A Fistful of Collars

by Spencer Quinn

  “Shaving?” said Rick.

  “No,” Bernie said. “Can you check out twenty-four hundred sixty-three North Coursin Street, Vista City? Ownership, residents, the usual.”

  “Bad neighborhood—I can tell you that right off the top of my head,” Rick said. “What’s the story?”

  “Just following up on something,” Bernie said.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Rick said. “But nothing’s free in this world.”

  “You’ll get the goddamn autograph,” Bernie said. He clicked off. “Chet! Down!”

  Oops.

  Soon after that, we were on the open road, headed up, up, and out of the Valley, passing the last development, then one more golf course, and into the desert. Rumble rumble went the engine, sending shudders through the whole car. Bernie slowed down a bit.

  “Is that a new sound?” he said.

  He tapped the gas pedal a couple of times. Va-vroom! Va-vroom!

  “Wonder if it’s something to worry about.”

  Of course not, Bernie. Couldn’t be better, our new ride. But on his face I could see that a bout of worrying was on the way, those tiny forehead lines growing deeper. The phone rang just in time.

  “Bernie? Cal Luxton here, mayor’s office. How you doing?”

  “Headed out to the set,” Bernie said.

  “Seen it yet?”

  “No.”

  “You’re gonna be impressed,” Luxton said. “How’re things going with Thad Perry?”

  “Good.”

  “That’s what I hear,” Luxton said.

  “From who?”

  Luxton laughed. “Word gets around.”

  There was a silence. The sky went from the dusty blue of the Valley to lovely pure blue. Hey! The moon! I’d forgotten all about that, seeing the moon in the daytime. What a treat! Nothing like a treat you eat, but pretty nice.

  “Anything I can help you with,” Luxton was saying, “don’t hesitate.”

  “Thanks.”

  Another silence. “Any questions so far?” There was something . . . probing, yes, probing about his voice; kind of like his eyes, if that made any sense.

  “When are you going to ask me for his autograph?” Bernie said.

  Luxton laughed again. “Already got it,” he said.

  NINE

  I’d been in a lot of bars—comes with the territory in our business—but never one quite like this. Yes, it was Old West–style, our favorite, mine and Bernie’s: rough wooden floor, long bar with a few tough-looking dudes hunched over their shot glasses, rows of dusty bottles, a wagon wheel leaning in a corner. But this bar had no ceiling; the shot glasses were filled with tea—no putting a switcheroo like that past me; and there were bright lights all over the place, plus microphones dangling down here and there, and a big camera in the middle of things. A dandruffy guy—a real easy smell to pick up—dressed in torn jeans and smoking a big cigar was peering into the camera eyepiece. Everything about him said perp to me, but I was sitting quietly, on my best behavior or even better: Bernie had been very clear about that.

  He was right beside me now, in one of those movie-set chairs. Hey! A connection! Beside Bernie were Nan and Jiggs. On my other side sat Felicity. And on her lap was Brando, which is maybe where I should have started all this, but it’s hard to keep so many details organized, kind of like—what’s that expression? herding cats? Whoa. Another connection, and so soon. Was I cooking or what? Brando was sleeping, or possibly dozing, in a very annoying way, hard to explain.

  Nan leaned toward Bernie and spoke in a low voice. “He’s brilliant,” she said. “IQ of one seventy-two.”

  “Thad?” Bernie said, his eyebrows rising. Bernie has great eyebrows, if I haven’t mentioned that already—and eyebrows like his, beautifully thick and heavy, are worth mentioning again—with a language all their own. Right now they were saying he was real surprised. About what? No idea.

  “Thad’s brilliant, too, of course,” Nan said. “Goes without saying. But I’m talking about Lars Karlsbaad, the director.”

  “With the cigar?” said Bernie.

  Nan nodded.

  Bernie watched Lars Karlsbaad. So did I. He turned from the camera and nodded to a man standing beside him, who now took Lars’s place at the eyepiece. A woman with a clipboard said, “Places, everybody. Quiet on the set.”

