’d heard more than once that Shooter was the spitting image of me. The spitting part confuses me, since we don’t do that in the nation within. We’re kind of like women in that respect. But the point is that Shooter had turned up in our neighborhood—of all possible neighborhoods!—and after a lot of events not so easy to remember, he ended up here with Charlie in this McMansion, except for the Mc part, as Malcolm always says. I think it’s a joke of some kind, since he always laughs when he says it. No one else does, except for Leda, and maybe she’s not laughing quite as hard as she used to. But don’t trust me on things like that. Especially now, when I no longer seemed to be in the car. Instead I was on Leda’s beautiful lawn, soft and green, joining in on all the running. Not that I was touching the lawn, except for when I was making my cuts. I was zooming along at pretty much my fastest, meaning my paws were hardly touching down. Was Charlie part of all this running? Perhaps not. I caught a glimpse of him over by the car, still hugging Bernie. But Shooter was a different matter. He was running, and not just running, but streaking right beside me, cut for cut! I bumped him! He bumped me! I bumped him good and hard so he’d stay bumped. And what was this? Shooter bumped me right back, the exact same kind of staying-bumped bump I’d just laid on him? Who did he think he was? I bumped him a bump that sent him flying and then tore around the house to the backyard, a lovely big yard with more lawn, flowers, bushes, trees, an outdoor kitchen, a fire pit, a swimming pool, and lots of other fun stuff.

  But it was the swimming pool that reminded me of why we were here. Wasn’t it all about the aquifer? Funny how the mind works. As I maybe mentioned already, I’d once seen the aquifer, a tiny puddle way down at the bottom of a construction site. That gave me an idea—one of my very best!—and the next thing I knew I was digging. Not that casual sort of front-paws digging, but all-out, all-paws digging, pedal to the metal. Digging didn’t even describe what I was up to. This was excavating! I was excavating this—flower-bed, was it?—to get down to the aquifer, no matter how deep. Hard work, sure, but all for Charlie, so I loved doing it. Well, I already loved doing it, but because of Charlie I loved it even more! I was so full of love that when I happened to glance over and notice Shooter at my side, excavating away at full blast, enormous clods of earth flying high into the sky—what a fine digger he turned out to be!—I didn’t mind a bit. The truth was at that moment I loved him, too. What a world! We dug and dug, digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the—

  Leda has this scream, so piercing it’s hard to believe a human can do it. I hadn’t heard that scream in a nice, long time, but I thought I sort of heard it now.

  * * *

  After that came a calm interlude where Shooter got removed to the house and I sat like a very good boy while Bernie rolled up his sleeves and shoveled earth back into the hole. Malcolm stood nearby, saying, “Bernie. Please. I have people for that.” Which only made Bernie work that shovel faster and faster.

  “If you don’t mind just smoothing that little section where the orchids were,” Malcolm said when it was over. Is it easy to smooth earth with rough jabs of the shovel? Probably not, but Bernie managed. My Bernie!

  * * *

  “What we’ll do,” Bernie said, back in our kitchen on Mesquite Road and rooting through drawers, “is make a three-dimensional model.”

  “What’s three-dimensional?” Charlie said.

  “Well,” Bernie said, “think of a box.” He made a shape with his hands. “Length, width, height. Interestingly enough, Einstein—” He paused, looked at Charlie more closely. “When was your last haircut?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Couple of days ago?”

  “He didn’t take much off.”

  “She,” said Charlie. “Ambrosia. Her and Mom like it long.”

  “And you? How do you like it?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said. “How do you like yours?”

  “Hmm,” said Bernie. “I don’t think much about it.”

  “Same,” said Charlie.

  Bernie smiled, a tiny smile, here and gone, but one of his best. “Okay—where were we?”

  “The bagel guy,” Charlie said.

  “Bagel guy?”

  “Einstein.”

  “How about we skip that part?”

  “Sure,” said Charlie. “Got any snacks?”

  “In the cupboard. Help yourself.”

  Charlie helped himself to snacks. He helped myself to snacks, too. Plus I myself helped myself to some of his snacks. Bernie, busy with all sorts of materials—colored pencils, papier-mâché, scissors, even for a while the blowtorch from the garage—didn’t have time for snacks. We got that project done, baby! What a team!

  * * *

  “You talked about the aquifer,” said Dr. Bethea, who used to be called Doc and was now Eliza, if I’d been following things right. We were at one of the picnic benches out back of Max’s Memphis Ribs, Bernie and Eliza sitting across from each other, and me perhaps closer to the smoker by the wall, where Cleon Maxwell was laying down another row of ribs. Cleon’s an expert chef, but even the best can slip up sometimes, for example by accidentally dropping a rib or two on the deck.

  “In the hospital?” Bernie was saying.

  “Especially after you first came to,” Eliza said.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s not uncommon. Although the aquifer subject at a time like that was a new one on me.”

  “What does it mean?” Bernie said.

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  The waitress came with beer for them and water for me. They clinked glasses.

  “But here’s to mystery in life,” Eliza said.

  “Within limits,” said Bernie.

  Eliza laughed, just at the moment she was taking a sip, giving herself one of those foam mustaches. She licked it off. That caught Bernie’s attention for some reason.

  “Charlie’s a great kid,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “There was some discussion, also especially in the early days, about whether he’d be allowed to come see you.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Leda was against it. So was Suzie. Malcolm got them to change their minds.”

  “Malcolm?”

  Eliza nodded.

  “I don’t remember much a
bout his visits,” Bernie said. “Actually nothing.”

  “Charlie came twice. The first time you were asleep and he stood in the doorway and looked at you, but wouldn’t come in. You were asleep the second time, too. That second time—you were off the ventilator by then—he came up to the bed and said, ‘Dad? Are you asleep?’ Your eyes stayed closed but you said, ‘Sit on the fastball.’ Charlie said, ‘It’s T-ball, Dad. There’s no pitching.’ You didn’t say anything. This is according to Suzie—I wasn’t there. You just smiled. A tiny smile she said, there and gone, but she was sure of it.”

  Bernie stared into his glass. There was only beer to see—not a particularly interesting sight, in my opinion—but it held Bernie’s attention for what seemed like a longish time.

  “How is Suzie?” Eliza said at last.

  “Good,” said Bernie, looking up. “As far as I know. We’re not together anymore.”

  “She told me that might happen.”

  “She did?”

  “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Eliza looked Bernie in the eye. “These are the basics: I’m divorced—once—no kids, very picky, and come from a family of long-lived folks.”

  Bernie held her gaze. “Anything else I need to know?”

  Eliza gave him a look I’ve never understood, where one eye closes a bit and the other doesn’t. Does it mean Easy there, podner? That was my best—and only—guess. “Want, maybe,” Eliza said, “but not need.”

  “You’re not the close-to-the-vest type,” Bernie said.

  “Not when it comes to the important things,” Eliza said. “What’s the point?”

  “It’s an occupational hazard in my line.”

  Eliza thought about that. “Tell me more about your line.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” Eliza said. “Especially the part where personal courage comes in.”

  Bernie grunted. Eliza waited for him to go on but he didn’t. He never does after a grunt like that.