This was interesting. Most grown-up humans can read, in my experience. Was Diego trying to pull a fast one? I moved closer and kept an eye on him. Meanwhile Bernie went into some long explanation, not so easy to follow.
“… asked me to meet him the night before,” he was saying. “Any idea why?”
“No,” said Diego, now calming down.
“Who knew you had been in contact with Wendell?” Bernie said.
“Nobody.”
“Not Jimmy?”
“Kept it under my hat. No point in stirring things up prematurely.”
“What exactly was Wendell doing in Dollhouse Canyon?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
Bernie studied the rise that led over to Dollhouse Canyon. I saw movement up there, possibly a goat. Yes, a goat for sure. Actually a few, including a little one. I could head on up there and try to do some herding. Or not, goats and herding being the kind of combo it was.
“You keep goats up here?” Bernie said.
“Some,” said Diego.
A cloud passed over the sun. The goats bounded away and out of sight.
“I want you to keep your hat on about this conversation,” Bernie said.
“Why?” said Diego.
“Because of the grapes,” Bernie told him.
“Their juiciness?”
Bernie nodded, one of those nods that was all about agreement. The only problem was Diego’s hat, not on his head but still lying on the ground. Pick it up, Diego. Put it on. Get with the program. But he did not, instead just stood there watching as we walked back to the car and drove away.
Twenty-three
“Do you realize,” Bernie said, as we crossed the Rio Vista Bridge and took the exit that meant we were headed home, “that someday—and probably soon—every single word spoken by everyone at any time will be recorded and preserved?”
Oh, no. Poor Bernie. This kind of thing was happening to him more and more. Was it about the case? Hadn’t we solved it, what with Florian Machado locked up and all? Was there some other case I didn’t know about? Ah. I sat up straight, ready for anything, especially action and lots of it.
“A terrible prospect,” he went on, as we turned onto Mesquite Road, where right away the smell of me was in the air, faint but there, “except it would be useful at times. For example, did Hoskin Phipps really tell us he was unaware that there were vineyards just east of Dollhouse Canyon when he himself had prepared a hydrological study of Gila Wines for Malcolm and his buddies? I’d like to dial into—what would you call it? Big Brother’s Spoken Record Control? And just hear Hoskin’s exact—”
The phone buzzed. I was very happy to hear it. Whatever came next had to be easier on the brain.
“Bernie?”
Oh, good. It was Suzie. There was so much to like about her, including the fact that she was always easy on the brain, or at least my brain.
“Hi, Suzie,” Bernie said. Just his normal voice saying a very normal thing, but all at once I saw the flash of the diamond ring on her finger. Hey! I realized my eyes were closed! How do you like that? It just goes to show you can give your eyes a nice break from time to time and still stay in the picture—if you have a nose and ears like mine. Which you most certainly do not, so forget this part.
“You busy at the moment?” Suzie said.
“Well…”
“I’d like to see you. But if now’s no good how about—”
“Now’s okay,” Bernie said. “Or good. Okay or good or…”
There was a silence. Silence on the phone can be stronger than silence not on the phone, if that makes sense. This was one of those strong silences.
“Do you know Mudville?” Suzie said.
“Sure.”
“Meet in an hour?”
“All right.”
They clicked off, click click.
Bernie turned to me. “Mudville? We never went there, not once.” We drove home. Bernie showered and changed—very unusual in the middle of the day—and we got back in the car. “Is that the point?” he said.
Poor Bernie. Maybe we should go deep in the canyon and shoot spinning dimes out of the sky. That was the only fix I could think of.
* * *
Mudville turned out to be a bar that was all about baseball! Why had I never been here before? Baseball was my favorite game, the ball itself being the most interesting of all balls, so fascinating when you get inside, which is why you hear humans talking about inside baseball, although I’ve seen a human actually chewing on a baseball only once or twice. The lacrosse ball is second, by the way, with mouth feel like no other. But back to Mudville, with its baseball photos and baseball bats all over the walls, plus old beat-up baseballs in plastic display cases—one glance told me those display cases would be no problemo!—plus flags and banners and even a real batting cage, although no one was in there taking hacks at the moment.
