TWENTY-THREE
Gun loose in his hand, still pointed toward the ground, Bernie walked over to the RV. No one else moved. Except for me, of course: I went with Bernie. He opened the side door of the RV.
At first nothing happened. I glimpsed a really messy place, with dirty dishes, piles of clothes, lots of empty bottles. Then out came Princess, bursting out, in fact. She flew through the air, missed her landing, somersaulted a few times, bounced up, looked around frantically, and saw me. Princess ran right over, wagging that pom-pom tail. My tail was wagging, too; I could hardly keep my back paws steady on the ground—that’s how forceful my tail can get. I lowered my head, gave her a little bump. That sent her somersaulting again. She found her feet, started racing around me in a crazy way. That got me racing, too. We charged around the RV, the Porsche, the pickup, then charged around them again, and a few more times, finally coming to a stop at Bernie’s feet.
“Good boy,” he said. “Real, real good.” I felt great, my very best. Bernie leaned into the RV. “Adelina?” he called. “Adelina? It’s me, Bernie Little. You can come out. It’s safe.”
Adelina didn’t come out. I thought of her face, and those ants. But the ants hadn’t been on her face, had they? They’d been circling my puddle of puke. I got a little confused.
“Suzie?” Bernie said. “Are you in there?”
Suzie didn’t come out either.
“Suzie? Suzie?”
“Hey,” said Crash, watching from beside the cab, “ain’t no one in there.”
Bernie turned to him. “If I find anything bad, say your prayers.”
“Like what kind of bad?” said Crash. “Gonna shoot me ’cause of dishes in the sink?”
Bernie moved toward Crash, raising the gun. For a moment, I thought Bernie was going to crack him across the face with it, even though I’d never seen Bernie do such a thing, not like this, to a skinny old hippie. And Bernie didn’t. “Facedown,” he said.
“Huh?”
Bernie pointed the gun at a spot on the road. “Facedown,” he said. He motioned with the gun at the others: Disco, now on his feet, rocking back and forth, and Thurman, sitting up, nose still bleeding. “All of you,” Bernie said. “And not a word. Not a sound.”
They all lay down on the road. “Farther apart,” Bernie said. They shifted farther apart. “Chet,” Bernie said. I went over and stood behind them. Princess stood beside me. I could hear the drip drip of Thurman’s blood in the dust. Then, from behind, came the creaking sound of the RV taking Bernie’s weight, and after that his soft footsteps as he moved around inside.
Thurman raised his head, turned toward Crash, and said in a low voice, “I want that fuckin’ money.” I went closer to him and growled. He lowered his head. Princess followed me. She made a funny high-pitched noise, a sort of bleep. Was that meant to be a growl? I glanced at her; she had her head up in that determined way.
Bernie came out of the RV, stood on the highway, looking down on the three men. Thurman was a bad guy, no doubt about that, but Disco and Crash, too? They’d given me water when I was thirsty, and don’t forget the Slim Jims. I watched Bernie. He gave Disco a little kick in the ribs, not hard at all, more of a poke to get his attention.
“Don’t hurt me, man,” said Disco. “I ain’t done nothin’.”
“Where’s Adelina?” Bernie said.
“Who?” said Disco.
“Adelina Borghese, Princess’s owner.”
“Princess? Don’t know her neither.”
Bernie knelt, held out his hand. “Hey, Princess,” he said. Princess approached him, pom-pom waving. Bernie gave her a pat. Her pom-pom wagged faster. “Where’re your tags, Princess?” he said. She rolled over. Bernie scratched her stomach. Her paws made funny little movements. Bernie: enough.
Bernie rose. He gazed down at the three men again, again toed Disco in the ribs. “Where’re her tags?” he said.
“Tags?”
“Her ID.”
“Dunno,” said Disco. “Hey, Crash, she ever even have ’em?”
“Shut up,” said Crash.
“Huh?”
“Exercise your goddamn right.”
“What right?”
“The right to shut up in front of a cop.”
“He’s no cop,” Thurman said.
“Got a badge,” said Disco.
“And some kind of bullshit story to go along with it,” said Crash.
“What story?” said Thurman.
