“Not another step,” he said. They dropped their weapons without being told, a good sign. These weren’t real tough guys. The real tough guys were us, me and Bernie.
“Facedown on the ground.”
They got facedown on the ground. I went over and stood beside them in case they got any fancy ideas, such as maybe they were tough guys after all. Meanwhile, Bernie rolled Jocko over with his toe, knelt beside him, laid down the gun, and fiddled with some keys dangling from Jocko’s belt. A moment later the cuffs were off Bernie’s wrists and on Jocko’s, behind-the-back style, the way we did things at the Little Detective Agency. Bernie rose, gestured with the gun at the two dudes.
“Don’t fire,” one said. “We don’t know shit.”
“A weak argument,” Bernie said. “On your feet.” They stood up, hands raised. “Get lost,” Bernie told them.
“Yeah, sure, right away,” they said, and turned to where the door had been. No door, but also no way out: the rubble from the roof caving in blocked the opening.
Bernie sighed. “Facedown,” he said.
They went back to the facedown position, me standing over them. I noticed that Peanut was on the move again, not running, in fact going quite slow, but in the direction of where Jocko lay.
“Peanut?” Bernie said, lowering the gun. “Got something in mind?”
No doubt about that. I knew Peanut. She kept coming.
“I understand your position,” Bernie said. “Not saying he doesn’t deserve it, because he does. But we’re building a case here, and—” Peanut’s ears flapped a bit but that didn’t mean she was listening; from the look in her eye, I was pretty sure she wasn’t, and Bernie must have gotten that, too, because he tucked the gun in his belt, grabbed Jocko by the scruff of the neck, dragged him over to the cab of the eighteen-wheeler, and stuffed him inside. “There,” said Bernie, “all taken care of.”
He smiled at Peanut. Peanut kept coming, was now just a few steps from Bernie. I hurried over and stood in front of him.
“No, Chet,” Bernie said. “Come here.”
Go there? Not what I wanted, but if Bernie said so, then that was that. I backed up a little, stood beside him.
Peanut came closer, then paused, towering over us, gazing down. My heart beat hard and fast, and I could hear Bernie’s heart beating, too. Peanut was awesome.
Nobody moved—not me, not Bernie, not Peanut. Then, very slowly, Peanut extended her trunk. Just as slowly, Bernie reached out and touched it with his fingertips. He spoke gently, “Been through the mill, haven’t you?”
Meaning what? I had no idea, but whatever it was didn’t get Peanut riled up, so it must have been right.
“Bet you’re hungry,” Bernie said.
Hey—me, too.
“Think I saw bananas around here somewhere.”
Peanut’s trunk twitched.
“Hey,” Bernie said, turning to the facedown dudes. “Any bananas around here?”
They both pointed to a shed.
“You,” said Bernie, “with the chin.”
“Me?” said one of the dudes.
“You,” said Bernie. “Get the bananas.” The dude with the chin—that very long kind you see sometimes on humans—rose and moved toward the shed. “And you,” said Bernie to the other dude.
“Me?” said the other dude.
“Roll that ramp up to the back of the trailer.”
The second dude—one of those real chinless human types—rose and walked over to a ramp that stood by the wall. Meanwhile, the chin dude was tossing bunches of bananas into a wheelbarrow.
“Easy, there,” Bernie said. “That’s someone’s dinner.”
“Huh?” said the chin dude. But he stopped tossing the bananas, placing them carefully instead. Bernie smiled. Uh-oh. His mouth was all bloody inside. What had they done to him? I glanced over at the cab of the eighteen-wheeler, wondered how I could get in; I already knew what I’d do when I got there.
The chin dude pushed the wheelbarrow, now piled high with bananas, over to us. Bernie plucked a banana, held it out for Peanut. Peanut swung her trunk toward the banana, swooped over it and down into the wheelbarrow. She scooped out a whole big bunch of bananas and scarfed them up. The chin dude cowered against the wall.
“It’s like that, huh, Peanut?” said Bernie. He glanced at the chin dude. “Wheel that thing into the trailer.”
“What if I get trampled?”
“Then your buddy will have to do it.”
