Tender Is the Bite

by Spencer Quinn

  Bernie laughed.

  “Not every day you see a dog with a snakeskin collar,” Hector said.

  “Gator skin, actually,” said Bernie.

  “There a story to that?”

  Bernie nodded. “But the most dramatic parts are known only to Chet.”

  “I reckon he knows we’re talkin’ about him—tail’s a dead giveaway.”

  Something about my tail? Yes, I could feel it. I myself was perfectly still and calm, correct behavior in an interview. My tail is not always a team player. I got it back in line, and in no uncertain terms.

  “Anything else you noticed about the other fellow, beside the cop possibility?” Bernie said.

  Hector shook his head. “Fair-skinned, but I didn’t get a good look. He wore sunglasses—the mirror kind—and a baseball cap.”

  “Remember the logo?”

  “Diamondbacks.”

  “How about his car?”

  “Black sedan.” Hector pointed. “The driver parked it over there and stayed in the car.”

  “Did you get a look at the driver?”

  “Not really. Might have been a big guy—just from his arm resting on the doorframe—but I wouldn’t swear.” Hector checked his watch. “Anything else?”

  “The name of the rodeo team coach.”

  Hector looked surprised and also pleased. “So it is about a horse after all?”

  Bernie was quiet for a moment and then said, “Yeah. Partly.”

  Oh? That was disturbing. Perhaps it was a new add-on to Bernie’s interviewing technique.

  “Ms. Wynona Antrim’s the rodeo coach,” Hector said. “She’s a legend around here.”

  “I’d like to talk to her,” Bernie said.

  “Hang on.”

  Hector went inside, locked the door, and disappeared into an office off the main hallway.

  Bernie turned to me. “So far, you’re solving this case all by yourself.”

  How nice of Bernie! But way too modest. He’s always a big help in our work. For example, I hadn’t been sure we’d been making much progress. And now I knew we were. The Little Detective Agency, my friends. Keep that in mind.

  Hector came back outside. “She runs a little place outside of town.” He handed Bernie a scrap of paper. “One other thing. That possible cop fellow? Might have been a redhead. Hard to tell with the cap and all.”

  “You’re an excellent observer,” Bernie said.

  Hector shrugged. “Had nothing else to do for a spell. Eighteen years, seven months, eight days, to put it in numbers. Took the time to educate myself a little bit.”

  Bernie’s eyes got bright. “Then maybe you can help me,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Arizona is to New Mexico as…”

  “Donald Duck is to Daffy Duck,” Hector said without the slightest pause. He went inside and got back to mopping the floor.

  * * *

  “I’d never have thought of that,” Bernie said as we drove out of town. “I was headed in the direction of something stiffer, like Ella Fitzgerald to Billie Holiday. Ducks are way better.”

  Billie Holiday was in the conversation? I know Billie Holiday. There are times in our life when we listen to her a lot, maybe some of the down times—meaning Bernie’s down times, since mine don’t seem to come around. Bernie’s don’t happen often, but when they do, it’s my job to boost him back up, and Billie Holiday’s a big help. Have you heard “If You Were Mine,” for example, and that trumpet at the end? It does things to my ears that you wouldn’t believe. And now, out of the blue, ducks were better than Billie Holiday? Ducks quack. This had to be one of Bernie’s jokes.

  “What we’re leaving out,” Bernie said, checking Hector’s scrap of paper, “are the whys and wherefores of those eighteen years, seven months, eight days. I know the book is closed, and that’s the right thing, and yet…”

  I waited for more, but there was no more. We turned onto a dirt road that dead-ended at a little adobe place with a couple of pickups outside and a few empty tables in the shade. The smell of horse was everywhere, also some mule thrown in, and plenty of chicken. Only the chickens were visible, pecking at the dirt around the tables. They scattered as we passed by. Why did that make me feel pretty good about myself? There are mysteries in everyone’s life. I’m cool with that.

