A Fistful of Collars

by Spencer Quinn

  “Those pretentious morons, as you put it, are some of the most important people in the country,” Leda said.

  Bernie blew some air through his lips, making a sound like peh.

  “You’ve always been so transparent,” Leda said. “This is jealousy, pure and simple.”

  “Jealous?” said Bernie. “Of who?”

  “Lars, of course.”

  Bernie laughed, not his normal laugh, which is one of the best sounds on earth, but harsher and more through his nose, if that makes any sense. “Why would I be jealous of that, that . . .”

  “Can’t find the perfect put-down?” Leda said. “How unusual. But as for the question, you’re jealous because Lars has discovered a talent in your son that you were unaware of and wouldn’t have a clue what to do with in any case.”

  Over in the minivan, Charlie had stopped eating and was watching his parents. Without thinking much about it—or anything, really—I sidled toward Charlie’s door. He glanced down at me through the open window. No makeup on his face now: he looked just fine. My tail started up, all on its own.

  “That’s total crap,” Bernie said.

  “This is exactly why the Europeans think of us the way they do,” Leda said.

  “The Europeans?”

  A new one on me, too.

  “You still can’t grasp what happened, can you?” Leda said. “Your son is an artist, and not just in the making.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Bernie said. “He’s a six-year-old kid, barely out of diapers.”

  The minivan door opened. I climbed up into the car and sat on the floor in front of Charlie. First time in the minivan: it turned out to be nice and roomy. Also, some interesting food products lay under Charlie’s seat, out of sight, which meant a lot to humans when it came to finding things but little to me. The food products—remains of a tuna sandwich, a French fry or two, some corn chips—could wait. Right now what I wanted to do was push up gently against Charlie, so I did. He put his hand on the back of my neck. Bernie’s voice rose. Leda’s sharpened. They seemed to blow round and round the minivan like a big dust devil. You see dust devils out in the desert from time to time. I thought about dust devils and other desert things I knew, especially some nice little yellow flowers, the name escaping me at that moment. Charlie kept his hand on the back of my neck.

  We drove home. Bernie was quiet just about the whole way. Then, as we turned onto Mesquite Road, he said, “Hope to hell Charlie didn’t hear that diaper crack.”

  Oh, Bernie.

  He banged the steering wheel. “They put him in a goddamn death scene without even telling me. Leda knew, oh, yeah. Why was that okay with her?”

  I started panting, although I wasn’t thirsty, hadn’t been running. In fact, a nice bit of running sounded like just the thing at the moment.

  We pulled into the driveway. Bernie stopped the car, switched off the engine but didn’t get out. He sat there. I panted.

  “Turns out it wasn’t even in the script, that part where he opened his eyes and seemed to . . .” He went quiet. I heard the phone ringing in the house, but maybe Bernie didn’t, because he kept sitting there. “How did he know to do that? Now she’s going to twist his whole childhood around. To what end? Turn him into a Thad Perry?”

  What was he talking about? I had no idea. I had no ideas at all. I searched back for my last idea. What had it been? Something nice, something about . . . yes! Running!

  The next thing I knew, I was running. And not just running, but zooming, ears flattened straight back by my own wind. What a feeling, in the air most of the time, all paws off the ground, practically flying! There are many ways of zooming, but my favorite is the quick-cutting kind of zoom, darting this way and that, sometimes doubling right back on myself, claws digging deep in the ground, clods of earth flying high, and not just earth but grassy turf, too, which makes a sort of ripping sound, quite faint yet very satisfying in a way that’s hard to explain and no time anyway, no time to even think about the fact that we didn’t have a grass lawn, no way we could, not with the whole aquifer thing, and neither did the Parsons, in their case all about no longer being able to push the lawnmower, the only grass lawn being old man Heydrich’s on the other side. Zoom. Zip. Rip, rip, rip: had I ever made cuts this sharp and at this speed? Chet the—

  “Chet! Chet! For God’s sake!”