Eyes on Peanut the whole way, the chin dude pushed the wheelbarrow over to the back of the truck. The no-chin dude got the ramp in place. The chin dude went up the ramp. The lion roared again. The chin dude returned, wheelbarrow empty.
“Facedown,” Bernie said. The dudes went back to lying facedown. Bernie moved toward the ramp. I went with him. “Come on, Peanut,” he said.
Yeah, right, I thought.
But Peanut came. She followed us to the ramp. We stood aside. She walked right up and into the trailer. You never knew with Peanut. Bernie went up and closed the doors, and was just sliding the bolt in place when noises came from the other side of the cave-in. Maybe not that much of a cave-in: lights shone through from the other side.
Bernie jumped down. “Let’s go.” We ran to the cab—Bernie limping a bit from his war wound—and jumped in. Jocko lay sprawled on the front seat, eyes still closed. Bernie shoved Jocko onto the floor, and there we were, Bernie behind the wheel, me riding shotgun, situation normal. I checked the side mirror, saw a big opening in the cave-in rubble, and Captain Panza and his men making their way through, some with shovels. Maybe not completely normal, but pretty close, except what was this? The guy with the big automatic rifle, the one that went ACK-ACK?
The key was in the ignition. Bernie turned it and the engine fired. His hand moved to the gear shift, gave it a little wiggle. “Wonder where first is,” he said. “Here, maybe?” He shifted. The truck lurched forward and stalled. I remembered a difficult afternoon from back in the Leda days where Bernie tried to teach her how to drive the stick. No way this could turn out that bad. Bernie cranked the engine again, tried another gear, and we went through the lurch-stall thing again. Was that the lion roaring? And other creatures joining in? I wasn’t sure because at that moment the ACK-ACK guy fired a burst, and then another. I checked the side mirror again, saw one of the Jeeps bump slowly over the rubble, Captain Panza standing up in the front seat, shouting something at the driver. Then the mirror shattered and that whole scene vanished in a spray of tiny glass bits all over my window. Hey! Mirrors were glass? And windows, too? I came close to having a thought about that.
“How come I never learned to drive a big rig?” Bernie said, banging the stick into different positions. No idea; I just knew it wasn’t his fault. We lurched forward again, but didn’t stall this time.
ACK-ACK. ACK-ACK.
Bernie stepped on the gas. He tried to get into another gear and couldn’t. The engine screamed. We barreled through this mine or whatever it was. The walls closed in around us and then we were in a long tunnel, lit only by our headlights. I knew this kind of tunnel from a drug-smuggling case we’d worked once in a border town, the name escaping me and no time to remember it now.
ACK-ACK. ACK-ACK. Sparks flew off the rocky walls of the tunnel and ricochets pinged off the body of the cab. Down on the floor, Jocko moaned.
“Zip it,” Bernie said. I looked over, saw him stomp on the gas, down to the metal. The scream of the engine rose and rose, unbearable.
ACK-ACK. ACK-ACK-ACK. Bernie’s window blew out, scattering glass all over the place. Up ahead, our headlights shone on a big garage-type roll-up door like the one we’d entered.
“No time to stop,” Bernie said. So therefore? I had no clue, but that didn’t matter. I had Bernie back and he handled the so-therefores. He reached up to a gizmo on the visor, kind of like our remote thing for the garage door at home, which no longer worked, if I haven’t mentioned that. “This should do the trick,” Bernie
said, pressing a button.
The metal door—closer and closer now—didn’t budge.
ACK-ACK. Bullets tore through the metal door, leaving twisted holes in zigzag patterns.
“Or maybe this one,” Bernie said, trying another button, “although wouldn’t it make sense that red would—”
But whatever that was about never got finished, because the door began to rise—oh, so slow—with us hurtling right toward it and that ACK-ACK closing in behind. And then—zoom, a sort of zoom with a metallic scraping from above that shrieked in my ears all the way to the tip of my tail and back—we were out! Out of the tunnel and into the great outdoors!
Bernie slowed down. Was now a good time for that? Bernie!