“Thurman?” Bernie said. “I want you to exercise your right.”
He turned to Crash. “You—got a name?”
“Crash.”
“Real name.”
“Real name, man? Depends on what’s reality. And we all got a different reality.”
“Where’s your ID?”
Crash didn’t answer.
Bernie moved on to Disco. “Name,” he said.
“I’m exercising my right,” Disco said.
Bernie backed toward the cab, opened the door. The moment he turned to climb in, Thurman was up and running. He was a pretty fast runner for a human, especially such a big one, and he almost reached the pickup before I brought him down. We rolled around in the dirt for a bit, and he cried out a few times, but it couldn’t have been from pain because I really wasn’t doing that much to him. Some humans have a real deep fear of me and my kind—even some kids!—a complete mystery to me.
“Lie still,” Bernie called from the cab of the RV. Didn’t even come running: Bernie trusted me.
Thurman lay still. I backed off. And just as I was backing off, Princess ran up in her blurry-legged way and started barking furiously in Thurman’s face.
“Doesn’t like you much,” Bernie said, getting out of the cab. He had another gun in his hand now, and a couple driver’s licenses. “Why is that?”
Thurman said nothing, just lay on the ground.
“Here, Princess,” Bernie said, and Princess ran over, stood beside him. I stayed where I was, guarding Thurman. Bernie approached Crash and Disco, squatted between them. “Whose .44 Mag?” he said.
No answer.
“Got a witness who says a big gun like this was used to pistol whip the driver,” Bernie said.
“What driver?” Disco said.
“Zip it,” said Crash.
“The driver in the kidnapping,” Bernie said.
“Kidnapping?” said Disco. “You talkin’ about the dog? Can’t kidnap a dog.”
Bernie dropped the licenses on the ground, one in front of Crash: “Herman T. Crandall—looks like you on a real good day”; the other in front of Disco: “Making you Wardell Krebs. Seen a lot of guys like you, Wardell, in a lot of situations like this—we’re talking about a major fork in the road, right here, right now—and they almost always make the wrong choice.”
“What’s the choice?” Disco said.
“Shut your mouth,” Crash said.
“Letting your buddy here do the thinking is a common mistake,” Bernie said. “His reality is life in the pen. What’s yours going to be?”
“Life in the pen?” Disco said.
“Might be some chance of parole,” Bernie said. “Especially if you’ve got no record. Got a record? Any of you?”
Silence from the guys on the ground.
“On the other hand, the victim is a prominent citizen,” Bernie said.
“Victim?”
“Shut up.”
“But it’s a dog. A dog can’t be a citizen.”
Why not, whatever a citizen was?
“Not talking about Princess,” Bernie said. “Any information you’ve got on the whereabouts of Adelina Borghese or Suzie Sanchez, now’s the time to come across.”
“Never heard of these fuckin’ people,” Disco said.
Bernie rose. “You’re done,” he said.
Bernie got plastic cuffs from our glove box, cuffed Thurman, then Crash, then Disco. After that, he got on the phone. We waited. While we waited we shared the two Slim Jims Bernie found in
the RV. “Won ’em fair and square,” Bernie said, tearing off Slim Jim bits for Princess. Thurman, Crash, and Disco lay silent on the Old Trading Post Highway.
Not long after the Slim Jims were gone, we started getting company. First came some state troopers we didn’t know, then Lieutenant Stine and some of his uniformed guys, finally Sheriff Earl Ford and his deputy, Lester. A lot of talk started up, back and forth, voices raised and lowered, sometimes just about everyone talking at once. That was always too much for me. Humans aren’t at their best in big groups, no offense. A big group of my guys—something I’d never actually seen, not a real big group, no idea why—now wouldn’t that be something? I wandered over to the Porsche, lay in its shade. Princess lay down beside me. For a moment our gazes met. Then she closed those big dark eyes, wriggled a bit closer to me.
