A Fistful of Collars

by Spencer Quinn

  “. . . strange place,” Suzie was saying. “It’s the center of real power and yet feels totally unreal to me.”

  “And what about back here?” Bernie said.

  Suzie’s voice thickened a bit. “That feels very real.”

  Bernie shuffled from one foot to another.

  “Shuffling from one foot to another?” Suzie said.

  Bernie laughed. So did Suzie. The conversation had to be going great.

  “How’s Thad Perry?” Suzie said.

  “Nixon says he’s a lousy actor, but I disagree.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He has something strange inside him.”

  “Like what?”

  “It lets him absorb things from other people and reproduce them or reform them so that while he’s still sort of himself, he’s also . . .” Bernie made a little throwing up his hands gesture. Humans on the phone did lots of gesturing, as though they were face-to-face; I liked that about them. “Hard to explain,” he went on. “I think there’s a word for it, maybe starts with P.”

  “Protean?”

  “Yeah,” said Bernie. His face softened and he looked about to say more, but did not.

  “I don’t want his autograph, by the way,” Suzie said.

  Bernie laughed again. Suzie was good at making him laugh, one of the best things about her. “You’re the only one,” Bernie said. He went still. I sensed stillness on the other end of the line, too, like they were both concentrating on what Bernie had just said. What was it again? When humans forgot things—Bernie’s mother being a great example—they liked to say that if it was important it would come back to them. Bernie’s mother, a piece of work: she called him Kiddo! But no time for that now. I was too busy waiting for whatever Bernie had just said to come back to me.

  In the meantime, Bernie was now saying something like, “. . . remember you mentioning Thad Perry was from the Valley originally?”

  “Or spent time there,” Suzie said. “Not sure which.”

  “What was your source?”

  “No source, really. It came up in conversation.”

  “With who?”

  “I’d have to think,” Suzie said. “Is it important?”

  “Probably not,” Bernie said.

  “Am I missing a story, Bernie?”

  “There’s an irony.”

  “Yeah,” said Suzie, all of a sudden much quieter. Something beeped on her end. “Have to take this,” she said.

  After that, Bernie called somebody, maybe Rick, but I couldn’t be sure, on account of these dark clouds that came rolling into my mind—something that often happened when I lay chin-down on a soft rug—dark clouds that had this power of being able to make my eyes close.

  It was night when we drove back into Vista City, the sky the normal dark-pink Valley night sky, the air smelling of grease; couldn’t have asked for more. We turned onto North Coursin Street, stopped in front of the house at the end of the block. It was dark, as were all the houses around, and none of the streetlights were working. Bernie shone the flashlight on the door, now crisscrossed with crime scene tape, and then back and forth across the yard, passing over the kid’s bike lying on its side and returning to it.

  “Nobody claimed Manny’s body,” Bernie said. “And then there’s that bike.” He went quiet. “I don’t know, Chet. Forcing relationships—always the danger when there’s not much to go on.”

  Danger? Did we back away from danger, me and Bernie? Not how things got done at the Little Detective Agency, amigo. So: no surprise when the next moment we were out of the car and crossing the yard. Bernie knelt down, took a close look at the bike, a rusty bike, I now saw, with a lopsided seat and twisted training wheels. I knew training wheels from back when Bernie and I taught Charlie how to ride. The fun we’d had with that! And old man Heydrich’s flower bed was now totally back to normal, just as Bernie had promised, that whole episode with the pitchfork being way over the top.

  Bernie picked up the bike, carried it back to the car. He was just wedging it into the space behind the seats when a face appeared in an upstairs window of the house across the street, a lighter pink oval in the dark pink night. I barked this low rumbly bark I have for just between me and Bernie. He glanced up, not in time to see the face, but he caught the twitch of the curtain.

  “Good boy,” he said.

  All of a sudden, the night got breezy. We’d crossed the street and were just about at the front door of this other house when I realized my tail had started up behind me. Bernie says my tail has a mind of its own. What’s wrong with that? Two minds had to be better than one unless I was missing something.