Suzie sat at a table by the window overlooking the patio, empty on account of the heat. She smiled as she saw us coming. Suzie! I’d missed her. When I’ve been missing somebody I like to give them a big hello. And if her drink got spilled it was only water, and the waiter mopped it all up lickety-split.
“He hasn’t changed,” Suzie said when we were all sitting in our places, Suzie on one side of the table, Bernie on the other, and me between the table and the wall, a cozy but comfortable spot that “would keep him out of trouble,” as Bernie may or may not have said.
“Maybe he’s just gotten more,” Bernie said.
“Like more of everything?” said Suzie.
“Yeah.”
Suzie laughed. Bernie smiled. The thought of whoever they were talking about seemed to make them happy. I wondered who it was.
The waiter came back, gave me an odd sort of look and took the orders: beer for Bernie and Suzie, water for me. As the waiter walked away, back turned to us and at some distance, he muttered something under his breath. I hear all those under-the-breath mutterings, just so you know. “Spill it right on the floor for him or can he handle a bowl?” was the waiter’s actual muttering, the meaning not clear to me.
Suzie looked around, got a very pleased expression on her face.
“What?” Bernie said.
“It’s so American,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to come here.”
Weren’t we all Americans—me, Bernie, Suzie? I didn’t get it.
“You, uh, miss being here?” Bernie said.
“For sure,” said Suzie. “It’s not that I don’t like London. That old line about whoever’s tired of London is tired of life is true, Bernie, although I’m really starting to hate nifty little sayings like that.”
Bernie laughed. “And the people who make them up?” he said.
Now Suzie laughed, too. This was nice. Would we soon be going home for one of our little lie downs, me by the front door, Bernie and Suzie in Bernie’s bedroom? That was my guess.
The drinks came, the waiter placing my bowl on the floor, just out of reach. A moth was floating in my water. The waiter gave me a look. Did he think I’d be bothered by a moth in my water? He had a lot to learn about Chet the Jet. I gave him a look back.
Bernie and Suzie clinked glasses and drank.
“How are you doing, Bernie?”
“No complaints.”
“What are you working on?”
“It’s complicated, but basically a murder case that wants to stay open even though we closed it.”
“Tell me more.”
“First you,” Bernie said. “How long are you here for?”
“Quite some time,” said Suzie. “Semi-permanently, you might say.”
Bernie put down his glass. “You’re on assignment?”
“Kind of. But not for the Post. I resigned.”
“Whoa!” Bernie said.
My reaction was the same as his, and not for the first time. Suzie was a reporter, back when we first met her for the Valley Tribune, and then with the Washington Post, a real big deal, Bernie said, but
it meant she had to live in Washington—where we once paid her a visit and got all involved in a strange case about a bird that actually turned out to be a drone, my first experience with drones and last, I hope—and later they moved her to London, far far away and kind of upsetting for me and Bernie, and now? Here she was? Back in the Valley? So complicated, and there was a real good chance I’d gotten it wrong.
Humans get a bit flushed when they’re excited about something. I saw that flush on Suzie’s cheeks. “I liked working for the Post and they treated me well, but more and more I got the feeling I was coming in at the end of something and I’m more interested in whatever’s next.”
“Like a Pony Express rider on the day they’re laying down the first rails?” Bernie said.
“Oh, Bernie, that’s perfect!” Suzie said.
Perfect? With ponies involved? Weren’t ponies a kind of horse? I’ve had bad luck with horses, prima donnas each and every one.
Now Bernie flushed, too. He took a sip of beer, maybe more of a gulp. “So what’s your railroad train?”
“We’re still in the blueprint stage, but it’s all about the marriage between a professional, well-funded, and technologically sophisticated platform and the spirit of citizen journalism.”
“What’s the spirit of citizen journalism?” Bernie said.
“Uncorrupted, unherdable, dogged,” Suzie said.