I kept my own eyes peeled, if that meant keeping them open. The eyes peeling thing sounded horrible—once I’d seen Bernie have a little slip-up with the potato peeler. Right now he was standing at the edge of the crowd, still and watchful. After a while, people began to leave: first the state police, followed by Lieutenant Stine and his men, taking Thurman and Crash with them, then two wreckers removing the pickup and the RV, raising lots of dust on the road. When it cleared, there was no one left except Disco, cuffed in the back of the sheriff ’s car, Sheriff Earl Ford, Deputy Lester Ford, Princess, and us. Earl and Lester moved closer to Bernie, their tall shadows falling over him, eyes hidden under the rims of their cowboy hats. I moved closer to him, too.
“Guess we should be saying congratulations,” the sheriff said.
“No need for that,” said Bernie. “And the case is far from solved. Unless someone already found them and forgot to tell me.”
“Them?” said the sheriff.
“Adelina Borghese and Suzie Sanchez,” Bernie said. “The missing humans in the case. Got them stashed away somewhere?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said the deputy.
“He’s just bein’ funny,” said the sheriff. “Startin’ to get to know him, Les. Even gettin’ to like him, yes, sir. Bernie here don’t mean no harm—he’s one of them funnymen, is all.”
“Don’t get the joke,” said the deputy.
The sheriff nodded. “That’s the problem with humor, isn’t it, Bernie. Gets in the way of communication sometimes.”
“That’s true,” Bernie said.
“And communication’s kind of been our problem with you,” the sheriff said, “right from the get-go.”
“One way of looking at it,” Bernie said. “So starting at the get-go, who tipped you that I’d be in Clauson’s Wells?”
“See, here we go again,” said the sheriff. “No one tipped us about you, told you already. We were following up on a vandalism report and you just happened to be there.”
“Hard luck,” said the deputy.
“But we felt bad about it, didn’t we, Les?”
“Real bad,” said the deputy.
“And now we’re feeling bad again, which is what we’d like to talk about,” the sheriff said. “Kind of left out, if you want the truth.”
“That’s what I want,” Bernie said.
“Then we’re all on the same page,” said the sheriff. “Which is why we’re—how would you put it?—”
“Pissed,” said Lester.
“Not pissed,” Earl said. “More like miffed. We’re a mite miffed you didn’t call us out here first, before all those others—didn’t call us at all, in fact—when we were the closest.”
“And it’s our goddamn county,” said the deputy.
“I’ll remember that next time,” Bernie said.
“Next time?” the sheriff said. “Thinkin’ of comin’ back?”
“We’ve still got two missing women,” Bernie said. “Unless you know something I don’t.”
“Second time you made that suggestion,” Earl said. “Any reason?”
The sheriff and his deputy gazed at Bernie; I couldn’t see their eyes on account of the shadows cast by the cowboy hats. Bernie gazed right back. It was very quiet. I got the feeling of something about to happen.
“Sheriff here asked you a question,” Lester said.
“I don’t see how a yellow Beetle just vanishes,” Bernie said.
“No?” said the sheriff. “You from back east or somewheres?”
“Born and raised in the Valley,” Bernie said.
“Then you should know,” said the sheriff, making a big gesture with his hand. “These here are the wide-open spaces. Everything vanishes.”
“Yeah,” said Lester. “Some quicker than others.” The wind rose up and blew a big tumbleweed ball across the road.
“Way quicker,” the sheriff said. He and Lester got in the cruiser and drove off, taking Disco away. Bernie watched till they were out of sight; me, too. Princess curled up on the ground and licked her coat.
The count and Nance were waiting in front of the big house at Rio Loco Ranch when we drove up. They came running to the car. The count reached in and picked up Princess, squeezed onto the shotgun seat beside me. “Mia piccola” something or other, he said, a whole lot of words flying through the air, completely missed by me. The count gave Princess lots of kisses and Nance patted her back, patted the count’s back, too. Princess wriggled and squirmed.
“She’s filthy,” Nance said.
“Yes, yes,” said the count, “my filthy little champion.” He laughed and gave Princess a few more kisses. Then he handed her to Nance and turned to Bernie. “Excellent work,” he said. “Please send me your final accounting. In the meanwhile, here is an interim payment.”
He gave Bernie a check. Bernie looked at it and said, “This should be good for the whole thing. But there’s no final accounting till we find Adelina.”