  We sat down at one of the outdoor tables. A full water bowl lay close by on the stone floor, always a promising touch. Bernie read the sign on the wall. “Lucky Horseshoe Bar.” I’d already noticed a big silver horseshoe nailed to the front door. Horses wear shoes. Why is that? Humans wear shoes, too, but that’s it, horses and humans. Are horses trying to tell humans, hey, we’re a lot alike, you and me, buddy? That had to be it, just another annoying thing about them.

  The door opened, and a woman came out. She was short, broad-shouldered, with strong squarish hands and short graying hair. “Menu?”

  “Just drinks,” Bernie said. “Beer for me—anything local you think is good. And I’m sure Chet appreciates the water bowl.”

  She looked at me. “Chet’s the name of the dog?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes shifted to Bernie. She went back inside.

  “We don’t think about gravity enough,” Bernie said.

  Uh-oh. I had never once thought about gravity and had no idea what it was. Also, a job like mine already comes with plenty of thinking, too much, if you want the truth. How could there be room in my mind for any new thinking?

  “It’s like how they found Neptune,” Bernie went on.

  Gravity and now Neptune? I made no attempt to understand. That didn’t mean I wasn’t listening. I always listen to Bernie. His voice is like a lovely brook bubbling by.

  “They looked at the numbers from Uranus and sensed something unseen pulling at them,” he said. “That’s how I feel about this case. There’s some big body out there distorting the lives of a whole bunch of—”

  The woman returned carrying a tray, and Bernie went silent. She set a glass of beer on the table.

  “Will that be all?”

  “Not quite,” Bernie said. “We’re looking for Wynona Antrim.”

  “You’re Bernie Little?”

  Bernie sat back. “How did you know?”

  “We’ll get to that. I’m Wynona. What do you want?”

  “Well,” Bernie said, “I’m guessing you already know what we do for a living.”

  Wynona nodded.

  “Right now, we’re looking for someone you coached on the rodeo team a few years back,” Bernie went on. “Her name’s Johnnie Lee Goetz.”

  “What do you want with her?”

  “Originally, it was help in finding another person. Now the case has gotten more complicated.”

  “Who’s this other person?”

  “Mavis,” Bernie said. “We didn’t get to the last name.”

  Wynona’s face didn’t change, and neither did the way she was standing or anything else you could see. But her smell turned just the littlest bit nervous. “Why are you looking for her?”

  Was this interview going well? I didn’t think so. Normally, Bernie handles the questions and whoever he’s talking to comes up with the answers. What we had now was upside down. How was that going to work?

  “The question is what Mavis wants—or wanted—from us,” Bernie said. “She got in touch and then disappeared.”

  “So?”

  “So we’re worried about her.”

  “Who is ‘we’?”

  “Me and Chet. The Little Detective Agency.”

  Wynona looked in my direction. She caught me at a good time, in a moment of discovery, the object of discovery being a Cheeto, somewhat fresh, under the table. I actually prefer Cheez-Its to Cheetos, but why be fussy about things like that? I looked back at Wynona, and made an attempt, perhaps not successful, to take my time with the Cheeto. Something in her eyes—eyes of the no-nonsense kind—changed a little. They didn’t go all the way to yes-nonsense, but did seem to warm up a bit.

  She turn
ed to Bernie. “Wait here.” Wynona went back into the bar.

  Bernie took a sip of his beer. “Very nice.” He looked around. Green hills rose in the distance, the greenest country I’d seen in some time, not counting golf courses. Wynona returned, carrying a glass of beer, and sat at the table.

  “Normally, I never talk about people I know to people I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t even talk about people I know to people I do know, not unless there’s a very good reason. Gossip is never a good reason.” She raised her glass and downed quite a lot of what was in it, half or more. A bit of froth clung to her upper lip, a look I always like to see. She wiped it off on the back of her hand way too soon. “I certainly don’t know you,” she went on. “But you come highly recommended from a person I trust.”

  “Who?” Bernie said.

  “We’ll get to that,” said Wynona. Hadn’t she already said that once before? Who the hell was running this interview? One thing was clear: she was not a person to be messed with. And anyone who tried—a horse, for example!—would get nowhere. I remembered then that Wynona coached the rodeo team, and suddenly I understood … well, everything, just about.