  Bernie knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. No movement inside the house, probably because someone was already right there, on the other side of the door. Was Bernie aware of that? Maybe, because he took a bill from his wallet and stuck it in the letter slot.

  “More where that came from,” he said, speaking in an easy, normal voice, like he was kicking back with some pals. That was just one of his techniques. I’ve got some myself. We’ve cleared a lot of cases, me and Bernie.

  The door opened, real slow. A tiny woman with long, shiny black hair stood there, the money clutched in her hand and a little kid sort of behind her, clinging to her dress. They shrank back at the sight of us, or more likely at the sight of Bernie. He’s a pretty big dude.

  “Tengo miedo de los perros,” the woman said.

  “Huh?” said Bernie. “Uh, can we come in? I’d like to talk to you about—”

  “No habla ingles,” said the woman.

  “Ah,” said Bernie. “El cyclo? The bike? Es el cyclo de Manny Chavez, or . . .”

  The woman frowned at Bernie, not getting him at all. Bernie took out another bill, held it up.

  “El cyclo?” he said.

  The kid—a girl, I saw, about Charlie’s age and not unlike this great little kid we’d come across once, down in Mexico—stepped forward. “Bicicleta,” she said. “Not cyclo. And it belongs to Nino.”

  Bernie crouched down to her level. “Who’s Nino?” he said.

  “Manny’s kid,” said the girl. “He lives with his mother.”

  “Where?” Bernie said.

  “I don’t know,” said the girl. She snatched the money right out of Bernie’s hand and slammed the door shut. A bolt banged into place.

  THIRTEEN

  We got in the car and drove off, turning at the end of the block, then turning again, and—was it possible? Yes! We were circling the block, one of our very best tricks. Tricks and techniques were pretty much the same thing: I’d figured that out early on in my career. You learned stuff in this business all the time, way too many to remember, so it was important to keep in mind . . . something Bernie often said, and might come to me later.

  We parked in the dark shadows of a droopy-branched tree on the darkest part of North Coursin Street, on the other side from where the little girl and her mother lived and partway down the block. Then we just sat there, which was why this was called sitting on a place. We were sitting on that house, waiting for something to happen, doing our job. Once—this was at a speech he gave at the Great Western Private Eye convention, and just because all the pages kept getting away from him and fluttering down to the stage didn’t mean it wasn’t the best speech I’d ever heard—Bernie said, “There’s no point in poking a hornet’s nest if you don’t stick around to see what comes out.” I’d been sitting close to the Mirabelli brothers at the time—they run a shop in the South Valley—and they’d shared a look I hadn’t liked, maybe having to do with the possibility of getting stung—which actually had been my thought, too, but I’d abandoned it immediately. Who was better at this gig, Bernie or the Mirabelli brothers, with their big gold watches and sparkling pinkie rings? I don’t need to tell you. And in case you’re wondering, I’ve had more than one nasty encounter with hornets—lots more—maybe a story for another time.

  Sitting with Bernie on a hot dark night, lots of desert dust in
the air, and that Vista City backed-up sewage smell drifting by: I couldn’t have been happier. Bernie reached over and untangled the tag from my collar. I hadn’t even realized that it was twisted up: we’re a team, me and Bernie. He kept an eye on the house, actually both eyes. I kept an eye on the house and an eye on Bernie. We in the nation within have certain advantages, no offense.

  Sometimes, like one night sitting on a bunkhouse from a ridge high above, we’d catch a few tunes while we waited, Elmore James, maybe, or Jamey Johnson—“Can’t Cash My Checks”; Bernie loves that one!—but not on this kind of inside-the-city job. There was still plenty to hear—a trash barrel getting knocked over a couple of blocks away, a plane somewhere high above the dark pinkness, and in the background the constant hum of the Valley, which could also get broken down into all the parts of the hum, and I was just starting in on that when I heard a car coming from the opposite direction.

