“Hey,” said Butch, “gettin’ with the program, huh?”
Sure thing. And then came another thought, not my usual kind: Sure thing, if the program is skinning a cat. A lovely feeling went through me from nose to tail, the feeling of being in command.
Butch jiggled the chain. “Need to piss or anything like that?”
Not really, although marking this and that was never a bad idea. I had a sudden crazy urge to mark Butch. What a good mood I was in!
“Well, then,” Butch began, just as a black limo pulled into the lot. At about the same time, Georgie came out of the building and hurried over to meet the limo. He opened one of the rear doors and a short round man with glossy black hair stepped out. They shook hands, talked for a moment or two, and walked over to me and Butch.
“This is Butch,” said Georgie, “one of our junior operatives.” Whatever that meant, it seemed to come as a surprise to Butch, judging from the look on his face. “Butch, say hi to Mr. Han, president and CEO of the biggest private investigation company in Shanghai.”
“Wuhu,” said Mr. Han.
“Excuse me?” Georgie said.
“Wuhu,” Mr. Han said. “No Shanghai.”
“Six of one,” Georgie said. “And this here, Mr. Han, is, uh, Wilkie. Wilkie,” he went on, looking at me for some reason, “meet your new owner, Mr. Han.”
“Master,” said Mr. Han, “and only if animal is passing test.”
“Understood,” Georgie said. “Let’s get started.”
TWENTY-ONE
What I was thinking, Dezhang—okay to call you Dezhang, or you want I should stick with Mr. Han?” Georgie said. In the station wagon again, Georgie now at the wheel, Mr. Han beside him, Butch in the backseat, me in the very back.
Mr. Han made a little nod, kind of a bow.
“Dezhang it is,” Georgie said. “Pronouncing that right?” Another little nod.
“Cool,” Georgie said. “Takes some getting used to, first name coming last.”
“Excuse, please?” said Mr. Han.
“We do the opposite—first name first. Maybe when you guys take over, I’ll be Malhouf Georgie.” Georgie laughed, glanced at Mr. Han, maybe to see if he was joining in. Mr. Han was not.
“Hey,” said Butch, “you think in China they order rolls egg?”
There was a silence. Then Georgie said, “Your résumé in shape for sending out?”
Butch shrank down in his seat.
“What I was proposing, Dezhang,” Georgie went on, “was we use a real case for this test.”
“Real case?” said Mr. Han.
“That’s on the books right now,” Georgie said. “Show you what Wilkie here can do in game conditions. You’re stealing this dog, Dezhang, believe me.”
What was this? Was Georgie talking about me? What was all this Wilkie business all of a sudden?
“Twenty grand no steal,” said Mr. Han.
That seemed to bring on another silence. Georgie cleared his throat, something humans do when they want to make a fresh start. “This particular case involves the restaurant business, just about the flakiest business out there.”
“Test first,” said Mr. Han. “Then eat.”
Georgie shot him a quick glance. “Gotcha,” he said.
We drove through some bad South Pedroia streets, all familiar to me. For example, down that street—a mean one, as Bernie would say—was where a perp name of Darren Quigley had lived not so long ago. I had no problem with Darren—hadn’t I scarfed up a Cheeto or two in his living room?—but he’d come to a bad end anyway, south of the border down Mexico way.
Georgie turned onto a street full of potholes, the high smokestack that never stops spewing rotten-egg-smelling smoke—the tallest thing in South Pedroia—towering overhead. Mr. Han pointed to it. “Who is owning?” he said.
“Good question,” Georgie said. “You wanna get the environmentalists on their case?”
Mr. Han stared at Georgie for a moment. Then he started laughing, the red-faced, doubled-over, tears-streaming laughter that’s almost scary. Georgie joined in. They laughed and laughed, high-fiving each other.
“I don’t get it,” Butch said.
Georgie stopped in front of a small cement-block house at the end of the street, dirt yard with rusted appliances in front, a garage bigger than the house in back.
“Man of the house drives a truck for the biggest restaurant supplier in the south Valley, longtime client,” Georgie said. “Constant inventory shortfalls, especially in big-ticket items, steaks, chops, ribs—big concern. Malhouf International has narrowed down the suspects to three, truck driver being numero uno. He’s on the road at the moment and the missus is a flight attendant, working the—Atlanta route today, was it, Butch?”