Dogged? Right then I knew that Suzie was going to be a huge success.
“And,” Bernie said, “who is we?”
“I was coming to that,” Suzie said. She sat up straight, put her hands on the table. “There’s a partner. His name is Jacques Smallian. He’s a half-French, half-American investor.”
Bernie thought for a moment or two. “He’s the well-funded platform and you’re the spirit?”
“No.” Suzie frowned. “I wouldn’t say that at all.”
“My fault,” Bernie said. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”
“You didn’t?”
Bernie laughed. “I guess I did.”
Suzie laughed, too. What was funny? I didn’t know. They stopped laughing, each took a sip of beer.
“When’s the wedding?” Bernie said.
“Next month,” said Suzie. “Just a small wedding, maybe in that little garden at Rancho Grande. Jacques’s out looking at houses right now, but he’s coming here to meet you, if that’s all right.”
“Meet me why?” Bernie said.
“Because you’re the most important person in my life,” said Suzie.
“After him,” said Bernie.
Suzie nodded.
“Well,” Bernie said, followed by “uh” and then “um,” and finally, “could be worse.”
“Oh, Bernie.” Suzie smiled and shook her head. The waiter returned, took Bernie’s empty glass.
“Another?” he said.
“Make it bourbon,” Bernie told him. The waiter went off and Bernie turned to Suzie. “You’re going to be living here?”
“Our beat’s the American West,” Suzie said. “Everything about it.”
“Jacques’s from here?”
“He was born in Austin. His dad was American but his mom’s French and he grew up mostly in France, except for college. He actually played baseball, just like you.”
“What college?”
“Cal Tech.”
“They have baseball?”
“That’s not very nice,” Suzie said, but she was laughing as she spoke.
That was when a man came up to our table and put his hand on her shoulder. Suzie turned to him and her face just lit up. No one could have missed it and Bernie didn’t.
“What’s so funny?” the man said.
“Jacques,” said Suzie, “I want you to meet Bernie. He was just registering his surprise that Cal Tech has a baseball team.”
“Thank god they do,” Jacques said. “I wouldn’t have gotten on the roster anyplace else.”
Bernie rose. He and Jacques shook hands. Hey! Their hands looked kind of alike. What was up with that? Jacques’s hand was a bit smaller, and the knuckles weren’t swollen like Bernie’s—meaning … meaning … meaning he didn’t have Bernie’s sweet uppercut. Wow! I’d figured out a meaning, and all by myself. But no time to pat myself on the back now—something I actually can’t do although it sure would be nice—because the point I was trying to make was about the shape of their hands being pretty much identical. And not only that! While Jacques was a bit smaller, they seemed to have the same body type, plus there was a lot of similarity in their faces. Even their noses—although Jacques’s didn’t seem to have been broken much, if at all, and also wasn’t quite the size of Bernie’s—looked alike. But the kicker was their smells. I’d never come across a man who came close to smelling like Bernie, but Jacques did, if a little less powerfully, perhaps, and certainly not as strong on the funky side. So much to think about. I didn’t even know where to start, and before I could, Jacques was turning to me.
“And this must be Chet,” he said, squatting down in front of me so we were at head level. “Heard a lot about you, big guy.”
Whoa. No one called me big guy except for Bernie. Plus wasn’t this dude Suzie’s boyfriend? Didn’t Bernie want to be Suzie’s boyfriend again? And here he was, this new boyfriend dude, his face so close I could bite it right off.
Oh, no! What a terrible thought! I got busy unthinking it and pronto, but wasn’t quite finished when Jacques said, “Will he let me pat him?”
No way! Absolutely not! Out of the question!
“Sure,” said Suzie. “That’s one of his things.”
Oh, really? Getting patted by random strangers was one of my things? What an outrageous suggestion! The fact is I’m extremely picky about who …
Around then was when I realized that Jacques was giving me a nice pat, and perhaps had been patting me for some time. He turned out to be pretty good at it! How about moving on to the spot between my ears and—oh, my, he already had. He’d found that special spot. Try digging in your fingers and—and … and just like that. Well, well. Perfecto.