  Was Bernie looking that way? No. But then the car appeared around the corner up ahead—those little low fog lights showing but no headlights—and he turned toward it real quick. The car—not big, not small, dark color, nothing much to make it stay in my mind, so it didn’t—stopped in front of the house. The fog lights went out. Then nothing. The driver and the passenger—I could just make them out, dark forms behind the top curve of the dashboard—sat there. We did the same thing. No way they could see us in these shadows—Bernie didn’t make mistakes like that—but a weird feeling came over me anyway, the kind of weird feeling that makes me want to bark. The next thing I knew, Bernie’s hand was on my back, heavy and gentle at the same time, sort of resting but maybe not. The urge to bark faded and vanished, no idea why.

  The door of the not big or small car opened and the driver and the passenger got out. Impossible to see clearly: all I picked up was their dark forms, gliding toward the house. Then the door opened and they slipped inside. Was there something familiar about those dudes? I came real close to recognizing both of them. The door closed.

  I took a swing at figuring out what was familiar about them, and then another swing, and no more, my mind suddenly jumping tracks to a memory of a ball game Bernie bet a grand on that had ended with a swing and a miss on a ball that was a mile out of the strike zone, according to him, so it must have been. We’d paid a visit to Mr. Singh soon after.

  We sat. Bernie spoke quietly, more like just a breath with a soft voice hidden in it. “Don’t see a plate on the front of that car.”

  Neither did I, but I couldn’t be sure. Bernie opened the glove box, took out the flashlight, aimed it over our windshield at the other car, but didn’t turn it on. Instead he hesitated, not something you saw from Bernie very often. He even had a saying—Bernie’s great at making up sayings—he who hesitates is something or other. But a good thing this time, because right about then the door of the house opened and the two dudes came out. No lights inside the house or by the door: their faces remained invisible. They walked to the car, the driver fishing in his pocket for keys; I heard them jingle. And then came another sound, a strange buzzing from somewhere above. A moment after that, just as they were getting into his car, the streetlight down at the end of the block flickered on, the light dim and sort of brownish. But enough to make out the face of the passenger, a thin face framed by long sideburns: Cal Luxton. He put on his cowboy hat and then I was sure.

  And the driver? One of those redheaded types you didn’t see often, but that I was seeing again, and pretty soon: Oona’s partner, the uniform cop named Floyd, now in street clothes.

  Bernie’s heart speeded up in his chest. I could hear it. And when I did, my own heart speeded up, too, funny thing. Floyd whipped the car around in a quick U-turn and went back the way they’d come. What about us? Weren’t we going to tail them? Tailing perps was one of our best things. Bernie!

  We did nothing. Bernie sat motionless, the zigzag groove deep in his forehead. I started to get the picture. Tailing perps: what a crazy thought that had been. Cal Luxton was handing out the checks, making him one of the good guys. So therefore? I didn’t take it past that. Bernie took care of the so-therefores, me bringing other things to the table, in case I haven’t mentioned that already.

  He fired up the engine. We made a U-turn of our own, slower than Floyd’s, and drove home. Bernie didn’t open his mouth the whole way.

  Sometimes the night feels early and sometimes it feels late: your eyelids always tell you; at least, that’s how it works in the nation within. This particular night felt late as we pulled into the driveway at our place on Mesquite Road, so it was a bit of a surprise that lights were on in the house next door. Not old man Heydrich’s place, where lights sometimes shone all night: mean dudes sleep less, according to Bernie, and I often heard Heydrich in the middle of the night, busy down in his workshop. “Wonder what he’s making,” Bernie would say. But forget about old man Heydrich. I meant the house on the other side, Iggy’s crib, which he shares with Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, a nice old couple who bought an electric fence but maybe made some sort of mistake, because now Iggy—my best pal, we’d played together since I couldn’t remember when—was never outside. Mr. and Mrs. Parsons went to bed early, sometimes even before full darkness—you always knew because there was no more toilet flushing until morning—but not tonight. Bernie was still getting out of the car—a little slow, maybe on account of his wound, which could act up when he was tired—when the Parsons’ door opened and Mr. Parsons stepped out.

