Bow Wow

by Spencer Quinn

  We watched Grammy and Mr. Longstreet. They went to a pickup in the lot. He led her around to the passenger side and tried to open the door for her. Grammy waved him off and said something that made him laugh. She got in by herself. Mr. Longstreet climbed behind the wheel, not easily, backed the truck around, and drove off, headed up the bayou. A green pickup, by the way, with some buoys and nets in the back.

  Birdie spoke softly. “Did you see that, Bowser? Mr. Longstreet’s ride is a green pickup. And with gear in the back.”

  I had seen that! I was in the loop! Did I feel good about it? The best!

  “But what did Joe Don Matisse say? Moss green, maybe? Do you think that pickup’s moss green?”

  I couldn’t help her with that, so I forgot about it immediately and went right back to what I’d been doing—namely feeling my very best.

  Not long after that, Lem arrived, rubbing his hands together like he couldn’t wait to get started.

  “Take off, Birdie! I got this. Go on outside and be a kid.”

  “I am being a kid,” Birdie said.

  Pretty obvious. How could Lem have missed it? He didn’t seem to care, just laughed to himself and picked up the phone. “Hey there, Lem LaChance down here at Gaux Family Fish and Bait. Got a quote on our Mardi Gras party cruise I was tellin’ you about.”

  We went outside. “Mardi Gras party cruise, Bowser? We don’t run a Mardi Gras party cruise. I wonder if Grammy knows.”

  I didn’t have the answer to that one, but I had seen party cruises and I wanted no part of them. Meanwhile, we seemed to be on a nice walk, over to the central square with the stone soldier in the middle, and down the street that led to the little strip mall on the edge of town, just before farm country. Birdie opened the door to Joe Don Matisse’s World Famous Tattoo Parlor and Spa and we went in.

  No one was in the place except for Joe Don, bent over a sketchbook, his tongue sticking out the way human tongues do sometimes, and his pencil looking strange in his hand, almost like it was impossible for a hand so enormous even to hold on to a pencil without it slipping away. He looked up.

  “Hey! Birdie. How ya doin’? Birdie and her faithful mutt—never did catch his name.”

  “Bowser. Mr. Matisse, I wanted to—”

  “Nice,” said Joe Don. “What kind of mutt is he, do you think?”

  “The shelter lady said his ears are shepherdy, his tail’s poodle-y, and his colors are like a Bernese. That’s all I know.”

  “This was Adrienne?”

  “The shelter lady? Yeah.”

  “Happen to notice her left ankle? That clown is my work.”

  “You tattooed a clown on Adrienne’s ankle?”

  “By request. I find clowns scary myself, but I don’t argue with paying customers.”

  Or something like that. I was hung up on what I’d just heard about myself: shepherdy, poodle-y, Bernese-y. Wow! Sounded unbeatable. I wanted to hear more about that—much, much more. I searched my mind for ways to make the discussion go back there and came up with zip.

  “So what can I do for you?” Joe Don said. “Let me guess—you want to learn the art of tattooing.”

  “Uh, no, sir. I actually came to ask you about moss green.”

  “Moss green?”

  “Yes. You said Snoozy left in a truck that was moss green. I don’t know what that is.”

  “Snoozy’s not back yet?”

  Birdie shook her head.

  “Well, you know Snoozy,” Joe Don said. “Doesn’t run his life on anything you’d call a schedule.” He opened a drawer full of nothing but pencils and selected a bunch, all of them green, to my way of thinking. “I’ll take you through some greens, Birdie.” He picked up a pencil. “This here is chartreuse green, really pops nicely on someone with very fair skin.” He drew a bit of curve, picked up a different pencil. “Kelly green, useful for something of this nature.” He tapped the snake tattoo on his shaved head, then drew some more on the paper, using pistachio, asparagus, viridian, olive, and other greens I didn’t catch. Joe Don made his drawing with all of them, a drawing that, from my angle, seemed to be a human face. “And finally, moss green.”

  “Oh,” Birdie said, “it’s too dark.”

  “Too dark? I think it looks kind of nice, especially if I use it for the hair.” He sketched in some hair above the human face, then held up the sketch for us to have a better look.