He looked over at me and smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They won’t follow us—we’re home.” Home? In the middle of nowhere, empty desert all around? Bernie reached over and rubbed my head. “In the good old U.S.A., big guy, safe and sound.” He circled around, shining our lights on where we’d come from, a low rise I’d seen before: the spot where Jocko had given us the slip on the way down to Mexico.
Safe and sound in the good old U.S.A. Fine by me. We followed a track, silvery and smooth in the desert. Bernie found a gear that didn’t hurt my ears so much. Down on the floor, Jocko stirred and opened his eyes.
Bernie glanced at him. “Was it Churchill who said there’s nothing more exhilarating than being shot at without result?”
Jocko had no answer. Neither did I. Churchill? Probably a perp of some sort. He’d be breaking rocks in the hot sun, sooner or later. We had ways of getting things done, me and Bernie. Back in the trailer, Peanut blasted out some of her trumpeting sounds.
THIRTY-TWO
We drove through the darkness, Bernie at the wheel with the gun in his belt, me in the shotgun seat, Jocko on the floor, maybe a tiny bit uncomfortable. “Any food on board, Jocko?” Bernie said.
Good question. Could I think of a better one? No.
“I got nothin’ to say,” Jocko said.
“Is that the kind of loser you want to be?”
“Huh?”
“We take down a lot of losers in this business,” Bernie said. “Ends up there are only two kinds—losers who want to keep losing and losers who want to cut their losses. Guess which ones get the most jail time.”
I thought about that and was pretty close to making up my mind when the whole problem kind of went away, and I felt better. And that better was on top of how good I was already feeling, back with Bernie.
After that came a long period of silence, and then—surprise—Jocko spoke. “Try the console,” he said.
A little light shone in Bernie’s good eye—the one I could see—a little light that usually goes with a smile, but not this time. He opened the console, fished around, and said, “Well, well. What do we have here?”
Of course, I already knew: the smell of a Slim Jim is distinctive, not something you’re likely to forget. And the next moment, I was going to town on a wonderful Slim Jim, the best I’d ever had. A funny thing about Slim Jims—every one is always the best I’ve ever had. Great folks, the Slim Jim people. I tried to make my Slim Jim last, but that’s never been my best thing, have to be honest.
“Chet?”
Was that my paw, scratching at the console? Oops.
“Sorry, big guy—there’s no more.”
I put a stop to that scratching right away, and if not right away, then real soon, Bernie only saying Chet? hardly any more times at all.
He glanced down at Jocko. “You’re in a pretty good position, stop to think about it.”
“What are you talkin’ about? My back’s killin’ me.”
Bernie has a face for when he really cares and a face for when he wants someone to think he really cares. I know the really-cares face very well because that was always how he looked at me; right now the other face was on the job.
“We’re talking about your future, Jocko. Ever hear that expression—get there first with the most?”
“Nope.”
“Nathan Bedford Forrest—ring a bell?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe not the best role model, come to think of it,” Bernie said. “But here’s the point, Jocko—this is your lucky day.”
“Huh?”
Jocko was no favorite of mine—in fact, that urge-to-bite feeling I get in my jaw sometimes, hardly ever, really, was suddenly quite strong, but I was with him on this. How was it lucky to be crammed and cuffed down on the floor of the cab, with a big knot swelling on the side of your head; a bald head, it turned out, now that he’d lost the bandanna, a baldness that didn’t go well with the bushy sideburns, just my opinion?
“Because,” said Bernie, “you’re already first. Now all you have to do is get most out of the way and you’re free and clear.”
“Free and clear?” said Jocko. “You’ll let me go?”
“Next best thing,” Bernie said. “I can set you up with the DA—he’s a personal friend. And since we’re a capital punishment state and there are two murders in this case, you won’t want anyone in there first, plea-bargaining ahead of you.”
“Don’t know about any murders,” Jocko said.
“Uri DeLeath,” Bernie said. “Darren Quigley.”
“News to me,” Jocko said.
“You can try that line on a jury,” Bernie said. “The problem is—no fault of your own, accident of birth—when juries think of a killer they picture someone like you. Lethal injection is the usual method, but the state still offers the gas chamber option. None of my business, but that’s what I’d choose.”