  Uh-oh. I hit the brakes and stopped on a dime—no dimes present, of course, although you couldn’t be sure, what with dimes being so small, unless I was getting that wrong, so complicated, human money—possibly taking out a flowery bush that stood on the boundary of our place and old man Heydrich’s, or perhaps slightly more on his side.

  There’s a voice humans use for shouting and not shouting at the same time, a sort of muffled shout. Bernie used it now.

  “Chet! Get over here.”

  I gave myself a good shake, trotted over to Bernie. His cell phone rang. He answered, said something, clicked off, and then turned to me.

  “Hop in.”

  Back in the car? Why not? No reason, except that we hadn’t chowed down in what seemed like a long time. But then, from out of the blue, I got the idea we were headed to Max’s Memphis Ribs, my favorite restaurant in the whole valley. Those ribs! And when you’d eaten every speck of meat, there was still the whole bone in your future! What a business plan, as I may have mentioned before, but it’s important! Had Bernie mentioned anything about Max’s Memphis Ribs? Perhaps not, maybe meaning there was no reason to believe Max’s was on the schedule. I believed.

  I hopped in the car. We backed out of the driveway, pretty quick, and shot up Mesquite Road. In a hurry, all of a sudden? No problem. I love speed, in case that hasn’t come up yet. Old man Heydrich’s porch light went on. He stepped outside, a golf club in his hand, and was turning our way just as we rounded the curve and went roaring out of sight. Old man Heydrich was a golfer? You really did learn something every day, as humans often said.

  We’ve worked a lot of cases, me and Bernie, but the Valley’s a big place, going on pretty much forever in all directions, so sometimes we ended up somewhere new. Like now for example, way out in the West Valley, past the last busted development then came another and another, a few with a light or two showing where someone was still there, most pretty dark. We followed a road, paved at first and then not, into the darkest development, a bunch of cul de sacs lined with half-built houses, empty lots, scraps blowing in the wind, and abandoned stuff, including the cement-mixing drum from a cement truck. Bernie turned into the driveway of the only complete house in the whole place, which would be the model home. We had empty model homes out the yingyang, Bernie once told Suzie, so what are we modeling? “Can I quote you?” she’d said. No idea what that meant, but they’d both laughed. I was missing Suzie already.

  We sat there. A quiet night with just the wind and us. The air was always less dusty in the West Valley, the stars shining clearer and the moon brighter. Some parts of the moon were brighter than others. That was the sort of thing—although what wasn’t?—that Bernie knew how to explain. Maybe he was going to right now. I listened my hardest; and heard a car coming.

  I shifted in my seat and saw it: car, no lights, moving slow.

  “Chet?” Bernie said. “What’s up?” Then he turned and saw the car, too. “It’s all right, big guy.”

  The car parked beside us and Rick Torres got out. He handed Bernie a folder, stained and yellowed.

  “I owe you,” Bernie said.

  “You can say that again,” Rick said, but Bernie did not. “And you’ll have to read on the spot,” he went on. “I’m returning it tonight.”

  Bernie nodded. “Does anyone know?” he said.

  “Don’t need you to tell me how to conduct my business,” Rick said.

  Rick was mad at Bernie? Everybody seemed to be mad at Bernie these days. I didn’t get it.

  “Can Chet have a treat?” Rick said.

  How could anyone be mad at Bernie, especially a great guy l
ike Rick?

  “He’s probably starving,” Bernie said.

  Bernie: he nails it just about every time.

  Rick gave me a nice big biscuit. “That was quick,” he said. “Room for another?” Yes, a great guy, and funny, too. Room for another: loved it. We went for a little walk, around the model home to the swimming pool at the back. You see lots of swimming pools in these empty developments, and the pools are always empty, too. Not this one! Not full of water to the very top, no, but there was plenty enough if anyone felt like a swim. And even though swimming had been the farthest thing from my mind—and if not the very farthest, like say, going to the vet, then at least pretty far—all of a sudden I couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Chet?” Rick said. “Might not be clean enough for—”

  KER-SPLASH!

