“. . . and this is where we—Oh, sorry, didn’t know you were busy.”
“No problem,” said the man.
“We could come back later,” the shelter woman said.
“No,” said another woman. I went silent. “I really should witness this,” she added. Suzie! Suzie Sanchez, and I couldn’t see her, clamped down the way I was, back to the door.
“We use the most humane methods possible,” said the shelter woman.
“State of the art,” the man said. “And put that away, if you don’t mind—no pictures.”
“How long does it take?” said Suzie.
“From when we get the IV in?” the man said. “Thirty seconds, tops.”
“Not even,” said the shelter woman.
Then a new sound started up, low and wild. That was me, growling. The woman in the white coat patted me with her gentle hand. I growled some more.
“Is that normal?” Suzie said. “That resistance?”
“Wouldn’t call it resistance,” said the shelter woman. “It’s just so unfamiliar in here, that’s all.” At that moment I felt a sharp jab high up on one of my back legs.
“Now we just turn this little valve over here and—”
“Hey,” said Suzie. “He looks kind of familiar.”
“The dog?” the man said.
“Yes, the dog,” Suzie said. “Where did he come from?”
“Out in the desert somewhere, maybe as far as New Mexico,” said the shelter woman. “A biker brought him in—no collar, no tags.”
I heard footsteps, moving fast, and then Suzie came in sight. Suzie! She looked down at me, eyes narrowed, face worried. “Chet? Is that you?” What a question! Did I need a tag dangling from Suzie’s neck to identify her?
I was all clamped in place, couldn’t move a thing. Yes, yes, it’s me, Chet, pure and simple. How was I going to—and then I realized: couldn’t move a thing except my tail. I raised that tail of mine and thumped it down with the loudest thump I could make. It shook that cold metal table, shook that whole cold room from wall to wall.
“Don’t touch that valve,” Suzie said.
I rode shotgun in Suzie’s car, a box of dog biscuits between us. Sometimes she reached in and gave me a biscuit; sometimes I leaned over and gave her a lick on the face.
“What were you doing way out here, Chet?” she said. And: “Where’s Bernie?”
I gave her another lick, all I could think of doing. She laughed. “Stop it—you’ll cause an accident.” I stopped, sort of. Suzie smelled of fruit—apples and strawberries. I wasn’t a big fruit eater, but I liked fruit smells. Suzie smelled very good for a human, among the best I’d ever come across. There were flower smells mixed in, too, those little yellow flowers that bees—don’t get me started on bees, I’ve had more than enough—
And all of a sudden I thought of Madison, looking down at me from that building at the mine, and all those bad people. I turned my head, glanced out the rear window. Suzie checked the mirror.
“What’s back there, Chet?” she said.
All I saw was traffic, moving along in the usual way.
“I could have sworn you had a thought just now,” she said. “Give a lot to know what it was.”
My ears went up all by themselves, no idea why. Suzie handed me another biscuit. Where did she get biscuits this good, so crunchy? I tried to take my time with it and couldn’t, gobbling it right up. Then I stuck my nose out the side window. Great smells, zipping by so fast I could hardly keep up. A bird glided by, low to the ground. Didn’t like birds, had never managed to catch a single one, although I’d seen cats do it, even make it look easy. I barked at this bird, but it didn’t seem to hear, so I barked some more. Great to be right here, up and doing! Was there a better life than mine? You tell me.
“Chet! What’s gotten into you?”
I pawed at the dashboard for no reason at all; oops, maybe ripping it the littlest bit.
“That’s leather.”
I knew that, of course, knew the feel, smell, taste of leather very well. I felt bad, but not for long. The feel, smell, taste of leather—all just great—took over my whole mind. I came very close to scratching the dashboard again. What a world!
The road curved back and forth up a mountainside. From the top, we looked down over flatland, built up as far as the eye could see—to more mountains, far away and hazy—with human stuff.
“The pollution’s not too bad today,” Suzie said. “You can actually see why they call it the Valley.”