  And what was this? From somewhere in their house, yip yip yip? Yes! Iggy! He came barreling down the hall, stubby tail—the stubbiest in creation, Bernie said—up and stiff, and crazily long tongue flapping high and low. At the last instant, Mr. Parsons felt him coming and yanked the door closed. After that there was just a muffled yip yip yip, followed by a single yip, amazingly high pitched; and then nothing.

  Mr. Parsons came stumping toward us behind his walker. We met him at the border of our properties, a row of low cactuses that Mr. Parsons and Bernie had decided were better than the flowers that had grown there before, although I didn’t see how. Marking borders was one of my jobs, of course, but maybe not at exactly this moment.

  “Hi, Bernie.”

  “Hi, Dan. Everything all right?”

  “Mrs. Parsons could be doing a little better.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “But she’s cheerful,” said Mr. Parsons. “No complaints. And she was real pleased, the way you replaced her soap collection. Much obliged.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Bernie said.

  Soap collection? Itty-bitty brightly colored things in a toilet, the water rising and rising and rising? My one visit to Iggy’s house, sometime back? The plumber racing up in his truck? I came close to remembering some of that. But, as humans said, no cigar, and no cigar was just peachy with me—I’d toyed with a stub or two and cigars didn’t do it, although I have no problem with the smell. And funnily enough, peaches weren’t really peachy with me, either, so why did . . . ? Somewhere in there I lost the thread.

  “. . . puppy I was telling you about?” Mr. Parsons was saying.

  “The one you saw in the canyon?” Bernie said.

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Parsons. “Spotted the little fella again this afternoon. Even managed to snap a picture of him on my cell phone—first time I got the damn thing to work.”

  “Soon you’ll be uploading to the cloud,” Bernie said.

  Mr. Parsons gave Bernie a quick look, then nodded. “That’s true,” he said. “And except for how I’ll miss Mrs. Parsons, I’m ready. I’ve had a good life.”

  “No, no, no,” Bernie said. “I meant—” And then came a long explanation of what he’d meant, which lost me right out of the gate, and maybe Mr. Parsons, too, to judge from the look on his face.

  “It’s all right, Bernie,” he said, “I’m not offended. But do you want to see the picture?”

  “Yes.”

  Mr. Parsons took out his cell phone and started pressing buttons. “Cursed stupid hell
ish—”

  “Mind if I try?” Bernie said.

  Mr. Parsons handed Bernie the phone. “This one?” Bernie said.

  They gazed at the glowing thing, then both turned and transferred that gaze onto me. I wagged my tail, my fall-back response in all kinds of situations.

  “Guilty as charged?” said Mr. Parsons.

  “But I just don’t see how . . .” Bernie began.

  “Doesn’t he get into the canyon?”

  “Only with me.”

  “What about when you’re not home and he’s out on the patio?” said Mr. Parsons.

  “The gate’s always locked.”

  “Isn’t he a great leaper?”

  “Not that great,” Bernie said. “That gate’s seven feet high—I had it built special.”

  Seven feet high? Lost me on that one. When it comes to numbers, I stop at two, which is plenty, in my opinion. Feet were another story: all kinds of feet in the world—I’d seen elephant feet in action! What a career I was having!—but in the end I wouldn’t change mine for any others. As for the gate, my impression was that I always cleared it by plenty. I reminded myself to take a look next time.

  “So what do you think happened?” said Mr. Parsons.

  “Maybe a litter mate of Chet’s is out there somewhere,” Bernie said.

  Mr. Parsons had thick, snowy-white eyebrows. I’d seen snow, by the way, once on a case, the details vague at the moment. But sometimes details can sharpen later, when you least expect it. Does that ever happen to you? Back to snow: Bernie made a snowball! We played fetch, sort of, which is when I started finding out what snow was all about. Back to . . . to Mr. Parsons’s eyebrows. He raised one of them in this way humans have when they want to send a message to other humans, not friendly or unfriendly, hard to pin down, exactly.

  “Is that how you operate in your work?” Mr. Parsons said. “Chasing after the low-percentage possibility first?”

  Bernie laughed. “Sure as hell hope not,” he said. “Maybe the next step is to give this big guy a test.”