  Ah, really nothing quite like swimming. It’s actually very much like running, only in water and you never get hot. I swam around the pool, my nose just above the surface. That was something I’d learned about swimming: much more relaxing if you didn’t hold your head up high. I lapped up a quick taste. Possibly not the best tasting water I’d ever experienced. No need to do it again, I told myself, and only did it once or twice more.

  Rick sat on the diving board and watched me. “You sure know how to have fun,” he said.

  Well, of course. Who didn’t? Nothing easier. I pulled a Uey and headed back toward the other end. I preferred bigger pools, but no complaints. Many, many tiny moons sparkled on the water. All those moons seemed to be making rippling sounds. What a night! Soft rippling sounds, and they didn’t drown out Rick’s sigh.

  “He’s not going to like what he sees in that damn file,” Rick said.

  File? I tried to remember. And, kind of a surprise, I succeeded. I scrambled out of the pool and gave myself a good shake, Rick backing quickly away. Nothing beats a shake when you’re soaking wet, the way all those droplets go spraying, especially from the tip of your tail. Swimming: it’s still fun even after you’ve stopped doing it. Rick and I walked around to the front of the model home.

  Bernie was sitting on the hood of the Porsche, smoking a cigarette, the file on his lap.

  “Thought you’d quit,” Rick said.

  “After this pack,” said Bernie.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Rick said. “You done?”

  Bernie nodded, handed over the file. “Was this all there was?” he said.

  “What do you mean?” said Rick.

  “You didn’t read it?” Bernie said.

  Rick shook his head. Head shaking, unless I’d been way off from the get-go, meant no, and head nodding meant yes. So somehow Rick had gotten it wrong.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  One thing about a nice swim: it was often followed by a nice nap. I lay curled up on the shotgun seat, the motion of the car beneath me kind of . . . dreamy. Yes, dreamy. Bernie might or might not have said something like, “How come you’re wet?” I didn’t know, and while paying attention to Bernie was always at the top of my list, I really didn’t care. How can you care when your eyelids are so heavy and getting heavier and heavier? And heavier. I dreamed about swimming!

  And I was still swimming when the dreamy motion beneath me eased and then vanished. I opened my eyes. We were back in bad air, the moon and the stars now hidden by a dirty pink sky. I sat up. Vista City, or someplace like it: parked on a street lined with apartment buildings, not the tower kind they have downtown, but lower, old with stucco walls, the stucco cracked and crumbling here and there. Bernie was gazing at the most cracked and crumbling of all the buildings. I gazed at it with him.

  “When you start digging in something that doesn’t want to be dug . . .” he said.

  Yes, yes: go on. Bernie did not. Naturally, I’ve dealt with close-packed dirt in the past, but when you kept working, even if all you did at first was make shallow scratches on the surface, eventually you always found yourself happily in a deepening pit, all legs in action. So: no problem, right?

  “Such a goddamn long shot,” Bernie said. “And is this even where to start?”

  I tried to think of some other place, found I could not. This crummy apartment building filled up my whole thought area.

  “But,” he went on, “what choice do we have? There’s nothing in the file except the victim ID and the ME’s report. Goddamn file’s been gutted. By who, is the question.”

  Bernie turned to me. Whoa. Like I’d done it, whatever it was? Bernie smiled. Whew. “Have a nice nap?” he said. “All set?”

  I hopped out, hurried around to Bernie’s side of the car, waited while he got out. “If we could harness that tail of yours . . .” he began.

  Harness me? There’d been an attempt once, in the time before Bernie and I got together. Never again. And of course Bernie himself would never even think of such a thing, so this had to be one of his jokes. Bernie was a great joker, in case I haven’t made that clear already. We walked side by side up to the front door of the apartment building.

  Bernie tried the door: locked. He turned to a row of buzzers, ran his finger down the little labels beside them. “Spears, Spears, Spears, wouldn’t that be nice?” he said. “But nope.”

  Spears? I knew spears from this period when work dried up completely—even divorce work, which we hated—and we’d watched a lot of movies about gladiators. Spears were nasty: was Bernie really hoping we were coming up against them? So be it. I was ready.

  “How about we try the manager?” Bernie said. “T. Ortega.” He pressed a buzzer.