Because why? I didn’t get it. But I knew the Valley was home, and sat forward a little bit. We drove down, turned onto a freeway, hit stop-and-go traffic. Bernie grew very frustrated in stop-and-go traffic, muttering to himself and sometimes pounding on the wheel, but Suzie didn’t seem to mind at all. She whistled a soft little tune—I’d heard lots of men whistle, but never a woman before this—and sometimes flashed me a smile. Suzie and I got along great.
We were down to the last biscuit when I spotted a familiar sight: the big wooden cowboy statue outside the Dry Gulch Steak House and Saloon, one of Bernie’s favorites. I liked it, too. They had a patio out back where my guys were welcome. The scraps on that patio—don’t get me started.
At that moment I heard a funny swishing sound.
Suzie glanced over. “Getting close to home, huh?”
I realized the funny swishing sound came from my own tail, whipping back and forth against the seat.
“Don’t worry,” Suzie said, taking out her camera and snapping a photo of the wooden cowboy through her open window. “Won’t be long now.”
I knew worry, usually did my worrying sitting up, head tilted to one side, but I had no worries now. We got off the freeway, made a few turns, and then we were driving up Mesquite Road. There was Iggy’s place, with Iggy in the window! He spotted me and started jumping up and down in that weird way of his, his fat jowls wobbling in the opposite direction of every leap. No room in the car for me to jump up and down, too, which was what I wanted to do, so I just pawed at the dashboard.
“Chet!”
We rolled up to our place, mine and Bernie’s. Everything looked the same—the three trees in the front yard, the rock at the end of the driveway, the fence separating us from old man Heydrich. The only difference was a huge sign standing by the street with a picture of one of my guys on it, wearing a collar that looked a lot like mine, the one I’d lost. Hey, in fact, it was mine, the brown leather collar with the silver tags—meaning what? I couldn’t quite figure it out.
Suzie read the sign. “‘Have you seen Chet? Big reward. No questions asked.’” She parked in the driveway, opened her door. I flew out, right over her, raced around the yard, making hard cuts this way and that, earth clods flying, took brief stops to mark the big rock, all three trees, the fence, and what was this? The front door, too? Uh-oh. And then: It opened.
Bernie! But he looked terrible, face thinner and deep dark patches under his eyes.
“What’s going—” he began. “Chet!” His whole face changed. In a flash, he looked his very best. Bernie reached out for me.
Things happened quickly after that. Somehow Bernie got knocked down, and so did lots of stuff, maybe including a lamp and the old hat stand with Bernie’s baseball cap collection. We rolled around on the floor. Baseball caps rained down on us.
“Chet! Stop!”
A little later, we were relaxing in the TV room, Bernie and Suzie at opposite ends of the couch, me on the floor, front legs curled up under my chin, nice and comfortable. They were drinking wine and munching pretzels, the only snack available; as for me, I’d had all I could possibly consume and more.
“I’m serious about the reward,” Bernie was saying.
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not being silly. I really want you to—”
“Not another word on the subject. I’m just so happy I was there.”
“I insist.”
“All right—you can take me out to dinne
r sometime.”
“I can?”
They looked at each other, then away. Bernie’s gaze fell on me. The expression in his eyes changed, the way it did when he was on the job and getting one of his ideas. That’s how we divided the work: Bernie was the idea man, I did the digging. “Where was this again?” he said.
“Sierra Verde,” said Suzie.
“Sierra Verde, Chet? What were you doing way out there?”
I wasn’t saying. The details were fading fast. All I remembered clearly was the feel of the choke chain, Madison’s smell, and zooming down the road on the motorcycle. Oh, yeah: and Mr. Gulagov and his gang.
“. . . for this story on shelters,” Suzie was saying. “I needed a rural place like Sierra Verde for balance. Total luck.”
“Bikers?” Bernie said.
“That’s what they told me. And something about finding him in New Mexico.”
Bernie reached down, touched my back. “What happened here?”