“Miami,” said Butch.
“Miami,” Georgie said. “We dot the i’s at Malhouf International.”
Whoa. Mr. Singh’s mother had a red dot between her eyes, the only person I’d ever seen doing the eye dot thing. Was she mixed up in this restaurant scam? This case—at least it wasn’t one of ours—was getting complicated.
“… point being,” Georgie was saying, “that now would be an opportune time for sniffing around.”
We got out of the car, approached the front door of the little house, Butch holding my chain. The house was silent, except for the hum of a fridge inside. Georgie crouched down, examined the lock, then took out a key ring loaded with keys and selected one. We were going into the house? Why was that? The steaks were in the garage in the back. What could be more obvious? A soft breeze blew from that direction, and it smelled like the Police Athletic League picnic just before the grilling starts.
Georgie stuck the key in the lock and turned it. “Presto,” he said, and pushed the door open. “Do your thing, Wilkie.”
Here’s a bit of strangeness: every time Georgie said Wilkie, my mind went straight to him hitting me across the face with the chain.
We went inside: me and Butch, then Mr. Han, and Georgie last. Shotgun house: I’d been in a zillion, maybe more. A tidy kitchen, everything put away except for two mugs sitting on the counter. Did anyone else notice the steam rising from them? No sign of it. Bernie would have, first thing. By now, he’d have had his hand on the butt of the .38 Special. But would we have been in the house in the first place? No way: we’d have been in the garage, packing up all those steaks. My mouth started watering, just at the thought.
We left the kitchen, moved down the hall. Behind me, Georgie sniffed the air. “Picking up anything, Wilkie?” he said, his voice low.
In fact, I was, coming from behind the very first door we reached. Human beings—and this is true as well in the nation within—give off unmissable odors during certain encounters in their lives. I paused by the door.
“In here?” Georgie said. He turned to Mr. Han. “Dollars to doughnuts goddamn room’s full of freezers.”
“What is doughnuts?” said Mr. Han.
That was a shocker. I wasn’t close to being over it, when Georgie opened the door and—
What was that word Bernie liked? Pandemonium? When all hell breaks loose? We always loved that, me and Bernie; we were a lot alike in some ways, don’t forget.
When events speed up, it’s hard to keep them straight. The first thing I saw was a naked woman lying on a bed, perhaps not lying, more scrambling around for the sheets and trying to pull them up over her. Was she screaming at the same time? I thought so, but my mind was more occupied by the fact that the old hiding-behind-the-open-door trick was about to get played on us.
What else?
Mr. Han was saying, “Excuse, excuse.”
Butch was saying, “What the hell? She’s supposed to be thirty-five thousand feet over Texas right now.”
And Georgie was saying, “You’re fired.”
At this point, a real big dude, almost Butch’s size, sprang out from behind the door. Real big, and like the woman, not wearing clothes. He was screaming, too, but not in the scared way; his scream
s were all about rage.
“Whoa,” said Georgie. “All a mistake. And aren’t you supposed to be in your truck today?”
“Um, Boss?” Butch said. “This ain’t hubby.”
“Well, then,” Georgie said, “since no one here comes off as lily-white, why don’t we forget the whole—”
And last, the most important fact of all: the big screaming dude suddenly had a meat cleaver in his hand, or maybe had had it the whole time. Again, hard to keep everything straight in situations like this, plus I was on my own. But even on my own, meaning no Bernie, I knew a few things right away. First, the screaming dude was in on the whole meat scam. Second, Mr. Han had already booked, was nowhere to be seen. No time for the other things, because the screaming dude was swinging that cleaver.
Georgie dove one way, Butch the other. The cleaver missed Butch’s head by not much and sank deep into the doorjamb. One interesting detail about that: Butch hadn’t let go of the chain, so it had gotten straightened right out, stretched flat against the door-jamb. And that cleaver had sliced through it clean. By the time I realized that, Georgie and Butch were crawling frantically every which way and the screaming dude was trying to twist the cleaver out of the wall.