  We waited. There’s a lot of waiting in this business, just one more reason why it’s nice to have a partner. And a partner like Bernie? That was like hitting the lottery. Once we almost did! What a drive that was, from our place to the lottery office downtown in no time flat. But Bernie had read the number wrong, an easy mistake to make, I’m sure.

  Bernie pressed the buzzer again, held it down for a while. As soon as he backed off, a voice came through a speaker, angry but small.

  “Who’s there? What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for a family that used to live in this building.”

  “What number?”

  “Five,” Bernie said. “Where Mizell is now.”

  No sound came from the speaker, except for a staticky crackle.

  “The name was Spears,” Bernie said.

  More crackle.

  “Hello?” Bernie said.

  “Go away.” The speaker went silent, crackle and all.

  Bernie pressed the buzzer again, kept his finger there. After a while I heard a door close somewhere in the building, and soon approaching footsteps, the soft, slightly flapping kind slippers make. Then someone—a man actually, a man who’d been eating something garlicky, and who could have used a shower, not that I cared much about that kind of thing, although it was always interesting how humans liked to get rid of their natural scents—stopped at the other side of the door.

  There was a little click which Bernie maybe didn’t hear because he kept his finger on the buzzer. Then the door got thrown open real fast and an unshaven guy in a wifebeater and saggy sweatpants stood there, a gun in his hand and pointed at the floor, but also sort of at Bernie.

  “What part of go away don’t you fuckin’ understand?” the guy said.

  Here’s a strange thing: some humans have trouble even noticing members of the nation within. Also the light over the door was out, and the nearest streetlight stood pretty far down the block, so maybe things were a bit murky. The truth is I didn’t really think about any of that, just lunged forward, grabbed the guy’s wrist, and clamped down good and tight.

  “Aieee,” he screamed, or something like that, very unpleasant down deep in my ears. He dropped the gun at once. Not a tough guy, obvious from the get-go, but nobody waves guns at Bernie, not while I’m around.

  “Aieee, aieee.” He was struggling now, always fun. Did his blood have a garlicky taste? Had to be my imagination. “Call it off!” the guy screamed. “Call it off!”
/>
  “He’s not an it,” Bernie said, picking up the gun.

  “Huh? What the hell? He’s killing me.”

  Bernie nodded. “He—that’s better. Chet? Big guy? That should do it. Chet? All set on our end now. Good job. No sense overdoing it. Let’s not gild the lily.”

  Gild the lily? I’d heard that one before, had no idea what it meant. Wasn’t the lily a flower? This wifebeater guy was no flower, and that garlicky tinge in his blood hadn’t gone away. I let him go.

  “Good boy,” Bernie said. “How about sitting for a moment or two?”

  Sitting? I didn’t feel like it, not one little bit. What did I feel like? Action, baby, action and nothing but.

  “Ch—et?” Bernie has this special way of saying Chet, not loud, that somehow gets my attention every time. Or at least most of the time. Or sometimes. In short: this time I sat.

  Bernie popped the magazine out of the gun, dropped the ammo in his pocket, then racked the slide—loved gun lingo myself, learned it back when Bernie was teaching Charlie, a lesson that led to an unforgettable scene with Leda which I no longer remembered—and dropped that last round into his pocket with the others. Then he slid the empty magazine back in place and handed the gun to the wifebeater guy.

  “Here you go, Mr. . . . Ortega, is it?”

  “I’m bleedin’ to death,” said Mr. Ortega.

  Bernie stooped down, examined Mr. Ortega’s wrist. “Nah,” he said. “Just a scratch. And of course Chet’s had his shots, so you’ll be good as new in no time. Now if you’ll kindly be more forthcoming about the present whereabouts of the Spears family, we won’t take anymore of your time.”

  “You a cop?” Mr. Ortega said.

  Bernie showed Mr. Ortega our license.

  “Private eye?”

  Bernie nodded.

  “What do you want with her?”

  “Who are we discussing?” Bernie said.

  “Who do you think?” Mr. Ortega. “Mrs.—” And then he put the brakes on, too late. That putting on the brakes too late thing was always good for us.