  At that moment, Brando opened his eyes and stared right at me. His eyes were gold and narrow, like edgewise gold coins, very unpleasant. I stared back—what choice did I have?—and missed a bit of what followed. When the staring came to an end—Brando turning away first—I noticed that the swinging doors of the bar were opening and a man with a gun on his belt and a rifle over his shoulder was walking in. His spurs—I’d had a run-in with spurs once, the only perp whose pant leg I’d ever had trouble with, a story for another time—went jingle-jangle, a sharp, clear sound that sends a pleasant little shiver down my back. He wore a black cowboy hat pulled down low, kind of hiding his face, but I knew it was Thad Perry from his smell, although it was almost completely hidden by the scent of makeup; he had to be wearing more than Leda on her most dressed-up day.

  Thad took a few slow steps, turning toward the dudes at the bar. He stopped near one of those dangling microphones and raised his face a little. He was mad about something but had it under control. Bernie had that same look, exactly! For a moment he seemed something like Bernie—strong and tough and nice—even though I knew he didn’t come close to Bernie in any of those things. Wow.

  The dudes at the bar turned to him, real slow. All the movements going on were like that, real slow. It made me want to do something real fast, and soon, not sure why. The dudes at the bar were nasty-looking—with sweaty, hairy faces—and reeked of makeup. The one with the eye patch said, “Lookin’ for somethin’, cowboy?”

  Thad gave him a long stony look. It went on and on. Then he said, “Lars? That line kind of sucks.”

  Someone yelled, “Cut.”

  The cowpokes at the bar got up and stretched, and there was some milling around in general. Lars went over to Thad and said, “Sucks in what way, Thad?”

  Thad shrugged. “I just don’t like it.”

  “But you don’t say it. Sam says it.”

  “What the hell?” Thad said. “I have to work off it, don’t I? If I don’t know what I can work off and what I can’t, who does?”

  Lars puffed on his cigar as though thinking things over and nodded. He was standing in a way humans stand sometimes, hands behind the back. I only mention that because I noticed that at the same time Lars was puffing on his cigar and nodding, his hands had balled themselves into fists.

  “Get Arn,” he said, speaking around his cigar. The clipboard woman went running out of the bar, returned with a guy who reminded me of this hopeless junkie we’d saved from getting beaten up by some gangbangers in South Pedroia. Just like the junkie, this guy was skinny and pale, with messy hair and bad breath: I could smell it from across the room.

  “Shot forty-three, Sam’s dialogue, top of the page,” Lars said. “Thad has some concerns. Met Thad yet, by the way?”

  “No,” said the skinny guy.

  “Thad, this is Arn Linsky, wrote the script.”

  Arn Linsky’s arm moved, like maybe he thought handshaking was about to happen, but it did not.

  “Hear it’s great,” Thad said. “Only read my lines so far, but I plan to go over the whole thing when I get some time.”

  “Thanks,” said Arn. “Can’t tell you how happy I am to be working with you. Loved what you did in There and Back, and also—”

  “Arn?” Lars said. “We’re hoping to clear this up on the fly and get back to the scene ASAP.” He handed the script to Arn, more shoved it at him, really.

  Arn glanced at it, spoke to Thad. “These, um, concerns. They’re yours? Or Sam’s?”

  “Interesting point, but we’ve moved beyond it,” Lars said. “This is more a question of Thad’s internal response to the line.”

  �
��Can’t work off it,” Thad said.

  “What, uh, part, if you don’t mind my . . . ?” Arn said. “The ‘lookin’ for someone’ part? The word ‘cowboy’?”

  Thad shrugged, turned to Lars. “Back in a jiff,” he said. “Gotta take a piss.”

  Thad walked out.

  “Actually serendipitous,” Lars said, or something like that. The movie business—if that’s what this was—turned out to be confusing. “Get makeup.”

  The clipboard woman went running off. Bernie spoke in this small voice he sometimes uses for talking to himself; himself and me, of course. “Jiff?” he said. Where was he going with that? Before I’d gotten to square one, the clipboard woman came back, now trailing an older woman who wore a white smock.

  “Lars?” said the older woman. “You wanted to see me?”

  Lars put his hand on her shoulder, kind of maneuvered her to the side. Very quietly—but not so quietly I didn’t hear—he said, “What’s with his nose today?”