  “Wow!” said Birdie.

  I was with her on that. Joe Don had drawn a perfect picture of Birdie. It looked just like her, except for being all in green. He handed it to her.

  “On the house.”

  “Thanks!” Birdie said.

  We started toward the door.

  “Birdie?”

  We stopped and turned.

  “Know why I asked if you were interested in the tattooers art?”

  “No.”

  “Because you’re the artistic type.”

  “I am?”

  “Know how I know that?”

  Birdie shook her head.

  “Happen to have a brother-in-law—works over at WSBY, the Voice of Bayou Country. Program manager, in fact. And he played me a tape that come in on this contest they’re running. A tape of you singing.”

  “There’s three of us, actually—Nola Claymore, Junior Tebbets, and me.”

  “Uh-huh. Anyways, Roone—that’s my brother-in-law—was impressed. I’m pretty sure he’d like to talk to you.”

  “Oh my god—are we going to win the contest? Junior will be out of—”

  Joe Don made the stop sign. “Didn’t say nothin’ about the contest. This is more about Roone wanting to touch base with you.”

  “And the others? Nola and Junior?”

  “Just you.”

  “So where are we, Bowser?”

  We were on West Bank Road, which led from the Lucinda Street Bridge back to Gaux Family Fish and Bait. Birdie had to know that! We’d walked this way a zillion times, if zillion was a big number, and I was pretty sure it was. I gave her a close look. She didn’t seem feverish or anything like that.

  “Someone in a moss-green pickup drove Snoozy away from the tattoo parlor, but who? It wasn’t Deke—he rides a Harley, doesn’t even own a truck. And Mr. Longstreet’s pickup is too light, actually more like kelly green. So who was driving that truck? Or am I being too fussy about the color? Maybe a cloud was covering the sun when Joe Don looked out, or maybe …”

  Poor Birdie! I hated when she was worried. I leaned against her leg, cheering her up.

  “Bowser!”

  Did Birdie stumble? Maybe the slightest bit, but she didn’t fall. Birdie has great balance, just one of the reasons we go together so well.

  “What gets into you, Bowser?”

  Did she seem more cheerful? I thought so. We went into the store. Grammy was by herself. Grammy by herself is always on the move—rearranging things, cleaning up, buying this, selling that, running the business. But now she was standing very still, gazing out the back window, a glass of ice tea in her hand.

  “Hi, Grammy.”

  Grammy turned our way. She had a faraway look in her eyes. Had Grammy been daydreaming? If so, that was a first. She smiled a very warm smile, the kind where the eyes get involved. Coming from Grammy, it made me a bit uneasy.

  “Hi, Birdie.” She pointed with her chin. I love that human chin-pointing thing! “What you got there?”

  “Oh,” Birdie said. “It’s this sketch.” She handed it to Grammy.

  “My, my,” said Grammy. “This is very good. Who did it? Wait—signature right here at the bottom—J. D. Matisse, the ‘J. D.’ real small.” She looked up. “Joe Don did this when we were there?”

  “No,” Birdie said. “Just now.”

  Grammy’s dreamy-eyed look was fading fast. Fine with me: I prefer when humans stay put in their normal selves, if you get what I’m aiming at, and Grammy’s normal self is far from dreamy. “What on earth were you doing over there?”

  “Well, it’s about gre
ens, I guess. All the different shades of green. See how he used so many in the picture?”

  Grammy examined it again, squinting this time. “Actually I didn’t, but I do now. What got you interested in green?”

  “I’m mainly interested in moss green,” Birdie said. “Joe Don said the pickup that took Snoozy away from the tattoo parlor was moss green, so I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what that was.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I saw a green pickup that might be the one—it even had some nets and buoys in the back, which matches up with what Mrs. Roux said.”

  Grammy shook her head. “I’m starting to regret telling you about Sherlock Holmes and his little clues. Didn’t the sheriff say to give it a couple of days?”

  “Yeah, but the sheriff—” Birdie stopped herself.

  “What about him?”