Yikes. Perfecto? Impossible. Bernie was perfecto. This dude—important to get the name right, bear it in mind—this dude Jacques couldn’t be as good as Bernie. That was off the table. What he could be was second best. That was on the table.
“Look at that tail,” Jacques said.
“I think he likes you,” said Suzie.
Bernie laughed a very small laugh. My tail dialed it down, all on its own.
* * *
Not long after that came more drinks and baseball talk, and the next thing I knew Bernie and Jacques had stepped into the cage and were fiddling with the dials on the pitching machine.
“Where should we start?” Bernie said.
“Seventy-five?” said Jacques.
“Five cuts each?”
“Sure.”
“Keep score?”
“Sounds good.”
“Hey, Suzie, come over here,” Bernie said. “You keep score. Anything that looks like a hit counts one. Fouls count zero.”
“Swings and misses are negative one?” said Jacques.
“You bet,” Bernie said. “This is America.”
“Oh for god’s sake!” said Suzie.
But Jacques thought whatever Bernie had said was funny and laughed and laughed. Then they started taking their cuts. Whack whack whack! How exciting! I wanted to be in that cage so bad, chasing those balls around and—
“Chet?”
Oops. Did I seem to be standing up, front paws on the cage? In the air hung the sound of recent barking, perhaps coming from the parking lot outside. I went and sat beside Suzie. You wouldn’t have noticed me.
Whack! Whack! Whack! They turned the machine up to eighty, eighty-five, ninety, numbers far beyond two, or four, the number that comes after two, which I’d recently learned when Bernie happened to get down on all fours. These codes can be cracked, my friends! Never lose hope.
But the important thing was t
he blur of those baseballs and the whacks of the bats and the laughter of Bernie and Jacques. Two guys having fun is always a nice sight. Up went the dial to ninety-five. Jacques whiffed on all his pitches. Bernie hit every one of his. What a sweet swing! It reminded me of his uppercut. Hey! I’d learned something new about Bernie.
“Wow,” Jacques said. “Can you handle one hundred?”
“Nah,” said Bernie, and switched off the machine. They shook hands again. This handshake was different from their first one, hard to explain how. Did it mean something? That was as far as I could take it on my own.
* * *
Back in the car, Bernie was in a real good mood. He didn’t say anything, had no particular expression on his face. I could just feel it, like he’d gotten lighter inside, could just unbuckle his seat belt and float up into the sky. Although ignore the seat belt part since we didn’t have seat belts in the Porsche, not if we meant seat belts that worked. But anyone could have seat belts that worked. Not everyone could have beautifully painted martini glasses—Nixon Panero of Nixon’s Championship Autobody at his very best—on the fenders. I was feeling very cheerful about … well, pretty much everything, when I began to sense a change in Bernie’s mood, a darkening, none of it on the outside but I knew.
We sat at a red light. “I guess it’s not so bad,” he said. “In the context of…” He took a deep breath, let it out slow. “Must’ve been the star of the team at Cal Tech. Can’t help but…”
He took another deep breath. The light turned green.
“Do we just blunder around stupidly until we’re done?” he said.
Someone honked an angry honk. I was kind of with them, except for the angry part. We moved on, and were soon in Pottsdale, zipping by Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More.
“Work is the answer, big guy,” Bernie said. “Let’s start with the little blip in Hoskin’s story.”
We came to the small adobe building with the tinted windows. Hoskin Phipps’s shiny new black Porsche sat outside. Bernie slowed down, almost pulled over, then kept going, hung a U-ee, and parked on the other side of the street, a little way down.
This was called sitting on somebody, in this case Hoskin, who might have fooled himself into thinking he’d beaten us in a car race, an impossibility, of course. Sitting on dudes was one of our specialties at the Little Detective Agency. Sometimes you had to sit forever and ever, but at other times—
Of Mutts and Men Page 19