I booked, just like Mr. Han, down the hall and out the front door, which he’d conveniently left open. Did I happen to take a quick nip out of Georgie’s leg somewhere along the way? I have no recollection of that.
Outside, Mr. Han was already in Georgie’s car, snapping down the locks and pulling out his cell phone. He looked at me. I looked at him, a nice enough gentleman but with a lot to learn, beginning with doughnuts. Screaming rose from the house, everyone inside joining in now. I ran into a neighbor’s yard—the chain so short it didn’t drag on the ground, not bothering me at all—saw a fence at the end, not high enough to pose a challenge, kind of disappointing, and leaped over. Chet the Jet in action, the free wind in my face!
I landed in a small parking lot next to one of those self-storage places, and not only that, but—amazing!—our self-storage place, at least the end unit was, where we kept the Hawaiian pants. There were stacks and stacks of them inside, Hawaiian pants with bird patterns, fish patterns, flower patterns, palm tree patterns, martini glass patterns—you name it. Bernie still didn’t understand why Hawaiian pants hadn’t taken off and made us rich, and if Bernie didn’t understand it, neither did I. I trotted right up to that end unit, stood outside, and sniffed. What was I hoping for? Bernie’s scent? I didn’t pick it up, not a trace. Meanwhile: sirens, and getting louder. I glanced around, spotted a narrow alley, and headed that way, breathing my kind of air again—hot and dry, smelling of all sorts of Valley things: flowers and mesquite, grease and smoke, and always—you didn’t even have to be near a grate—the smell of sewage on the move.
The alley led to another alley, lined with boarded-up buildings on both sides, lots of graffiti on the walls, and suddenly: a rat, practically in front of my face. Those nasty eyes, that nasty smell: of course, I took off after the rat, chasing him around the corner and almost snapping him up, before he darted into a tiny gap at the base of a brick wall.
I kept going, soon found myself on a street with strip malls, gas stations, fast-food joints, stretching on and on. Blight, big guy: that’s what Bernie would have said. He hated blight, whatever exactly that might be, but in my opinion there was good in everything. For example, when I strolled around to the back of one of those fast-food joints, there stood a trash barrel, and when I knocked it over, out came lots of interesting stuff, including a perfectly good burger or two, which I made short work of, on account of how long it had been since my last square meal.
Ah. I sat on the broken pavement and licked my muzzle. The back door of the fast-food joint opened and a guy appeared, squeezing out a mop. His gaze went to me, then the trash barrel, and back to me; he yelled something and shook the mop.
I rose and trotted off, soon settling into my go-to trot, the trot I can keep up pretty much forever. The sun was sinking down in the sky, and I had it at my back: that was important. My mind went kind of blank. I was aware of the downtown towers coming closer, and a little later I reached the dried-up riverbed that ran all the way across town to the airport. Not too long after that I was moving alongside one of the fenced-off runways. A plane rolled down the tarmac, picking up speed. A kid near the back looked out the window, saw me, and waved. That was nice. Then I thought of Devin. Where were we with that? My mood changed. The plane lifted off, made a sweeping turn, and got small in a hurry. By that time, I was partway down the steep slope beyond the runways, the slope that led into the canyon.
And not just any canyon: this was our canyon. My mood changed back to normal, kind of my go-to mood. I was still far from home, but Bernie and I had once hiked all the way from Mesquite Road to the airport. What a picnic we’d had, watching the planes come and go! I sped up, couldn’t help it.
The sun was just going down as I made my way along the high ridge that ended at the big flat rock across the gully from Mesquite Road. Standing on the big flat rock—a soft, red rock that felt nice and warm under my paws—I could gaze down and spot—yes!— our place. Home always looked strange from up here, so small and mostly just orange-tiled roof. But there was our patio, with the flower pots and the swan fountain that Leda put in. The water flowing from the swan’s beak glinted in the soft, early evening light; I could just make out the splashing on the stones. A lovely sound: my ears were already home.
Kind of a strange thought, and I was just starting to forget it, when from out of nowhere a very small member of the nation within came running over the crest of the ridge. Real small but fast for a little guy. He scooted toward the rock, saw me, and tried to put on the brakes, but lost his footing and tumbled in the dust. He scrambled up, gave himself a shake—just as I would have done, dust rising in little clouds—looked up at me, and started barking.