  “Just that he could be wrong, that’s all. And anyway, it looks like the pickup I saw was kelly green, not moss green, except what if a cloud or something—”

  “Kelly green?” Grammy said. “Where did you see this truck?”

  “Uh, right here, Grammy. In our parking lot.”

  “You’re talking about Henry’s—about Mr. Longstreet’s pickup?”

  Birdie nodded.

  “What a strange idea! You couldn’t be suggesting he had something to do with Snoozy’s disappearance—if he’s even disappeared at all?”

  Birdie didn’t answer. She gazed over Grammy’s shoulder, into the distance.

  “Answer me, child.” Grammy didn’t say that angrily, or even especially loudly. She just spoke it plain.

  Birdie turned her head slightly, now looking Grammy in the eye. “Mr. Longstreet hates the bounty hunters, Grammy. He said could strangle them with his bare hands. And he did have Snoozy’s sunglasses.”

  “Which he found in that hut on Little Flamingo Island. But that’s not even the point. Henry Longstreet could never kill Snoozy or anyone else.”

  “Because he’s so old?”

  Grammy didn’t like the sound of that. “Are you being wise?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Because age has nothing to do with it. I’m talking about morality. He’s a moral person.”

  “But …”

  “Out with it.”

  “But Mr. Longstreet talked about that, too. He said it’s a lawman’s job to stop lawbreakers but everybody’s job to stop morality breakers.”

  “That doesn’t mean killing them,” Grammy said.

  “I think he likes sharks better than people.”

  “That’s nonsense. I knew Henry when he was just a little older than you. The time when you can really get to know someone. He’s a caring person in general.”

  “Was he so … so fierce back then?”

  Grammy’s eyes got an inward look. “Now that you mention it, yes. But it was buried. His life and work brought it more to the surface.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Well, I just found all this out, you understand.”

  “At Trixie’s?”

  “Exactly. We had so much catching up to do!” Grammy paused, coughed into her hand, that strange human cough where they don’t really have to cough. Then why do they do it? Don’t ask me. “After not seeing each other for so long, is what I’m trying to say,” Grammy went on. “The Longstreets only lived here—meaning in Cleoma, where I grew up—for two years, eighth and ninth grade. His dad taught at the university in Lafayette, but he got a better job out west and they moved away. We lost track of each other. The distance was so much bigger in those days.”

  “It was?”

  “Why, of course! You think all this social media of yours hasn’t shrunk the country? Back then we had the US Mail, end of story, unless you could afford long-distance calls, which we could not.”

  “Did … did you miss him, Grammy?”

  Grammy’s eyes shifted. She took a deep breath. “Most likely not. It was a long time ago and we were very young, too young to go steady or anything like that.”

  “What do you mean, ‘go steady’?”

  “They don’t say ‘go steady’ anymore? Good grief—figure it out. The point is, we lost track of each other. He ended up as a professor, like his father, got married—well, more than once, it seems—and now he’s a widower and retired, involved with all sorts of environmental things. And I—well, I had the life I had, which you know about.”

  “It’s not over,” Birdie said.

  Grammy gave her a long look and then a little nod.

  “So,” Grammy said, “let’s have no more crazy talk.”

  “No more crazy talk,” Birdie said. “But are you against the bounty now, too?”

  “I am not.”

  “So it’s all right to go after Mr. Nice Guy?”

  “How many times do I have to say it? There’s never been a bull shark in Betencourt Bridge.”

  “That’s not what Mr. Longstreet says. He says his father took a photo of a bull shark all the way up in Montville.”

  “Isn’t that interesting,” Grammy said.

  “Meaning you don’t believe it?”

  Grammy shook her head. “Meaning I might have to rethink a little.”

  “Grammy? Really?”

  “Don’t look so amazed.”

  BIRDIE SAT UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE night. I always start off by sleeping on the floor beside her bed—which I think is what Grammy prefers, since she’s mentioned it more than once—but I tend to climb up beside her somewhere along the way. Funny thing—I never remember doing it. I open my eyes in the morning and there I am, right beside Birdie! So I must be climbing in my sleep! Wow! But the point is that sleeping so close to Birdie, often with a paw on her shoulder in the friendliest way, I’m aware of how she’s sleeping, which is usually very deep and very still. So when she suddenly sits up, I notice.