“Gas?”
“No question.”
Jocko’s eyes shifted. He went silent.
What was going on? I wasn’t sure, just knew that this was a sort of interview, and Bernie was a great interviewer. A pink glow appeared in the distant sky. “The Valley,” Bernie said.
Jocko’s eyes narrowed. Whatever he was thinking, I didn’t like it. “Can’t talk too good like this, can I?” he said.
“Like what?”
“Cuffed. It hurts, man. Interferes with my concentration.”
“Just have to tough it out.”
Jocko got a real mean expression on his face, but Bernie wasn’t looking. “Know what I think?” Jocko said. “You’re yellow.”
Yellow? I’m no expert on color, as I should have pointed out by now, but Bernie doesn’t look at all yellow to me. He has beautiful skin, kind of darkish, with red tones mixed in.
“Yeah?” said Bernie.
“Yeah,” Jocko said. “Chicken.”
Humans could lose you just like that, and this was one of those times. I knew chicken, of course—that kosher chicken at the Teitelbaum divorce celebration dinner was often in my thoughts—but what was Jocko talking about? Was it possible he had a line on kosher chicken, could hook us up with some? I waited to hear.
“What’s on your mind, Jocko?” Bernie said. “Spit it out.”
Oh, no, not that; and in the cab? Some humans—men, just about every time—had this very bad habit, plain nasty. And chewing-tobacco spit? Don’t get me started.
“You’re afraid of talking to me man to man,” Jocko said. “Makes me wonder what kind of man you actually are, see what I mean.”
Bernie stopped the truck. “Bring your bat?”
“Bat?”
“I forgot,” Bernie said. “Metro PD has your bat. Prints matched ones they lifted off the hook you lost that night.”
Jocko’s voice got lower and meaner. “Won’t need no bat,” he said.
Whoa. What was going on? In no time, Bernie had stuck the gun in the console, unlocked Jocko’s cuffs, and they were climbing out of the cab.
“You stay right there, Chet,” Bernie said.
Stay right here? They’d moved out in front of the truck, seemed like they were about to throw down. How could I—
“I mean it, Chet,” Bernie said, and was still looking my way when Jocko wound up and threw a t
remendous punch at Bernie’s head, on the bad eye side. Somehow Bernie saw it anyway and ducked, and not only that, but while ducking grabbed Jocko’s wrist, spun around and pulled down like he was snapping a towel—oh, we’ve had fun with towel-snapping, but no time to go into that now—and then came this CRACK, reminding me of when Bernie and Suzie did that wishbone thing on Thanksgiving, only much louder. Next was Jocko lying on the ground, yelling and moaning and twisting around.
“Broke my fuckin’ shoulder. Oh, Christ!”
“Just dislocated would be my guess,” said Bernie. “But I’m no doctor.”
He got Jocko to his feet, walked him to the cab, and shoved him back on the floor, cuffing Jocko’s good wrist to something under the seat. And then we were off again, hardly any time lost at all.
Bernie turned to me. “I guess that was childish.”
Yes! And that was just one of the great things about it.
We came to a paved road and the ride smoothed out.
“Nice and easy from here on in,” Bernie said.
Jocko spoke. “Quigley—that was Tex all the way. Tex don’t take kindly to blabbermouths, plus Quigley was starting to ask questions—like he was thinking there might be something in it for him.”
“And DeLeath?” Bernie said.
“An accident,” Jocko said.
“He accidentally got bitten by a snake thousands of miles from its habitat?”
“We were just foolin’ around,” Jocko said.
“Who’s we?”
Jocko groaned. “I’m in pain here,” he said. “Big time.”
Bernie shook his head. “That’s not big-time pain.”
Pause. “We meaning some of the boys from Mexico,” Jocko said. “Miggy, Flip, Cisco—don’t know their last names, don’t know them dudes at all.”
“Panza’s men?”
“More like associates.”
“Too bad.”
“Huh?”
“Just because of how things work down there. Won’t be easy, charging them, finding them, bringing them back. Much easier to hang DeLeath’s murder on you.”
To Fetch a Thief Page 25