Hey! He turned out to be just a puppy. Still, no one barks at me and gets away with it, so I barked back. He barked. I barked louder. The little guy barked louder, too; a funny-looking little guy: for one thing, his ears didn’t match, one being mostly white, the other mostly black. My mind almost caught on that fact, as though wanting to stop there for a bit, but then I got busy barking still louder. And damned if he didn’t get louder, too, high-pitched and very irritating. I gave him a quick bark bark bark, each one louder than the last. And he came right back at me! And then— what was this? From down below: yip yip yip, the most irritating bark in creation. Iggy?
I checked the house next door to ours, a pretty good distance away, but not so far that I couldn’t make out Iggy, standing on the upstairs balcony, front paws on the railing. Somewhere behind him and out of sight, I heard old Mr. Parsons saying, “Iggy, what the hell?”
Meanwhile, this little bugger planted on his solid little bugger legs wouldn’t stop! Bark bark bark! Not quite as high-pitched as Iggy, but there was a throatiness to it, like he was—could it be possible?—trying to intimidate me. I barked. He barked. Iggy went yip yip yip. I whipped around and barked at Iggy, real fierce. The little length of chain still on me came loose and fell to the ground. Whoa. I’d barked it off? No time for getting anywhere with that, because now old Mr. Parsons appeared on the balcony, stumping along on his walker. He stood beside Iggy and peered out in my direction, shielding his eyes with one hand.
“Edna?” he called. Voices carried in the desert air; Bernie had made that point many times, especially when we were in stealth mode, one of our favorites. “Are you awake? Something here you should see.” I heard Mrs. Parsons’s voice somewhere back in the house, but couldn’t make out the words. Then Mr. Parsons said, “Chet seems to have gotten loose.” Mrs. Parsons spoke again, and Mr. Parsons said, “Right, no news there. But he’s got this little puppy tagging along. And Edna? The puppy’s Chet in miniature, to a T.”
TWENTY-TWO
The puppy barked again. I’d had enough. I jumped down from the red rock, gave him a bump with the end
of my nose, just hard enough to get his attention. He flew into the air, landed with a thump, and rolled down the slope, all the way to the bottom of the gully. Got your attention now, little friend? I was just thinking that thought when the puppy bounced up, glared at me, and went right back to barking! Hard to believe. At the same time, that kind of behavior reminded me of someone; couldn’t quite think who. I just stared at him. Meanwhile, Iggy was back to yip-yip-yipping. I glanced over at him. Was he trying to scramble over the balcony railing? Didn’t he realize it was a long way down? What did Bernie say at times like this? Something about problems in stereo, stereo meaning … I wasn’t quite sure. I barked at Iggy, barked at the puppy, barked at myself, not sure why. It was time for … for Bernie to do something. Maybe he was back in the house, safe and sound, in the middle of one of his naps. I barked at him, the loudest yet: BARK BARK BARK.
A sudden silence fell, almost like the whole world had stopped, that somehow I had stopped it. And in that silence, I listened my very hardest for Bernie’s call: “Chet? Where are you?” or “What’s all the racket, big guy?” or something along those lines. But nothing like that happened. Then, from way across the canyon where all the new houses were sucking up what was left of the aquifer—as Bernie had mentioned to the developer at a meet-and-greet cook-out, the conversation going downhill fast after that—came a bit of a surprise: the sound of one of those human inventions we could do without in the nation within, namely, a dog whistle. Is that nice, to make a sound like getting pricked with a sharp stick deep inside the ears, with the added touch that you yourself, the blower, can’t hear it? They really can’t! Humans, I mean. In the nation within, we hear it all too well. The puppy, for example, ears stiff and pointed, was already climbing the slope as fast as he could, his paws—how big they were considering his size!—churning up clods of dirt. This was the being-called game; I knew it from K-9 school. The only way to stop the horrible noise was to run as fast as possible to whoever was responsible for making it. Not much of a game, compared to fetch, for example. The little fella zoomed back up the ridge and over the crest, disappearing from view. I went the other way, climbing the trail that led to the back gate of our house.
The Dog Who Knew Too Much Page 16