“Surely with these arrests,” said the count, “the search is now fully in the hands of the police.”
“We signed on to do a job,” Bernie said. “It’s not finished.”
The count gave Bernie a long look. “As you wish,” he said. Nance was watching Bernie, too, maybe not paying attention to Princess. Princess leaped out of her arms and ran to the front door. She sniffed at it and whimpered.
“Isn’t that something?” said Nance. “She’s trying to tell us how homesick she was.”
“Poor baby,” the count said, and some more that I missed because at that moment Bernie turned the key, using a lot more force than usual, and revved the engine, vroom vroom, over the count’s voice. We took off.
TWENTY-FOUR
Back home, Bernie was restless. He checked the messages, made some calls, worked on the computer, paced around; smoked a cigarette and then another. I don’t like it when Bernie gets restless. It makes me restless, too, and when I get restless weird things seem to happen without me really being aware of them, like for example, right about then while Bernie was taking a deep drag, a distant look in his eyes, should I have been gnawing on this shoe? A loafer, I think it’s called, a present from Leda, with little . . . what was the word? Tassels, yes; little tassels, now gone, and kind of tasty, on the front. Bernie never wore the tassel loafers, but even so. I was thinking about trying to make myself stop when I heard a car parking in front of the house.
I was at the door before anyone knocked; and was pretty sure who this person was, from the sound of his walk. Bernie, cigarette hanging from his mouth, squinting against the smoke, opened up. Yes, Lieutenant Stine.
“You look like something the cat dragged in,” he said.
Whoa. Run that by me again? Bernie and a cat? Never. And how could a cat drag Bernie? I’d probably have trouble dragging him myself. I gave Bernie a careful look, tempted to give it a try on the spot.
“Came all this way just to say that?” said Bernie.
The lieutenant shook his head. “Came to say congratulations, but now I won’t bother.”
“Congratulations for what?”
“Cracking the case.”
“You found Adelina and Suzie?�
�
“Neither one, yet,” said the lieutenant. “But we’re closing in.”
“On what leads?” Bernie said.
“Nothing you’d call an actual lead,” the lieutenant said. Old man Heydrich, our neighbor on the other side from Iggy’s place, was on the sidewalk, gazing down at a little something left by one of my guys, then staring right at us. Actually, right at me. He was accusing me? No way. I tried to remember the last time I’d done something like that on the sidewalk, and flat out couldn’t, just about for sure. I yawned at old man Heydrich in a friendly way. His normally angry face, skin all pinched between the eyes, got angrier than ever. Bernie, looking past Lieutenant Stine, noticed old man Heydrich and invited the lieutenant inside.
“Thought you’d never ask. Anything drinkable in the cupboard over the sink?”
Turned out there was. Bernie dropped ice cubes in a couple of glasses, tossed an ice cube to me. A special treat, at first crunchy, like a cold biscuit, and then all of a sudden lovely cool water trickling down my throat. I took the ice cube to the corner by the fridge and curled up.
Bernie and the lieutenant clinked glasses. “They’re down in central lockup,” the lieutenant said. “We booked the two of them on kidnapping and theft, plus some minor stuff. Same charges for the third one, up in Rio Loco.”
“Theft?”
“That would be the dog,” said Lieutenant Stine. “Can’t kidnap a dog, by definition.”
Can’t do what? I was pretty busy with what was left of the ice cube, hadn’t quite got that. But whatever it was hadn’t sounded right.
“Any of them got a record?” Bernie said.
“Oh, yeah.” The lieutenant unfolded some sheets of paper. “All of ’em—the two hippies mostly for dope dealing, but there’s auto theft, too, plus an armed robbery.”
“Armed robbery? They don’t look like the type.”
The lieutenant put on glasses, always interesting when that happened. “Did three years for a casino heist in New Mexico.”
“Those two guys knocked over a casino?”
Lieutenant Stine’s eyes moved back and forth behind his glasses. “Wouldn’t say knocked over, not successfully. And the casino maybe was more of a convenience store on tribal land with a couple of slots in the back, one of which they attempted to boost when no one was looking.”
Thereby Hangs a Tail Page 19