“They didn’t say.” Suzie put on glasses. Always so strange to me, always a little scary, maybe because glasses made humans seem even more like machines than they already were. “Looks like it’s healing nicely,” she said.
Now I remembered that part, too.
“What’re you growling about, boy?”
I raised my head and barked, one short, loud bark.
“What’s bothering you?”
I gazed at Bernie. He was watching me closely. Mountain lions, Bernie. Ah, what the hell. I was home, safe and sound. I lowered my head, closed my eyes. Their talk flowed back and forth over me, very nice sounds. Suzie laughed. Whatever Bernie said next made her laugh some more. Bernie laughed, too—he had this quiet little laugh he did when he made someone laugh; I didn’t hear it often. Was the distance between them on the couch shrinking a bit? I kind of thought so but was suddenly much too tired to open my eyes. The rug, so soft, my belly so full, and here I was, home. A delicious sleep was on the way, would be on me real—
The phone rang, a sound I hated. Sleep got pushed away. I opened my eyes. Bernie was talking into the phone. “Nothing new,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He hung up, turned to Suzie; yes, they were a little closer together, and she wasn’t wearing her glasses. “A missing-persons case. We’re getting nowhere.”
“Who’s the person?”
“A teenager named Madison Chambliss.”
I got up, started barking.
“Chet?”
I hurried to the front door.
“Chet? What is it? Is something out there?”
Bernie got a flashlight and opened the door. I ran out, down the street. I remembered Mr. Gulagov’s ranch, with the mine and the old barn across from it, Madison in the window. But where was it? I trotted this way and that, sniffing for a scent trail to lead me back—Mr. Gulagov’s scent, Boris’s, Harold the driver’s, Madison’s, my own. Nothing. I slowed down, walked in a circle, came to a halt.
“What’s on your mind, boy?”
fourteen
In the morning we got right to work on the Madison Chambliss case, me and Bernie. First off, we drove down to Donut Heaven, me riding shotgun, not a cloud in the sky, everything tip-top. A cruiser was waiting in the lot. Bernie parked beside it in typical cop style, driver’s-side doors facing each other. The cruiser window slid down, and there was Rick Torres, Bernie’s friend in Missing Persons. He handed Bernie coffee and a doughnut and said, “Hey, Chet, how ya doin’?”
No complaints.
“Got an extra cruller here,” Rick said, holding it up.
I wagged my tail.
“Chet’s had his breakfast,” Bernie said. “And he’s never been big on sweets.”
Oh?
“Empty calories,” Bernie said.
“Huh?” said Rick.
“It’s true. I’ve been reading up on nutrition. Check out what’s happening to this country.”
Rick glanced around.
“I’m talking about the way we look now and the way we used to look,” Bernie said.
“I get you,” said Rick. “Like William Howard Taft.”
Bernie gave Rick a long stare. Then he took a big bite of his doughnut and with his mouth full, said, “Where are we?”
Rick bit into his cruller. I could smell it from where I was, easy. “Don’t know where you are,” he said, also talking with his mouth full. “But we’ve got nada.” He took out a notebook, flipped through the pages. “I interviewed the parents, Cynthia Chambliss and Damon . . .” Rick paused, squinted at the notebook. Squinting was one of those human expressions best kept to a minimum, in my opinion. “. . . can’t read my own writing—looks like Keller.”
“Keefer,” Bernie said.
“Yeah?” Rick found a pen behind the visor, made a mark on the page. “A fun pair, Cynthia and Damon. He thinks the kid’s run off to Vegas, and she thinks it’s a snatch.”
“Any evidence for either?”
“Nope. No ransom demand, no sightings. Checked the school, her teachers, friends—everybody says she was a normal kid, smarter than most.”
“Was?” said Bernie.
Rick turned the page. “Oh yeah—there’s just maybe one little thing here.”
“What’s that?”
“Some suggestion she was hanging out with a pothead or possibly pot dealer.”
“Ruben Ramirez?”