  “Let’s start with the kids in this town,” Wynona said, “really in this whole corner of the state. It’s not like the Valley, so don’t make that mistake.”

  She waited for Bernie to react. I knew he’d have a special nod for this, but he didn’t use it, maybe saving it for another day. Instead, he smiled a quick little smile—looking so young for a second or two!—and said, “I won’t.”

  Wynona gave him a little nod. “Some of our kids leave after high school—either for college or just to taste the outside world—and some stay. Of the ones who leave, maybe half end up coming back. The kids who don’t come back are the most self-reliant, in my opinion. They can compete in the outside world, or at least they’ve convinced themselves they can. People say they’re the ones who want to make something of themselves, but I see them more like the old pioneers. Maybe I’m crazy, but I believe there’s still a pioneer spirit in America.” She drained the rest of her beer. “One day, it’s going to burst free and wash away all the crap.” She gave Bernie a close look. “You think I’m talking out of my hat?”

  Ha! Did she think she could fool Bernie that easily? She wasn’t even wearing one!

  “I agree with everything, except maybe the bursting-free part,” he said. Which had to be brilliant. I got the feeling we were back in charge.

  “I can always hope,” Wynona said, a bit of a surprise since that was one of my core beliefs and I wouldn’t have thought Wynona and I had much in common. “Anyway, that’s all preamble to the main point, which is that Johnnie Lee is in that last group, the pioneers. She was hands down the best rodeo rider I ever coached—two-time state cutting-horse champion, three-time state breakaway roping champion, all-around cowgirl in her senior year. Natural talent was only part of it. Johnnie Lee’s ambitious. All my rodeo girls are self-reliant and tough, but not all of them have big desires for themselves. More than there used to be, but still not many, not here.”

  “Have you kept up with her?” Bernie said.

  “Only at first. She went to ASU but dropped out after a semester and got a job as a riding teacher somewhere in the Valley. Silence after that until last month, but I never worried. As long as she was working with horses, I knew she’d be all right. I was wrong.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She was scared,” Wynona said. “I heard it in her voice. Johnnie Lee—the Johnnie Lee I knew—was hard to scare. She told me she needed help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Protection, she said, but she couldn’t trust the police.”

  “Why not?”

  “She didn’t elaborate. The conversation was disjointed, to say the least. I suggested she hire someone like…” Wynona gave Bernie a direct look. “Like you.”

  “Like me personally?”

  “I hadn’t heard of you then. But I called a reporter I knew in the Valley—a reporter who came out here a few years ago and did a story on high school rodeo. This reporter made an impression on me. She recommended you.”

  “What was the name of the reporter?” Bernie said.

  “Suzie Sanchez,” said Wynona.

  Fifteen

  Suzie was in the conversation? What a strange interview! Nothing strange about Suzie Sanchez, of course, one of my favorite humans. Bernie is numero uno, goes without mentioning, and after that is a gap and then comes Charlie, his kid with Leda. Only Charlie in this spot, not Leda, just to be sure you know. After that is a hugeish kind of gap followed by a few people—Suzie, Rick Torres, and Cleon Maxwell of Max’s Memphis Ribs, best rib joint in the whole Valley.

  Something special happens to Bernie when Suzie’s around, not just the change in his scent, which gets a little funkier, but a change inside him, a warming I can feel in a way that’s hard to describe. And it still happens when she’s around, even though she’s now married to Jacques. A fine wedding, by the way. I’d like to think I’ve been to my share of weddings, but the truth is I don’t attend as many as I used to, not after an incident at the wedding of Ziggy Ziggler, an old stock-swindling pal, whatever that is, exactly, who actually ended up marrying one of the guards on his Northern State cell block. But that’s just by way of background. The incident I mentioned had to do with an unusual dance, possibly called the hora, that I found somewhat exciting. At first. Then it became extremely exciting, followed by out-of-my-mind exciting, and the next thing I knew we were in the car, me and Bernie, with part—certainly not the whole, not even close—of something called the bridal bouquet in my mouth.