  “I did what I could,” the older woman said.

  “But what’s the problem?”

  “Allergies. He says he forgot to take his medication.”

  “Christ,” said Lars.

  Arn stepped forward. “How’s this?” He handed Lars a scrap of paper. Lars eyed it, nodded his head.

  “Quiet on the set,” the clipboard woman said again. “Take two.”

  The saloon doors swung open again. Jingle-jangle. Thad came in, his movements real slow, maybe even slower than before. He stopped below the hanging microphone, mad again but under control, the expression on his face exactly the same as one Bernie had. Was he even standing like Bernie, too, and looking like Bernie in general? I started getting upset, not sure why, the kind of upset where I need to pant. But panting would be bad now, so I hardly did it at all.

  Thad turned to the tough guys at the bar. The tough guys at the bar turned to him. The one with the eye patch, maybe named Sam, spat a thin stream of brown liquid on the floor—just the way Nixon Panero would have done it, except this particular stream didn’t smell of tobacco, smelled more like licorice—and said, “You look lost, friend.”

  Thad gave him a long, long look. He was still giving him the long, long look when a mouse crept out from under the bar. A pointy-nosed mouse with big ears and long whiskers: I had time to notice those details, and then things started happening fast. First, Brando sprang off Felicity’s lap and flew across the floor. Second, the mouse whipped around and zoomed straight up the leg of the dude with the eye patch. Brando leaped up after the mouse, grabbed the little bugger in his front paws, maybe scratching the eye patch dude at the same time, because he screamed; a surprisingly high-pitched scream for a tough guy. And then—what was this? I was airborne, too? Was it possible? More than possible, amigo. There I was crashing into Brando, not to hurt him, or protect the mouse, or . . . or anything else I could think of—only to be part of things, really. Did the eye patch dude get knocked right off his stool? And did he knock off the next tough dude on his way down, the whole sequence that followed reminding me of a fun time Charlie and I had once with dominoes? I couldn’t be sure.

  “Cut!”

  The only sure part was that somewhere in all of that, Brando had got me a real good one with his claws, right on the button, meaning nose in boxing lingo, maybe a detail I’ve included already. What the hell was wrong with him? How come he didn’t realize it was all in fun? Cats. I don’t know what to tell you.

  After, out on the dirt street of the little town—a strange town, most of the buildings having fronts and nothing else—Bernie dabbed some kind of medicine on my nose. I licked it off.

  “Stop licking it off.” Bernie looked displeased about something or someone. I wondered what or who, came up with no answers. He dabbed on more medicine. “I mean it.” I tried and tried not to lick it off. Then I licked it off. “Christ.”

  Uh-oh. He sounded kind of displeased, too. I nudged up against him, a surefire way to take his mind off whatever was bothering him. At that moment, the clipboard woman came walking up.

  “You’re from the mayor’s office?” she said.

  Bernie nodded.

  “The producers appreciate the mayor’s support,” she said. “But Lars has asked me to inform you that the set is now off-limits.”

  Bernie nodded again.

  “And he requests, with all due respect, that the mayor’s office send a new representative.”

  Bernie stopped nodding. His face hardened, although he didn’t turn that hard look on her. Instead, he said, “Chet,” and we started walking to the car. Off-limits meant what, again? And new representative? Was it possible we’d lost the gig? On account of . . . ? My mind didn’t want to go there. I tried to make it think of snacks, or Frisbees, or riding shotgun, but it skimmed over all those things and landed on . . . oh, no—another bad thought. Bernie nailed Thad right on the button and then Brando did the same thing to me! So I’d let down the whole team, the whole team being me and Bernie.

  My tail dragged in the dust. I didn’t do anything about it.

  We got in the car. I didn’t hop in. Bernie opened the door for me. He turned the key, glancing my way at the same time. “Hey,” he said. “Cheer up. It’s only money.”

  Only money! What a thing to say: our finances were a mess. But I started to cheer up, partly because Bernie told me to and partly because, well, how long can you stay down in the dumps?

  He backed out of our spot between two huge trailers.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  What was this? Felicity running up? The girlfriend, right? Tall, thin, blond, dressed in tight jeans and a little T-shirt, plus red high-heeled shoes that made running look dangerous. Bernie stopped the car.