Rick looked up; his eyebrows rose, too.
“Forget him,” Bernie said. “He alibis out.”
“Okeydoke. So what we’ve done is put her on the wire, sent her picture and description to every department in the state, checked Valley hospitals, the usual.”
Bernie nodded. “One other thing,” he said, taking another bite. “We might be looking for a BMW, probably blue, with a blond male driver.”
I barked. They both turned to me. “He wants that cruller,” Rick said.
Bernie sighed. “All right.”
The cruller went from Rick to Bernie to me. I used my two-bite technique for managing big things, jerking my head back on the second. All gone. Delicious. Rick Torres was growing on me. But I hadn’t been barking about the cruller, had I? I’d barked about . . . What was it again?
“Year and model?” Rick said.
Bernie shook his head. “And even the BMW part isn’t completely reliable, but I think you should add it to what you’ve got.”
“Go public with the car stuff?”
Bernie thought. When he was thinking, really thinking hard like this, things always seemed to get quiet around him. “Not yet,” he said.
“But you’re betting it’s a snatch?”
“Yes.”
“A snatch and no ransom demand?” Rick said. “Bad news.” He ate the last of the cruller, then licked the tips of his fingers. I licked around my whole mouth, found a few sweet crumbs.
“He’s right about one thing,” Bernie said. We were gassing up at pumps across the street from Donut Heaven. I started zoning out on the smell of gas. “No ransom demand is bad news.” He screwed the gas cap back in place. I took one last big sniff, felt funny, in a good way. “You know what I’m wondering?”
Why we hadn’t picked up a bag of crullers to take home?
“I’m wondering why Damon Keefer keeps saying she’s run off to Vegas.” He got in the car, turned the key. “Let’s find out.”
Fine with me. I forgot all about the crullers. We drove up into some hills, housing developments on both sides, one after the other, and lots of construction going on.
“Guess how many people move to the Valley each and every day,” Bernie said. “And that’s only counting the legal ones.”
No clue. Plus who cared, anyway? Sometimes Bernie worried for no reason.
“For thousands of years, this was open country,” he said. “Rivers flowed. Where’s all that water now?”
I glanced to the side, spotted water right away, making beautiful rainbows over a putting green. What was the problem? Enjoy the day, Bernie. I gave him a nudge with the top of my hea
d. He laughed and said, “Glad you’re back.”
Back, and on the job. We went past the golf course and turned at the next road. A big sign stood on the corner. “‘Welcome to Pinnacle Peak Homes at Puma Wells,’” Bernie read. “‘The Number One Gated Prestige Luxury Development in the North Valley.’” The road led up a winding canyon. “I prefer my prestige ungated,” Bernie said, a remark that zipped by me in complete mystery. We followed a truck that was painting a yellow line down the middle. Was that fun to watch or what? I wanted to jump out and lick that glistening yellow line so bad I could hardly sit still.
“Chet, for God’s sake, sit still.”
Houses went by, not all of them finished, clustered together with tiny spaces in between. A big palm tree lay flat down beside a hole in someone’s yard. “Funny,” Bernie said. “Midmorning on a workday and no workers around.” We parked in front of one of the finished houses. It had a sign in the window. “‘Model home and office,’” Bernie read. We hopped out and went to the door. Bernie knocked.
“Come in,” called a woman.
We went in, found ourselves in a room with a cool tile floor and a fountain in the middle, water splashing in a small pool. What was Bernie talking about? There was water out the ying-yang.
A woman sat at a desk by the fountain, tapping at a computer keyboard. “Dr. Avery?” she said, rising. She was tall, Bernie’s height, with long fair hair in a ponytail and tiny ears. And beautiful: I knew that from how Bernie stumbled the tiniest bit on his next step. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”
“Who’s Dr. Avery?” said Bernie.
The woman blinked. Bernie was good at causing those confused blinks in people, did I mention that already? “You are not here to see the Phase Two Red Rock Garden Casita designs?” she said.
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