  Bernie and Suzie go way back to when she was a reporter for the Valley Tribune. Then she went to The Washington Post, possibly a step up, that part of it never clear to me, and they sent her to London. Was there talk of us going there, too? I clearly remember one night after a bourbon or two or several more, Bernie turning to me and saying, “We’d be fish out of water, big guy. How could that work out?” He didn’t have to say another word. I’d seen a fish out of water—a brightly colored little fella name of Montego, I believe—whose tank had fallen off a very high shelf, a shelf you’d have thought unreachable by just about anyone. In the end, we didn’t go to London. And soon after that, Bernie and Suzie weren’t a pair anymore, and when she finally came back to the Valley, she was with Jacques. His hands are a bit like Bernie’s, but smaller and showing no signs of throwing many punches. They’d both played college baseball, Bernie at West Point and Jacques at Caltech. That had led to some joking and a visit to the batting cage, and now they were buddies, in a way. But here’s an interesting fact. When Bernie’s around, Suzie’s scent becomes funkier the same way his does around her, and also, the warmness inside gets going, just like his. I mean even now, since the wedding. When she’s with Jacques, the warmness is there, no question, maybe even stronger than with Bernie, but not the funky part, which dwindles down. Is there any meaning to all that? I leave it to you.

  “Suzie’s an extremely impressive person,” Wynona said.

  Bernie’s eyes had an inward look that happens when he’s deep in his own head. Right next to me but actually far away, is what I’m trying to get across. It took me a long time to understand that.

  “Bernie?” Wynona said.

  He blinked and turned to her. “Uh, yes. She … she is.”

  “I looked her up. Bloomberg did a story on her. She’s heading up a company that’s bringing a whole new approach to news in the Southwest. Citizen journalism on steroids, they called it.”

  “So I heard.”

  Wynona gave Bernie a sideways look, then pointed at his glass. “Don’t like the beer?”

  “I do.” Bernie raised the glass and took a big gulp.

  At that point, Wynona did one of those amazing things that hardly any humans can manage, sticking two fingers in the mouth and whistling a whistle that’s sharp and loud beyond belief. It kind of takes possession
of my ears while it lasts, a feeling I love and hate at the same time. I always remember the folks who’ve got this one in their repertoire and try to be ready when the next time rolls around.

  Almost at once, the door to the Lucky Horseshoe Bar opened and a girl popped out, a glass of beer in each hand. She looked older than Charlie but not by much. Charlie is the best kid going, and the fact that there was no way he could have brought the beer over to the table without spilling or maybe even dropping the glasses didn’t change that. This girl did it smooth and easy, no problem.

  “Thanks, kiddo,” said Wynona.

  “You’re welcome, Auntie Wy,” said the kid. “Can I pet the doggie?”

  “Have to ask the owner,” Wynona told her.

  “We’re more like partners,” Bernie said. “But I know the answer to this one’s always yes.”

  The girl came closer, reached out, and patted my neck. “What’s his name?”

  “Chet,” said Bernie.

  “Chet,” she said, “your eyes are beautiful.”

  Kids. How can you not love them? She turned and walked back inside the bar. Wynona watched her the whole way.

  “Has something bad happened to Johnnie Lee?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” said Bernie. “Does the name Mickey Rottoni mean anything to you?”

  Wynona shook her head. “Who’s he?”

  “Johnnie Lee’s former boyfriend.”

  “Is he involved in this?”

  “Not now,” Bernie said. “When was the last time you heard from her?”

  “When I gave her your name. Since then, I’ve called or texted a dozen times. No response.”

  “We’ll need her number.”

  Wynona wrote on a cocktail napkin, handed it to Bernie.

  “Does she have any family here?” he said.

  “Her dad was never in the picture. Her mom remarried a few years back and moved away.”

  “Where?”

  “No idea. As for friends, I don’t think Johnnie Lee kept up with any, except for Mavis Verlander. I believe they were sharing an apartment or condo in the Valley.”

  “Was Mavis on the rodeo team?”