  “Bernie?” she said. Felicity had big golden-brown eyes, kind of damp. Hey! She’d been crying. The sun shone on a tiny tear track on her cheek.

  “Yeah?” Bernie said, cutting the engine.

  “I’m very sorry,” Felicity said. “It was all my fault.”

  “Huh?” said Bernie.

  “I let him off my lap,” she said. “But he’s so sneaky. I just hate the way he—” She stopped herself. “And Thad’s so pissed at me now.” Her eyes got damper. “I don’t blame him—there’s so much pressure, that’s what no one understands.”

  “What kind of pressure?” Bernie said.

  Felicity blinked. “You know,” she said. “The industry.”

  “Anything else?” Bernie said.

  “Anything else?” said Felicity. “I don’t understand.”

  “Forget it,” Bernie said. “And no need for you to apologize.”

  “Oh, yes, there is,” Felicity said, her hand now clinging to the door frame. “And please, please say you accept it.”

  Bernie gave her a look, one of his long looks, but not hard. “Okay,” he said. “Apology accepted.”

  She touched his shoulder. “Thank you. And Thad says to tell you”—She checked her palm; I saw some blue writing, right on the skin; Charlie did that sometimes, but no other humans I’d ever seen—“forget whatever the studio people told you.” She looked up. “You’re still welcome on the set.”

  There was a silence. Out in the desert the wind was stirring. It fluttered a tuft of her hair, so soft and light. “How old are you, Felicity?” Bernie said.

  “Almost twenty-two.”

  Bernie didn’t say anything.

  “You’re thinking he’s too old for me?” Felicity said.

  “No,” Bernie said.

  “And you’re wondering how old he is.”

  “I’m not,” Bernie said. “But what’s the number?”

  “Forty-three.”

  “Wow,” said Bernie. “I would have guessed at least ten years younger.”

  “A lot of work goes into that,” Felicity said. “It’s part of the pressure.” She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

  We drove out of the desert, down into the Valley. Bernie was real quiet. Me, too. My nose felt almost back to nor
mal, totally normal if I didn’t think about it. When you really need not to think about something, sleep comes in very handy. I closed my eyes.

  When I awoke we were turning onto Mesquite Road, almost home, and Bernie was on the phone. Rick’s voice came over the speaker.

  “That address in Vista City, twenty-four hundred sixty-three North Coursin Street?” he said. “Owned by the Territorial Bank.”

  “Foreclosure?”

  “Yup. And according to them it’s boarded up, hasn’t been occupied for a year and a half.”

  Bernie slowed down, made a U-turn. My nose felt perfect.

  TEN

  Back in Vista City, only now it was day.

  “Looked better at night,” Bernie said.

  Exactly the thought I might have been moving toward. We didn’t use any of our sneaking-around techniques, just rolled right up to the house on North Coursin Street and parked. First time we’d seen it from the front: a stucco house, all peeling, with a crooked little porch and a kid’s bicycle lying on its side.

  “Try to look like we’re from Territorial Bank,” Bernie said.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Was it something I could do? My ears didn’t match and I was a hundred-plus-pounder, info I’d picked up from humans discussing me in my presence, maybe not nice of them. Other than that, I had no facts, not about my looks or Territorial Bank. We hopped out of the car, crossed the hard-packed dirt yard, stepped onto the porch.

  “We’ll ask why they’re not boarded up,” Bernie said, “and improvise from there.” He knocked on the door. “Just like Thad Perry.”

  No answer from inside, no movement, no sound. Didn’t mean no one was in there. In fact, someone was, kind of.

  Bernie knocked again. Nada. He peered at the lock, then checked up and down the street. Not a human in sight—although a curtain twitched in a window down the block—the sun shining straight down, that shadeless baking we get in the Valley happening big-time. Bernie reached into his pocket and took out this tiny jimmy we’d taken off a perp name of Fast Freddie Walsh, expert burglar, who’d designed and made it himself; Fast Freddie had lots of talent, Bernie said, could have made it big as an inventor. “Really think so, Bernie?” he’d said as Bernie snapped on the cuffs.