  “Oh, Bowser, I just thought of something.”

  I wondered what it was, but not very much. The moon was shining through the window, turning Birdie into a beautiful silver statue, a statue with hair all over the place and one eye kind of puffy and almost closed. What a lovely sight!

  “The turtle shell,” she said.

  I tried to concentrate. One thing I’ve found about concentrating: The harder you try, the harder it gets.

  “Remember the turtle shell?”

  Maybe. Sort of. Yes. No.

  “Grammy said it got torn in two by a prop. But if Mr. Longstreet’s right about bull sharks far up the bayou, then it was no prop and … and Mr. Nice Guy was in the swimming hole! In the swimming hole while we were swimming in it!” She drew up her legs. Both her eyes were wide open now, wide open and glowing in a silvery way that might have scared me if it had been someone else. I licked the side of her face, my only idea at the moment. She looked over at me, gave her head a quick little shake—I do the same thing myself—and lay back down. After not too long, she was back to sleep, although not the deep, still kind.

  The next morning we were having breakfast—bacon and grits for Grammy, bacon and eggs for Birdie, kibble for me, plus a bacon tidbit or two Birdie slipped me on the side—when the sheriff stopped by.

  “Good news,” he said. “I heard from Snoozy last night.”

  “You did?” said Birdie.

  “Well, not directly,” the sheriff said. “He called in on the non-emergency line. After hours, so no one was there, but everything’s recorded, of course.” The sheriff took out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, laid it on the counter. Then came buzz, buzz, buzz, followed by Snoozy’s voice. Hey! I missed him.

  “Hello? Hey? Anybody home? This is Snoozy. Snoozy LaChance? From St. Roch? Hi there. The thing is—” Then came a muffled part, where—very, very faintly—I thought I heard Snoozy say, “Don’t!” The muffling went away, and Snoozy spoke again, clearly, although maybe not as Snoozy-like as before, in a way that’s hard to explain.

  “I hear, um, people think I’m missing or something. Well, I’m not. I’m right here, doin’
what I do. So don’t worry ’bout me. Back just as soon as—” More muffling, and then: “As soon as I get done with this here project. Bye now.” Click.

  The sheriff rubbed his hands together, a human thing that comes after a job well done. “There we have it—Snoozy being Snoozy. Pretty clear to me that he’s taking a little time off to go after that bounty. So I think we can all stop worrying—although I’m sure you’ll have a word or two for him when he returns to work, ma’am.”

  Grammy thought that over and nodded.

  Birdie said, “What was that muffled part?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Probably doing something else at the same time, had the phone between his shoulder and his ear and it slipped a bit.”

  “Can we hear it again?” Birdie said.

  “Don’t see why not,” said the sheriff.

  The sheriff played the phone call again. It was nice to hear Snoozy, but I stopped paying attention to whatever he was actually saying on account of an amazing discovery I’d just made: A piece of bacon had somehow gotten caught in the fur of one of my legs! I snapped that bacon up in no time. The day was off to a great start.

  “I think I heard him say something during the muffled part,” Birdie said.

  “Yeah?” said the sheriff.

  “Like maybe ‘don’t.’”

  “I didn’t catch that,” the sheriff said. “Did you, Miz Gaux?”

  “Nope,” said Grammy.

  “Can we listen again?” Birdie said. “Just one more time.”

  The sheriff laughed. “You’re dogged, Birdie—I’ll give you that.”

  Whoa! Had I ever heard anything so interesting? Birdie was dogged! It explained so much! I went right over and sat on her foot. Her hand came down and she petted my head, not the best petting like when she’s really into it, more the distracted kind. But I’ll take it! In fact, I couldn’t have been happier: two dogged types against the world!

  The sheriff replayed the call one more time. What was all this about? Whether Snoozy was saying “don’t” or not in the muffled part? Of course he was! How could anyone miss it? Also there was someone else in the background—no missing that, either, although whoever it was hadn’t spoken, just kind of grunted in an unpleasant way.